Not Just Another Teen Short Story: The Love of My Life (Boyle)

         I really enjoyed this story! Personally, I thought the beginning description painted a realistic picture according to what many young high school relationships look like. The first time you’re “in love” is different from rest. Blind and foolish. I loved the line “. . . they kissed wherever they met, no matter where or when, even if one of them had just stepped out the room, because that was love, that was the way love was. . .” He narrator emphasizes the idea of “that was love” for them to acknowledge how you may think you love someone when you’re sixteen--but with no responsibility. Jeremy’s responsibility moves from making a decision on what ice cream flavor he wants--to “comforting” his pregnant teenage girlfriend. He doesn’t know how to do it. He pretty much gives up on her. So, the conflict starts out with the tension of hiding the pregnancy and how it puts a strain on the couple’s relationship (obviously). Subsequently, it escalates to her having the baby with no doctor or anesthetic in a hotel room, killing the baby, the arrests, juvenile detention, embarrassment, China’s charges being dropped, ect. I admired that Boyle just didn’t stop shocking me, he never got too crazy where I felt this story was unbelievable but he was persistent with the tension and turns in the mood.   
           (Let’s say the worst of the “Teen Moms” meets Casey Anthony and they draw names to decide who gets to have a love child with the girl from the article titled “I didn’t know I was pregnant until I went to pee at school and there was a baby in toilet,” then this story would be said love child.... However, I don’t know if it’s mother is Casey or not.)
       What I mean by that is while it’s insane to sympathize with ignorant teenagers--especially those who KILL their baby, you can’t help but feel a sorry for China and question how she may have felt about the baby if Jeremy would have been more supportive. Does it make it right? No. But, did she really think it was dead?
     Boyle takes you for a bumpy ride on who readers should sympathize with. You can’t help but feel sorry for China. She’s crying in the arms of Jeremy who says he “loves her” but can’t seem to understand why she’s so stupid sometimes. He urges her to “get rid of it,” (verrry loving) but she can’t even look at him. He doesn’t know what to do. When their daughter is born she tells Jeremy to “get rid of it,” because she feels if she doesn’t she may lose Jeremy. However, she already had. He could summon anything about her in his head--not even her face. She wasn’t the same girl he loved. She had to choose between Jeremy and the baby, and she made the wrong one. He didn't want anything to do with it anyway.
        I took notice of how skillfully Boyle creates the naivety and teenage innocence of China and Jeremy. He describes China on the phone with her mom half-listening with “uh-huhs,” sticking her finger in the ice cream, sliding around the kitchen in her socks. He never directly says “they were just poor little teenagers.” He makes us feel that syrupy love bubble they’re stuck in--the triviality of their worries before the pregnancy.
        I also found that when the story moves from the the camping trip to when we find out she’s pregnant months later, there is a dark cloud that takes over Boyle’s writing and the quick shift is really effective in this case, because that’s exactly what pregnancy would feel like to a teen: cast a dark light on everything in your life, especially since China had to go through the exhaustion of hiding it.
         So what do I make at the end? Jeremy is scummy, but she still loves him the end. I’m not sure if I 100% believe she didn’t know it was dead, even if she took a polygraph. Either way, I have to feel for China in a pathetic sort of way.