The Betrayal Part One

[hardy1234]

Every head in the choir room turned around as Blaine confronted his boyfriend .  Mr. Schuester had left the kids alone to consult with Ms. Pillsbury about an upcoming pep rally so their choir practice had devolved into a playful session of chaotic rehearsal.   Puck was leading them on with his guitar  jamming  while  Brittany and Santana were improvising some dance moves.   It was what was best about New Directions, the easy camaraderie and sheer joy in performing.   No judging, no set lists, but just expressing themselves with song and dance.

Kurt had been rolling his eyes at something Mercedes had said, and Rachel as usual was trying to direct the proceedings in the chaotic practice.  Of course Mike and Tina were taking the opportunity to make out as if for the first time.

However as soon as Blaine entered the room and yelled out his demand from his boyfriend the silence in the room was deafening.   It was certainly deafening  to Kurt.

“Blaine” stammered Kurt, “can we talk about this in private?”   He felt every pair of eyes in the room burning into him, and none more than Blaine’s.

“Did you sleep with Michael Cortez?”

“Please, Blaine, let’s go somewhere, don’t do this..”

“Answer me.”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Damn it, it’s a simple question, answer me.”

Kurt closed his eyes, and with a shaky voice whispered, “Yes, I slept with Michael Cortez.”

Mercedes, who was standing next to Kurt grabbed him by the arm as if to support him.  She didn’t know what the hell was going on, but she could sense Kurt’s anguish.  Everyone was frozen, even Santana was stunned into silence.

“How could you do it,  how could you do it to us, to me?” Blaine sobbed, and he didn’t care how pathetic he sounded to everyone present.  “You slept with him for what?”

When no response was forthcoming, Blaine stared at Kurt with a mixture of anger and hurt.  The pain seemed overwhelming, and Blaine felt so exposed in his emotional transparency before their friends.

“What was it, Kurt?  You wanted more variety then what I could give you?  How many others have there been?  If you’ve been a slut, don’t I have the right to know??”

Kurt still didn’t respond, and only Mercedes noticed that Kurt was holding both his hands in tight fists as if trying to control his frustration.

“Answer me, Kurt!”

As he looked up, Kurt’s eyes were red and the tears were streaming.  “Just let me explain in private, give me a chance.”

“Just deny that you slept with him Kurt, just do that.  I don’t need for you to do that in private.”

Sobbing, Kurt responded.  “I can’t.  I’m sorry, but I can’t deny it.”

“So all this time I’ve been going around with you  you’ve been  a two timing asshole?” yelled out Blaine.  It was so out of character for Blaine to curse, even to lose his temper that most of the kids were taken back.  It was like rubbernecking at an accident scene in slow motion.  They felt embarrassed for both of their friends.

“That’s enough, Blaine!”  Finn’s voice rang through the room and he stepped closer to Kurt as if to shield him.  “Look I don’t know what’s going on but I think you guys shouldn’t be talking about this in front of all of us.”

Santana finally found her voice, “Well maybe if they give us all the sordid details, we can sort this out for them..”

Brittana gave her a look as if to say “Please, not now.”

Blaine glared at all of them.  When the chips were down they were Kurt’s friends, not his.  He saw that clearly now.

“Goodbye Kurt.”

As Mercedes tried to comfort Kurt, he simply responded, “Don’t worry, this will get worked out.”  But it was clear that he was very shaken by the turn of events.

As Blaine exited the choir room he felt his humiliation was complete.  Perhaps he had wanted the security of confronting Kurt in public because he wasn’t sure he could handle a private conversation in his emotional state.    The way he had found out about Kurt’s betrayal was purely accidental, almost by happenstance.   It was clear that Kurt had no idea that Blaine knew, which made Kurt’s response even more painful.

Blaine had asked his boyfriend point blank about his cheating and he couldn’t deny it.  To Blaine it was like being kicked in the stomach, only he still couldn’t draw a breath.  Kurt was everything to him, everything.  He had transferred over to McKinley , had rearranged his life in order to be closer to Kurt and the sense of betrayal was overwhelming to him.

