Two highschoolers fall in love at boarding school, but their romance is cut short when their families forbid it. The fate of their relationship is left to distance, time, and luck.

---

Bridgette Mattison was not an interesting individual. She had a few friends, talked very little, and smiled even less. She was, and tried her best to hide that, she was English. I don’t know if that’s why she talked and smiled so little- for fear that the accent or the way her teeth looked might give it away –but that was my suspicion. And while no one found her particularly appealing, I thought that she was beautiful.

To take the time to look proved that she truly was. She was a natural blonde, a true blonde, with thick straight hair that fell to the middle of her back and brushed over her forehead in gentle waves. She had a heart-shaped, very plain face, and wore simple makeup to brighten her cheeks and widen her almond-shaped brown eyes. Though regularly dull, her eyes sparkled like chocolate diamonds in the right light. Small plump lips were covered only by a simple gloss, except on special occasions when they were painted a bright cherry red. And her body, though plain as the rest of her, was also beautiful: a lean figure with gentle curves that attracted only as much attention as the generally modest clothes she covered them in. No, there was nothing special about her. But I thought she was beautiful.

And as sure of that as I was, I was equally sure that she had no interest in me. I was a short, chubby nerd in the grade above her, whose attractiveness was below average and whose social skills, though sufficient, were given no measure by my peers, as I chose to devote myself to my studies instead of to my social life at Saint Jude’s School for the Academically Gifted. While the difficulty of my classes was no cause for diligence, facts and figures had always fascinated me more so than people.

It wasn’t so for Bridgette. We had several classes together at the boarding school, and I found myself focused far more on her than on the professors. Everything she did enthralled me: she was like a living piece of art, and the psychological glass that blocked me from her soon proved an obstacle that I was willing to overcome. But about halfway through my sophmore year, shortly after I made this decision, two instances crashed together, obliterating my carefully scripted plan for my imminent introduction.

I should not say that these events happened simultaneously, though their separation was marked by only half a heartbeat, and though I did not account for it at the time. But it made all the difference. The first event that sent me down a path that I could not foresee was that Bridgette Mattison looked at me. Her eyes jolted from her powder blue notebook and locked with mine, and I, so taken aback by the suddenness of the motion, could not properly react. The second event highlighted the relevance of the first: our professor’s wrath came down upon me in a vociferation about the academic negligence portrayed by my staring out the window, whose light Bridgette’s lovely form happened to be bathed in. Desensitized to a state of lowered inhibition, I had not realized that I was staring.

I murmured a quick apology to my professor and reacquainted myself with my notebook, but remained aware of a pair of sparkling brown eyes coming and going throughout the class period.

The consequences of these events came to fruition that same afternoon while I sat in the library occupying my time with calculus homework. Except for the occasional opportunity to tutor, I always sat alone at a long table with seven empty chairs. It was not a situation that I had wished to change until Bridgette sat down beside me with a gently used textbook.

“Are you taking Physics?”

Despite my surprise, I curtly nodded.

“Then do you think you could help me with this problem?”

Her speaking voice was as normal and beautiful as the way she looked. Thanks to her efforts to hide her accent, she almost sounded American; but it came out in her vowels and inflections, and I cherished the sounds that did not fit with the contemporary Northeast American accent she endeavored to replicate.

Bridgette was very good at finding the places where I did not think I would be found. She filled my free time with questions of homework, and when she had none she was happy to simply chat. Neither of us had anything of interest to talk about; I especially was simple and boring, and yet through those conversations I got to see her smile, I got to see her frown, and I even had the opportunity to make her laugh. Her teeth were not perfect, but they were no more crooked than mine. Very surely, I was falling in love with more than just her beauty.

Though Bridgette was happy to talk to me, she did not seem to consider me a close friend. I inferred this from the way she looked away when she talked about her other friends, and how she gave a shy smile when I alluded to spending time together outside of class. All this I accepted with grace; I was a nobody, even more so than she was, and there were far more interesting people to be seen with than me.

But I could never shake the feeling that there was something that she wanted from me. Sometimes it was an inquiring look; sometimes it was an inflection that left a thought unfinished; and though I inquired about it more than once, I could not get an answer from her. So I could never pin down what exactly was on her mind.

With the natural lapses in the workload of the year there were of course periods where we had no homework to do, and so we invented our own fun; it soon became too easy to find things to discuss. We came from such different places that there was plenty to explain to each other. And with our quiet corner of the library there was no one to interrupt us, and no one for us to interrupt. It was only natural that every now and then our conversations would turn into playful arguments, and on one such occasion I inevitably set into motion a course of events whose consequences I could not foresee.

Upon a harmless comment that I pretended to take offense to, I snatched her pen case off the table. Expectedly she made quite a fuss over the stolen object, which I kept just out of her reach by leaning back and holding it behind my head. She was out of her chair, reaching over me as much as she could without allowing our bodies to touch.

“Give it back, Donovan!”

