Stop Loss: Chapter 26, Part Two
Long chapter is long. Oops.
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Blaine wasn't sure how he managed to get home without crashing his car, but at some point he was stumbling up the stairs, his stomach churning even as the rest of him felt entirely numb. His face in the bathroom mirror was too pale and tear-streaked, and the thought that that's how Kurt must have looked the day before after getting the news about his dad was enough to send him racing to the toilet, dropping painfully to his knees as he retched coffee and stomach acid, leaving a burning in his throat and a bitter taste in his mouth.
Jesse had wanted Kurt the whole time, Blaine realized weakly, slumping back against the bathtub. Kurt hadn't believed it, had said that Blaine was seeing things that weren't there and that the two of them were just friends, but even as Blaine had tried to take his word for it, a part of him had always known the truth-that Jesse didn't care who he had to break in order to get what he wanted. And that Kurt, trusting and tolerant of his faults, would never truly pick Blaine over him.
Except that, Blaine recognized, Jesse had been right about one thing-Kurt hadn't really chosen between the two of them, because Blaine had chosen to temporarily remove himself from the equation.
And if Jesse had his way, that temporary removal might become a permanent one.
Stumbling to the bathroom sink, Blaine opened his medicine cabinet and grabbed his bottle of mouthwash. He didn't want to think about Kurt or Jesse anymore. He didn't want to think about anything, really; he just wanted to go back in time to Monday afternoon and do everything over again, leaving his note under Kurt's pillow this time and avoiding the desk drawer and the envelope that had started it all, the whole chain of events that had lead him to where he was now.
He put the mouthwash back on the bottom shelf, underneath the row of orange and white bottles; all of Blaine's prescriptions and over-the-counter medicines, each one designed to target his various aches and pains.
There was nothing in the cabinet potent enough to turn his brain off and make him feel better.
But he could improvise.
Pouring a glass of water, Blaine shook out three yellow anxiety pills and lined them up on the edge of the sink. Three sleeping pills follows, each one popped out of its separate blister pack. Scooping them up into the palm of his hand, he added two of his little pink antidepressants.
They looked just like candy, mixed together and cheerful against his tan skin. No wonder so many little kids poisoned themselves every year.
He swallowed them all with one gulp before draining the glass of water.
For the second time in a row, Blaine's sleep was dreamless.
The rest of the week was horrible. Somehow, despite the crippling anxiety that had characterized his first couple of months at Carmel, Blaine had managed to make, if not friends, at least friendly acquaintances in all of his classes. It was hard not to dwell on the negative, though, when all of his conversations with those friendly acquaintances began with some variation-always from them-of "You look awful" or "What happened, are you okay?"
Blaine also hadn't realized how much he relied on Kurt to get him through the day. Even though they only had one class together, they usually managed to see each other both before and after school, and at least a few times in the hallway between classes. The sudden gaps in Blaine's schedule felt like fresh wounds, open and raw, and made Blaine feel-not for the first time-how much more Carmel belonged to Kurt than to him.
Rehearsal especially felt like Kurt's domain, even in his absence, and Blaine wasn't surprised how quickly it became the worst part of his day. Particularly after the team was warmed up and ready to perform their Regionals program on Wednesday afternoon, and Shelby's announcement about Kurt's dad brought everything to a screeching halt.
"I spoke to Kurt a little while ago, and while his dad is expected to pull through, his situation is still critical," she explained somberly to the hushed crowd. "Kurt will not be returning to school in time for Regionals this weekend, and he has my full support in this decision."
Her tone left no room for argument, and Blaine quickly saw why it had been necessary-a few of the upperclassmen were barely suppressing their complaints, which were no doubt awful and unwarranted. Blaine felt gratified, at least, that he wasn't the only one angered by their heartlessness: Sasha and Andrew, Vocal Adrenaline's other countertenor, were shooting dirty looks at the worst offenders.
And most of the team agreed with them, Blaine learned through whispered conversations as they slightly adjusted all of their choreography to mask Kurt's absence. The prevailing opinion seemed to be that a death in the family was one thing, tragic but not tragic enough to warrant missing a competition, but that nearly losing your only family, such as in Kurt's case, was another, and merited more understanding and consideration from the team, even if they themselves would have pulled through and competed anyway.
Blaine had no idea how any of them managed to express that sentiment with a straight face. Or whether they'd always been such terrible people and he was just noticing it, or the development was more recent.
Worst of all was Jesse. Somehow, word that Blaine had broken up with Kurt-and was consequently broken up over the situation-had managed to spread, and that, combined with the general knowledge that Jesse was staying with Kurt while his dad was in the hospital, meant that Blaine was the constant recipient of uneasy, sympathetic looks. The looks always came immediately before the sender would turn and ask Jesse a question regarding Kurt or Mr. Hummel, which Jesse would proceed to answer in an overly solemn tone. Even deducing the pattern wasn't enough to keep Blaine from overhearing information such as Kurt continuing to wake up crying in the middle of the night, or Kurt having to be forced to eat at every meal by Jesse, or Kurt worrying about how long it was taking the doctors and nurses to regulate his dad's blood pressure, and each new question and answer session was a fresh source of stabbing pain for Blaine.
Some of his teammates, he knew, had called Kurt or been to see him in their spare time. A bunch of them-mostly sophomores, but a few freshmen and upperclassmen as well-even chipped in to send flowers to the hospital and to Kurt's house. Blaine hadn't been asked to contribute, but he did manage to ask Ben to add his $20 to the collection envelope, banking on the likelihood that the dance captain was the only one polite enough (and seemingly fond enough of both him and Kurt) to do it without asking too many questions.
And indeed, Ben had given him a long look and a little advice ("I don't know what's going on with the two of you right now, but flowers can really only help, can't they?"), but hadn't demanded an explanation or told anyone where the extra money had come from.
As far as calling Kurt or going to visit him himself was concerned…there was always an excuse for delaying it for a few more hours: classes, homework, rehearsals. His parents being home. Jesse being at Kurt's home. Anything that Blaine could latch onto as a semi-legitimate reason, in order to avoid facing the truth:
That he was too much of a coward to face Kurt.
Blaine couldn't be angry at Kurt over the envelope anymore, not in the wake of Mr. Hummel's heart attack, but his trust in Kurt had been badly shaken. He couldn't take it on faith anymore, the way he wanted to believe that he would have, that Jesse had been lying about what had happened between the two of them. If Blaine saw Kurt, or even talked to him over the phone, he'd have to ask; and if Kurt confirmed it, or tried to lie to him…
The mere idea of Jesse and Kurt together was horrible enough that Blaine was barely restraining himself from physically ripping Jesse apart, Regionals or no Regionals. He was afraid to find out what he'd do if that idea turned out to be true.
It was too much to think about. Blaine took to avoiding people and phone calls whenever he could, lest someone try to make him talk about anything more complicated than the weather (cool, cloudy), and was more than a little relieved when his mother confirmed that she'd canceled Thursday's appointment with Dr. Ramirez a few weeks before when he'd asked, showing her the 'Team Bonding' activity on his rehearsal schedule.
