Just Don't Die

Ride

As they left the apartment, Blaine could feel Melanie studying him from the passenger seat. They both sat in silence as he drove in the pitch blackness.

"What?" Blaine said finally, glancing at her while still watching the road.

"I can't figure it out. There is something different, but I can't put my finger on it." She said, practically whispering.

Blaine thought about telling her the truth. Would she believe him? Most likely not. Could he trust her? According to his previous experience, no. What lie could explain his personality change?

"Honestly, I have just been thinking about what kind of person I was becoming, and I didn't like it. I thought, am I the kind of person I would be friends with? Then I decided to attempt to become someone I would enjoy being around," he said, watching her out of the corner of his eye.

He could see her digesting what he told her.

"So, you're having a midlife crisis at seventeen?"

"Exactly," he said, smiling. He actually made a personal change in his behavior several years back, using that exact line of reasoning, and it was his mini-midlife crisis, which technically made his statement not a lie.

He enjoyed Melanie's sweet demeanor, which made it easy to forget that Dom would so easily manipulate her in a few years and completely destroy everything they had together. Unfortunately, Blaine knew what she was capable of and didn't want any part of it. Even so, he enjoyed her company and didn't want to deal with breaking it off with her just yet. That could wait for another day.

As they pulled up to her driveway, passing cows and sheep on the way, the familiar house appeared around the corner. It had been a modular home, but now it sat almost double the width due to her father building on it. Tractors, old vehicles, barns, and sheds riddled the property. Her father used to be a farmer but now worked at a local feed store, and her mother was a stay-at-home mom with no desire to be anything else. Melanie had two older brothers and two younger sisters. Blaine had gotten along with her parents and siblings well enough when he was young but had not talked to any of them since he left for the Army.

As Blaine pulled up to the front door, he saw her dad on the front porch swing with a beer in hand. Blaine waved and leaned over to kiss Melanie goodnight.

"What are you doing?" She said, eyes wide as she shied away. You know that will piss off my dad."

"Uh..." he couldn't think of an excuse. He had forgotten entirely how overprotective her father was, and regardless of how innocent he had intended the kiss to be, he had probably just gotten her in quite a bit of trouble. At the very least, she would be grounded for a few weeks, and he didn't want to think about what would have happened if he had actually kissed her in front of him.

"Just don't do it again. I don't think he noticed," she said with a small smile and a subtle wink. "You could have parked in our old spot if you had wanted to make out, but it's too late now. I'll see you on Monday, and you can kiss me then."

"See you Monday," he said, noting her passive-aggressive comment but deciding it wasn't worth mentioning. With his memory jogged, he remembered they used to park on an old forest service road about a half mile back to make out. He remembered parking there quite often before dropping her off, and she was obviously expecting it this time. That was a memory he was sad that he would not be reliving.

He slowly drove the truck away, watching her walk past her dad, waiting to see if he said anything to her. As she closed the front door behind her without saying a word, Blaine pulled out of the driveway and back to Eric's place.

He returned to the apartment visitor parking spot and saw Dom's car was back. He hoped that sending Lex with them had prevented the drama, at least for now. Blaine had always held the belief that while a drunk person may often do something they wouldn't do when they were sober, they would never do something that they truly didn't want to do. So, while half the group was happy blaming the incident on the booze, Blaine figured Dom and Natalie would have done it eventually, given the opportunity. Perhaps now he could see if that were really the case.

"Did they have any Tito's?" Blaine asked Lex, walking in the door.

"They never even heard of it," Dom said from the couch. "But luckily, everyone knows Ska. So you got that going for you, which is nice."

No matter how much hatred Blaine had pent up inside for him, he had to appreciate the subtle reference he had just made to Bill Murrey's ad-libbed performance in Caddy Shack. He could see hints of why he was his friend at times before the fore-knowledge of who he really was would always come back into his perspective.

Blaine stayed for a couple of hours and a couple of beers but was honestly tired from the work he put in with his dad and the run he took that morning. He felt comfortable knowing he had staved off the group's drama for now and would sleep soundly. He practiced his favorite art of the Irish goodbye, and left without telling anyone aside from Lex. The only thing left on his mind was talking to Kalvin again and hopefully getting a hold of Dr. Latourney and demanding some answers. That could wait for the morning, though.