Maria ran back to her room after giving Humberto his gift and rested on her bed. Her heart was beating wildly, and her cheeks were red from the embarrassment of that kiss that Humberto had planted on her cheek. 

“It's a good thing Rosario was in the kitchen,” said Maria as she covered herself with a cotton sheet she had laid out that morning when she woke up. 

Maria kicked her feet back and forth, remembering the afternoon. It was all a big farce on her part, but thank God, and her, it paid off. The lying, deceitful Maria had told Humbero that she wanted to go anywhere to embroider, anything but home. She didn't care where she went to embroider since she almost didn't even like it, but it was what she did best. They went to the park, where they spent hours doing nothing at all, each one focused on his own thing. And Maria had not gone to be bitten by mosquitoes or to waste her time. Maria spoke and finally, the conversation began. 

     They talked about everything, whether Maria liked to have breakfast with coffee or juice, whether Humberto liked gorditas de nata or a concha de chocolate. Maria tried not to talk about things that would make her look like a child, although she was. She could only tell Humberto what she did at school and what she wanted to do in the future. As they talked, little by little, the birds came closer to see the young couple, and the songs of the wind fell silent to hear them talk. 

After a while, Humberto went to sit next to her, and once again, she was caught by that vanilla smell that assaulted her every time Humberto came near, and the question of that lingered in the back of her mind. They spent almost two hours talking so much that they ran out of topics for the afternoon. Under the sheet, while she remembered the events of that afternoon, Maria fell asleep. 

 They didn't know if it was the April heat that had enchanted them, but neither Maria nor Humbert stopped dreaming about each other while they slept. 

“Kiss me. I want you to be the first and only one.”

Maria whispered to Humberto.

“Maria, that I... “

She looked at him with those playful and innocent eyes.

 “Come on, just one.” 

Humberto took her in his arms, put his arm around her waist, and gently caressed her face as he kissed her. As if it were an act of witchcraft, Maria and Humberto began to kiss passionately, she felt her heart and body on fire.