Just Friends
50 pages • 1-hour read
Haley PhamJust Friends
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Content Warning: Both this guide and the source text discuss death, illness, and grief.
Blair Lang
Blair Lang is the protagonist of Just Friends. She has dark hair and a short stature, and at the start of the novel, she’s just finished her undergraduate degree in economics and psychology at Pepperdine University. She returns to her hometown of Seabrook for her great aunt Lottie’s death from cancer. Blair used to dream of being a successful author and studying creative writing, but her mother’s socioeconomic status changed Blair’s mind. Blair only attended Pepperdine because she receives a full ride scholarship, and she studied economics to obtain a high paying consulting job to help her mother retire.
Blair carries the weight of her mother’s future on her shoulders, as her mother previously relied on her abusive father for financial security, and this reality informs her world view. Blair feels insecure about the absence of her abusive father, and this insecurity shapes how she contextualizes her life and relationships, especially her platonic and romantic bond with Declan. When Declan tries to persuade Blair to give up her scholarship to move with him for school, Blair refuses, not wanting to be dependent on anyone. Blair keeps her emotions to herself, hiding her pain from everyone in her life. When her relationship with Declan ends, Blair recalls, “I vowed to be alone. Maybe it was pride, but I spent most of my childhood believing I could prove my mother wrong. All men leave at some point” (42). Lottie’s death compounds Blair’s pain, as the people in her life, especially her college friends, fail to understand what Lottie meant to Blair.
Declan’s return to Blair’s life offers her the chance to heal from the pain of the past. Blair and Declan finally face their big fight and the accident that drove them apart. Blair lets down her emotional walls and allows Declan to see her grief, creating emotional intimacy that serves as the bedrock for the rejuvenation of their relationship. Blair acknowledges that despite four-and- a-half years apart, her feelings for Declan haven’t waned. She loves him, and though that love scares her, it also empowers her to pursue her dream of being a writer and to open her heart up to a relationship with Declan.
Blair stops hiding from her feelings, and by embracing them, both positive and negative, she completes her transformation from emotionally repressed to emotionally open and achieves her dreams. By the end of the novel, Blair self-publishes her novel and gets engaged to Declan, realizing the goals she’s had since adolescence.
Declan Renshaw
Declan Renshaw is Blair’s romantic interest in Just Friends. He is tall, muscular, and has blonde-brown hair. Declan and Blair became friends when they were only five years old, and they stayed close for “twelve formative years,” with Blair describing Declan as “the person who felt more like home than [her] house did” (15). Declan and Blair stayed platonic friends until their senior year of high school, when they finally kissed and began a romantic relationship. The relationship ended after Declan got accepted to Notre Dame University and Blair got a full ride to Pepperdine University, two colleges thousands of miles away. Declan wanted Blair to give up on college and come with him, but Blair didn’t want to rely financially on a man like her mother did, so she stormed off, and they didn’t speak again. After a car hit Declan after the state football championship, his athletic future was ruined.
When Blair returns to Seabrook, she runs into Declan at the coffee shop he owns. Declan’s love for Blair, like Blair’s own love for Declan, didn’t disappear during their years apart. The only thing that disappeared was their understanding of each other’s lives. Blair realizes she doesn’t know “what he was doing during his first week without [her]. His second month. The third year” (126). When Declan and Blair finally discuss the past and begin to repair their relationship, Blair thinks, “There was so much unknown, stretching between us like an ocean. It felt like he’d just handed me the oar to a row boat. I wanted to keep paddling until I got to his shore” (126). Blair’s willingness to “paddle” over to Declan represents her openness to rebuilding their relationship.
Declan avoided seeing Blair after the accident because he felt ashamed of no longer being able to financially support Blair’s dream of being an author, and he thought Blair wouldn’t forgive him for his failure. Blair loves Declan unconditionally, a love that guides Blair back to Declan. Declan builds a happy, healthy life after his accident, processing his grief and moving towards acceptance, and he offers Blair the chance to practice “forgiveness and trust and grief” in their relationship (313).
Declan remains relatively stable throughout the narrative and serves as a steady refuge for Blair as she processes her grief; Blair describes being loved by Declan as “more natural to [her] than breathing” (313). At the novel’s end, he proposes and they get engaged.
Aunt Lottie
Aunt Lottie is Blair’s great aunt. Lottie owns seven convenience stores in Seabrook after moving to California from Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Lottie left her life behind to start over, and this experience informs her decision to help Blair and her mother after they flee from Blair’s abusive father. Lottie helped raise Blair and supported her and her mother throughout Blair’s adolescence.
Lottie gets diagnosed with terminal stage four lung cancer, and this illness kickstarts Blair’s return to Seabrook. Blair endeavors to spend as much time with Lottie as possible before Lottie’s death, even staying up late at Lottie’s bedside “trying to scribble as many stories as she could remember into [her] journal. Stories of her arriving in America, starting her convenience store without knowing any English, and within a year, throwing parties so large […] her house looked like a parking lot” (31-32). Blair values Lottie’s lived experience and loves her, so Blair uses her talents for writing to preserve Lottie’s memories, to keep a piece of her alive even when she’s gone.
Lottie serves as an emotional foil for Blair, allowing Blair to begin to realize the importance of allowing others to offer support during times of trial. Lottie’s death also instigates Blair’s decision to stay in Seabrook. Like in life, Lottie supports Blair and her mother in death, leaving them her material assets to allow them to live comfortably in the town that they both love. Blair’s decision to stay opens her up to the possibility of reforging a relationship with Declan and pursuing her dream of being an author—two endeavors that Lottie supported wholeheartedly.
Blair’s Mother
Blair’s mother is an unnamed character in the text. She leaves her abusive husband, Blair’s father, when Blair is only four years old, moving to Seabrook to stay with her aunt Lottie. Blair’s mother works as a cashier in one of Lottie’s convenience stores throughout Blair’s childhood. Blair’s mother can’t afford Blair’s college, so Blair must attend Pepperdine University, where she receives a full scholarship. Blair’s mother’s job as a cashier leads Blair to feel financially insecure and study economics instead of creative writing so that she can support her mother and let her retire.
However, after Lottie’s death, Blair’s mother grows more emotionally open. When Blair’s mother finally cries in front of Blair, Blair thinks, “She was the only other person who’d felt the cataclysmic shift of life before and after Lottie. I felt isolated in those memories, and it was eating me from the inside out. But seeing that I wasn’t alone after all made it seem bearable” (213-214). Blair witnesses her mother’s grief for the first time, and their shared pain brings them closer together and helps Blair endure her own emotional pain.
Blair also finally addresses her financial pressure with her mother, and her mother reveals that Lottie never made her work in the convenience store: “I begged Lottie to let me do that. She would’ve just let me live in her house with you. She probably would’ve paid for everything for both of us! […] You were like the daughter she always wanted, truly” (153-154). Blair’s mother wanted to feel independent, so she wanted to work for Lottie to earn her own money. Blair’s mother finally explains that she used her “creativity” to “construct a beautiful world” for Blair, even without a father (155). Lottie leaves them with enough to rebuild their lives in Seabrook and live happily together. Blair’s mother ends the novel retired after selling the convenience stores, achieving the dream that Blair had for her without requiring the sacrifice of Blair’s own dream of authoring a novel.
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