The beach was really busy today. Katya should have foreseen it; the sun came out for the first time this week. The Stripe, as the locals called it, was absolutely packed with people both on the sand and in the water. She’d originally planned to spend several hours here, but was quickly changing her mind as it was just too much. Too many loud and obnoxious people.

So, she arrived, she lied under the sun for a bit, and then she decided to go for a nice swim. The water was fantastic, although she had to get away from the shore due to avoid most of the kids with their inflatable toys and water pistols. She spent maybe half an hour in the water, swimming, splashing and occasionally going for a dive to try and fish out a nice shell or stone. Didn’t really end up with anything, but it was fun.

She left the water and started trudging through the crowd back to where she left her things; for a moment she even panicked because she wasn’t sure she’d be able to find her sun bed. As she was making her way in the direction that she thought was right, a group of kids emerged to her right, screaming and chasing each other. Katya involuntarily jumped to the side, making way. She felt something under her foot then… someone else’s foot. Her heel landed squarely on someone’s toes. She heard a hiss of anger.

Katya turned around to see that she accidentally almost bumped into a young curly-haired man; a local, judging by the color of his skin. It was his toes she accidentally stepped on. The sand probably cushioned it, she reasoned, but still went red under the man’s glare. She tried to come up with a quick excuse.

Her brain decided to take the long way around. At one point in her life Katya was a middle-schooler in Russia. She remembered queueing up for lunch - or during PE classes. Stepping on someone’s foot was a common occurrence. The code of honor among kids her age was to offer an opportunity to return the “favor”. They’d say: “sorry, now you step on mine”, putting their own foot forward, and the other person would rarely miss the opportunity to give a good return stomp. All in good fun.

So that’s where Katya’s mind went, and that was the signal it send to her lips, and that’s what she tried to vocalise - but she was still only a recent arrival in this English-speaking country, and she was a bit flustered because of the way this guy was looking at her, and so instead she muttered:

“Sorry, you can step on me”.

And sheepishly took a little step back, realizing a moment later that she misspoke.

The guy looked around - she noticed then that he wasn’t alone, he had several friends, also male, also jock-types - and shrugged.

“If you insist”, he said, and then Katya’s world went out with a bang.