“Hey,” Declan protests. “My five-year-old brain loved your tiny mind. As unformed as it was, it was responsible for all your cute little expressions.”
My mouth splits into a smile.
“But in all seriousness, I know what you mean. About knowing something is true but not believing it. You came to the false conclusion that there was something aboutyouthat caused your dad to leave, and you started believing that so long ago, it’s hard to[spontaneously not believe it anymore]. Even with your grown-up brain.” He taps the side of my temple playfully. I laugh and then his expression becomes grave again. “But, Blair, someone who chose to leave you must be the stupidest man in the entire world. There’s just no other explanation.”[This is why Blair believed Declan up and disappeared from her life w/o looking back. But he’s also the one who will re-write those beliefs for Blair.]
The corners of my lips wobble and I have to smash them together to prevent my chin from trembling too. “That’s what you said our freshman year too.”
“Hah,” he laughs. “I must still be bad at comforting you then.”
“No,” I say quietly as I relax my head into the sand and stare at the sky again. “You’re very good at it.”
He must know I’ve laid down to avoid being looked at while I fight grateful tears, so he joins me in looking at the sky.
[foreshadow]“I don’t know if your dad is in your future, but I know I will be,”he says, voice husky like it’s been forced from his throat.“If you let me be.”
“Of course I will.” There’s nothing I want more, I don’t add.
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.[I remember the panic of telling my childhood besties we’d be friends forever, but not knowing how it’d be feasible. (Don’t worry, we’re still besties!)]“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.[Foreshadow]
“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.”[Like a coffee shop and bird houses :)]
“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.”[A foreign concept to Blair]
“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.”[When I wanted to go to college for dance I realized this to be true. And realizing that at 17 is pretty scary!]
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.[This was also a realization I had at 17. USC or NYU or Chapman were $65K a year. That was a harsh realization!]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.
