Nyssa Says...

Raihn and I met in Biology 101, appropriately enough, in the summer of 2006. It was one of those grueling classes that sucked out 3-4 hours of your life, Monday through Friday, plus a couple here and a couple there Saturday through Sunday... not a way one would prefer to spend the summer.

One typical school day I did what I usually did when it was break time -- walk to the Starbucks on campus for a life potion, or go hunt down some Carl's Jr. criss-cut fries.

But this day was different. The doofy-white-guy with the humongous blue backpack was standing outside in front of the classroom door chatting with one of his friends. Why would anyone carry such a huge backpack? I wondered. Now that I think about it, is it just me or is he popping up around me more and more? Oh well. Whatever. Food.

I thought I heard him and his friend exchange goodbyes as I walked down the hall. That day was like any other summer day, endless stretch of blue skies and heat that hits you like a brick wall. I turned a corner, making sure to stay below the shade, and began walking down another hall when I heard some footsteps following me. Don't ask me why or how, but I had a peculiar feeling that those footsteps belonged to him.

I dared not look back.

I grrr-ed to myself as I entered the final approach leg towards the coffee shop where a group of six to eight students blocked my path, forcing me to leave my precious shade. Then all of a sudden...
Light bulb!

Immediately I slowed down my pace, meandered around the gaggle of Vietnamese students, and caught him in the corner of my eye on my three o'clock!

I was silently applauding myself on a proper good job when he headed straight towards me. Oh no. What, why?

He says hi. "Hi."

We are talking now.

He opens the door. Thanks, but I can open my own door.

He is still talking to me.

Now he's asking if I ever had an IBC Cream Soda. "No."

He is offering to buy one for me. No! This is weirding me out.

"Uh, no, thanks. I can pay for my own." Umm. Smile.

That day, we sat down in the coffee shop and had our first actual conversation over two bottles of cream soda. He found out that I was in the ATC program and I discovered that he was an artist and was fairly recently out of the Marine Corps. To be honest, a lot of this is fuzzy in my memory I suppose because I was too busy being nervous.

Ok, had I known that he was going to be my husband, well shoot, I would have put in a little more effort at making a good impression. For one thing, I would not have avoided him. I would have sat next to him in class every single day. When he approached me one day after class and asked if I would like to study with him for finals, I would not have been terrified and bumbled out, "No. I'd be a terrible study partner... In fact, I didn't even read the text book. At all. It's better if you studied with someone else." I would not have mummified my cell phone in layers of foil and buried it in between two mattresses trying to deflect the world's cell phone rays in hopes to send Raihn's calls straight to voicemail. I would have spoken to him every chance I got to make him like me. Truly.

I guess I must have passed all the tests on Raihn's planet because we ended up hanging out a couple more times just talking and talking. And it was wonderful. On that note, ladies, if you like the guy, and if you two happen to run out of things to say and he busts out his laptop to show you his amazing victorious replays of his WarCraft III games, DO NOT run away. He can still be your soulmate. I know mine was :)
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Later on, fast-forwarding to our first date at Dave & Buster's, I discovered that he had a crush on me weeks before we had ever spoken a word. I asked Raihn, "When was the first time you noticed me then?" He replied that it was when I whipped out one of my favorite comic books to read in class (The Punisher: Born by Garth Ennis in case you wondered). Strange, how all the little things count in life.

Over the past several years I have come to believe what a lucky person I am to have such a wonderful and beautiful man to be my soulmate, my best friend, my teammate, my anchor, my love, and my soon-to-be husband. Raihn truly makes me a better person.

For all of this I have to say thank you God for all of the blessings that You have given me, the brightest of which is Raihn. And of course, I am also in your debt Mr. Ennis for introducing the baddest marine into my life. And no, his name's not Castle.