Sophie (Chanko) Dare

Life goes by so fast, and yet so slow at the same time when you're in love. You remember so many specific little moments, afternoons, days, and nights, and sometimes the days seem to drag on as you wait for the next occasion. But then, one day you look up, and your anniversary is this weekend.

Two whole years ago, Peter decided it was time for us to stop being “just friends”, and we became boyfriend & girlfriend. It was absolutely surreal (and terrifying), considering I'd spent so long convincing myself we'd never be anything more than good buddies, but here we are.

September 8, 2018 – our first picture as a couple

I think our story is pretty cute, so without further ado, here's the tale of how life brought us together in the strangest of ways!

...

We begin in the summer of 2015, when both of us turned 16 and set out to get our first jobs. I interviewed at my local Panera Bread cafe and got the job in June, and soon after that, Peter came through the front doors looking for a job of his own.

And so came about our first interaction, which we still remember and laugh about. He came in wearing a striped polo shirt and baggy jeans, in true homeschooler fashion. I thought he looked awfully unprofessional, since my mom had always told me never to wear jeans to an interview. I may or may not have roasted him for it from my register, and then we became coworkers shortly after.

We bonded over the music he was playing on his portable speaker in the back while washing dishes. We talked about twenty one pilots, and he told me all about his other favorite band, Relient K. I had never heard of them, so a few weeks later, he brought me a grocery bag full of all his Relient K CDs to listen to. I put them all in my old car with a six-disc changer, and got hooked on their songs.

We would close the cafe together almost ever single Friday night for the two years that I worked there during high school. I missed out on a lot of social events, but I would still rather be working, making my own money, and having a friend there to greet me with “How was your week?” every Friday after school.

He was hilarious, smart, quirky, and kind, and we became great work buddies real fast. Every other twenty-something we worked with would tease us incessantly – half because we were super close and they made fun of us for “being in love”, and half because we were both dorky 16 year olds who had no idea what the real world was like.

Eventually, we became better friends, and that turned into us hanging out outside of work, and me going over to his house for dinner all the time, hanging out with his sisters and becoming friends with his mom. It was lovely, and even though I of course thought he was cute, we were having so much fun being friends and hanging out.

After we both had graduated high school, he moved out to an apartment in Ann Arbor, so we weren't coworkers anymore, and we would just text and see each other once in a while at the community college we both started attending.

There were plenty of ups and downs in this period of being more grown up – he was out on his own, trying to make ends meet and learning the hard way how to be responsible for himself, and I was busy taking classes, working two jobs, and having several not-so-great dates with guys from the local music scene that never worked out. I missed him a lot, definitely a little bit too much for being “just a friend.”

We had some rocky stretches as we became closer friends, and even an anti-fight of not speaking for two months. It was one of the worst times in my life, honestly, since I've never really fought with a friend before. But we eventually made up, moved on, and went on to hang out all the time in a big group of friends the entire summer after that – 2018. I watched him play music and do stand-up comedy at open mics almost every week for months, and it really felt like everything was back to normal, and I had my buddy back.

As that summer came to an end, and friends were going back to college and moving away, we had one last hurrah with most of the group. We had taco night at Peter's parents' house on Labor Day, and as per usual, I was the last to leave, sitting on the kitchen counter with his siblings talking and laughing. I finally went out to my car around 1am, and realized he was following behind me. I was worried I had done something wrong and I was about to be confronted. But I turned around, asked him what was up, and he said the legendary, earth-shattering words: “Do you think we could give things a shot...between us?”

And what did I do, when I realized my teenage dreams were coming true, and I was finally about to break out of the friendzone?

I proceeded to swear at him, because I was so shocked and surprised.

Coil subscribers, keep scrolling for more!

Continue reading with a Coil membership.