Chapter 94) Turning Point

 “All of us who are worth anything, spend our manhood in unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Windenburg
Cameron Mansion
Several months after the last chapter

Blaine seemed only physically present, but absent in every other way at dinner time. Again.

His parents had almost given up trying to involve him in their daily dinner conversations at this point, not for lack of care and worry, but because they knew if they pushed him too much it would only send him running to find a hiding spot to mope around there for hours. No attempt to get him to feel better had borne fruit, he clammed up, when they told him they worried and loved him, he told them he knew and loved them too but didn’t have anything to discuss. While poking around in his food he actually developed a sense of appetite eventually sometimes and would end up eating if you didn’t distract him with probing conversation.
Much like his late namesake, young Blaine had always been on the skinny side to begin with, now he had lost even more weight. It concerned Everett and Maeve, but they knew he had to come around in his own time.

It all began with him taking his father’s Ferrari to go to the club a few months ago now.
Blaine never even made it out of the Del Sol Valley hillside neighborhood, because Finn Camore was driving home when he spotted young Blaine in Rett’s beloved car, made a U-turn and followed the boy honking, yelling at him to stop.

Blaine did, but being 14 years old and never having driven a car before, he made the foolish mistake to get out of the still running car to go talk to Finn without properly securing the vehicle first, almost immediately the Ferrari began rolling downhill, accelerating until it was abruptly stopped after plowing into one of the giant palm trees, the horn activated as if the car was screaming in pain.
All Finn and Blaine had been able to do watch the train wreck happen, mouths agape, frozen in place until the terrible sound of metal being crushed and glass breaking made it very real.

The worst for Blaine, however, came after Finn had the car towed by a company specializing in exotics, then drove Blaine home to his still blissfully unaware parents, quickly giving them the rundown of what happened. He could have called them, but thought them being able to see that Blaine was all right might take some of the edge off the bad news he had to deliver to his cousin Rett and his wife.
For Blaine, the compilation of his parents being so obviously angry, worried, shocked, but even more visibly relieved that he was in one piece without a single scratch, with both of them crying, taking turns hugging him, squeezing him so tight it took the air out of his lungs, as they realized what all could have happened to their child on the open road in such a powerful vehicle, was the hardest punishment for Blaine, making him feel awful. Anything his parents could load on him now would be nothing compared to how guilty he felt.

He never meant to cause issues, he just seemed to naturally attract them like a magnet, his level of maturity wasn’t high enough to be able to raise the right flags at the right time.
He loved his parents so very much and knew they loved him more than anything.

For a while after the incident things calmed down, just the occasional teen issues. Until suddenly Blaine began to get really interested in girls. And they in him, for several reasons, some very obvious, he was confident, charming, and very attractive, but he also had celebrity parents and was an aspiring musician and actor himself. That meant a lot of girls forgot their proper upbringing and acted rather loose with their charms around him. He felt ten feet tall, was too young to not be cautious.

Flattered by so much female attention stroking his budding male ego, Blaine started dating, if you want to call it that. Basically he went out with a bunch of girls, sometimes even several at the same time, gathering his first experiences by kissing clumsily, maybe a stray hand in previously uncharted territory.
Several times he made the celebrity gossip news when he was caught on camera making out with a daughter of another celebrity here or a girl related to some politician there. Naturally that didn’t exactly give his family the fuzzy feels and lead to new tension with his parents.
Their argument and punishments pearled off of Blaine like water off an umbrella, he would deal with the consequences, then do it again anyway.

But Blaine wouldn’t be Blaine if he couldn’t top that type of drama still. It started harmless enough.

The family had sat down for movie night, a recently released blockbuster, before the movie started came some celebrity gossip show. None of them paid much attention to it, talking and laughing with each other, until on came the ‘breaking news’.

After minutes of staring blankly at the screen, all three of them stiff for shock and surprise, all hell broke loose around Blaine. He swore up and down he hadn’t slept with anyone, just made out with her on top of her bed. His parents nearly blew a gasket realizing he had been hanging around older girls in some romantic manner.

Long forgotten was the cozy night in, instead of enjoying fun and relaxation filled with popcorn and candy, laughter and nail biting, while following the plights of the protagonists on the screen, Blaine’s parents interrogated him about his deepest, most personal actions and interactions, worse that the FBI, while in the background his reputation was ruined by media, blasted out to everyone he knew and all those he didn’t know.
Blaine just wanted to die for humiliation.

