Our parents were friends when we were toddlers, so technically we met then (but of course we don't remember it). His family then moved and ours fell out of touch. Later on we both went to the middle school where they shipped all the "smart kids" (so even though we lived far away from each other, we still went to the same school). We met again there. We "dated" during the summer before high school. It obviously didn't work out because * we were 14 * my mental health was a dumpster fire * we were going to different high schools I never got over him. He dated my best friend and then a girl with the same name as me. When I was 16, I finally started getting help for my mental health problems. I was going to the doctor every other week for med checks and the therapist every week. I missed a lot of school. I worked so hard to get better. All the while, I still wasn't over this boy. I hadn't dated (or even really been interested in) anyone besides him. Everyone thought I was a lesbian, including my parents. Really I was just stuck on this kid. I looked up statistics for the average length of time it took someone to get over an ex and realized I had well exceeded it. I decided I must have built him up in my head into some mythical being. I figured if I just met up with him once, I would realize that he was nothing special and move on with my life. So, I messaged him on Facebook and asked if he wanted to get coffee. He replied that he was watching The Bachelor (Juan Pablo) and would get back to me when the episode was over. Power move. We met for coffee the next day, went to a used book store, and swung by a drug store because I was out of eyeliner. Puberty had hit him like a freight train. We instantly hit it off so naturally. I apologized for the way I treated him when we were 14 and he apologized for calling my house for two years after we broke up. I realized that my plan had backfired. From then on we were calling at least once a week. This progressed until we were dating again. We went to the same college and stayed together. I graduated a year early and we planned the wedding in three months (my poor mother). On our honeymoon, we went to the amusement park we had taken a class trip to in middle school. I remember falling in love with him on that trip and then later convincing myself it had been false attribution of arousal. He had taken a little mini camera with him (what people used before smart phones got big) and made a "documentary" of the trip, which mostly consisted of shots of me blushing and refusing to look him in the eye. On the long bus ride back to school he had fallen asleep on his friend's shoulder and dreamed it was mine. We'll have our one year anniversary on August 11th. I know it's not a fairytale, but to me it felt like one.