Chapter Text
Kurt walked into the Lima Bean and immediately regretted it.
The memories hit him like a freight train. The flirting and the dates and the ‘I love you’s. Shit. Kurt realized too late that he should have just gone to Starbucks or something. He momentarily considered leaving, but he was going to cut it close getting to first period anyway and he needed coffee today.
He ordered his usual and then waited for it to be delivered. Once he got it, he looked at the door out to where his car was parked, and then glanced around the coffee shop. So many memories. Even though it hurt to think of them, he also wanted to cling to the familiarity of it all. He didn’t want to go to school yet, where he’d get the pitying stares and the demands to know what happened and the heavy task of actually seeing Blaine again for the first time since it was over.
Sighing, Kurt walked over to a table and sat down. He wasn’t ready for this yet. He hadn’t been ready for any of it. He didn’t care if he missed first period, or second, or any of them. It was the last week of school. It didn’t matter. He was an adult and he could do what he wanted. So he was going to sit down and enjoy his fucking coffee because it was the only thing in the world worth enjoying right now.
He made it through the first third of his coffee okay. But then he began to lose it. The memories and emotions seeped in, as though they were imbibed in the air of the coffee shop, and inevitably they had to sink into Kurt’s skin. Blaine’s smiling face as he ordered Kurt’s coffee for him. His “I don’t want to mess this up.” Not very good at romance? Bullshit. Blaine had swept Kurt off his feet. And then dropped him abruptly.
“People change,” Blaine told Kurt, holding his hands and trying to look him in the eyes. “I’ve changed, Kurt. And so have my feelings. I-I’m sorry. I don’t know why. But I can’t help it. I don’t feel the same about you and I don’t want to lead you on, or anything.”
Kurt selfishly thought that he’d rather have been led on. It wouldn’t have hurt so badly. Maybe in the long run, it would have. But he didn’t want to think about the long run. All he could think about is now and how much he hurt.
Kurt was trying to hold back tears, not wanting to fall apart in a public place. He’d just about made up his mind to duck his head and go out to his car so he could blast Taylor Swift and sob, when someone sat down across from him.
His first terrified thought was Blaine, because who else would be at the coffee shop? But then he remembered that Blaine didn’t love him anymore and certainly wouldn’t want to sit with him. Also, the person sitting across from him, he saw as he looked up, was most definitely female.
“Hey.” She said.
Kurt sort of stared at her. “Hey…”
She smiled. She had a gorgeous smile. Pink lips and straight teeth. She also had curly dark hair piled in a bun and dark blue eyes. She was wearing the green apron that gave her away as a café employee. She pulled a napkin out of her apron pocket and set it on the table, unwrapping it to reveal a chocolate-dipped biscotti. “I got this for you,” she said, a bit hesitantly. “I didn’t pay for it, though, so it’s kind of a secret.”
Kurt looked from the girl to the biscotti and back. He could tell his eyes were still a little wet but didn’t want to bring attention to them by wiping at them.
“Um, thank you?”
She shrugged. “I know you like them. I mean, you buy them with your coffee sometimes. Or he bought them for you.”
Kurt stared at her.
“Your boyfriend.”
Kurt closed his eyes, willing everything to just go away.
“Are you okay?” the girl asked.
Kurt sighed, opening his eyes. “Um, no. Not really.”
“Is it about him?”
Kurt bit his lips and turned away, trying so hard not to start crying in front of a stranger. “It’s not really any of your business,” he managed to say.
She nodded quickly. “Yeah, of course. That’s fine, if you don’t want to talk. I just thought, you know, I saw you here alone, and that’s weird. You almost always came in with him or met him here or whatever. And then you just looked really super sad over here and I wanted to cheer you up, or something. But if you don’t want to talk, that’s cool. I mean, I’m not even technically supposed to be here since I’m working right now. I should be making drinks or something. I’ll go. You can still have the biscotti, though.”
She began to stand up, brushing off her apron, when Kurt spoke again, softly. “He broke up with me.”
It’s the first time he’s actually said those words out loud. When he came home crying and his father asked what was wrong, all he said was “Blaine” before his father enveloped him in a hug, where he cried himself dry into the warm flannel of his shirt. When his Facebook relationship status changed to ‘single’ it got a lot of comments, but he hadn’t responded to any of them. People would find out by word of mouth. He wasn’t going to be the one to announce it.
But here he was, saying it to some complete stranger.
The girl sat back down. “Oh, God.” She said, putting her hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”
She leaned across the table towards Kurt, taking one of his hands in hers. He didn’t have time to protest before she began talking again. “That’s horrible. How come? You don’t have to tell me. Christ, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I’m being so nosy. How are you holding up? Do you plan on going to school today?”
Kurt’s hurt had momentarily been replaced by shock. “Um, maybe at some point,” he said to her, only answering her last question.
“Great!” She exclaimed, squeezing Kurt’s hand. “Then we’ve got time. I’ll go get someone to cover for me and take off this atrocious apron. You stay here. And eat the biscotti; I promise it isn’t poisoned.”
