I Said Yes: My Story of Heartbreak, Redemption, and True Love (2 page)

The dynamic changed when I came back from spending a summer in Key West. I left the Sunshine State tanned and happy with fond memories of surf and sand. Missing my friends, I expected somewhat of a warm welcome in return. I was sorely disappointed. They turned on me. They called me names. They told lies. They started doing things and going places, making sure I knew I wasn’t invited. Hurt and confused by the ice-cold reception, I withdrew inward. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t figure out a reason for the drastic mutation
from friends to foes. It felt pretty sucky to be blacklisted without a cause.

I know now this is typical preteen/teen behavior for girls, but hailing from a small town and being such a sensitive child, it rocked my world. I hated going to school, having to face their ridicule and taunts. I kept my emotions at bay as much as possible until the final bell rang. Then I’d run home, leaping over sidewalk cracks and stomping crunchy autumn leaves, and lie curled up on my window seat until the sun faded. The tension was so bad, my parents eventually pulled me out of school and enrolled me in a Catholic one nearby. I wasn’t there long. After a short while, I found myself back at Cheat Lake Middle School. I kept as low a profile as I could, avoiding the mean girls. The further I slipped under the radar, the better off I’d be.

It was around this time my faith was sparked. While church was an occasional event, I always felt connected to God. In my heart, I knew He was real. And at times, I could even feel a divine tug, a pull toward Something, Someone greater than me. But these were feelings I couldn’t articulate or put into words. I grew up believing and in some ways learning through others that God was akin to Santa Claus or a genie in a bottle. When life called for it, I prayed conditional or gimme prayers. I’m sure you know the kind. “God, if You help me pass this test / make Dad buy me that dress / tell the teacher not to call on me, I’ll never be fresh to Mommy / I’ll do my homework as soon as I get home from school / I’ll never again forget to feed the dog” and so forth.

A weekend youth retreat deepened my ideas of spirituality. Given my lone-wolf syndrome, I’m not sure how I even ended up bouncing on a springy seat in a church van heading to a
youth event with neighboring churches. But there I was. And the only thing I remember was being planted on a gymnasium floor surrounded by hundreds of bold-colored sleeping bags and their rowdy teenage owners, loud as a cavalry to the charge. I’m sure there was music, worship of some kind, a few activity-building exercises, and a spiritual message by a youth pastor or someone. I don’t know what it was that stirred my heart, but something did.

We kids slept on the shiny wooden floor that night. When the lights turned out and all was quiet except for a few secretive whispers and occasional shushing by annoyed adult chaperones, I nestled in my sleeping bag, stomach side down. While cradling my head in the crook of my arms, tears fell. Silent, but many. I was keenly aware of God’s presence in that moment. I didn’t know Him yet, but I knew that I loved Him. The feeling was so intense, it felt as though my heart were going to explode. But for fear of being made fun of or being labeled a weirdo, I kept my head down until the tears stopped falling. I didn’t share the experience with anyone. I simply enjoyed what I knew was a divine fingerprint on my life. I can’t even begin to tell you how soundly I slept that night.

The summer before I entered the ninth grade, I started thinking about boarding school. My former friends still weren’t being very kind, and I was desperate to start fresh, to be surrounded by kids who didn’t know anything about me. At the time my brother was enrolled in an all-boys school in Pennsylvania, gracing us with his presence almost every weekend. He seemed
to be doing fine, so my parents started making arrangements for me to enroll in Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania my freshman year.

I stared out the window during much of the two-and-a-half-hour drive. Music blared and Justin belted out the lyrics to “It’s Gonna Be Me” on my CD player headset. Questions surfaced as my parents and I sailed down Route 68. What would it be like being away from home? Would I miss my parents? Would I make friends? Would anyone like me? Would I meet a boy? What if the work was too hard? Despite my fears, I felt better knowing most of the other freshmen students would share similar fears.

