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“I’m missing class for this. Kinda defeats the point, doesn’t it?”
It’s such a small room, no other noises or voices or people, just him and Ms. Pillsbury and somehow that’s so much worse than being in a room full of noises and voices and people.
“Well,” Ms. Pillsbury says, sitting straighter in her seat and carefully folding her hands together, smiling at him brightly. “We’re here to talk about why you’re missing class.”
He slouches down further, tilts his head to the side, trying not to show how uncomfortable he is.
“Don’t you need my consent for this kinda thing?”
She nods promptly, still smiling, and says easily, “You’re free to leave whenever you’d like, Blaine, but your parents think counselling will really benefit you -”
“Counselling?” He sits up straight, forgets completely that he should be pretending, feeling like he’s just been pulled down under water without any warning. “Oh, screw this -”
Before he can even fully stand up, Ms. Pillsbury’s hand stretches out, her eyes wide, and she says, pleadingly, “Blaine - why don’t - why don’t you sit down, and we can just talk? Just talk, okay?”
He takes a deep breath, slumps back down in the chair and keeps his hand clenched hard around the armrest.
“Okay,” he huffs, mouth twitching to the side. “Talk.”
“Let’s start off with your absences from class,” Ms. Pillsbury says, clearing her throat a little. “You started your year here strongly, but over the last two weeks we’ve noticed you slipping. Why don’t we try and find a solution to stop that from happening, before it gets to be too much.”
“You mean before I get expelled.”
“Okay, sure, before you get - expelled. Is there, um, any reason you don’t feel the need to come to school? Are you being bullied in any way? Is the coursework too difficult?”
He wants to laugh, because if only it were something he could actually change, actually get help with.
“Nope,” he says, popping his lips, turning his head to look out the window.
“Is it to do with your teachers?”
“Nope. I just don’t care.”
“And why is that?”
He looks back to her, and she looks so lost and confused but not frustrated, almost hopeful, and not in the annoyingly determined way that Rachel looks sometimes.
“Like -” he starts, cuts himself off to try and piece together his thoughts before just spewing them out. “Like what’s the point? Say I show up every day for school, do all my work and get good grades. That’s just high school. What happens after?”
She smiles, still hopeful. “Anything you want, Blaine.”
“But that’s bullshit. I’m not wasting my time on nothing.”
She leans a little further over her desk, smile still on but her eyes curious, sounding so calm and so - nice that it only makes his heart race harder. “But why does it have to be nothing?”
He does laugh then, harsh and sharp, eyes narrowing on her.
“Seriously?” he scoffs, laugh fading out and scowl forming. “We’re in the-middle-of-nowhere-Ohio. You’re stuck in this job dealing with punks like me. Every teacher here wants to kill themselves and all the kids have half a brain, maybe less. We’re all nothing. I’m just the only one to realize it.”
She goes frigid, only her eyes moving, looking away from Blaine as her hands stay folded, and Blaine feels a bit bad because well, she’s a nice lady, just doing her job. He expects her to give up then.
She doesn’t. She tucks her hair behind her ears and looks at him and keeps smiling.
“Is this something you’ve recently realized?” she asks, not patronizing or aggravating in any way. “Your attendance was almost perfect up until two weeks ago.”
He laughs again, awkward now, because he doesn’t know what else to do.
“No . . . I was just dumb enough to ignore it until recently.”
The room goes quiet, and all he can feel is Ms. Pillsbury looking at him, maybe thinking about what he’s said, maybe trying to figure out how to politely escape this.
“Blaine,” she says, using his name like they’re friends. “This is a safe space. Don’t feel pressured to tell me anything, but my job here is to help you.”
He crosses his arms and scoffs again, looking away and hating this. A part of him wants to tell her, wants to get help, wants to figure out how to fix this but then another part knows there’s nothing that can fix this.
“I’m guessing you deal with a lot of teenage heartbreak,” he says, smirking a bit.
She doesn’t even hesitate, nodding and smiling brighter. “That’s a large part of my job, yes.”
He thinks. He really does.