Delighted by the sound of my name rolling off her tongue, I laughed. “Only if you apologize.”

At this she drew back, and gave me a look of measured contemplation. “How should I apologize?”

I remained in a position to defend my stolen pen case. “I don’t know. Think of something.”

Her eyes were smoldering. With her smile gone I could no longer tell if she was still enjoying the game. “What should I do, Don?”

From her tone I knew that she had already decided on what she was going to do. I remained patient and raised my eyebrows at her quizzically. She leaned toward me; my cheeks heated up.

And suddenly she was right before me, her sweetly scented lips pressed to mine, and in a moment of panic my chair went out from under me and we were both flung to the floor, I on my back, and she on her side. The pen case went sliding out of my hand and across the carpeted floor.

For a moment we both lay where we landed like fallen statues: our clatter failed to bring anyone to check on us, and so Bridgette slowly sat up and smoothed her ruffled hair out of her face. She looked at me, fearful at first, but after analyzing my stunned expression her anxiety disappeared with a bemused sigh. “Gosh, Don.”

I was still too stunned to feel chastised. My hand hovered over my half-open mouth, now moist and sweet from her lip gloss, and my heart was pounding in my chest. I thought my hand might be shaking, but I was too afraid to take my eyes off of her to check. I was afraid that if I did, I would wake up and this would not be real.

Still struck dumb by my daze, I allowed Bridgette to help me to my feet, replace the chair, and take me by the hand. Though it seemed a little coy, her smile was sincere. She led me down an aisle, where we could disappear among the books that made a wall of the shelves they were on, and then she put her hands on my shoulders and kissed me again. My head was thrust against the spines of the books behind me, which may have been why I felt so dizzy, but it was a sensation clouded by delight and I had no desire to be rid of it. Coming back to my senses as much as the moment would allow, I put my hands on her hips and kissed her back. As her lips moved under my own, I felt them curve into a smile.

I had never had a girlfriend before. To be in a relationship was not something that I had allowed to cross my mind. Complicated, dramatic… something I was not good enough for. I was too quiet. Too ugly. Too boring. Bridgette had the ability to eradicate those thoughts from my mind. I would watch, spellbound, as she introduced me to her friends, and simply by the way she said my name their eyes would fill with interest. We never told anyone that we were dating, and I was perfectly okay with this: our relationship was the library’s best kept secret, with hand holding under the table and kissing between the bookshelves. And when the opportunity struck that one of us had our board room to ourselves, the other would sneak out of theirs and we would spend our nights in each other’s arms and read books out loud or watch pirated movies on a laptop screen under a blanket.

Neither of us was fond of going home. I lived too far away and though Bridgette didn’t talk about it, I sensed that her reasons were dissimilar and more sullen. So when the campus vacated for breaks, those weeks were ours, too. It was surprisingly easy to be so happy; no attention was drawn to two teenagers in love.

It was a perfect way to live for two years. Then during my senior year on the first of December I got a call from my father saying that he wanted the family together for Christmas. That meant me, my parents, and both my brother and sister, who were usually gone away, too, tending to their lives at college.

Bridgette’s heart broke when I told her. She would be stuck at the school for three weeks alone; all of her friends went home. I was tempted to ask if I could take her home with me, but I did not think that my family would want to meet her. It was too sudden; neither of us was ready. So I kissed her on the forehead and told her that she could email me every day.

And that’s exactly what she did.

I did not dislike my family. They were good, loving people who raised me properly, and I loved them. But they were all as normal as I was, and when it came to dividing my attention between them and Bridgette, I’m afraid it wasn’t easily split.

My eyes were on my phone almost constantly, and by the second week of my vacation my family’s voices were background noise that warranted limited and quick responses. I hardly noticed how bitter I had become to them keeping me there until my behavior had become too detrimental to correct.

It was epitomized on the evening that became the single greatest regret of my life. During family dinner- something we rarely had before my siblings went away to college –I was replying to an email from my girlfriend, and therefore was paying no attention to either the food on my plate or the droll conversation of my family members. My attention could only partially be breeched by the sound of my name said in a tone that I had learned to heed.

“Donovan, who are you texting all the time?”

Neither my mother’s words nor my own registered more thoroughly than was necessary to compose a brief and honest answer. “Bridgette.”

“Bridgette? Who is she? Your friend?”

“My girlfriend.”

It was only when the words were left echoing in the silent air that I realized the gravity of my admittance. A spiraling domestic calamity, the likes of which had fallout for years, was what followed.

I didn’t hear that right, did I? How could you keep something like that from us? How long has this been going on? It’s disgusting. It’s not right. I knew we never should have sent you to boarding school. No respectable girl would be that way with other girls. It’s wrong.

Everything I told them about Bridgette was met with disgust. They didn’t care that she was smart or kind. They didn’t care that she was pretty, or that she cared about me. They didn’t care that she was my best friend, or that she was the reason that I didn’t sit alone in the library anymore. All this fell on deaf ears because she was not a boy.

