When I was a child, I studied at a very humble municipal school, in a neighborhood where we all knew each other. Most of us had been classmates since kindergarten, and there we were again, under the full March sun, in seventh grade, starting a new school year.
Like in previous years, that day did not excite me more than the chance to reunite with my friends. However, when I accidentally turned around in line, I saw him for the first time: he was taller than the rest, had brown wavy hair, hazel eyes, full lips, and a smile I will never forget. From that moment on, he was the most beautiful human being on earth to me. He was the new classmate and had come to our humble little school because he had repeated a year and his previous school did not accept repeaters.
Since he was a year older than all of us and a bit more developed, seeing him stirred our youthful hormones. Not just me: half the school was impressed with the new boy. He somehow knew it. It showed in his swaying walk with a rebellious look, his gaze with an air of superiority, his half-smile when a girl passed by who stopped to look at him. How I wished that smile would one day be for me!
But I was clear it would not be that way. I had always been the shyest person in the class. My scrawny pre-pubescent presence, skinny as parsley without leaves, big glasses, soft voice, and fearful attitude had made me a target of mockery with the nickname Gertrudis, a classic character from the show “Japening con Ja” who was an example of virtue, but whose submissive attitude provoked the anger of her boss, an abusive guy who yelled and humiliated her in every episode for the audience’s amusement. Yes, that was me: a quiet girl used to being yelled at, terrified of going home, crying secretly at night, and praying to grow up and leave soon.
On the third day, when the teacher changed our seats, I happened to sit next to him. I think that was one of the happiest days of my life, although I soon noticed the annoyed and threatening looks from my jealous classmates, who believed they deserved that seat as a trophy. But I didn’t care. I was finally close to him: hearing his voice, his laughter, seeing him up close, feeling his scent and presence next to me. That was amazing! But what was logical happened: he only spoke to me to ask for materials and copied me on all the tests.
After a month, they changed our seats again and I no longer sat with him. Life lost its charm and I was content just to see him from afar. Every day of the week, during every recess, I secretly looked for an excuse to cross his path and be near him. That was how the rest of seventh grade and also eighth grade went. I was happy from Monday to Friday. I dedicated my first poems to him and thought of him with every romantic song by Ricardo Montaner or Chayanne, whose lyrics I wrote in a notebook that I hid deep at the back of my dresser.
In eighth grade, basic education ended and each of us took a different path: most of my classmates went to a technical high school; I went to a scientific-humanistic one that was far away. I had to take a bus and travel a large part of the commune to get there. I never knew where he continued studying, but I know that every day I looked for him among the people. For years I imagined how his face changed, but I never saw him again.
Almost 30 years have passed. I managed to enter university, earn a degree, and leave that house, which I never returned to. But his memory remains intact for me, perhaps because, in the midst of my horrible life, his presence was like a ray of light that gave me hope and a reason to live every day.
Read more Edo Caroe sells out two dates at the Movistar Arena and announces a third for November
