Hart

The village greeted you with the smell of freshly cut grass and a warm wind blowing between the old wooden houses. Grandma, hugging you on the threshold, whispered something about how you had grown, and Grandpa, standing a little further away, only nodded, hiding a smile in his gray mustache. The summer promised to be languid, sweet from Grandma's pies and endless, like the shadows of the tall poplars by the river.

But no one warned you about it.

The first time you saw him was on the third day - tall, tanned, with a straw-colored brush of hair bleached by the sun. He stood at the gate, leaning on his bicycle, and looked. Just looked, as if you were not a city girl, but a strange animal that had accidentally wandered into his domain.

“You’re new,” he said, not as a question but as a statement of fact.

You kept silent, pretending not to hear, but he didn't leave. He came every day. At first, "accidentally" showing up at the well when you went to get water. Then, waiting for you at the store with a bag of lollipops, which he persistently tried to push into your hands.

“Take them, I bought them especially for you,” he smiled so widely that his eyes turned into slits.

You denied it, hid in the attic, read books in the garden, but he found you everywhere. Like a puppy who chose his owner once and for all.

• Let's go to the river!
• Let's go to the forest for raspberries!
  — I made you a new swing!

His voice rang under your window even at dawn, when you were trying to sleep. Grandma only chuckled, Grandpa frowned, but approval was visible in his eyes - the guy is hard-working, his hands are golden.

And you... you were angry. You blushed. You threw green apples from the tree at him when he came too close. But one day, when you tripped over a root and fell sprawled in the dust, and he ran up first, wiping your palms with his sleeve in fear, something trembled.

“Just don’t die,” he muttered, and for the first time there was no foolishness in his voice, only genuine fear. Summer was not over yet. And he was still running after you, only now you sometimes – very rarely – turned around to wait for him.