TITLE: Whole Life Ahead
AUTHOR: Jacinta
SUMMARY: Josh thinks about his first love
NOTE: Inspired by something Josh said in Dogs Of War. I'm probably completely
off track here, but have a read and see what you think.
SPOILERS: Up to Dogs Of War
CHARACTERS: Josh POV
RATING: PG
DISCLAIMER: Aaron Sorkin created Josh, John Wells created Ryan and I
created Sarah.
Ryan has finally left me alone. It was starting to freak me out, him just sitting there watching me. I never know what the hell I'm suppose to do with interns. They annoy me. I'm sure I wasn't that bad when I interned. No actually, scrap that, I probably was. But that was twenty years ago and now interns just annoy me. Did I mention that?
And guys like Ryan annoy me more than most. It's guys like him that promote the idea that Ivy Leaguers are 'Hamilton Peterson-Smythe III' the over privileged son of a former Harvard graduate, who's entire family have been to Harvard and Yale. So guys like Ryan annoy me, in case you couldn't tell.
And what on earth made me mention Sarah to him? He was looking at my degree, although somehow I don't think he was too impressed by it only being honors, you can guarantee he graduated magna if not suma, but hell, I had to work hard enough to get honors, so it impressed me, because I really wasn't the smartest kid in the class.
Sarah graduated top of the class, suma cum lade. She always was too smart, spent nearly as much time in the library as I did. That's how we met in fact. I was staring blankly at a pile of law books, trying to think how to end an essay, and how to start it, when she sat down across from me and started working. It was a Friday night, and not too many students worked Friday nights, but I did. The library was always pretty quiet, which helped me concentrate, because I was finding my second year even tougher than the first and I needed good grades if I was going to apply for a Fulbright Scholarship.
Sarah just wanted to do well. After thirty minutes of me staring blankly at the books I had open, she took pity on me and told me I needed a break. We went and had a coffee and a donut and started talking. The cafe owner kicked us out three hours later and we walked home together, past the drunken frat boys. The next day she sat next to me in lectures and that was that, we started dating, though she teased it was only so I could get her help with my work, but it really wasn't.
I don't know what made me think about her today. I haven't though about her in a long time.
Who am I trying to kid? I think about her all the time. Little things remind me of her and make me smile. You never forget your first love, they say. It's true, you don't. Sarah will always be with me, reminding me of the fun we had, but also serving as a warning when relationships get too heavy, a warning about what happens when you let someone in too close.
No one here knows about Sarah, apart from Leo and Donna.
When we graduated Harvard and both got into Yale it was like fate was telling us that we were destined to be together, so we thought. We were young, what can I say? My Fulbright meant that I'd have to study overseas for eight months and I chose to do it during my second year, delaying the inevitable split in our relationship. No matter how strong we thought we were, it's a long way from here to the UK, so I put it off for a year, thank God. At least it meant I got a few more months with her.
One Friday night in February she drove home to her parents in Baltimore. I couldn't go, unsurprisingly I had an essay to finish, but it was a drive she'd made many times before so I wasn't worried. She was due back on Sunday morning, when she didn't show I didn't think much of it. I just assumed she was having a good time and had stayed longer. On Sunday afternoon about 4 o'clock, my dad turned up at my room and asked Chris and Amy if he could talk to me alone. I knew then, I could see it in his eyes.
She'd been driving back to Yale that morning, she'd driven across an intersection when a truck had run through a red light and hit her car. She'd died instantly. She was 23 with her whole life ahead of her. I went home with my dad. We went to the funeral later that week. People at home and at school were sympathetic and kind, they tried to help, but nothing anyone said could convince me that life would ever be good again. Eventually of course the pain faded. Later that year I went to the UK to study and that helped, being far away from where it happened and from everything that reminded me.
Most of the time now I don't mind things reminding me of her. A song on the radio, a joke, a passing comment that sounds like something Sarah would have said, then I think of her and it makes me smile. And today? Well today I've been thinking about for a different reason. Today it's because of another college graduate with her whole life ahead of her. Only she's going to be okay, thank God.
So now it's time to go and watch Jed Bartlet take back his presidency. Because not all things have unhappy endings and Zoey's safe, with her whole life ahead of her.