Meredith

Eighteen years ago

Gabe was a senior, living the life of a high school god. And he deserved it. He was the running back for our team. A man in his prime. A handsome, cocky star whose future was rolled out on a carpet in front of him. He was single-handedly responsible for the Jaguars making it to the state championships—again—and he was all too aware.

I was a year behind him, but treated like royalty just the same—guilty by association, I guess. I don’t have the words to express how much I loved him. No. The word love doesn’t do my feelings justice. He was all the things I wasn’t: tall and brave and strong. I didn’t see cocky, only confident. I didn’t see a jerk, only strength.

My parents on the other hand? They saw Gabe in an entirely different light and they weren’t shy about sharing. What I hadn’t realized yet, was how they felt it perfectly within their rights to weigh in on every aspect of my life. That nugget took many, many more years to reveal itself. Daddy lived for opportunities to rant about Gabe. How he wasn’t half the man of his father. How he would never amount to anything. For her part, Mom focused on things like the clothes I wore (and how I wore them), my extracurricular activities, the colleges I applied to, and so on. I was so accustomed to never being heard at home, I thought it was normal. Which, I’m sure lead me to put more pressure on Gabe to hear me, seeing as no one else ever had before. But when I spoke he listened, and as far as I was concerned, we were perfect.

Before Gabe, I was shy, and timid, and introverted. And not in a nervously cute way, mind you. My high school experience would have been that of a ghost, invisible to everyone around her, had I not been on the arm of Gabe Wilde. He gave me the strength and confidence I lacked naturally. He enabled me to stretch myself into the person I dreamt I could be, and not feel embarrassed by it. No one mocked me. No one picked on me. All because of him. The Wilde name meant something in our community and I was associated with it. Gabe and I were more than high school sweethearts, and everyone knew it. We were destined to end up together, much to the dismay of my folks.

You know that silly, can’t-catch-your-breath feeling you get the first time you fall in love? That’s how I felt, if you tripled it and fed it steroids.

I adored him.

He was my everything and I gave myself to him.

His.

Forever.

Ours was a fairy tale come true. Until it wasn’t.

The beginning of the end for us started after the final game of the state championships. We faced off against the Wolverines. They were tough—the only team to beat us all season. Gabe knew college recruiters would be watching and it was his last chance to shine. And he was right. When our team won, scouts came out of the woodwork, promising scholarships. I was overjoyed. I loved the thought of Gabe showing the world his talent. It fit perfectly with everything we spent the last two years imagining about our future. He would be a rock star in college, just like he had been in high school. And I would be in the stands, cheering him on, just like I always had. Then we’d get married and have the most amazing wedding.

We had it planned down to the last song. We’d have the best music, from Sting and Garth Brooks, to NSYNC (don’t judge—I was young). Then, after a picture-perfect day, Gabe would whisk me off my feet and carry me to a white double stretch limo that would take us to the airport, where we would fly first class to Hawaii.

When we got back, life would settle into a rhythm. We’d have three children, one after the other—two boys and a girl. I even had their names picked. Alex, the oldest, would be named after his father (Gabe’s middle name). Then Johnathon James, in honor of both our fathers, and then little Gabrielle, the apple of her daddy’s eye.

Our life together was going to be amazing, just like we spent so many hours talking about in the loft of my family’s barn. I never considered a future without Gabe in it. That just didn’t make sense.

Only, things between us changed after that game. That perfect life we dreamt up together faded into Gabe’s dream, leaving me alone, searching for my place in it.

Gabe stopped listening to me. He didn’t want to hear that my college options weren’t as broad as his. He didn’t care that my family would never approve of, much less pay for, tuition for a private school, especially if my reason for being there was to be with him. No matter how many times I told him, no matter how loud I yelled, he didn’t hear me.

He brushed me off. Told me to apply for scholarships at whichever school he chose, and things would be fine. The way Gabe saw it, because I was a year behind him, I had plenty of time to change my plans to accommodate his.

Things between us soured. We said things we didn’t mean and used words we couldn’t take back, daggers thrown with precision, aimed at our vulnerabilities. What I wanted or worried about was irrelevant. He had everything under control. And maybe he did. Maybe it would have worked out, but Gabe’s love for me dissolved bit by bit in those arguments.

The way he saw me changed. Love faded from his eyes. His irritation became disdain and I crumbled when he looked at me. I couldn’t bear to see him and not see love. He was my everything and I had become nothing to him.

And it broke me.