Stephanie Aquino was 12 years old when she met Lloyd Guy.

He was the scrawny 16-year-old who moved into the house next door in Kapolei.

At first they hated each other. But inevitably the families became neighborhood friends. That is, until the couple started dating in November 1994.

Aquino was a freshman at Sacred Hearts Academy; Guy was a senior at Kalaheo High School.

Their parents disapproved of the courtship and ordered them to stop seeing each other. It didn't work.

They'd meet before and after school at a bus stop in downtown. They'd sneak out of the house at 1:30 a.m. and meet in the front yard. And despite living directly next door, they talked on the phone for hours.

"He was polite, super nice, super easy to talk to. I didn't feel like I had to impress him at all," said Aquino, a 25-year-old registered nurse. "But my parents didn't like it at all."

In fact, when Aquino's mom discovered her daughter wasn't in bed one night in June 1995, she tore out of the house and started yelling her name. Aquino, who was at Guy's house, reluctantly answered her mom's calling.

Her parents didn't ground her. Instead, they sent her to San Francisco the next day to live with her grandma.

"My parents were really trying to split us up," Aquino said. "They wanted me to just forget about him."

Still, they were determined to make this work. For the first month, they talked on the phone nearly every day. Then the phone bill arrived. That's when their parents stepped in.

Aquino's parents told her that Guy had a girlfriend and she needed to move on. She believed them and stopped calling.

By the end of summer, though, she still hadn't forgotten about her first love.

"I still had feelings for him," she said.

When she returned home, Aquino called him. They planned to meet at Columbia Inn Restaurant on Wai'alae Avenue the next morning.

That's when she found out Guy didn't have a girlfriend that summer and had been waiting for her to come home.

They vowed to stay together no matter what.

That November, on their one-year anniversary of dating, Guy showed up to her school with flowers and a half-carat diamond ring. He dropped to one knee and proposed.

"I was shocked," Aquino said, laughing. "I didn't say anything."

Guy told her that this didn't mean they would get married soon. They both wanted to finish school and get their careers started first. But he wanted to show her how committed he was to the relationship.

"I was serious, but I guess it was a little hasty," said Guy, 30, laughing.

Though she didn't take the ring then, she did accept his proposal the next year on Valentine's Day.

For the next six years, Aquino and Guy hid their relationship from their parents. They lied about where they were going and who they were meeting.

Even at Aquino's senior prom, the couple remained incognito. She took her prom picture with the deejay to show to her parents.

"There was so much drama!" Aquino said, laughing.

It wasn't that her parents didn't like Guy. He was sweet, polite, respectful and sentimental. They just wanted their oldest daughter to focus more on finishing college.

In January 2001, while Aquino was majoring in nursing at the University of Hawai'i-Manoa, she found out her dad had cancer. She was devastated.

"Although he was very strict, he was the provider for our family," said Aquino, who now works in oncology at The Queen's Medical Center. "I totally looked up to him. I always wanted to marry someone just like him."

He passed away in June 2001.

Aquino has wondered whether she should have told her father about Guy before he died. But she has a feeling he already knew.

"So many times I wanted to tell him," she said, quietly. "But my worst fear was him telling me on his death bed not to marry (Guy)."

His death, in many ways, brought the two families back together.

But the loss was hard on both Aquino and Guy.

"I really didn't talk to him much," Guy said. "I was really disappointed he couldn't give her away at the wedding. That was my biggest regret."

From that point on, Aquino and Guy stopped sneaking around and came clean about their relationship.

"I felt bad about lying to our parents," Aquino said. "There were times I wished I had a normal relationship."

In 2003, the couple bought a house in Kailua. But they didn't want to abandon Aquino's mother, now widowed. So they rented out their Kailua home and moved in with Aquino's mom in Makiki. (She had sold the family's Kapolei home.)

Still, Aquino and Guy slept in separate bedrooms.

A year later, they started planning their wedding.

They were married on June 24, 2006 — 10 years after he first proposed — at St. Anthonys in Kailua. The reception for about 400 guests was held at the Royal Hawaiian hotel.

They chose a butterfly theme for the wedding, signifying the changes in their lives over their 12 years together.

Aquino tied a tiny frame to her bridal bouquet. In it was a picture of her father.

Now married — and not sneaking around — Aquino said life feels more settled.

"It's stress-free," she said. "I have this feeling that this whole fantasy finally came true."

With their odd hours — she works late shifts at the hospital, he's a cook at the Olive Tree Cafe and Honolulu Country Club — they try to squeeze in date nights at least once a month.

Right now, they love to hike and go to rock concerts.

After more than a decade together, Aquino said their feelings for each other have only grown stronger.

"Everyone keeps asking us how do we know we're in love because we've never experienced anyone else," Aquino said. "But I can't imagine being with anyone else ... We're best friends."

Reach Catherine E. Toth at ctoth@honoluluadvertiser.com.