The end of childhood

I was ten when I first noticed Mary Martin, a glance on the street on a warm, sun-drenched day. Mary was on a bycicle, wheeling round and round and her skirt rode up and I tried to see her knickers. A sudden, mad attraction, and I could not take my eyes off her. It was love at first sight I would say. After that summer afternoon, I didn´t see her around my neighbourhood any more until the day school classes began.
It was the beginning of the term and I felt pleased when I realized that Mary Martin was in my class. The idea of seeing her every single day filled my heart with joy. To everybody´s surprise, I was eager to go to school. I did my homework in due time, I spent hours reading books and I looked for information when it was required. In fact, I did everything a good student would do. I really wanted to catch Mary´s attention. Since I had once heard my older sister telling her friends that women loved guys to be gentlemen I thought that behaving like one of them would impress her. That´s why, every day I would secretly cut a flower from my neighbour´s garden and give it to her.
Day by day I felt I was closer to Mary. Even though she was all the time surrounded by my classmates, she made me feel I was her favourite guy. It was like a competition: she was so kind and beautiful that being “the favourite” was a prize. My love for her was so huge that it wasn´t enough for me to stay with her only at school. Actually, I needed to spend more hours at her side. Since I couldn´t bear that situation any longer, one ordinary afternoon I put myself together and decided, before returning home, to declare my love to her. Mary was the last in leaving school, so I remained at the entrance door with her until the moment the rest of the students would go, and we could be alone.
But it was when Mary and I were finally alone that my dreams dissolved. We were talking non-stop when, all of a sudden, a tall, well-built man in his early thirties appeared and without hesitation gave Mary a passionate kiss. I couldn´t believe my eyes! Mary Martin, my beloved teacher had a boyfriend. It was at that moment that I realised Mary and I belonged to different worlds: she was an adult and I was a child. Seeing her with another man was so heart-breaking that I burst into tears and, bowing my head, I got off to my house. I was terribly sad, not only because my first love had broken my heart but also because I had realised I was facing my first problem, and that meant I was growing up. My childhood was coming to an end and sooner, than I had expected, I would become an adult.