47,365 miles

I don't often get flustered, but flustered is what I had to call it. Zach was still pressuring me to go to school with him up in Ann Arbor. While Michigan has a fine music school, I had my heart set on Indiana. I had campaigned very hard to be accepted into Jacobs and I knew that anything else would be second-choice. But, as he had pointed out, I had also campaigned very hard to stay with Zach. At one point or another over the last two years I had realistically seen myself staying with him for the long haul. And now here he was, standing in front of my parents' driveway, trying to convince me that I'd be happy and that "one music school is as good as another but is somebody else going to be as good to you as I am?" He kept asking me if I was going to regret choosing a school over someone who loved me this much. Hence, flustered.

I told him I didn't have all the answers just yet. I still had some time before either school needed an answer. Zach was a different story. He was moving to Michigan in three months because he already his sister there. He didn't see the point in staying around if I told him no and wanted to be settled in with me if I told him yes. He wanted his answers now. I told him I'd let him know at the end of the day.

Then we got in my truck to drive to dinner. On the way over we rode in silence. I didn't play any music, we didn't engage in any conversation. Silence. I don't know what it was about the silence that finally led me to choose my dream school over my dream guy. It wasn't uncomfortable silence. I suppose when it came right down to it I knew I had to make a tough call and either way I wasn't going to be completely happy. I just didn't want the stress of stringing it out any more. I wanted it done for no other reason than to prepare for the fallout. When it came right down to it, I was more scared of the indecision, than what my choosing would mean.

I realized that having a future, any kind of future, means giving up other futures. The worst thing for me, though, was the idea of being uncertain. I didn't need to deliberate over my answer, one call was just as good (or bad) as the other. So I made my choice, which was basically a coin flip, in the span of the seven minutes from my parents' home to the local Italian place while my odometer ticked over from 47, 364 to 47, 365.

By the time we got to dinner I knew it would be one our last meals together as we were once. I don't know if it was the right call. I don't know if I ever truly will.

Faye F.