WHEN I WAS 7 YEARS OLD, I CRIED AND SAID I WAS GOING TO MARRY MY NEIGHBOR. I WENT TO A JOB INTERVIEW 15 YEARS LATER — THE GENERAL MANAGER LOOKED AT ME AND SMILED: ‘THE GENERAL MANAGER… DID YOU APPLY TO BE HIS WIFE?

If I fell off the bike, he would clean my wounds.
If my grades were bad, he would make me study.
If I cried when a friend upset me, he would take me to buy ice cream.

In my little world, Emre was like a superhero.

When I was twelve, he was gone.

There was no goodbye. One morning I saw that their house was closed. His grandmother had passed away.
And he had moved out of the neighborhood.

I stood in front of their door, wrapped in my backpack, crying as if I had lost a part of my childhood.

I never saw him again after that day.

## 15 Years Later

I grew up.

I was no longer the seven-year-old girl crying to get married.

I worked hard. I won a prestigious university in Istanbul. I graduated with honors. Everyone was saying I had a bright future.

But it’s still a small place in a corner of my heart… It belonged to Emre.