It was around early May when the new neighbours moved into the old abandoned house two streets away from ours. It took them about three whole months to fix it but when they did it was blue and it was wonderful.

I’d walk by their front lawn almost always during my afternoon walks and I couldn’t help but notice the girl sitting by the window. She was slim and tall, her pale skin filled with freckles and her hair was redder than a poppy in spring and long like a waterfall. Her name was unknown to me but her hobbies soon were not. Sometimes she’d paint, sometimes she’d knit, sometimes she’d read and sometimes she’d just sit there. Always on her own, always by her window.

Despite all the times I walked by, I never thought to converse with her. My feet would tremble with fear and drag me away to the next house. And the next. And forward I went until I was back home. One day, however, I noticed a cat lying on her lap, both of them enjoying the sun. She could remain a stranger but a cat should never be. So I gathered all of my strength and I asked.

“What’s the cat’s name?”

“Marie,” she answered.

“Marie? That’s a person’s name.”

“So?”

“You can’t give a person’s name to a cat.”

“Is there a written rule that states I cannot?”

I looked at her dumbfounded, my jaw several inches away from my face. I didn’t know how to reply.

“So there you have it. Marie is my cat. A cat with a person’s name. How about you? Do you have a person’s name or a cat’s name?”

I stood taller and hid my hands behind my back. She was interested in me. Or at least she was kind. “I’m Max.”

“Hi, Max.”

“Hi-” My hand tried to wave but I stopped it. Incidentally, I was still unaware of that fair princess’ name.

“Sabine.”

“Sabine?”

She bowed her head with eyes shut. “Sabine Ross.”

“Hi, Sabine Ross.”

“You finally said hi to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I see you pass by every day. I kept wondering when.”

“Now I will do it every day.”

She smiled a smile brighter than all the smiles I’ve ever seen, even to this day, and I left.

Her name was Sabine. Sabine Ross. It felt like a poem escaped my lips as I repeated her name. So I kept saying until I closed my eyes and fell asleep for that day.

And the days kept passing by and every day I kept waving at Sabine and her cat Marie. We talked briefly and I learned so many things about her. She had a lovely voice and her paintings were exquisite. She was very smart and liked to read poetry. She had a little brother and an older sister and she loved them both. But most of all, she loved her mother who would do anything for her and she would do anything for her mother.

“One day,” she told me at an early Saturday walk, “I’d like to become a mother, too.”

And I agreed with absolute certainty that she would become an excellent mother. And her children would do anything for her.

But every day, Sabine would grow paler than the moonlight and thinner than a fiddle. Until one day her hair changed colour and length. They weren’t red as wine nor long. Just brown and up to her shoulders.

“Did you cut your hair?” I asked with curiosity.

“That’s not my hair.”

“What happened to your hair?”

“It fell in the shower drain.”

She didn’t need to say more because I understood and decided to cheer her up a bit.

“Will you come downstairs and join my walk?”

“No,” said she and the blue of her eyes grew thunderstorms inside. “I’m not allowed to leave the house.”

“Why?”

“I’m sick. If I go outside I’ll become sicker and then my mother will be sad.”

“I don’t want your mother to be sad.” It was true. I had seen her mother once. She had such a pretty smile with lots of wrinkles that made it even prettier.

“I only go out when I visit the hospital.”

“Will you get better soon?”

“I hope so,” she said with her always warm voice and smiled but I knew that smile was not genuine and deep inside she knew that she wouldn’t. And at that moment, I knew it too. So I decided to pay her a visit every single day, even the rainy ones when I wouldn’t go out. But I would go out for her. Especially during that kind of days.

"Tell me one thing before you go, Max,” she told me one day when the rainbow had crossed the skies after two days of rain. “Are you a boy or a girl?"

I considered my answer for a minute. When I finally found the right words to say, I flashed a bright smile and said, "I'm a bad decision."

Sabine stared at me speechless for a good moment before bursting into loud laughter. She laughed so much she had to wrap her arms around her belly and bent on the windowsill. She laughed so much she fell on the floor of her bedroom and I heard a loud thud.

I worried for a second but she reemerged with a colour on her face that matched her once crimson hair and a smile that connected her ears in the most cheerful way.

"It sounded cooler in my head," I admitted.

"You're cool, Max."

"Thanks, Sabine. You're cool, too. But I'm the coolest of the bunch. Agreed?"

"Agreed."

"And… Sabine?"

"Yeah?"

"Does it really matter whether I pee standing or sitting?"

"It doesn't."

My smile grew wider and as the sun was setting, I left.

And the moon began fading and so did she. And by the time the moon began filling up again, she kept fading. She was almost never by the window until she wasn’t at all. And one day her family got dressed in black and several people gathered in their house. And I understood I’d never see her again. Sabine, the girl by the window.

Sometimes my feet still take me by that window. My gaze will linger there for several minutes, hoping she’ll get out and greet me, tell me it’s been a long time and I’ll respond indeed it has been.

Sabine Ross. She could've been a great teacher, a world-famous painter and perhaps a beloved mother. But all she managed to be was seventeen. And in my heart, she will always be the girl by the window.