Knowing that Kurt was probably in close pursuit of him, Blaine didn’t dare look back in the corridor.  By the time he got to the parking lot of the high school, he was running to his car to get out of Lima.  Once driving, he deliberately turned off his cell phone.

Instead of going home he drove straight to Columbus where his dad was at on a business conference.  Besides, it was a way of avoiding Kurt the rest of the evening, who Blaine was positive would have gone straight to his house looking for him.  But he couldn’t’ face Kurt.  Just not yet.

Blaine had always had an awkward relationship with his parents, especially his father but when he broke down and told them he wanted to return back to Dalton they were willing to accommodate him.    They had always been ambivalent at best to his going to McKinley and Blaine suspected that they weren’t totally displeased at his change of heart.  He didn’t give them all the details, but it wasn’t hard for them to figure out he had had a falling out with Kurt.

“I don’t want to face the kids at McKinley,” he stammered to his dad.  It was hard to say that, because he knew it made him sound weak.

“Understandable,  Blaine.   But you do realize son that if you transfer back that’s it?  We won’t have musical chairs as far as schools for the rest of the year.”

“Yes, I understand that.”

Mr. Anderson looked at his forlorn son and his heart went out to him.  While he might not be completely at ease with Blaine being gay, it was uncomfortable to see his son look so defeated and broken.  The public school system apparently had failed Blaine twice and that was that.

“Blaine, I’ll send you to Connecticut to visit your cousins for a week until this transfer gets straightened out.  That way you don’t have to go back to McKinley and you get a break from all the issues you’re dealing with.”

“Thanks, Dad, I would appreciate that.”

It all happened so quickly.  His dad let him stay in his room with him in Columbus and had his mother pack a suitcase for him so he didn’t have to drive home.  By the next evening he was on a flight to Connecticut.  Even if Kurt wanted to physically reach him, he couldn’t.    Somehow that was both comforting and terrifying to Blaine.

He lost track of the emails, the texts and the phone calls from Kurt.  The first week they were continuous.  So many times he wanted to answer the calls but he was afraid.  Not of what Kurt had to say but of his own response.  It scared him to know that he would forgive Kurt anything, even that.  He knew he would forgive Kurt if he answered the calls and he was ashamed of his own weakness.  Blaine wanted to cling, if temporarily, to his anger.  He deserved to stay angry, and Kurt deserved to be punished for what he had done.

Blaine please call me, I’m begging you.

The pleas still came at a feverish pace after the second week, but Blaine still couldn’t quite deal with the pain and the anger.   It was easier to be strong away from Lima and Mckinley.  By the end of the second week any more calls forthcoming from Kurt ended.

Completely.

At the same time, Blaine ignored all communication from anyone else from McKinley.  They were all trying to call him, Finn In particular.   Somehow their overwhelming loyalty to Kurt, as Blaine saw it, disgusted him.  He was sure that Kurt had put them up to it.  Tina and Mike who had always  been nothing but kind to him, were ignored as much as everyone else.

Strangely enough their calls were far more frequent once Kurt’s had stopped.

Somehow the week in Connecticut stretched to two weeks and then three.  The transfer had coincided with a midyear break at Dalton, so his parents saw no immediate urgency in his return.   Blaine observed wryly how his parents kept their physical distance from him with his messy emotional problems.  They meant well, but they never knew how to deal with him, it’s as they were afraid of getting their hands dirty with their unconventional son who didn’t fit into the preplanned role they had envisioned for him.  It seems they hoped he would get over his ‘phases’.  Kurt was obviously a phase, a painful one, but something transitory and fleeting.  At the same time, for once he found his parents emotional reticence convenient, he was too numb to open up to anyone.

Suddenly the Mckinley kids  all stopped trying to contact him and Blaine felt a strange mixture of sadness and anger that there were no more effort forthcoming from anyone.

