Epilogue

Haylie and Ryan left two days later, on Monday afternoon. I cried, had to refrain from begging them not to go, and then spent the rest of the day and evening sulking in the basement with Blaine. It wasn’t until they were gone that I realized that I hadn’t spent very much time with Ryan at all, and I regretted it then, knowing it would be another eight months until I was going to be able to do so.

As for the rest of my family, it was basically the same for them as the first time Haylie had left for Toronto, one year prior to that. My mom, once again, held back all emotion, hugged Haylie and told her to call to let us know that they arrived there safely. She then disappeared to her bedroom to distract herself with her websites jobs, so not to let herself break down in front of any of us. My dad was carrying on as usual without my sister, keeping himself busy with work, too, as was Tristan, who was too busy with his girlfriend and friends to even worry about Haylie being gone. I felt like I was the only one who noticed and cared that Haylie was gone, and it was an awful feeling.

Blaine didn’t bring up anything about him going back to Buffalo until Wednesday; I figured it was because he knew I was already going through a lot with my sister leaving. When he did bring it up, though, it wasn’t the conversation I had been dreading. He told me that he had called and had a long talk with his mom and the two of them decided that it would be best for Blaine to stay in Cochrane and have real relationships with his father, step-mother and little brother. There are no words to describe how happy I was to hear that, but at the same time I was sad for Susan, Blaine’s mom. I was the lucky one now, who had Blaine with me and she was down there in Buffalo, a mother without her son.

Two weeks later, Blaine and I began the search for jobs, and a week after that, we started looking for an apartment for the two of us. It all happened really fast, just as everything else did that summer, but we decided that we didn’t want to live in the basement of my parents’ house forever. My mom wasn’t pleased when we told her about our plans, but I knew she would deal with it, just as she had dealt with Haylie leaving. And it wasn’t as if I was even leaving town, just leaving the house. I sat down with my mom and told her that I would go back to school, to the local college, the next September. I would work until then, save money to help pay for my tuition – which wouldn’t be nearly as much as Haylie’s was, by the way – and also have money to pay for rent for the apartment. My mom was upset, and she let me know about it, but I knew she was just sad that her kids were all grown up.

Miranda got me a job at the Pizza Hut downtown, where she worked, almost as soon as I told her that I needed a job. Working with her turned out to be the best thing we could have done for our friendship; we became closer than ever. Blaine got a job as a bartender at a local club, which was only a few blocks away from the Pizza Hut, and it was the same thing he had been doing at his job in Buffalo.

Blaine and I moved into our very own two-bedroom apartment on October 1st; with the help of my parents and Blaine’s father for our first and last months of rent. The apartment was only about ten minutes from Blaine’s father’s house, and Scott began wanting to come over right after school and stay at the apartment with us until bedtime. He loved to stay overnights on the weekends, whenever it was possible. I was just glad that Blaine had done the right thing and made himself be a part of that little boy’s life. Because he and I both knew that his mother was always going to be his mother and was always going to be a part of his life. But if he hadn’t made the decision to stay in Cochrane, he may never have gotten to see his little brother or his father again.

I liked to remind him every now and then that he had made the right decision and that I was very proud of him, and he liked to hear it. He had not only allowed himself to have a real relationship with his father and get to know his step-mother and little brother, but he also made his relationship with me stronger at the same time. I didn’t know what I would have done without having him in Cochrane with me from that point on, and I was just glad that I didn’t have to find out.