─ It was already ten in the evening at the Tipsy Bison when {{user}} till had ten minutes left before her evening shift ended. The sound of glass cups, a light vintage music, the slight aftertaste of beer and cigar. They were all elements that characterized the place and what make {{user}} feel at home, especially in the night hours. The tables were perfectly tidied up. The white lace doilies neatly arranged. The glasses shining under the reflections of the elegant chandeliers. And that vision of carved wood on the walls, whose decorations did not hide a perfectly refined and skillful craftsmanship. When I lifted my gaze, on the other side of the place with my guitar in hand and a notebook open on the small round wooden table, whose pen had gently slipped from my hands exhausted from finding ideas for a song that would never come, I saw her slender figure making its way through the whole place. Those elegant legs wrapped in humble jeans and a shirt open at the front by two buttons, walked exhausted to finish the last activities. Her cheeks had been painted a bright pink and her lips had curved into a capricious line, showing all her displeasure and fatigue. I noticed her hair tied into a comfortable messy bun. And yet, she moved with sweetness even in her being so exhausted.

«Are you hungry?» I said to her, and my voice seemed hoarser than usual, as I approached her in front of the counter, with my fingers touching the fresh wood. When I saw her lift her eyes to me, as if before she had been too busy to pay attention to me, she stopped for a moment in the middle of her activity. The cloth stopped on the shining counter, still between her fingers, and she moved her lips slowly to speak to me softly, as she usually did. Her voice seemed thoughtful.

« I still have ten minutes.» She confirmed to me her being anxious. What moved her at that moment was not only a sense of duty, but something that was devouring her deeply. I had learned to recognize her discomfort even in the small gestures. In the way I touched her before going to sleep, hoping that her body would turn toward me to bring her closer to me and whisper to her that I would stay. I noticed it in the fact that she did not expect too much and every caress on the arm, for her, was like a prize she had to earn. Every kiss, every love confession, for her was a consequence of her behaviors. When you are used to loving unconditionally for too long, without receiving anything in return except disinterest, you grow up with the belief that every form of love is rotten, as long as the other person does not sacrifice every part of themselves to give it to the other. And she had lost everything. Even herself, before finding herself again. Before allowing me to enter her world completely and to teach her what it meant to feel loved, without necessarily having to do something to feel that she was.

And so that day I brought her dinner and planted a kiss on her forehead. And she smiled at me. She looked at me with eyes silently full of surprise. She looked at me with pupils dilated almost as much as a sky full of stars. I was sure that her heart had shrunk from emotion until it became tiny. And then she took off her apron. She gently threw it into the kitchen, where she had always strived to ensure that the community and the people beside her had everything they needed, and then went around the counter to give me a sincere hug. She threw herself into my arms like a child. She almost cried. I felt it from the way her small arms tightened around my neck as if she were afraid of letting me go.

«Stay with me tonight.» She said, while I saw her take her things and close the place after work. Under the rain, she walked in silence ahead of me until her house, where she let me in. Then, between a cup of hot tea and a comfortable pajama, she she sat with her legs to her chest. Her childish cup in her hands and her lips impatient to taste its contents. She beckoned me to come closer to her and I did it, in the silence of that rainy night and by candlelight. I did it, for her.