The moment I met Aidan Fisher, I knew he would be in my life forever.
In May of the previous school year, one of my teachers approached my mother to ask if she would be willing to allow me to take a test that if passed would permit my skipping over 8th grade and entering 9th grade in the fall. I was against it from the first moment it was mentioned to me over dinner, arguing that all of my friends were in 7th grade with me. They would all be going into 8th and if I were to skip to 9th, I would be at a completely different school. I would know no one. I would be younger than all of my classmates. It wasn’t something I wanted to do, not even for a moment.
It was my father who first brought mention to how it could give me a jump start to my future. He spoke about how it would look good on college applications. By the end of the meal, it had been decided that I would take the test, against my own will. Laying on the sofa bed that night, I wondered if I could get away with failing the test intentionally. I considered botching enough answers to look as if I tried, but would not pass, and then I could enter 8th grade year with all of the same kids I had grown up with. But the ‘good girl’ in me knew this wasn’t a legitimate plan. I could never fully go through with it.
In the fall, I began 9th grade, and on the first day of school took a seat in the back of the room. I felt uncomfortable, as I was a full year younger than every other student that walked into the classroom. I was placed in entry-level classes for the first time in my life. There was no ADV listed after the subjects. I would have to earn that placement. The morning was spent in classrooms, moments of being lost between them as I attempted to navigate the halls of the school that was so much larger than what I had been accustomed to. It wasn’t until lunch time that I felt complete relief, directly followed by stress.
I stood in the line, carrying my tray. I gave my student i.d. number to pay for my meal, then stepped into the chaos of the lunchroom and scanned the area. Open seating. I let out a deep breath and walked through the center of the cafeteria, immediately hearing my name called out by a girl who had been in my second period class. I turned and offered a nervous smile, nodding my head as she asked me to join her. I had been accepted by someone and brought into their group at the lunch table in the center of the cafeteria.
As lunch concluded, I had made a few friends, girls who I did not know a half hour before, but would remain my group of friends through senior year. I walked out of the lunch room a different girl. I wasn’t the ‘year younger new girl who skipped 8th grade.’ I walked out as a freshman, chatting with new friends. And then I saw him. I asked the girl beside me who he was. She snickered, telling me his name was Aidan Fisher and that he wasn’t ‘our type.’ How she knew in a half hour lunch period what my type could be was a mystery, but it was clear that he wasn’t the one that I should be looking at. She directed my attention to a cleaner cut boy who was looking in our direction, but my eyes drifted back to those of the forbidden.
Aidan Fisher. I had yet to officially meet him, but I would spend the next few days of school stealing glances of him from a distance. The next several weeks was the same. The new group I had been brought into would turn my head each time they caught me staring, directing me to someone a little more socially acceptable, but the more they did, the more I was drawn to him, even though I still had not met him.
Ultimately, our paths would officially cross and the boy who had caught my attention on my first day of school stole my attention permanently. I guess we began as friends, but there was a draw between us from day one. Ultimately, the girls I had met in the lunch room that first day would become more accepting of the bond that had developed between Aidan and I, though they held their whispers between one another of critique.
Aidan was my first everything. He was the first boy who I would ever hold hands with. He was the first boy that ever looked at me as if I meant something. He was the first boy who kissed me. He was the first boy I would ever love. He would be my first in absolutely every way possible. He was the first to set my heart afire.
The summer before senior year, I was working on local college applications, focusing on all of the schools within an hour’s drive. My mother had passed away two years earlier. Boston had Aidan and my father. I needed to be close to both of them. As I sat at the kitchen table of the one-room apartment my father and I lived in, he slipped an application overtop of the one I was already working on. Stanford. I looked up at him in complete disbelief as I lifted it and passed it back to him, refusing to bother entering. He slipped it back to me again, encouraging me to give it a try.
In hindsight, I now know why my father wanted me to apply to Stanford. As much as it pained him to think that I could leave him behind, he wanted me to leave Aidan behind. I didn’t realize it then. I didn’t realize it when I was sitting in California, alone in my dorm room. I didn’t realize it eight years later when I met Nole and saw the way my father fell over Nole, approving instantly, almost too easily. I didn’t put it all together until after Nole left. Sure, there was a part of it all where my father wanted best for me and knew that Stanford was just that, but in hindsight, I now know that Stanford served two purposes. One: A great education. Two: To create distance between myself and Aidan Fisher.
