I met Charles in 2023, he went out with me and his sister on Halloween that year. Though I had a relationship with his family since the third grade, I had never actually met him before. By 9pm I was already drunk but this man I met 4 hours ago was looking me in the eyes asking if I wanted another Bahama Mama or a water. Two hours later he’s driving us home, holding my hand the entire ride though I’m in the backseat, and then kissed the top as I got out. Fast forward to March 2024, there was a joint birthday party for Charles, myself, and a family friend. I hadn’t spoken to Charles since Halloween. I arrived late, everyone was already eating dinner, and I sat beside him, as his sister had planned out. Later on, we did gifts and played some games, and by this point I had ended up on the other side of the table directly across from Charles. He was staring into my soul, and it was difficult to maintain eye contact with him making me nervous. The night came to an end, though, and we parted ways a second time. A couple weeks went by, and Charles finally reached out on Instagram to ask me out. Numbers were exchanged, and a couple days later we go Montano’s for dinner. We walked around downtown where I introduced him to Greek coffee (he drank the grounds….), and after everything we had talked about, I knew in my gut this was IT, on the first date. A month later I left for Wyoming to work at Grand Teton National Park, and at this point I was nervous about a long-distance relationship, especially that early into the relationship, but we more than made it work. FaceTime calls almost every night, the first “I love you”, and even a few trips out to visit me AND drive me back home to Virginia. In June 2025 I was finishing my training program in Richmond for the health department, and on the phone the night before I was coming home Charles said he wanted to get a cabin for the weekend. Now, if your man spontaneously books a cabin at the lake for the weekend for you both, obviously your mind is going to jump to a very specific conclusion. I was nonchalant, but I knew what this was. When I got home I asked Kayla what nail color I should do and what clothes I should pack, JUST IN CASE. The next day we hooked up the kayaks and drove to Smith Mountain Lake. The day was full of kayaking and fishing and we were so content, though I got a crazy sunburn on my ankles and was mad I couldn’t comfortably use the hot tub. I had kept my mind off any proposal the whole day, in case I got my hopes up. I knew it was coming but wasn’t sure if it’d end up being THAT day. Maybe it was just a nice getaway. We were wrapping up the night by playing Catan and drinking some wine, and I accidentally knock my glass all over my white sweatpants, go figure. I asked Charles if he could go out to the car and see if I had a Tide pen to at least try to help it a little, and he went. He was taking a while, but maybe he was just searching hard, maybe I told him the wrong pocket. He comes back in with my entire backpack, and goes “I couldn’t find the Tide pen but I found this…” and dropped to one knee. Queue the waterfall from my eyes.