Tapping his foot, fiddling with the bracelet wrapped around his wrist, he looks up at the ceiling and thinks, because he hasn’t stopped thinking, not for a full minute, not since it happened, not since he broke it.
Usually he’s good with giving things up, because that’s just the way it goes, he knows that. He’s never spent days and days wondering what would have happened if he hadn’t given up, he’s never let it nag at him. He always just accepted it. But he hasn’t been able to accept this.
Giving up has never made him so out-of-his-mind miserable before.
Kurt was just -
It’s like he was living just fine in the dark, because he didn’t even know what seeing with the light was really like. But then he did. And he saw everything. Now he has to readjust to the dark when he knows how amazing it is to actually see.
It sucks. It really fucking sucks.
He drops his head and looks at her, sighs out his breath and then asks, slowly, “So tell me, what do you do when you’re a nothing but you’re in love with a something?”
Ms. Pillsbury’s eyes go wide, then serious, her voice losing its air of sweetness but not sounding mean.
“That depends. Does the something love you back? Wouldn’t that make you a something, too?”
That hurts. He doesn’t let it show, keeps looking at her with a bored expression, doesn’t tell her that she’s wrong and that he only feels more broken.
“That’s not how it works.”
She hums, pauses, then tilts her head to the side and asks, “Is that what’s preventing you from going to class? A -”
“Boy,” Blaine fills in for her, prompted by the blank expression on her face.
“Right, a boy. Is he the reason you’re not coming to class?”
“Mm, not really.” He shrugs, aware that he should probably stop talking but he finds that he really can’t. “I mean sure, he made me want to show up in the first place, but I can’t blame him.”
He almost wants to. Maybe it is Kurt’s fault. For being so goddamn bright and for making Blaine see everything. For making him see what he already knew, for shining a light directly on it, for reminding Blaine why he belongs in the dark.
“Okay, well,” Ms. Pillsbury says, and gives him an optimistic smile, not looking at all put off by what he just said. “What can we do to encourage you to keep coming to school?”
Without missing a beat, he looks right up at her and says, “Tell me why it’s important.”
Without even blinking, she says right back, “Because you are, Blaine.”
The room goes silent again, and he feels like he’s been shot. He laughs, rough in his throat, shaking his head as he stares at the edge of the desk and not at her face.
“Sure.”
“You don’t have to realize it now, but you will. And until then, I think we should keep meeting, at least once a week. How does that sound?”
She sounds so fucking nice, how could he say no?
He wants to believe her. It’s her job to say shit like that, but nobody’s ever said it to him before. He wants to fully, entirely believe it, but -
The bell rings, the halls start filling up, but he stays seated and keeps thinking.
She seems to be just fine with being here, being an apparent nothing, smiling and helping and not quitting, even though he’s the kind of guy you should quit on. Still trying, but for what? What does she try for?
“I guess, maybe,” he says, starting to stand up, looking at her oddly. “Thanks for the talk.”
She smiles. “See you next week.”
-
It’s not that he’s scared of class or anything. It’s just that he’s kind of lost the point, kind of stopped caring, because there really is no point. Not for him. Not for anybody, really.
The school must be alerting his parents of his every move, because he missed one class the day after it happened and they were immediately on his case. So he missed more classes, because getting yelled at didn’t really motivate him to try harder, it just made him want to quit even more.
It’s lunchtime now, not that he really has anybody to hang out with since he shot that horse in the face, losing pretty much any connection he had to the glee club when he lost Kurt.
He hates himself, but he does miss it.
He decides to just go home. He can try again tomorrow.
“Oh, hey Blaine!”
He stops in the middle of the hallway and turns around, a bit shocked because nobody here talks to him anymore.
It’s Sam, from glee club, who he has never spoken to before in his life.
“Hey,” Blaine says back, a bit confused, crossing his arms and lifting his chin. “What’s up?”
“Where have you been, man?” Sam asks, coming right up close to him. “When are you coming back to glee club?”
He remains still, like stone. “Probably never.”
“Oh,” Sam says, frowning. “That sucks. Kurt really misses you.”
