Meeting

In the winter of 2017, Dave, Bean, and Travis decided on a cross country road trip, from Baltimore Maryland to Denver Colorado. I was living in Atlanta at the time and planned to fly in to meet them in Kansas City. This was where Dave’s Fiancee was from, and the idea was that all of us would meet at her apartment and hit the town for new year’s eve. We had to wait to go out, Katelyn had a friend who was also driving cross country to us. I rolled my eyes, everyone was cooped up inside on new year’s eve.

It wasn’t love at first site. She’d been driving for 16 hours straight and looked the part. To be fair, I was laying across the couch in sweatpants; half-asleep and adjacent to several empty beers. So not quite fireworks.

After everyone had cleaned up (and we’d convinced her to come out with us), we went to Up-Down to start the new years eve celebrations. We immediately hit it off over a semi-competitive game of ski-ball. We joked and laughed all night long. I kept one of the tokens from the ski-ball game, it’s by her beside now. I’ll never forget that night.

The First Kiss

The next morning, we were all scattered about the couches, air mattresses, and recliners in the living room when we woke up. Almost immediately, we set to cleaning the new year’s eve debris and packing for our trip to Colorado. We’d be leaving Hilary and Katelyn behind and the more I thought about the permanence of that departure the more I grew uncomfortable with the idea. Which was ridiculous. Regardless of a fun night together, Hilary would soon go back to New York and I’d leave for Atlanta. We’d be much better off in our local dating pools. On and on I went, packing my things and talking myself out of making any moves. Yet, no matter how much sense I’m making to myself something won’t stop gnawing at me. And I tell myself it’s nothing even as I’m risking glances at Hilary.

I offer to take suitcases downstairs. I load up the car, I reorganize what I’ve loaded. I’m stalling for time and I don’t know why. I take the elevator back upstairs for the last thing: my suitcase. Hilary answers the door and I gave a weak smile before shuffling around her and grabbing my luggage.

“It was nice meeting you,” I say.

“Yea, you too.” Now it’s her turn for a weak smile.

Moments later I’m in the elevator and headed to the car. To Colorado. To Atlanta. I tell myself by the time I hit the lobby I’ll have forgotten the whole thing. I exhaled and relaxed as the floors buzzed away. When the doors open to the lobby I’m in a near panic, though I tell myself just to get in the darn car and go.

I slide my suitcase to Dave Kelly, hop back into the elevator and tell him I’d forgotten something upstairs. That wasn’t entirely wrong. The moment Hilary opens the door, we kiss.

Back in the elevator I stared at her number in my phone. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I still can’t help but think: ‘what happens now?’ I smiled, and put my phone away.

The Long Distance

The next two years were a mix of talking nightly and flights between NYC and Atlanta. Had you asked either of us if we’d ever want a long distance relationship back in 2017, the answer would have been a definite ‘no’. But there was something different here. I felt it in the way we laughed with each other, in the way we signed off after talking for hours, and in the way we’d embrace after a month apart. Neither of us dared to hint at a master plan (who moves to whom) yet. We were young, in love and completely carefree. Nothing could ever have kept us down.

Having visited the wet market were COVID was supposedly born, my only surprise was that it hadn’t happened sooner. I remember anxiously watching the case counts slowly tick upwards each morning in my cube, then talking with Hilary each night. It was a text that hit hardest: ‘my theater is closing’

Hilary was working at the time in Kansas City and staying with her parents. She had her own room and her own space and parents who could help support her since her industry was closing down for the foreseeable future. Naturally, it made sense for her to stay in Kansas City. Naturally, I asked her to move in with me. My modest, 1 bedroom, 900 square foot apartment, about a forth of which was converted into an office, would soon come to host us both.

It was an adjustment. We went from seeing each other once or twice a month to being under quarantine together 24/7. In hindsight I couldn’t have asked for a better pressure test of our relationship. We passed with flying colors.

The Proposal

To say I had everything carefully planned wouldn’t be honest; more than enough of you know me well enough to call B.S. if I tried to make that claim. I’d planned on proposing around September / October, but from the moment I received the finished ring the only thing I’d ever wanted was to see it on her finger. I stayed up until 4am that night turning it over in my fingers, polishing it, holding it up into the light and smiling like an idiot. I moved up my time line from3 months to 3 weeks.

In the meantime, the ring found it’s way into a crock pot on the top of the fridge.

Putting together haphazard plans at the last second is something of a forte of mine. I spent the next few nights dropping hints that we should do a fancy date. ‘Get your hair cut’ and ‘why not treat yourself to a manicure’ were suggested more than once.

I wanted her to be surprised, but not pressured or overwhelmed.

It was about 3 days before our planned date when the thought ‘I should probably get a photographer’ came into view. I quickly found out most professional photographers aren’t willing to drop everything at a moment’s notice. Panic ensued. I wanted pictures, but not badly enough to call the whole thing off.

Then comes Jessica, our neighbor and good friend. I asked if she might be able to help in desperation and she pulled through. Borrowing her sister’s (a hobbyist photographer) camera. Jess immediately and excitedly agreed to pitch in.

So things were coming together, great! All that was left was to go to the place and pop the question. So close!

The car died. The battery, specifically. Wouldn’t keep a charge. Fast forward one neighborly jump start and an hour, It’s an August Georgia scorcher and I’m in an autozone parking lot. My carefully curated (and argued over) clothes clung to my damp back as I tried to jam a new battery into my car in time to make the after proposal dinner reservation.

My hair jell dripped down my forehead. I had just dropped my third 10mm socket into the engine block. I’m negotiating with myself weather to cry or scream as I considered how to ask Autozone for a 4th 10mm socket. My shoulders are slumped, my day is ruined. Hilary walked over and with a hand on my sweaty back says that ‘it’s going to be okay’ and that she can take care of it. With that, she thrust her carefully manicured fingers into the greasy guts of my Volkswagen and retrieves the 10mm. With a smile and a kiss she placed it into my palm.

She had no idea why I was freaking out, just like she has no idea there’s an engagement ring in the center console. What she did see is how distressed I’d become; and immediately stepped in to help. I’d never been more in love with her. It took all I had to keep from proposing to her right there.

We were finally on our way, with some time to spare. I spied Jessica hiding behind a tree with her camera ready as we approached the pier. This was it.

With a dry mouth I asked her to come to the pier while I palmed the ring box in my pocket.

“Hey,” I began, “You know how, a few weeks ago when I was outside with your dad… how when you came outside and asked what we were up to? Remember how I said we were talking about grilling?” She nods her head. “Well, I lied. I was asking for your hand.”

“Yeah, I know,” Hilary starts to say, “I mean I figured something weird was-”

She’s stopped short and gasped as I bent the knee. Her eyes widened and glowed.

“Will you marry me?”

I’d like to thank anyone reading this for being apart of our lives and supporting us through this engagement. We often talk about how lucky we are to have such incredible friends and family. I know as the last paragraph you might all be tempted to think this is the end of our story. This is just the beginning.