The Story of Us

Seven

Senior year. I was on top of the world. At the beginning of the year, I dated a guy named Jeremy. He was in water polo and I thought he was just so cute. We went to Homecoming together. He tried to get in my pants, I said no, he dumped me. In case you're wondering what happened to Jeremy, after high school he went into the Marines. He's married now and has two kids. We are still friends on Facebook. 

A few months after Jeremy, I dated a guy named Jordan. He was in my best friend's physics class. She had the teacher I had the previous year, so I crashed the class and sat at a table with Jordan, some guy named Eric, and a guy named Stephen Doyle. Doyle, as I called him, was also in my Spanish class, but I didn't realize that since that was like the first week of school. Anyways, two months later after Jeremy and I had split, Jordan asked me out.  We "dated" for a month or two before we decided to part ways. We rarely saw each other and had only gone on one "date" at our local pizza place. Jordan was a sweet guy though; I have a picture from a football game where I am on the field for colorguard and he's in the stands and you just see the back of my head because I was talking to him before the pregame parade. I stayed friends with him too. He actually was my friend's kids' teacher recently. He works with special needs kids. He's married and just recently had a baby as well.

Doyle is an honorable mention candidate. I'll make this brief; I knew he liked me senior year but every time I was available, he wasn't. The cards never seemed to line up for us. I always wonder what could've been with him. But he moved to San Jose for school. A few years ago, I said something along the lines of I don't care if we talk. Which was a lie, of course I wanted to talk to him. But he took that and ran with it; blocking me on social media. I haven't heard from him in years. Maybe it was for the best?

After Jordan, I started dating a guy named Nicolas, or Nico. Honestly, this relationship was probably a terrible idea from the beginning. Nico was a freshman in all honors classes. He was really smart and adorable, honestly. He seemed pretty mature, too. And, as much as it pains me to admit this, he is the guy I went the furthest with in high school. He always made me feel so safe and comfortable. We even went to church together occasionally. He was in marching band, he played the trumpet. We actually met on a band field trip to Disneyland. He was on the train with us and we chatted it up. Like I said, he was a really smart kid. The conversation was amazing, so we started dating. He even wrote a song for me. I thought that he was going to end up being my high school sweetheart I would end up marrying. As you could tell from the first six parts of this story, unfortunately it's not about him. When prom rolled around, he refused to go with me because "it is for juniors and seniors". I tried to explain to him that it wouldn't matter because he was my date. Plus, think about those bragging rights. How many freshmen could say they went to prom? Yet, he continued to refuse. I told him I would go with someone else and he got butt hurt. So, we broke up.

And here comes our "hero" to my rescue.

Stephen had gone to a prom with another girl from a different school. I figured he would take her to ours in return, but nope. When he heard I was single, he hopped on the chance to ask me to prom. I said yes. That's it, no cute "promprosal". He just asked and I said yes. I decided to buy a new dress instead of wearing the one I was supposed to wear the year before; felt a bit like bad juju. While I was dress shopping, he texted me that he was tux shopping. I sent him pics of the dresses I was looking at. He asked if I had a preference in what he wore, I said not really, as long as it looked good with the options I was looking at. That would be one of my biggest regrets.

Stephen showed up in a white tux with thin black pinstripes. He worse sunglasses in nearly every picture we took or else he was squinting/blinking. Even a picture one of the teachers took of us at prom had him blinking, and it was dark outside at that point. I still had a great time with him. That night, he asked me to be his girlfriend and I agreed.

The rest of that month went downhill.

The day before his 18th birthday, my mom had a brain aneurysm burst. He offered to come see me and I, in tears, told him no. I didn't want to see anyone. For all I knew, my mother was dying. They rushed her to the hospital and she had brain surgery that night. I spent all day and night at the hospital. I even lost a contact from crying so hard. My cousin had to drive me home, where I broke in through the sliding door and grabbed glasses and my homework. My best friends walked down to the hospital and brought me McDonald's. He didn't show up. I forgot his birthday in this whirlwind I was stuck in.

We graduated a week and a half later. I didn't get any pictures with him after our ceremony, which makes me a little sad since we were "dating". We had grad nite at Dinseyland almost immediately after. We rushed to get ready. While I was waiting for my friend to come back with my outfit change, I somehow bumped into Nico. Why he was alone in the quad, I will never understand. But I broke down. He held me until my friends showed up and he basically passed me on to them. I thought we would stay friends, but we did not. He unfriended me on Facebook and basically told me, in a nicer way, to stay the fuck out of his life. I heard he joined the Air Force after high school. I'm sure he is probably married by now. I wish I could talk to him again without feeling weird or creepy. He was genuinely a nice guy. 

 I was planning on hanging out with my friends, and yet Stephen attached himself to my hip. I told him I would like a little space. He continued to follow me around the gym while we waited for the buses. I finally had it and told him we were over. I spent the night partying with my friends, and he was with his friends. I thought it was over.

Until it wasn't.

I left for Michigan and when I came back, my mom was finally home. However, tensions had risen at home. My sister and I were living with my grandma and I had gotten into some trouble before Michigan and felt weird living there. I decided I would go back to my mom's house and live there alone. I was 18, I could handle it. Stephen offered to help me move all my stuff back from my grandma's house to my mom's house. I accepted the help. It was the fourth of July and the high school was going to do their fireworks show. After playing some video games, he asked me about my plans for the night. I told him I was going to hang out with my best friend and her boyfriend. He left and later sent me a text saying it was over since I didn't want to spend time with him. I laughed. I didn't know he felt like we were still together. I was already talking to someone else.