He spent Thursday evening bonding with a cup of coffee at the Lima Bean, but nobody had to know that.
The only thing that was having a remotely positive effect on Blaine's spirit, besides visiting his lions on Friday after rehearsal, was his anxiety medication. Even though he and Dr. Ramirez had adjusted his dosage several weeks before, he'd never bothered to throw out the old bottle, and he was finding the leftover pills extremely helpful in getting through his day. Whether they were actually doing anything, or whether merely taking a pill whenever his disquiet threatened to reach crushing levels was enough to trick him into feeling soothed, Blaine was dreading the day that his extra stash ran out.
And then, Regionals.
When Sectionals had come around in the fall, Blaine had woken hours before dawn, unable to sleep.
The morning of Regionals couldn't have been more different: by the time he stumbled down the stairs (freshly showered, but still not entirely awake), Blaine only had half an hour left to eat breakfast and finish getting ready before he had to drive to Carmel and meet the bus.
Also unlike the fall, both of his parents were already up and sitting in the kitchen when Blaine padded into the room; the coffeepot and a platter stacked high with pancakes on the table between them.
Blaine's mother was already perfectly put together and dressed for work, and she smiled at Blaine as he sat down. "I was just about to come wake you up when I heard the water running," she informed him, spearing a few pancakes on the serving fork and dropping them onto his plate. "We wouldn't want you to be late for your big competition."
Blaine didn't have the energy to roll his eyes. "Couldn't have that," he agreed. "One of the seniors might stab me with an eyeliner pencil if I was, and then we'd all be in trouble."
He poured himself a mug of coffee and drank the first sip with a grateful sigh, ignoring the worried glances exchanged between his parents. It was a lot more likely that they were concerned about his sense of humor becoming too morbid for polite company, rather than recognizing that he hadn't actually been joking, but he wasn't awake enough yet to do any damage control.
His mother was blinking at him sadly. "I wish I could come today," she told Blaine for the 53rd time that week. "I really thought that I'd be able to get that meeting moved up, but between teleconferencing with the Japanese branch, and the problems with the English division-"
"It's okay, Mom," Blaine assured her, cutting her off before she could get to the part about the New York office undermining the Midwestern market-he was sure that management conflict was fascinating to some people, but Blaine still had very little idea of what his mother did for a living, exactly.
His father, also clearly hoping to change the subject before she really got going, folded up the newspaper he'd been reading and dropped it on the table. "He'll be fine," he insisted, taking a sip of his coffee. "I'm sure most of his teammates don't have both of their parents coming either, right Blaine?"
Another thing that Blaine had no idea about-the competition was a lot closer to home than the last one had been, since two of the competing teams were relatively local, which might be a factor in how many people actually showed up-but it was obvious which answer his dad was looking for. "I don't think so," he answered dutifully, "I don't remember anyone mentioning that their whole family was coming."
That seemed to mollify Blaine's mother a little, but she was still frowning when she turned to Blaine's dad. "Try to take some pictures, if you can," she ordered. "Unless-Blaine, did you ever get your video camera fixed?"
Blaine shook his head. "Not yet," he told her, watching her face fall slightly before she recovered and excused herself to go find the camera and make sure that the battery was charged.
Blaine's father, on the other hand, looked relieved. He knew his dad had no interest in show choir-Blaine figured that he was only coming because his mom and Grandma were making him, or to reassure himself that Blaine wasn't running around in drag while performing-and being saddled with a video camera the whole time would have made things worse, adding sore arms and no opportunities to sneak out for fresh (meaning: non-glitter-tainted) air every half an hour or so to the ordeal.
Blaine gave it two hours after the competition ended before his dad started asking-nonchalantly, of course-whether Blaine was interested in trying out for any of Carmel's sports teams in the fall. Less if they lost.
He glanced halfheartedly at his partially-eaten stack of pancakes. "I'm going to go get ready," he decided, dropping his fork onto his plate and picking the whole thing up. "I have to leave in a few minutes."
His father looked vaguely surprised at his abrupt departure. "Oh, all right," he answered, watching as Blaine stood up and grabbed his coffee-he'd dump the rest into a travel mug and take it with him. "I guess I-see you there, then. Good luck."
He nodded to Blaine, who nodded back before abandoning his dishes in the sink and leaving the room.
Once Blaine made it to the parking lot at Carmel, the rest of the morning was a blur. The short bus ride was spent doing vocal warm-ups, and the rest of the time before the competition officially began went by in a flurry of dance warm-ups, marking their spots on the unfamiliar stage, making sure that all of their costumes were in place and easily accessible, and other last-minute preparations. Blaine was grateful to forgo the layers of makeup he'd worn to cover up his face in October, but the twenty minutes he'd spent under Kurt's creams and brushes in the fall instead went to helping Ryleigh run her part of Bohemian Rhapsody, since Shelby and Jesse were both too busy.
"Don't tell anyone," she told him darkly when they'd finished, "but you're a lot easier to work with than Jesse St. Jackass. I can't wait until he graduates."
Blaine couldn't help but share the sentiment.
There were only two other teams competing against Vocal Adrenaline for a spot in the Nationals competition that afternoon, and it wasn't until a cheerful-looking blonde (who was an incredible contrast to her teammates, who took one look at his costume and shot evil looks in his direction) waved at him that he remembered that the other local team was the one from McKinley. Which meant that…
Blaine looked around until he spotted Rachel on the other side of the stage, speaking rapidly to her enormously tall teammate. She hadn't noticed him yet, and Blaine wasn't sure if he should try to get her attention. She'd been a little overbearing when they'd met at the dance, but she was still nice, and if the rumors were true and Jesse had broken up with her recently, she could probably use a friendly face. On the other hand, though, Kurt had made a point of stopping him the last time he'd tried to talk to her, and he wasn't entirely clear on what he was supposed to know about her and Shelby, and what was still a secret (from everyone, and from her in particular).
Plus, if he went over to say hello, she was sure to ask him about Kurt.
And talk about him. A lot.
Waving back to the blonde girl (he'd have to ask Sasha what her name was later; all he could remember about her was that she'd freaked him out a little on New Year's Eve), Blaine slipped farther backstage, hiding back in the shadows until the competition began.
Halfway through McKinley's performance, Blaine was skeptically enjoying their set from the wings. The singers were talented-really talented-but there was hardly any dancing in their program, and while Blaine was still fairly new to show choir, even he knew that there was no way Shelby would have let their team go out onstage singing nothing but Journey songs. They looked like they were having fun, though, and the audience was definitely responding to their energy. Their smiles looked genuine, too; like they were blooming spontaneously, rather than having been practiced during warm-ups at every rehearsal.
He wondered what Kurt would have thought, if he had been there.
"Are you looking for your parents in the audience?"
The quiet, silky voice was all too familiar, and Blaine's frown deepened. "No," he told Jesse, keeping his eyes on the stage. "My dad's here somewhere, but my mom had to work."
