As told by Jake…

A long, long, time ago, in a city far, far away, a young man decided to jump ship. He had decided that the city he was in just wasn’t a good fit, so when a job interview in Austin popped up, he packed up his life and moved before even finding out if his interview had gone well. It was a crazy move, one that defied logic… but he made it all the same. Unbeknownst to him, a few states away, a young woman in completely different circumstances was making a similar choice.

Years passed, and the young man lost his job, and the young woman danced between several of her own. The young man found himself missing being able to scare the ever loving heck out of people during Halloween, and stumbled upon a charity called SCARE for a CURE. He showed up on October 7th, 2012, and asked what help was needed. He was quickly cast as a threatening cultist with a machete, and every five minutes assaulted a group of customers only to get shot by a shotgun-wielding hero. The bombastic boom of his voice shouting “YOU’VE SEEN TOO MUCH” somehow qualified him to be the FX Director (though helping to fix and maintain the squib on his back likely played a larger part).

For the first time in a long time, he finally felt like he didn’t have to struggle to impress his friends. Being a part of something larger than himself gave him a reason to look to the future. The following year brought about the haunt “Fairy Tale Nightmare”, which involved creating, from scratch, a hallway of trees. Waiting 30 to 40 years for a sapling to grow large enough wasn’t feasible, so the trees were formed of chicken wire and slathered with a concrete mixture to form the bark. The young man was a natural at texturing the concrete to look like bark. Everyone was astonished at the quality he produced, and at the end of the day he went home proud of his new skillset. He had even found bits and pieces of scrap wood that he had honed into perfect carving tools.

He had to arrive late the next day, and the task of carving and texturing the rest of the trees fell to the young woman (who had found and joined SCARE just a few months previous). By some accounts, the wood she carved was much more lifelike and better than those the young man had produced. The young man was initially incensed at this, believing that the unsavory usurper was somehow going to angle him out of his newfound home. He was utterly and completely disarmed when he arrived, however, and discovered the usurper was actually a very pretty nerdy girl. When she (and literally everyone else) crowed about how her “wood was better than his”, he found himself aware of a new feeling that he had not felt in a long, long, long, long time. For two people who had never met before, the young woman and the young man got along instantly. He was smitten… until he found out that she had a girlfriend, and thusly he was certainly not her type.

But there was a twist! Little did either of them know, but that was not actually their first meeting. Discounting a couple of occasions where they were in the same place at the same time, they actually had conversed at length! The young woman had been recruited to the Marketing team, and was forwarded to the young man to help him fix the website. At the time, SCARE was the target of innumerable script kiddies who kept taking the site down. The young man was in the process of hard coding the site so it didn’t use WordPress… and the young woman was adamant about keeping it on WordPress. There was instant and total animosity. Both could not understand why the other was being so stubborn about their point of view. Both were sure the other was an arrogant selfish jackass. It was not a solid foundation for a friendship.

The big reveal of their online identities occurred mere hours into meeting in person, which pop culture would lead you to expect a shouting match to ensue. Fortunately, life is not a television sitcom. In reality, they both laughed off the situation, discussed it like adults, and moved on. Many tales could be told about the ensuing year; tales of game nights, of railroad tracks, of running jokes, and of statements true enough to hurt. Those tales will all be told in time. Suffice to say that over that year, both the young man and young woman became fast friends. They would annoy and irritate one another at times in that frustratingly good-natured way that happens when you like someone.

No matter how grandly the two got along, it was still as friends. The young man found himself despairing of ever finding companionship. Dearly appreciative of close friendships, but missing that extra piece that a truly loving relationship provides. It was a dark time in his life, where he retreated from the world and built a fortress of walls to hide behind. The young woman understood, having experienced dark times herself. She did not push, did not demand, she merely waited outside the fortress with an open hand for when the young man could see.

The end of October, 2014 was a tumultuous time. The two had had some rather close brushes with flirting, and on Halloween they were teasing and talking as normal. A play fight erupted, and in a crystalline moment the young man wanted nothing more than to kiss the young woman. He did not heed his heart, and instead pushed her away and fled into the night, terrified that he would have taken an unwanted step and ruined one of his best friendships.

That could have been the end of all, and the story would not have continued much further. Fortunately, the young woman turned to her sister, texting that the young man did not like her. After being prodded and called a coward for not asking directly, the young woman sent the young man a text to tell him she liked him.

The young man couldn’t believe his eyes. He was laying on the ground to hide from a group of customers at SCARE… and despite the young woman’s immediate retreat from her statement (voicing the very same fears the young man had felt earlier), he rushed to her. Once together, he swept her up in his arms and kissed her, and the two have been inseparable since then.