We met each other in the Pride of Oklahoma as saxophone players in marching band. Countless hours of our time was spent in the Bizzell Memorial Library "studying" (flirting). When it was time to leave, I would give Zach puppy dog eyes and request to be driven back to the dormitories. Zach would take the long way and find reasons to keep me a little longer. We would karaoke to Panic! At the Disco's Death of a Bachelor album and spend late evenings longboarding or on Sonic runs. Zach was able to finally win my heart over by returning my "ID" back to me (a sugar packet). We made things official the first day back to school for my sophomore year of college in August of 2019. In May of 2023, when we both graduated from the University of Oklahoma, we made the decision to move to Richardson, Texas for our first full-time jobs. For the last two to three years, we have faced many challenges together while learning to be "real" adults. We are like two sides of the same coin, stuck together like gum to a shoe. We could not imagine being apart, that's the beauty of growing together. <3 - Emily

It was the beginning of the fall semester following my failed attempt to get Emily's number and it was safe to say my odds had changed. The table and its respective tides had turned so greatly that, in the moment, I couldn't recall the original orientation of the table. I mean, she was actually calling me first. So I asked her to go eat with me at The Loaded Bowl, but my one condition was that it had to be a date. She agreed. Fast forward to the big day. The plan was for me to pick Emily up and I would drive us, but there was just one problem; I had recently wrecked my truck and it was in the shop. In theory this wouldn't be a big deal, but I was borrowing a mini van from a friend and it was, well, a sh!tbox. The van earned sh!tbox status because approximately every third time you shifted from one gear to another a piece of the shifter linkage would just fall apart. We could've taken Emily's car but I needed to drive the van because I was scheduled to exchange it for a better vehicle. To avoid risking the shifting issue on the big day I came up with a scholarly solution. I would leave the van in gear, set the e-brake, and chock the tires overnight. The problem is I had to leave the key in the ignition. The obvious workaround was to leave the keys in the ignition and lock the van with the fob right? Wrong. Very Wrong. The next morning I got up, got ready, was about to leave and tried to unlock the van. No unlocking, no headlights, no nothing. Why you might ask? Oh yea, that's right - the battery died because the key was left on auxiliary. So now the van is in gear with the keys locked inside and the battery is dead. Nice Zach. And this isn't even my van. I call Emily and she agrees to meet me at my house. We get in her car and go to O'Reilly's where I buy a slim jim and jumper cables. Y'know, the car stealing essentials? We get back to the van and try the slim jim. No luck. At this point I offer to call a locksmith and she says "No I think we can get this. I'm having fun." Can you believe it? Next we started pulling on the corners of the door so that we could work shims in and hold the door open. This works so we start fishing for the door handles with a wire clothes hanger. About 20 minutes later Emily manages to hook one of the door handles and the door opens! Then we proceed to jump the van, remove the wheel chocks, start the van, and shift into gear. At this point everything feels like a great accomplishment. The first thing we did after leaving my house was get rid of that godforsaken van. Then we were finally able to go on our date. The food was good but I don't think we ever went back. It was a brutal start but somehow we stuck the landing -Zach