Sarah Montalvo De Luca and Dylan Abrams
Sarah Montalvo De Luca and Dylan Abrams were Juilliard students whose friendship began before freshman year and developed into a romantic relationship during their years at the school.
Sarah and Dylan shared the 146th Street House community with their friends while living in separate duplexes. Their relationship was new but grounded in a longer friendship, and its ordinary texture was defined by playful bickering, mutual attention, and an ability to recognize when humor needed to give way to care.
Origins
Sarah and Dylan first met on an admitted-students tour before their freshman year at Juilliard. Sarah noticed that Dylan seemed carefree and was genuinely funny without becoming irritating or making his humor feel like a performance directed at her. Dylan’s first impression was simpler: he thought Sarah was pretty. At the end of the tour, Dylan suggested that they exchange numbers. Sarah agreed, and their connection grew through the ordinary momentum of continuing to text. Their early messages mixed jokes, music talk, and casual check-ins that became part of each other’s days.
Their friendship continued through their early years at the school. Dylan realized that his feelings had moved beyond friendship when he noticed how much it bothered him that other people were interested in Sarah. Gavin told him to ask her out himself, and Dylan did. Sarah was not surprised by the question; she had recognized the shift too and made him wait a beat before she said yes.
Relationship Development
Early in their relationship, Sarah and Dylan remained closely integrated with the larger friend group rather than separating into a private world as a couple. Dating did not require them to invent a new shared routine. Sarah had already been part of Dylan’s daily life; the relationship named a closeness that had developed through friendship rather than rearranging it. Their relationship was openly known within the friend group rather than kept secret.
Gavin knew Dylan was considering asking Sarah out, and Brooke was the first person Sarah told about the developing connection. The rest of the friend group had already noticed their mutual interest, so neither conversation surprised them.
For their first date, they chose a deliberately ordinary restaurant rather than an expensive one. Dylan explained that he did not yet have “musician money,” which made Sarah roll her eyes. They kissed at the restaurant instead of waiting for a more ceremonious ending to the date.
Dynamics and Communication
Their ordinary disagreements were playful arguments over dinner, plans, or small preferences rather than serious conflict. Both could misread each other in the ways young people sometimes did, but they were generally good at recognizing when a joke needed to stop. Dylan was especially quick to notice when Sarah needed him to be serious.
Dylan made it easier for Sarah to be silly, direct, and cared for. She gave him grief about his protectiveness, but she valued how closely he paid attention and how readily he stepped up when something mattered.
Sarah made it easier for Dylan to slow down and be sincere. She recognized the softness beneath his humor without asking him to defend it.
Food became one of their recurring low-stakes arguments. Sarah loved cooking, and Dylan’s large appetite meant that he ate whatever she made with obvious enthusiasm, though he remained lanky. He could complain theatrically that she had not fed him even after she had fed him repeatedly throughout the day. Sarah answered by threatening to kick him out or by guarding anything meant for the table until dinner.
Intimacy and Affection
Sarah and Dylan were openly, casually affectionate around their friends. Their hand-holding, leaning together, quick kisses, and ordinary touch were familiar enough that Gavin regularly called out, “Hey, PDA.”
They were also sexually active. Dylan treated consent as ongoing rather than settled by an earlier yes; he paid attention to changes in Sarah’s participation, checked in without making the moment clinical, and stopped without argument when she hesitated or changed her mind. He did not treat sex as proof that she had forgiven him or use it to bypass an unresolved conflict. Sex could follow a genuine reconciliation, but it expressed the repair rather than replacing the apology or conversation they still owed each other.
Because their relationship was still new, Sarah was learning to distinguish whether Dylan wanted ordinary affection, physical reassurance, or sex after an argument. Dylan did not always know how to ask for closeness without feeling exposed. His discomfort with asking did not lead him to assume what Sarah wanted.
Friends’ Perspectives
Brooke and Aditi were happy for Sarah and trusted Dylan because his care for her was real rather than merely charming or entertaining.
Aditi was openly enthusiastic rather than merely watchful. Sarah was one of her closest friends, so she trusted Sarah’s judgment and would defend Sarah and Dylan’s relationship fiercely. Gavin held a similar place in Dylan’s life: he was Dylan’s closest friend, trusted his judgment, and had already pushed him to ask Sarah out.
Travis was openly happy for them and otherwise let the relationship be ordinary. He did not make them into a spectacle; when he teased, it was usually Dylan-specific and gentle, such as telling him to go be with his girlfriend. Dylan answered with the affectionate annoyance the comment invited.