A friendship born in 2020, nurtured through late-night calls and quiet texts, until 2021, when we finally met face to face.

In September of 2021, everything started to bloom.
Our first date at Deep Cut Gardens, sunlight slipping through leaves, you holding my hand like it had always been yours.
Our second at Grounds for Sculpture, surrounded by still art and shifting feelings.

You snuck into my house for the first time (a little chaotic, a lot of heart),
and I met your family, nervous, but warm.

You got your Halloween costume early that year, excited for our first spooky season together.
We didn’t get to spend it side by side like we planned,
but I still remember how happy it made me to see you light up like a kid.
That joy, that spark, I carried it with me, like a little candle lit in my chest.

It was the start of something soft, something strange,
something real.
And I didn’t know it yet,
but I think part of me was already falling
for the way you turned every ordinary thing
into something worth remembering.