We drove right up to the beach on Mark’s 1990 red Mustang convertible; the breeze gently caressing our faces and the waves as the only background music to our words, Mark knew exactly how to pace himself enough for me to understand his English, and he made a great effort to decipher me.

We left Dallas with my sister, her husband and a friend, just as a spontaneous weekend trip .
For that night we left the trio in the hotel and told them we would be out for a couple of hours.

It was the perfect night, the moon beaming like a Celestina who is about to witness her success.
We had been “a couple” for two weeks; the dynamics of dating in the USA where unfamiliar to me, I needed to be asked before I was someone’s girlfriend, Mark was advised by my brother in law to ask, so he did two weeks previous to us going on that trip.
He was also advised to take it really slow; I had never been kissed in my 20 years.

I had the feeling he would try to kiss me that night, so I was very nervous and maybe even a little evasive, we went to walk and talked about so many things that that the fear got drowned by the waves as they got closer to our feet.
We had walked for a long time; we stood in front of a broken pier, I mentioned it looked some what surrealistic, like soldiers coming out of the water, or statues waiting for someone to walk between them all the way inside the ocean and never come back.
I pretended to walk in there telling him I heard the ocean call my name, perhaps the same sea monster that was meant to take Andromeda’s life; he grabbed me by the waist to stop me from going inside and delicately kissed me, Cassiopeia smiled from above as once again a young woman was saved by her very own Perseus.
From that moment on my heart was set.

I know your teeth are probably hurting, but it was just like that or even sweeter…