Kyle and I were put into a TAMU Class of 2024 GroupMe to get to know other people in our class in the beginning of 2020. From the GroupMe, someone decided to make a Snapchat group chat and added the first 30 or so people who sent their Snapchat handles. By fate, Kyle and I made it into the group together! Being the social butterfly that I am, I was always active in the group and getting to know our classmates. Kyle on the other hand, was quite introverted until a damsel in distress (me) needed help with calculus homework. Kyle offered to help me out, and I accepted the offer and messaged him privately with the problem I was struggling with. Low and behold, Kyle FELL ASLEEP and did not end up helping me. This was probably around 8-9pm so I wasn't expecting him to go to bed so early. I woke up the next morning to a message saying he fell asleep but lucky for him I am very forgiving. I don't remember what happened with my calculus homework, but I know Kyle had nothing to do with it. (I later learned that Kyle got too nervous to talk to me and that's why he never helped me that night.) From then on, we continued messaging as friends, sending Snapchats of our faces back and forth, and chatting regularly. I don't think either of us had the intention of falling in love, but I'm so grateful GroupMe led me to him! Around May 2020, I think we both realized we liked each other. On my high school graduation day, Kyle told me I was pretty for the first time and my whole world changed. I was freaking out and texting all my friends. My parents started hearing about this "Snapchat boy" and asked "Well have you talked on the phone??" I sheepishly said "No..." because I was too nervous at that point. My parents pointed out that it’s unusual to “talk” to someone you’ve never met for almost 6 months but never actually hear their voice! Little did they know, they helped our relationship blossom. After working up the courage, we FaceTimed often. We would watch movies together and say "1,2,3 PRESS PLAY... wait! Mine lagged!" one too many times on the phone waiting for our movies to play at the same time. We were so excited for Fish Camp to come because we had signed up for the same session, but it ultimately got moved online. I was counting down the days until I moved to College Station so I could finally meet the infamous boy from Snapchat. At this point, I knew he loved the lake, was pretty shy, and had very crazy hair (apparently he didn't cut his hair during Covid.) We spent hours adding things to "The list" which consisted of things we wanted to do together once we met. Kyle actually wrote this list out on paper and later THREW IT AWAY! He thought since we had been dating for a while we didn't need it anymore. Such a man, we could have framed that at the wedding!! We still have the list saved in our Snapchat messages, which I will always cherish. The rest of our story is more commonly known. We planned our first date, I kicked my parents out of my new apartment SO FAST, and I got ready to meet the boy I've read about in all my books. After 8 months of texting and FaceTiming, I finally opened my apartment door to Kyle holding a rose to me. He walked me to the car, opened my door, and put on my country playlist in the car. I thought that was the sweetest gesture ever, but let him know that we didn't have to listen to 9-5 by Dolly Parton and that he could skip the song. Three weeks later, Kyle told me he loved me. I ran to May (one of my maid of honors!) in our apartment and said "is it too soon??" I knew in my heart I felt the same way, but you always have to consult your best friends first. From that day on we have been inseparable, growing and loving each other every day.

It all started in October of 2019. Topher invited me to come to College Station for Halloween and hang out with his friend from waterskiing, Zach, who was also coming to A&M that next fall. Zach told me that he was in a big GroupMe (a group chat app) with other people coming to A&M that fall and asked if I wanted to join, and of course I said yes. This GroupMe consisted mostly of people creating smaller groups on SnapChat, so everyone would send in their SnapChat username. I didn't pay much attention to it, but one day I decided to send my username as well. Thus I got added to another group chat with people I didn't know. Me being who I am, I never really responded to anything or sent anything in the groupchat, until one evening in late February, a girl sent a message asking for help with calculus. As I was going to bed, something in me told me to respond and offer my help since I was really good at math. I was quite nervous, so I decided to go to sleep and see if this girl wanted my help in the morning. I remember waking up that morning, and having a DM from somone named "maddie 🦋". (It was actually a blue butterfly but Windows doesn't have that emoji). The message read "hi" I believe, so I simply said "Sorry I fell asleep" to make up for deliberately going to sleep. Next thing I know I am texting this girl every chance I get. I start pulling my phone out between classes, which I had never done before, just so that I could respond to "maddie 🦋". Covid hits that March, so now I don't have to worry about sneaking my phone out of my pocket. Eventually the brothers and Lenore and Kim would get peeks at my phone, so now whenever I would get on it, they would ask in that annoying voice: "Who are you texting... 'maddie 🦋' ?" I would always try to hide it but I'm sure they knew they were right. In June, one of us suggested watching a movie together. I don't remember if it was me or her, but that is what I like to think of as our first date. We FINALLY gave each other our phone numbers and facetimed while we watched the movie at the same time. From then on we watched a movie together at least once a week, if not every night. Now that we had each other's phone numbers, we would be texting each other different things on different apps. I remember at one point we had three different conversations going on between text messages, SnapChat, and Instagram, so that by the time I got to answering the third one, Maddie had already responded to one of the other messages. This is also around the time I started to realize that I really liked this girl. Fast forward to August, PJ and Lenore helped me move into the Aspen house for college. That first night Lenore asked me when I was finally going to go meet with "maddie 🦋". Maddie hadn't moved yet so I simply said soon. The first night Maddie was in College Station, after she had finished moving, I went to her apartment to pick her up and we went on our first official date to Torchy's. We went back home and watched a movie the rest of the night until I went home. The next morning Maddie asked me to go to the mall with her and her friends, and I said sure. We hung out the whole day. The third day she had been in College Station, I officially asked her to be my girlfriend. Ever since then, we have been inseparable. I don't think there was more than a couple of days in college that we didn't see each other if we were both in town. The rest of the story is known by everyone, I eventually asked her to marry me (with the help of Lenore keeping her in a park for over an hour because the photographer was late!), which brings us to today.