I don't know what went wrong…
I remember when I met him. I was five, and my father had recently died. I loved my father, even though he wasn't home much.
At that age, not only could I not understand why I couldn't see him anymore, but I also couldn't understand why my mom suddenly had to leave me alone all day.
"Sniff…"
Abandoned at the moment I needed them most. Trapped between sobs in the darkness of my room.
[Why are you crying, brat? What do you solve by doing that?]
His voice, from the other side of the window, though more childish, already had the distinct features of that personality. In that moment, he made me feel safe. I still remember his smell… wet earth and the promise of an adventure.
I don't know how to describe my childhood with Astrad. Alone, facing a loss I didn't understand, he was my light. Insolent, foul-mouthed, adventurous… always one step ahead, always the last to retreat from danger. Simply, the kind of boy you fall in love with at that age.
Soon we met Franco, a shy but kind-hearted boy, and from that day on, we were inseparable. I was happy. Our relationship became romantic over time, and I thought that happiness would last forever… Honestly, I don't know when it all started to go wrong.
No… I do know.
It wasn't just Franco and me. In elementary school, Astrad was everyone's hero. He fought dirty, but he did it for us. Always one step forward.
But at fifteen, in high school, everything changed.
Everyone's hero, the center that shined… kept shining… but for different reasons.
The music started to go out of tune. Before that, Astrad's fights were our private mythology. He always got into trouble, yes, and he fought dirty, but that dirtiness was always at our service.
He was the unlikely hero who defended us from older bullies and even from despicable adults. He was our guardian, always one step forward. But in high school, that restraint disappeared.
The fights became a daily occurrence. The hero of the swings became the principal's problem.
It's normal, isn't it?
Adolescence comes with its hormones; boys start to be more daring, and some explore a bad path.
Franco and I "matured"; we learned to navigate the system, to negotiate. But Astrad... he declared war. His justice became a "zero tolerance" policy.
There was no mercy. The fights were almost daily, to the point where my mother would pick him up from the police station as if it were just another stop on the way home.
The fairytale hero had become a problem I no longer understood.
I see it now. At that moment, I thought Astrad had changed for the worse… but that wasn't it. He didn't change. I changed. Franco changed. We grew up… or so I thought. And that disconnection pushed me away from him. And then, at some point… I loved another man. I loved Franco, the version of Astrad who had matured, or at least that's how I saw him.
Then, it happened. It wasn't a decision. It was... an instant. The afternoon sun filtered through the large windows of the sports club gym. Franco and I were laughing, a stupid joke about a teacher, nothing more. But the laughter felt different. It joined in the air. And in the silence that followed, he leaned in and kissed me.
It was clumsy, it was quick, it was a mistake... And in that moment, I felt seen. Not as "Astrad's girlfriend," but as me.
And then, I saw him. Astrad, standing in the gym doorway, his sports bag slung over one shoulder. He said nothing. The crooked smile he always wore vanished from his face, replaced by an emptiness that was colder than any scream. There was no question. Just a silent acknowledgment.
Then came the fight. Franco trying to apologize. Astrad throwing the first punch. And the whole team, our friends, choosing a side. It was one against all. And as I watched him fight, bloodied but refusing to fall against five, six, seven of them, I understood that I wasn't just losing him. I was casting him out. I was choosing Franco's calm over Astrad's chaos.
I don't justify the betrayal, but I understand the me from back then. Astrad was the problem: immature, aggressive.
All the qualities that had attracted me as a child, I now labeled as flaws. And, of course, my environment supported my claim. While Franco and I made friends, Astrad became more and more of an outcast.
But, in retrospect… why was he an outcast? For telling people the truth to their faces? For dealing harshly with delinquents? Yes, I see it now.
That's how it was. That's why the times my stomach churned the most weren't because he fought, but because he was right.
That person who was loved by everyone, but who he said was a good-for-nothing.
That shunned person he defended.
Those boys he beat until they were almost unrecognizable.
That teacher everyone adored except him, who turned out to be an abuser.
Each and every time, Astrad was always there to mock, to say "I told you so," when his words were proven by facts.
And always, the finishing blow, that phrase everyone loved to say to him, but which always came back like a boomerang:
[Just grow up already, you're not brats anymore.]
Ahhh… I see it now…
Sitting in this familiar living room, not as a companion, but as a stranger before him. His eyes don't even look for me. Too busy playing with the women around him.
And the only eyes that turn toward me are those of that woman, Louise. She doesn't look at me with hatred, but with something worse: a possessive calm, the look of someone who has won a war I didn't even know I was fighting.
She says something in his ear, a stupid joke I can't quite hear. And he, without reservation, lets out a laugh. A genuine, short, crooked laugh. One I hadn't seen in years, not since we were kids at the park. One that was never again meant for me.
Louise offers him one of the chips they're eating. He doesn't even look; he simply opens his mouth and she gives it to him, a gesture of an intimacy so casual and so profound it steals my breath. They understand each other without words. They operate on a frequency I can no longer tune into.
And in that simple gesture, in that laugh that no longer belongs to me, I finally understand…
Astrad was never the problem. I never wanted him to change.
It was jealousy.
Jealousy of the boy who could keep going without changing under the weight of a system that demanded my obedience without giving anything of equal value in return.
Jealousy of the boy who could speak freely without fear of making others uncomfortable, while I measured every word.
And… the bitterest of all… jealousy for not being able… to be the woman who could bring out that laugh, the one who could walk by his side without trying to change him.
Now I finally understand what went wrong.
And in the same way, I understand… That the door to that window, the one he opened for me when I was five, is now closed forever.