The two hit the road shortly after four in the afternoon. Greta left first, in Daros's Jeep. He followed her closely, as agreed, in the rented vehicle. Turning on the stereo, she identified the last song played as being by Guns N' Roses, though it wasn't one of the band's most popular songs. She pressed back to hear it from the beginning. She barely noticed that her curiosity about the strange man was growing.

  The melody acted as a time portal to some day in the late '90s. Her parents didn't have much time for her or her sisters, but they did what they could. At the time, Greta was an Axl Rose fan, like almost all rebellious girls. Her sisters were still fans of well-behaved boy bands, but not Greta. Never Greta. She was the type of girl with few words and always-scraped knees. Her father paid an adult companion to take her to an event that would show a band concert on the big screen. It was one of the best birthday presents she remembered.

  Except the remaining memories from that afternoon weren't about the band. Not about the Guns vocalist. She remembered a handsome young man doing the sound check. He must have been four or five years older than her. It was enough to make him a man, even if his face didn't yet show signs of facial hair. He carried boxes and wires back and forth with the agility of experience. Now and then he wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, tossing his disheveled hair back in the process.

  It was a hypnotic sight. Greta didn't look at the big screen for long: she was afraid of missing some movement of the young employee if she got distracted. He was everything she thought the right guy should be. Independent, courageous, free. He walked as if nothing else existed. He walked without seeing the passions he awakened. He went back and forth as if the music wasn't playing. As if no one was there. She had no way of knowing at the time what she was feeling, but she knew years later, when she had the right tools. She'd fallen in love.

  There's a touch of eternity in platonic loves, Greta knew now. Each of them is a road that time doesn't destroy, because it never led to known paths, nor to real landscapes.

  When Knockin' on Heaven's Door began to play, she realized she'd lost sight of the young man. Her heart ached with the loss. Restless, she looked at her companion, completely absorbed in the show on the big screen. She was a girl not much older than Greta herself, but with the benefits of adulthood and a driver's license.

  A pang of loss tightened her chest. She scanned the faces around her, desperate for a familiar one. When she met the interested gaze of just any boy on her, she became annoyed. There was nothing bold about them, nothing untamable. They were people like her, and she couldn't fall in love with a mirror.

  Axl Rose reached center stage. Black screen-printed T-shirt, the number 22 on his chest, a red bandana folded taming the long red hair. He said something like "This means separated." Greta was already the best student in the English course. She listened carefully. The first chords of "Estranged" filled the club. And she followed the bluish beam of light leading to the projector. There was the mysterious young man, his attention turned to the screen, a cigarette burning on his lips.

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  Driven by the fear of losing sight of him once more, Greta stood up. She walked resolutely to the projection table. She dodged groups swaying slowly to the ballad's rhythm, skirted young couples kissing. The blue light was all that mattered.

  The young man looked at the screen with vague interest. He took a long drag on the cigarette and threw it on the floor, extinguishing the flame with the tip of his hiking boot, oblivious to the newcomer. Greta felt like a dog that barks at a motorcycle and doesn't know what to do when it stops. She had no experience with boys, and knew even less what to do with boys like that. So, taking a deep breath, she climbed the two steps leading to that small lighting booth.

  Seeing her there, the young man stood up. He was much taller than her, and even more handsome seen up close. Now, so close, the heat his body emitted threatened to burn everything in her. Her mind, her chest, and her determination. His eyes were clear as a sky that knows no rain, and deep as the first secret kept. The moment lasted no more than a few seconds, but memory preserved the encounter like a piece of infinity.

  He leaned down to shorten the distance between them. The question was captured by her ear, but not registered by consciousness until much later, when the time for shame arrived. She projected herself forward and kissed the boy's mouth. The lips were soft and warm, but also motionless. The kiss wasn't returned at any moment.

  Opening her eyes right away, she found his eyes blinking, surprised. The young man pushed her away gently and said something like helping her find her parents. She didn't hear well, nor did she want to. She felt humiliated. The dreams of love inside her shattered like glass, and each shard embedded itself in her heart. The young man was left behind, the song was left behind, the whole club was left behind. Greta walked hurriedly outside, where night hadn't yet fallen. She bumped into two boys and even thought about apologizing, but didn't feel firmness in her voice to do so.

  Something in her had gone away. With time, she realized the young man was right. She was just a girl: in his eyes, a child. But the rejection hurt for a long time. Greta grew up imagining she wasn't made for boys like that. Maybe she was destined for boys like her, with schedules to go to school, always clean and ironed clothes in the closet, companions for concerts, time to go home, study routines. Maybe it was ridiculous to expect anything else. Her world was that one. Dreaming of another was a waste of time.

  It wasn't overnight that her rebelliousness died. It's just that it no longer made sense. So Greta started to look more like her sisters, and then like all the other girls at school. At least on the outside. Inside she reserved space for the hope of a different life.

  The irony of it didn't go unnoticed. Decades after that big screen concert, she was on the road to the unknown, closely followed by a stranger. Now, the adventure was hers, the unpredictable path was hers. She turned up the volume and opened the window to feel the wind on her face. Sometimes, the things that attract us in others are those that would transform us into what we wanted to be. And now, behind the Jeep's wheel, she felt she'd become the impetuous boy she'd desired so much.

  The question asked by the young man that distant afternoon had been simple, and it was the first time Greta thought about the phrase without the weight of shame.

  "Need help?"

  Yes, she did. She needed to find herself on that occasion, and continued the search through the following years. She didn't know which way to go for a long time. Until now. Deep in her mind, she was certain she'd heard the same question very recently, but couldn't remember from whom.

  Through the rearview mirror, she noticed the HB20's light signal, almost as if the rebelliousness of the past had missed Greta, deciding to say hello.