The day after our marriage, Ariel finally went to school, talked to the principal and teachers about her affair, and was allowed to be absent for the rest of the week to prepare for her parents' funeral. Her friends cornered her and she told them everything except our marriage and her circumstances, it became a festival of tears and condolences.
At the end of classes I waited for her while she picked up her things, we hired a moving company that emptied Ariel's house and took the things to some rental warehouses while we bought a house of our own.
The last two days the funeral of her parents and grandparents was held, the heartless aunt never showed up. Ariel cried the entire event. He received money, pity and some gifts, but no one offered to give him shelter or a roof, no one wanted to take responsibility apparently. Anyway, she would never have to regret anything again, I would make sure of that.
The day of the award ceremony arrived, the emancipation was already done and I was already legally an adult. Anderson accompanied me with Ariel to receive the award.
Honestly I expected something very elaborate like dressing up and sending someone with a change of clothes or a mask, but to my surprise it was very normal. I gave him the necessary documents that the lottery office had asked for in that call to Anderson and he entered the building to collect the prize on my behalf.
I half expected Anderson to run away with the prize never to see him again, but after just a few minutes he came back as if nothing had happened, gave me the check for two hundred and fifty million and we left the place as if nothing had happened.
Ariel asked me for the check, looked at it as if it were a priceless treasure, but seemed more scared than fascinated. He handed me the check very carefully, and began to look around as if he feared that someone was following us. She seemed to be more paranoid than I was, and that was saying a lot.
Then we went to an international bank and opened an account, the INE would take a little longer, but it was fine. Anderson took us to a super secret place or something, a place for the country's elites, it was the same bank, but in its safest form. They taught us how to use digital banking and they issued me a black credit card on the spot, something exclusive according to what they said, I really didn't have much idea, but Anderson was a financial specialist so I just did what he told me.
They also gave me a more common, or so to speak the most common, to use daily without exposing my status, but in my opinion, anyone who saw me buying something with a card at my age would surely suspect something, or maybe not, according to Ariel I see myself as someone of 18 because of my height and build.
Then came the issue of looking for a house, and the first thing I thought about was moving abroad, but according to Anderson the equivalencies of education were complicated at best and he suggested that I at least finish high school in Mexico, from there he would help me move if I still wanted to.
It took almost a whole day for Ariel and I to look for a place we liked while we were at the hotel. At first Ariel didn't seem to want to get involved and even said that whatever I chose would be fine with her, but as I asked her opinion on this and that her own desires surfaced as I wanted, and I encouraged her to choose one she liked as well.
We ended up making a list of everything we wanted in our house. She wanted a large kitchen, a pool, a bathroom with a large bathtub or space to put one, large rooms and even larger closets, spacious rooms like the living and dining room. I wanted tall and thick walls, space for parking, a place to place a nice floral garden or an orchard, and quite a few things that Ariel also wanted. We saw many candidates and in the end we ended up deciding on a farm in a place that seemed to be quite quiet and safe.
I expressed these concerns to Anderson when I asked him to evaluate the house, because it would be useless for us to have a mansion if they were going to end up robbing us all the time, he confirmed that there was no problem and the area was in fact very safe.
I bought a three-story Finca with an indoor pool, a large garden, large rooms, large bathrooms with their own jacuzzi, and what Ariel and I fell in love with, a small or not so small artificial lake with four bridges and a kiosk in the middle. The façade was made of black stone and the walls were half a meter thick, it was very elegant, it cost us twelve and a half million, but it was totally worth it.
That took us about a week, while the purchase was made and the furniture arrived. Ariel decided to keep only the most important things and we put the rest of the furniture up for sale. Going from store to store looking for the best furniture for us and that would match the house was a strenuous but fun task. A week went by like that.
And here we were, finally in our house, Ariel had received the insurance money and we called Anderson to settle the entire debt, she looked at me very embarrassed promising a thousand and one things to make up for it, that she would also give her contribution, I laughed at her and took her by the hand, it was the most I dared to be intimate with her, I told her that her presence here was her contribution, and that without her none of this would have been possible, not in the time that passed at least.
She blushed and smiled sweetly looking down in embarrassment, I could honestly say that I loved seeing her like this.
The two days after the funeral, she continued to cry inconsolably, but now, although she still hurt her recent loss, she tried to move on, and I as a good anime fan tried to adapt a small room as some kind of sanctuary with photos of her and her parents, she hugged me and gave me a kiss full of gratitude when she saw him after wearing her blindfolded.
That was a little over a week after I received the award, and standing there, looking at my new house, I figured it was time to face my parents.