That shocks him more than hearing his own name, his stone structure breaking and falling and crumbling, and he can’t stop his eyes from widening, can’t stop the way his whole chest feels tight all of a sudden.
“Wait - what?”
Sam doesn’t seem to realize that this is groundbreaking news, that he’s just shattered the world Blaine stands on, and says easily, “Yeah, he’s been covering for you with Mr. Schue.”
Blaine blinks, shakes his head to snap out of this hopeful confusion. “Does he know he doesn’t have to do that?”
“I dunno, you should ask him.” Sam shrugs, then pats him on the shoulder and starts to walk away. “See you later!”
-
He doesn’t go home.
Too confused, too confused, thinking too much he’s so confused - he thought for sure that was it, it was over, he was in the dark and Kurt was in the light. So feeling that hand grab him through the darkness but not being able to see it was terrifying, his heart hasn’t stopped racing, and he can’t figure out why or how the hand is still there. But he knows who it belongs to.
He’s not sure what he’ll say to him, because he never knows what to say to him. He should stop, think, breathe, try and figure it out before he runs into him and declares a thousand words that he doesn’t really mean, but he’s confused and scared and a bit angry.
Because he feels weak and defeated. He had to give up because he knows he can’t hold on forever, but there’s Kurt, that’s Kurt’s hand, reaching out to him and still holding on.
Why?
Busting through the cafeteria doors, he stands there and looks around a bit frantically, breathing too harshly, looking for any sign of Kurt.
“Blaine?” somebody says from behind him, and he turns around, sees Kurt and Rachel standing there, staring at him oddly.
His own name has never brought him so much relief.
Then he feels all the air around him evaporate, no more oxygen left to inhale. But that’s just what Kurt’s always done to him, it shouldn’t be such a surprise to just no longer be able to breathe.
“Hey.”
Kurt looks at him, eyes sharp, then briskly turns and hands his lunch tray to Rachel, who yelps out in surprise, but Kurt seems to be on his own mission too, quickly reaching forward and grabbing the spot above Blaine’s elbow, the spot he always grabs.
Having Kurt’s hand on him feels odd. Right, like it should be there, but wrong because he knows it shouldn’t be.
Kurt doesn’t say anything, just pulls him and pulls him until they break through the exit doors and step outside into the cool late-winter air, right into the empty courtyard.
He finds his ground, remembers that he came here with a goal too, that he’s angry too. He shrugs Kurt’s hand off, ignores how much that hurts, and sits down on a tabletop, looks up at Kurt and snaps, “What are you doing?”
Kurt ignores him completely, eyes wide as they roam over his body, and he’s breathing fast, exhales icy-white in front of his face, arms wrapping around himself to try and keep warm and Blaine doesn’t understand him. He looks -
Scared.
“Where - where have you been?” Kurt asks, voice trembling.
His glare melts, confused as he tilts his head to the side. “What?”
“Nobody’s heard from you since last week, almost two weeks. Are you - are you okay?”
He sticks his hands into his pockets and shrugs, looks away, unable to read Kurt’s face and he’s driving himself mad trying to figure it out. “Why do you care?”
Kurt’s voice loses its worried tone, turning sharp as he says, “I’m sorry, but given your history I was led to believe something bad happened.”
It feels so weird, strange, talking to Kurt again after so long, like talking to a ghost. Something you so badly want to talk to, to see, to feel, but you know you can’t, you know it’s impossible.
“Well I’m fine, so chill your pants,” he sighs, turns his head the other way to look up at the staircase, resisting the urge to look at Kurt. “Now tell me why you’ve been covering for me in glee club.”
He doesn’t have to be looking at Kurt to feel his glare.
“So you don’t get in trouble,” Kurt says simply, and Blaine does look then, glancing up briefly and expecting Kurt’s eyes to be sharp and harsh, and they are, but he’s smiling a little. “How do you - who told you that?”
“Sam.”
“Since when do you talk to Sam?”
“I don’t. Just ran into him after counselling.”
