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Carlos and I texted for three months without ever talking or hanging out in person—mind you, we went to the same school. Carlos was on the varsity baseball team, and I was on the varsity softball team. Both of our school teams made it to the playoffs, and our games fell on the same day as senior prom. My game finished around lunchtime, while the baseball team’s game started later that afternoon. Once our games were over, we both rushed home to get ready for prom. In the end, we only made it for the last hour of the night—but hey, nothing says teenage romance like cleats, chaos, and a dramatic prom entrance with just enough time to slow dance a few times.

During my senior year, on a day with early release, I went to Pizza Hut for lunch with my niece, my sister, and her friends. While we were there, I spotted Carlos sitting in a booth with a few of his baseball teammates. We finished eating, paid, and left Pizza Hut. Not long after we left, I received a message from Carlos on social media. I didn’t think much of it at first because our friend groups didn’t overlap. There was also another girl named Heather who hung out with his friends, so I assumed he had messaged the wrong Heather. A couple of days passed before I finally responded. One day of texting turned into another, and soon it became several months of nonstop messages—this was all before prom even happened. Years later, Carlos admitted that him texting me that random day was actually the result of a bet his friends dared him to take.