IT’S BEEN EIGHT weeks and three days since Cammy told me that she and her family were leaving Connecticut. She didn’t know when, how quick or slow the process would be, but her parents made her miss the last two months of school, as well as graduation.

I’ve been sitting on the back bleachers, away from the crowd—away from the parents with cameras, and my classmates who are signing each other’s caps and other memorable tokens from our high school days. I’m here and I did my thing, for Mom and Dad. That’s all I’m giving though. It didn’t feel right receiving my diploma the way I know Cammy dreamt about receiving hers. She shouldn’t have been forced to miss this. I took pictures for Cammy and kept her on the phone during the speeches so she could at least listen. She’s a glutton for punishment and wanted to hear the ceremony, so I helped her do that.

When Principal Valler yelled, “Congratulations!” to our class, Cammy disconnected the call. I don’t know how she listened as long as she did. When I’m finally alone, with a moment to breathe air that isn’t being shared with my three hundred classmates, I call her back. The phone rings a number of times but she picks up, hoarse voice and all. “Hi,” she says quietly into the phone. “Sorry—”

“You have nothing to apologize for. This isn’t fair.”

“It’s not just that, AJ,” she says, though my name is hardly audible with the increasing weakness within her voice.

“What is it?” I ask her what’s wrong as if I can’t list a hundred things that could be upsetting her right now. Although there are probably more than a hundred things upsetting her.

“They sold the house,” she says. “We have three weeks to pack everything up and leave.” We knew it was coming, but I convinced myself it would take all summer due to the decline in real estate right now, or so I’ve heard Mom and Dad talking about.

“We have three weeks,” I tell her, trying to sound positive regardless of how I feel.

For the last eight weeks, we’ve talked a whole lot. We patched over our broken hearts with a common understanding of loss. I forgave her for hiding the decision on what to do with our daughter, since I understand it was out of her control too. The anger I felt for her at that moment was the same anger she had been feeling toward her parents for months. We’re together in this, no matter what. We both have broken hearts—hearts that will never find where they truly belong, even though we try to say we did everything we did for a good reason. I think that’s bull, and if it makes me less of a man or less of an adult to think that way, it’s because I’m seventeen.

Our relationship has changed. It changed when we found out she was pregnant. It was less about the number of kisses I could steal before her father would turn on the porch light and almost catch us on the side of her house—less about the quietness of my shoes hitting the porch roof below her bedroom window—less worry about my raging need to be with this girl in every way humanly possible. I took part in ruining our lives, and I’ve punished myself every day for it. I did what I could to convince her that she looked beautiful every morning at school. Even though I noticed the swelling in her face as well as the rest of her body, she was still beautiful to me. I spent my time reassuring her our lives would be okay, even though I was pretty sure they never would be again. I spent the days and months falling in love for the very first time, and it was all about the girl I wanted to be with, not the girl I wanted to get with. It was different, and maybe that’s why guys my age don’t usually know what love is—they’re too busy trying to explore new interests, feel new sensations, experience the thrill of danger and stupidity. Yeah, it’s all stupidity. Putting all of that bullshit aside, like most people who are beyond the age of high school years, then there’s room for love.

“Right, only three weeks,” she says, sniffling into the phone.

“Then we have texting…and courier pigeon.” I hear a quiet giggle with that one, and feel like I’m doing something for the better, rather than just making her cry more.

“I’m scared—” she says, her voice suddenly sharp and strong.

“Of—”

“I’m scared you’re going to realize how much you hate me when I leave. You’re going to have time to think about what I did and how selfish I was, how I handed away a life that belonged to us. It’s going to happen, and I know I can’t prevent it from happening but I’m scared for when it does. I’m scared that will be the end of us, and it sucks because I know there can’t be an ‘us’ as it is anyway. So whatever is left of your feelings for me, will likely be erased and masked by your rightfully horrible feelings toward my decisions.”

We’ve had this discussion so many times over the past couple of months. I get it. I might have gotten over it, but I will never move past it to the point where I’ll be okay with giving up our daughter. I understand. I will always understand, but that doesn’t fix the pain. “If that were going to happen, it would have already happened.”

“We’re going to change, AJ. We’re going to grow apart if we can’t grow together. There’s no way around it.”

“Can we try not to?” I ask, realizing how silly and naive I sound.

“I want to,” she whispers.

