"Sometimes you need to go back home to discover how much you've changed. And sometimes you need your family to see who you've become to remember who you always were."
...
"You need to know Santos," Gabriel said during the emergency post-failure meeting, when they were still processing the bitter lessons from São Benedito. "I need you to know where I came from. And maybe... maybe I need to remember too."
The Resilientes exchanged glances. During all their time working together, Gabriel had mentioned his hometown only in passing — fragments of information scattered like breadcrumbs between smaltalks and conversations about other projects. Santos was an abstraction, a "where I came from" that had never gained concrete contours.
"You're inviting us to meet your family?" asked Caio, and there was something between surprise and honor in his voice.
"I'm inviting you to meet who I was before I became... this," Gabriel gestured vaguely at himself, at the room, at the entire construction of competence and leadership that had accumulated around him. "Maybe it's time to remember that I didn't always have answers for everything."
Marina was observing Gabriel with that analytical intensity he'd learned to recognize when she was creating strategies. "So, when were you thinking?"
"Next week. Before we go back to São Benedito to fix our mess." Gabriel took a deep breath. "My mom has been asking for months when she'll meet 'these special friends from Belém'. And my dad is curious to understand what exactly we do that appears so often on the newspaper."
Leonardo leaned forward. "And Sofia?"
The question came loaded with subtexts everyone understood but no one verbalized. Sofia had become a constant presence in their lives — not just as a journalist documenting Enactus work, but as part of the inner circle that had formed around Gabriel.
"Sofia too," Gabriel confirmed. "If she wants to go. I believe she does."
"I believe she does" came out with a confidence that suggested they'd already talked about this.
Carlos closed his laptop slowly. "It's going to be strange seeing you... in that way. As a son, and a brother, too... I know It's hard."
There was something melancholic in the observation, as if Carlos were contemplating about his own family and the temporary nature of their bounds.
...
The flight to Santos was different from any trip they'd taken together. There were no presentations to review, schedules to adjust, metrics to analyze. For the first time in months, they were just five friends in transit, carrying the normal expectations of people about to meet someone important's family.
Sofia was sitting next to Gabriel, a small notebook on her lap where she occasionally jotted down observations. Not for an article — she'd made it clear this trip was personal, not professional — but from the journalist's habit of recording moments that might become important.
"Nervous?" she asked, noticing how Gabriel observed the clouds through the window with a heavy intensity.
"Not nervous," he replied slowly. "More like... uncertain. I don't know which version me they'll find when they get there."
"And which version do you want them to find?"
The question hung suspended between them. Gabriel thought about the boy who had left Santos two years before — insecure, directionless, carrying wounds he couldn't name. He thought about the Gabriel he'd become in Belém — confident, recognized, capable. And he thought about the Gabriel he was discovering himself to be after the recent failure — more human, more questioning, more aware of his own limitations.
"All of them," he said finally. "I think I want them to see all of them."
...
Santos airport received the group with that characteristic smell of coastal city — salt mixed with urban movement, sea breeze tempered with metropolitan ambition. Gabriel breathed deeply, feeling memories reactivating in layers he hadn't accessed in a long time.
"So this is where our Light grew up," observed Caio, watching the movement around them with eyes full of curiosity.
The word "our" echoed strangely. Gabriel realized there was an affectionate ownership in how the Resilientes referred to him — not possessive, but protective. As if he were simultaneously leader and mascot, hero and shared responsibility.
Roberto was waiting in the arrival area, and Gabriel felt a pang of something that could be nostalgia or anxiety seeing his father after months of only phone conversations. In his early fifties, Roberto maintained the upright posture of decades in offices, but there was something in his eyes — a mixture of pride and curiosity — that suggested carefully cultivated expectations.
"So these are the famous Resilientes," Roberto said when Gabriel made introductions, and there was genuine humor in his voice. "Helena is at home preparing a lunch that will probably feed the entire neighborhood."
The introductions were simple — Marina with her natural competence, Carlos with shyness that masked itself as polite formality, Felipe with diplomacy that worked equally well in boardrooms and living rooms, Caio with charisma that made strangers feel like instant old friends.
But it was with Sofia that Roberto paused a bit longer, studying her with paternal eyes that made silent calculations.
"And you're the journalist who's been documenting their work," he said, not exactly a question.
"Among other things," Sofia replied with the smile Gabriel had learned to recognize — professional but warm, establishing gentle boundaries.
Roberto nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer, and Gabriel wondered what conversations he'd had with his mother about "the girl from Belém who appears in the photos."
...
The Santos family house was exactly as Gabriel had left it, but smaller than his memories suggested. Meticulously maintained garden, organized garage, the kind of middle-class stability that allows concerns about education instead of survival.
Helena received them at the door with energy that filled spaces — a university professor for thirty years, she had developed the art of making any group feel simultaneously welcome and slightly intimidated by her hospitality.
