We met freshman year of college at the University of Pittsburgh, where I immediately decided Brian was going to be my friend. After a year of me harboring my very not-so-secret crush on him, he transferred to Clemson, and just like that, he was off to new adventures. Over the next five or so years, we kept in touch here and there, but nothing too consistent—until the early hours of New Year's Day 2022, when my girlfriends and I randomly decided to FaceTime him to say hi and wish him a Happy New Year. That one call turned into more frequent conversations, and just a few weeks later, Brian drove all the way from Virginia to visit me in NYC. Turns out, my long-dormant crush wasn’t so dormant after all—and, to my surprise, I quickly discovered he had developed his own crush on me too! And just like that, we’ve been not-so-secretly crushing on each other ever since!