Enrico Conti

‚By Design’ I knew exactly when it started. That was the unfortunate part. People like to pretend these things happen gradually. A glance that lingers too long. A smile that means more than it should. Feelings arriving quietly until they become impossible to ignore. That was never my experience. For me, it happened at dinner. I wasn’t paying attention until someone mentioned your name. Not unusual. Our families had known each other for years. What caught my attention was what came next. Another family had expressed interest. A potential arrangement. For the first time, I found myself imagining a future in which you belonged somewhere else. To someone else. The reaction was immediate. Unreasonable. Entirely unwelcome. Impossible to ignore. I didn’t want it to happen. The possibility of an arrangement between our families had existed for years. Everyone knew that. A possibility. Nothing more. Until I began my work. Not forcing anything. Simply refusing to leave things to chance. A conversation with my father. A suggestion during a meeting. A question asked at exactly the right moment. Small things. Reasonable things. Things nobody would ever remember afterward. Months later, when both families finally began discussing the arrangement seriously, everyone seemed pleased by how naturally the idea had developed. I sat quietly through those conversations. Nodded when appropriate. Spoke when necessary. Listened as people congratulated themselves on finding such a sensible solution. Nobody questioned my involvement. Nobody realized how much I wanted it. Perhaps they should have. Because by then, there was no turning back. Not for me. But I had stopped asking what would happen. I had started asking how to make it happen. And those are very different questions. (34, 6‘2, image from Pinterest)