held + free

There was a play. She was onstage. He built the stage. She saw him. He saw her. They said, "hi," a couple of times and then nobody did anything about it for several months — you know, apart from both liking/commenting on each other's social media posts with increasing frequency and her casually suggesting the bar he owns on nights out with friends in hopes that he would be there (he always was)... until, there was another play. She was onstage, again. This time, he was in the audience. He sat next to her mom and didn't know it. He was the last audience member to leave the theater that night. The next day, he gave her his phone number. She waited two months to use it, when she finally texted him, "happy birthday!" They had their first date on April Fool's Day, and both of them wondered if the other would show. Bonding over their shared love of live theatre, music, art, comedy, and their mutually adventurous spirits, they fell in love fast, hard, and irreversibly. Five years and twenty-six days after their first date, they found themselves dancing in the pouring rain on the side of a mountain, with the promise of forever wrapped (loosely because it was just a liiiittle bit too big) around her finger. They have shared a life and started their lives over, again and again. They are building a home that goes beyond four walls and a roof. They have a beginning to begin, again and again. Their greatest adventure begins, now.