Marta & Nico: A Tale of Forbidden Love

"Ciao."

The man's voice was soft and his smile gentle as he rose to meet me. I was frozen, unable to move towards him, tears streaming down my face.

"Marta?" he whispered.

I nodded, my chest heaving, my eyes fixed on the ground. He stepped forward and placed a hand on my arm, gently guiding me into the cafe. He sat me down opposite him and took my hand in his. I couldn't bear to look at him; it was too painful. So I looked around the cafe instead. It seemed that everyone had stopped what they were doing to stare at us. There were some sympathetic glances but most of the looks were full of disgust or contempt.

I looked back up at him and tried to speak through the lump in my throat, but no words would come out so I gave up and continued to cry with my head in my hands. He squeezed my hand tighter, leaned over the table and kissed me softly on the lips before sitting back down again and looking into my eyes. The kiss had surprised me, but it had also made me feel better somehow so I went along with it when he leaned forward again and kissed me again, this time more passionately. The second kiss was even better than the first and before long we were kissing openly while people watched us in shock from all around the cafe. None of them approached us though; they just stared until we stopped kissing, then went back to whatever they were doing before we arrived.

When we broke apart for a second time I could see that Nico was blushing redder than I'd ever seen him before but he didn't let go of my hand as we settled back into our seats opposite each other. We sat there for another minute staring at each other before suddenly jumping up and running out of the cafe together, laughing joyfully and holding hands tightly as we ran through the streets of Rome together once more.