WHEN I WAS 7 YEARS OLD, I CRIED AND SAID I WAS GOING TO MARRY MY NEIGHBOR. I WENT TO A JOB INTERVIEW 15 YEARS LATER — THE GENERAL MANAGER LOOKED AT ME AND SMILED: ‘THE GENERAL MANAGER… DID YOU APPLY TO BE HIS WIFE?

The neighborhood burst into laughter.

My mother, in shame and anger, grabbed me by the ear and dragged me home.
Emre, on the other hand, was red up to his ears and stayed there without knowing what to do.

“Foolish girl, what do you know about these things?” the elders mocked.

But I remember that day very clearly. Emre leaned over, patted my head and said in a soft voice:

“You say this when you grow up. For now, study hard.”

I nodded without hesitation.

From that day on, I had a very clear goal in my mind: to grow up, to read well… and marrying Emre.

## My Neighbor

Emre was a loved one in the neighborhood. He was tall, intelligent and respectful. He lost his parents at a young age and lived with his grandmother in the house next to mine.

When I was in the first grade of primary school, he was already a university student.

Every evening he would sit on the stairs of the apartment and watch me play in the courtyard with a book in his hand.

If I fell off the bike, he would clean my wounds.
If my grades were bad, he would make me study.
If I cried when a friend upset me, he would take me to buy ice cream.

In my little world, Emre was like a superhero.

When I was twelve, he was gone.

There was no goodbye. One morning I saw that their house was closed. His grandmother had passed away.
And he had moved out of the neighborhood.

I stood in front of their door, wrapped in my backpack, crying as if I had lost a part of my childhood.

I never saw him again after that day.

## 15 Years Later

I grew up.

I was no longer the seven-year-old girl crying to get married.

I worked hard. I won a prestigious university in Istanbul. I graduated with honors. Everyone was saying I had a bright future.

But it’s still a small place in a corner of my heart… It belonged to Emre.

I didn’t know how. Where you live. Whether you still remember me.

But whenever I was tired, I remembered his words:

“Study your studies.”

And I would move on.

The day I entered the headquarters of **Güneş Holding**, one of Turkey’s largest companies, with my documents, I said to myself:

You just need to get the job. Don’t ask for more.