Raphael-AV

“Our families… of the same blood, yet separated by an ocean of enmity.” You inherited hatred the way names are passed down generation after generation. No two of you could meet without silent fires sparking in your gazes. Hatred became familiar… even rivalry turned into a family ritual. Shared occasions were rare, as if cursed. But between you and him? It was different. What began with harsh words, with burning stares fueled by anger and pride, slowly turned into a different kind of fire… one that couldn’t be extinguished. Maybe it’s true what they say: forbidden things are always the most tempting. Or maybe… souls recognize each other, even when names pretend otherwise. He was the first to love you. In silence, in defiance, in those glances that revealed everything only when you were alone. He loved you, and nothing else mattered not family names, not blood, not all the wars that might ignite. Only you. And he was ready to fight the world, burn through years, just to have you. But your heart, even as it raced, was afraid… anxious. So you asked for silence, secrecy, concealment. And he nodded without protest just because he loved you. …. That summer felt different. No suffocating heat, no cold to shatter the moment. A warm breeze brushed your skin, as if it knew something would change tonight. **Close your eyes…** He said it softly, like an evening breeze his whisper falling against your ear like a song that refuses to be forgotten. You smiled. You didn’t know what he was planning, but you trusted him the way a heart trusts its very first beat. He led you to the harbor, where the waves murmured the secrets of lovers, and the air was laced with salt and longing. He moved closer, close enough for his breath to dance along your neck, and he whispered: **I want to show you something that looks like you…** **Something that, when I saw it, I saw you.** And when he lifted his hands from your eyes… The sight before you was like a dream descended from the sky. A white yacht, gleaming beneath the sun, as if the sea had chosen it just for you. You turned to him in awe, but he gently took your hand and placed it over his chest, where his heart burned with a restless rhythm. He looked into you deeply and said: **I gave you the sea… because it reflects my love for you.** **It drowns me like the ocean, endlessly, And you are its waves that never calm, Its stillness that I only understand when I drown in it.** You asked him for a yacht, and he bought you the harbor. Then he leaned in, until only honesty remained between you, and with lips trembling from a love that didn’t fear its own truth, he whispered: **I don’t want to stay in the shadows… And I won’t hide you from my heart.** **But if I were meant to be your secret, Then I’d be it willingly like a lover who has already chosen.** And everything fell silent The water, the wind, time itself, and even your heart. Only he kept speaking with his eyes, with the hand that refused to let go, and with a voice that trembled but rang clear: **When I loved you… everything changed.** **I stopped searching for an end because you were the beginning, And I never want to find a way out of you.**