TMM - Twenty years -ENG, SPA

“Hey, hey, what’s your name?” Her voice sounded far, and at the same time, as close as the very first time.

The image was hazy, but Ben could make out the walls of the houses that had watched him grow, in the same way as the streets and some stores. And before all these blurring shapes that were fading in the memory, there was a figure he recognized clearly: her smile, wide like it always has been.

After a moment of silence, the little girl spoke again.

“My name is Saphire,” she said at the same time she offered her hand, very sure about herself.

He looked at the hand, uncertain at first, without knowing what to do or what to say. He lifted his gaze slowly until his eyes met hers, and he suddenly felt more relaxed. Those eyes had been inspiring sureness in him since the very first time he looked at them. By reflex Ben gave his hand to his new friend, to his only friend in those days, to his best friend since then, to the friend with whom he would later fall in love, maybe too soon for a child.

“Be-Be-Benjamin” he stuttered while his hand was being shaken by Saphire’s with strength.

Something strange happened when they shook their hands for the first time. A bond that would put them together forever, making separation impossible and even when in the future they had their quarrels and discussions, wounds that took their time to heal, thanks to that bond, they always came back to be together, no matter the disagreement.

“And where are you from? Who do you play with? And what do you like to play? I like to play tag. Let’s play tag!” The innumerable questions of Saphire always have overwhelmed Ben, but in that moment he was too intimidated to even try to remember all of them.

Saphire pulled Ben’s hand and dragged him down the street. Ben felt her warmth completely unique, as if no one before had grabbed him like that. He couldn’t even reply, but later he knew he didn’t care. He was feeling as if their hands, for the both of them, had been moulded to fit perfectly in the other’s hand. In some way it was, and somehow Ben knew.

“Ben” he was called by that far voice, although each time sounded clearer. “Ben, my love, wake up.”

The call finally took effect, causing Ben to open one eye and then the other, looking to the smiling Saphire resting on his chest after giving a tender kiss on his cheek.

“What is that smile about, silly?” she asked, amused, being infected with it. “Were you dreaming something nice?”

Ben nodded slowly, still with that stupid smile in his lips while he was looking to his loved one. He lifted one of his hands to Saphire’s cheek caressing gently with the thumb, looking at her like she was a goddess.

“Something beautiful, my darling” he answered stretching his neck out to give her a sweet kiss on her lips before getting up from the bed after the refreshing nap.

Saphire kept looking at him like an idiot while he moved away, leaving her breathing her love for him. She sat on the bed to observe attentively how her beloved dressed with the same unhurriedness and gentleness as always, with her feet hanging from the edge and with her chin in her hands. She could pass the whole day watching him getting dressed and undressed.

“Do you want to go for a walk? It’s a nice day,” she asked cheerful while Ben finished getting dressed.

Ben nodded with his back to her, closing the doors of the wardrobe and finally turning towards Saphire.

“Of course, my love. We can’t lose days like this,” he answered extending his hand to her encouraging her to take it and leave the room with him.

And she did. And after twenty years since the first time they had taken the other’s hand in their own, Ben was still feeling, as he had on the first day, that their hands were still matching, they still miss each other and they still look for the other, even in their dreams. However, now it was a bit different. Now it was about a returned love, and the way they hold, although different, it was also the same. Their fingers not only crawl searching for their partner’s, but when they find each other they interlace them in an involuntary sign of how they want their lives too, interlaced and united forever.

“I love you,” said Ben in a whisper when he noticed what their fingers did of their own accord, crossing the threshold of the door; because finally, after twenty years, he can say those words to her without an excuse for it.

“And I adore you, my darling,” she answered with a silly smile, tugging the hand of her beloved like she did the first day, like she had always done since then.