My Fiance and I met when I was 15 and he was 16. I went to NorthEast High in Fort. laud. florida and he went to Cardinal Gibbons which wasnt too far away and wasnt uncommonly known. His best friend had just started going to my highschool, he was a grade older, and we hung out every day at lunch in our small group of friends. We ended up becoming really close friends and on my birthday he invited me over his house to meet some of his friends ( he had hoped Mark, my fiance, would show up too), when we got picked up, Mark wasnt present, but that day i met what later became known to me as their crew. you know, the typical best friends. i went home and the next week at school,Justin (our common friend) began to be more straight foward about why he wanted to have me and mark meet, he was persistant and would not take no for an answer, i on the other hand had just gotten out of a long term relationship with an ex boyfriend and wanted to concentrate on my grades and not boys, well after a week of pushing things, i finally agreed to get a ride home from mark and justin... so after school mark picked me and justin up and we met, there was a spark, and after that it was history...

We dated for a month unofficially, we were never friends to begin with. it began with rides home, double dates with justin and his girlfriend, trips to the beach, meeting friends, sharing interests, and right before me and him left for our summer vacation trips, he asked me to be his girlfriend, and ofcourse i agreed, i met his mom who lives in Delaware but was down to visit that summer, June, 1 2008. marks our first official anniversary.

the next school year he actually switched into my school, i was a sophmore and he was a junior, we've always gotten along perfect. he knows everyhting about me, his family has taught me so much, and his sister and i even after i moved away have remained close, if not closer.Hes gotten along with my family too and had even won my dads respect, hard to do when youre daddys only little girl and well my famiyls background is very conservative and "Studys go first". At the time i lived with My dad and my Brother. my dad is a resdident and my brother is a citizen born in the u.s, i was there studying but had plans to come back and live in my home country because i had alot of benefits and support here.Mark always knew that and he respected it, he even supported it, never once told me to consider staying, even though he admitted he wished i would, we both understood that we were young and had to follow our carrers. We've shared so many special moments together and when we've had our little disagreements, they have always been because of how much we care for eachother rather than anything else. He soon became my best friend and lover, and almost my reason to stay, if it were that easy. By my junior year and his Senior year his friends were my friends and my friends were his friends and it was unspoken but understood that what mark and i shared was so different.

by the end of march Junior year, i had taken a multitude of AP classes and had gotten very satisfying grades in everything. i began to plot my college plans and decided to graduate early, so i too became a senior and then Graduated class of 2010. graduation week was a rush, my grandmother whom i hadnt seen in years since my parents first split up was coming, and my mother and father who did not get along at that point were going to attend as well, and my flight back to ecuador was 5 days after the graduation ceremony. out of all my friends i was the first one to leave. Well, June 1 was our 2 year anniversary. June 5th was our graduation ceremony and the first time i introduced my mom to his mom who was also down for marks grad. and my grandmother to his family, it was one of the most treasured nights of my life, for the first time my mother saw and understood despite her strict dating beliefs, that i had accomplished and was still on my way to accomplish my dreams and that my love and relationship with mark was productive, caring, patient, understanding, true, passionate, wild, it was everything and a blessing. Before i left, i was on rocky terms with my father, at that point i already had my education paid for and was attending a highly prestigious University that had connections everywhere in the world and in the united states had connections to harvard and colombia so if i did ever want to have a post grad from either too i would automatically, and in ecuador a post grad like that would take you very far. and the field i am studying, NeuroPsychology, is very new and vast so i wasnt going to trade it.

Mark and I never in our relationship spoke about forever, we thought come college, we'd break up because Long distance was far to much for us being so young. We loved eachother, like crazy, but we always got i guess, too nervous to admit it cause something like that at our age and among our "party animal" friends was so rare we couldnt believe it either, we thought it was an illusion. so everytime we said i love you, it was in that moment, we had however assured ourselves and eachother that we would always have a place in our hearts, we would always love eachother. My dad in all our silence, finally spoke to me, but not before sitting me down and telling me that he knows whereever i go im going to go far, that he is proud of me, but that he wanted to be sure that i was sure about leaving mark ( inside it tore me up but for some reason,even though i knew the second i got on that plane it was over, that it really would never be over, that what me and mark had was real and that even though we feared to admit it could be forever, its the one thing that kept me going, and kept me strong on my decision to leave, if it was meant to be it would find its way, and i was ok with knowning i would love him for the rest of my life) i told my dad that yes i was sure, that me staying here and putting my education aside was out of the question, and at that point to file for a student visa (even though my family did not support me studying in the u.s, and wanted me to continue my life in ecuador so that visa was out of the question, my family on both sides here have strong family ties, family buisness, wealthy and successful, it was and has always been my destiny to pursue my success in Ecuador, being bi-lingual and having studied in the u.s, and now attending University for Medicine)  before my dad let me walk out he said, mark loves you so much i can see it in that boys eyes, just tell him you'll wait for him, tell him and i know he will do the impossible to get you back. those words ring in my head til know.


