Richard and I met in Spanish class our freshman year of high school in 2010. Richard was the only one in that class that turned me down to talk. Little did I know that this (seemingly rude) stranger would come to be the most important person in my life. I didn’t let him get off that easily, however. I made it a personal goal of mine to be friends with this guy. I spotted him at a football game and that’s how our friendship started. I got his number, he started talking to me in Spanish, we started sitting together at lunch and that was that. A couple years later, I found out from a mutual friend that on that first day freshman year, Richard had confided in our friend and told him about this one cute, red headed girl in his Spanish class. And so our story began.

We were sitting in 4th hour Spanish, first day of freshman year of high school. As the teacher called roll, I heard the prettiest voice say “here”. It came from a really cute redhead a few aisles over. I immediately knew that I had to get to know that girl. Through mutual friends, I got to know that cute redhead, and found out how much fun she was, and how smart, caring, and thoughtful she could be. Over lunches and Spanish classes and passing periods at her locker, eventually all my thoughts got filled up with that pretty redhead as we became better and better friends, and eventually (after a whole torturous year) I asked her to be my girlfriend after sharing a first kiss on Halloween, 2011. She said yes and that cute girl from Spanish has been my #1 ever since.