As we passed over the Pennsylvania border, my stomach tightened and I closed my eyes, trying to push down the ripples of anxiety that coursed through me. It was easy once we turned into the academy entrance a few winding roads later. The school was separated from the rest of the world by an ornate iron gate and surrounded by majestic trees. My mouth dropped; the backdrop was breathtaking. Mercersburg Academy was three hundred acres of sprawling grandeur. Nestled in the Tuscarora Mountain ridge, the campus swelled with manicured lawns dotted with oak and maple trees and Gothic-inspired buildings that reminded me of pictures I’d seen of European architecture. Students sporting button-down shirts, khaki pants, and bright white smiles meandered around the verdant campus, walking with enviable confidence. On the outside, the academy looked more like a country club than a school. All I could think was,
Whoooa!
I was now entering what I would quickly discover was the “Mercersburg bubble.” Once inside, school becomes your world.

Orientation was a blur, as was moving what seemed like a million overstuffed boxes and bags and suitcases from my parents’ car and stuffing my belongings somewhat sensibly in a cramped but new dorm room that smelled of fresh paint. After the final round of hugs, well wishes, and last-minute advice to stay away from pot, booze, and boys, my parents left. I finally had a moment by myself. I lay on my twin bed, mind spinning from information overload of classes, courses, schedules, policies, directions, and rules. I didn’t know what I was in for, but based on the material I was armed with, boarding school seemed like it would be a pretty intense experience.

Boarding school was tough. I couldn’t keep up academically. It was difficult to be attentive for an hour straight while professors carried on and on about things that quite frankly didn’t interest me. I had trouble memorizing every fact, figure, and date from the ancient Mediterranean world. Staying focused was difficult. I was quick to zone out if something didn’t immediately capture my attention. (I would be diagnosed with ADD two years later.) As hard as I tried to give my academics my all when the first semester began, I quickly lost steam. Soon enough, I was barely finishing the assigned reading and investing little work and energy into the big projects that accounted for half my grade. And without a parent, teacher, or adult to hound me into doing my homework and studying for exams, I couldn’t find the motivation. So I did only the bare minimum in order simply to pass the year.

I stayed at Mercersburg for a year and then transferred to Saint Andrew’s School in Boca Raton, Florida. The year before, my parents had bought a house in Sunset Key, a tiny part-residential part-resort island about five hundred yards and
a short ten-minute ferry ride from Key West. They made the official move from Virginia to Florida when I started school.

While the academics at Mercersburg challenged me, the lifestyle at Saint Andrew’s tripped me up. Five miles from the beach and situated in the Beverly Hills of Florida, this community, according to
Forbes
, was ranked seventh on a list of where most millionaires live. In other words, super–fancy schmancy. Though less spacious than Mercersburg at only eighty-one acres, the campus at Saint Andrew’s was just as beautiful but in its own tropical way. It was an idyllic paradise. Stark-white buildings stood in contrast to swaying palm trees and beautiful tropical flowers. I am not by any means trying to take away from the beauty of the campus, but having been to Key West a million times over the years, I was well familiar with the eye-catching aesthetics of a seaside utopia. What I wasn’t familiar with, however, was the blatant display of wealth.

The day we pulled into Saint Andrew’s, my mom had to swerve to avoid hitting a speeding Mercedes driven by none other than a pimply faced student (who probably was just driving back from the DMV with his learner’s permit hot off the press). In fact, most of my classmates drove luxury cars, like BMWs, Lexuses, and even Bentleys. They’d hop out of $100,000 vehicles sporting Gucci this and Prada that. I never felt more out of place in my life. We didn’t have all that stuff up north. We had the Mountaineer Mall, home to JC Penney, Jo-Ann Fabrics, and Camelot Music. On special occasions, when my mom used to tell me I could buy whatever I wanted, I would surge through the open doors of the mall’s Limited Too and leave with a huge smile, clutching a few shopping bags and a receipt for two hundred dollars’ worth of clothes.
Best. Days. Ever. In Boca, if you shopped at Limited Too, you might as well be cruising garage sales.

