Unarguably

Una Gonzalez, one of the most normal girls in the world, had my heart. Brown straight hair with natural honey highlights and brown eyes that reminded me of dark coffee, I couldn’t help but wonder what was so special about her. She was five foot seven inches, and average weight, nothing special, just average.

            She works in Petco, selling animal supplies and that’s where I first met her. She seemed so interested in me, and what she sold, and she seemed to love her job. I was buying cat food for my sister while she was picking up her daughters from elementary school. It was a generic conversation with bits of imaginative foreplay intertwined to keep me from realizing she was just another drone trying to sell me things I didn’t need.

            I left that store with mediocre cat food and an urge to come back to the Free Adoption Day event, just so that I might have a chance to see her again. Make more of a conversation with her that had more to do with my life and not my sister’s cat’s dietary habits. It wasn’t just that I wanted to show my ex that I had a life outside of my sister’s life, it was something else. Something that made me want to keep talking to her because there was something about her.

            The next time I saw Una was at the grocery store. She was trudging along the frozen food isle, shoving the grocery cart along as if she were Sisyphus, rolling the rock up the hill for the first time. Well, if Sisyphus was a bored girl. Una’s eyes were blank as she glanced at food in the freezers, and I wondered what would be a good, non-sketchy way to make a conversation with her.

            Let’s just say that the conversation started with an awkward tap on the shoulder, and ended with a weird handshake wave dance that had left me so shell shocked that as I put my food on the shelf for the cashier to scan, I had been grasping at air and placing nothing on the conveyor belt for a few moments before the kid behind me asked if I was okay. I knew it wasn’t her, she was no Angelina Jolie and there was nothing about her that struck me as gold, but I knew it wasn’t me either. I had been around the block before, I had wooed ladies and gotten numbers just because I could. But there was something about Una that made me feel like she was my first conquest, and I couldn’t explain why.

            So, on the Adoption Day event, I went and had a whole plan laid out on how I would be smooth and I knew I would find out why she made me so weird whenever I saw her. I’d find out why I wanted to see her after already seeing her. I had only seen her twice, but both times I had wanted to run back in and have a do-over so that I could ask her out on a date.

            Walking in, I found her first. My heart was beating so quickly that I felt like a criminal on the run and hiding from the cops. She was smiling and petting a Doberman that was missing a leg. I wondered if she would think I was sweet if I adopted it, but shook that thought from my mind. There had to be a reason I was so wound up over her even though she was so ordinary.

            Nothing went as planned. As soon as Una saw me, she gave me this ‘Oh geez, not him’ look and brushed it off with a sparkling smile. I stuttered, tripped, and fell over my words and inquiries. She nodded, replied, and excused herself gracefully to go and assist other customers. I felt like an idiot and left with a bag of dog treats without a second look back.

            That night, a few of my high school friends went to a bar and reminisced while checking out some girls that might give us a night of short bliss and escape. And then I saw her. And I remembered. Una Gonzalez. Seven years ago, when I was on my senior ditch day to Lake Tahoe we had met under the stars at a bon fire party. She had had her hair up with some curled tendrils framing her face. Dark eye liner and red lipstick, a red skirt that bloomed when she twirled and a black tank top that showed off a fairly new tattoo of Icarus falling from the sky. We had danced, kissed, and she was anything but normal that night.

            That night, at the bar, I realized why I had been such an idiot in front of her. She was the one that got away. I had lost her phone number somewhere in my car and had been so upset over it that I forgot about my last four essay assignments. Thankfully, two of my friends reminded me about them the day before they were all due, so I was able to get it all done. But still, she had messed me up.

            Her eyes met mine between the arms, shoulders, and necks of fellow bar patrons and I suddenly felt calm. I felt strong and I didn’t feel like my heart would pound out of my chest. Her eyes fluttered like butterfly wings in slow motion as I stared at her and realized that I was unarguably, undeniably in love with her.