ACCORDING TO ANDREW: Our story started in the winter of 2021. I was a fourth-year pharmacy student working as a technician at a local hospital in Highland Park. Gelah was a recent residency graduate in the same hospital system, but based out of Evanston. I had moved into an apartment just down the street to be closer to work. Because of COVID, the staffing situation in my hospital was pretty bad so I pretty much lived there. On top of the technician shortage, there was a significant need for pharmacists as well - we had a constant stream of pharmacists coming in from nearby hospitals to help us out. It was the beginning of December on a typical Friday night, and since it was typical to have someone new nearly every shift, I asked the pharmacist I was working with if he knew who would be staffing with me that weekend. He said "Gelah", one of his co-residents, would be working with us that weekend. I barely recognized the name from a "class bulletin board" that you’d see right when you entered the pharmacy, listing each of the graduating Pharmacy Residents along with their pharmacy school and a photo. I’d stop to look at the board every so often before I began my shift, scanning the faces as if I'd suddenly recognize a familiar face (I never did). Gelah's name stood out to me - we were both from Rosalind Franklin, but her face itself didn’t look familiar, definitely before my time in school. As I left work that night, I stopped on my way out and took another glance at the board – this time I took note of her particularly cute smile. --- The next day, while seated at one of the computers in the pharmacy, I heard an unfamiliar voice from the entryway. As the voice grew closer, a familiar face came into view. "Hey Gelah", I said. She turned, a mix of surprise and confusion on her face. "Hey...." she said back. I was in shock. Did I really just do that? Did I just greet a complete stranger, by name, without so much as an introduction? The answer, unfortunately, was yes. I tried to play it off cool - no eye contact, don't draw attention, don't make a big deal out of it. Easy. She settled in and started catching up with her pharmacist friend - all about her jetlag, how nice Paris was, how tired she was. I didn't want to pry, but I picked up little things as she laughed. Eventually the topic between them moved to a discussion of her "guy troubles" - score. I didn't want to be too obvious, nor did I want to force myself into a conversation that most certainly did not involve me. Gradually throughout the morning our mutual pharmacist friend would include me more and more in their conversation. As Gelah struggled to define the status of her current guy-drama, I was asked for my opinion, to which I cleverly responded that it sounded less like a relationship and more like a "situationship" (I promise, this was before it was a popular or well-known term). She laughed, giving me an opening to gently tease Gelah for the next hour or two about her apparent luck with men. Our mutual friend left for lunch, and what followed was, as I would describe it, another hour of playful flirting. She smiled a lot, giggled a ton, and went out of her way to ask me more questions about myself (Gelah will tell you she was just being casual and friendly). At the end of her shift, as Gelah was preparing to leave for the day, I sensed my window of opportunity closing quickly. I pulled a piece of paper from the nearby printer, scratched my number on it, and waited. As she gathered her things and gave a parting-goodbye, I handed her the paper, and said - "Here, for when you're done babysitting". She gazed down at the paper, said not another word, and left. For a moment, I was convinced I was the smoothest guy on the planet, quickly realizing the only thing I might've earned was a trip to HR. Hours went by, and as I returned from to my apartment, my phone pinged - "Hey it's Gelah" with a wave. The rest, as they say, is history.