then two became one

I remember when she came out of nowhere, with so much confidence, while I was at my locker, when she asked for my tie. Something that was unusual but really cool, because it was the first for this to happen, but I had the tie for when I dressed up for games and she would ask when it was game days. I would be asked by my coaches where my tie was, I'm not fully dressed blah blah. I wasn't really thinking too much of that, I was thinking more of Kiona. Seeing her wearing it, walking by in the hallway and feeling that crush and "I like you" tension. It was new. It wasn't ‘til the summer when we started talking on MySpace. That’s when we had our first meet up out of school, it was down the road from her house and she came up with nooo shooes! It was funny and cute, it made me fall more deep for her. Everything from there on became more interesting, we learnered more and more of each other and simply falling in love without forcing it.

We met when we were 14 years old. I saw him first and a crush grew instantly. We became friends, meeting through mutual friends. Emmit was on the school’s basketball team. So on games days, he would dress up in a shirt and tie. One day I was feeling brave and I asked him a simple question, “Can I wear your tie?” He said yes, without even questioning it. He handed me the white (sometimes purple) tie and I started to wear it around school on Tuesdays or Thursdays until the season was over. That became our thing, we got to know each other more. It wasn’t until the summer before high school when he asked me to be his girlfriend. Of course, it came with conflict from others. But after years passed, they started getting used to the idea of us. Since the night we first met, October 16, 2010, we have come a long way. And we still have quite a journey ahead of us.

We were at my grandma's house to celebrate Christmas. Towards the end of the night, we went to take pictures by the Christmas tree. Then he knelt to one knee and presented to me a beautiful ring. I said yes! And our daughter embraced us in celebration. The funny thing was, I knew he was going to do it. Why did I know? Because he asked my mom for her blessing the night before, and she accidentally told me, laughing because she thought it was cute. Way to go mom!