By September, neither was in a relationship. Rohan, a finance and management information systems major, asked Rachel to hang out one Friday night. There was another Drexel party, and Rohan, then carless, convinced a friend to take him to pick Rachel up. "We had our first kiss that night," Rachel remembers.
Rohan sent another IM the next day: "So, we're together now, right?"
Right!
Rohan knew Rachel was the girl of his dreams shortly after. He offered to take her to dinner. She said she'd rather hit the Philadelphia International Auto Show, then watch football.
Rachel, from Swarthmore, and Rohan, from Voorhees, stayed together through undergrad and grad school - even though she worked in Malvern and earned her MBA at Villanova while he earned his from the University of Maryland. Rohan lived in Maryland during the week, but came to Philadelphia each weekend. After earning their grad degrees, Rachel continued to work at Riverside Consulting Group, where she is a health-care consultant. Rohan is a business-strategy consultant for IBM and is based in Philadelphia.
How does forever sound?
In February 2009, Rohan called Rachel's close friend and coworker, Carrie, who got Rachel's boss to keep her at work late one Friday. Rachel finally arrived at their Phoenixville home to find music playing, roses on the coffee table, and a laptop displaying a slide show of memories from their years together. After the last slide, Rachel turned to Rohan, and found him down on one knee. He fumbled with the ring box, which got stuck in his pocket. He forgot the speech he had planned. But Rohan managed to say the most important things: "I love you. Will you marry me?"
"Shut up!" Rachel responded in happy disbelief. "Shut up!"
"Is that a yes?" Rohan asked. "Yes!" she said.
