CHAPTER 3

(2016). 

  

"Oh my. The ghosts hanging around." 

Maël's words made my face crumple and I turned to him. It was the first time that I heard his grown voice. 

As a little boy, he was playful and even tremendous with the grown-ups, but with me, he faded away and lost the ability to speak. 

I knew that for some reason, or several reasons, the cousins bothered him, sometimes they're cruel. Despite his behavior, he always struck me as a very intelligent one. 

But that teasing was seven years ago. His return to Viana was enough to suddenly remember that smooth and cute little face now, at the beginning of 2016, my eyes could see he wasn't longer an ordinary infant but a teenager whom no one made fun of anymore. I could feel how the character of a guy is formed when he grows up too soon. 

I always wondered what he felt when saw me after such a long time. How long did children's love affairs last? How long did they last in love with their teacher, for example? Is this the case when they leave school and are still enraptured by those skirts? I only knew one thing: when he saw me now, he addressed a sentence to me for the first time; my presence made him talk like never before, talk and much more, talk and stand there looking at me through the corners of his eyes as if it was possible not to notice him. He said that phrase to his cousin; that's how he welcomed me, "the ghosts hanging around," just as I appeared. What did that mean? I was a ghost. I racked my brain as to what the hell that little kid meant. No member of that family had ever treated me badly. But after looking at him, feeling the impact and hiding it very well, I thought Maël was still a boy, a pubescent one with raging hormones and rebelliousness. Talking garbage and messing with other people's stuff must have been so much fun for him, I'm sure it was. 

But gosh! That comment was so strange... A bitter energy prevented me from giving him my greetings. It made me angry, Maël made me angry that time. I couldn't stand it, it went straight to my stomach. 

However... I allowed myself to observe him with dissimulation. Maël had become one of the most beautiful teenagers I had ever seen in my life. I'm not exaggerating at all! Extra tall, extra handsome, clean, amazing... divine, beautiful, overwhelmingly sensual. Sensual, yeah! Portugal is full of beautiful faces and physiques, but if I ran pop with someone like that on the street, I wouldn't know what to do. Maël was abnormal, he didn't even look his age, which I quickly calculated must have been fourteen or fifteen years old. 

But the most interesting thing was his temperament, the way he sat on things, pretending to be relaxed, the way he looked at his family. But that day, I realized that, no, he wasn't relaxed at all. You could glimpse in the distance that tension in those youthful arms. "For God's sake! I'm an adult, what are you looking at?" I scolded myself. 

After a while, I couldn't help it and looked for him in the nets. And not just once. 

It was January, and during my days in Viana Do Castelo after the Christmas celebrations, having him around ignited my curiosity to see his photos every day. He took one in front of a mirror, others with shirt off or accomplishing a feat in the gym, doing an outdoor sport... I detailed him better, and within seconds, I thought he had overdone it with his training; there was too much hormone in that young body. 

But one photo disgusted me and left me with a dry mouth. Sitting with his forearms on his knees, shirtless once again, wearing khaki shorts, barefoot, serious, and looking straight ahead as if it was a slight effort to look up. 

His eyes... There it was, that same stupidly intense gaze still haunting his features that hadn't changed; it seemed to have intensified rather. 

I felt something in my chest and I looked away, closing the mobile app. 

Maël was letting everyone know that he didn't like me at all. He used to be so rude to me that I even mentioned it to Nikko himself, who told me, without paying too much attention, that the "boy" used to be like that with everyone. Bullshit! The most untrue thing I had ever heard my boyfriend say. Those attitudes, which bordered on awkwardness, were only for me, the scenario was at ground level. Maël lacked maturity; Nikko thought the same, and that was true. 

I stayed in Viana for two long weeks, a short vacation. I began to run into Maël at every corner. I didn't know if it was the pursuit of a cruel destiny or that maybe he was already beginning to let himself be carried away by his instincts, but I saw him more than Nikko. I met him in every corridor, and I realized that my presence was chaos for him. I found myself ignored at each of my greetings; his look of astonishment changed to disgust or annoyance. I pondered that he didn't like the way I was. The Delu Vaz of that time laughed loudly, always in a hurry, and never got anywhere. She said crazy things, lived in character, studied scripts out loud, sang all the time, wore jeans, sandals, or boots, wore sweaters all the time (or maybe a leather jacket for the warm temperature), hair wavy and extra long. Looking at him, with his t-shirts of some weird band tight to the body, thick jeans that glimpsed of good brand, sport shoes of the best quality, well-cut hair, expensive perfumes, I didn't enter the realm of his luxurious heaven. I thought so many things trying to get out of my head what seemed to me to be the reason for his hatred towards me. 

So I decided to ignore him because he was driving me crazy. And sometimes I was also amused. Watched him leave when I sat next to him or shifted tables. I laughed watching him go off on a tangent when I greeted his uncles, and I could die in amazement when he acted in front of everyone as if I didn't exist. Haunting and amusing. But things don't always work out the way you want. 

It didn't end with my return to work in Braga but spread to run on weekends when I would take the bus and head to Castelo. It kept happening and happening, so and so like this for months, Maël was childish all the time, as if I had done something very bad to him. Because the manner of his treatment resembled that of a spiteful youngster who hated the world. He simply hated the world I was in. 

His family never noticed anything. They never even wondered what was wrong with him. It was so strange, I wished Nikko knew about it so he would unleash his quarrel and everything would end in peace, but I continued to be the hated on the sly, delaying my desire to be the one to stop him.