"My God, Gabriel," she said, holding her son's face between her hands in a gesture that was blessing and medical evaluation. "You look different. More... solid. As if you'd found your place in the world."
The maternal comments continued as she guided the group through the house, but Gabriel noticed how his friends absorbed every detail — family photos scattered throughout the living room, diplomas on the wall, the careful organization that spoke of decades of shared life and dreams achieved through persistence.
"This is Gabriel at fifteen," Helena said, stopping before a photo where a thin and slightly awkward teenager smiled at the camera with evident uncertainty.
Caio leaned in to study the image. "Brother, you were tiny."
"He was shy too," added Helena with maternal affection. "He'd spend hours reading in his room, always with that expression of someone thinking about things too serious for his age."
Gabriel watched his friends observing his history, and there was something surreal about the experience — like watching two versions of himself being introduced to each other through mediators who knew both.
Sofia stopped before a photo where Gabriel, maybe at seventeen, was standing next to a blonde girl at some school event.
"Mariana," Gabriel said, noticing her interest. "A... close friend. From high school."
Helena caught the careful tone in her son's voice. "Mariana works at Enactus Brasil now. Regional coordinator. Small world, isn't it?"
The information hung in the air loaded with unspoken implications. Sofia nodded politely, but Gabriel saw in the glow of her eyes curiosity being tempered by something more personal.
...
Sofia was different in the Santos house. Not less herself, but a softer version, like someone trying to decipher familiar cultural codes while establishing her own presence in the space.
During lunch — which indeed seemed capable of feeding the entire neighborhood — she sat next to Gabriel, participating in conversations but mainly observing. Gabriel caught her several times studying family dynamics with that subtle intensity she applied to all professional subjects.
"And how did you two meet?" asked Roberto, directing the question to Sofia with paternal diplomacy that barely disguised genuine curiosity.
"Work," Sofia replied. "I was covering social innovation projects at UFPA, and Gabriel's team kept appearing in my research."
"Appearing how?" insisted Helena with a teacher's way, accustomed to extracting details from her stundents.
Gabriel watched Sofia choose her words carefully. "As people who made things work differently. Not just technically, but... humanly. Gabriel has a way of talking about purpose that makes you remember why you chose to do the work you do."
The answer was diplomatic but genuine, and Gabriel felt something warm expanding in his chest — not just from the compliment, but from the way Sofia had managed to articulate something he himself struggled to understand about his own work.
"He was always like that," said Helena, looking at her son with an expression that mixed pride and melancholy. "Even when he didn't know what he wanted to do with his life, he always knew how to make others feel capable of doing more."
...
In the afternoon, while Helena showed photo albums to Marina and Carlos, and Roberto discussed technical matters with Felipe, Gabriel found himself alone with Caio in the small backyard where he'd spent entire childhood afternoons.
That's when Sofia — sister Sofia — appeared at the back door, carrying a tray of refreshments and that expression of scientific curiosity Gabriel knew all too well.
"So," she said without preamble, placing the tray on the plastic table, "this is the famous Sofia we hear about all the time."
Gabriel felt his blood freeze. "Sofia, I didn't —"
"Relax, embarrassed older brother." She turned to Caio with a conspiratorial smile. "He talks about her in his sleep. Isn't it cute?"
"SOFIA!" Gabriel exploded, feeling his face heat up mortifyingly.
"What?" she asked with exaggerated innocence. "I'm just being an attentive hostess. Sofia — journalist Sofia — should know she has a dedicated admirer."
Caio was trying to contain his laughter, clearly delighted with the family dynamic unfolding before him.
"My sister," Gabriel muttered to Caio, "is a sixteen-year-old terror disguised as a civilized person."
"Seventeen," Sofia corrected indignantly. "And I'm just saying you two are way too obvious. Even dad asked if she's staying for dinner tomorrow too."
Gabriel ran his hand over his face, feeling all the familiar embarrassment of adolescence returning with full force. "Why don't you go back inside and help mom?"
"Because this is more fun." Sofia sat in a third chair, clearly establishing she wasn't going anywhere. "Besides, I want to meet my brother's friends who changed him so drastically."
"Drastically how?" asked Caio, genuinely curious.
"Well, before he was just a lost kid who stayed reading in his room. Now he's a lost kid who appears in newspapers and has a girlfriend." Sofia paused theatrically. "Clear evolution."
"She's not my girlfriend," Gabriel said automatically, but his voice came out without any conviction.
Sofia and Caio exchanged a look that clearly said 'not yet.'
"It's strange," said Caio finally, continuing the interrupted conversation but now addressing Sofia too, "seeing you here. Seeing where you came from."
"Why?"
"Because it makes you seem more... normal. Human." Caio laughed softly, including Sofia in the conversation. "During this past year, sometimes you got so distant in your successes that I forgot you had a mother who worries if you're eating right."
