N.ItalyxReader: Dear Pen-Pal 2

This had to be a dream. I have never thought I would actually meet Feliciano. Yet I was at the airport with my Italian pen-pal squeezing the life out of me. I told myself that if this was a dream, then I didn't want to wake up.

"Feliciano?"

"Yes?" he replied. He sounded a little confused. I probably pronounced his name wrong.
"I…I pronounced your name correctly, right?"

He smiled brightly. "Perfect!"

I smiled back. "Okay, good! But hey, why don't we get out of this airport and drop your luggage off at my place?"

"Sounds good to me!"

As I drove Feliciano back to my house, I couldn't believe that he was actually with me. He sat next to me in the passenger seat, and yet I felt like he was imaginary. He was really excited to be here. I could tell in the way he spoke. However, his accent made it a little difficult to understand what he's saying, especially since he had the tendency to speak fast.

"And I mean I would have never guessed that you would look so different than the photo you sent me of when you were a bambino and even at that matter you don't even look like you're eighteen, you look like you could be twenty-five or some older age like that! One thing I noticed is that you really chopped off all your hair! Back in the picture you had hair that was so long, it could have been a blanket but now your hair hardly touches your shoulders! But to be honest, you look better with the shorter hair!"

I had to think for a moment. Did Feliciano complement my appearance, or was I just assuming that?

"I hope this doesn't sound odd, ______, but I really do think you're very cute! Of course I mean cute in the friendly kind of way!"

My face turned red. Before Feli came along, I had never been used to compliments. I would never mess around with my appearance. I was the person who would just brush her hair and go. If anybody in this car was cute, it was Feli. I'm not going to deny that. In fact, I even had the guts to tell him that. "Well," I said softly, "you're actually pretty cute yourself."

"Why thank you!" He sounded as if nobody had ever told him that before. That wasn't true. I remember in his letters that tourists would always say he's cute. Maybe he wasn't expecting me to say that he was cute. Maybe that was it.

It was quiet for a couple minutes. Whenever two friends talk about how cute each other is, it can get pretty awkward.

"Oh!" Feliciano said suddenly. "I brought all the letters I have from you!"

I gasped. "All of them?"

"Every single one! I even have one with me right now! I was reading it on the plane!" From the corner of my eye, I saw Feli pulled out a piece of paper folded in fourths from inside his shirt. "Remember this one, ______?" He read it out loud.

Dear Pen-Pal,
Hello! My name is ______! The main reason I'm writing this letter is for a class of mine in school. Isn't that a little bit odd? Anyway, I am fourteen years old and I like art, but I don't think I'm any good at it. What do you like? I have a lot of pets. I have two dogs and four cats. At my house, we also have a pond full of goldfish, and they breed every spring, so my dad expands the size of the pond every summer. Sometimes random turtles show up at the pond.
I have one younger sister. Do you have any brothers or sisters? My younger sister is a pain in the neck.
Music is a passion of mine. I play in band at school, but lately I've wanted to sing. Maybe someday I'll learn guitar. Do you play any instruments?
I'm going to be honest. Starting writing a letter to a pen-pal is kind of odd. It's hard to know what to write about. I hope you reply soon, because then we can talk about other things then just asking chit-chat questions. I feel really bad for not knowing what to write. I feel uninteresting. I don't know what else to write, sorry!
-______

Feli smiled. "It's amazing how a letter started our beautiful friendship."

Feliciano and I talked about our letters for quite some time. I'm not exactly sure when, but he fell asleep. I can't blame him. The airport was pretty far from my house. When we finally arrived home, I had to wake him up. I wasn't sure if he was a heavy or light sleeper.

"Feli," I whispered. "Feli, wake up." I lightly shook his shoulders. His eyes open slowly. I gasp and my face turns red once again. The way he opened his eyes was insanely cute.

"______!" he cheered as he threw his arms around me for another hug. "I was worried for a moment! I thought that I had woken up from this really awesome dream which was us meeting! I am so happy to know that I am not dreaming!"

I chuckled. "Me too. I'm really glad that you're here, Feli." I slowly wrapped my arms around him. There was something about him. He was so warm. Then again, the weather was getting to be summer-like. "But we should get your luggage unpacked."

"Right!" He sprung to the car to get his bags. He had three of them. One was a luggage, a carry-on, and the third looked like a guitar case. "So where will my room be?" he asked.

"Follow me." We walked into my house through the garage. My parent's cars were not in the garage. It meant that Mom wasn't home from work yet, and Dad might have been at the gym or something. As for my sister's whereabouts, she could be home, or she might be with friends. As soon as Feliciano and I are inside my house, he's excited. He stopped in the middle of his tracks just to admire the interior design.

"Your house is so pretty, ______!"

I couldn't help but smile. Although I never thought that my house was something other than plain. "Your room is downstairs. It'll be next to mine."

"Yay!" he cheered.

"But you'll be sleeping on an air mattress."

"It doesn't matter to me!"

"If you say so."

Feliciano crashed as soon as he spotted the air mattress located in our computer room. It didn't make any sense to me. Previously, he slept for most of the drive home (something tells me he slept on the way too), and he gained hours from the flight! However, this did give me time to think about what exciting activities Feliciano and I could do while he was visiting.

I was in my room, lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling. One of my cats jumped up to cuddle. It's hard to think of something exciting to do. My city can be boring. I started thinking about how Feli told me that brought all the letters I sent to him. I wasn't shocked that he kept all of them. I was shocked that he brought them. I still had Feli's letters. They're underneath my bed in an old shoebox. I decided to hop down from my bed and take them out. On the top of the shoebox was a paper taped on there labeled "Letters from Feliciano". I opened the box and dug around until I found the first letter Feliciano ever wrote to me.