As soon as the word leaves his lips he jerks his head up, looks right at Kurt and feels his whole face flood hot, wanting so badly to take it back.
Kurt’s smile fades. “Counselling?’
“Yeah,” he says, gruffly, looking away. “My parents are making me go.”
The world goes quiet, and he doesn’t look back to see what Kurt’s doing, but then the table creaks a bit, and suddenly there’s warmth right next to him, a hand on his arm, but he still doesn’t look back because he’s sure it’ll be just another one of his dreams.
“. . . are you in trouble?” Kurt asks after a pause, fingers squeezing briefly around his arm.
“Not yet.”
He can’t figure out why Kurt’s holding his arm, why Kurt’s sitting so close, why Kurt sounds so worried.
Kurt’s touching him, Kurt’s next to him, Kurt’s still talking to him after all the words in the world were taken away from them. Like Kurt’s still - trying.
“You still haven’t explained anything to me.”
He snaps his head around, looks at Kurt with wide eyes, confused for the thousandth time today.
“Explain what?”
Kurt lets go of his arm again, and it takes strength Blaine doesn’t have to stop from reaching back out to him.
“I can’t force you to tell me anything, Blaine, but you can’t just go around making me believe one thing only to take it back a day later,” Kurt says, fervently, and there’s hesitance in his voice, like he’s avoiding a certain word he knows Blaine can’t say. “You don’t control the world. You can’t just - push a button and delete somebody’s existence.”
“But there’s nothing to explain,” he says dryly, threading his fingers together, squeezing them tight. “It’s just the way it is.”
He wonders for a brief second, what would happen if he just told Kurt the truth. That he’s afraid. That he wants so much, wants him so much, needs him so much.
He wonders what would happen if he told Kurt why he can’t have him, why they can’t last.
If he just held his hand and told him that he deserves better, that he is a something and that Blaine is a nothing. That the difference between them is that Kurt’s not afraid to try, like failure will never be an option for him, when Blaine already knows that’s just his fate.
Would that make Kurt finally quit?
“But why?”
He sounds like Ms. Pillsbury almost, confused but determined and hopeful. But unlike her, Kurt actually knows him, so he shouldn’t sound like that.
“Because I just - there’s no point, Kurt,” Blaine says, voice too loud and too harsh, adding more distance between them on the table. “I don’t know what I’m doing, okay? It’s - it’s easier if I just don’t try. Can’t mess up that way.”
Kurt stares at him, really looks at him.
“You still did.”
He realizes then that Kurt can actually see things, because Kurt is in the light.
“I know.” He drops his head and takes a deep breath. How does Kurt sound so strong when he feels so goddamn weak? “Which is why you should just give up.”
The table creaks again, and he doesn’t look up as Kurt stands in front of him.
“It’s not that easy, Blaine,” Kurt says, calm, quiet. “I still - I probably shouldn’t, but I still care about you. So if you want to try and help me figure this out, come and find me.”
He doesn’t look up when the sound of Kurt’s footsteps fade, not even when he’s left alone in the sun and the cold.
Surrounded by air and he still can’t breathe.
-
He goes home right after that, because going to class with his mind running crazy would be worse than not going.
His mom is home, but she doesn’t say anything when he walks through the door and shoves his bag on the couch, and she doesn’t ask anything about counselling or classes.
Then she finally looks at him and says, “Come to the grocery store with me and I won’t tell your dad you missed class.”
She’s always been the understanding one. Not entirely, because even she has expectations that he can’t quite reach, but more understanding than his dad. He’s pretty sure neither of them actually care about him, but more so use him to prove the other wrong.
Today he doesn’t care.
It’s when he’s helping her load up the trunk with bags of groceries that he looks off and sees them, an old couple, holding hands even as they push a shopping cart together.
How nice would it be to believe in something like that?
On the ride home he looks at his mom and brings up a conversation he has never once brought up with her.
“What made you want to get married to dad?
She laughs, a bit wickedly. “He was smart and handsome and I was young and dumb.”
“Do you regret it?”
“More than anything. But at least I got you out of it, my little Blainey,” she coos, and reaches over across the seat to ruffle up his hair, very nearly swerving their car into traffic.
