Circle of Fifths (4a/6)
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 6640
Summary: Five Glimpses into Blaine Anderson's life, plus the first glimpse ever.
Author's Note: I'd like to thank my betas preciousmellow and countess7 for talking me through yet another fic. Their patience is the stuff of wonder.
It’s happening again, except this time it’s real life, not just a nightmare.
Blaine sits in class, the second week of his freshman year of high school and his English teacher calls on him to read. And he can’t.
He can’t anything.
Can’t seem to get any words out whatsoever. It feels like time is standing still. He tries to say, “I can’t,” or “I’m blocked,” or “I stutter,” but nothing’s coming out. No words. He feels his mouth moving, his jaw working, but he can’t even seem to breathe.
His hands clench and unclench of their own accord. He used to roll his eyes uncontrollably when he stuttered. Luckily, his previous speech therapist worked that particular tic out of his secondary characteristics. Which is good, because if it went on too long he got dizzy.
He was supposed to go to each of his teachers and tell them about his stutter. He talked to Paula about it, he talked to his speech therapist about it. That’s what he was supposed to do.
He’s just so shy. He has so much trouble approaching people. A few times over the past week, he would wait for the rest of his classmates to filter out of the classroom, slowly putting his books in his backpack. He would stand up and walk towards the teacher’s desk. They would smile at him and he would make a sharp turn for the door, suddenly unable to remember his prepared speech, unable to get his mouth moving.
But it would have been better than this. Sitting here mute and breathless. This is another lesson he’ll keep. It’s always easier to make a preemptive strike against his speech so that it doesn’t rear its ugly head and leave him wordless in front of a roomful of his peers.
His eyes blink rapidly. He’s waiting for someone to laugh. He’s waiting for his teacher to get impatient.
Instead he hears a voice behind him.
“Ms. Turner?” the voice says, a bit hesitant. “Blaine stutters. I think he’s stuttering.”
It’s Ben’s voice, filling in words where Blaine doesn’t have any.
Blaine cuts the block and breathes a sigh of relief, making eye contact with his teacher. He nods at her, hoping it says “Ben’s right, I stutter, that’s why I can’t talk right now.”
Ben’s always nice to Blaine. When the other guys are being jerks, or when people aren’t listening to him in class, Ben is always at least not mean. He never laughs at Blaine. Last year he sat in front of Blaine in math and sometimes if the teacher was late Ben would talk to him. And sometimes Blaine would even talk back to him.
On the first day of middle school, Ben sat next to him on the bus. Blaine thought he ruined any chance of being Ben’s friend by stuttering that day. But he hadn’t. And they’re still not really friends, but Blaine thinks if he had a friend, he would want him to be like Ben.
“Thanks Ben,” Ms. Turner says as Blaine tunes back into the classroom. “Blaine, can you stop for a second after class and talk to me?”
Blaine stares at his desk and nods again.
He tells himself not to panic. That even if he’s in trouble, it’ll be fine. He’ll have to explain himself to his parents, how he didn’t talk to his teachers about his speech. That’s going to be difficult, because his mom encouraged him to do it. But it’ll be okay.
~~~~~
A moment of Paula
“She w-w-w-was rrrrr-really nice about it,” he tells me. “She said, she said, um, class p-par-par-pah-par-part,” he takes a deep breath, and slows every syllable down, even though he’s told me in the past he hates talking like that because he thinks he sounds like a robot. “Pah-art-ic-ip-ation counts, but she won’t call on mmmmmmmm-me unless she has to. If I, I, I, I, I just raise my hand and answer questions when I can, she’ll count that.”
He smiles. I can tell how relieved he is.
“That’s great, Blaine. Did anything else happen today?”
“Well, after that, in gym class, um, the, the, the, um, the coach asked if I mm-mm-might want to join the cross country team.”
“And do you?”
He nods.
He’s quiet and swallows several times. “I talked to B-B-Bah-Ben today. Well, he talked to me … first, but, but, but, but I talked b-b-b-back.”
I smile encouragingly. He’s practically triumphant with the idea that he talked to someone.
“I wish I-I-I-I had thanked him fuh-fuh-f-for helping me in English class.”
“You still could.”
“I, I, I, I,” Blaine starts. “Um, yeah.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Uh, well, um, he’s on the cross country t-t-t-team. And he s-s-aid I should join too.”
His eyes travel around the room. He’s very relaxed today. Some days he comes in here wound so tightly, coiled like a spring, unable to get much of anything out of his mouth until he calms down. But today, he’s leaned back in his chair, stuttering of course, but not blocking heavily. He talks animatedly, gesturing with his hands, smiling.
He’s happy.
I’m not sure what’s making him happiest. Ben speaking up for him in class, the idea of joining the cross country team, or something else entirely.
“We have 10 minutes left Blaine, do you have anything else?”
Sometimes if I give him a gentle reminder, I find that he has some topic saved up for the end, and today is one of those days.
“If I-I-I-I join cross country, I have t-t-t-to quit ssssss-peech,” he blurts out.
I don’t immediately see the correlation.
“Cross country is, is, is everyday after ssss-school, and sometimes there are even Saturday mmmmm-meets. It dah-dah-doesn’t leave much time.”
Now he’s grinning delightedly.
