Jack and I met for the first time at our college's baseball field. I was a freshman, ready to keep stats for the team when I saw that I needed to get the lineup for our team still. So I head to the dugout and see Jack, he looked nice enough so I asked him and he was kind and respectful (which anyone who has interacted with the rest of that team knows is a rarity). After that, we hardly spoke... until one day, I was watching the team play at the Russ-Matt Invitational via GameChanger. Jack hit a triple in the 11th inning that allowed our team to win the game, it was awesome. When they returned, I wished him a congratulations and told him about how good his stats were at the time (which was a bit of a blonde moment for me because I knew he probably already knew his stats) and he was once again incredibly kind and somehow didn't freak out over a girl like me fangirling over his stats. However, if you think this is where our love story starts, you'd be so wrong! It didn't start for another year where we barely ever spoke in between.

In August 2024, I became close friends with Alessandra Henriquez and Caroline Smith. Alessandra knew I was sort of crushing on Jack based on how I would look at him whenever he would walk by or when I would talk about the baseball team's stats. They had one day invited me to join them, Thomas Spee, and Jack to watch one of my favorite shows ever, Attack on Titan (it is an anime, I am a nerd... get over it). Of course, I said yes because I would not pass up an opportunity to watch my favorite show with my friends. Naturally, watching a show so tragic, we all became friends. Then in September, a hurricane was coming for Jacksonville. Another friend at the time had a suspicion I liked Jack and asked him if he could drive me South to meet up with my dad so I could go home (at the time, I did not have a car, or my driver's license...) and he surprisingly said yes! During the entire drive, I was terrified (it was my first time alone with a guy I liked, cut me some slack), but we also had a great conversation and got to know each other really well. My dad met us at Pear Park, shook Jack's hand, and when we got into his truck, he looked at me and said, "If you ever want to date him, I approve." I laughed at this at the time because I was convinced that he did not like me at all, now look where that got me (thank you papa!). At the end of the week, Jack also drove me back up to school, but about 20 minutes out, he asked me if I wanted to go get dinner. I said yes, but didn't think of it as a date, because I still didn't think he liked me. It was a great meal (which Jack did not let me pay for, even though he was kind enough to drive me to and from Leesburg) and our friendship grew from then on. Skip on to October 1st, I wrote a letter to Jack saying I liked him. I had zero intention of giving it to him, I just needed to get it out of my system. But Abigail Springer stole the paper, ran off, and gave it to Jack who was about to leave for the weekend to get his knee checked. I was freaking out and kind of mad at Abigail, she tried to cheer me up with coffee and Chick-Fil-A, which did not work, but on the way to Chick-Fil-A, something did cheer me up. Jack had texted me saying he liked me back and he would love to go out with me when he got back. Fast forward to October 21st, 2024, Jack and I are going to Immanuel Baptist Church for a Preacher's Delight Conference and Jack is introduced to a preacher and the preacher assumed I was his wife. Did Jack and I correct him? No, we were actually too stunned to speak. When we got back to school that night, Jack asked me if it would be ok if in a scenario like that, he could call me his girlfriend to avoid confusion, I said yes. He told me I could call him the kid who follows me around like a puppy to which I responded, "If you get to call me your girlfriend in these scenarios, I should get to call you my boyfriend." Which, if you don't know me, it is very out of character for me to say such a thing. However, when we made it to my dorm building door, he looked at me and said, "I guess this is actually me asking you if you will be my girlfriend." I told him I would love to be and gave him a hug, then walked inside and proceeded to freak out like a little girl in a doll store with too much candy in her system. Our relationship was built on and still stands on friendship and Christ, which is what we attribute to the amazing 1.5 years of dating that we had before getting engaged. It hasn't been easy by any means, we have been long distance, we have seen each other everyday for months on end at school. There have been some disagreements, that we always solve right away with communication and prayer. There have been some times of pure joy, where we are so in love. Times of hurt, where we wished the other didn't have to leave. Times of happiness, where we get to see the other soon. It has been a roller coaster of emotions and love, but I could not be more thankful for Jack for choosing me and loving me.