When I was fifteen, I got pregnant.  It doesn't really matter how.

I tried to hide it, at first, but I assume I was too jumpy, too nervous.  My parents found out.  My parents freaked out.  They told me I had to do something about it.  Hills Like White Elephants and all that.

Mary went with me, she called in sick to school just to come with me.  She held my hand when I went in.  She hugged me when I came out crying.

I know it was the right thing to do.  I know that, objectively.  I couldn't have taken care of the baby.  I was probably still too small to give birth to it.  But....at the time, I was so convinced that I was failing her.  So utterly sure that I was just giving up on her before she even had a chance.  I wanted to at least give her up for adoption, but my parents....they wouldn't hear any of it.  I had to do something about it, they told me.

And now Tam is missing, and I'm pregnant again.

If he were here, we could have figured something out.  Maybe I could have stayed at home after graduating--it's not as though I was not thinking of taking time off from school anyway.

But now he's gone.  He's still gone.  There's still no sign of him.  The police are looking, but I don't believe they actually think they will find him.

...tomorrow, I think I will check his apartment.  I am a bit hesitant though.

Just after he went missing, when I called his roommate, he said something that made me think he was cheating on me.  He said, "He's not here, but he did get all those flowers you sent him."

I have never sent Tam any flowers.  I never would, except perhaps ironically.

At first, I thought they were from another woman (or possibly a man).  However, now I am wondering if they did not have something to do with his disappearance.  They make me...nervous, somehow.  Afraid, if you can believe that.  Me, afraid of some flowers.  Terrifying posies and horrible forget-me-nots.  If my fiance was not missing it would almost be hilarious.

Regardless, I will see what I can find tomorrow.  I hope...I hope I can find something.  I need to find something.

fuck not again.  not again.  not now.

if this was any other time this would't be so bad but not now, i can't handle this now.

fuck fuck fuck fuck

useless fucking university issued condoms

fuck

not while tam's missing

i would be fine with this if tam were here we would've figured something out

fuck fuck fuck

i don't know what to do now.

i'm not sure if i could stand getting another abortion.  i think it might kill me inside.

where are you tam?

tam please come back.

tam i need you right now.

please.  please, i can't do this alone.

Still no word

He's not here.

No one has  seen him.  He hasn't called or sent an email or anything.

I'm really worried.  It's been three days now.

An ugly part of me keeps telling me he's run away.  That he's eloped with someone new.  That he doesn't need poor, broken Ashleigh anymore.

I remember meeting him, in Anthro.  I was taking notes on my laptop, and he was sitting next to me, and glanced at my background and wrote me a note, "Rose is my favorite, too."  At first I just quietly nodded and blushed, but we talked after class, and he was so charming and funny and we went for coffee, and then I started opening up to him and he put up with all my bullshit, like ordering him to be my cherry plate.  I remember letting him fall asleep with his head in my lap, after he came home from his Grandma's funeral.  I remember going out to that big forest preserve and just running through the trees with him, and then we'd fall over, get up, and run and laugh some more.  I've never been happier than I have been with him.  Sometimes I wonder if I was even ever happy before I met him.

And now...now I can't sleep.  I can barely eat.  Even breathing seems difficult at times.

I'm going to try calling the police again tomorrow.

Tam....if you can read this.  Please, come home.  I love you.  If you've...done something, something that makes you have to leave, I forgive you.  I just want to know you're safe.

...and if someone's taken him, and they read this...

..bring him home.  Please.  I'd do anything to have him home.  I'd give anything for him to be safe.

Skipped classes again

The Ren Faire was fun, despite my best efforts to not enjoy myself.

When I cam home from it, though, I tried to call my fiance.  He didn't respond.  I waited a day and didn't get a call back.  He never so much as checked his email.

I know this because I am pathetic and stayed on Google all day. I know, it sounds clingy...but I was worried  something had happened to him.

I tried calling his housemate.  He said that my fiance had been out.  And then he said something...it's not important.  The point is, it made me think he'd been cheating on me, so that's when I posted that emo post.

But...he's still not home yet.

