Our Story
Our story begins on our very first day of high school. We were in our Native Spanish class doing the typical ice breakers to get familiar with your classmates. Mrs. Ramos had us walk around our classroom while music played, and then talk to whoever was closest when the music stopped. There was only one person next to me (Lizette) when the music stopped, so I quickly started telling him (Manny) about my summer. Manny said absolutely nothing. He simply raised his eyebrows and made the most uninterested face you can think of, and walked away as soon as the music started again. (Manny’s side note: Okay it’s not that I was simply ignoring her, I was just too scared to talk to a pretty girl 😳.)
I assumed he didn’t talk, but was soon appalled when I saw him talking to other people. I let it go, but kept wondering what his deal was as the year went on. It seemed like he had fun with everyone except with me! Then one day, after almost an entire school year of winning every single Kahoot! game in that class, I lost the final game to Manny. In my mind at that point, this guy had already shunned me and now he killed my streak. I decided I did not like him because he really did not like me. The year was over and we went our own ways, never having had a conversation. (Manny’s side note: Yeah I did basically ignore her all year, but not because I didn’t like her! She just seemed so unreasonably cool, successful, and popular that it felt like I couldn’t even approach her, much less become her friend.)
The next school year started, and we would not see one another again until mid February. I joined the distance track team early February and started making new friends. I became friends with Sumo (shout out Gabriel) and enjoyed doing the warm up exercises with him because we would talk about music, specifically One Direction. Two weeks later, Manny joined and on his first day, he was hanging out with Sumo. I was kind of annoyed because I did not forget about what he had done the previous year, and now he was “trying to steal my friend” too! I decided to still go hang out with Sumo despite Manny being there. I was so shocked when Manny spoke to me. This guy was suddenly the funniest person I had ever spoken to. We were instantly friends. At the end of track practice, he stopped me as I was leaving and asked for help on his homework. We exchanged numbers and developed a nice friendship where we spoke to each other every day. By the way, he never actually needed any help with his homework. (Manny’s side note: With a different setting, suddenly Lizette seemed so approachable and we got along great. I immediately thought of how to casually ask for her number, and Spanish 2 homework was the answer.)
By the time the next school year started, I was most definitely secretly crushing on Manny. We had no classes together for a week or two, until one day I get a message from him asking what my school schedule looked like. A day after that, Manny walked into my math class and sat at the only open seat left in that class… directly next to me. As the year went on, the Sadie Hawkins dance was approaching and I grew anxious that someone else would ask Manny to the dance. I have absolutely no idea where I even summoned the courage, but I managed to ask him to be my date and he said yes! Shortly after that dance, we both confessed our feelings for one another and began dating November 2017.
Life went on. We finished high school together. We both went to Fresno State. We moved in together and adopted a beautiful shepsky (RIP Steve) and two orange cats, Gampa and Gimba. After many years of growing up with each other, Manny proposed and I (no surprise here) happily said yes! Our story proves that love is anywhere and everywhere. You really do find it when you least expect it. For us, we found love while doing two things most people really hate to do, running and math. If you know us well, you’ll know it’s quite fitting for us.
