crazy proposal: to pretend to be a loving girlfriend just to help him. I would never let things get out of control because I know that Levi is incapable of truly liking a woman, and he never wanted to get married and have children, which is exactly my dream... But, when the fantasy becomes reality and I see a positive pregnancy test, I realize that nothing will be the same, and that my life is going to change upside down... PROLOGUE In Pontal do Sul on highway 412. The smell of the sea invades my nostrils, and I open the car window just to feel it. I'm in ecstasy, experiencing the energy of the ocean approaching. It's been a long time since I saw nature like this, so close. I feel like screaming, letting out exclamations of pure relief. After five years without vacations or time off, believing fervently that a job that sucked all my strength would bring me any return and success (but that destroyed my sanity and left me sick – and fired, after two seven-day sick leave), now I was trying to create hope for the future. That's it. I have hope. The sea completes that. I want – really – to take this weekend off, take a deep breath, and start planning my search for a new job. After all, it's not like I have nothing. I have a fiancé who loves me – Marcos doesn't say, but... he loves me, of course... he asked me to marry him... why would he ask me to marry him if he didn't love me? – a small apartment that I got from an absent father, a popular car that's always in the mechanic's shop, but that brought me to this isolated beach in Paraná, and... and nothing else. But I have something. I just need to breathe and plan. I observe the deserted landscape. The day is cloudy, and there is not a single person on the street, but I can hear the sound of the sea in the distance. I follow Avenida da Praia, Waze telling me to go straight. Once again, it is strange that there is no one on the street. Not a single living soul. The wind is cold, and I feel sad thinking that I will not be able to wash my body and soul in the sacred, salty waters. I needed a dip in the sea so badly. I reach the end of the avenue, and a sandy road greets me. I park the vehicle on the last stretch of asphalt and get out of the car. "I am happy," I try to assure myself. I would be happier if Marcos were here with me. But he thought it was silly that I wanted to come to the beach after being fired. "What difference will that make?" he asked. "Haven't you realized yet that you don't have the body to go to the beach?" That hurt me deeply, but I tried to ignore it because I knew he was stressed about my firing. For a while, Marcos would have to take care of our main household bills. Even though he no longer had to pay rent since he came to live with me, I always paid for most of our expenses. In fact, Marcos used to just buy us snacks on the weekends and pay for our trips to clubs or movies – things that, most of the time, I didn't even want to do, but I didn't have the courage to tell him. Now, with me out of a job, he would have no choice but to take on most of the expenses. I hoped to find a new job soon, but... Marcos said that no one gives a sick woman a hard time. He wasn't wrong. That's why I needed to get better soon. That's why I needed the sea. No depression or anxiety can survive the sea. I start walking along the beach. I move around a little and take off my sneakers, letting my feet touch the soft sand. "I'm happy," I repeat to myself. I read somewhere that words have power, and we only attract good things if we say good things. So, I'm confident that everything will work out, and I don't allow any discouraging words to escape my lips. I admit that I've been a little shaken since I got sick. It all started the first year I joined a multinational company based in Curitiba. I worked in the administrative sector, but I also did logistics and accounting. Basically, I was hired for one position, but I had three. And I couldn't make a mistake in any of them. Sometimes I couldn't do it, and I would hear my boss yelling at me about how incompetent I was. I didn't doubt what he said. My father