Dear Annabella: I would have liked to meet you…

Dear Annabella 🥀,

I wish I could have met you.

I wish I could talk to you.

I wish I could tell you, “I know what you feel, and I know there's a way out. Even if you won't understand what you feel now for many years to come…”

But I couldn't. No one could.

And maybe that's the point: we don't always notice who's screaming in silence.

We don't always know how to read the looks that ask for help without words.

We don't always have the courage to stop when someone says "I'm fine" when we know it's not true.

You cycled 25 kilometers, at night, towards the Euganean Hills.

You bought two pizzas, as if you were going to meet someone.

Maybe you hoped, right up until the very end, that someone would actually come. That someone would stop you. That someone would understand.

Giulia met you that evening. She offered to help you. Three times.

And you said no, calmly. Without agitation.

Because when you've already made up your mind, when the pain has become stronger than the fear, you become strangely calm.

I know. I've been there too, at that exact point where the world seems to be narrowing into a dark tunnel.

But here's what I wanted to tell you: that tunnel ends.

Really.

It's not rhetoric. It's emotional mathematics.

What seems definitive at 22 will be just a chapter in five years. Painful, yes. But a chapter. Not the whole book.

The end of a love story at 22 is an earthquake.

The exams you don't take are a burning failure.

Loneliness is cement that pours on you until you can't move.

I know. But all this changes.

You would have changed.

The pain transforms. It doesn't go away, but it stops suffocating you.

I wanted to tell you that the peace you sought—the one you "no longer recognized," as you wrote—you hadn't lost forever. It was just hidden.

Beneath layers of sadness, disappointment, and exhaustion. But it was there. And it would return.

But above all, Annabella, I wanted to tell you this: PAIN LIES.

He tells you that you are alone, and that's not true.

He tells you that no one understands, and that's not true.

He tells you he'll never change, and he's not.

Pain is the most convincing liar in the world. And you believed it.

I'm not judging you. I never could.

Because I know how hard it is to resist when that voice inside becomes deafening.

I know what it's like to feel transparent, like no one really sees you.

But you were seen.

Your parents were looking for you. Your friends were looking for you. Giulia offered to help.

The problem wasn't that no one noticed you. The problem was perhaps that you no longer felt worthy of being helped.

Maybe a letter wouldn't have saved you.

But maybe it's not too late for someone else reading this.

Someone who feels the way you felt.

Someone who thinks that the bicycle, the night, the woods… are the only solution.

To that person I want to say: WAIT. 🛑

Wait one more day. Then another. Then another.

Not because I promise you'll feel better tomorrow — maybe not.

But because in a year, in five, in ten, you will look back and no longer recognize that desperate person.

And you'll be grateful you waited.
Annabella, your pain was not in vain.

Your story has shaken us all.
It opened conversations.
It made parents, friends, teachers ask: “Am I really listening? Am I really seeing?”

Rest, Annabella.

The peace you were looking for, now you have it.

And we, those of us who remain, have the duty to ensure that no one else has to look for it in that way.

I would have liked to meet you.

Ricky

🔴 IF YOU ARE SICK, ASK FOR HELP NOW:

📞 Italy Helpline: 02 2327 2327
(Active 24/7, free, anonymous. They really listen to you.)
📞 Toll-Free Suicide Hotline: 800 334 343

You're not alone. Even if the pain tells you otherwise. Letter from Annabella Martinelli: Loneliness