First off, this is dedicated to my beautiful boyfriend Andy Trotter.

So, to get this started, I'll start with my background. I am currently a Freshman at Iowa State and my boyfriend graduated 2 years before me from a different high school. We met on New Year's Eve of 2012 in a random series of events. However some part of me feels like it was God's plan. My friends and I were on our way to a party, WHILE WE WERE FRESHMAN IN HIGHSCHOOL LMAO, but we got lost along the way and ended up at these apartments on the opposite side of town. We were scared, cold and lost. However this group of guys ended up in the very same situation! What are the chances? Out of the three guys that were there I was only looking at one of them: Andy. We barely had any money to get a taxi back home, but we scraped up anything we could find and called for a taxi. After 3 hours, we lost all hope of the taxi coming, so we made a bed in the laundry room of the sketchy apartments. My 15 year old self was really on one looking back, but without the unfortunate domino effect taking place I would've never met my soulmate.

The following days, I didn't even think I would see Andy or any of the other guys again, but that was a lie. The most millennial way to date someone happened to me. Andy. Slid. In. My. DM's.

I was caught way off guard, but I appreciated the gesture mostly because I was only 15 and a 17-year-old slid in my DM's and was interested in me. I didn't give anything up so easily though. In fact we didn't even come official until five months later. We spent all that time in between as friends. He would walk miles to my house everyday just to play basketball with me or hangout at the local park. I used to tell people we had that "Love and Basketball" type of relationship. After a while I started to really be into him, and had all of these thoughts in my head of what our lives could be like if we were together. I've had plenty of schoolgirl crushes but nothing like this. When April 12th, 2013 came around I was officially Andy Trotter's girlfriend.

I can't even go over everything that has happened in between then and now, but I know all the feelings I felt from then to now. After numerous homecomings, two proms, two graduations, three anniversaries, four Christmases, so many birthdays and a lot of dates, I fell more and more in love with him. Don't listen to anyone if they tell you you won't meet the person you'll spend the rest of your life with in high school because I know first hand that is false. The statistics say only 15.5% of relationships last, according to the PewResearch center. We beat the odds. I may be young, but that doesn't mean I don't feel love, or the butterflies in my stomach whenever I kiss him, or smile whenever he smiles, or go to cloud nine whenever he is in my presence. All of that overrules the bad times and the arguments. He is my bestfriend, my boyfriend, and my other half.