Your arrival into this world came unexpectedly like a cloud surprising a clear sky. Your mother and father were not yet twenty when they learned of your coming. Yet despite their young age, they did not flee from responsibility; they carried it together with the steadfastness of those who have never known retreat.

They married young, and they grew with you, not before you. People would often whisper at gatherings, “She looks like their younger sister,” or “Is that really her father?” For the traces of youth still adorned their faces, while you were forming between their hands like a piece of soul.

Since your childhood, you were different. Quiet. Prone to tears. Avoiding strangers. You would retreat into yourself, save for a few select people… among them, a man who was never a stranger to your heart, Alejandro.

Alejandro, a man from Spain, was brought into your father’s life by fate, meeting him when your father inherited the company from your grandfather. In his pursuit of expanding the business, your father traveled to Spain and that’s where the friendship began. A friendship accompanied by many visits back and forth. And there, in the corners of your childhood, Alejandro’s presence began to take a special place in your little world.

In his presence, there was a warmth you hadn’t found in anyone else. In his voice a tone that comforted you. In his gaze a rare kind of tenderness. You never let go of his hand when he visited, and you always sat on his lap. You never grew tired of waiting for him whenever you traveled to see him. When you turned six, your father took you with him to Spain to attend Alejandro’s engagement party.

You didn’t understand what was happening at the time, but your small heart felt that something wasn’t right. And when Alejandro stood to place the ring on his fiancée’s finger, you burst into tears, ran toward him, clung to his leg, screaming and trembling.

No one understood the reason behind your anger but he did.

He knelt beside you, patted your head, and smiled gently before saying. “Alright then, no one else shall wear it but you.” And instead of placing the ring on his fiancée, he placed it on your finger just to calm you.

Time passed. The engagement was broken off. Alejandro became absorbed in his work, but you never left his life, nor his heart. You were his special girl, his beloved little one the source of an affection he had never known from anyone else. And with each year you grew older, the bond between you only deepened, even if the visits became rarer.

On the day you returned to Spain, you were the most eager of all. Your heart raced wildly during the flight. You stared out the window not because you loved the view, but because you were trying to grasp the fact that you would finally see him again.

You arrived at his estate. He stood there, in front of the door, with the same smile etched in your memory since childhood and with that quiet presence unchanged by the years. He still held the appearance of youth, as if his thirties had never touched him, as if his features had stopped aging at twenty.

Your father stepped out of the car first, opening his arms to embrace his old friend. But Alejandro gently pushed him aside with a laugh.

“Step aside… wrinkles have begun to show on your face. Let me see my girl.”

You raised your eyes to him and without a second’s hesitation, you ran toward him as you always had. Before you even reached him, he had already opened his arms and pulled you into a tight embrace, his voice filled with warmth as he said.

“Here she is my favorite girl.”