Four and a Half Years Ago Senior Year
Declan and I had transitioned from being friends to dating with the ease of switching trains.
They were quite close and perfectly adjacent, but the destinations were very different.
We’d fast-tracked our senior year in a daze.
College applications and football practice took up most of our energy.
And every time the stress of where we’d go after high school came up, he kissed me until my shoulders dropped, and thoughts became unviable.
My head is bent over Declan’s dining room table, where we spend our evenings doing homework.
A crick in my neck forces me to look up from my notebook.
It’s been two hours, and despite Declan’s relentless patience, I still have a baffling inability to understand the mean value theorem and how to apply it to the calculus equations before me.
“How about we take a break with an episode of Upper Leagues?” Declan suggests to my crooked frame.
Upper Leagues is a reality show that follows college football athletes training to be scouted by the NFL. It’s good insight into what Declan might experience soon.
“Yeah. How ’bout we do that,” I mumble, embarrassed by my lack of calculus comprehension.
I typically read a book while he watches the show, falling into companionable silence like a well-rehearsed dance. We shuffle our sock-clad feet up the carpeted stairs and enter his bedroom.
“What’s this?” I ask, motioning toward the letter with a huge college emblem stamped on it sitting on his desk.
“Oh,” Declan says, seeming just as surprised as I am. “Must be some mail my mom brought in.”
He walks over to the unopened letter and rips into it.
Boys, I think, shaking my head. Clawing their mail open like a bear instead of neatly tearing open the top.
I watch in anticipation as I see the landscape of his face change.
The crease between his eyebrows deepens, his eyes scanning the letter faster and faster.
“What is it?” I ask.
“It’s—” he starts and stops, continuing to read.
“You’re killing me here. What is it!” I say in an attempt to lighten the dread gathering in my stomach.
“No, it’s just…” He trails off again, eyes moving down the paper. “Notre Dame University.”
His dream school.
Oh gosh. Did he not get in?
The look on his face isn’t a good one.
“Oh no. I’m so sorry, Declan.” I breathe, reaching for his forearm.
“No, no, it’s not that.” He shakes off my touch. “I got accepted.”
I swallow the lump in my throat.
“Oh! That’s…”
… 2,217 miles away from my dream school, I think to my-self.
“That’s awesome!” I try to smile up at him.
He shakes his head. “Blair, it’s not awesome. It’s a million miles away from where you’ll be.”
My final college letters had come in last week.
I’d made it into three of the five I applied to, but only received a full ride to Pepperdine.
Meaning I couldn’t go anywhere other than Pepperdine.
Which would’ve been the happiest day of my life, had it not been the only school without a football team.
“Yes, but… but we both got into our dream schools. That’s amazing!” I force out.
He scoffs. I’ve never heard him make such a cold sound. “There’s nothing amazing about killing our relationship.”
I rear back in shock.
“It wouldn’t kill our relationship,” I say in a weak voice. “People do long distance all the time. We can make it work, we can—”
“But what about our plan? How are we going to have time for long distance when I’m training?
If you thought high school football took up a lot of my time, you have no idea what’s in store.
Multiply it all by a thousand and then add the time change, homework, and FaceTime or texting to the equation.
It seems plausible at first but then try to keep it up for four whole years. It’s insanity.”
“So, you’d rather just end this? You don’t even want to try?” I say, voice wavering.
“Of course not, Blair.” He takes a step toward me, laying his hand on my shoulder, and I feel the ball of dread loosen for the first time. “You can just come with me. Right?”
“What?” Now I’m the one to flinch from under his touch.
“Come with me,” he repeats, green eyes boring into mine.
“What do you mean ‘come with you’? I didn’t get into Notre Dame.”
“I know, but…” he starts, ruffling his hair, his hand drifting down to rub his neck.
“Oh my gosh,” I breathe. “You have got to be kidding me.”
An unexpected burst of anger rises in me at the realization of what he’s offering.
A second ago I felt tiny. Now, I feel the astonishment expanding beyond my body in heat waves.
He wants me to drop my dreams of going to Pepperdine to follow him, where I’ll be without a degree, without a path to getting a career, and without anyone I know other than him.