The anticipated movie night turned into masses of phone calls with lawyers, concerned family calling, while the press started crowding up the area outside the mansion’s gates. Blaine hid in his room, head buried underneath his pillows, feeling so humiliated. How was he even supposed to show his face around school now?!

Days of pure tension were luckily followed by a light at the end of the tunnel.
Blaine’s parents – with the help of Finn as their attorney – had sued the parents of the 16 year old girl for an in-vitro paternity test, which apparently came back only confirming that Blaine was indeed not going to be a father after all. It could not prove if they had or had not slept together, that would always be Blaine’s word against Karlie’s.

She and her family had to publicly correct their accusations about the paternity and as celebrity rumors go, within some weeks barely anyone remembered a thing, all focused on the next drama with some other celebrities.

Except Blaine.

In all his 14 years he always had the uncanny ability to just shrug off all the trouble he got himself into, no matter how scary it may have been or how angry his parents had gotten, but not this time, this last one stuck with him. He withdrew into a cocoon, and poured his emotions into his music instead.

The main reason this was so rough on him wasn’t even all the drama, but the fact that he had actually really liked that girl who ended up spreading the rumors about him.
REALLY liked her, so what stung the most was that he secretly really had been dreaming and wondering about sharing his first time with her. Eventually.
He hadn’t really been ready yet, after all, they had only been dating for a few weeks by then. Despite being two years his senior, a lot at their age, she had assured him that she was still a virgin as well, acted nervous like he was while they were making out … now all that had been revealed to have been nothing but a lie, a show she put on, and he was dumb enough to believe it.

Most likely she had already been pregnant when they got involved, maybe she had realized how badly he was crushing on her, and decided he might be gullible enough to be her baby daddy. She probably didn’t give two shits about him. Wow.

That stung the worst.

He felt like a complete idiot, felt used, ridiculed and a lot of other bad things.

Remembering how close to his heart he had allowed her and her web of lies to come still made him cringe, sick to his stomach remembering how they snuggled up together after making out in their underwear, while he was dumb enough to tell her his most secret dreams, his fears, his insecurities, things he had never told anybody before. In that very moment he had felt like he could see forever with this girl. What an idiot he had been! He was only 14! His parents were so right. He felt like a little kid again, trying to do grown-up stuff and just looking funny to everyone else.

The combination of it all left the worst aftertaste of betrayal in his young mind. A permanent scar, invisible.

His parents knew nothing about his inner turmoil, his secret heartbreak, nor would they if he could help it, not because he didn’t trust them, he did, but he felt there was no reason to make them worry about him, make them hurt for him. They may even end up sending him to therapy. That was literally the last thing he wanted right about now.

He had caused them enough pain.
And humiliation.

Only his best friend Kai knew the full story.

Kai was a gentle soul, almost the polar opposite to Blaine’s rambunctiousness, and something about his quiet, caring nature made Blaine confide all this in him. Kai’s cousins, father and aunt all shared the same quiet melancholy, presumably something to do with the fact that there was vampire blood in their heritage.

Kai’s grandfather, eternally young Riordan Vatore was the same way, kindness, quiet composure and melancholy belying the rugged, tattooed, grunge-like appearance. Blaine had always liked and secretly admired him, was very sad when Riordan had moved back to Windenburg some years ago.

School became rough for Blaine.

It was an elite academy for the kids of high level celebrities, politicians and the sort. But that didn’t mean it was easy for him. Rich or poor, kids could be cruel, and would pounce on any vulnerable victim that presented itself to them.
With the humiliating media circus around him, Blaine had become every bully’s favorite target.

The boys his age teased him because they were jealous, thinking he already went all the way at least once.
The older boys bullied him thinking that a freshman put their efforts with girls to shame, thinking he might be competition.
Some girls came on way too strong, wanting to date him thinking he was experienced, which disgusted him and the decent ones he liked wanted nothing to do with him at all.

 
To be continued ...

A.N.: All Builds and Sims features in this chapter are 100% my creations, the girls Blaine was hanging out with are CC-free and on the Gallery.