Our story starts long before either of us realized it was our story. We first met as kids, brought together by our parents—two families crossing paths in a way that felt ordinary at the time, but would later mean everything. Back then, we were just children orbiting the same spaces, sharing holidays, gatherings, and memories without knowing what they would become. For years, we played our parts perfectly: pretending not to like each other. Whether it was playful teasing, stubborn indifference, or just the unspoken rules of growing up, we kept up the act. If you had asked either of us then, we probably would have rolled our eyes and said, “No way.” But somewhere along the way, something shifted. Maybe it was timing. Maybe it was growing up. Or maybe it was the quiet realization that what had always been there—underneath the jokes, the history, and the years of “not liking each other”—was something real. One day, without any grand plan, everything just aligned. What started as a childhood connection turned into friendship, and that friendship slowly became something deeper. Suddenly, the person who had always been in the background became the one we couldn’t imagine a future without. Looking back, it feels like the story was always unfolding exactly as it was meant to—two kids who met by chance, spent years in denial, and then found their way to each other at just the right time. And now, we get to spend the rest of our lives together—no pretending.