She liked journalism since she was little. Never left home without a small notebook where she liked taking notes. At first, she was interested in aspects of everyday life, which she investigated in depth. On her way to school, if she noticed that Mrs. Rodriguez's flowers were starting to bloom, she would take out her notebook and write down how many buds she could find on the stems. She will be a great botanist, said Mrs. Angelica every time she talked to Omara's mother. She would happily watch her from her window, enjoying a cup of coffee, as Omara appeared in her garden and meticulously counted each of the new buds she found. The neighbor did not hesitate to plant a rose bush in a pot and bring it to her house on Omara's birthday. Her mother received it and thanked her for the gesture, placing the pot in Omara's room. However, when she noticed week after week that the plant withered, she moved it to another location.

Her interest changed when the Martins adopted a new puppy. They lived in front of her house, so she didn't hesitate to run across to meet the new family member and interview the owners. However, the details that interested Omara were not known to the Martins. For example, she wanted to know how many siblings Toby had, as they named him. Nor could they provide the exact date of his birth or his favorite food. She was searching for a particular detail that would make the new pet stand out, and that's when one of the Martins' sons, a little younger than Omara, told her that Toby liked to steal socks. How? she asked. Yes, the little boy replied. When my dad comes and takes off his shoes, Toby comes running and bites his toes until he slowly takes off his sock and runs away. And then what does Toby do with the sock? He takes it to his bed and nibbles on it, leaving it all wet from his drool. Omara thought this was a perfect tale that would make a great story and wrote it all down in her notebook.

The same thing happened with the delivery person, who kindly answered all her questions. How many packages are going to be delivered today? She would note down the number and go away. The first time the electricity bill arrived, she wanted to know how it was charged. Her father showed her the meters and the cables through which electricity traveled. She made him promise that someday he would take her to see the power plants. Her father fulfilled the promise years later on one of her most cherished trips.

One day, her father carved a microphone out of wood for her. He then painted it black and covered it with aluminum foil to imitate the metal parts of the microphones that appeared on TV. At first, Omara was fascinated and didn't let go of the device wherever she went, but when she realized that, in reality, the microphone didn't record anything and was just a toy, she abandoned it in one of her room's drawers. Her father then understood that the little reporter was severe and had to save up to give her a real recorder as a birthday present, in which she could record all the interviews she wanted.

Omara continued with her interest, and when the school principal found her interviewing the head of janitorial services in one of the hallways, she knew that Omara would be the right person to start the school's newspaper. From a young age, she was certain she would become a journalist, that's why, for some time, she devoted her efforts to finding universities that offered the best journalism programs, or at least those that seemed most interesting to her.

So, on the first day of classes at the university, she was the first to arrive. She waited excited but patiently, and two minutes before class began, Ernesto Rios sat down beside her. Although she wasn't counting on one of the most attractive specimens from Puerto Rico to distract her from her goal of becoming the special reporter for the White House press office, she stuttered to say good morning to him.

The friendship with Ernesto emerged immediately. They used to spend every day together and even tried to match their schedules to coincide as much time as possible at the university. She learned that Ernesto's grandfather had fought in World War II and that the letters he sent to his grandmother were published in a local newspaper to give the war news to the locals. His mother still kept the letters and newspapers, which Ernesto use to read from time to time, fascinated. That's why Ernesto was drawn to journalism, but also to its narrative side, that kind of journalism that can tell love stories, like that of his grandparents. Omara could listen for hours, lying on the grass, to all the stories Ernesto use to tell her about his ancestors, about family gatherings, food, and his childhood in San Juan. 

For Omara, this was all new. At home, her father never talked about her ancestors. Go interview someone else, was all he would say when she tried to find out more about his life. The stories her father told began at the age of 16 when he boarded a ship and sailed from Brazil. It was as if nothing existed before then, as if he had been born at 16. There was no paternal grandfather, no paternal grandmother; they didn't exist. This intrigued her so much that she won a prize at the university with a journalistic essay entitled "The Origin I Don't Have." She stole her father's birth certificate and learned that her grandmother's name was Maura, and her grandfather's was João Souza. Her father was born in the heart of Rio de Janeiro, which made it almost impossible to trace the family. So now she listens carefully to the details Ernesto tells her, about how his grandmother would tell childhood stories while turning the bean casserole, and talk about a time without television, about how they received telegrams with great excitement from other relatives on their birthday. Ernesto's own childhood was appealing, with his many cousins with whom he would ride his bicycle and go to the sea. Ernesto dreamed of leaving Puerto Rico, and to hear him tell it, Omara dreamed of a life like Ernesto's, with a family like his.

Write a novel, she would say to him, you have so much to tell. But for him, all his past was so close and so everyday that he couldn't find a literary value worth the effort, nor did he know where to start. To motivate him, she enrolled with him in a creative writing course, at the end of the day, in the only available schedule they could find. But for Ernesto, fiction was not as exciting without journalism. He was interested in the combination of both: true stories told in a narratively engaging way. Soon, having to listen every week to colleagues talking about murder or worlds a hundred years in the future made him feel like he was wasting his time. He thought about giving up, but the course was almost finished. Four more classes, Omara told him, four and it's over.  It was on the one session before the last when Ernesto read a poem about a curly-haired girl, and Omara realized she was in love with him. And so it was that when she left class, she dared to kiss him and then invite him to her apartment.

Every time Ernesto's fingers stroke Omara's skin she felt like found home. She thought that everything she was searching for, all her ambition, faded away with every minute she spent with Ernesto. Time faded away and she fell into a comfortable lethargy. Ernesto was the opium that clouded her dreams.

With every kiss, every minute they spend together, she thought that she did not need anything else. But exactly the opposite happened to him. Meeting Omara filled him with life, and being with her ignited a fire that he had never known. He wanted to be a correspondent in another country, to witness the war up close as his grandfather had done, and from there, from that place full of noise and blood, he wanted to find inspiration. Their lives were set on different rails the moment they met; they themselves were the motivation to follow different paths. When the time came, their separation was unbearable. She settled for a job at the local newspaper, reporting on stories of a different character and depth than she had dreamed of. He competed for the most ambitious jobs until he won one, and without thinking, he told Omara that they would soon be separated by distance. They parted ways because it was the best thing to do, because there was no point in continuing, but above all, because he felt less brave, less adventurous knowing that someone on the other side of the world was waiting for him. On good terms, but also with tears, they said goodbye at the airport with the promise to get back together if circumstances changed. They got suspended in time, like a love interrupted, that's why Omara still smiles when she hears his voice, even if it's over the phone, and he readily agrees to everything she asks of him.