He squeezed her hand as the first pink tinges of sunrise reached the clouds where they perched just above the mountains. "See?" he said. "I told you we'd make it."

She smiled. Somewhere inside, she had known the whole time that he was right and that there was nothing to be scared of, but somewhere along the way she let go of her normal, sensible, self and was conquered by terror. She surveyed the wreckage last night's storm had left in its wake. She looked at the fallen tree nearby, which had just barely missed the truck by a few inches -- yet, miraculously, the paint wasn't even scratched. She remembered hearing the tree fall sometime in the night, and trying not to scream as the howling wind knocked over something so tall and majestic, so seemingly immovable. That was when he had reached over and grabbed her hand, held it tight till the storm abated. Now as they watched the spectacular sunrise and gathering dawn, he let go of it, opened the door, and stepped out of the truck to survey the rain-soaked ground. She followed him out and gazed off into the distance with him.

"Well," he said, "think the roads are dry enough?" She nodded, looking into the distance at what had seemed lakes, but had now diminished into puddles on the worn dirt road. He smiled at her. "Okay then. Let's get you home."

He looked over at her as he was driving. She was gazing out the window, hands folded absentmindedly in her lap.

"What are you thinking about?" he inquired.

"I was thinking that this turned out to be a very interesting first date," she said, smiling.

"Good interesting... or bad interesting?" he asked hesitantly.

She turned away from the window to look at him. He noticed the piercingly blue color of her eyes. "I guess we'll just have to wait and see."

"So... do you want to do another... sometime?"

She grinned. "Definitely."

So here is the first story of a budding love, the kind of story they might tell their kids about -- how they got trapped in a gigantic storm on the way back from their first date to the movies -- though after all these years, neither of them remember what movie it was.

Or maybe not. Maybe he broke her heart on their one-year dating anniversary by saying he wanted to move on to something new. Maybe they went to college on opposite sides of the country and slowly lost touch and realized it was never meant to be. Maybe her parents freaked out at her when she got back home about how she was out all night with "that crazy boy," and forbade her to speak to him again. But I think I speak for all hopeless romantics when I say that we like to think that it worked out and they lived happily ever after.