~Blake~
Leslie. Him. Together here. Just like it was always meant to be.
He thought it again as he held the folder in his hands, knowing what it contained. SAT scores, good enough that he could get into the same college that Leslie was going to so that they could be together.
But the SAT scores were about more than just going to college and being with Leslie. Blake knew that they meant that he had options, that he could have a future different from what he’d grown up expecting. He could be someone. He could do something with his life.
He hadn’t told her yet. She didn’t even know that he’d taken the test or that he’d researched her college. She also didn’t know that he had plans beyond that, that the temptation of being around her and being alone with her was so great that he was beginning to consider their future. They loved the Lord, they loved one another…
… would it be wrong to get engaged? To consider marriage at their age? To go to college with the assumption that soon, very soon, they’d be getting married?
He’d have never considered any of this before her. But now, the future was looking so bright.
“Ugh,” Leslie was groaning dramatically, like she always did at this point in studying. “Are we done yet?”
“Almost,” he said. “Just a few more weeks of school. Then, we’re all good.”
Graduation. Plans for college. A proposal.
He couldn’t wait.
“I can’t wait until summer,” she smiled, putting aside her books as he continued to hold his folder in his hands, so eager to show her the scores and talk through all that he was thinking with her.
The summer would be great. But it wouldn’t be half as great as getting ready to leave his home finally, making plans to make Leslie his family…
“And to go on to college,” he said. “To leave this place.”
She took a small breath and studied him for a long moment.
Then, before he could say much of anything, she was there right beside him, his face in her hands. He put down the folder, wrapping his arms around her as she pulled herself even closer to him.
“I don’t want to leave anymore,” she said, kissing him on the forehead, the cheek, his lips, over and over again. “I don’t want to do anything but stay here. Because you’re here. And I’m never leaving you.”
Of all that she’d just said, what he heard the loudest was what she hadn’t said. She just assumed that he’d never leave town. That he’d be here forever, and that he’d never have a life beyond what he had now.
It hurt, just a little. And it brought to mind his father’s words and all that he’d said when Blake had told his mother that he was applying to college.
He should have kept the news to himself, but he’d wanted to make her proud. He’d be the first in his family to go to college, after all. Wouldn’t she be pleased?
“College,” his dad had said, frowning at him. “You?”
Blake had resisted the urge to pull out his test scores and show his dad that it was possible. And his grades – his grades had been so good this spring, even better than the fall.
“You’re wanting to go to college with your girlfriend,” his mother had said, smiling. “First loves…”
Well, it hadn’t been just that. Blake had been prepared to tell her that this was about more than Leslie. It was about him and his future and what he could do.
“That girl of yours,” his father had said with a sneer, “is a rich, spoiled brat.”
Blake had nearly jumped to his feet with the words. But he’d be meeting his father’s challenge, then. What was the point?
“You don’t even know her,” he’d said, glad again that he’d never introduced Leslie to them. “She’s not like that.”
“You know what else she’s not like?” his dad had continued on. “She’s not like us. And you’re not like her. And you’re crazy if you think she wants anything of you apart from a little fun this year. I’ll bet her brother has big plans for her that don’t include you or hanging around this joke of a town.”
He hadn’t listened, but yet, there were the words, coming back to him as Leslie told him that she’d never leave him, showing her greater assumption that he was going nowhere.
She didn’t really think that, did she?
She was kissing him now, and he thought it not worth pursuing at the moment, because she was here, he was here, Travis wasn’t here –
“Knock, knock.”
Except there he was, in through the door that connected to the garage, loudly announcing his presence and shooting Blake a look as he did so.
Blake backed away from Leslie even as she loudly sighed, giving evidence to her frustration.
“Hey, Leslie,” Travis said, turning his attention to his sister. “You started dinner yet?”
“I haven’t,” she said. “I was studying.”
Travis looked between her and Blake, not saying a word.
Blake suddenly felt the need to give the two of them some breathing room. He was sure that he was at least part of the reason that things had grown more tense this semester between Leslie and her brother, but he wasn’t the only reason. She was eighteen, she was ready to leave for college, and she was, even she could admit it, just a little short with everyone in her family.
He got that. He was barely even talking to his folks these days.
“I’m going to run to the bathroom,” he said quietly to Leslie, standing as she nodded at him. “Hey, Travis.”
“Hey, Blake,” Travis said, a thin smile on his lips. “You joining us for dinner?”