"Interesting," Jesse replied, sounding particularly insincere. "My parents are on a plane to Phuket right now, but they'll be watching via satellite feed. As long as they don't encounter too much turbulence, anyway."
Blaine…had no idea what to say to that, and sighed as he turned around. "What do you want, Jesse?" he asked tiredly.
Jesse's expression was unreadable. "What do you want?" he asked, turning the question back on Blaine. "You broke up with Kurt almost a week ago, and I know you haven't called or been to see him since Burt got ill-which I thought was a little rude, by the way, but that's your business-but you're still walking around looking like somebody kicked your puppy."
Blaine glared at Jesse, his hands shaking. "You don't want to talk to me about Kurt," he warned sharply, his fingers reflexively curling into fists-maybe Kurt was right, he thought, to talk me out of learning boxing.
Jesse didn't react to the implicit threat. "No, I don't," he confirmed calmly. "I want you to stop it and smile. Your face is too brooding for a matinee audience."
Of all the things Jesse could have come over to say…Blaine shook his head disbelievingly. "That's all you care about," he realized hollowly, blinking slowly at Jesse. "People don't matter at all to you, do they? Not even-"
He stopped himself before he could finish his sentence. "It's all just background noise to you," he said instead. "The only things that mean anything to you are your performances."
Blaine didn't know how he expected Jesse to react to his accusation, but he certainly hadn't expected Jesse to smile, his eyes glittering with mirth. "I hope you recognize," he intoned condescendingly, "that you could have been describing Kurt, just now."
Blaine felt a low, simmering anger begin to build up in his stomach. He narrowed his eyes at Jesse. "Kurt is nothing like you," he spat.
A little too loudly, if the uneasy glances from the few other people watching the performance from backstage were any indication.
"Kurt's a lot like me," Jesse countered easily, looking at Blaine with an expression that was almost…pitying. "He's talented and intelligent and driven and ambitious, and he makes sacrifices to get what he wants. Just like me. And this life, his 'performances'," he continued, stressing the word in the same way that Blaine had, "that's what he wants. Not just until the end of the season, or until after high school, but for the rest of his life."
His face turned skeptical. "Can you keep up with that?" he wanted to know.
The sound of wild applause rang out, signaling the end of McKinley's set. Blaine knew that behind him, Rachel and the blonde and their team were taking their bows, and that any second, the stage manager would be calling for Carmel to take their places for Bohemian Rhapsody.
Knowing that he only had a few seconds to respond, then, Blaine glared at Jesse, leaned in, and voiced the one thing he'd been dying to tell him all week, but hadn't had the courage to say:
"Fuck. You."
The call for Carmel to get ready was issued, and Blaine turned away from Jesse and his stunned, frozen expression to cross to the other side of the stage, where his opening position was.
He couldn't have cared less about the program or how they placed in the competition, but Blaine was sure that his show smile could be seen from space.
As expected, Vocal Adrenaline was crowned the Midwestern Regional Champion for the billionth year in a row. Blaine smiled and hugged and congratulated when required, not wanting to spoil anyone else's excitement just because he wasn't feeling any himself, but as the celebration dragged on, it became more and more clear to Blaine that Jesse, for all his maliciousness, had been right about one thing: Blaine really didn't care all that much about winning.
Or, to be more precise, Blaine didn't care all that much about winning with Vocal Adrenaline. Because the Regionals victory meant that, for the next two and a half months, the team would be doing nothing but prepping for Nationals. Which, in turn, meant extra practices. And longer rehearsals. More demands on their time and ability. Fraught nerves and flaring tempers.
And it wouldn't stop there. Whether or not they won Nationals, there would be summer rehearsals for anyone who was in town (or vacationing within 150 miles). There would be the boot camp for the incoming freshmen that a number of the upperclassmen, which would include Blaine after the school year ended, were expected to help run. Then there were the fall Showcases and Evaluations; Sectionals all over again; Regionals, Nationals, and so on until Blaine either graduated or died of exhaustion and unhappiness.
Blaine loved singing and performing, but it wasn't the only thing that he loved. And it wasn't until Kurt was gone, unable to make the insane way he was living seem more bearable, that he realized how much he didn't love singing and performing for the Vocal Adrenaline Machine anymore-if he ever had. When he'd first come to Carmel, everything Vocal Adrenaline had to offer-music, dance, friends, Kurt-had been new and exciting, and Blaine had latched onto it all in desperation.
But the veneer had since worn off, and as long as Vocal Adrenaline continued to be the best in the country, nothing about the way they operated would ever change or end-Blaine would either have to drink the Kool-Aid and conform, or cut his losses.
Blaine snagged Sarabeth's arm and, after being hugged so hard that he was a little afraid for his ribs, asked her to tell Shelby that he'd be riding home with his dad instead of on the bus with the others.
If it was going to be his last day on the team, he didn't want his final memory of Vocal Adrenaline to be of Jesse gloating on the ride home.
The flaw in Blaine's plan, of course, was that he could have pretended to sleep on the bus ride home, and nobody would have talked to him. By going with his father, however, Blaine was obligated to actually make conversation-in the same way that, by attending Blaine's competition, his dad was obligated to pretend to have enjoyed it.
"That was quite the show," he offered mildly as they pulled out of the parking lot. "Your mother will be disappointed that she didn't get to see you win; you'll have to tell her all about it."
"Sure," Blaine agreed absently. "I'll do that."
There was an awkward pause. "Should we…do you want to stop for ice cream on the way home?" his dad offered. "I know that the Carvel closed last year, but we could go somewhere else, if there's a certain place you like."
Blaine couldn't remember the last time one of his parents had taken him out for ice cream-that was his grandmother's job. "That's all right," he declined. "We can just go home."
His dad obviously wasn't done trying, though, because he nodded, biting his lip nervously the way that Blaine knew he himself had inherited. "That lead singer of yours had one hell of a voice," he mused. "He was the one whose party you went to last fall, after your last competition, right?"
Blaine felt a flash of anger at the mention of Jesse, and fought to stuff it down before his dad noticed. "Yeah, that's him," he said, a little more curtly than was polite.
His father nodded again. "Is he going to have another party tonight, to celebrate?" he wanted to know.
Blaine bit the inside of his cheek, trying not to think about Jesse.
Or his party after Sectionals.
"I don't know," he lied, leaning his head against the cool glass of the window. "If there is, I don't think I'm going to go-I'm really tired, and I just want to go to bed."
His dad seemed to pick up on Blaine's barely-disguised hint, and was quiet for a few minutes. Until-
"I didn't see Kurt there," he mentioned casually, pulling to a stop at a red light. "Is he still on the team, because-"
"Dad," Blaine cut him off sharply, his breaking point reached with the unexpected mention of Kurt. "Please, just…stop, all right? Neither one of us wants to be having this conversation, so could we…just, not? Please?"
The light turned green.
Blaine's father slowly followed an old, dilapidated pickup truck through the intersection, and the rest of the drive was spent in awful silence.