“I know it sounds crazy but trust me.” He grabs both my shoulders, passion raising his voice. “I’ve already had coaches tell me they see more potential in me than most of the guys playing on their college teams right now. I can do this for us, Blair. I can support us.”
I shake my head. “That’s not the point, Declan. It’s not just about me. What about my mom? Do you even remember the reason I wanted to go to Pepperdine in the first place?”
He looks down, shaking his head like I didn’t understand him.
“It’s not just about my life. It’s about my mom’s too,” I spit.
“And look at us! If step one of our ‘plan’ could go so awry then what makes you think steps two, three, and four will go smoothly? We don’t even know if you’ll make it to the NFL!
I’m not going to follow you around like a puppy and cross my fingers, hoping you’ll make it in four years and still manage to love me in all that time too,” I seethe, hating myself as I hear the desperation in my voice.
Whether it’s desperation to prove him wrong or to be understood, I don’t know.
Most of the kids at our school had the privilege of taking gap years to “find themselves,” to study abroad in London or Barcelona to experience a different culture for the fun of it.
I didn’t have that privilege. Suggesting I did and could waltz over to whatever state Declan lived in to…
what? Date him? How would I even afford to live there?
The fact that he thought it possible at all showed how different our circumstances were.
I knew I couldn’t make anyone else care like I did.
They didn’t see what I saw. My mother had been working on her feet at the convenience store since I was five.
She was always complaining about her back.
Always had sweat above her brow. She never brought a single friend or man over to the house, because it wasn’t hers.
None of it was. It was all Lottie’s. I wanted to buy her freedom from that.
“I could support her too,” he adds.
It feels like the walls start closing in at the sound of his words.
“Declan,” I start, shaking my head again. Trying desperately to clear it. “Do you not understand anything about me?”
“What are you talking about, Blair?” he says, exasperated. “If I make it to the NFL, and I will make it, those contracts would be able to support this entire town. You wouldn’t have to think about working at all. Your mom could retire. Isn’t that your dream?”
The words he’s saying are nothing but nectar, and yet, my vision is blackening at the periphery.
“You don’t get it, do you?” I plead.
He shakes his head infinitesimally, and the tiny movement breaks my heart.
“That’s what my mom did,” I say in a tiny, ragged voice, feeling a thousand miles away.
“What?” Declan says, voice softening. “I didn’t hear you.”
“That’s what my mom did.” I repeat, louder this time. “She followed her husband who promised her a good life.” I laugh. The sound is ugly. “And look where she ended up.”
Declan looks fearful for the first time.
“It’s not about what you could provide me, Declan.
It’s about not putting my life in the hands of other people.
What you’ll accomplish will be great, but I need to do the same for myself.
I won’t let anyone else be responsible for that.
” I shake my head through the tears blurring my vision.
“Plus, you wouldn’t want that. All the pressure of supporting me and my mom?
I thought you hated pressure.” I spit his earlier words back at him.
“You don’t need to feel any pressure juggling me and football anymore. I want to do this for myself anyways.”
“Blair, I understand that but—come on. It’s us we’re talking about. I love you. We were going to build our lives together. College is just the one step in the way. You can trust me on this,” he tries, voice taking on a new kind of urgency.
“Hah.” The sound gurgles out of me without warning. “That’s what my dad said too. Oh, and let’s see,” I fake confusion, looking around. “Hmm, where is he? Anywhere around here?”
“Blair—”
“Oop! That’s what I thought. Nowhere to be found.” My laugh comes out sadistic, I hardly recognize the sound. I feel like I floating outside my body. “Right. My mom believed him when he promised that, unlike me right now, and where did she end up?”
I shake my head, voice finally losing its snide lilt. “I’m all she has, Declan. I’m sorry but I can’t rely on you. That’s what she did. I won’t be making the same mistake.”
I walk away before he can stop me. I hold the image of my mother’s face in my head as I rush down the staircase, out the front door, and into my car.
I didn’t realize Gwen was standing in the garden until I shoved my keys in the ignition.
I look down sheepishly at the sight of her and put the car in drive.
I let the inability to conjure my father’s face fuel me all the way home.