Yet by now more than anything he had an overwhelming, almost desperate urge to see and talk to Kurt.  Now it was a matter of his phone calls and texts being ignored by Kurt.  Any calls to the Hummel household  or the Hummel Tire and Lube  went straight to voice mail and it was driving Blaine crazy.   Mr. Schuester and Ms. Pillsbury pleaded confidentiality/ privacy issues when in desperation he called them.   “I’m sorry Blaine but I’m not at liberty to discuss anything at all about the Hummel household without their authorization.”

“But Mr. Schuester I really need to talk to Kurt.”

“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?” was Mr. Schuester’s curt response.  The break in the professional façade  of the choir director in the phone conversation with Blaine sent a shiver down his spine.

As soon as he flew home he drove to Kurt’s house in Lima.  Kurt’s cell phone number had long been disconnected, and try as he might he couldn’t’ find anyone to give it to him.  In a reversal, all the New Directions kids avoided his calls, his texts, and his Facebook inquiries.  Almost simultaneously they deleted him as a Facebook friend and it was fairly obvious they had all come to some mutual accord about Blaine.

The total silence was disturbing.

There was still a desperate need of answers for him, an overwhelming urgency to have something resolved, as this constant  throbbing ache hadn’t subsided even while his anger had.  The way Kurt had told him that he needed to explain things in private was something he couldn’t get out of his head.  Kurt had slept with the boy.  He confessed it openly to even his friends that awful day.  What did Kurt need to explain?  Blaine wanted answers, but more than that, Blaine wanted to see Kurt.  Even the betrayal paled before his need to see and touch Kurt.

The brutal truth was he wasn’t over Kurt Hummel.  What Kurt had done was unforgiveable, there was no logical or rational explanation to justify his actions, but Blaine missed him more than ever and he was ashamed of his weakness, but he was past caring.

Before he got to Kurt’s house he stopped at Mercedes and with one look at him she slammed the door in his face.   The anger and contempt she displayed was palpable.

As he drove up the Hummel driveway he noticed that Kurt’s Navigator was missing.  He tried not to run up the sidewalk but a sense of foreboding swept over him.

“Mr. Hummel” he stammered as Kurt’s father answered the door. “ I, uh..was looking for Kurt.”

Since his medical  scare, Burt had never been in the best of health.  Even so Blaine was shocked to see how tired and fatigued Mr. Hummel looked since Blaine had last seen him.  It was jarring, as if seeing someone dramatically aged whom you hadn’t encountered for years.

Burt looked at Blaine, and he didn’t seem to express much emotion.  “He’s not here, Blaine.”

“Well, can I talk to him?”

Burt looked at Blaine and suddenly the intensity of his stare was blinding to Blaine.  “He’s not coming back to McKinley the rest of the school year.   He’s going to school out of state.  That is all I can tell you.”

Kurt gone?  Blaine blinked and was trying to disseminate this information, trying to make sense of it all. “Mr. Hummel I need to speak to Kurt…”

The older man paused for a moment before responding.   Blaine noticed that he had Kurt’s habit of closing his hands into a fist, and somehow that wasn’t a comforting sight.

“I treated you like a son, Blaine.  I opened our home to you and let you in.  Because I remember that for a time you made Kurt happy, I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you came here with good intentions to see my son. Out of respect for that is why I’m talking to you now.”    And the controlled tone of Burt’s voice sent a chill down Blaine’s back.  He would rather Burt be yelling at him, show anger.

“Mr. Hummel I need to talk to Kurt..”

“You need to talk to him?” and the tone of bitterness in Burt’s voice was unmistakable.

“Yes, I shut him off and now I know that was wrong.”  The lump in Blaine’s throat was growing, the realization that  something had gone dreadfully wrong in his absence from Kurt’s life.

Burt stared at him again, “It’s too late for that now.  Kurt wouldn’t want me to treat you badly.  However  if you ever come again to my home, I will slam the door on you.  Is that understood, Blaine?”

