Blair’s return to Seabrook sits at the heart of the narrative of Just Friends. Blair leaves Seabrook to attend college, and she avoids Seabrook because of her heartache over Declan. She recalls that she’d “come home only a handful of times during college and not once did [she] see a glimpse of him. Not even his car” (32). Her return at the novel’s beginning thus involves a confrontation with unresolved versions of her sense of self.

Blair carefully separates herself from Declan, making a concerted effort to avoid seeing him that taints her experiences visiting Lottie and her mother. Blair struggles with her return to Seabrook after Lottie’s cancer diagnosis as she grieves for both Lottie and the person she once was. Blair chooses to stay in the guest house when she arrives, thinking, “I could have spent my visit home in my untouched bedroom, but the thought made my skin crawl. There was nothing like a childhood bedroom to make you feel like the years you’ve spent trying to progress have been erased” (10). Blair views her childhood bedroom as a physical manifestation of her past self who lived inside it: The girl who fell in love with Declan but lost him, the girl who dreamed of being a writer but studied economics, the girl who planned to move to New York but gave it up to move back to Seabrook.

Blair’s summer in Seabrook helps her wrestle with her understanding of both herself and others around her. As Blair questions what returning home means for herself and her future, she begins to realize that those around her are more nuanced than she originally thought. When Blair and her mother discuss her mother and Lottie’s lives, Blair realizes that her mother doesn’t expect her to financially support her, thinking, “It was disorienting to learn that the way I perceived certain childhood events didn’t portray them with complete accuracy” (155). Blair realizes, with shocking intensity, that her perceptions of those in her life are overly simple. Her mother isn’t a “powerless being who needed [her] help” but a competent adult capable of pursing her own dreams and goals (155).

Blair’s willingness to gain understanding of the people closest to her also helps her reconnect with Declan. Blair opens her eyes to Declan’s lived experience during their separation, growing empathy for him and his grief after the accident. Declan helps Blair process her grief, and Blair decides to stay in Seabrook. Blair acknowledges that staying “would still be painful, but it wouldn’t be as painful as being alone in a tiny New York City apartment” (224). Blair becomes emotionally aware of herself enough to know she possesses the strength to make a life in the home that she loves, even if it requires facing her grief head-on.

Blair also realizes that she still loves Declan and has a passion for writing. Ultimately, she no longer avoids the elements of her past self that she once thought reminded her of her lost dreams. When Blair embraces Declan after they confess their love for one another, she thinks, “I just feel the steady beating of his heart beneath his chest. Being his feels like coming home” (307). In this way, Blair finds a balance between who she once was and who she now wishes to be.