Hi, sorry it's been a very long time since I last wrote and I am really sorry about it and I won't try to excuse myself as it will be useless, unless you have a French friend or someone that is in the French system and he or she has told you how stressful and terrible the period from January to April is, but you do have a dark month where all the mock final exams and stuff fall, right? Anyway I hope you will like it.

The dark sea and the sand, coloured of ashes, was overtaken by the warm lights of the city, the colours of yellow, white, red, green and also silver, from the all mighty moon, gave, in Athena's opinion, a shade of bohème to the night. Athena kept thinking the words of Poseidon, unsure how she had to interpret the meaning; she didn't know what to think about the boy that lightly held her hand, leading her to where God knows what…It didn't matter anyway, she had sent guys away without thinking of it twice, Poseidon was a friend, that's it. She quickly forgot the whole business. She focused her attention on the streets and the people that started to leave the bars…Tonight's match didn't to have gone pretty well…

Suddenly Poseidon dragged her inside a less crowded street. She immediately found herself in front of a candy shop. It was curious that at this advanced hours of the night the shop was still open; red and blue neons, quite typical actually, lighted the three meters square that surrounded the magazine. Mountains and mountains of candy, chocolate and who knows what else, seemed to make the shelves crack under their weight as a band of kids with an adult looked with gluttony and excitement at the candy world's land in front of their nose. Their hands suddenly rose pointing firmly some nubes or chupa-chups and so many other things she had forgotten the names from.

Poseidon peeked inside the shop through the glass door. He turned towards her, smiling like a child and said as he opened the door:

- Come on. I want you to meet someone.

- Hum, I don't like candy, Pos.

- It's okay. I haven't brought you here to eat. – He winked at her, making her slightly blush; she walked right behind him. The door closed with the cling-cling of a bell. Very original.

- Ah, Poseidon. What brings you here? – The man that spoke was a tiny old man, his skin was so tanned it gave him this aura of a man that stayed and worked outside all day. With black hair and dark eyes, strong large hands, a wrinkled face that witnessed the long hours he spent in the sun made her doubt that the candy shop was his real job or at least usual. Poseidon walked forward and shook vigorously his hand.

- Hello Nereus. I came here to introduce Athena, the girl that arrived yesterday. From Salamanca. – The man, turned, smiling brightly at her.

- Hello, Athena ain't you? You're the ones stayin' at Vicente's, right? – He calmly offered his hand, his smile still washing over his face, deepening the wrinkles of his face. She accepted his strong and bony hand, returning him his smile.

- Yes. With my parents.

- You know you look familiar to me?

- Really?

- Yes. Did you ever come here before?

- No, my mother's from here, maybe that's why.

- Oh, really?

- Yes, she wanted to come back because... – Athena's mouth remained open before she found out how tied up her throat was. She swallowed again before answering. – My mother's got cancer. She wanted to live her last year of life out of a hospital. – She momentously clenched her jaw. – She wanted to come back to her born city before it all ended. – The silence that followed made her aware of the six pairs of eyes that had suddenly turned towards them. A child turned towards the woman that accompanied them and asked her something she didn't really understood except one word, somehow transformed by the accent: cancer.

- I'm sorry, Athena. – Nereus immediately said. She nodded her thanks. She looked at Poseidon who just looked at her sadly, keeping his silence to himself. She observed how his left hand got lost inside his pocket as his right rose to, unconsciously, ran through his hair. – I'm really sorry. What's her name? I might know her.

- Metis.

- Metis! Oh good Lord! That girl has come back; I hoped I had known earlier! – He laughed, a nostalgic smile playing over his lips as he continued on his sudden excitement, turning to look at Poseidon. – She always came on Monday's afternoons, asking every time the same. By the way, I think I'll give you a pack for her.

- Hum, no, it's not…

- Of course it is! – The man had already taken a little sac and ran through the shelves taking some of this, some of that and it's okay you don't have to pay tonight. Athena turned to stare at Poseidon who smirked slightly at Nereus' frenetic moves. – There, here it is. – He said as he closed to sac, winking at her. – Come back anytime.

- Hum thanks but…

- No, no. Don't worry she will understand. Tell her it's from her old friend, Nereus. Now off you go and have fun.

- Is he always like that? – She asked ones they were outside and the humidity of the air slammed against her skin.

- Yes. Every day. – Poseidon smiled.

- Why did you wanted me to meet him?

- Because it's one of my favourite spots.

- And why is that?

- Bah, I love sweets and he's a really good guy; besides, he's like my father.

- Huh sure, feeling a little bit like a child, Pos? – Poseidon decided to play along showing her his big kiddo smile.

- Yes! – She huffed suppressing a laugh and the strong feeling of just stopping in her tracks to stare at his mesmerizing eyes.

- So where are we going now?

- Apollo's flat, I bet the others will have arrived by now.

Apollo's flat was a small ground floor with rounded walls that smelled odd for inhabiting a teenager; the varnished furniture returned the warm golden light of the few lamps that still were on as close to thirty teens laughed, screaming over the electronic cheap music that turned the atmosphere of the flat to pure madness, breaking completely with the appearance of the apartment; and making the streets and the bars look silent in compare. Athena stood there for a while a bit lost at the high volume of the radio and the shades of smoke that circled and stood as shifting columns. She let Poseidon guide her, pushing her softly from behind towards the living room.

An Apollo, that seemed to have come out of a painting of Rembrandt, his smile warm like the smell of alcohol that sputtered out of his lips as he offered his hand and a chope of beer, bought in the supermarket next street, without being of age. She let the beer fill her mouth with its fizzing texture.

