Seth and I were introduced by a mutual friend from Greenville, SC in Los Angeles, CA. Both looking for roommates, we hastily decided to move in together and immediately began our search for our perfect spot in South Bay. We settled on Hermosa Beach, a suburb of LA, and a place full of sand, surf, and sunshine. Every day after work, we'd crest the hill in our separate vehicles and breathe a sigh of relief looking out over the horizon of the vast Pacific. As I walked into our new home on 8th Street, I couldn't overlook the familiar soundtrack. From Seth's fingertips to my ears, I knew each chord he played to the Avett Brothers melody - Murder in the City. The music, unbeknownst to him, wasn't just a tune. It was a reminder in the deepest sense that I was home. Our first year together was no fairy tale, we were roommates running in opposite directions and building our lives in LA. And then a pandemic. A great and collective pause hit us all. Our lives felt as though they came to a full stop, and in that space we were able to breathe. We took daily walks. We swapped stories in our tiny abode and we built a community around us that felt like family, another deepening sense of home. It wasn't until we went to Joshua Tree one hot summer weekend to celebrate a dear friend's birthday that we had an inkling that we would ever be more than just friends. We had already built the foundation of a storied friendship, and under the meteor shower against the backlight of the fire, we began to see each other in a new light. In this new light, we shifted. Our storied friendship blossomed into something more, something inevitable. A relationship. We learned how in our upbringing there were more similarities than differences and how our lives had been orbiting each other for well over a decade, and it just took us moving across the country for our paths to finally cross.