He was a freshman in high school, and I was in 8th grade; we’ve been inseparable ever since. Yes, I know this is cliché, but it’s real. For a while, I viewed him as my best friend and nothing more. On May 25, 2010 that all changed.
High school shaped our relationship. Every morning, without fail, he would pick me up and drive me to school. This was a routine for three straight years. Driving to school used to be my Dad’s job. It was how we bonded. Although it was only for about five minutes, it was our time. So, for my father to hand over his responsibility to Gavin, it showed that he was accepting of us.
I think everyone has a different high school experience, but generally we all face the same issues. With Gav by my side, all of these problems were nominal. He was my cheerleader at every game, even if it meant being bored out of his mind. He was my example of how to tackle every year ahead of me because he had been there.
By his senior year, our lives had become so intertwined that he attended all of my family dinners. I was apart of his family and he was apart of mine. If I couldn’t sleep at 3 a.m., he would always answer my phone calls. I spent countless nights worrying about the future and what it would mean for us. So, this brings us to the last bonfire of summer before he went off to college. We reminisced with friends and talked about our expectations, fears and what excited us. I cried a lot that night. Too many people asked us, “Are you going to stay together?” My response to them was this: would you abandon your best friend because what you have to face is hard? He was my person. He was the person who I always turned to for advice, and honestly he is my everything. We definitely weren’t going to let our relationship end without at least giving it our best shot first.
My senior year was difficult because he wasn’t physically there anymore. He could no longer drive me to school in the most simplistic of terms. He wasn’t there at every game; he wasn’t waiting for me at my locker after class, but he was there in many other ways. He assured me that college was more than just a big party, but a learning experience. The separation gave us time to prepare for when it was my turn to go to college. No, we both don’t go to Fairfield. He is double majoring in Environmental Science and Geography at Villanova University—impressive, I know. But he is doing big, important things. I aspire to accomplish half of the things he has.
The transition from spending everyday together to seeing each other once a month, twice if we’re lucky, was hard. It’s hard in the sense that our experiences have departed from being so entangled. Our days don’t look the same anymore. However, it has made us stronger. By taking time for ourselves, we’ve gained more insight about how to become better partners. I never would have imagined that at 14 I would meet someone who would hold so much meaning.
Now at 19, I am very lucky to still be with the same incredible person I met in middle school. We’ve grown up together. We’ve experienced excruciating hardships and joyous celebrations. Another question I get asked all the time is: “Are you going to get married?” The answer to that is definitely not anytime soon. However, he can make me laugh even when I’m painfully annoyed at him, and that is pretty irreplaceable. If he could love me at the peak of my awkward stage, then it can only go up from there. The future is going to be tricky. He will be graduating next year, which means he will set the tone for us in the future. He might end up in California, and I might end up in New York for all I know. That excites me and terrifies me all at the same time. Being at different colleges is a constant struggle, but we are making it work. My advice to all high-school sweethearts out there is to be honest with yourselves and each other. If staying together is making you a better person, then power to you. On the other hand, I do understand the concept of growing as individuals in order to explore the world beyond high school.
Here we are, we’ve made it through high school: four proms, two graduations, countless exams, and deaths. I was too worried about future barriers to come our way, but we’ve done it all, really. The odds are definitely stacked against us, but if there’s love, it is possible.