My name is Lina. I’m twenty years old, a senior majoring in design, and people often tell me I seem older than my age.
Maybe it’s because I grew up with just my mother—strong, resilient, and unwavering. My father passed away early, and she never remarried. She worked endlessly to raise me on her own.
During a volunteer program in Guadalajara, I met Santiago, the logistics coordinator. He was more than twenty years my senior—gentle, calm, and someone whose words carried a depth I wasn’t used to. At first, I simply respected him as a colleague, but gradually, my heartbeat changed whenever I heard him speak.
Our relationship unfolded slowly—quiet, genuine, without chaos. He treated me with patience and tenderness, as if I were something delicate he wanted to protect. People whispered, wondering why a twenty-year-old girl would fall for a man two decades older, but I didn’t care. With him, I felt safe.
One day, he told me,
“I want to meet your mother. I don’t want us to hide anymore.”
My stomach tightened. My mother was strict and cautious, but I believed that if our love was real, I shouldn’t be afraid.
So I brought him home. Santiago wore a white shirt and held a bouquet of marigolds—the flowers I’d mentioned were my mother’s favorite. I held his hand as we walked through the old gate of our house in Tlaquepaque. My mother was watering her plants when she saw us.
