The Ly’s

It was a warm spring day in 2016, and both Gaby and I were students on campus at Cal State Fullerton. We had a mutual friend that had invited us both to study for an upcoming exam. At the time we were both biology majors, but did not know one another. I had made sure to pick up some Panda Express on my way as I typically did. I remember walking into one of the back rooms at the Titan Student Union and seeing my friend and Gaby sitting alone at a large circular table in the corner and naturally I chose to sit next to her. I introduced myself and started small talk with our friend. I’m not sure if it was my cargo shorts, backwards hat, all black vans, or the shoveling of orange chicken into my mouth but I could tell she thought I was funny. I began making jokes about her and the things I had heard before about how she was a tough cookie and didn’t take any shit. She took to it well and started bantering back and forth. That day little to no studying actually happened. Not much came of that study session but months later I was walking into the library and saw her sitting on the other side of window and I offered a smile and waved. She reciprocated. More months went by and I remember seeing her heading to school as I was on my way to work Saturday morning. I loved that she was so dedicated to her studies. More months passed and we had a field trip coming up for a class we were taking to Zzyzx, CA. I knew I would have a chance to spend more time with her and asked our friend to lay some ground work. The best part of that field trip was that Gaby walked straight past me in the parking lot and didn’t say a word when we arrived at the same time. At that moment I was SOLD. I spent that weekend making my moves and on the last day asked her to have dinner with me when we got back. She agreed. We had our first date at the Monkey Cafe in Fullerton. After that time started flying by. I asked her to be my girlfriend in San Diego at Balboa Park. We went on our first vacation to Big Sur, CA. We had a lot of laughs, a lot of love, and a lot of fights but we made it for five more years. I decided to propose and in December of 2021 and planned for us to vacation in New York. We flew in and all I could think of was focusing on not losing the ring. During that trip I proposed in DUMBO park under the Brooklyn Bridge and we spent that night walking around NY city breathing it all in and eating pizza.