CHAPTER 4

(2018). 

  

I noticed the first hint of what happened two years later, at one of the children's gatherings organized by Nikko's family. I arrived at the beginning of June at a little party room that the Saravia grandparents had built for the family's enjoyment, and I noticed that Maël had arrived early to help with the setting up of the tables and tablecloths and all the preparations for that party. It was the fifth birthday of cousin Catalina's son. 

Wearing a simple and comfortable dress, I helped with the tasks. 

When everything was ready, I took advantage of the good Internet signal offered by the hall and sat at one of the first tables to check my emails and social networks while the guests arrived. 

There was Maël, and it didn't have to be like that, it was a children's party. Yes, I know, it was about his little cousin, but that was still unhinged. Or so I thought. 

Fuck, I didn't want to be near him. Maël was getting on my nerves! 

I looked at him out of the corner of my eye. God... I sighed at the memory. He was no longer a fifteen-year-old boy, no sir. His seventeen, already completed, gave him the appearance of a man in his twenties. Maël was so handsome, that even the men of the family recognized him. In addition, he was quite popular among his friends, according to comments I heard here and there. 

Maël had a girlfriend, of course. A pretty girl I had seen on his social networks. Her name was Katty, and she looked like a young girl of fourteen next to him when I knew at some point that they were the same age. Katty was slim, well-groomed, pretty in the face... and he was imposing, broad-backed, too tall and beautiful face, clean as a newly built pool, like a virgin beach, youthful and clear. She matched him, but I felt... I won't explain what I felt when I saw them close together in those photographs. 

Maël didn't take her with him for that party, so he wandered from place to place, manipulating the sound, watching his cousins play, and chatting with some acquaintances while the guests kept arriving. 

In that year my work was all via the web. My incursion into theater became something serious, filling me with satisfaction for having achieved a dream. 

I gave theatrical advice to directors, actors, and screenwriters. Acting on the boards was so successful, that I could afford to leave the woodwork aside and dedicate myself to work from home, which generated good money and being able to make my schedule. 

That night was no exception, I had work to do, my mail was full of tasks and my electronic agenda was constantly beeping, so I looked for my laptop in Nikko's room and went back so I wouldn't feel left out of the celebration; I wouldn't be so rude to leave the party. 

I walked through a decked-out kitchen to a lovely and very quiet annex with furniture and a large dining room full of gifts on the other side of a wall frame. 

I was done. Away from Maël, away from the hustle and bustle and doing what I liked. 

After half an hour or so, already well into my web chores, a shadow filtered through a crack in my retinas. 

I felt a shiver... I didn't even want to move my head. 

Again the shadow, a little noise... I swallowed thickly. The place was quiet, but I must confess, too quiet for my taste. What was that? And where had it come in? Wasn't it supposed to walk in front of me to get there? 

Staring, static, without moving a single hair, I gradually realized that it was someone alive. Thank God! But how did he get in without me seeing him? Was I so focused? 

I couldn't stand it. Stealthily, I got to my feet and approached the threshold of the frame and... I furrowed my eyebrows a lot. 

Maël's little hater was sitting in front of a desktop computer I didn't even know was there, at one end of the gift-filled dining room. 

I leaned against the wall frame and tried to relax a little; really, I tried. 

"You scared me," I said. "Where did you come in? I didn't see you in."  

Maël didn't even look at me, he didn't move a muscle. He kept typing I don't know what, and manipulating the mouse as if nothing happened. 

I bit my cheek and looked at him carefully, with my eyes narrowed. 

"I'm talking to you," I exclaimed very seriously, fed up with his behavior. 

He slowly turned his face and penetrated me with that CLOSE YOUR MOUTH or LEAVE ME QUIET look. 

My lips parted, my throat dry... What the hell was wrong with that little punk kid?! 

I buried my tongue between a pair of molars and returned to my seat with my ass clenched.   

I tried to concentrate my attention on the tasks, realizing later that it was no longer the same. That silent place, with the noise from outside camouflaged by the thick walls of the room, generated a strange weight in the air. As if both of us there were merely aware that we were alone for the first time. What a coincidence that Little Maël needed a computer. Bfff! 

The boy was about to enter university, I guessed that's why he was there: he must have been doing some research on that PC. 

I squeezed my eyes shut and remembered: Administration; that's what he studied. 

I looked at the ceiling and said a prayer: "Lord, I'm not worthy for you to enter my house, but one word from you will be enough to... I stop thinking and observe this human being!" 

No, I couldn't. I could not work like that. 

I got up without finishing my tasks, turned off the laptop, picked up the cable that I was charging, and rushed out of there. 

Well... I had not finished crossing the threshold of the busy kitchen when I saw Maël leaving through the same door. 

His countenance was different. 

Paralyzed, I saw him sit down on one of the chairs near the sound and dive headfirst into his cell phone. He had finished his homework too?! What the hell happened there? Was he chasing me? I felt like I was going back nine years when all the answers seemed to be placed between us, the wrong ones: the woman and the boy. But this time everything was bigger, more intense, crazier! 

Arriving in the Nikko's room I stopped in my tracks. 

"I know what's going on." 

The formula in my mind underwent a mutation: the woman and the young boy prayed for the blessed one. At the age I was at that time, could a body ten years younger than me like me? Did Maël Saravia really like me, or was I still a simple, platonic whim?