The story brought me to the highs and lows of Jeremy and China’s love for one another. I was very anxious to continue reading the story and find out how something as good as it was going to end. During the first part wherein their love story was being described, I had this warm and light feeling. Their relationship was perfect, the kind that I believe most teenagers their age would love to have. They loved each other, and their parents and families accepted and supported their relationship. Even greater is the fact that despite the intensity of their feelings, they were still able to focus on their studies. They continued to do well in school and they each had a strong resolve to continue their studies even if that meant being miles and miles apart from each other. There was balance in their relationship. They were the center of each other’s world but they did not cling to each other.
When a major problem struck their relationship, everything that was once so perfect
started crumbling. However, I was still positive that they would still be able to work things out and get through the difficulty that was putting their relationship to the test. I did not expect it to go spiraling down until it got out of control. The regret that I felt was so immense for I did not expect their love to end so tragically. In the end, I came to realize that there was no other way for the story to end. They made a monumental mistake and even though their reason was sound, that whatever they did with their baby was their business, their relationship was bound to be ruined by it.
As I try to remember the salient details of the story, I have arrived to the conclusion that the main reason why the story made a strong impression on me was because of the way the author expressed his ideas. Every important event in Jeremy and China’s love story was described in a very straightforward manner using simple words. From the very beginning wherein the author described how close China and Jeremy were to each other, as shown by the way “they wore each othe like a pair of socks” and how “their fingers were entwined, their shoulders touching, their hips joined” whenever they were together clearly illustrates the kind of relationship that they had. There was also the acceptance of each other’s family, as described by how “she went shopping with his mother and hers.” All these details were presented at the onset of the story, which immediately brought me into the almost perfect romantic relationship that China and Jeremy had.
A picture of the kind of relationship they had with their own parents were presented when both their parents called to check on them during a storm. Jeremy’s relationship with his mother was a little weird for me because of how the author narrated that she called to check if everything was alright and went on to describe her being “shacked up? – for the weekend with the man she was dating,” and how no matter how hard Jeremy concentrated on picturing her, he could not remember how she looked like. I surmised that they did not see each other often but there is love between them. China, on the other hand, had a typical family with both her parents alive and giving her love. The author’s language was able to present to me the disparity of their relationships with their families and how it was a normal thing for these differences to exist.
The part where the author described China and Jeremy as smart students who give priorities to their studies made me look up to them. Here were two people who unquestionably love each other but were too smart to know the importance of education. There was also China’s “I will never, never be like those breeders that bring their puffed-up squalling little red-faced babies to class” line, and their shared belief that they would not be one of the “breeders overpopulating an overpopulated world and ruining their own lives in the process” which proved to me that they were sexually responsible teens. The author cleverly raised my expectations and deceived me into thinking that the conflict of the story would not be anything about irresponsible sex.
I was struck by the graphic description of what both of them went through when China gave birth. There was a chronological description of the event and vivid definition of their emotional and psychological state that it almost felt like I was watching a movie and I was seeing their faces. I was with Jeremy when it dawned on him that “he couldn’t have a life.” This signaled the beginning of Jeremy’s falling out of love and everything that followed only highlighted this realization. “What was her face like, her nose, her eyes and breasts and the slit between her legs? He drew a blank.” It was unfortunate but understandable that Jeremy felt this way, and the author’s use of explicit language successfully took off Jeremy’s romantic thoughts about China.
China reminiscing about her and Jeremy being together one summer night intensified the regret and profound sadness I felt for the death of their love. For China, Jeremy was the love of her life and for her it was the only thing that mattered in their difficult situation. Maybe she was right, maybe she was wrong, and this uncertainty was what was left of a once great love.
