My Forbidden Love

Catherine G

When I was fourteen, I fell in love. It wasn't like any other teen love. It was real. As if everything in the world didn't matter but him and he made sure I knew he thought the same. The only difference was, we weren't allowed to see each other. He (Nolan) was grounded because of some reason I still don't know and his parents forbade him from any and all relations with any and all girls. But, obviously, he didn't care. We met at a marching band competition. I was surprised that we had been in the same band for so long and hadn't noticed each other until then. It was definitely that cliche love at first sight. He was joking around with his friends and they were pretending that they were drunk (immature, I know) and he kept going long after his friends stopped. It was then he started to talk to me. He was absolutely flirty and very outgoing. He even complimented my silly color guard makeup just as an excuse to talk to me more. It was after Nolan said "No, really. You look beautiful," that I looked into his eyes for the first time. Time seemed to stop, if only for a moment. He immediately stopped swaying and flopping about like a drunkard. We gazed into each other's brown eyes and gaped our mouths. We were in love but neither of us admitted it yet.

Later at that same competition, we were walking with a group of friends. Another boy and girl who were actually dating were with us. They had been going out for seven months and hadn't kissed or anything. Nolan found this out and made a proposition. "If you two kiss, I will kiss Catherine (me)" As soon as those words came out of his mouth, I was semi-shocked. He was serious about trying to be with me. The other couple kissed and so did we. Kind of awkwardly because we were walking and he was doing so backwards, but it was a wonderful first kiss nonetheless. Later that night, once we had gotten back to our high school to unload equipment, we kissed again. It was a goodbye kiss and it was more slow and gentle. A week or so later, he asked me to be his girlfriend and it was short after I found out about the whole grounding thing. I was okay with it staying secret and we went steady for a year and two months.

Then, a tragedy occurred. He had been suffering from constant migraines and finally went to the hospital after passing out because of it. They did all their medical scanning stuff on him and he hadn't been in school for two weeks. When he finally came back, he came up to me and said what had happened. He had a brain tumor. There were high chances of survival and the doctors weren't worried at all, but boy I was. We mutually decided to let everyone know about our relationship. His parents were mad of course, but, under the circumstances, they were more lenient than we expected. Over the next few weeks before his main surgery to remove the tumor, we spent as much time together as possible. We had the best times of our lives together!

On the day of the surgery, I drove with Nolan and his parents to the hospital. He was sent into the operating room and seven hours later, the operation successfully concluded. We all waited in his hospital room for him to awake and none of us were expecting what happened next. He awoke and the most horrifying look of shock swept over his face. His memory was nearly completely gone. The only things he could fully remember were how to talk, his name, and his newborn baby sister, Brooklyn. I was devastated. His parents asked me not to be around him anymore because it was all too shocking and they needed to re-establish their relationship with him first. It has been five years since then. I am now twenty years old. I had worked with his parents a little to try to re-gain some of his memory, but nothing worked. Last month, Nolan had a re-occurrence of cancer, and is in a coma. He is nearly brain dead and no one, not even I, think he will return. All that is left for me to do is wait and hope. I will eventually move on, but my love for him will never, ever diminish, and I will continue to help his parents in their grief. I am glad though, that we at least had that short amount of time together. We at least had true love. And even though he will never remember, it was still him who will own my heart for all eternity.