Forbidden Young Love Claims Teens Mother Had Told Daughter, 13, She Couldn’t See Boy Anymore

Two eighth-grade sweethearts, forbidden by the girl’s mother to see each other, apparently drowned themselves in a canal, leaving suicide notes that told of their undying love, their desperation and their hope of being together in another world.

The bodies of Maryling Flores, 13, and Christian Davila, 14, were found Tuesday in the murky, weed-choked waterway just a few blocks from the school they attended. Neither could swim.

“I can’t go on living. I’ve lost Maryling,” Christian said in a note his parents found Sunday. “I’m escaping from the realm of reality into the darkness of the unknown. Because reality is, I can’t be with Maryling.”

Maryling left more than six suicide notes, police said.

“You’ll never be able to understand the love between me and Christian,” she said in one addressed to “Mom and Dad.” “You don’t let me see him in this world, so we’re going to another place. Please don’t cry for me, this is what I want. I want to feel happy, because I’m going to a place where I can be with Christian.”

Maryling’s mother had forbidden her on Saturday to see Christian anymore, in part because they were so young, police said. Maryling had told friends she might be pregnant, and her mother feared the same thing, but an autopsy showed otherwise.

The two ran away from home early Sunday, said Officer Ramon Quintero, who knows both families. Maryling’s parents called police later that morning after they realized the girl was missing and discovered her suicide notes.

“It’s a Romeo and Juliet story,” Quintero said.

Police wouldn’t identify the parents, and the principal at the young lovers’ school wouldn’t talk to reporters.

Police listed the drownings as a homicide-suicide, which is routine when investigators don’t know exactly what happened. It’s “a fair assumption” the two jumped 15 feet into the Tamiami Canal together, Quintero said.

Their bodies were found a few hundred yards apart, but the canal has a swift current when the flood-control gates are open.