long live love

Jaelon and Nicolle first met during first year orientation days at Williams. They lived in the same dorm building, one floor apart. One evening, Nicolle and a friend were sitting in the building's lobby. Jaelon and a few of his football teammates walked by and introduced themselves. At the end of the encounter, Nicolle could only remember Jaelon's deep voice and not his name. For approximately two weeks, Nicolle thought Jaelon's name was Desmond until they finally exchanged numbers by the pool table in their dorm. Nicolle has not forgotten Jaelon's name since.

Jaelon and Nicolle had been a constant presence in each other's lives throughout all four years of college. However, they did not formalize their relationship until their final semester of college. Both Jaelon and Nicolle were enrolled in the senior capstone seminar for the Africana Studies concentration and were seated directly across from one another. With such little time left and the future still unknown, Jaelon knew it was time to make his move. After hinting for a few weeks that he wanted a formal relationship with Nicolle, one Wednesday afternoon he arrived in class with a copy of Dr. Barbara Paca's book on Ruth Starr Rose—a famed painter of America's founding Black families in Maryland—in tow. He presented it to Nicolle and told her he was an open book and wanted to share himself and his family with her. Nicolle felt like she had just been picked to be not just student of the day, but student of the year. In June of that year, after graduation Nicolle moved to Washington, D.C. to begin a teaching job. Jaelon moved to the area shortly after in September. The two have been inseparable since. They've lived together since June of 2020.

On October 14th at 4:30am, Jaelon woke Nicolle up saying a friend had an emergency and they needed to go help. Jaelon even played a voicemail for Nicolle from the friend explaining this dire scenario. As it turns out, there was no real emergency as Nicolle abruptly learned when she was surprised with a sunrise hot air balloon overlooking the Delmarva Peninsula. Jaelon simply needed an excuse to get Nicolle out of bed and motivated to go on an hour and a half drive so early in the day without raising suspicion. About twenty minutes into the hot air balloon ride, Jaelon tapped Nicolle on the shoulder. He stuttered on his words a bit. For those of you that know Jaelon, you can understand this was shocking to Nicolle. He gathered himself enough to recite an enduring Dominican mantra: "Se cree que es la última Coca Cola en el desierto." In doing so, Jaelon asked "will you be my Coca-Cola?" Stunned and blinded by tears, Nicolle said yes she would marry him and be his last Coca-Cola.