OUR
Story
His Side
My journey with Meredith all began back in 2008. I transferred to TSU as a sophomore and she was in the first class I attended as a new tiger. Since I was new, I didn’t speak to many people aside from my teammates on the football team. I walked everywhere on campus with my headphones in my ears as I listened to music. We had a group project in that class and Meredith was our group leader. This was Meredith’s way to get my phone number, but she still denies that to this day. I didn’t see much of her outside of class until I saw her playing during basketball season.
Her best friend LaDona and I became friends during the summer going into my junior football season and I would often ask questions about my long lost friend from English class. LaDona would joke with me about hooking us up, but I never thought things would ever get that far. Meredith never really spoke to me and would keep our conversations short. Even in those short conversations, I knew there was something special about her and I wanted to know more. Our conversation picked up after I decided to text her on my way to play in the Atlanta Classic in 2010. The more we talked, the more I started to see her at games. This is when I learned how smart she was. After every game, my parents would wait on me to come out from the locker room. More and more, I noticed she would be standing with my parents awaiting me. My parents fell in love with her and then started asking me questions about Meredith and I’s intentions. Talk about pressure! We continued becoming closer over the next year, but I still had a place in my heart that was not ready to make the faithful step into a relationship. Because of this, we parted ways for a while. When I came to my senses, I asked her to lunch so we could catch up. At that point, I realized she had the key to unlock all the doors that I had closed to my heart. For a special reason, we decided to make things “official” on October 7, 2012 and as the saying goes, “the rest is history.”
Her Side
Let’s see… Our history goes back to Sophomore English. JP and I first met in 2008 in our Sophomore English Black Arts & Literature Class. I remember thinking he was cute when I saw him in class. We never really talked in class until we were assigned to a group project together. I initially thought he was mean because he never smiled and he didn't talk much in class. He always had headphones in. After working on the group project together, I was impressed because he was very smart and a good writer. During that school year, we never hung out but we would always speak in passing. It wasn’t until our junior year that I found out that he was feeling me. At the time, my best friend LaDona was dating one of his teammates. So whenever JP saw LaDona he would always ask her "where is my girlfriend or tell my boo I said hey." I’m sure she thought he was joking, but of course she would always tell me what he said. I didn’t take him serious at all because I thought he had a girlfriend. (He said they weren’t together anymore). As JP would say, I wasn’t giving him the time of day. He was right, I wasn’t.
It wasn’t until the summer of 2010 that I started to think maybe he might be someone I want to get to know more. We spent more time around each other that summer because we both were in Nashville for summer school. The fall semester of my senior year, around the start of football season was when we started to hangout more. I remember one night he was on his way to Atlanta to play in a football game when he randomly texted me. That night was the beginning of a new journey between us. During that school year, we were not officially dating but we would do everything together. I would go to his football games and he would be at my basketball games. Since my best friend, LaDona, was dating one of his teammates, I would always end up staying around after the football games with her. So it would seem as if I was waiting on him after the games but I was really just waiting on LaDona. The next year, I started Physical Therapy school and he was in his last season of football at TSU. Around December 2011, we decided to take a break because we were in two different places in our lives and he wasn’t ready to be in a relationship. It wasn’t until June 2012 that we reconnected when he asked me on a lunch date to Ninki’s Sushi Hibachi Grill. The summer of 2012, JP stole my heart and we finally made our relationship official on October 7, 2012 and the rest is history.