In the end, the decision was my own. I cannot fault a man for wanting what was best for his daughter. I cannot begin to know what it feels like to be a parent and to want more for your children than you had yourself. I cannot hold it against him when I know his intentions were good. The final decision to go was mine. The decision to end things with Aidan was mine. The decision to push past the first four year degree was mine. The decision to stay gone, and eventually to move on from the childish dreams I had once held, was mine. And then the decision to return was mine. The decision to stay after my father’s death, mine. The decision to turn to Aidan every time things went wrong, mine. I own my decisions, and I recognize the mistakes in them all.
If I could go back and change it all, I would. If I could turn time back to that summer between 11th and 12th grade, I would do it. I may be facing a bit of nostalgia here, but leaving Aidan was the single biggest mistake in my life. I’m not saying this because I lost Nole. I’m saying this because it is true. Now, I know there is an opportunity here. I know that Aidan is still here, and we still are very much so in tune to one another. I’d even like to think that Aidan would want things back with me, the way they were always meant to be. But I have enough respect for him not to allow him to feel like a rebound. Nole left seven weeks ago. I have told patients before that they would need to allow themselves at least half of the length of the relationship to truly get past the relationship. I know, professionally, that I would not be doing either of us any favors to venture out of our current relationship and into something more. I also know that I am mentally a hot mess, or I wouldn’t be writing in this fucking journal in the first place. I can’t give him all that he deserves right now, but maybe it is me that is supposed to give it all to him in the end. Maybe it is just going to take time.
We’ve had more than ten years apart. We both know that we technically c a n live without the other one, and we can function rather normally in doing so. We have both built up our lives to be what we wanted them to be or look like. Only, here I am, looking at it all and realizing it is absolutely nothing like what I wanted it to be like.
What I wanted was to go to college. I wanted to make my father proud and to do my mother’s memory justice. I wanted to stay near Boston, where Aidan and I could continue on the paths we had discussed previously. I wanted to get an apartment with him. I wanted to go to school, get a degree and then figure out what to do with it later. I wanted to marry that boy, if we get completely honest here. If I could go back and do it all again, I would have attended Boston University and been able to get the same fucking degree from there and it would have cost a helluva lot less. If I could change it all, from that application to Stanford on, I would. But I guess it is what it is and the mistakes that I made cannot be undone.
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Right now, I am sitting in a doctor’s office. I’ve written on and off while I’ve been here. They had to work me into the schedule, which has left me alone in this stark white room for long periods of time. About the time I finished writing about what it was that I would change, the nurse finally came in. She asked me if there was any chance I could be pregnant. I told her there wasn’t, but I just returned to this room from taking a pregnancy test, to which I have no idea what the results are. I think it’s pretty pointless to take a test when I’ve been on birth control for the last twelve years, but she seemed to think that my symptoms may fall in line with pregnancy instead of the flu.
What if I am? What if I am actually pregnant? Okay, if I am more than 8 weeks along, then it is Nole’s child. If I am 6-7 weeks along, then it is Aidan’s child. If I am 2-4 weeks along, then it is a long shot and I may have to go on Maury Povich’s talk show to find out who the child’s father is! If I’m actually pregnant, I pray first and foremost that it is Aidan’s. There is absolutely no one else that I can imagine having permanent ties to. Aidan is the one in my entire life that I can say I loved with all of me, and loved me in return. If it is Nole’s baby, I’ll never tell him. He walked out on me, and that was the way he wanted it to be, so be it. And if I’m only 2-3 weeks pregnant… then I will just never know and I’ll do this on my own.
What if I’m not pregnant? Instantly, I didn’t believe the possibility of being pregnant. I said no when I was asked if it was possible. But now? Maybe I want this. Maybe if I find out that I’m not, it’ll be a feeling of loss, again. Maybe I can’t fix all of the mistakes that I’ve made, the choices and decisions that led me to this moment right now, but maybe… if I were pregnant right now, it would be a second chance of sorts. Maybe this is exactly what I need to put things into perspective. Maybe if I’m not pregnant… maybe I know what my next move is. To get pregnant.
-December 1, 2014
