When I first became interested in boys, I was 15. It was 1962. One afternoon, a man visited my parents in the Vosges with a young man I assumed was his son. I'd never seen him before. He was gorgeous. All in blue – his eyes, his shirt. Gabriel. He looked older than me.

In the small living room next to the kitchen, the adults were drinking coffee. Gabriel and I stayed silent, like two fish. I spent half an hour staring at him, not paying any attention to the conversation. After they left, my parents praised Gabriel, calling him a "model student."

When my father, the patriarch, left the room, my mother cornered me in the kitchen. She had seen my crush and said, "Listen, you're going to meet a lot of boys in your life, but this one, stay away, he's your cousin." She then revealed the taboo story of a poorly kept family secret.

Gabriel is the illegitimate son of my uncle, my father's brother, who never acknowledged him. The man who brought him over for coffee was Gabriel's uncle and a friend of my parents. Eventually, my mother imposed a total ban in the name of the insurmountable boundary of consanguinity: you can't have children with your cousin. "Forget about him." I was just starting to spread my wings and it felt like they were being clipped.

At boarding school, my teenage thoughts sometimes drifted to the boy I couldn't forget. The memory was all blue in my mind. One day, I saw him again. He was just as handsome. I was terrified of feeling that forbidden spark again, so I left quickly.

At 19, my mother casually blurted out: "Oh, by the way! Gabriel got married." I heard what she didn't say: the affair is closed, the risk is over, everything is safe. And she was right. I spent my life burying this story that never existed. A forbidden crush that would get me into so much trouble if I tried to see him again.

I got married, mainly to legitimize a pregnancy. My husband and I got on well, but deep down we had no real bond. We even had a second child. It was a fruitful and happy life, but every now and then, a thought crept in: "If I'd been with Gabriel, maybe it would have been different." A fleeting fantasy, that came and went over time.

When social media appeared, I searched for him and wondered what he had become, if he remembered me, if he'd like to get to know me better. Maybe we have something in common? Maybe we could talk? My mother's ban still echoed with me, but at over 60, I didn't care. Life had passed me by, I was no longer a child. And there was no longer any risk. But Gabriel wasn't on social media.

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