Lying face down on his bed, Blaine barely registered the sound of the phone ringing down the hall. Not that it particularly mattered-the only person Blaine was even vaguely interested in talking to was his Grandma, in order to find out if he had to be a Canadian citizen in order to live with her and go to school in Ontario, or if merely showing up and keeping his head down was enough to help him fly under the legal radar until graduation. And whether or not he'd have to declare lions at the border, even if they promised to be very good and not eat anything endangered.
Blaine pressed his face further into his pillow. Maybe skipping therapy this week was a bad idea.
Lost in this thoughts (and his bedding), Blaine didn't hear the door to his room open. The tap on his shoulder got his attention, however, and when he rolled onto his side and looked up, his dad was hovering over him, a guarded expression on his face.
"That was your mom on the phone just now," he told Blaine, gesturing toward the door. "She says Congratulations, and she wanted to know if there was anything special you wanted for dinner."
Blaine stared at him blankly for a moment, processing, before shaking his head. "No, thank you," he answered meekly. "I'm not feeling very well."
His dad nodded. "That's what I told her," he said knowingly. "I figured that it would be best if she didn't come home expecting to find you in a talkative mood."
Blaine cringed slightly, thinking about the car ride home.
Which his father still hadn't said anything about, he realized suddenly. "Why aren't you yelling at me?" he wanted to know, not sure at all what kind of answer to expect.
His dad looked at him steadily. "I might have, but I'm not exactly sure what to yell at you for," he admitted.
Blaine stared.
His dad sat down on the bed next to him, his back upright and parallel with the headboard. "You're lashing out because you're angry and upset," he continued, looking at the closet door rather than at Blaine. "But it's obvious that a lot of things have been bothering you for a very long time, and I can't really blame you when it's clear to me that I should have said something by now."
Blaine was a little stunned-his father's admission was probably the closest he'd come to talking about anything real with Blaine in ages; probably since he'd come out, almost a year before.
And Blaine almost didn't want to spoil it by interrupting, but he had to know. "Why didn't you?" he asked quietly, toying nervously with the edge of his pillowcase. "Say anything?"
His father sagged a little. "I want to say that it's because I don't know how we got to this point," he confessed, "but that's not entirely fair. But…"
He paused, sighing, before continuing. "Unless you're a father, I don't think you can understand what it's like to have your son come home from school one day and tell you that, because of some quirk of biology, his life is going to be so much harder than what we wanted for him, and that there isn't much we can do to protect him," he explained. "Your mother and I, we're not ashamed that you're gay; we were never disappointed in you. I know your mom was upset about not having any grandchildren, at first, but there are plenty of ways for you to have kids, your own ones, even, and she understands that, now. But Blaine, you have to understand that we never saw it coming. And I don't think you realize what it's like to suddenly learn that there's this…huge aspect of your child's life that he's been hiding from you, and that you were completely ignorant of."
Blaine felt tears burning behind his eyes. "But that wasn't my fault," he managed, voice hoarse as he choked out the words he'd wanted to say for almost a year. "How was I supposed to know how you felt when you wouldn't tell me? All I knew was that as soon as I told you-"
Blaine stopped abruptly, a sob tearing sharply at his throat.
His dad looked down at him helplessly. "I know that, Blaine," he admitted. "I…coming to terms with the fact that I didn't know my only son as well as I thought I did took longer than I'd like to believe, and by the time I…there was this gulf, between us. Your uncertainty and hurt feelings; probably more, I won't presume to know how you felt, and all of my regrets and powerlessness about the whole thing were like this giant elephant in the room, and I had no idea how to go about fixing it."
Blaine closed his eyes, concentrating on keeping his breathing steady so that he didn't end up crying in front of his father, like a little boy.
"And then The Incident happened," he heard his dad say, "and it just reinforced everything that I felt when you first told me that you were gay; that there are people who are never going to understand that who you love is none of their business, and who will hate you and try to hurt you because of it. And to see that-no father wants that for their child, Blaine."
Blaine had known, somehow, what his dad was going to say even before he said it. Because everything came back to the dance, for Blaine: his school, his friends, Kurt, his parents-everything. He'd tried running away from it by changing schools and cutting off ties with his old life; he'd tried facing his fears at the Winter Ball and leaving them in the past, but every time Blaine thought he had finally closed that chapter of his personal history for good, it came back to haunt him, poisoning yet another part of his life.
A stop loss that he couldn't escape.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "I-that I couldn't be the son you wanted. I'm sorry, Dad."
There was an awful pause.
Blaine curled up on his side, facing the window. He bit his lip, hard, waiting for his dad to get up and leave the room so that he could stop fighting back tears and finally let himself lose it.
Slowly, a hand snaked into Blaine's hair, gently stroking his curls in a way that only a few people had ever been allowed to do.
"Do you remember…when you were little, and I took you fishing with me in that tiny little boat that I bought before you were born?" his dad asked quietly. "You were only five, and in retrospect it was obvious that I should have explained what going 'fishing for dinner' actually meant, because when I woke you up and was buckling you into your car seat, you wanted to know why we had to go to the lake before breakfast when I'd said dinner."
He let out a soft laugh. "We ended up casting lines without any bait or hooks the whole time-didn't catch a thing-because I couldn't bring myself to lie to you when you asked me if the fish could feel them. You had fun, but…"
Blaine swallowed. "You sold the boat, after," he remembered. He had hazy memories of the day his dad was talking about, mostly because he'd almost fallen over the edge of the boat, trying to see if there were dolphins underneath the surface of the water, but it was clear that he didn't remember the trip nearly as well as his father did.
"That was the last time I went fishing," he confirmed, still stroking Blaine's hair even as Blaine shifted to look at him again. "Every time I thought about it, or someone invited me to go, all I could see was your little face, looking up at me and asking if the fishies could find their mommies and daddies again after we caught them, or if they would get lost. And I didn't want to take you again, because I didn't want to have to see the expression on your face when you figured out what it was really all about."
When he finally turned to look at Blaine, something in Blaine's chest tightened-he'd never seen his dad look so…lost, before.
"Blaine," he said solemnly, his hand stilling in Blaine's hair, "You were always the son that I wanted. I'm sorry that, somewhere along the line, I stopped being the father that you deserved."
Hours later, when they were downstairs waiting for both Blaine's mother and the pizza to arrive, Blaine's father mentioned the phone call.
"I spoke with the Head of Admissions at Dalton Academy while you were at your practice yesterday," he explained. "I would have told you last night, but I knew you had a lot going on with your competition, and I didn't want to distract you."
He looked at Blaine apologetically, and Blaine shook his head dismissively. "It's okay," he promised. "What did she say?"
His dad glanced at the front door. "She called to tell you that a spot opened up at Dalton, and that it's yours, if you want it."
He looked back at Blaine. "They'll hold it for you until the end of next week, so you don't have to decide right away," he reassured Blaine. "If you want, your mother or I could take Monday or Tuesday off of work and drive out to Westerville with you, so that you can take another look at the school before you commit one way or the other."
Blaine shook his head again. "You don't need to do that," he said.
