A CASUAL ENCOUNTER 

One winter afternoon at my house, I meet some friends and fellow students to have some hot wines and each of them. We begin to share a story of our own lives. Mariana was the first to tell her story. And she told with her voice and a little difficult, perhaps because of the emotion of her memories" She began:

“One day, I met a man. I never imagined that a casual encounter resulted in a story, not only of love. But, something mysterious happened. Something that has to happen because of destiny, which was already written.

We were walking in the opposite direction. Suddenly, my foot turned, and I fell into his arms. The surprise for both of us was great and we laughed, forgetting the incident. We introduced ourselves and he offered to help me.

When I returned with him to my house due to my foot, I realized that he was my neighbor. He lived around my house. We exchanged phone, information about our families and we stayed, to see each other again.

Until that moment, we had never met anywhere. After that, we met at all the time and in all parts. In the club, in the church, on the street, we had friends in common and our families knew each other. Was it fixed by fate? So, it began to play.

Well, it turned out that he was a well-known man, very besieged by women, with whom he had great success. He let himself be loved and he loved everyone. For me, it was not indifferent and more because I was a very young girl and he was my first friend so great, seventeen years older than me. Every time, we got closer and closer and our relationship, became a formal courtship and very well seen, by our families.

                                                           CHAPTER II

                    A HARD SEPARATION 

But his love history was always very annoying for me. But I had got used to this situation, which at the same time filled me with satisfaction, being so young and just a student. Because I was with a man so important who respected me and showed that he loved me indeed like nobody.

One day, I received the news that he had been appointed as General President of his company and he should settle in the capital. The separation was hard, but the relationship did not suffer from any harm. We talked to by phone, and computer almost every weekend. So far, nothing weird.

At the end of the year, finishing my career. He said: "I want our families be with us this weekend, to inform them our love and tell them I want to marry you. Don't answer me now. When we all are assembled, we will talk" 

Well, this was the last time I knew about him.

I waited for that weekend, his family, my family, waited for him. His friends waited for him and he did not arrive. By no means we could communicate with him and I insisted any more. It was not that I did not love him. I loved him very much, but I could not leave my career.

My studies, Christmas, all everything entertained me and made me feel disappointed and pain. Besides, my wounded pride did not allow me to prove anything to anyone. I neither ask for him, nor did anyone lie to me which I thanked so much.

At the beginning of the year, an article appeared in a newspaper in the capital, announcing his appointment as General President of his company in Central America.

I thought it was right to send him a card to congratulate him on all his achievements and so, I did. Nothing happened. Then, a month later, another notice in the same newspaper in the economic page or in the social one. they gave the news of his trip and recent marriage. Nobody in his family knew who his wife was neither his friends.

                                                            CHAPTER III

                                                        MY CHILDHOOD

When I was little girl, I had the opportunity to see in my school a book about a beautiful city, which without knowing why, I had described thousand wonders, as if I had lived in it. Well, he would go to that city.

At the end of that year, seeing my email, I found a nice message. No one had ever written to me that way, praising me so much and swearing that he had never stopped loving me! Apart from that, he asked me for forgiveness, he confessed his infidelity, his unhappiness and his misfortune. But he said nothing about his wife or the son, who should have been born by now. It was an scandal, the real reason for their precipitous and secret marriage.

It reached my soul, but I did not answer. I kept it and whenever I could, I read it again. Time passed and my life took its course and two years later, another notice in the capital's newspaper, the same as always. The one that brought me, the latest news of that man who marked my destiny, shook me and everyone who knew him.

 He had been burned in his office, by an unknown countryman. His body was brought to the country. I did not attend his funeral. After that, I never knew nothing.

Years later, living in the capital with my family. At my sister's house, I had the opportunity to meet two ladies. One was very happy in her marriage, while the other did not want to know anything about her husband, because she was divorced. Then, after a few drinks and good music, that lady whose name is Daniela, began telling her story. I could not believe what I was hearing!

It was my story! Everything that I have already told you.

                                                         CHAPTER IV

                        STORIES

Mariana followed her story. None of us talked. Then, Daniela followed her story when Fernando arrived in the capital to take up his position as a President of his Company. The secretary, she and her husband know Fernando was the boss.

They knew him. Since they were in that same City. They were in the same social circle. They knew about his girlfriend, how much he loved her, what he was trying to communicate with her and all the details that you already know. When they named him for Central America, the whole circle of his friends knew about his wedding plans with his girlfriend. Then, everyone's surprise, when he married, without saying anything, with another woman, with the secretariat! Leaving them all perplexed. No one heard from him again, until the day of his death.

That day Daniela's ordeal began. Her husband had gone on a trip. There was no idea where. He only knew that it was a very important business trip.

Days after Fernando's death, the news came to him, through a statement from the Embassy of our Country, in that Republic. "That her husband, Carlos, was the one who had accosted Fernando and was detained for this crime."

She traveled, even without understanding the reason for what had happened and being there, she learned that Manuela's son was from her husband and out of jealousy, she had killed him. Now, he wanted her to come back to him and have his son close and that the boy, he knew, who was his real dad.

Mariana paused and sighed. Daniela cried, but she had no idea that I was that girl whose friend was in love. 

                       THE WEEKEND 

When Daniela saw me crying, she apologized to me, and said: “I didn't think my story made such an impression on you.” I wanted to tell you, knowing that you are a writer, but you don't know anything. I would like to meet one day. That girl who was Fernando's girlfriend and told me some detail of this episode, which we don't know, unites us and that was very hard for both of us.

 Mariana fell silent again for a few moments. Then. I replied: "That girl is me."

Now, she was surprised. I could not believe it. My sister and her sister either. How was it possible that they were friends for so long and good friends, they had never come to comment on that important episode in the lives of their own sisters?

Mariana looked at us While Daniela was crying and I with her. Then, she told me that Carlos was still imprisoned in that country and that she had divorced him, for everything what had happened.

A beautiful letter he was writing to her, no longer keeps it. After reading it for the last time, he has erased it.

That woman who destroyed her life and the lives of so many people around her, as of her son, nothing was known again.

Who can say that one day we cannot meet and know the true version of this story?

Mariana said: “Ah! I forgot. Do you remember that I told you, that the city where Fernando was, had seen her, when she was a child, in a book and described her as if she had lived in her?” Well, the building where he lived and died, I can say, I know him. With my eyes closed I can move in and out of it and I've never been there How? I don’t know….