We're Getting Married! (Finally!)

We met in our 7th-grade math class, I was the new nerdy kid and she was the local intellectual. Due to our last names we were seated right next to each other, and the question-answering competition ensued. I purposefully tried to block her hand so the teacher would call on me while she would dodge around and wave her hand to try and get the teacher's attention. She initially hated the idea of having a competitor and despised me, but as a nerdy 7th-grader, I barely knew what a girl was. Late in the school year, some mutual friends began dating and we all started sitting together during lunch. I would steal her jalapeno chips and she would laugh at all of my stupidly adorable jokes. Over the summer we texted all the time, constantly sending ";)" and "<3" messages until one day I asked, "Do you wanna be my girlfriend?" She quickly responded with "No Keaton, we're 12, we can't even drive to see each other". But our love story doesn't stop there. In 8th grade, we were still texting at home and competing in the classroom. When our 2011 middle school homecoming came around, I asked her to be my date, and she said yes. Throughout the entire football game, our friends were constantly bugging me, "When are you gonna ask her out?". When the first slow song came on during the homecoming dance, I asked "Do you wanna be my girlfriend?", and when she said yes I promptly responded with "Okay.......good!". And we've been together ever since.

Ever since we started dating in 8th-grade we were inseparable. We constantly competed in classes and went on a total of 5 homecoming, 2 proms, and countless study dates in our middle school and high school years. I remember staying up late and trying to teach Emily physics before an exam, while at every dance Emily tried to teach me how to dance something other than a 2-step. We won the American Legion Awards as the top boy and girl in 8th grade and got to make jabs at one another during our speeches as the Valedictorian and Salutatorian of our school. We went off to Texas A&M University where we finally went different routes, she pursued a degree in Accounting and I a degree in Engineering. We always made time for each other, going on late-night HEB trips or grabbing early morning coffee at a library Starbucks between our buildings. She always made time to listen to me rave about rockets and I always helped her when her classes stressed her out. For 9 years we were the "old couple" in our friend groups, always being together and bickering like we had been with each other forever. After 9 years I finally proposed, and after 10 years we can finally say "I Do".