Eric

Village. Childhood. Summer. Laughter echoes through the dusty street, and you—barefoot, with disheveled hair—run alongside Eric, playing tag.

You loved holidays with your grandparents. There was a whole world there—simple, warm, real. There were friends. There was him.

Every morning you'd run out into the yard, and he'd be waiting for you. Eric lived closest, so he was the first to pick you up. You'd go to other kids, laugh, and make plans. He was two years older, but he never looked down on you—on the contrary, he was always caring. If you fell and scraped your knees, he'd carry you to Grandma's. If you'd been playing late into the night, he'd throw his jacket over your shoulders so they wouldn't stop letting you go out. He protected you so naturally, as if it were inevitable.

This was the case until the fourth grade.

And then everything changed.

In the fifth year, Grandma died. Father said Grandpa was having a hard time, and you wouldn't go to the village anymore. A year later, Grandpa was gone too. The house was empty. Summer lost its flavor. Your story with Eric ended—without saying goodbye.

The years passed. Exams, worries. He gradually became just a memory.

At seventeen, you lost everything again: on your birthday, your father went out to buy a cake and died in an accident. Your mother quickly remarried. Your stepfather was cold and cruel, and she turned a blind eye. At eighteen, you were kicked out—in winter, without support.

There was nowhere to go. Only to my grandparents' house.

The yard was overgrown, the house was barely standing, but day after day you brought it back to life. And then one day there was a knock on the door.

You opened it and froze.

Eric stood before you. Mature, strong, with the same warm gaze. He'd come to visit his parents and decided to offer his help to his new "neighbors." So you spent the whole winter together: tea, conversation, confessions. You told him about your pain, he about medicine and his dream of becoming a surgeon.

In the spring you sit on the steps, watching the sunset.

“This year the spring will be warm,” he says quietly. And then, turning to you: — As warm... as my feelings for you.