They first saw each other at a class in the Redeemer Fellowship Church basement. It was February; they made eye contact; that was it.

In March, Deryn popped up in Adam's suggested friends list on Facebook (bless the algorithm) and he sent her a friend request. They both remembered the eye contact, and immediately started discussing English literature. Deryn had left Boston for Louisville the week before lockdown; Adam was in Florida; they started sending each other Jane Austen memes.

By April, they were embroiled in a sometimes heated exchange over some finer points of protestant reformed theology. The conversation crossed through emails and texts and phone calls, and they continued to discuss poetry and books and ideas, and debate and consider and refine, until they decided to also think about a relationship. It was in tentative stages until July, when Adam came back to Cambridge to pack up his dorm.

In July, Adam and Deryn met again in person. Deryn had to get home early. He was giving her some books, so she managed to see him again the next day; but the course of true love never did run smooth. He thought she was friend-zoning, she thought he gave her the brush-off. They had a further miscommunication over text, and figured it was all over.

By August, it just wasn't over, and Adam called to check in and say, "Hey: I'm still interested, so if you want to give it a shot in the next few weeks or months, just give me an indication." And Deryn said, "...Can this be my indication?"

On October 31, they watched the sun rise over the beach at St. Augustine. Walking to brunch, they passed a palm-treed courtyard with lights and a koi pond and a mossy stone bridge. Deryn said, "Oh my gosh, a bridge! I want to walk on it!" Then Adam knelt down, said several things that neither of them remembers, and asked her to marry him.

She said yes, and they got complimentary celebratory champagne at brunch.