January 2004 arrived, and I was absolutely full to bursting with excitement and anticipation. Not only was I soon to be a legal adult, I was finalising my plans for university in the fall. The year prior, before I'd even met John, I aced all my entrance exams. I hoped my extracurriculars, foreign language credits and part-time job would make up for my otherwise lacklustre high school career. All around me, I heard my classmates talking about their dream schools: Ivy Leagues like Yale and Harvard, but some were choosing to stay closer to home and go to state schools. My dream school was Sarah Lawrence in Bronxville, New York, where I planned to major in Music Education. However, out-of-state tuition, room and board would cost forty thousand dollars a year. Since I did not qualify for most financial aid, I would have to take out massive student loans and hope I could luck into a work-study position on campus to cover my other living expenses. I was okay with this; I figured that once I graduated I would be able to land a cushy job somewhere in the Pacific Northwest, perhaps running my own music studio. Life would be good.
So where did my boyfriend fit into all of this? He had no plans to go to uni, or for any kind of future really. He seemed to be content eking out a meagre existence on his delivery driver's salary. He also harshly criticised me for my Sarah Lawrence plans, saying I was only doing it to live up to others' expectations. He said I was a doormat and I had no backbone. I called him an ambitionless loser. It soon got to the point where I couldn't mention uni without it becoming a huge fight. We would scream at each other for hours until one, or both, of us was crying. We would make up soon afterward but the cease-fires never lasted long. I was terrified of losing him, but I had no idea what would happen to us after I graduated. Would we be able to make a long distance relationship work? The thought of being away from him for months on end, with email, AOL Messenger and the occasional phone conversation being the only ways we could keep in touch, sounded like more than I could bear.
Around this time we started spending more time with our coworkers from Dominos. They were older than us, in their twenties and thirties, and they were more than happy to supply us with cigarettes, liquor and weed. Naturally neither of our parents approved us hanging out with these guys so I would lie and say I was going to study at a friend's or I had to work late. My school friends, by and large, had stopped associating with me. They didn't like John, they thought he was weird, and my friend Victor even thought our relationship was unhealthy. But I had no idea what a healthy relationship was even supposed to look like. I only had the all the silly ideas that had been planted in my head since I was a kid from TV and movies. Ideas like "there's one right person for everyone", "if it's meant to be, it will work out," "love is all you need", etc.
At the same time, I thought we needed some excitement to make us fall in love all over again. In February, we went to see a 311 concert in Albuquerque. It was the first real concert either of us had been to. The line was long, stretching all the way around the building, so we passed the time by making out, goofing around and people watching. They played "Love Song" from "50 First Dates" and we slow danced together, swaying gently to 311's downtempo reggae rock. In the moment, all the fights, all the months of discord melted away. I felt safe, loved and at peace. On the way home, high on expectations, I decided that we should get married. Marriage, I reasoned, would solve all our problems. As husband and wife, we would have no choice to work on our problems. We would be a team and build a future together. Uni wasn't as important as spending life with the man I loved.
So I asked him to marry me, and he accepted. We broke the news of our engagement to our parents. My mother was furious. She forbade me to marry him. "You are throwing your entire future away over some boy!" she yelled. I had always been an obedient child, rarely rebelling. Normally I would have bowed my head and murmured an apology. But I stood firm, and she slammed the door to my room in disgust. His parents just laughed at us. They said we would never go through with it, and if we did, we would never last. However, his mother wanted me to have a ring at least. She gave me her grandmother's ring. It was beautiful, a small solitary diamond set in white gold, but it was much too large. I wore it on a chain around my neck.
In order to prepare for married life, I decided to forego my usual spring sport and took a job at Sonic. I would be making more money as a carhop since I got tips; this would be perfect for saving for a wedding and a place together. By this point John had dropped out of school and he was working at Dominos full time. The application deadline for Sarah Lawrence came and went. I realised that I hadn't applied to a single school. In order to get my mum off my back, I applied to New Mexico State University, her alma mater. They accepted me, but I would have to pay my own way. I told Mum I would use the money I earned from Sonic to pay for school, hoping she would leave me alone. She relented...for a time.
Little did I know that she had plans of her own. Her contract at LANL was up, and she was moving the family to Albuquerque. I was coming too, she said, end of discussion. I told her that with only two months left in the semester, it was highly unlikely that I'd be able to finish school there. She didn't care. She just wanted me to get away from John. She went to extreme measures to make sure I didn't see him, including having my siblings spy on me. Both of them felt really bad about doing it, but they didn't want to incur my mum's wrath.
I couldn't take it anymore. I ran away and moved into John's small, cramped room. We were reunited! It was a huge victory, and I thought John would be proud of me for standing up to my mother. I relished my newfound freedom. A couple of weeks after I moved in with him, he dropped a bombshell: He wasn't sure if he was ready to get married. At least not yet. When pressed, he simply said he needed to think about it, he needed more time. Something inside me shattered. Didn't he appreciate everything I'd done for him? I had nothing without him. I had no friends, I was estranged from my family, my entire future centred around him, but it wasn't good enough. "Matti," he said exhaustedly, burying his head in his hands. "I do want to marry you. Someday. We're too young. I'm not ready." Since Mum had left already for Albuquerque with my brother in tow, I called his parents and begged them to let me stay at their place until the school year was out. They agreed, and my sister and I moved in with them in late April.
Eventually, we reconciled. I asked him to come with me to Senior Prom. We planned a cozy, romantic candelit dinner, just us two. However, my sister decided to invite herself along, as well as several of her friends and their dates. I was starved for a social life, so I was happy about the change of plan. When I called John and told him the news, he blew up. "Thanks for ruining everything," he said. "I hope you enjoy your night." He hung up. I tried calling him back a couple of hours later but his roommate told me that he wasn't home.
"Where is he?" I demanded.
"He has a date," his roommate replied smoothly. I heard one of his other roommates laughing in the background.
A date. A DATE. I couldn't believe it. I hung up, tears streaming down my face. My sister quickly found me another date (her date's best friend) but the night was a disaster. My date and I barely spoke to each other, and all I could think about was him cheating on me with this other girl. Later he told me it was a set-up by his roommates, he didn't even know the other girl, and nothing happened between them. The damage had already been done, however. My heart was broken into a million pieces.
John's father got a contracting job in Colorado, one that would be very well paid and would allow us to keep living with them. Since I was still angry with my mother, I said yes, I would love to move to Colorado. It would be a new beginning. I could leave all the painful memories behind. John alternated between begging me for forgiveness and blaming me for what happened on Prom Night. Graduation, then moving day arrived. He stopped by his parents' house to say good-bye, just as we were getting ready to make the long drive to Colorado. I had nothing left to say to him. When he reached out to embrace me, I pushed past him and got into the car. A look of bewilderment and dismay crept across his face. It was still there as we were driving away.
TO BE CONTINUED
