El ángel descuidado

the long version

In 1965, among the novices of a religious congregation, the very young Brother Rafael and Brother Nicolás live out the luminous and harsh experience of a first love. Under asphyxiating circumstances, the two adolescents face everyone and everything that seek to separate them: the mysticism of their vocation, the desire to become missionaries, their vow of chastity, the alarmed teacher of the novices ... Without a hint of guilt, they discover, suffer, and enjoy that first love, which is never forgotten, although sometimes renounced. It is thirty five years later that Rafael, having become a popular writer, comes to know where Nicolás ended up, now married and a successful businessman, of whom he had known nothing until then. Little by little, Rafael understands that Nicolás has tried to block out that memory during his whole life, and that he, on the other hand, remembers it as emotive and fun, since that is the best way to defend it from the passing of time.