Say It When You Grow Up
Part One: The Courtyard
When I was seven years old, I announced to an entire apartment courtyard that I was going to marry my neighbor.
Not quietly.
Not shyly.
Not in the soft, dreamy way children usually make impossible promises while playing pretend.
I declared it like a battle cry.
I had dirt on my knees, tears streaking down my face, and enough outrage in my tiny body to silence every adult sitting outside that evening. Conversations stopped mid-sentence. Tea glasses paused halfway to mouths. Even the stray cats wandering between chairs seemed to freeze for a moment as I pointed dramatically across the courtyard.
Straight at Emre.
He was standing near the apartment stairs with a book tucked beneath one arm, looking completely stunned.
At the time, he was seventeen years old.
Ten years older than me.
But at seven, age meant almost nothing because children do not measure people by practicality or possibility. They measure them by feeling. And to me, Emre was not “older.” He was simply Emre — the tall boy from next door who carried grocery bags for elderly neighbors without being asked, repaired broken bicycle chains for the younger children, and somehow always noticed when someone was sad even before they said a word.
Especially me.
Looking back now, I realize what made him different was something I didn’t yet have language for.
He paid attention.
Real attention.
Not the distracted kind adults often give children while half-listening and nodding automatically. Emre listened as though every scraped knee, every broken toy, every tiny heartbreak actually mattered. When he asked questions, he waited for answers. When he noticed tears, he did not laugh them away.
To a lonely little girl, that kind of attention felt enormous.
That afternoon in Izmir had started like dozens of others in our apartment courtyard. Mothers sat beneath balconies gossiping over tea while children ran in circles chasing balls and each other through the fading summer heat. Laundry fluttered overhead between buildings, and somewhere nearby someone was frying onions for dinner.
Then another girl ruined everything.
She was older than me by two years, which at seven years old felt like the difference between child and adult. We had argued over something small — I cannot even remember what anymore — but suddenly she crossed into territory that felt genuinely devastating.
She told me Emre would leave someday.
Not only leave.
She said he would marry “someone beautiful from the city.”
I still remember exactly how those words landed inside my chest.
Children often repeat things they hear adults say without understanding the sharpness hidden inside them. She probably heard older women gossiping about Emre’s future — about university, marriage, opportunities beyond our apartment block.
But to me, her words felt catastrophic.
I could not explain why.
At seven years old, I did not yet understand romance, jealousy, or longing in the complicated adult sense. I only knew the thought of Emre disappearing from my world filled me with panic so fierce it felt physical.
Something hot rose inside me immediately.
A stubbornness so complete it overpowered embarrassment entirely.
I remember marching away from the argument while the other children watched curiously. My small sandals slapped angrily against the concrete courtyard as I pushed myself directly into the center of everything.
Then I pointed at Emre dramatically with all the seriousness a seven-year-old could possibly possess.
And I shouted:
“When I grow up, I’m going to marry him!”
My voice echoed so loudly between the apartment walls that half the courtyard burst into laughter instantly.
One woman nearly spilled her tea.
An old man sitting near the entrance laughed so hard he started coughing.
Somebody called out jokingly, “Poor Emre! He’s already engaged now!”
I was mortified for exactly one second.
Then I doubled down.
“No!” I screamed louder, tears still running down my cheeks. “I mean it!”
More laughter.
Except from Emre.
He stood completely frozen beside the stairs, staring at me with an expression somewhere between shock and helpless amusement. His ears had turned bright red while every adult in the courtyard suddenly watched him expectantly like he was part of some public performance.
Finally, after several painfully long seconds, he walked toward me slowly.
I remember holding my breath.
He crouched down until we were eye level and gently wiped dirt from my cheek with his thumb.
Then he smiled.
Not mockingly.
Not dismissively.
Softly.
And he said the words I would carry with me for years afterward.
“Say it again when you grow up.”
The courtyard exploded into teasing laughter all over again, but I barely heard any of it. Because in my seven-year-old mind, that was not rejection.
It was a promise.
For years afterward, I held onto that moment with embarrassing seriousness. While other girls changed favorite colors, favorite singers, favorite dreams every few months, I remained strangely loyal to an impossible future nobody else remembered except me.
But life has a way of stretching simple childhood declarations into something far more complicated.
Because eventually, I did grow up.
And so did Emre.