"And a sister who has enough blackmail material to end any reputation as a competent leader," added Sofia cheerfully.
Gabriel groaned. "Please tell me you're not going to tell any of this to Marina."
Gabriel felt the comment like a gentle but precise diagnosis. "I did distance myself, didn't I?"
"You became a leader," Caio corrected. "Which is different. But maybe you forgot that leaders also need a home."
Through the living room window, Gabriel could see Sofia talking with Helena, the two women clearly finding common ground on some subject that made them laugh. There was something comforting about the scene — not because it suggested family approval, but because it suggested the important people in his life could occupy the same space without conflict.
"You like her," Caio observed, following Gabriel's gaze.
"I do."
"More than like."
Gabriel didn't deny it. There was something about Sofia — her intelligence, her independence, the way she saw him clearly without idealizing him — that felt like possibility instead of complication.
"And she likes you too," Caio continued. "But not the 'Light of Enactus'. She likes the Gabriel I'm seeing here. The one who gets nervous when his girlfriend meets his parents."
"She's not my girlfriend," Gabriel said automatically, but the denial came out without conviction.
Caio smiled. "Not yet."
...
That night, when the house had quieted and the Resilientes had settled into the guest rooms Helena had prepared with military efficiency, Gabriel found himself awake in his childhood bedroom.
The space was preserved like a sanctuary — posters of bands he no longer listened to, books that had shaped his worldview, a lifetime of previous versions of himself stored like archaeological artifacts.
He sat at the same desk where he'd done thousands of homework assignments, took an old notebook — one of many his mother had saved "in case they became important someday" — and began to write.
He didn't plan for it to be a poem. The words just came, loaded with the weight of recent discoveries and losses not yet completely understood:
...
Things I'm Afraid of Losing
I'm afraid of losing the ability to fail
to stumble into solutions
to discover truths by accident
like finding coins on the beach.
I'm afraid of losing the sound of doubt in my own voice
the question that comes before the answer
the hesitation that teaches
more than any certainty.
I'm afraid of losing my friends
to the version of me
that needs to be admired
instead of being loved.
I'm afraid of losing the taste of cheap pizza
divided into five unequal pieces
when everyone still fit
around a formica table.
I'm afraid of losing the surprise
in the eyes of those who believe
that impossible is just
another word for interesting.
I'm afraid of losing the bridge I was
in the days when I knew nothing but
being a place others
passed through to become better.
But mainly
I'm afraid of losing the fear
of becoming someone
who forgets to be afraid.
Because the day I stop fearing
losing these small things
will be the day I will have lost
the only thing that really matters:
The memory that greatness
is only worthwhile
when it fits in the heart
of someone who still knows how to cry.
...
Gabriel stopped writing, surprised by the emotional intensity that had spilled onto the paper. It was three in the morning, and he had externalized fears he didn't know he carried — not just about leadership or success, but about the person he was becoming and the price he might pay for that transformation.
He closed the notebook and looked through the bedroom window at the silent streets of Santos. Somewhere in this city, there were invisible footprints of all his previous versions— the shy boy, the lost teenager, the young man who had left for Belém searching for something he couldn't name.
Now, two years later, he knew he had found much more than he'd been looking for. But he also knew that finding was only half the journey. Preserving what he'd found — the friends, the values, the ability to grow without losing humanity — would be the hardest part.
...
Far away, in the Twin Towers of Stellarum, Luna awakened from sleep that hadn't really been sleep. She had dreamed — if immortals can dream — of words floating in the air like petals of nonexistent flowers.
"I'm afraid of losing the bridge I was..."
Gabriel's words had crossed the distance between worlds, carried by the pure emotional intensity he had put into them. Luna approached the seeing basin, and for a moment glimpsed not the present, but echoes of the past — Gabriel writing alone in a room that seemed too small to contain the concerns he was processing.
"You haven't lost the bridge," she whispered to the dark water that reflected moons not of this dimension. "You just learned that some bridges grow. And that growing hurts."
For the first time in months, Luna felt genuine hope. The man who had written those words wasn't lost to success or to others' admiration. He was fighting to remain connected to his own humanity, questioning his own growth.
That was the Gabriel she loved. Not the impeccable hero the prophecies promised, but the imperfect man who had courage enough to fear his own transformations.
And if he still feared losing his essence, it meant that essence was still there, preserved at the center of all the competencies and recognition he had acquired.
The connection between them pulsed stronger for a moment — strong enough that, in the room in Santos, Gabriel stopped writing and looked around as if he'd heard someone call his name.
Strong enough for Luna to know, with renewed certainty, that when the time came for them to meet again, she would find not a stranger polished by success, but her Solmere — wounded, grown, but fundamentally unchanged in what mattered most.