“Tall caramel frappe with extra caramel no whip cream.” I couldn’t help but notice the tone of her voice, so I decided to take a glance at her real quick. She has dark brown hair, freckles, tall, probably like 5’6.

“And your name?” asks the barista. I quickly look away in case she looks around after answering.

“Mariana.”

A Spanish name. Her total came out as $5.44 and she paid with her card. She took two small steps to the right, tucking her card into her wallet and indicating the person behind her, aka me, could order. I repeat her same order and tried to play it off as if I had no idea she’d gotten that same drink two seconds ago. From the corner of my eye, I saw her look back and stare at me for a second. I didn’t make any eye contact with her and just pulled out my wallet.

“Your name?”
“Tyler.”

The Starbucks cashier told me my drink would be ready to the right of the store so I turned and headed towards the pickup section. The moment I turned right, I made eye contact with Mariana. She had green blueish eyes that made me want to look into them all day. I only looked for a second before apologizing for almost walking into her and heading off to wait for my drink. About 5 minutes after being on twitter on my phone I heard the barista call her name.

I locked my phone, put it in my pocket, and waited because I was after her. About a minute later my drink came out, so I grabbed it and headed out of Starbucks. Right when I turned towards the door I couldn’t help but look around, hoping to see those eyes one last time, but she wasn’t in the shop anymore. A little butt hurt that I didn’t get to talk to her, I left Starbucks and headed towards the dog park because it was 10:12 am and I had nothing better to do than go look at some dogs.

I start walking down Virginia Street and end up at the dog park, which is packed with dogs and dog owners. I walk through the gate making sure that it closes correctly so that no dog can escape. I walk towards a metal bench and took a seat just enjoy the weather and watch people play with their dogs. There was a Great Dane the size of my life in there. I swear that if that dog could stand up on two legs, the dog would be about 7 feet tall, and I’m 6’3. I take a look around the dog park just to see all the owners and whose dog is whose. Directly across from me on the other side of the park, sitting on another bench, is her. She was here. My heart starts to race a bit and I just looked at her for the moment because she was looking at her phone. She looked up and caught me looking, I feel like such a f***ing stalker. One I ordered the same dink as her and two I ended up at the same place as her. Like hey Tyler, just pull up to her house after this and watch her through her window. Ok what the f*** am I thinking I swear you’re not like this stop.

I pulled out my phone just so I looked occupied and don’t just keep looking at her. About a minute after a dog started barking at another dog and the two started fighting. It got pretty bad because one of the owners tried to stop the fight and the other dog bit the guy. His fault in my opinion. I shadow came across me and I looked forward to see what it was. It was her.

“Hello,” I said in the shakiest, most whipped voice you could think of. “How are you?”

She doesn’t say anything for about 15 seconds and then said, “I’m good, Tyler.” She said that with such a strong attitude but in a funny way. She must’ve remembered my name from when I had told the cashier it for my drink. “I couldn’t help but notice you try to look away from looking at me thinking I won’t see you. I sat there and thought that I might as just come up and talk to you since you ordered the same drink as me and posted up at the same place I’m at.” I laughed because it was true.

“Look Mariana,” I gave her the same type of attitude she gave me, “the drink thing was to try and get your attention but to pull up at the same spot as you wasn’t planned.”

“Mhm,” she gave me a curious look and asked, “What’s your sign?”
“Are you really one of those?” I asked annoyingly.
“Yes I really am one of those, what’s your sign?”

I swear she was forcing me to tell my sign and if I didn’t she’ll kill me. “I’m a Capricorn.”
“Mhm, seems understandable” she said that like if she knows me so well I swear I’m boutta f***ing-

“We’ve been talking for about 2 minutes how could you let astrology determine who I am?” I said this jokingly but I honestly hate astrology so much. It’s the dumbest s*** ever, how’s a star is going to tell you who I am?
“Because most of this the time its right about a person. Can I sit here?” I didn’t know how to feel when she asked to sit next me. Her eyes were already one thing to look at and now I get to look at them constantly in a single conversation.

“Go ahead.”
“Tell me about yourself, you seem interesting.” I didn’t really understand what she meant by “I seem interesting” but whatever.
“What do you want to know?”

“Tell me about yourself, your background, and your interests.”

“Well, my name is Tyler Okonma and I’m from San Diego. My parents are Africans but they came over to the U.S. and then they had me in San Diego. Lived there for about a year then moved over to Colorado. When I turned 16 I started working and when I turned 18 I moved over here to Miami.” She cut me off before I could start telling her things I’m interested in.

“You’re from California! I want to go there so bad! I came from Cuba from a pretty poor family. The only thing I had was school. I graduated with a 3.9 gpa and was in tons of clubs and all that just so I could get the acceptance to UCLA but they didn’t accept me.” Once she said that I felt a little bad because she actually worked really hard for something she wanted and she couldn’t get it because one person didn’t accept them.

“What did you want to study there?” It made me extremely curious.

“I want to be a pediatric surgeon, but even though I didn’t make it into UCLA, I go to UM now on a full ride scholarship.” God damn! I ain’t ever met someone so beautiful yet so smart at the same time. The only problem with me is that I’m a loser and I don’t have anything interesting about me besides the fact that I work at a shoe store, if that’s even interesting.

“Oh nah, I’m not really doing anything like that. I go to college for music production but it’s nothing much you know like it’s just a dream of mine to do something with music but so far nothing is coming my way and I’m still living the same life I had when I was in Colorado. Working all the time, not doing so good in school, surprised I even made it into college in the first place with just a 3.0 gpa and barely any extracurricular activities at all.”
“Come on, that’s sounds extremely cool! I’ve only met a couple people with the music dream but they all kind of gave up on it senior year of high school. Maybe one day you could show me some of your music?” that made me feel nervous, I don’t really show anyone my music, let alone tell anyone I make music. I think everything I make is terrible and I get insecure about it all the time so I just keep everything to myself.

“Yeah of course! We could hang out again maybe. Where do you live by?” I don’t usually say things like this. I’m normally such a wimp and don’t do anything with any females at all but I guess for some reason my mind was telling me to go for it. She said she stayed kind of far down south but that’s ok, she told me she has a car and I do too. After some extra little small talk, we exchanged numbers and she said she had to go. We gave each other a kiss on the cheek and she gave me a cute, light smile right before she turned around to walk to wherever she parked her car. I couldn’t help but look at her as she was walking away and think “Damn that butt is fat.”