I Met Her In The Wild

I met her in the wild. All the others I'd met online. And this one, this real girl standing confidently in the real dimension, was hella fire.

I guess in a way, though, that maybe she was too hot. A year after loving her, she burned me alive inside and left my 20-year-old bro heart in ashes.

I'd been online all day in my Sacramento apartment, gaming and marketing my own OG T-shirt designs. Unfortunately, I had to share the apartment with my moms, and it could get unbearable sometimes. So, before she got home from her nurse's shift around 4:00, I wandered down to the 420 party at the smoke shop on the Old Waterfront.

It was April 20th (4/20) at 4:20 pm when weed lovers of the world unite to smoke the stuff. It's my favorite party of the year. I've been smoking or vaping weed since I was 12.

Anyway, there she was. The tattooed girl with half purple, half pink hair, a nose ring, and gauges in each ear. She was wearing a flimsy little top and black fishnet under her super short belted cutoffs that showed off her tiny waist and cushiony thicc thighs. So lit.

I've never been shy to talk to girls, but shit, bruh. I nearly lost my nerve outside the smoke shop when she started licking a cannabis lollipop. She licked it from bottom to top and swirled the tip of her tongue around the lollipop's rim before she put it back in her mouth. I 'pulled from within' like my grandma used to tell me about overcoming a hardship, and walked my skinny ass up to her.

"Yo. 'Sup?"

"Oh hey. What's going on with you?"

I fell in love at that moment. I know, I know. But onGod, I swear that's all it took.

Daisie and I closed the party, me vaping and her licking. Then we walked along the waterfront and got some loaded fries and Dr. Peppers at the Virgin Sturgeon restaurant. She liked to talk more than me, but I asked more questions than she did.

"How old are you?" Twenty-three.

"What do you do?" Grad student in engineering at Sacramento State.

"Where are you from?" Texas originally, but her parents hated the politics and stifling summers, so they moved when she was little.

"Do you live nearby?" Yes.

"Do you have roommates?" Yes.

"So you have your own room, right?" Yes.

"Do you wanna hookup tonight?" No.

"But I'll text you tomorrow," Daisie promised me. I believed her. She was a girl of her word. In fact, at 23, she was a woman of her word. My moms would be happy to hear that I'm finally referring to females over 18 as women. She was always correcting me.

And I was right; she was a woman of her word. Daisie texted me the next morning to ask if I would go with her to watch the San Francisco Giants play the San Diego Padres that night. And I'm like, wtf? This hot babe wants to go watch baseball? I mean, I played baseball in elementary school but only during recess. I really didn't have much interest in sports. Back then.

But I had plenty of interest in Daisie, so I suddenly had this love for baseball and texted back, "I'm down."

OMG, you should have seen her at the game! She was dressed as smokin' as the day before. And this girl, uh, woman who looked like absolutely nobody there, gave me a play-by-play of the game when she wasn't yelling out phrases like, 'Swing, batter batter, swing!' Daisie's enthusiasm for the game was for reals, but I kinda liked the attention it got her. People were impressed, I could tell. They first looked at her all surprised AF, but then got into the game as much as she did.

The San Francisco Giants hit a grand slam for the win that night.

I did too when we got back to Daisie's apartment.

Afterwards, she sent me home. She said she liked me too much to have me breathing on her while she slept. That sort of thing creeped her out.

We started hanging out a lot at her apartment after that night. She'd go to her classes on campus during the day while I worked and gamed at mine. But, I started to dedicate my time online to marketing my designs, skipping the gaming and social media so I could be out in the wild with Daisie.

It was a great summer that year. We watched a lot of baseball on TV (my new team is now the Giants) and ate a lot of Thai food that Daisie made herself. Her mom was Thai and taught her all about the intricacies of mixing the spices just right, she explained to me. I got pretty good at helping her prep the ingredients, and I learned a lot about how certain foods can be better for you. I was super surprised that I actually kinda liked the taste of weird stuff like lemongrass or pomegranate or peanut sauce. I ended up eating a lot of pad Thai and actually gained some weight on my bony bod.

Sacramento could get hot in the summer, so Daisie, who loved to bicycle, would get up early in the morning and pedal around for an hour or so before her summer classes. She invited me to come with her one day, but I said I'm a late sleeper. Which was true. Back then, I usually didn't get up until a little before noon, but the real reason I told Daisie no was because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to keep up with her on a bike.

I didn't want to miss any chance to be with Daisie. For a whole month, I got up early when my moms did and trained on my new bike. I biked through the streets and in the parks every single day. At first, I could only go for like 15 minutes before I ran out of breath or my legs would start to burn. Motivated by Daisie-love, as I secretly called my feelings for her, I stuck with it.

The first time we rode together that slapping northern California morning, I could tell she was impressed. The early sky was streaked in the colors of Daisie's hair as I whizzed past her, showing off. I gotta admit, her advice to get off smoking into edibles really helped with the heavy breathing needed for this kind of cycling. And other activities. She dragged me back to her apartment where we showered then got all sweaty again.

By the time fall, then winter came around Daisie and I were BBGs and doing pretty much everything together. Except spending the night. She wanted me to get my own base. I mean, she'd already met my moms and liked her and all, but still. I had just turned 20 and needed personal work and living space, Daisie insisted. Preferably upscale like I deserved, she reassured me.

"Babe, I don't have that kind of cash," I said.

"That's because you don't have a plan. I mean, your T-shirt designs are gucci!" Daisie told me typing into her phone.

"But, you got no 'executive summary, company description, market analysis, marketing and sales strategy, organizational structure, operations plan, and financial plan,'" she read off her device.

Ofc, Daisie was right. At her apartment that day and into the night, we worked on my business plan. Using AI, Daisie's intuition, and my experience, we drew up a plan that I have been using for my companies to this day.

After the first fiscal quarter in my newly structured T-shirt design business, I took Daisie to Thailand. I had never been out of the States before and Daisie tried her best to tell me that life was different, but I was hit hard. The people. The language. The food. The music. I loved it all. And I loved Daisie even more for it.

When we got back to my penthouse apartment in Sacramento, I came down with a bad case of wanderlust. I pulled up all sorts of world maps on my screen and Daisie and I planned our next trips while we were still in a jet-lagged fog. Zanzibar. Montevideo. Bratislava.

I did end up going to all those places and many more. Like I bought season tickets for the Giants and went to all the home games. And like I bought the finest road bikes and rode every morning. And like I only enjoy fresh, wholesome foods at home and in restaurants.

Just without Daisie.

She said I was ready. That I had come a long way. In just over a year.

Daisie told me that when we first met, she saw my 'potential'. "Wait..what?! I was just some grad student engineering project of yours?" I said, angry with her for the first time.

"No, babe. I was talking about your potential to recognize possibilities. Real ones. Not just that skibidi brain rot in gaming and in social media. And I was right. Look at all you do in the real world that you didn't do before. Best of all though...you're really rizz now. It's wild!"

Ofc, Daisie was right. Again.

My life was 90% online before I met her in the wild.

And with Daisie's love and life's nourishment, I, myself, was finally released back into the wild to live free.

I was ready.

I am ready.