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Party at the Tennis Club

It’s been on my mind all day: Julia’s birthday. We would have been seven or eight years old and we both loved Doraemon. I remember that at that time I spent the afternoon from the park to the villages playing with all the children, as if the world were happy, without any fear.

She lived in the Casino building and her mother invited me to have a snack, to the surprise that Doraemon was starting on TV! We jumped around the table like an Indian rain dance. I lost track of time again in my little happiness and Julia’s mother called my house, but I walked back by myself.

However, that happiness that was like a torch in my heart meandered, although it did not go out because I refused to cry for nothing…

She, of course, invited me to her birthday: her mother told my mother. They spent the days at home, with no greater escape than my colored crayons, my Japanese drawings, the shoes that were boats, the box that I turned into a guitar and the eventual company of my sister.

My sister, that weekend, wanted to walk around San Vicente (every weekend we walked). That afternoon, I had that stomach ache that I get (now I know it’s anxiety) and I felt tired with life.

“Mom, we didn’t buy him a gift”- I lamented. “That’s not going to matter, don’t you want to go?” Mom’s pauses were twistier than mine.

I still remember the regret I felt when we drove past the Tennis Club, where Julia’s party was being held. In a few seconds, mom repeated the saying: “if you don’t want to go, don’t go.” “No, I don’t have a gift”- I repeated.

Shortly after, her friend Mariña asked me after mass, musing but incisive, why I didn’t go to the birthday party: “I don’t know” – I told her, but I noticed that all the attention was falling from me.

The following year, the teacher told us that Julia would go to another school. “Our doors will always be open to you, we will never forget you”- I imagined I would tell her on the last day of class… But, when the bell rang, I was lost and head down, believing that she was no longer my friend.. .@mundiario

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