He hasn't been home.  He didn't pack anything.  All of his things are still at his house.  His professors haven't seen him--not any of the ones he talks to regularly.  His parents don't know.

I'm starting to get worried.

I know, it hasn't been that long.  I know I must sound needy and clingy and like some fragile little housewife, unable to live without her man.

But I love him.

And it's not like him to just vanish like this.

It was all going so well

Don't you hate it when a single sentence ruins your entire week?

Chicago is boring

So Erika, Mary, Justine (one of the few vaguely tolerable work friends Mary has), and I all went up to Taste of Chicago today. I decided to skip classes, though it turns out I just exchanged them for something about as extraordinarily dull. Just a bunch of food stands and some shitty bands playing occasionally. Apparently they cut funding for it or something and it was only half the size it has been. Oh well. At least I got an ice cream cone the size of my forearm out of the trip.

There was a bookstore nearby, so the day wasn't a complete waste of time and money. Erika and Mary are trying to drag me out to the ren faire up in Bristol this weekend. It's really not my thing. I tried to say I didn't have any garb, but Erika insists she can get something my size. So I may be going despite my protests.

It might be good to get out, though. I could use the sun, and the distraction. I haven't made up my mind yet. It's not like I'll have anything else to do this weekend, apparently.

I cannot fathom sleep

And so, I am here.  I have good news and bad news.

It's been half a week and my stalker in white is nowhere to be seen.  I'm assuming that my little wave scared him off.  I'm glad I didn't really have anything to worry about.  I hope I don't, at any rate.  Mary's told me that he could just be hiding better, or waiting for me to let my guard down again.  It's not the most pleasant thing to assume, but I don't think she's without merit in thinking it.  As much as I complain about her, she does have my best interests in mind.

The bad news is, I've still not seen much of my fiance this past week.  I want to strangle his professors.  Why does he have to do so much work over the summer?  It's summer!  This is one of the few remaining summers he has, but no, his professors insist that he must must must keep working on that damn thesis.  I know that he needs to do this to get his degree...but I miss him.

I must sound so pathetic.  I can hear my old gender studies professor using me as an example to the class as a poster child for antiquated views on gender roles in a relationship.  Look here at Ashleigh, she needs a man to feel content!  Her man leaves and she just wastes away in her apartment!

Well fuck that.  Tomorrow, after class, I am going to do something fun with Mary and possibly Erika as well.  I'll show that person who I haven't spoken to in two years what's what.

For now, however, sleep.

There was going to be a party

My very first comment.  I was so excited.  There was going to be cake and everything.  I hired a DJ, and we were going to have  pizza, and it was going to be absolutely wonderful.

I hope you feel happy for yourself, whoever you are that was, what, hitting refresh on my blog every ten minutes, waiting for me to post?  We had to throw the cake away, and the party clown went home crying.  How is he supposed to feed his wife and kids now?

From that other comment, it's some kind of code?  I don't know.  I don't know who would put something like that up, and I don't really care.

Probably one of Mary's idiotic friends.

Oh well, regardless, more about my day.

Erika did indeed come by while I was at work, and she stayed for my entire shift.  I'm not entirely dissuaded on the "she's attracted to me" front, though she did entertain herself when I was busy, so maybe she's just lonely, kind of like how I have been.  It's no secret that I'm not very personable.  When I say that Mary is my best friend, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that, beyond my fiance, she is my only friend.  It's good to have someone who's so instantly taken with me that they would sit around a coffee shop for four hours entertaining me.

I'm kind of excited for tomorrow.  I want to see if the man in white is back.  I sincerely hope I chased him off with my little wave.  If I haven't...maybe I'll go talk to him?  Of course, I won't do it alone.  I'll bring my fiance or Erika with me, and see if we can't find out what's going on.

Dear diary, today I made a friend

That is quite possibly one of the most pathetic things I have ever written.

I ended up going out to the bar with Mary and her friends.  They were all loud and obnoxious and I regretted being there almost instantly.  I don't drink, and the music hurt my ears, and every time Mary's work friends saw my engagement ring they cooed and said how lucky I was, and pulled my hand away from me to eye the stone jealously, and asked if we had a date set, and franky I just wanted to drown them all in their beer pitcher just to be free from their infernal questioning.

