Just Don't Die

Change

Blaine explained with as few details as possible to Lex that the entire group would be no more by the time she graduated the following year. They would still hang out in groups of two or three, but the group as a whole had too much anger to hang out in its entirety. He then explained that, except for him, the group slowly found each other, and by the time she finished law school, they were all living within walking distance.

"Why did you not stay in touch with us?" Lex asked with more concern than Blaine expected.

"By the time I got out of the Army," Blaine searched for the right words, "well, our perspectives and priorities were too different. For a long time you and I didn't talk. That changed a couple of years later, and we started to hang out now and then, but I was still the outcast of the group."

"You didn't talk to any of them. You lost contact completely?"

"No, we stayed in contact on Facebook but never really had any reason to get together anymore. I think the last time I saw the group together was at Eric and Natalie's wedding," Blaine trailed off, realizing he had just revealed much more than he meant to.

"What is Facebook? Wait... what?" Lex's eyes went wide with excitement. "They get married? I knew it." She squealed.

"It's getting cold. Hop in the truck. My friend's house is just up the river. We can hang out there, but I need to be more careful about what I share with you right now." Blaine had to keep reminding himself that he was talking to the seventeen-year-old high school student, Lex, not the Thirty-nine-year-old lawyer, Alexis. He had already changed her life entirely just by telling her the truth.

"This is so much fun," Lex said as she giddily skipped to the truck. "I want to know so much more." She paused. "But then, will it take the fun out of experiencing things, or would it just change it so that experience doesn't happen the same way?"

Blaine smiled as he started the truck towards Kalvin's house. Lex's excitement was contagious, and it only amplified his already good mood. He enjoyed watching her mind work through everything he already had, but with much more willingness to accept it than he had. He would catch glimpses of her immaturity occasionally, but for the most part, she was using solid logic to form her opinions. He realized that he had missed this. He didn't particularly look back fondly at his time in high school, but he did miss the friendships, no matter how immature and dramatic they were. He missed hanging out with the group, even the inane and ignorant conversations they sometimes had, and the ease at which they got along.

"...and if you could correct your mistakes, then you would just make different ones..." Lex was still talking, but it wasn't directed at anyone in particular. She was simply sorting everything out by talking it through.

Blaine was lost in his own train of thought. When Lex pointed out that if he didn't need an education or job to live a lavish life, you would have lost all purpose, Blaine's mind went into overdrive to find a flaw in it. He had a purpose. Well, technically, it was to correct his life. He had already saved his dad and would make sure that his mom caught the cancer early, but aside from that, he couldn't think of a purpose. That alone was supposed to be the key to his happiness. He tried to think back throughout his life and pick out what was most meaningful. He had several failed relationships, friendships, and more mistakes and tragedies than he could count. As he delved deeper into his life, he felt his mood drop. He had lived his entire life recovering from tragedies. He should have taken the time to focus on what good there was. He could hardly think of a single point in his life that he looked back on with pure happiness.

He thought about Annabelle and thought about how he felt on his wedding day. Aside from the nervousness, all he could think about was how he focused on the fact that his parents weren't there with him. The wedding cost them close to 100,000 dollars, and it felt to Blaine that it was more about the looks and the people they invited than the fact that they were pledging their lives together. He remembered the day that Anna had told him she was pregnant, and he remembered it being a relief more than a joy. He had been thinking she was seeing someone else and was expecting her to tell him she was done. Again, there was no happiness even when he should have been ecstatic. Either he was grieving or anticipating something to grieve.