13 years ago we were at West Geauga Middle School going about our school day, walking up and down the halls, we passed each other everyday without ever talking, but I had a huge crush on her. I finally got the courage to talk to her and she met my excitement by telling me I was weird and that she didn’t want to talk to me. Little did we know that we would end up wanting to spend the rest of our lives together. We re-connected during lockdown in early 2020, we were texting and snapchatting nonstop, unaware to the fact that we were less than 4 miles from each other the whole time. We finally agreed to meet at the park, believe it or not Maria slept through the entire afternoon and I thought she stood me up. I didn’t know if she felt bad or actually wanted to go out with me, but she said we should get food together. I thought it would be a nice time for the two of us, but she brought a team to our first date, including two of her best friends and I was by myself. The interrogation ensued as they asked every possible question you could think of. Feeling overwhelmed and outmanned, I agreed to go to the drive in on mayfield road to watch the Invisible man, terrible movie. We finally went on our first date where it was just the two of us and from there we began to truly fall for each other. We have been together for almost 5 years and everyday we have grown to love each other even more.