Ella's Viewpoint: I have known who Ursa is for as long as I can remember, but until about five years ago, he never took up that much space in my head. In high school he was on the cross-country team with me. Although we were the same age, he was about 5 inches shorter and 30 pounds lighter than I was. Our friendship began the summer before our senior year, and, purely by coincidence, right after he had a long-awaited growth spurt. We spent the next year getting to know each other. As captains of the team, we were in charge of organizing practices during the endless covid off season. I started making workouts where we would do 400m or 800m repeats, each with a lap of walking in between. I can now admit to myself and others that the lap (or two) of walking was purely for the purpose of talking to Ursa. Craving more time with each other, we started going on walks outside of practice too. I remember a rare Vashon snow day we spent walking together for hours. It ended with huge blisters on my ankles, but I felt it was worth it. Over the summer we would stay up to 2 in the morning regularly, either talking or in a comfortable silence. We never talked about it explicitly, but I knew the feelings I had for him were mutual. However, there was an understanding that it would not make sense to date. I left for college in the fall and Ursa started doing stonework full time. We didn't stop talking though, calling weekly for 3 to 4 hours at a time. When Ursa finally asked me to date him during my spring break freshman year, I told him I needed to think about it. That definitely wasn't true, and we started dating the next day. Ursa's Viewpoint: Literally everyone l know was aware of my feelings for Ella before l was. Around 4 years ago conversations with friends typically gravitated toward what they would call my "Special Female Acquaintance" or just out right "Girlfriend". Titles which l instantly struck down as "ridiculous," "silly," and, "downright absurd." How do they come to these conclusions anyway? After all, she was just some farm girl from out on Maury (Island joke) that l liked to run and talk with. And spend all my free time with. Our lives seemed to be moving in opposite directions anyway with her going off to school in California and me joining the local workforce. But l did spend time with her. All the time. Constantly. Totally normal right? l was clueless. My deep attachment to her had already progressed to resemble the mature root system of a massive oak. But it had come so slowly and imperceptibly that the concept of our being together was still too foreign for me to grasp. However this did not last. Close to a year after our locational separation and about a million phone calls later, I decided it would be impossible stay "just friends". So in July of 2022 l told Joe (her dad) that we were "a thing" and we became official. The next few years were spent getting to know each other as well as our respective families. l still think Penny (The Yarkin family canine component) has some mixed feelings about me. We fairly quickly discovered that life without each other's company was just not fathomable. Our quirky selves merging so seamlessly it was as if (am l really saying this?) we were meant for each other. l had my stone buddy make a ring for her and the rest is history. The only unfortunate snag being a security breach in my email account rendering any hope of surprising her null at the start. Anyway, l'm a lucky guy to be able to share my life with such a wonderful lady and l'm excited to start this next chapter of our lives together. Just waiting on the happily ever after part.