Forever After All

We met at a pool table. We both lived at Park Place Apartments in Ephraim, Utah. My roommates and I decided to go to the clubhouse and play pool. We show up and there are these two guys. One of them was Jaden. I instantly thought he was the hottest man I have ever seen. Of course I was a chicken and didn’t go up and talk to him! They were playing ping pong and we got the pool table. If you know me (Caleigh), I suck at this game. We were goofing off and then out of nowhere, Jaden walks over and starts to tease me. We started just talking while I was playing. I won the game fyi! We both were going to leave when I asked for his name. He said his name was JW. And that was how we met.

Finally, after months and months of having this long crush on Jaden, we finally made it to our first kiss! So it started with me teaching him how to stage kiss. I was telling him about how I did theater in high school and how I was “the best stage kisser.” He had no clue what I was talking about. I tried my best to describe it, but it didn’t make any sense. I showed him instead! I started out with the simple ones where there was a barricade between us, but then I did the nose to nose technique… let me tell you! The tension was so real! That following night, he invited me over to watch Jason Bourne since that is his favorite movie. After the movie ended, the tension was back. He made the first move and holy smokes… I didn’t know how to react. I just froze and he thought (told me this once we started dating) that he screwed up our friendship and everything by my reaction. I asked for him to kiss me again because I could not fathom that he literally kissed me. Was it the best “first” kiss? Yes. Yes it was.

Now I know most people get engaged during this day, but how he did it just made it so much more special to me. I had a feeling that Jaden was proposing in December but I didn’t know when. He did it Christmas Day night and did it with all the Christmas lights. The simplicity and love that was shared during that moment means so much to me. He was a sneak though! He wanted to take photos together be the big Christmas tree that they had lit so he put his phone down and started recording. He recorded the entire proposal! It was just truly the best night of my life. 🤍