She let go of Kurt and stood up, beginning to head back to the counter. Then she paused and turned around. “I’m Melanie, by the way.”
Kurt swallowed, his head slightly spinning. “Kurt.”
She grinned, waved at him, and then walked towards the register.
Kurt wiped his eyes as soon as she was gone, removing any moisture still there. The pain he’d felt previously was still there, but subdued, beating on in the background as he tried to figure out what had just happened.
While he puzzled over Melanie, he picked up the biscotti she’d apparently stolen and dipped it into his mocha, then took a bite. It was pure heaven. Biscotti really was his guilty pleasure, and this was exactly what he needed. To indulge a bit. And also to cut school and maybe even converse with random coffee shop baristas.
When Melanie returned several minutes later, Kurt was much more composed. She sat down at the table again and pulled her hair down so that it fell in very curly waves over her shoulders. Kurt tried not to think about messy, curly dark hair and all of his feelings wrapped up in it and instead focused on her face. She began talking before he could say anything, which sort of seemed to be her forte.
“So, do you want to talk about feelings and the breakup? Do you want to bash him? Or do you want to talk about other things to get your mind off of it?”
“Um,” Kurt said, still slightly surprised by how fast she spoke. “I think I want to…talk about other stuff.”
“Okay,” she said. “Tell me about yourself, Kurt.”
Kurt took a sip of his mocha, trying to clear the confusion in his head. Then, he just let himself talk. “Um, well. I’m eighteen. A senior, in high school. I’m graduating in a few days. I’ll be going to college at a performing arts school in New York.”
“Really?” Melanie seemed genuinely excited by this. “That’s great! You’re into, what, acting, then?”
Kurt smiled. It was a small smile, but it still felt more sincere than anything he’d done in the past few days. “Acting and singing, yes. Musical theatre is what I really love. I, um, well, it’s kind of my dream to be on Broadway.”
Melanie grinned. “You totally look like the stage type. I mean, when you walk into the shop, my eyes are just kind of drawn to you, you know? You really pull attention. And your clothes certainly add to the effect.”
Kurt blushed slightly. “Yeah, well. I’m also pretty interested in fashion. That’s probably what I’d go after, career-wise, if I couldn’t do musical theatre.”
“So what’s the school called?” Melanie asked.
And then, Kurt and Melanie continued to talk for an hour.
It was astounding, really. The girl was some sort of natural-born conversationalist. She could pick up on anything Kurt said and expand on it, asking compelling questions, completely engaging Kurt the entire time. She threw in her own anecdotes and comments, but never took the spotlight of the conversation. Kurt had finished his mocha and biscotti long before he looked up at the clock and gasped at the time.
“Shit,” he said. “I should probably get to school.”
“Aren’t you graduating in like three days?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then why bother?”
Kurt laughed. “Well, I do need to pick up my gown and whatnot. Also, I’m sure my signature is wanted in many a yearbook. And I need to intercept my stepbrother at some point so he doesn’t tell my dad that I cut the first two periods.”
Melanie grinned. “Would you like help getting away with that, by the way?”
“What do you mean?”
She twirled her dark hair. “I could call in and pretend to be your mom.”
“Stepmom,” Kurt corrected, not wanting to go into the details. He considered it. “Okay, fine.”
Melanie looked up the school phone number and called, insisting that she was Carole Hummel-Hudson and that her stepson, who’d been feeling sick that morning, needed to be excused from his first two classes. The attendance office believed it with no qualms. Melanie hung up.
“There. Now all you’ve got to do is be there by third period.”
Kurt smiled, honestly grateful. “Thank you so much, Melanie. For…all of this. I feel so much better.”
And he really did. Of course, he still knew that he was heartbroken, and he knew that his day wasn’t going to be very good because he’d have to see Blaine eventually, but Melanie had proved to him that he could be distracted from his ex-boyfriend. That other things still mattered. That he could still be excited about his future. That he could still make new friends.
“No problem,” she said. “Now, give me your phone. You need my number.”
Kurt obliged, waiting for her to punch in her information. When she handed it back, she smiled. “Okay, now, I want you to text me within the next two days. Especially if you get mopey. My friend and I will take you out somewhere and make you feel better.”
Kurt blushed, feeling like some sort of charity case. “Oh, no, you don’t have to-“
“Look, Kurt,” she said firmly. “I don’t like bullshit, so I’m gonna cut to the chase. I like you. Sure, I came over here because you looked sad and I felt like being a good Samaritan, or something. But now that we’ve talked I’ve discovered that you’re legitimately an awesome person, and I want to hang out with you. So just text me, okay?”
Kurt smiled at her. “Okay.”
“Good.” She stood up, and he followed suit, picking up his bag. “Now get your ass to school. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye, Melanie,” Kurt said as he turned to leave.
“Bye!” she waved after him.
Kurt took a deep breath once he got in the car. He could survive this day. He knew it.