Blaine nodded as tears started to stream down his face.  Burt Hummel was the most loving adult Blaine had ever met, someone who he secretly wished could have been his father.  That Burt Hummel didn’t want to see him was too much, that Burt held him in contempt or even hatred was….

“Goodbye Blaine.”

As the door shut in front of him, Blaine felt lost.   The feeling of betrayal that day in the choir room was nothing compared to the darkness that was engulfing him now.

Finn was in the open garage and it appeared to Blaine that he had been eavesdropping on their conversation.

Blaine couldn’t help but approach Finn and beseech him with plaintive eyes.  Finn tried to look away but couldn’t quite and was caught in Blaine’s gaze.

“Finn, please…can you help me?”

Finn just looked incredulously at Blaine.  It wasn’t with anger or suppressed rage like Burt, but with what seemed puzzlement and almost disbelief.

“Dude, why didn’t you respond?  Why didn’t you call back?  We all tried calling you…Even Burt called you…”

“I didn’t know, I didn’t respond or answer to anyone for a while.  “

“We even called your parents.”

“My parents?”

“Yeah, and they hung up on Burt.”

“Finn, can you..”

“Blaine I can’t talk to you, I can’t.  I’m sorry but I can’t.”

It was the same with the rest of the New Direction members

Blaine finally got a hold of Santana.  If anybody might be less judgmental towards him he sensed it would be Santana.  He always felt she had a protective streak towards him, as if she was bemused by his earnestness and naiveté.

He caught her at Breadstix having lunch with Brittany.

“Santana we need to talk.”  He tried to ignore Brittany’s cold stare as she walked away.  It seemed like a warped fantasy that Britanny of all people refused to talk to him.

“What about, hobbit?” was Santana’s  response.  That she could still call him by her pet nickname to Blaine was strangely reassuring and comforting.

“Kurt.  I need to see Kurt.”

Santana looked at him and gave him a look different than that of Burt or Finn’s.  It wasn’t a look of anger or of puzzlement but a look almost of …pity.

“Blaine, I don’t think you’re ever going to see Kurt again.”

“But if you would just tell me..”

“Even if I wanted to, I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I gave my word.”

“But..”

“I gave my word, and that’s that.  Even a bitch like me thinks her word is important.”

It was too much for Blaine.  He was tired of constantly bumping his head against the wall.  Everyone he encountered were all so evasive.  He had been stripped of everything, including his anger.  “I’m begging you Santana.”

“Hobbit” and her voice almost sounded tender and caring.  “We all made a vow, and it was pretty much a sacred one that we would never tell you anything.”

Blaine sat there and started crying, even soliciting stares from other patrons.

Finally Santana gently put her hand on his chin and brought his face up and wiped his tears.

“I have no illusions about people.  It’s funny but I read you right.  Everyone was always so impressed by how you were so smitten by Kurt, like a big lovesick puppy.  But I knew your puppy dog ways hid a street dog who was ready to bite if anyone got near your Kurt.  You’re far darker and needier then they suspected.”

Blaine sensed the truth in her words.  His relationship with Kurt was so important to him because as far as he was concerned, it’s really all he had.  The unconditional love that he felt for Kurt overwhelmed him at times.  And Kurt loving him back was something he genuinely needed, because it was the one thing that was his alone.  Behind his mannered facade his jealousy of Kurt’s attractiveness to others was so hard to suppress, but it was always there below the surface.  Thus  Kurt’s betrayal hurt him so much more that it took him time to process it, to deal with it.  The anger he felt on the betrayal was so strong that it was all he could do to keep his sanity.

Santana seemed to be making up her mind about something.

“I can do one thing, I can be your friend, but only on one condition.”

He blinked at her and silently nodded.

“I can be your friend but we can never talk about Kurt Hummel.  Take it or leave it.  The moment you mention Kurt’s name it’s over.  And you know I’m as good as my word.”

Blaine nodded again.

And thus began Blaine ‘s lifelong friendship with Santana.

Part Two: