We’re Getting Married

It all started during a time when the world pressed pause. The class of 2020 was supposed to walk across the stage, throw caps in the air, and embrace friends in teary celebration. Instead, we were stuck at home, navigating school through a computer, trying to make sense of a world gone quiet. But somehow, even amid the chaos of COVID, we found the loudest kind of love. He played football and I played volleyball. Sharing the same friend groups we’d see each other in the hallways before everything shut down—glimpses during class, passing moments in crowded cafeterias—but we never really talked. Not until quarantine forced the world to slow down, and suddenly, DMs became lifelines and late-night FaceTimes replaced Friday night lights. Following high school graduation, still immersed in a pandemic we connected. We can’t really tell you what changed but we found ourselves talking and laughing for hours on end. “I called her sweet cheeks because she was always smiling (Haden).” “I thought he was extremely handsome and he’d do anything for a laugh (Daisy).” By the time the world began to open up again, we were already inseparable. And now, here we are—engaged, planning a forever that started during the most uncertain time of our lives. It’s funny how love finds you in the most unexpected places—like a pandemic He still calls me Sweet Cheeks. And he’s still chasing laughs. But now, they’re ours—shared, silly, and wrapped in the kind of love that no virus, no distance, and no time apart could ever shake.