Elena Ferrante

We were twelve years old, but we walked along the hot streets of the neighborhood, amid the dust and the flies that the occasional old trucks stirred up as they passed, like two old ladies taking the measure of lives of disappointment, clinging tightly to each other.

She returned to the beautiful text written by hand, its slanted letters.

But at the same time, I recognized some kind of subtly elevated aura emanating from Lila, which occurred rarely and only in certain family circumstances.

Instead it appeared to me as if that whole neighborhood had in some way been shattered, and all the things that passed between Lila and Stefano, among the three of them, were lost, just as, when you break an object, the marks it has acquired, the fine cracks, the tiny scrapes, are gone.

Certainly, she had said no to many marriage proposals, according to what I had heard.

In the heat, women sat on the thresholds of their houses, fanning themselves and lazily letting their gaze linger up and down the street.

When Stefano and his friend, Fernando, came back and found the tables still stacked against the wall, and us lounging around, folded chairs in hand, discussing emergency drafts on the sidewalk, I thought they would launch into us in a very loud voice.

Go with your class. Don’t leave them alone.

I felt myself growing in anticipation of something important.

The silence grew between us, it became heavy, irremediable, in the very air around us.

Why couldn't she deny it? Why couldn't she just say, 'Fine, I slept with your boyfriend, but it was a mistake'?

Suddenly, I noticed that part of her lip had swollen, so much so that it deformed her face.