“Uh, yeah,” he said. “If that’s okay?”
“Sure,” Travis said. “Leslie, can I talk to you for a minute?”
Yeah, that was his cue to disappear for a while. With a small wave at Leslie, he made his way to the bathroom.
He dragged out his time in there as much as possible, wanting to give Travis time to talk to Leslie, so even after he’d stepped back out of the bathroom, he took his time walking down the hallway, glancing at the pictures on the wall. The three sisters together over the years, then by themselves. A few older pictures of them with Travis, likely before he was the one behind making sure they had pictures made, back when his own parents were insisting that he would be in the portraits with them.
Once again, he was reminded of how much he respected Travis, what a good man he was, how he –
“Doesn’t have a plan.”
Blake heard the words and froze, wondering for a brief moment who Travis and Leslie were talking about, then wondering if he should be listening.
“Blake doesn’t have any kind of plan, I don’t think.”
They were talking about him.
Hard words. Wrong words. But the harshest thing about these words were that they came from Leslie not Travis.
“Have you asked him what kind of plans he has?” Travis asked. “Maybe he’s more ahead of the game than you think.”
Blake held his breath, waiting for her words.
“He makes jokes about it,” she said. “You’ve heard him.”
Yes, Blake had made jokes about it, and he remembered seeing Travis’s disappointment over them.
“I didn’t have a lot of plans when I was his age either, Leslie,” he said simply. “But God changed a lot in my life, and I got there. Blake will get there, too.”
This was better than Blake deserved, these words from Travis.
“But the question is,” he continued on, “what are you going to do as you wait for him to work it out?”
What would she do? Blake knew what she honestly thought about him now. What would that do to her plans? Did her love for him, even paired up with her low opinion of his future, have any hope of competing with her big plans for the future?
“Well, I want to be a success,” she said. “Do something more than just get by here in this town, living from paycheck to paycheck.”
Again, Blake’s breath caught in his throat.
He’d used those exact words with her just a few weeks earlier. He’d cut back on his hours at the diner to spend more time with her and had really been sweating making his car insurance payment. “Living from paycheck to paycheck,” he’d joked.
But she’d heard it.
And now she was talking about him. About how she didn’t want to be like him, didn’t want a future like his.
How could she say this when she’d just said that she didn’t want to leave him?
He wasn’t sure what she was thinking, but as a cold feeling began to turn darker and colder in his gut, he made some conclusions about how he was feeling.
She’d never had to work like he did. She had her cupcakes, but she didn’t do that out of a necessity to survive. She’d grown up in near luxury here, and she’d never know reality like he had.
She hadn’t said it, not explicitly, but she thought she was better than he was.
And maybe she was.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do, Travis,” she said. “I love him. I know that much.”
But did she? And did it even matter if she did? Wouldn’t she come to resent him, even if he went to college with her, even if he did his best and came out a failure anyway?
He felt like every word that his father had ever said about him was coming true, more and more by the minute, in light of all that Leslie wasn’t saying, what she was saying…
He couldn’t do dinner with them. How could he, when, for the first time ever, he couldn’t stand the sound of her voice?
“Hey,” he said, making his way into the kitchen, working hard to keep bitterness out of his tone.
“Hey,” she said, her attention back on him, her smile bright.
He couldn’t return the smile, though.
Paycheck to paycheck… he doesn’t have a plan.
His father had said worse. But the sentiment had been the same.
She’s not like you. You’re not like her.
This was the point that it all began to change. How could he love someone and still hate her just a little, all at the same time?
“I think I need to head home,” he said, hearing the shortness in his voice.
But Leslie didn’t hear it. Travis looked up with concern, but his sister was oblivious.
“I’ll walk you out,” she said, hopping down from the counter she was sitting on, a gleam in her eyes.
No. That’s the last thing he needed.
“I can handle it,” he said. And there. She heard the shortness that time. Blake knew she’d heard it thanks to the faint confusion in her eyes as she stood still where she was.
Her words kept coming back to him, mixed with his father’s words…
He went and grabbed his books, scowling at the folder that held his test scores, all the hopes he’d been holding onto mocking him now.
College, marriage…
What had he been thinking?
“Blake?” he could hear Leslie asking, but he was already halfway out the door, shutting it firmly closed behind him.
Avoiding anyone just wasn’t possible in their small town.
