Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Support the IDS in College Media Madness! Donate here March 24 - April 8.
Thursday, March 28
The Indiana Daily Student

"We knew it was all or nothing"

As graduation looms, one couple is trying to make their time together last before the future hits

All or nothing

It was a summer trip to Israel that did it. After their junior year of high school, Jeremy Levin and Marisa Briefman left their homes to go overseas and explore their Jewish roots.

They didn’t speak much on the trip, sharing only friendly encounters. It was not a dream-like, fairy tale romance in a distant land. Instead, they started talking on Facebook once they were back and had realized they would both be freshmen at IU in August.

Fast-forward four years. 

The two sit across the table at the Indiana Memorial Union Starbucks.

 Marisa, filled with happy chatter, talks of the upcoming IU Dance Marathon. Jeremy, also upbeat, asks clarifying questions across the table, having already spent many hours listening to his girlfriend talk about the fundraiser. 

This is the happiest they’ve ever been, they say. They’ve only gotten better with time. The problem is that time is hardly on their side. Both seniors, Jeremy and Marisa will graduate in May. When you ask them what’s going to happen to their relationship, they become pensive and reserved. 

Now forced to ask questions like, “Will we be apart?” or, the more frightening, “How long will we be apart?” They realize they don’t know the answers. 

Marisa is active in the Jewish community. She’s interested in all things religion — in the way it connects people. She loves bringing people together, through her work as a camp counselor at Camp Ramah Darom in Georgia and as an intern at the Helene G. Simon Hillel Center. Jeremy says he’s a peoplepleaser in his own right. 

Marisa remembers how Jeremy was in her room on move-in day freshman year, helping her parents unload the car. 

Unlike their first meeting in the Union during summer orientation when Marisa tried desperately to avoid an awkward, forced encounter with the boy from her Israel trip, the two now chat uninhibited. Marisa reaches out to Jeremy often, affectionately grasping his hand or rubbing his arm as she talks about the first time they met up after the trip. 

“I hadn’t seen him in so long. I thought it was going to be awkward,” she says. 

“I didn’t think it was that awkward!” Jeremy says, defending himself. 

“No, it wasn’t. It worked out really well,” she says. “But I thought it was going to be the most awkward thing ever.” 

Jeremy continues with the story, poking fun at Marisa. 

“Oh, I’m so tired,” he laughs, mocking her excuse from that first meeting. 

She eyes him accusingly and bursts out laughing. The rhythmic banter between them often ends this way. 

Later, mutual friend Kayleigh Fisher explains that this type of interaction is “so them.” She says the two often get lost in each other, even when in a big group. That’s when, Kayleigh says, their love is most clear. 

This May, around 18,000 students will graduate from IU, leaving behind cramped apartments, favorite Kirkwood eateries, and, potentially, collegiate love affairs. 

Along with the, “What are you going to do with your life?” question that typically comes with the territory of graduation, there’s an additional set of questions for those who have given four years to another person. 

“Are you going to get married? Will you break up? What’s going to happen?” 

Though they admittedly have no idea, they have pockets full of experience to draw upon. 

For Jeremy, this isn’t his first life transition with a significant other in tow. After dating a former best friend in high school, he knows what’s at stake if things go south — a realization that kept Jeremy and Marisa apart freshman year. No matter what, Jeremy wasn’t ready to lose another best friend. 

That year they would spend the night together sometimes to escape roommates they didn’t like, Marisa says, thinking back to the time when they were still just friends. “We would sleep in the same bed. Do you know how hard it is not to touch in a twin-size bed?” 

Their freshman year was filled with constant urging from determined friends. One night Jeremy and Marisa went, as friends, to a house show where Marisa kissed someone else as Jeremy watched from the side. The car ride home was silent. It was in this moment that the truth of Jeremy and Marisa’s relationship began to shine through. So, they acted on what was already known by those around them. 

They liked each other.

