Our families have been close for years, so we grew up around each other. At Duke’s hayride in the fall, sitting side by side on the hayride, and working the drink stand together at the Fancy Farm Picnic. It wasn’t until sophomore year of high school, during round two of COVID, that things started to change. We’d FaceTime to “help” each other with homework. I’d give him answers in Spanish, and he’d return the favor in geometry. What started as quick calls for school slowly turned into hours of talking about everything else. The more we talked, the more we realized how much we had in common. A couple of months later, we went on our first date, fishing, and that was the beginning of everything. I wish I could say it was more romantic than that, but that just shows how easy it was to fall in love with my best friend. It didn’t happen all at once. No grand moment, no sudden realization—just a thousand small ones that slowly turned into what we are today.