We let the tender hope of it lay between us. The twinkling stars and whispering ocean are our only witnesses.
“I would like to know what I’m doing for work at the age of forty,” he says abruptly.
I chuckle, his sudden way of talking has always been my favorite. “Why forty? And why work?” I ask.
“Because,” he says. “If I do end up making it to the NFL, it’s not a career that lasts your entire life. Unless you’re Tom Brady and you play football until you’re, like, eighty. But sometimes, I get scared that I don’t have my finger on the pulse of anything other than football. I don’t know what I’d find myself doing once I didn’t have to think about it twenty-four seven. Which is kind of destabilizing, you know?” he finishes with effort, punctuating each word.
“Hmm,” I muse, craving a deflection from the rising panic of where we’ll be in that many years. We don’t even know where we’re going to college. “First of all, you will make it to the NFL, and second, anyone who uses the word ‘destabilizing’ in a casual sentence is smart enough to figure out what to do with their time.”
His eyes dart down to my mouth, half-smirking as I wait for his chuckle. After it arrives, I take a more sincere approach. “You’re too creative to stay bored for long. You like engineering, right? You could build stuff.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” he says, more so to himself like he’s rolling the thought over in his mind. “Not a bad idea at all.”
The seed of doubt worms its way back to the forefront of my mind. I don’t want to put a damper on our first date by thinking so far into the future, but we’ve already applied to colleges. Don’t we need to put some forethought into how we’ll last past high school?
“Declan,” I start, unable to push off the racing thoughts. “How is this going to work if we go to different colleges?”
“We applied to a lot of the same ones, right?” he replies, not missing a beat.
“It’s just that…” I peter off, realizing I’m in danger of souring the mood.
My hand subconsciously lifts to my mouth to chew on a hangnail.
“Hey.” Declan shifts himself up onto his elbow and gently grabs my wrist, pulling my hand away from my mouth. “I know it’s scary to think about where we’ll end up in a few months, but let’s talk about it. Walk me through what you’re thinking about.”
“Well,” I falter.
Apparently converting my feelings into words is a pathway my neurons are unfamiliar with. “It’s just that… okay, let me start here.”
I push up on my elbows in the cool sand. “The other day I was talking to my mom about all the colleges we applied to, and she made an offhand comment about how I’d need full-ride scholarships to attend any of them. And when I pushed and asked if she was being dramatic, she laughed in my face. I legitimately can’t go to a single school I spent all this time applying to unless I get a full ride. Full. Not half. Not a quarter. Full.”
Declan nods silently, allowing me to go on.
“And I know this is going to sound terribly cliché, but it feels like that saying that goes ‘Walk like a duck. Talk like a duck. Hang out with other ducks. You start to think you are a duck.’ But I’m not a duck, Declan.” My voice rises.
“Woah, woah, woah,” Declan says, catching my gesticulating arms. “I was following so well until this duck comparison.”
“What I mean is, I grew up in this town because mygreat-aunt could afford it. So, I hung out with kids whose parents could afford it. And I started to forget that I wasn’t like them. Everyone rattled off the list of Ivy Leagues they were applying to and I somehow followed suit without much thought. So much so that I forgot to ask my mom if we could afford it. I just assumed we could because everyone else can. But if I want to go to college, I have to pay for it!” I say, driving my pointer finger into my chest. “And also, I can’t be going to college forcreative writing. What was I thinking?” I spit the words out like they’re obscene. “I need to be strategic. I need to put myself in a position to get a high-paying job. One high enough to support me and my mom.”
Declan is nodding with force now, eyes skimming the sand as a hand scrapes his chin, deep in thought.
“So, your mom didn’t tell you that you’d be the one paying for college on your own?” he asks.
“Well… yeah, I guess she just assumed I knew that,” I concede, not liking how it sounds. “But she didn’t want to deter me from trying to apply to any big schools because she has some weird blind faith that I’ll be able to get full scholarships and… I don’t know, Declan, you know how she is. She’s not one for many words and I guess this is one of those things that slipped through the cracks.”
“Slipped through the cracks? Isn’t that a pretty big thing to let ‘slip through the cracks’?” he says, stress peaking his voice.
“Hey, calm down,” I try to say soothingly. “I’m stressed about it too. That’s why I’m bringing it up.”
“Sorry, it’s just hard to stay calm when I just got you and now I have to worry about losing you soon.”
“You’re not going to lose me, Declan,” I say, touching his arm. “I mean, we’ll figure it out, right?”
He doesn’t move away from my touch, but he looks down, jaw grinding.
He shakes his head, hand coming up to rub his chin again and the sight makes my stomach drop. “I’m sorry, it’s just—you know how much pressure I’ve been under since I was a kid, Blair. My dad has made it his chief goal for me to play D1 at an Ivy League and then straight to the NFL. It’s already so much to think about.”
My stomach aches and I feel the need to run and hide. I never want to add to the pressure he feels, but I don’t want to compete against his dad and football.
