The music coming from the strip was loud and it lured me in; curiosity overcame my introverted nature and I found myself quickly pacing through a crowded bar by the beach. It was one of those nights – a hot breeze passing through; exposed bodies fighting the heat with drinks in hand.

Coming to LA had been a rushed decision – a foolish attempt to run away from the ghosts hovering over my head – and in true honesty, I was but a silly foreigner lost in California dreams; bathing in a summer heat that was odd to my porcelain skin, hoping to find something: anything.

That’s when I saw her – brown hair falling shortly under bare shoulders, a magnetic smile on dangerously delicious lips. She was with friends: pretty valley girls; yet, so extraordinarily unappealing when standing next to her – or maybe I was being unfair – I couldn’t tell.

I was caught in her spell, and she knew it – the bite on her lower lip as we locked eyes told me so. She was well aware of the effect her perfectly shaped body had; but she wasn’t the type to get caught in somebody else’s morals and nothing would keep her from playing with stray hearts – breaking one after the other as she moved freely, yet knowingly on the dancefloor.

She approached me with an extra shot in hand and a playful expression – I felt the beating of my heart increasing as her fingers wrapped themselves around my wrist; but something told me the feeling was one-sided. She wasn’t looking for something – nothing was all she longed for that night – and language was a barrier; but with alcohol already burning in my head, I moved as carefree as she did.

She laughed at my awkward dancing and I laughed with her; finding an unsettling comfort in the way her eyes were shinning and her hands were touching my small frame.

I felt her fingers intertwining in mine as she pulled me away from the crowd all the way into the beach. My clothes scattered on the sand just like hers, as we rushed into the sleeping sea claiming all the freedom in our lungs and desire in our bodies – or was it just me? With eyes shut in contemplation and waves crashing softly against her back, she mumbled things I couldn’t understand; perhaps, she had been trying to wash away her demons – perhaps, I had the need to feel we weren’t as different and as far apart as my blurry mind insisted in stating.

Sitting on the sand with the sun rising in front of us, silence never felt so comforting – a strange girl’s head resting on my shoulder and her hands safely between mine. She suddenly raised herself and faced me with an expression I couldn’t decipher; nor did I get the chance to, as her gaze moved over to my lips and I felt a quick touch of heaven that was gone just as quickly as it arrived – that’s when I realized I didn’t even know her name.

“Your name?”

She giggled at my broken accent – the way her eyes would round up when she smiled was mesmerizing and just as addictive as her husky voice whispering in my ear: Tiffany. She brushed her lips on mine one last time and just like that she was gone – back to her valley girl friends; back to her world that would forever remain a mystery to me – leaving nothing behind, but traces of what would become a fainted memory.

Tiffany was in my every thought, my every desire; she was that something – anything – a delightful piece of California dreams wrapped in denim shorts and faded pink.

But all she wanted was to dance the night away and I was just another song.