"I want to go to Dalton."
.
Blaine wasn't sure how he managed to get home without crashing his car, but at some point he was stumbling up the stairs, his stomach churning even as the rest of him felt entirely numb. His face in the bathroom mirror was too pale and tear-streaked, and the thought that that's how Kurt must have looked the day before after getting the news about his dad was enough to send him racing to the toilet, dropping painfully to his knees as he retched coffee and stomach acid, leaving a burning in his throat and a bitter taste in his mouth.
Jesse had wanted Kurt the whole time, Blaine realized weakly, slumping back against the bathtub. Kurt hadn't believed it, had said that Blaine was seeing things that weren't there and that the two of them were just friends, but even as Blaine had tried to take his word for it, a part of him had always known the truth-that Jesse didn't care who he had to break in order to get what he wanted. And that Kurt, trusting and tolerant of his faults, would never truly pick Blaine over him.
Except that, Blaine recognized, Jesse had been right about one thing-Kurt hadn't really chosen between the two of them, because Blaine had chosen to temporarily remove himself from the equation.
And if Jesse had his way, that temporary removal might become a permanent one.
Stumbling to the bathroom sink, Blaine opened his medicine cabinet and grabbed his bottle of mouthwash. He didn't want to think about Kurt or Jesse anymore. He didn't want to think about anything, really; he just wanted to go back in time to Monday afternoon and do everything over again, leaving his note under Kurt's pillow this time and avoiding the desk drawer and the envelope that had started it all, the whole chain of events that had lead him to where he was now.
He put the mouthwash back on the bottom shelf, underneath the row of orange and white bottles; all of Blaine's prescriptions and over-the-counter medicines, each one designed to target his various aches and pains.
There was nothing in the cabinet potent enough to turn his brain off and make him feel better.
But he could improvise.
Pouring a glass of water, Blaine shook out three yellow anxiety pills and lined them up on the edge of the sink. Three sleeping pills follows, each one popped out of its separate blister pack. Scooping them up into the palm of his hand, he added two of his little pink antidepressants.
They looked just like candy, mixed together and cheerful against his tan skin. No wonder so many little kids poisoned themselves every year.
He swallowed them all with one gulp before draining the glass of water.
For the second time in a row, Blaine's sleep was dreamless.
The rest of the week was horrible. Somehow, despite the crippling anxiety that had characterized his first couple of months at Carmel, Blaine had managed to make, if not friends, at least friendly acquaintances in all of his classes. It was hard not to dwell on the negative, though, when all of his conversations with those friendly acquaintances began with some variation-always from them-of "You look awful" or "What happened, are you okay?"
Blaine also hadn't realized how much he relied on Kurt to get him through the day. Even though they only had one class together, they usually managed to see each other both before and after school, and at least a few times in the hallway between classes. The sudden gaps in Blaine's schedule felt like fresh wounds, open and raw, and made Blaine feel-not for the first time-how much more Carmel belonged to Kurt than to him.
Rehearsal especially felt like Kurt's domain, even in his absence, and Blaine wasn't surprised how quickly it became the worst part of his day. Particularly after the team was warmed up and ready to perform their Regionals program on Wednesday afternoon, and Shelby's announcement about Kurt's dad brought everything to a screeching halt.
"I spoke to Kurt a little while ago, and while his dad is expected to pull through, his situation is still critical," she explained somberly to the hushed crowd. "Kurt will not be returning to school in time for Regionals this weekend, and he has my full support in this decision."
Her tone left no room for argument, and Blaine quickly saw why it had been necessary-a few of the upperclassmen were barely suppressing their complaints, which were no doubt awful and unwarranted. Blaine felt gratified, at least, that he wasn't the only one angered by their heartlessness: Sasha and Andrew, Vocal Adrenaline's other countertenor, were shooting dirty looks at the worst offenders.
And most of the team agreed with them, Blaine learned through whispered conversations as they slightly adjusted all of their choreography to mask Kurt's absence. The prevailing opinion seemed to be that a death in the family was one thing, tragic but not tragic enough to warrant missing a competition, but that nearly losing your only family, such as in Kurt's case, was another, and merited more understanding and consideration from the team, even if they themselves would have pulled through and competed anyway.
Blaine had no idea how any of them managed to express that sentiment with a straight face. Or whether they'd always been such terrible people and he was just noticing it, or the development was more recent.
Worst of all was Jesse. Somehow, word that Blaine had broken up with Kurt-and was consequently broken up over the situation-had managed to spread, and that, combined with the general knowledge that Jesse was staying with Kurt while his dad was in the hospital, meant that Blaine was the constant recipient of uneasy, sympathetic looks. The looks always came immediately before the sender would turn and ask Jesse a question regarding Kurt or Mr. Hummel, which Jesse would proceed to answer in an overly solemn tone. Even deducing the pattern wasn't enough to keep Blaine from overhearing information such as Kurt continuing to wake up crying in the middle of the night, or Kurt having to be forced to eat at every meal by Jesse, or Kurt worrying about how long it was taking the doctors and nurses to regulate his dad's blood pressure, and each new question and answer session was a fresh source of stabbing pain for Blaine.
Some of his teammates, he knew, had called Kurt or been to see him in their spare time. A bunch of them-mostly sophomores, but a few freshmen and upperclassmen as well-even chipped in to send flowers to the hospital and to Kurt's house. Blaine hadn't been asked to contribute, but he did manage to ask Ben to add his $20 to the collection envelope, banking on the likelihood that the dance captain was the only one polite enough (and seemingly fond enough of both him and Kurt) to do it without asking too many questions.
And indeed, Ben had given him a long look and a little advice ("I don't know what's going on with the two of you right now, but flowers can really only help, can't they?"), but hadn't demanded an explanation or told anyone where the extra money had come from.
As far as calling Kurt or going to visit him himself was concerned…there was always an excuse for delaying it for a few more hours: classes, homework, rehearsals. His parents being home. Jesse being at Kurt's home. Anything that Blaine could latch onto as a semi-legitimate reason, in order to avoid facing the truth:
That he was too much of a coward to face Kurt.
Blaine couldn't be angry at Kurt over the envelope anymore, not in the wake of Mr. Hummel's heart attack, but his trust in Kurt had been badly shaken. He couldn't take it on faith anymore, the way he wanted to believe that he would have, that Jesse had been lying about what had happened between the two of them. If Blaine saw Kurt, or even talked to him over the phone, he'd have to ask; and if Kurt confirmed it, or tried to lie to him…
The mere idea of Jesse and Kurt together was horrible enough that Blaine was barely restraining himself from physically ripping Jesse apart, Regionals or no Regionals. He was afraid to find out what he'd do if that idea turned out to be true.
It was too much to think about. Blaine took to avoiding people and phone calls whenever he could, lest someone try to make him talk about anything more complicated than the weather (cool, cloudy), and was more than a little relieved when his mother confirmed that she'd canceled Thursday's appointment with Dr. Ramirez a few weeks before when he'd asked, showing her the 'Team Bonding' activity on his rehearsal schedule.
