Archways & Always

You climb the final hill, breath catching not from the effort, but from the feeling—like something electric is waiting in the air. Upham Hall stands ahead, its red brick glowing softly in the golden light, the arches casting long shadows over the familiar path. You’ve walked this way before, many times. But never like this.
There is no note waiting this time. No folded paper. No instructions.
Just the echo of your footsteps and the quiet ache of anticipation.
You round the corner beneath the arch, and then—there he is.
Greg.
Standing just where the light spills across the stone, hands folded, eyes already on you like he’s been waiting for more than just today. The clues, the trail, the whispers that pulled you through campus—they were all him. Every step led to this. To him.
For a moment, time seems to still. The world around you softens.
He smiles, and in that smile is everything the riddles couldn’t say: the affection, the admiration, the steady knowing. And then, without pretense, without any more games, he speaks.
Not as the president of the university.
But as the man who loves you.
He asks you to stand beside him—not just now, but for all that’s to come. To be his partner in every sense, to walk the paths of this campus together not as a mystery, but as a team. As First Lady of Miami University. As the heart next to his.
And standing there, beneath the oldest archway on campus, surrounded by red bricks and a sky blushed pink with evening, you realize:
This wasn’t just a scavenger hunt. It was a love letter.
And now it has found its ending.
Or maybe—its beginning.