Sophomore year began with their exciting, new relationship at a honeymoon stage. They were the “star couple” in their close-knit group of friends. But a year and a half later, when Marisa packed up for a semester abroad in Jerusalem and Jeremy in Seville, they split.

Unbeknownst to Jeremy, Marisa had already started worrying months prior about the strain travel would put on the relationship. After being apart for the first time the previous summer, she knew just how tense things could get. She didn’t want the pressure. 

“I wanted to stay together,” Jeremy says. “But she was checked out.” 

Even now, slight hints of a sore spot exist when they try and make sense of what happened. Marisa smiles nervously at Jeremy, reaching out to pat his arm again. 

The nine months that followed were painful. At one point, they even say they hated each other and lost contact completely. Looking back, they’re not sure what brought them back together their senior year. It was just a simple meeting — a tying up of loose ends — but before they knew it, they had spent three hours talking in a coffee shop like nothing had gone wrong. 

Friends and family were hesitant to see Jeremy and Marisa go back to square one. But to the two people who had just rediscovered each other, things were different. 

“It’s just more balanced,” Marisa says. “I was Jeremy’s first love. And I took a lot of that for granted. Spending time apart, it gives you the chance to miss something.” 

Kayleigh says she can remember Skyping Marisa in Israel and knowing something was off. Marisa said she just wasn’t happy, and even though it was “stupid,” she knew it was because Jeremy wasn’t around anymore. 

Kayleigh found out later that mutual friends of Jeremy’s were hearing the same from him. 

When they were back in Bloomington, Jeremy was willing to give it another shot. If it didn’t work out again, he wasn’t sure they could remain friends. 

“We knew it was all or nothing,” he says. The taco meat sizzles as Marisa stirs it lazily in the bottom of the pan. It’s a Saturday night, and the couple has decided to stay in. 

“Hey Jer, are you good at eyeballing?” Marisa calls out from the adjoining kitchen, walking over to Jeremy who sits at the dining room table, switching between Facebook and homework. Her purple, fuzzy slipperboots announce her entrance as she moves onto the aged hardwood floor. 

As she stands over him, discussing how to measure two tablespoons of oil, sheets of white paper hang above them where the wall meets the ceiling. The sheets spell “I-N-T-E-R-V-E-N-T-IO-N” — an inside joke between Marisa and her roommates to make Jeremy stop wearing a “hideous” scarf he bought while he was abroad. 

Taco meat cooked, the two grab plates and bowls and take their shell-less tacos to the family room where they watch “The Dark Knight.” Marisa steals Jeremy’s pumpkin wheat beer on the way to the couch. 

“Thanks for stealing my beer,” Jeremy says. He tries to soften the blow. “Honey ... sweetie ... boocums,” he calls out. 

She smiles his way, and he joins her on the couch. 

Now in senior year, the two say they’ve been putting off “the conversation,” wanting to live in the moment as long as possible. Still, they’ve been making their own plans for post-graduation while keeping each other in the back of their minds. Jeremy, who studies business management, and Marisa, who wants to work in event-planning for a Jewish nonprofit, have both looked into jobs in Chicago. It may be their best shot of staying together. But they’ve already taken a variety of preemptive measures. 

Jeremy recently bought an iPhone 4S, so they can use FaceTime — just in case. They’ve looked for positions that offer weekend availability, so they could travel — just in case. 

Jeremy says that they’re both mentally prepared for what’s coming, as much as they can be. But he knows Marisa would be the one to do it. He would feel the same, but she would be the one to actually say it. Marisa takes comfort from her belief in fate. 

“I know it’s cheesy,” Marisa says. “But I really do think if it’s meant to work out. It will. I have faith. I’m not going to lie though, I’m terrified. It matters so much more to me now.” 

Marisa feels especially scared about one thing: If their relationship ends this spring, it will be over. It won’t come back. 

“I think if we broke up, that would be it,” Marisa says. “Maybe we could be friends later, but it would just be too far down the line, and that’s the worst part about it.”

Get stories like this in your inbox
Subscribe