“There’s always another way,” I tell her, not thinking this through thoroughly, even though I’ve been thinking this thought for weeks now.

Her voice sounds a little perkier when she says, “What is it?”

“Let’s move somewhere. We’ll put college on hold until we can support ourselves, and we can be together, drown in sorrow together, grow together, and put our lives back in some order for our daughter who should have been able to depend on us.” As the words dribble from my mouth like drool, they sound a little scarier than when I was reciting them in my head. It sounds real. It is real. I have less than five hundred dollars in my savings account and no experience for work, no real life skills either. But I love her and I’d go into this plan blind if it meant keeping her close.

“You want to run away?” she asks. “With me?”

“Yeah,” I say, sounding a little less sure than when I just explained everything.

“I don’t know what to say.” She truly means it. I can hear it in her voice, the truth being: she isn’t sure, which means she might think this is a good idea. What if this is a horrible idea? Giving up my scholarship is a terrible idea. I shouldn’t have spit that out. I shouldn’t have been thinking about it for the past month. But I’d be thinking about it forever if I hadn’t said it. I should let her decide and go from there. I can’t see Cammy running away from her parents, going against the grain, giving up college and a life she deserves to have. At least if she makes that decision, she’ll know I was willing to give it all up for her. I’d be happy knowing she knew that, even if she didn’t want to give everything up for me. She needs to know she’s loved more than I need to know I’m loved. I feel strongly about that.

“You can think about it,” I tell her.

“AJ, there you are!” Dad shouts from twenty feet away. “Why aren’t you celebrating with all your football buddies out there? They were just talking about some party at Chad’s tonight. Oh, are you…” he walks a little closer. “Are you on the phone?” He’s mouthing his last words, seeing that there is a phone pressed against my ear. “Is that Cammy? Your mother told me you weren’t―”

“Dad!” I shout. “Give me a minute.”

Cammy is laughing on the other end. “I’ll call you later,” she says. “Thanks for being everything to me.”

“I couldn’t be anything less,” I tell her.

“Love you, AJ.”

“You too.”

“What in the world has gotten into you, son?” Dad asks as he steals the empty seat next to me on the bleacher. “I’m worried about you.”

“I’m good, Dad.”

“Cold feet about college? Totally normal. I was the same way.”

“Nope, no cold feet.”

“Does it have anything to do with the fact that your friend, Cammy, is being dragged out of town by her parents because she was pregnant? Did you know she was pregnant? You never mentioned a word to your mom or I these past few months.” He pauses briefly with contemplation. “Although, I guess you haven’t really mentioned Cammy all that much either.” Dad’s words stun me like a Taser. He doesn’t associate with Cammy’s parents, and she kept her pregnancy pretty well hidden. I don’t know how he found out, but in this small town, news like that somehow gets around. “I know how it must feel knowing that someone you have been friends with for so long is suddenly going to be gone, but girls are going to come and go throughout your life. You’ll make new friends like her, son; don’t worry.” Here I thought I was naive. The one smart thing I’ve done in my late teens was never admit to my parents who I’ve been dating. This conversation would be a lot different right now if I had.

“Dad, I don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

He slaps me on the back and winks at me. “You got it, kid. You should go enjoy these moments with your buddies over there. It’s an occasion you’ll want to remember. Trust me.”

“I’d actually like to go home right now,” I tell him. “I graduated, Dad. I’ve got my diploma and all of my memories for the last four years. My life here is complete, and I feel like I can walk away from it all now and be okay.”

“What are you going to do with yourself all summer?” he asks, standing up from the bleachers. “Oh, I know. You just got yourself a job working for me, installing carpets. Sound good? The pay is twelve an hour.”

A job. Money. It’s the first step to making my plan work. “Yeah, Dad. That’d be great.”

“Well, this is going to be a fantastic summer,” he says cheerfully. “Hunter’s coming home next week, and it’ll be just us three men working together for the next eight weeks until I lose both of my good men to school.” Geez, he’s getting all sentimental on me. “You know, son, you spend your life raising two boys to be men, and then they turn into men and you have to let them go. It sucks.” What I thought was going to be a long, drawn-out signature Dad speech, ends abruptly. I look up at him from my seat and I see a tear in his eye. “I’m so damn proud of you, son. I really am.”

I don’t deserve that. If he had any idea what I’ve done and what I’ve caused this year, those words would never find a way out of his mouth. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. I ruined lives this year. Including my own.