We met in 2012 during high school in South Florida, she was in 9th grade, and I was in 10th. Despite having mutual friends, we hadn't met until my lunch period was changed unexpectedly one day. I instantly liked everything about her. For the next several weeks, I began taking her bus route just to sit beside her. But since it wasn't my actual route, I would then have to walk home from wherever I was dropped off. It wasn't long after that I asked her to be my Valentine (she thought it was a joke at first), and a few months later, we started officially dating. We fell quickly in love. However, near the end of high school, our paths went separate ways. We didn't see much of each other for six years, but we were both still in love. Though neither of us knew it yet, we'd often think about each other and fantasize about a future together. Eventually, Bia moved to San Diego. But as fate would have it, even though we were now in opposite ends of the country, we somehow found each other again... and you know the rest.

“Do you know how crazy it is to know you met your soulmate at 15 years old? That even despite spending 6 years apart, you still thought about this person so often and wondered how they were doing, how badly you messed up by letting your best friend slip away from your life, and how lucky the person they choose to spend the rest of their life with is. Despite being 3,000 miles apart and not speaking in 6 years, your paths align again. Even crazier despite all of that, immediately every connection with this person just goes back into place, as if nothing has changed in 8 years since starting to date as teenagers. We were kids then and adults now and our relationship just keeps getting stronger and more passionate. There’s no one else on this earth I’d rather spend the rest of my life with, and I have almost a decade of feelings to prove it. Forever won’t even cover it.”

We’ve often talked about how our story is like a movie. So when I decided that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her (which was pretty early on), I knew I wanted a special way for us to relive every significant moment of our story. So, for five months, I got to work. I wrote the script, animating characters, and sought out the help of some incredible people. On Friday, December 4, 2020, I finally finished it and could not wait any longer. So on Saturday, December 5, I surprised my best friend and the love of my life at a camping trip in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park by projecting an animated short of our story in an intimate amphitheater. It was the perfect proposal for both of us. We constantly watch movies together, and when I asked Bia to be my girlfriend back in high school, it was after having gone to the movies. We were camping—which is our favorite activity, we were in a gorgeous desert—which is our favorite scenery, and we were with our three close friends from San Diego. Best of all, it was a surprise that we had both been waiting for a long time.