I was saved, however, when a young woman walked up to me, said I looked a bit out of sorts and possibly a little distressed, and saved me from the sudden intellectual drought I had found myself in.  At first, I think she was hitting on me, but eventually she saw that she was barking up two of the wrong trees, and she spoke to me as a friend.

We talked about music, and graphic novels, and Firefly, and Being Human, and Torchwood.  She was a bright step up from Mary, who whenever the subject of a show comes up, instantly switches the topic to the attractiveness of that show's male lead.  Yes, I agree with her choices, but it wears on a person.  Some of us graduated from middle school, and have more things to talk about than the opposite sex.

She's agreed to give me some company tomorrow as I slave away at the coffee shop.  It should be fun.

Mary's still whining about me not getting to know her friends better.  Sigh.  I'd better do something to reassure her she's still my best friend.

I can't wait to move

But more on that in a moment.  I had a breakthrough of sorts today.

On my way to classes, I turned to the man in white and waved at him.  He moved away as quickly as he could.  I didn't see him when I left class two hours later.  I'm sure he was absolutely mystified at my ability to suss him out in such ingenious camouflage.  Hopefully, that takes care of that problem.

When, after work, I finally made my way to my apartment, however, a new one made itself known.  One of the people who lives on my floor decided to make his presence known.

His constant amorous attention was cute, if pathetic, at first...but he's seldom failed to try to drag me into whatever manner of boring smalltalk he has on hand.  It's quickly become somewhat creepy and sad.  And I know it is amorous attention, because he gives the dirtiest looks to my fiance when he sees us together, and he thinks we're not looking.

I got him to shut up today, though, when I showed him my brand new ring.  He mumbled something about congratulations and then made his excuses and left.  I'll admit, it was cruel of me, but not without a delightful measure of satisfaction.

Still, I doubt it will last for long.  Both Mary and I are regular targets of his fumbling overtures, and we're both rather tired of them.  I can't wait until the day I can move in with my fiance.  It should just be the end of the summer.  We've agreed that it would probably be best if we both waited until we were both graduated before we moved in together, for the sakes of our grades if nothing else.

Speaking of my paramour, it looks as though I'm going to be a thesis widow this weekend.  I may go to a bar or something with Mary and  some of her work friends.  She's been trying to get me to go out for weeks, and I may as well humor her.  Who knows, I might meet some new friends in the process.

Perhaps my vanity is besting me

My fiance has offered to escort me to classes.  I've declined so far.  Maybe I'm just being vain.  He could just be standing there, watching everyone go past.  I doubt I'm quite so special as to deserve my very own stalker.  As long as he does nothing but watch, what is there really to fret about?  It's kind of flattering, really.

It's a blow to my pride to remember that I am not, in fact, at the center of the universe, but I'll endure, somehow.

Something unsettling has been happening

I'll postpone any of my usual ranting and raving and get straight to the point in a way that feels both wrong and profane.  I'll admit, I am a bit nervous about this.  I imagine my fiance is going to want to take some sort of action after hearing this, bless his testosterone-driven heart.

Over the past few days, while on campus, I have noticed someone watching me.

It has always been at a distance, but it has happened too often to be coincidence.

From what I can see, the person is dressed all in white.  Long white coat, a white hood of some kind over their head.  Yes, even in summer.  Yes, this person was getting odd looks, though they stayed mostly to the shadows.  I think it was a man but I can't be certain.

Maybe I should go to the campus police tomorrow?  This might just be a misunderstanding.  I do have a fairly regular pattern when at my classes.

I could also just wait it out.  My classes last only last until early August.  After that, I will have little reason to frequent that portion of the quad.  My only requirement to be on campus will be to go to work as a coffee slave, and I may not even keep at that job come the end of summer.

Perhaps I should invest in some pepper spray.  Just to be safe.

I hope my fiance doesn't do anything stupid when he hears about this.