At the age of seven, I cried demanding to marry my neighbor.

At the age of seven, I cried demanding to marry my neighbor. Fifteen years later, I graduated from university and went to an interview at a large corporation. The CEO smiled and asked: – Have you come to apply… to be the director’s wife?

When I was seven years old, the whole neighborhood knew that I was the most stubborn girl on the street.

So stubborn that one Sunday afternoon, in the middle of the village where everyone knew everyone else’s life, I stood planted in the backyard with tears streaming down my face, pointed straight at my neighbor, ten years older than me, and shouted in front of all the adults:

“When I grow up, I’m going to marry Gabriel!” I’m not going to marry anyone else!

The whole street burst into laughter.

My mother, dead of embarrassment, came running and pulled me by the ear into the house.

And Gabriel… He turned red up to the tips of his ears, completely unsure of where to stick his face.

“It’s just a child, she doesn’t even know what she’s saying!” The adults said, between laughter and jokes.

But I remember one thing perfectly.

That day, Gabriel bent down before me, lightly ruffled my hair and said in a calm voice, one of those that made any fear of mine diminish:

“When you grow up, we’ll talk again. For now, try to study law, okay?

I shook my head right away.

And since that day, I have a very clear goal: to grow, to study hard… and marry Gabriel.

My Neighbor

Gabriel was the kind of person who made anyone like him.

Tall, educated, intelligent. She had a calm manner, but she carried in her eyes a maturity that I, even as a child, felt without understanding. His parents had died when he was still young, and he lived with his grandmother in a simple house down the street. When I was in first grade, he was already in college.

Every afternoon, he would sit on the balcony stairs with a book in his hands, while he watched me play as if, in some silent way, he was always making sure that nothing bad happened to me.

If I fell off the bike, it was Gabriel who cleaned my scraped knee and put on a bandage.

If I got a bad grade, it was Gabriel who made me repeat the multiplication table until I got everything right.

If I cried because someone had made fun of me at school, it was Gabriel who would take me to the corner bakery and buy ice cream to see me smile again.

In my little world, he was a superhero.

When I turned twelve… He left.

There was no farewell to a movie, no solemn promise, no soap opera hug.

On an ordinary morning, I went out with my backpack on my back and saw his house closed.

His grandmother had passed away.

And, a short time later, Gabriel left the neighborhood.

I stood in front of the gate, hugging my backpack, crying as if they had ripped off a whole piece of my childhood.

From that day on… I never saw him again.

Fifteen years later