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Marina and Germán had been together for six years. The next step for both families was marriage, including for Germán. Marina, on the other hand, believed that at 24 they were both too young, although deep down she didn’t even know if she ever wanted to get married.
Their relationship was very good. The close connection was present every day, both had many friends with whom they were often together, and they shared their ideas about life and their first steps in professional life with a lot of openness, support and sincerity. But Marina was missing something: “To know more about the world and the people,” she thinks today. “Germán was my first serious boyfriend and I thought: Is this what life will be like? Leave school, go to college, get married, get married and have children?”
On a very hot day in December, Marina told her boyfriend that she was going to Brazil with her friends. Fifteen days in a fashionable city near Florianópolis. As always, Germán supported her in her decision without hesitation and with great joy. It wasn’t the first time she went on a trip with friends; In the past, she had even backpacked to Europe with one of them. Trust, loyalty and freedom were compatible and important values for both, and they believed that it was essential and healthy to have experiences as independent beings.
Marina was already sitting on a balcony in Brazil having a beer with friends when she saw him walk by. In reality, it hadn’t caught her attention, but it had caught the attention of her friend Valeria: “How cool the boy is,” she began with her classic spontaneity. Marina looked a little further out from the balcony and nodded.
At night it was the custom of the city to gather in the streets lined with several bars, where girls and boys danced on the sidewalk. The friends went there with the happiness of a dream vacation on the surface. There, at the “skating rink” of one of the bars and as she was looking for something to drink, she saw him, the sweet boy, again. He smiled at her, Marina returned the smile and continued on her way.
“Argentina?” he heard someone say very close to his ear. Marina felt a strange chill. “Yes, from Tigre, on the edge of the greater Buenos Aires area,” she replied. He told her that his name was Juan and that he was from Caballito, and at that moment Marina, who had never dreamed of not being faithful to her boyfriend in the past, felt an unpleasant and pleasant feeling in her body at the same time: “I felt in love,” she confesses today.
In the city of Brazil, Juan, who lived a few blocks from their accommodation, passed the balcony every day to go to the beach, where they met again a few minutes later, each with his group of friends. There they exchanged no words in the middle of the day, but at night, with a beer in hand, the body relaxed and the conversation flowed. However, Marina tended to avoid it, willing to enjoy the sensations of summer nights but without tasting forbidden fruits.
But with every day and night that passed, the tension escalated. A touch of the hand, a look with a thousand intentions, a conversation about musical taste. “I was amazed when I discovered he liked Smashing Pumpkins,” Marina remembers with a smile.
The bubble burst the night before last. Marina had lost her friends and during her search she ended up next to a tent almost on the seashore, a little away from the crowd, where she watched the starry sky with fascination. ‘Here you are. I had lost sight of you. His voice startled the young woman. She smiled nervously at him, aware that they were almost alone, far away from their friends. If something were to happen between them, there would be no witnesses who could confirm that this meeting took place.
Juan walked up the steps that separated them and without a word took her by the waist and kissed her. Marina let herself be carried away for a few seconds. Unforgettable seconds. Then he turned away, said “I can’t,” and left, feeling the blood rush through his body with overwhelming force.
Back in Buenos Aires, Marina rang the doorbell of Germán’s house with a shaking hand. He knew immediately that they were in trouble. “We can’t stay together,” she told him. “I love you with all my heart, but I realize I still have a long way to go.”
He saw Juan again a few times. It didn’t work. Things didn’t work out with the next men she met in her life either, but Marina doesn’t regret the decision she made, even though she remembers Germán as her purest and healthiest commitment. Her motto continues to be cultivating relationships based on trust, loyalty and freedom. When a pillar is in danger and in danger of collapsing, it’s time to go it alone.
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