He spent Thursday evening bonding with a cup of coffee at the Lima Bean, but nobody had to know that.
The only thing that was having a remotely positive effect on Blaine's spirit, besides visiting his lions on Friday after rehearsal, was his anxiety medication. Even though he and Dr. Ramirez had adjusted his dosage several weeks before, he'd never bothered to throw out the old bottle, and he was finding the leftover pills extremely helpful in getting through his day. Whether they were actually doing anything, or whether merely taking a pill whenever his disquiet threatened to reach crushing levels was enough to trick him into feeling soothed, Blaine was dreading the day that his extra stash ran out.
And then, Regionals.
When Sectionals had come around in the fall, Blaine had woken hours before dawn, unable to sleep.
The morning of Regionals couldn't have been more different: by the time he stumbled down the stairs (freshly showered, but still not entirely awake), Blaine only had half an hour left to eat breakfast and finish getting ready before he had to drive to Carmel and meet the bus.
Also unlike the fall, both of his parents were already up and sitting in the kitchen when Blaine padded into the room; the coffeepot and a platter stacked high with pancakes on the table between them.
Blaine's mother was already perfectly put together and dressed for work, and she smiled at Blaine as he sat down. "I was just about to come wake you up when I heard the water running," she informed him, spearing a few pancakes on the serving fork and dropping them onto his plate. "We wouldn't want you to be late for your big competition."
Blaine didn't have the energy to roll his eyes. "Couldn't have that," he agreed. "One of the seniors might stab me with an eyeliner pencil if I was, and then we'd all be in trouble."
He poured himself a mug of coffee and drank the first sip with a grateful sigh, ignoring the worried glances exchanged between his parents. It was a lot more likely that they were concerned about his sense of humor becoming too morbid for polite company, rather than recognizing that he hadn't actually been joking, but he wasn't awake enough yet to do any damage control.
His mother was blinking at him sadly. "I wish I could come today," she told Blaine for the 53rd time that week. "I really thought that I'd be able to get that meeting moved up, but between teleconferencing with the Japanese branch, and the problems with the English division-"
"It's okay, Mom," Blaine assured her, cutting her off before she could get to the part about the New York office undermining the Midwestern market-he was sure that management conflict was fascinating to some people, but Blaine still had very little idea of what his mother did for a living, exactly.
His father, also clearly hoping to change the subject before she really got going, folded up the newspaper he'd been reading and dropped it on the table. "He'll be fine," he insisted, taking a sip of his coffee. "I'm sure most of his teammates don't have both of their parents coming either, right Blaine?"
Another thing that Blaine had no idea about-the competition was a lot closer to home than the last one had been, since two of the competing teams were relatively local, which might be a factor in how many people actually showed up-but it was obvious which answer his dad was looking for. "I don't think so," he answered dutifully, "I don't remember anyone mentioning that their whole family was coming."
That seemed to mollify Blaine's mother a little, but she was still frowning when she turned to Blaine's dad. "Try to take some pictures, if you can," she ordered. "Unless-Blaine, did you ever get your video camera fixed?"
Blaine shook his head. "Not yet," he told her, watching her face fall slightly before she recovered and excused herself to go find the camera and make sure that the battery was charged.
Blaine's father, on the other hand, looked relieved. He knew his dad had no interest in show choir-Blaine figured that he was only coming because his mom and Grandma were making him, or to reassure himself that Blaine wasn't running around in drag while performing-and being saddled with a video camera the whole time would have made things worse, adding sore arms and no opportunities to sneak out for fresh (meaning: non-glitter-tainted) air every half an hour or so to the ordeal.
Blaine gave it two hours after the competition ended before his dad started asking-nonchalantly, of course-whether Blaine was interested in trying out for any of Carmel's sports teams in the fall. Less if they lost.
He glanced halfheartedly at his partially-eaten stack of pancakes. "I'm going to go get ready," he decided, dropping his fork onto his plate and picking the whole thing up. "I have to leave in a few minutes."
His father looked vaguely surprised at his abrupt departure. "Oh, all right," he answered, watching as Blaine stood up and grabbed his coffee-he'd dump the rest into a travel mug and take it with him. "I guess I-see you there, then. Good luck."
He nodded to Blaine, who nodded back before abandoning his dishes in the sink and leaving the room.
Once Blaine made it to the parking lot at Carmel, the rest of the morning was a blur. The short bus ride was spent doing vocal warm-ups, and the rest of the time before the competition officially began went by in a flurry of dance warm-ups, marking their spots on the unfamiliar stage, making sure that all of their costumes were in place and easily accessible, and other last-minute preparations. Blaine was grateful to forgo the layers of makeup he'd worn to cover up his face in October, but the twenty minutes he'd spent under Kurt's creams and brushes in the fall instead went to helping Ryleigh run her part of Bohemian Rhapsody, since Shelby and Jesse were both too busy.
"Don't tell anyone," she told him darkly when they'd finished, "but you're a lot easier to work with than Jesse St. Jackass. I can't wait until he graduates."
Blaine couldn't help but share the sentiment.
There were only two other teams competing against Vocal Adrenaline for a spot in the Nationals competition that afternoon, and it wasn't until a cheerful-looking blonde (who was an incredible contrast to her teammates, who took one look at his costume and shot evil looks in his direction) waved at him that he remembered that the other local team was the one from McKinley. Which meant that…
Blaine looked around until he spotted Rachel on the other side of the stage, speaking rapidly to her enormously tall teammate. She hadn't noticed him yet, and Blaine wasn't sure if he should try to get her attention. She'd been a little overbearing when they'd met at the dance, but she was still nice, and if the rumors were true and Jesse had broken up with her recently, she could probably use a friendly face. On the other hand, though, Kurt had made a point of stopping him the last time he'd tried to talk to her, and he wasn't entirely clear on what he was supposed to know about her and Shelby, and what was still a secret (from everyone, and from her in particular).
Plus, if he went over to say hello, she was sure to ask him about Kurt.
And talk about him. A lot.
Waving back to the blonde girl (he'd have to ask Sasha what her name was later; all he could remember about her was that she'd freaked him out a little on New Year's Eve), Blaine slipped farther backstage, hiding back in the shadows until the competition began.
Halfway through McKinley's performance, Blaine was skeptically enjoying their set from the wings. The singers were talented-really talented-but there was hardly any dancing in their program, and while Blaine was still fairly new to show choir, even he knew that there was no way Shelby would have let their team go out onstage singing nothing but Journey songs. They looked like they were having fun, though, and the audience was definitely responding to their energy. Their smiles looked genuine, too; like they were blooming spontaneously, rather than having been practiced during warm-ups at every rehearsal.
He wondered what Kurt would have thought, if he had been there.
"Are you looking for your parents in the audience?"
The quiet, silky voice was all too familiar, and Blaine's frown deepened. "No," he told Jesse, keeping his eyes on the stage. "My dad's here somewhere, but my mom had to work."
