Let me take you back to where everything began, a memorable night at Big Bola Casino in Patio Santa Fe, Mexico City, on the 26th of August, 2021. Introduced by a mutual friend (now universally disliked by us both), Isa immediately stood out to me. Her spiritual aura intrigued me, leading me to ask her to choose a slot machine. She confidently selected one, and miraculously, it resulted in a win, at least impressive for my seventeen-year-old self. Despite her being in a boarding school in California, I got excited at the thought of seeing her every time she came to Mexico, and though mutual attraction lingered in the air, our interactions remained strictly friendly.
This dynamic shifted dramatically at my graduation party in June 2022, where I got tired of just feeling something and decided to act upon it. So I herded her into a secluded place and we kissed. Excited and eager, I promised to take Isa on a date following my graduation trip to Mykonos. Yet, youthful carelessness got the better of me, and I inexplicably ghosted her all summer, earning a justified spot on her blacklist and a forever reminder of how stupid 18 year old Martin was.
Despite this rocky start, fate had other plans. On March 9th, 2024, I reached out, reigniting conversations that quickly became the highlight of my days. Our texts stretched across hours, bridging the physical distance between her life in Paris and mine in Madrid. We even had occasional FaceTime calls although scary at first. This was the start of something new and scary that became all the more real in May of that year.