He’s afraid to ask her why they got divorced.
-
He can’t stop thinking about Kurt.
Which he’s never been able to do, not really, but it’s even worse now when he knows he really shouldn’t be anymore.
Is Kurt thinking about him then? Was he really worried when Blaine just stopped showing up to school? He can’t be. He couldn’t. Why would he?
Blaine’s an idiot. An idiot who left Kurt dazed and confused and with a bunch of broken pieces to hold on to by himself.
Kurt’s trying to put them back together, without any directions, any instructions on what to do, or why it even broke in the first place. Still trying even though it’s impossible, it just won’t work, it can’t, it’ll just break again and again and again -
Kurt can’t . . . like him, not really, not honestly . . . it’s just because Blaine’s the first and Blaine’s the only, not because Kurt actually genuinely seriously likes him.
But then why did Kurt let him put his hands on him, let Blaine touch him, kiss him, do more than kiss him, without any fear or hesitance when he had every reason to feel fear and hesitance? Why did Kurt take his hands and dance with him and melt the rest of the world away and why did Kurt care and try without ever being asked? What’s making him hold on still?
Is that what trying really means? Not always succeeding, but going through with it anyways, getting up when you’re pushed down. Not being strong enough to stop it all from breaking, but being strong enough to put it all back together.
Is that trying?
-
He goes to glee club for the first time in forever, and there are stares and gasps and Mr. Schue looks so confused Blaine wants to punch him for it, but nobody tells him to leave.
He sits down in the back, and Kurt smiles at him, briefly, then turns back around and leaves him be.
It’s easy to bullshit his way through it, closing his eyes and blocking out the music. It’s not until the end that he starts to pay attention, when Mr. Schue takes out a whiteboard marker and goes up to the front.
“Alright, so Rachel and Finn will take the leads for the duet at Regionals,” Mr. Schue says, scribbling their names across the board. “Now it’s down to Rachel and Santana for the solo . .”
“Excuse me, Mr. Schue,” Kurt suddenly speaks up, raising his hand, and that’s when Blaine really starts listening. “I was under the impression that there’d be equal opportunity for a chance at the solo.”
“Not if we actually want to win,” Santana says, voice smug, eyes sharp on Kurt.
“I - I have to agree with Santana on this one, Kurt. Sectionals was easy, we have to bring our best if we want to get to Nationals.”
With that, the conversation just - ends, and Kurt’s hand goes back down, and Santana and Rachel get their names put up on the board, and Kurt’s is nowhere to be seen.
Practice ends, and he stays sitting in the back, watching with a dejected, failing heart as Rachel pats Kurt on the back and then leaves with Finn.
“That’s bullshit,” Blaine announces, getting up from his chair and walking down the rows towards Kurt. “That’s - that’s fucking crap, Kurt, you can’t let them just push you around like that.”
Kurt turns around, eyes wide and gaze heavy, and he looks so grey for a split second, one shoulder shrugging. “They’re right. We need to win.”
“But - but you’re just as good as them,” he splutters, and he can’t hold onto his resistance or how he knows he shouldn’t be saying this, not when he’s this mad. “Come on, just - try.”
Why won’t he try for himself? Trying for Blaine but not for himself doesn’t he believe -
If he could just take that light that Kurt walks with and shine it on him, show him, god you’re the brightest thing I’ve ever seen, Kurt, just look.
Kurt stares down at his feet, and when he exhales he falls apart right in front of Blaine, shoulders dropping, head shaking.
“I - nobody listens to me, Blaine,” he says, quietly. “Nobody ever has.”
His muscles hurt, cramping and locking and trying to get him to stop from reaching out and holding Kurt’s hand, from embracing him and making him look up. He doesn’t. He stays still.
“They should. They’re idiots if they don’t.”
Kurt laughs, sad and spiteful. “You don’t really think that.”
“Yeah, I do.” He smiles at Kurt, as wide and bright as he can make it. “Kurt, you’re - you’re amazing.”
The choir room fills with silence, filling up like water, taking out the oxygen and making him feel like he’s truly drowning, and the only thing that can save him stands right across from him and he still can’t reach out and hold him.
Kurt looks up, and he’s still beautiful, still bright, but the light is gone, fading, and he smiles sadly.
“I want to believe you,” Kurt says, and touches Blaine’s arm, the touch of a ghost, barely there. “I just don’t know if I can anymore.”
-
Even in the dark, even when everything is black and grey shapes, even when there’s no light anywhere, he can still see Kurt.
He realizes, and it hurts in his throat, in his chest, in his everywhere to even think it, but he’s the only one who does.
Which is total shit, because he’s the only one who shouldn’t.
He’s nothing, he will always just be a nothing, a zero, a blank, a black space in a sea of black spaces, left in the dark.
How does he make Kurt see?
That night he stays up and thinks some more, because when is he not thinking? He looks at his hands, hands which have held Kurt’s and touched Kurt’s and hands that still want to do all that, but also hands that break things, that ruin things.
If he’s the only one who can see it, then he’s the only one that can prove it. Is that why Kurt let him touch him, why Kurt won’t give up? Because Blaine’s hands, and everything that comes with them, made him believe?
He wants Kurt to believe him still, to see what he sees, because Blaine is usually wrong about everything but he knows he’s right about this.
He thinks about what Ms. Pillsbury said, and how at the time it was laughable, a huge lie. But now he thinks maybe it makes sense.
When you mean something to somebody, you are no longer a nothing.
When somebody is so used to coldness and used to being ignored, if you see them and give them warmth and the attention they deserve, that is not nothing.
He means something to somebody.
He could never be a total nothing.
He can’t be afraid of failing when somebody else depends on him, needs something from him. He just has to try harder, and get up if he gets knocked down.
He means something.
-
This time he doesn’t jump into it, doesn’t panic or say things he doesn’t mean because they’re the only words to come to mind.
This time he thinks.
He can’t stop thinking.
About that old couple, and the way they held each other’s hands, and how bad he wanted that. To just hold onto something, to not want to be apart. If he could just hold Kurt’s hand again, even if it were only for a minute, that’d be enough, and if that somehow turned into forever then he’d be just fine with that.
Mostly, he just wants to kiss him.
Everything was perfect, so perfect, exactly how he wanted his life to be. And then it all fell apart when he realized (when he thought) it couldn’t stay that way.
Maybe it can’t. Maybe it will break. Maybe he’s not good enough for Kurt and maybe they won’t work.
He has to try, has to stick through it, hold on, fight for it. Because the opposite is . . . well, he’s living it right now.
He really can’t spend the rest of his life in the dark.
-
He waits outside the choir room before practice, smiles nervously at everyone who passes him, everyone who glances at him weirdly.
He waits for Kurt.
And then Kurt comes along, and his pulse picks up, his blood courses faster, his mind stops thinking for the first time in weeks, and once again he forgets how to breathe.
“Kurt,” he says, urgently, pulling away from the wall and walking towards Kurt before he can get anywhere near the door. “I just - I need a minute. Give me a minute.”
Kurt looks shocked, body going still as Blaine gets closer, stuttering as he says, “I’ve - I’ve given you plenty.”
“I know, I know, I just - I’m ready to explain things now. Please?”
Kurt doesn’t say anything back, just lets Blaine lead him, down the hall, away from the choir room, away from everyone else, around the corner and then he can’t wait anymore, turning around and backing Kurt up against the wall.
He knows he shouldn’t, should give him space, space to run away and leave him, but he’s beginning to feel that urgency, that panic that makes him do things out of his control.
Kurt stares at him, eyes calculating but at the same time lost, confused.
“Okay, go.”
He closes his eyes tight and thinks, because he had it planned out, knew what he wanted to say but now he forgets. He almost puts his hand on Kurt’s shoulder but he hesitates, moves it, thinks.
“I’m an idiot,” he blurts out, not following the guide he had planned at all. “I’m the biggest idiot on the planet, Kurt. But that’s not news.”
