Lover's Love

Part One - Let's get you up to date

One year. One year ago we got together. How did this time pass so fast? On one hand it feels like forever, on the other like 3 months. In nine days we will celebrate our first anniversary - how exciting! Now, I've decided to start writing about our relationship because you tend to forget about all the little things AND I believe it's a healthy reminder for all you romance-loving heads out there who think all of their problems will be solved once they find their love partner that a relationship is not, in fact, what makes you complete and happy.
But believe me, I feel you. I have been single for the longest time of my life. I am now almost twenty years old and I have been in two relationships so far.
The first lasted for 5 months, that's when I finally realized what I ended up in and ended things. We were not a good fit.
You know this Diagramm for the perfect relationship with three circles? One symbolizes friendship, the other love and the other sex. Where all three cross in the middle stands the perfect relationship.
Well, in my first one, we didn't have even one of them. So don't ask me how we even lasted 5 months.
Believe me, having your partner as a best friend simultaneously is just sooo important. Otherwise you will end up only talking about your relationship (and that's no fun!) like in all of those 'Reality' Dating Shows.
But about 6 months later I met Marco.

The story of how we met is so cute, we joked about writing a book about it one day.
Years ago, I think I was fifteen years old, I met a guy on the train. Well, he met me. We exchanged numbers and texted for two years. We managed to actually meet in person about four times. He was the total fuckboy and luckily I realized firstly that and secondly that I really don't want to deal with bad boys. Before things came to an end he wanted me to meet his best friends. Marco and some girl. That never actually happened, because when I told him that I'm currently dating another boy he got totally cranked up and we stopped texting. For the better. As I learned later on, the fuckboy (I won't bother to make up a name for him) had told Marco a lot about me, shown him photos of me and what not.

So, a few years later, October 2021, I worked at a Drive-Through Covid Test Center. We had a lot of cars coming in every minute and I was dressed up in all white. Gloves, body suit (really puffy and fat), glasses, protector face shield and mask. You could barely see me under that thing.
When I approached his car and I read out his name to check if it's him, I stumbled across his name. He noticed. We both thought to recognize each other from photos from when I "dated" that boy. Neither of us said anything though. His father and his new best friend were with him in the car. As I learned later on, is when they were in line and saw me, his best friend Lucas said "if you get that girl's number I'll owe you five". Marco didn't, when he recognized me. I think it's crazy to think that they'd find me attractive under all that steril stuff but as Marco told me later, he saw my smile underneath the mask (um how?) and that's what made me so attractive to him. Anyway. I tested them and wished them a nice day.

Two weeks later, I was on my way to work again, I saw Marco on the train! And then he actually came over. We got talking and admitted that we both recognized each other from that guy. He said straight away that they're not friends anymore because he too, realized that he's a jerk.
We only had about 10 minutes to talk before he had to leave the train.
Nothing happened, I didn't think about him too much. Time passed.
A few days later, we met again. This time, he asked me out. Only later did he tell me that he left his lecture at university earlier and ran to the train to try and *maybe* get lucky to see me again.
The next week I was at university, about to leave when he called me and asked if I wanted to grab lunch. It was really spontaneous for the both of us but I thought - why not? Let's do it.
He remembered that I'm vegetarian and picked out a cute Tofu-Bowl-Restaurant and we talked for hours. Eventually we said our goodbyes.
That's when I learnt that I was Covid-positive...
I immediately called him and he told me that he, too, got Covid. Not from me, but from a party. What are the odds?

So for the next two weeks we were both locked up in quarantine, both in our rooms and you can imagine - we talked a lot! I have never facetimed a person as much as him, we talked all day every day, playing mobile games, watching movies together, talking, drawing. Naturally, we came to know each other pretty well, so when our isolation was finally over and we went on our (second) first date, we were super familiar and it was a great atmosphere. He picked me up and we went to a nice restaurant and after that he showed me his school because we wanted to go up on the roof. The school sanitor stopped us from doing so, so instead we went back into his car because it was freezing outside (this was December 1st). We talked and listened to music and when the song "Kiss me" played and I wouldn't stop my nervous talk he came closer and closer to me and kissed me. Ahhh! It was the perfect date.

The next day we met again, this time we went up to a castle on a hill and enjoyed the Christmas city lights. We ended up on the much warmer car back seats and kissed some more. This horny ass boy would have had sex right there and then, I'm telling you haha. That's when I asked him about us and we *actually* got together. However I chose the 1st december as our date haha, because it is such a nice date and that's when we shared our first kiss.

So this year, we are celebrating both the first and the second December!

The past year with him was incredible. Only two weeks into our relationship we planned a month-long vacation in South Africa, my home country (we live in the UK) and in February we left our homes to have the most amazing vacation together. Six months later I followed him to his home country Brasil and surprised him with Portuguese skills (I had secretly studied Portuguese for 4 months-he didn't have a clue!).
Obviously we had great times, but also a crisis here and there.

I will tell stories about the past year in the following chapters as well, don't worry ;)
But I also want to update you on our relationship, like a shared diary!

Of course I will try to hide our identities, so here and there I will adjust some minor facts like names. But the rest is simply: real!

I hope you enjoy this real-Life-love-story, please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments <3

-In Love, Zuri