"Interesting," Jesse replied, sounding particularly insincere. "My parents are on a plane to Phuket right now, but they'll be watching via satellite feed. As long as they don't encounter too much turbulence, anyway."
Blaine…had no idea what to say to that, and sighed as he turned around. "What do you want, Jesse?" he asked tiredly.
Jesse's expression was unreadable. "What do you want?" he asked, turning the question back on Blaine. "You broke up with Kurt almost a week ago, and I know you haven't called or been to see him since Burt got ill-which I thought was a little rude, by the way, but that's your business-but you're still walking around looking like somebody kicked your puppy."
Blaine glared at Jesse, his hands shaking. "You don't want to talk to me about Kurt," he warned sharply, his fingers reflexively curling into fists-maybe Kurt was right, he thought, to talk me out of learning boxing.
Jesse didn't react to the implicit threat. "No, I don't," he confirmed calmly. "I want you to stop it and smile. Your face is too brooding for a matinee audience."
Of all the things Jesse could have come over to say…Blaine shook his head disbelievingly. "That's all you care about," he realized hollowly, blinking slowly at Jesse. "People don't matter at all to you, do they? Not even-"
He stopped himself before he could finish his sentence. "It's all just background noise to you," he said instead. "The only things that mean anything to you are your performances."
Blaine didn't know how he expected Jesse to react to his accusation, but he certainly hadn't expected Jesse to smile, his eyes glittering with mirth. "I hope you recognize," he intoned condescendingly, "that you could have been describing Kurt, just now."
Blaine felt a low, simmering anger begin to build up in his stomach. He narrowed his eyes at Jesse. "Kurt is nothing like you," he spat.
A little too loudly, if the uneasy glances from the few other people watching the performance from backstage were any indication.
"Kurt's a lot like me," Jesse countered easily, looking at Blaine with an expression that was almost…pitying. "He's talented and intelligent and driven and ambitious, and he makes sacrifices to get what he wants. Just like me. And this life, his 'performances'," he continued, stressing the word in the same way that Blaine had, "that's what he wants. Not just until the end of the season, or until after high school, but for the rest of his life."
His face turned skeptical. "Can you keep up with that?" he wanted to know.
The sound of wild applause rang out, signaling the end of McKinley's set. Blaine knew that behind him, Rachel and the blonde and their team were taking their bows, and that any second, the stage manager would be calling for Carmel to take their places for Bohemian Rhapsody.
Knowing that he only had a few seconds to respond, then, Blaine glared at Jesse, leaned in, and voiced the one thing he'd been dying to tell him all week, but hadn't had the courage to say:
"Fuck. You."
The call for Carmel to get ready was issued, and Blaine turned away from Jesse and his stunned, frozen expression to cross to the other side of the stage, where his opening position was.
He couldn't have cared less about the program or how they placed in the competition, but Blaine was sure that his show smile could be seen from space.
As expected, Vocal Adrenaline was crowned the Midwestern Regional Champion for the billionth year in a row. Blaine smiled and hugged and congratulated when required, not wanting to spoil anyone else's excitement just because he wasn't feeling any himself, but as the celebration dragged on, it became more and more clear to Blaine that Jesse, for all his maliciousness, had been right about one thing: Blaine really didn't care all that much about winning.
Or, to be more precise, Blaine didn't care all that much about winning with Vocal Adrenaline. Because the Regionals victory meant that, for the next two and a half months, the team would be doing nothing but prepping for Nationals. Which, in turn, meant extra practices. And longer rehearsals. More demands on their time and ability. Fraught nerves and flaring tempers.
And it wouldn't stop there. Whether or not they won Nationals, there would be summer rehearsals for anyone who was in town (or vacationing within 150 miles). There would be the boot camp for the incoming freshmen that a number of the upperclassmen, which would include Blaine after the school year ended, were expected to help run. Then there were the fall Showcases and Evaluations; Sectionals all over again; Regionals, Nationals, and so on until Blaine either graduated or died of exhaustion and unhappiness.
Blaine loved singing and performing, but it wasn't the only thing that he loved. And it wasn't until Kurt was gone, unable to make the insane way he was living seem more bearable, that he realized how much he didn't love singing and performing for the Vocal Adrenaline Machine anymore-if he ever had. When he'd first come to Carmel, everything Vocal Adrenaline had to offer-music, dance, friends, Kurt-had been new and exciting, and Blaine had latched onto it all in desperation.
But the veneer had since worn off, and as long as Vocal Adrenaline continued to be the best in the country, nothing about the way they operated would ever change or end-Blaine would either have to drink the Kool-Aid and conform, or cut his losses.
Blaine snagged Sarabeth's arm and, after being hugged so hard that he was a little afraid for his ribs, asked her to tell Shelby that he'd be riding home with his dad instead of on the bus with the others.
If it was going to be his last day on the team, he didn't want his final memory of Vocal Adrenaline to be of Jesse gloating on the ride home.
The flaw in Blaine's plan, of course, was that he could have pretended to sleep on the bus ride home, and nobody would have talked to him. By going with his father, however, Blaine was obligated to actually make conversation-in the same way that, by attending Blaine's competition, his dad was obligated to pretend to have enjoyed it.
"That was quite the show," he offered mildly as they pulled out of the parking lot. "Your mother will be disappointed that she didn't get to see you win; you'll have to tell her all about it."
"Sure," Blaine agreed absently. "I'll do that."
There was an awkward pause. "Should we…do you want to stop for ice cream on the way home?" his dad offered. "I know that the Carvel closed last year, but we could go somewhere else, if there's a certain place you like."
Blaine couldn't remember the last time one of his parents had taken him out for ice cream-that was his grandmother's job. "That's all right," he declined. "We can just go home."
His dad obviously wasn't done trying, though, because he nodded, biting his lip nervously the way that Blaine knew he himself had inherited. "That lead singer of yours had one hell of a voice," he mused. "He was the one whose party you went to last fall, after your last competition, right?"
Blaine felt a flash of anger at the mention of Jesse, and fought to stuff it down before his dad noticed. "Yeah, that's him," he said, a little more curtly than was polite.
His father nodded again. "Is he going to have another party tonight, to celebrate?" he wanted to know.
Blaine bit the inside of his cheek, trying not to think about Jesse.
Or his party after Sectionals.
"I don't know," he lied, leaning his head against the cool glass of the window. "If there is, I don't think I'm going to go-I'm really tired, and I just want to go to bed."
His dad seemed to pick up on Blaine's barely-disguised hint, and was quiet for a few minutes. Until-
"I didn't see Kurt there," he mentioned casually, pulling to a stop at a red light. "Is he still on the team, because-"
"Dad," Blaine cut him off sharply, his breaking point reached with the unexpected mention of Kurt. "Please, just…stop, all right? Neither one of us wants to be having this conversation, so could we…just, not? Please?"
The light turned green.
Blaine's father slowly followed an old, dilapidated pickup truck through the intersection, and the rest of the drive was spent in awful silence.
