I was born in February 1974 as youngest of 2 children. Until I was 6, I lived in Schaarbeek where my father worked in the family business, but I spent most of my youth in Tervuren. My parents built a house there, in a quiet street with a lot of young and mostly international families. Every available moment we gathered with the kids of the neighbourhood. Moreover, my grandparents lived nearby. They had greenhouses and a huge vegetable garden. We were allowed almost anything there! It was a fantastic and carefree period.

She is sitting on the couch and she’s crying her eyes out. When I ask what happened, she says she heard that she got kicked out of the squad; a group of classmates who always hang out together during recess. “Otherwise you are ‘lonly’,” she adds. ‘Lonly’. That’s how she pronounces it. Later, when she shows me her Messenger, I notice that’s how she writes it, too. ‘Lonely’ it is indeed: even at her age loneliness is the most terrible thing that can happen to you.