June 23rd

I hate weddings. I’m just not a fan. Everything about them makes me nervous. What if he drops the ring? What if it doesn’t fit? Is that a rain cloud? Someone’s got to secure that giant piece of poster board that keeps flying away. I guess it’s beautiful, I get it. it signifies eternal unity, but I feel like that could be done without putting on a show that, if you fuck it up, will be the only thing talked about at the reception as your guests stuff their faces with grabcakes and champagne.

That’s why seventeen-year-old me didn’t go to my girlfriend’s aunt’s wedding. Girlfriend’s aunt! Who cares! I was seventeen and had better things to be doing, like going to graduation parties and thinking of schemes to get myself out of this terrible relationship. I came up with all the right excuses, it’s not me it’s you… I want to focus on myself… I feel like we’d be better off separated… I’d thought of a million of ‘em, but still, as I drove to that graduation party while the groom was probably saying “I do,” I kept inventing reasons. I don’t remember why, maybe seventeen-year-old me needed a reason to put himself first, but I distinctly recall feeling terrible about what I was about to do, even if I had plenty of excuses. So as I parked my piece of shit 2003 Toyota Celica at one of the biggest houses I’ve ever seen (Ivy trellises, Range Rovers, basketball hoop, etc.), I knew I was basically going into this party single. I definitely wasn’t, but that’s what I told myself. I’ll break up with her in the morning… she’s already pissed at me for not going to the wedding, I doubt she’ll even be upset. I looked the brass lion knocker in the eye as I rapped on the door with its curled tail. I was filled with guilt, but not too much guilt. 

Now, at this point in my life, I was a hardened cynic, my view crushed into one of pessimism by the endless demands of junior year in suburban Wisconsin, so I didn’t believe in love at first sight, or true love, or solemates. None of that shit. But for some reason, whether it be my soon-to-be-acquired freedom or my lack of impulse control, I found myself drawn to a girl eating a burger with such ferocity it honestly frightened me. She was the kind of girl you see once, then think about for the rest of your life. I didn’t even care that she had ketchup on her lips and lettuce between her teeth. I had to know more, needed to know more. I knew she was an exchange student; my friend had told me. 

“Where are you from?”

“Spain.” 

And those five words were the only ones we shared the whole party. I was there for close to five hours, and although my gaze would get stuck on hers, and my heart felt like it was going to pop when she looked at me, and the butterflies in my stomach could’ve lifted me off the ground, I couldn’t get anything else out. And after she left I thought she was going to be one of those girls you see once, then think about for the rest of your life. But then I remembered I was single. In my infinite teenage wisdom, I knew I couldn’t possibly ask my friend for her number, no, that would make me a cheater. And I didn’t want to be that. So instead I asked for everyone at the party’s number, sifted through all of them, then found the one. Ona. I remember saying her name out loud, like I was expecting heavenly trumpets and cherubs to fall from heaven as I said it. 

So the next morning, after my (actually very much upset) ex-girlfriend left. I made my move. 

“Is this Ona?” I texted her.

“Who is this?”

I had already managed to fuck up. But by the grace of God, or whatever else was looking out for me, she forgave my error. And somehow she saw me the same way I saw her. I wondered if she said my name and expected the birds to start singing, or if she saw me shoveling cocktail weenies into my mouth at that party and thought I need him. I doubt it. Anyways, the point was that we both liked each other, but neither of us would admit it. Under normal circumstances that’s not a terrible situation to be in, but these circumstances were not normal; she was going back to Spain in two weeks. I had to fast-track the shit out of this romance. 

“Do you know who Steve Aoki is?” she asked me one day. 

I googled it because I didn’t know, then said, “Of course, I love his music.”

“I’m going to his concert later this week? Do you want to come?”

“I already have tickets!” I said after going online and buying tickets. 

I was not a forthright teenager, but who was? Anyways, the concert was great, and I discovered A) who Steve Aoki was, and B) that I really did like his music. I think I also discovered what love was that day too, but I didn’t realize it at the time. I did realize, however, that I like liked this girl, so I asked her if it was alright if I kissed her, and she said yes, and I kissed her. I don’t know if it was the residual adrenaline from the concert, or sleep-deprived deliriousness, or true love, but when she pressed her lips against mine I thought I was gonna die. My head felt like it punched through the sunroof of my Toyota and my heart was playing a beat that rivaled Steve Aoki’s on my ribcage. It was, I think, the only time in my life thus far where I could use the word ‘elation’ and really mean it. 

And that elation lasted. It’s still lasting. It carried me through my senior year of high school, it carried me through learning Spanish and Catalan for her, it carried me through telling my parents I wanted to forgo studying astrobiology at Arizona State and instead move to Spain to study education. Shit, it carried me through writing this essay. She changed me on a fundamental level. I didn’t know what it was at the time, but I think I’m old enough to know now. Don’t tell seventeen-year-old me but… I think it was true love.