I didn’t know if whatever sickness they thought I had could be cured or only treated, but the action that they took was extreme regardless. I was not allowed to return to Saint Jude’s School for the Academically Gifted; I would finish my senior year at the local high school, and I would have no further interaction with Bridgette. With tears in my eyes I begged for leniency: I tried to seek help from my siblings, who in stark contrast to my horrified parents were silent and indifferent. Relief came from nowhere. At the end of the break they would drive me to Saint Jude’s, where I would gather all my things, and then I would never return. The horror of it drove me to my room for the following week. I hardly ate or slept. I spent all my time emailing Bridgette.

I couldn’t tell her until I saw her face-to-face. She crumbled before me, all her beautiful normalcy transformed into extraordinary despair. She begged me to stay, and she soaked the front of my shirt with her tears. Sobbing, all I could do was hold her until my parents’ car horn shattered our world for the last time.

In the shelter of my own room, they could not stop me from emailing Bridgette as much as I wanted. We emailed each other for moths, talking about our futures and the lonely present, but as much as I cherished those segmented conversations, I could tell the dependence was hurting both of us. So a week after I graduated I broke up with her, and after three desperate and unanswered emails she ceased emailing me.

My grades were good enough that I could do anything I wanted, and I chose to travel abroad. I spent as much time away from home as possible; I could no longer look my family in the eye, and they viewed me with a kind of disdain that I knew would not fade quickly. I expected time to soften the memory of Bridgette, but it only numbed the pain. While I had several romantic relationships, I never got past my love for Bridgette. Through France, Spain, Italy, Greece… everything, everyone was simply a bandage for Bridgette Mattison.

I situated myself in Lancaster, England after college and devoted myself to the history and people of the region. Everywhere I went I was well-liked. Socially speaking it was all too easy to have anything I wanted. And with that knowledge at the front of my mind I spent my time at bars and pubs. While nothing came of this practice it was an easy way to forget the numbness Bridgette had left behind. I had always been fond of stories, and while I paced out my drinks to keep me coherent through the night, I could listen to the far-fetched tales of inebriated individuals from all over Europe. It was a hollow joy, but it was still a joy.

I hadn’t touched my high school email since I went away for college. After just enough to drink to lower my inhibitions, I decided one fall afternoon to see if I could still remember the password. After a few clumsy attempts to key it into my smart phone, the ancient inbox opened up, filled with dozens of unopened emails all from the same person. The subjects read like letters in a Hallmark card shop.

Happy Birthday!

Merry Christmas!

Stay Well!

I Miss You.

I scrolled and scrolled through the endless list of bolded titles, my eyes glazing over and then filling with tears. Her emails had only stopped for the summer after I graduated. Every Christmas, every birthday, every moment where she celebrated something without me had an email, for six years. I couldn’t bring myself to open a single one, but instead of closing the account I opened a new email. What I said in it hardly mattered; what mattered was that an hour later just before I was ready to leave the pub, I got a reply.

‘I want to see you again.’

She, too, was in England. In only a three hours’ drive we could meet and catch up. With a mixture of chagrin and hope that turned my stomach I considered that we had probably been only a couple miles from each other for years. A week later on a rainy day I stepped onto a muddy path that led to a little café that smelled of warm bread.

She looked more beautiful than she had at sixteen. Her hair was a darker blonde now, and it only fell to her shoulders. Instead of sweeping to the side of her face, her bangs fell straight across her forehead. She was taller now, and her figure was fuller, but all in all she was still the same beautifully plain girl that I had left at Saint Jude’s.

There was sadness in her almond brown eyes. On the dim grey day, nothing could make them sparkle. But her smile was the same. She sat down in the chair across from me and took my hands.

“I missed you, Donovan. I missed you so much.”

I hugged her. As awkwardly as it was around the square table, I wrapped my arms around her and enveloped her in an embrace.

I apologized for never replying to her emails. She understood; she had so much to tell me. She had developed a successful career after college and could live comfortably now.

“And I’m not alone,” she told me. “I have a daughter.”

My heart broke; but she did not let me believe my assumption for long. A raised hand revealed no wedding band. It had been a clean divorce: she loved her husband, but they had been growing apart for years, and when she found that he was cheating on her, they agreed that a separation was the best for both of them. She had joint custody of their daughter, and she was with her father now. Everything had settled about a year ago.

“I’d love you to meet her, if you want to.”

I said I’d love to. A flexible career with no commitments meant that I could travel as I pleased. She beamed. We exchanged numbers. We planned to make a day of it.

Through the hours we spent at the café I could not curb the desire to hold her. The table separated us, and only as to not make a scene I respected that. But as we got up to return to our cars I stopped her on the sidewalk. I pulled her into a hug and I held her for what I’m sure was much too long.

But when she pulled back she was smiling, exuberant and satisfied. “Gosh, Don.”

That was the same thing she said to me eighteen months later when I asked her to marry me.