I remember often seeing this very good-looking girl at the bus stop near the hospital where I was working as a Resident. She had a short white coat with her, so that told me she was one of the medical students. She would always be standing there with another medical student who also happened to be Asian, so of course I stereotyped it and just assumed that the guy was her boyfriend.

We have occasional mandatory conferences at the Hospital and, as luck would have it, I sat near Liana and we struck up a conversation at the end of the conference. She was still sitting next to her "boyfriend," but it was just a conversation, so who cares. I remember she had an incredible smile and was ridiculously tan... I figured she was some type of mixed asian and never ever would've guessed that she was chinese. This is fine, because Liana later told me that she thought I was Mexican - True story.

At a birthday party for one of my close friends, a mutual friend of Liana pulled me to the side and said "what the hell are you doing??! You need to ask this girl out!!" I told her it didn't seem very nice to ask out a girl that was taken, to which she told me I was a moron and that Liana was very single... she may have also called me a bit of an idiot for just assuming that 2 Asians standing together would be dating, but that's besides the point.

I got Liana's number when I started my vacation and we started texting back and forth. She had just started night float, so I knew that she wouldn't be able to go out during human hours for at least a week, so texting would have to do for then. To my surprise, she called me one night probably around 11pm and told me that she got tired of texting, so she decided to call instead. We then proceeded to talk on the phone until about 3-4 AM. This was repeated pretty much for the whole week and it always amazed me that we could talk for so long. During one of our conversations, I learned that Liana is nuts for desserts and I told her that she had to let me take her to Junior's Cheesecake in Brooklyn when she finished her rotation of working night shift.

I showed up to Liana's place wearing a super sick outfit consisting of light blue jeans and a maroon t-shirt - I only know this, because Liana reminds me constantly how much she hated that outfit and continues to tell me to never dress like that ever again (she actually threw it away once we were deeper into our relationship. It was away in the garbage somewhere when I came home from work one day, along with a ton of my other clothes. I guess it's safe to say that she hates on my swag. She a Brad swag hater). Liana looked amazing. She got into my car and then immediately started laughing at my Mashimaro I have hanging from my rear-view mirror. On our way to the restaurant, I just remember how easy the conversation came and how nice it was to hear her laugh. I also remember her freaking out at low-flying planes because the drive took us near JFK airport. "IT'S LIKE WE CAN TOUCH THEM! IT LOOKS LIKE THEY'RE GONNA HIT US!" She wasn't acting like someone who was nervous at all, even though she later told me that she was. Either way, I knew pretty early on I was going to be crazy about this girl.

We get to the restaurant and I'm fascinated that my date just asked for a cup of plain hot water. No lemon. No tea. Just scalding hot water. She then orders the jerk chicken and I know this girl's legit. A couple pieces of cheesecake later and we're out.

I lived on Roosevelt Island at the time, which had a nice walkway by the river with a nice view of Manhattan's skyline. We sat on some steps and we started to talk about some deeper subjects... relationships, life... and I gotta be honest, Liana was confusing the Hell out of me with what I thought were some of the craziest mixed signals of all time. She then asked if it bothered me that she was a medical student. I said no and went in for the kiss. It's been nothing short of amazing since.

I know it's cliche, but I honestly can't imagine my life without her. I can't wait to marry this girl!

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