“No.” Kurt shakes his head, lips curving into the slightest smile. “It’s not.”
“You have to understand . . . I just . . I don’t . . . I’ve never felt like this before, about anybody.” He finally puts his hand down on Kurt’s shoulder, gently, and Kurt looks down to where they’re touching and then back up. “It’s too good to be true. I don’t - I don’t get things like this. So I panicked. I’m an idiot.”
Kurt’s smile grows, becomes brighter. “You just said that.”
“I can’t stop thinking about you. I know I shouldn’t, I know you deserve better and that we might not work out, but I can’t stop.” It’s all coming out, every word his brain has stored away, and he knows what’s coming up, what’s about to be said. “I want to hate it, but I don’t. I can’t.”
Kurt freezes underneath his hand, smile fading, eyes strange on Blaine as he asks, slowly, “Why can’t you?”
He looks down, keeps his hand on Kurt, rubs his thumb back and forth and thinks and breathes.
“Don’t make me say it, Kurt . . .”
Kurt swallows, says roughly, “Say what?”
He looks up, and Kurt’s eyes aren’t strange or hard or cold, just scared and wide and shining.
It’s not that hard to say it, not really, not when he just has to. He stops touching him, shrugs his shoulders and sighs and smiles.
“Isn’t it obvious?” he asks, and takes a step back from Kurt, gives him another smile. "I'm in love with you.”
He feels better as soon as he says it, feels his heart beat the way it’s supposed to, feels his blood return to normal and air fill up his lungs and like he could just fly right now.
Until Kurt looks away, face turning red.
And then he feels awful.
He sighs, pretends he doesn’t care, pushes his hair backwards and shrugs again. “See? It’s stupid. I shouldn’t have ever -”
Kurt just laughs, smiles brightly but still doesn’t look at Blaine.
“No,” Kurt says, voice caught somewhere in his throat. “It’s just that nobody’s ever been in love with me before.”
He turns around, still hurt, still embarrassed, and spits out, “Well it sucks. I - I hate it. I can’t get you out of my head but I can’t do anything about it because -”
Then there’s a hand on his shoulder, Kurt’s hand, and he’s being turned back around and Kurt’s looking at him, no longer red in the face and no longer smiling.
“Is that why you’ve been so scared? You think I won’t feel the same way?”
“I’m not scared.” That’s a lie. He shakes his head, looks away but doesn’t turn away. “But you know, one day you’re gonna realize what you really deserve, and that it’s definitely not me. I’m - I’m nothing.”
Kurt squeezes his hand, then trails it down, holds onto that spot above Blaine’s elbow and tugs him closer.
“Blaine, you’re the most stubborn person I’ve ever come across. You don’t seem like the kind of person to - to give up so quickly,” Kurt says, starting off strong, ending shakily. “But I’ve never been in love before. I just know that it’s rare. It doesn’t come apart as easily as you think. Not if - not if it’s real.”
Kurt’s other hand touches the side of his face, making him look up, and with both of Kurt’s hands on him he realizes what he means, and he realizes why Kurt’s been trying.
It was never really broken.
“And I know that . . . that I can’t stop thinking about you, either.”
Well.
He’s left blinded for a moment, can’t see a thing with how bright it suddenly is, can only feel Kurt’s hands and hear Kurt’s words, and during that moment he can’t believe a thing Kurt’s saying.
But then he can, and nothing in his body works anymore, blood freezing and heart moving and mind turning on and then off and all his nerves and muscles and joints working in unison to send him lunging forward, grabbing at Kurt everywhere he can, arms wrapping tight around him and pushing them both into the wall.
There really is no trying to feeling like this, to being in love. You just do. You just fall. There’s no yes or no or maybe.
Kurt’s fingers dig into his back, like he’s just as desperate as Blaine is, like he never wants Blaine to go again.
There’s just being. There’s just doing.
Blaine’s able to control his hands, moves one to hold the side of Kurt’s face, and he can see Kurt, he can always see Kurt, and he smiles and he laughs and he kisses him.
That’s what trying really means.