You saw everyone eventually. Though he might have been able to duck past Leslie for most of the day, he wasn’t able to avoid her when she was there in chemistry right beside him and especially not when she went straight to him, determination in her eyes.
“I missed you at lunch,” she said softly.
He’d skipped it. Just completely skipped it, not wanting to see her.
“Hey,” she said when he didn’t respond to her. “I’m talking to you. Blake, what’s –”
“Let’s just get our work done,” he said, thankful for once that the teacher was already there, getting class started.
He could see Leslie struggling with her emotions for the rest of the class, and it tugged at his heart until he reminded himself sharply of her words and what they revealed about what she really thought of him.
He would stay like this, angry and unyielding, hurt and focused.
He knew what he had to do.
Once class was over, she looked at him hopefully, and he realized that even though he knew what he had to do, it would still be difficult to do it.
“Travis dropped me off this morning,” she said. “Early for –”
“Graduation party committee,” he said shortly. “I know.”
He had known. He picked her up and dropped her off every morning except Thursdays when she had her meetings. And he took her home every day.
“Are you still taking me home?” she asked softly.
He could tell she was fighting back tears.
She thinks you’re a loser. She doesn’t really love you.
“Yeah,” he said, focusing on the truth, not on what he felt.
He’d finish this soon enough, he told himself, turning from the room and feeling Leslie behind him as they walked out to his car.
She didn’t say anything for the first few minutes of the drive as Blake blared the radio, forcing himself to remember all that Leslie Collins had said before.
I want to be a success, she’d said. Do something more than just get by here in this town, living from paycheck to paycheck.
She’d not come out and said it, but he’d heard it anyway. Like Blake. Like his family. He didn’t have a plan for his future, at least as far as she thought. She assumed that he was content to just be with her, to go to their church, to finish up school. The rest of the details would figure themselves out, right? Because he was a loser, just like his father said.
She hadn’t understood the way he looked at things. But why would she? Everything her brother touched turned to gold. He was quickly becoming the richest guy in town, and she wanted to be just like him.
Blake hadn’t even tried to talk himself out of the feelings he felt, because it was easier to be angry and prideful over a perceived wrong than it was to speak frankly. He was ashamed, had always been ashamed of who he was, who he would always be…
Leslie reached out and turned the music off as he drove.
“Why are you mad at me?” she asked, her voice faint and uncertain.
“I’m not mad at you,” he said, struggling to keep his voice even and controlled.
“You’ve been mad at me all day,” she said. “You’ve been avoiding me. You left last night without saying much of anything. And now… now you won’t even look at me.”
He could manage that. He glanced over at her, his heart clenching traitorously as he saw the pain in her eyes.
Was he really going to do this? What else could he do? Admit what he’d heard, tell her what he knew about how she thought of him, and… what? Accept it? Accept this version of Blake Young that Leslie thought she knew? He’d resent her just as much as his dad resented everyone if he did that.
He had to end it.
“Blake,” Leslie said, crying now. “Why are you mad at me?”
Do it. Do it now.
“I’m not mad at you,” he said. “I’m done with you.”
At this, she moved back as though he’d physically struck her.
“What?” she asked, her voice soft, the tears still coming. “You’re… what?”
“This will never work,” he said, thankful that they were on her street now, knowing that he could get through this if there were only a few more minutes to deal with it. “Me and you. We’re too different. I knew it was only a short term thing. You’re going to college, and I’m doing… nothing.”
He swallowed back the bitterness.
“I won’t go away to college,” she said, her tone pleading now. “I can stay, Blake. This wasn’t a short term thing. I love –”
“Don’t do me any favors,” he said, remembering all over again how emasculating it was to hear her all but admit that she thought he’d never go anywhere and do anything. Did she think he was just like his father?
“Blake, what’s wrong with you?” she asked, crying harder now as he came to a stop in front of her house.
“Get out,” he said, forcing himself to keep from looking at her.
He’d never been this cruel. Ever. Before Christ, he’d been kinder…
He felt the familiar tug of conviction. How was this honoring Christ, his pride making him hurt someone else like this? How did it honor the Lord that he was going back on every word he’d said to Leslie Collins? How did it honor God for him to lie about how he really felt?
And a cold feeling swept over him as he realized just exactly who he had sounded like as he’d pushed Leslie away.
His dad. He was just as bad as Tim.
How had he gotten here? Wasn’t God supposed to help him change?
There were no answers, though. None but the slamming door as Leslie left, sobbing and running from him as fast as she could.