Lying face down on his bed, Blaine barely registered the sound of the phone ringing down the hall. Not that it particularly mattered-the only person Blaine was even vaguely interested in talking to was his Grandma, in order to find out if he had to be a Canadian citizen in order to live with her and go to school in Ontario, or if merely showing up and keeping his head down was enough to help him fly under the legal radar until graduation. And whether or not he'd have to declare lions at the border, even if they promised to be very good and not eat anything endangered.
Blaine pressed his face further into his pillow. Maybe skipping therapy this week was a bad idea.
Lost in this thoughts (and his bedding), Blaine didn't hear the door to his room open. The tap on his shoulder got his attention, however, and when he rolled onto his side and looked up, his dad was hovering over him, a guarded expression on his face.
"That was your mom on the phone just now," he told Blaine, gesturing toward the door. "She says Congratulations, and she wanted to know if there was anything special you wanted for dinner."
Blaine stared at him blankly for a moment, processing, before shaking his head. "No, thank you," he answered meekly. "I'm not feeling very well."
His dad nodded. "That's what I told her," he said knowingly. "I figured that it would be best if she didn't come home expecting to find you in a talkative mood."
Blaine cringed slightly, thinking about the car ride home.
Which his father still hadn't said anything about, he realized suddenly. "Why aren't you yelling at me?" he wanted to know, not sure at all what kind of answer to expect.
His dad looked at him steadily. "I might have, but I'm not exactly sure what to yell at you for," he admitted.
Blaine stared.
His dad sat down on the bed next to him, his back upright and parallel with the headboard. "You're lashing out because you're angry and upset," he continued, looking at the closet door rather than at Blaine. "But it's obvious that a lot of things have been bothering you for a very long time, and I can't really blame you when it's clear to me that I should have said something by now."
Blaine was a little stunned-his father's admission was probably the closest he'd come to talking about anything real with Blaine in ages; probably since he'd come out, almost a year before.
And Blaine almost didn't want to spoil it by interrupting, but he had to know. "Why didn't you?" he asked quietly, toying nervously with the edge of his pillowcase. "Say anything?"
His father sagged a little. "I want to say that it's because I don't know how we got to this point," he confessed, "but that's not entirely fair. But…"
He paused, sighing, before continuing. "Unless you're a father, I don't think you can understand what it's like to have your son come home from school one day and tell you that, because of some quirk of biology, his life is going to be so much harder than what we wanted for him, and that there isn't much we can do to protect him," he explained. "Your mother and I, we're not ashamed that you're gay; we were never disappointed in you. I know your mom was upset about not having any grandchildren, at first, but there are plenty of ways for you to have kids, your own ones, even, and she understands that, now. But Blaine, you have to understand that we never saw it coming. And I don't think you realize what it's like to suddenly learn that there's this…huge aspect of your child's life that he's been hiding from you, and that you were completely ignorant of."
Blaine felt tears burning behind his eyes. "But that wasn't my fault," he managed, voice hoarse as he choked out the words he'd wanted to say for almost a year. "How was I supposed to know how you felt when you wouldn't tell me? All I knew was that as soon as I told you-"
Blaine stopped abruptly, a sob tearing sharply at his throat.
His dad looked down at him helplessly. "I know that, Blaine," he admitted. "I…coming to terms with the fact that I didn't know my only son as well as I thought I did took longer than I'd like to believe, and by the time I…there was this gulf, between us. Your uncertainty and hurt feelings; probably more, I won't presume to know how you felt, and all of my regrets and powerlessness about the whole thing were like this giant elephant in the room, and I had no idea how to go about fixing it."
Blaine closed his eyes, concentrating on keeping his breathing steady so that he didn't end up crying in front of his father, like a little boy.
"And then The Incident happened," he heard his dad say, "and it just reinforced everything that I felt when you first told me that you were gay; that there are people who are never going to understand that who you love is none of their business, and who will hate you and try to hurt you because of it. And to see that-no father wants that for their child, Blaine."
Blaine had known, somehow, what his dad was going to say even before he said it. Because everything came back to the dance, for Blaine: his school, his friends, Kurt, his parents-everything. He'd tried running away from it by changing schools and cutting off ties with his old life; he'd tried facing his fears at the Winter Ball and leaving them in the past, but every time Blaine thought he had finally closed that chapter of his personal history for good, it came back to haunt him, poisoning yet another part of his life.
A stop loss that he couldn't escape.
"I'm sorry," he murmured, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. "I-that I couldn't be the son you wanted. I'm sorry, Dad."
There was an awful pause.
Blaine curled up on his side, facing the window. He bit his lip, hard, waiting for his dad to get up and leave the room so that he could stop fighting back tears and finally let himself lose it.
Slowly, a hand snaked into Blaine's hair, gently stroking his curls in a way that only a few people had ever been allowed to do.
"Do you remember…when you were little, and I took you fishing with me in that tiny little boat that I bought before you were born?" his dad asked quietly. "You were only five, and in retrospect it was obvious that I should have explained what going 'fishing for dinner' actually meant, because when I woke you up and was buckling you into your car seat, you wanted to know why we had to go to the lake before breakfast when I'd said dinner."
He let out a soft laugh. "We ended up casting lines without any bait or hooks the whole time-didn't catch a thing-because I couldn't bring myself to lie to you when you asked me if the fish could feel them. You had fun, but…"
Blaine swallowed. "You sold the boat, after," he remembered. He had hazy memories of the day his dad was talking about, mostly because he'd almost fallen over the edge of the boat, trying to see if there were dolphins underneath the surface of the water, but it was clear that he didn't remember the trip nearly as well as his father did.
"That was the last time I went fishing," he confirmed, still stroking Blaine's hair even as Blaine shifted to look at him again. "Every time I thought about it, or someone invited me to go, all I could see was your little face, looking up at me and asking if the fishies could find their mommies and daddies again after we caught them, or if they would get lost. And I didn't want to take you again, because I didn't want to have to see the expression on your face when you figured out what it was really all about."
When he finally turned to look at Blaine, something in Blaine's chest tightened-he'd never seen his dad look so…lost, before.
"Blaine," he said solemnly, his hand stilling in Blaine's hair, "You were always the son that I wanted. I'm sorry that, somewhere along the line, I stopped being the father that you deserved."
Hours later, when they were downstairs waiting for both Blaine's mother and the pizza to arrive, Blaine's father mentioned the phone call.
"I spoke with the Head of Admissions at Dalton Academy while you were at your practice yesterday," he explained. "I would have told you last night, but I knew you had a lot going on with your competition, and I didn't want to distract you."
He looked at Blaine apologetically, and Blaine shook his head dismissively. "It's okay," he promised. "What did she say?"
His dad glanced at the front door. "She called to tell you that a spot opened up at Dalton, and that it's yours, if you want it."
He looked back at Blaine. "They'll hold it for you until the end of next week, so you don't have to decide right away," he reassured Blaine. "If you want, your mother or I could take Monday or Tuesday off of work and drive out to Westerville with you, so that you can take another look at the school before you commit one way or the other."
Blaine shook his head again. "You don't need to do that," he said.
"I want to go to Dalton."