When spring break rolled around, I went home. Sunset Key swarmed with kids also visiting from their respective boarding schools. I hung out with a few of them, and though they were a few years older, my parents allowed me to roam downtown Key West with them under one condition: I had to come home no later than 11:00 p.m. Fair enough.

We girls had a blast. We shopped in cute surf boutiques like Ego and Fast Buck Freddie’s, a tropical department store where you could buy a variety of stuff, from trinkets that cost pocket change to furniture for a few hundred bucks. We loved to people watch. I remember sitting on a park bench enjoying an ice cream cone and watching the throngs of young people pass by on their way to the local clubs and bars. They were just barely twenty-one, but to me they seemed ancient, grown up, and responsible. I couldn’t wait to get older!

One of our favorite pastimes was to make up stories about our identities, specifically to cute boys we met. Since the island had a heavy tourist population and we all attended schools that were hours or even states away, we figured there was no harm in lying. Chances were we’d never see these guys again. My made-up story was that I was nineteen and attended NYU, majoring in broadcasting. Granted, I’d never been to New York before. Nor did I know anything about broadcasting. But it didn’t seem to matter. Most of the boys I met were interested in things other than the nitty-gritty details of my life. Lying was easy. And, I’ll admit, fun. You could be anyone you wanted to be. No strings. No pressure. No problem.

One night we were waiting on the dock for the ferry. In
order for me to make it home by curfew, I had to hop on the next boat. If not, I’d be subjected to the wrath of two very angry parents. I looked at my watch. Five more minutes until the white vessel would show, bringing me home and turning me into a pumpkin. As I heard the ferry approach, I noticed we were being yelled at by a bunch of guys partying on a luxury yacht in a nearby slip. Two stories high and half a football field wide, the sleek ship flaunted elegant curves and modern design.

I ignored the catcalls. Don’t get me wrong. Like any teenage girl, I loved getting attention from guys. I was just tired. It seemed as though we had been walking around downtown for hours. My feet hurt. And all I wanted was to crawl in bed, without the annoying inconvenience of getting grounded. So I just kept quiet and prayed the ferry would somehow haul in faster, as in right now. My friends, however, up for more adventure, yelled back at these guys, encouraging more hoots and hollers and eventual flirtatious invitations to board the boat. So to the tune of “Come on up here, already!” shouted by a twentysomething surfer dude with a beer in his hand, I turned my back on the incoming ferry and climbed aboard. It was the moment my life forever changed.

two

T
humping bass from hidden speakers competed with a mix of different conversations from the twentysomething guys and girls who lounged around the spacious boat. Grabbing one of my girlfriends, I yelled, perhaps a little too loudly, “Guys! My dad is going to kill me!”

She rolled her eyes, grabbed my elbow, and took me with her up a winding staircase to the top floor with the rest of the crew. The guys who had called down to us were hanging out by a bar spotted with wine glasses, beer bottles, and tumblers. My shyness taking deep root, I broke from the crowd and stood in a corner, sipping on water and enjoying the party scene away from the hubbub. From where I stood, I had a view of the glistening ocean, calm and quiet. And even with the noise, I could hear the salt water gently lapping the sides of the boat. A minute or two passed before my tranquility was cut short by a blond-haired guy with playful eyes, a strong jawline, and a sling on his arm. Good-looking with a boyish charm—this was an interruption I gladly welcomed.

He smiled and said, “Hey, you, what’s up?” He was such a cutie and had a friendly and nonthreatening vibe, so talking
to him felt harmless and fun. We spent the next half hour or so chatting away like old friends. Problem was, most of our exchange was based on lies, except for our names.

“I’m Emily,” I said. “I’m here from NYU on spring break.” I also mentioned I was studying broadcasting and was the daughter of a coal miner (true, lie, lie, and kinda true).