i thought about what my dad said but still said my goodbyes, he was the hardest to let go of. Me leaving really set off alot of things, my parents got back together and my mom and him have never been happier! they never stopped loving eachother i know, my brother is growing up and making me proud of him, hes taken a very good interest in his studies and plans to go to FSU. I still keep in touch with friends, but it didnt really bother me leaving my friends, i miss them, but i always have the opportunity to visit so it never worried me. i said goodbyeto mark and when i got on that plane it was so hard not to get off and run back to him, when i got back to ecuador it was beautiful, everything was different, and i was so happy, between family and great food, and knowing youre one step closer to your future, i got that feeling you get when you see something beautiful or something amazing happens to you and you immedieatly wanna tell that special someone you wish they were there with you or they have to come and share this with you describing it every possible way in an attempt to give them almost that same feeling you have. so i emailed mark, and shared the expierence and told him i love him and he responded saying that hes happy im happy and that im having a great time, that he knows im gonna make all my dreams come true, but that hes sorry, he cant handle being so far asleep in his bed and know that i am in another country too far out in the town with my cousin, that he hasnt gone home cus hes scared to find a strand of my hair lying on his bed. that he knows he promised to visit but that he cant handle it cus hes always gonna wanna be more to me than just a friend. that hes sorry and that he is always gonna love me, he finished the letter reminding me i am beautiful and that he knows im gonna take the world head on. i still have that email. and every email and text message and card and letter since that day. i emailed him back and told him i'd wait for him but he said he coudlnt let me do that, but in the end we decided we'd wait for eachtoerh, he still planned to visit, and we decided it either one meets someone else its only fair to tell eachother, but we still spoke like lovers, still said we loved eachother and meant it.


we talked for three months and made plans to visit, we both were about to start college, and we both realized that what we had was so real, so alive, and hte distance and time only made it grow so much more stronger, we sent eachother gifts with people who came and went, we skyped, magic jack phone calls, text messages from morning to night, pictures were sent, never did we wanna even be with anyone else, sometimes it would even slip and i'd still call him my boyfriend. he was a month deep into college and i was going to just sign up when, on the 3rd of sept. before i went to pay for the semester (which he wasnt aware of ) he asked me if it was stupid of him to want to marry me, and i told him at first its the distance and that i know its hard but its sucha serious decision and he knows i would love to, love it love it love it, but i didnt wanna take away his youth and i didnt want to upset his dad because we decided to marry so young, but mark just told me, he didnt wanna regret the opportunity to marry me, he told me he wanted to come home everyday from school and work have dinner and lay with me, wake up and have me there beside him, do everything with me, and for the first time, Mark said forever. and i said yes. We decieded that we would continue our lives in the u.s although we had considered him coming to ecuador and teaching english at a private school as a job and studying here, and us living here but the language barrier he'd have would have alot of set backs, also my mothers family would never support me, so i'd be on my own and college here doesnt have scholarship benefits so we'd be stuck. we decided with my parents help and support that i would go back and we would pick out an apartment together, make the arrangements to marry there together also, announce it to our friends and family there when we got the interview at the embassy, we'd both get jobs, we'd both go to school and we'd carry on our lives but never apart.

i swear i never imagined the distance would hurt so much, i havent forgotten him, hearing his voice makes my day, i always dream that im going back to see him but i can never stay asleep long enough to touch him or to tell him what i want to tell him, sometimes i feel stupid for leaving, but everything happens for a reason, and even though we are both still young, we know now, after distance and time apart who we are and that we're meant to be, now we're patiently waiting to see eachother again. i just finished my semester and wanna look into visiting, but we'll see what comes. the distance is a struggle, but like he tells me, we'll make it. <3


i know this might be crazy cause we're young but i trust him and i know that this love is soooooo real! so magical that anything we do will lead us back to eachother. he is my soulmate, and i know studies go  first but theres so many places in the world to study, there is only one love of your life, so im going to take this chance, stiill study and still make my life, with him.

its crazy how my whole life i was wild about coming back to ecuador, excited for all the work and study i put into this university and this life, all the plans i had seemed empty and meaningless when i came back, i didnt plan on falling in love, Now i am realizing that whatever in life i wanna do, i can do it, but beside him, If  youre in true love, then you know, whatever happens, its your significant other you wanna share it with.