The party kept going with its head taking rhythm, the high falling beat of the electronic music, the faces that appeared as quickly as they faded away in the darkness; the air, every second thicker. The ball suspended in the air by a rope that they tried to make move and turn over it-self by whacking it with their hands until it almost fell to the floor. But those lights were nothing for Poseidon, meaningless, pale reflecting moons of the sun that shone next to Artemis. As the first drunks started to run to towards the toilet or the street to empty and refill once they went inside he couldn't help staring at the smiling girl that laughed next to the extroversive and opened sailor that made half of the audience clap and scream her name as she exploded through the dance floor with her slender and tanned body. In comparison Athena was smaller, under control; but she somehow seemed innocent, young; like that flower that flourishes at the first rays of the sun. Or the one that lets the few falls of rain slide through its tender flesh. Her black hair, held in a long and heavy ponytail, hit harmoniously her shoulders, like leaves sweetly pushed by the wind. (Yeah well I was working on a poem of Ronsard with all its message of Carpe diem and how the poet is immortal thanks to his work and how the woman he loves ends up becoming a rose – don't ask – so it kind of influenced my writing)

His throat tightened at the sight of the young women dancing in the center of the room as Aphrodite and Demeter joined them. Somehow he locked eyes with Artemis who gave him a knowing wink which he answered with a lopsided smile. She pushed her brows up with an inviting gesture; smirking he pushed himself up from the wall, leaving the plastic gob on the table as Artemis called him, throwing her arms in the air as he made sign to the guys to stop staring and talking. Zeus emptied his gob in one glop before standing and pushing a few guys amicably that were in front of him before walking over the chairs reaching the centre of the room and call out for Hera. Suddenly the main room seemed excessively crowded for Poseidon that danced a badly and too energetic salsa that had lost all its esthetic, as they switched to reggae and then to the anarchistic and descabellaus movements of electronic music with a laughing Athena, that accidently bumped against him every time she didn't managed to follow his crazy movements.

Pourquoi tu gâches ta vie? Dance, dance, dance! Elle me dit: dance, dance… The particularly childish and recognizable esthetic of Mika suddenly cut the air like a lost arrow that leaves the string, nervous and energic, and shines as bright as the moon as it appears from the sea at the first hour of mourn.

It was well past three a.m. when they left the flat smiling and thanking Apollo. Poseidon didn't want to let Athena's hand anymore and felt a strange tingle of reticent in his stomach of the simple thought of letting it go. Thankfully she didn't seem to mind, she even pressed herself against his chest as she stumbled a bit with him.

- No way! The goddess of wisdom can't help getting drunk? – He mocked.

- Shut up, you-don' wanna know wha' a little flop…'mean-flower can-do!

- What?

- You-idiot! Eat ya!

- Sure! – He answered laughing. – I'd pay to see that! – Athena must have been less drunk than she seemed, puffing a laugh she turned to look at him, her face serious, although she still seemed quite light-headed:

- Should I consider that as flattery? – He raised his eyebrows.

- Does it seem as it? – Athena stumbled again, making him roar in laughter.

- Hey! Don'laugh!

- Why?

- Don' laugh't-me!

- Sweet Jesus, 'thena, you need to calm down! You can't go back home like this!

- Boff! They've seen me c'me-back worse! No'ev'n-able to grab a key! – The picture of Athena palming the floor in search of her keys as she muttered thousands of self-made curses seemed too close to the parody to stop him from falling down to the floor laughing.

Finally they both more or less recovered, as I said: more or less. It was almost four in the morning when they reached their street singing at the rhythm of Sueño de una noche de verano with: Hoy, fin de semana, purrito de marihuana…

- Per l'amor de Déu! Voleu fer el favor de callar! – An eldery-woman screamed appearing over her balcony, her face plastered with the shape of her bed-sheets, as if she'd tried to bring them with her to demonstrate how irresponsible and annoying those ninis of teens were, who had nothing else to do than sing as the rosy-fingered dawn started to rise and show the way to that hard twisted Greek hero: Ulysses, that always left: happy to escape death but crying the friends who died, who ended up being every-one; good Homer that had nothing else to do than traumatize thousands of little students of literature in their eleventh year of life.

- Perdoni vostè. No voliem despertar-la

- Mostra més respecte jove! *– She left the balcony closing brutally the door.

- What's all tha' bout? – Athena asked.

- Nothing she just screamed at us for singing…

- I kinda 'nderstood that.

- …And I "apologized".

- D'you mean?

- That I kinda insult her.

- Pos!

- No'ing big! Just mocked her. – She puffed. They stayed in an absent and calm silent for a long minute.

- I should get home.

- Yeah. – They stayed in silence for another long minute. – Well. – He sighed. – See you tomorrow.

- See you.

- And Athena…about your mother…I'm sorry.

- Don't worry...it's fine.

- You sure?

- Yeah...it's just tha-it's hard no' to look at her without feeling the pain.

- Maybe you should do the same thing.

- What?

- Live it, enjoy it to the end. We've only got one mother. Don't let her go thinking that you don't love her as much as you did before her predicament appeared. Do it for her. – Athena staggered, as her eyes filled with tears and they cowered in front of his as she let his hands over her shoulders. – Do it for yourself. No one wants to live on with a mother's conscience over his shoulders, 'thena.

(*) if there's something in common between oral Spanish and Catalan is that you CAN'T (unless you want to laugh at someone) use the term of "politesse" that is present in French with the "vous"; so never use "vos" and it's verbal terminology is Spanish, guys (in Spain, I have no idea in Latino-América, I won't enter in that but if you know just tell me). I'm just telling you that because my Spanish teacher almost screamed at me for using it a week ago :S. But I also know that you were dying to know.

Okey so here it is, see you in June…or not. -v-v-v-va-a-a-a- Aifos di Cambri