I know he really wants to quit speech, but hasn’t had a reason too. We’ve discussed it, how nervous he is to talk to his parents about it. That he’d rather continue going until he finds an outside reason to stop.
“Are you ready to talk to your mom and dad about it?”
“I-I-I th-th-think so. I think it’s a, a, a, a good enough r-r-r-reason, right?”
“I think the fact that you don’t want to go to speech anymore is a good enough reason on its own. You’re a mature kid, I think if you took your time and explained yourself to your parents, they would listen to you.”
He lowers his eyes and nods.
“I know it’ll be hard for you, but try not be too nervous Blaine, it’ll be okay. Just take your time and explain yourself.”
He looks at me and smiles, his cheek twitches and he glances away.
“You can do it.”
I almost think he believes me.
~~~~~
Blaine waits for a quiet moment at dinner.
“So,” he starts, making both his parents look at him. His eyes drift to his plate before continuing. “I, I, I, I-I-I, um, I’m going to join the cross country t-t-t-team.”
“That’s a great idea, Blaine,” his mom says, smiling.
His dad just nods.
Blaine clears his throat. That was the easy part, now it’s time for the hard part.
He clears his throat again.
And again.
“Blaine?” His mom’s voice is concerned.
One more throat clearing.
“I w-w-w-w-want to quit s-s-s-s-spa-spa-pa-eech.”
“Oh, but Blaine, you’re sounding so good these days!” his mom exclaims.
He bites his tongue to keep from yelling out “bull shit!” or some other expletive that doesn’t start with a b. But of course he doesn’t. He just wants to get through this.
“Um, cross country p-p-p-practices everyday. There are mmmmm-meets on Saturdays, s-s-s-s-s-sssss-sometimes. So, I-I-I-I-I-I w-w-won’t have time.”
“I don’t know,” his mom says, glancing at his dad.
His dad shrugs. Blaine wonders why his mom even bothers. It’s so obvious that his dad doesn’t give a damn about Blaine, or his speech, or if he’s going to run cross country. He could run cross country on the moon, and he doesn’t think his dad would notice. He notices him when he does something wrong, but never when Blaine wants him to, or needs him to.
“What brought this on?” his mom asks. “You never wanted to join a team before.”
Blaine wipes his hands on his pants, wishing his palms didn’t sweat. He takes his time, wanting to present his thoughts as succinctly as possible. During gym today they were running the mile and Blaine ran it in 6 and a half minutes and his gym teacher was really impressed. And while his gym teacher was talking to him about joining the cross country team, another guy from the team came up to them and said he really thought Blaine should join.
Ben said. Ben said he should join.
Sometimes Blaine thinks that maybe he likes Ben. Like as not just a friend. He’s not sure if he’s gay though, because he likes girls too. Like Emily, his lab partner from middle school, says hi to him in the halls sometimes, and he gets nervous and he blushes. He thinks she’s cute. Just as cute as Ben.
Blaine shakes his head to clear these thoughts. His parents don’t need to hear all of that.
“The, the, um, I mean, mmmmm-my gym teacher is one of the cross country coaches and, and, and today we r-r-r-r-r-ran the mmmmmm-mmmmmm-mile in gym.” He pauses and looks at his mom, hoping she’ll put the rest of it together and put him out of his misery.
Instead she looks at him expectantly.
“He said, he said, he s-s-s-said that I-I-I-I-I-I-I did a good job, and that they’re ssssss-till looking for guys f-f-f-f-f-for the t-t-t-t-team.”
And Ben’s on the team, he adds silently.
“Michelle,” his dad says. Blaine had forgotten that he might even be listening. “It’s his decision. Let him quit.”
Blaine breathes a sigh of relief. If he’s honest with himself, as soon as he realized that running cross country wouldn’t leave him enough time for speech therapy, he was ready to sign up. He hates speech therapy. He hates how it makes him feel like a specimen. He hates the journals, and the videos, and trying to “hit your targets” and “find your fluency.” He’d rather be quiet for the rest of his life than go to speech therapy. He’s come to terms with the fact that he’ll never “find his fluency.” And who is he talking to anyway? He never talks. He doesn’t need to talk.
“Fine,” his mom says, dropping her fork onto her plate. “But you’re going tomorrow and you’re telling Doris yourself that you’re quitting.”
Blaine knows he can handle that. It won’t be fun, but if it means the end of practice sets and an hour a week making a fool of himself and never improving, then he’ll take it.
“But I think you should still go to Paula,” his mom adds.
Blaine nods. He’s fine with that.
~~~~~
The next day Blaine is at his locker first thing in the morning and he doesn’t even notice Ben approaching.
“Hey!” Ben greets him enthusiastically.
Blaine looks over and waves, trying to be casual even though his mouth is a tight line and his eyes won’t stop blinking.
“Are you gonna join cross country?”
Blaine nods.
And Ben claps him on the back. “Awesome.”
Blaine gestures down the hall, he needs to get to class, and Ben falls into step next to him.
“I know we’re just freshmen, but I figure … “ Blaine stops listening to the words pretty quickly, and instead focuses on Ben’s mouth. How it just works. Blaine’s not sure he’ll ever understand how some people can talk but he can’t. No matter how hard he tries, the words that are in his brain don’t want to come out his mouth. So instead he observes other people’s mouths. Like right now, Ben’s mouth is just moving a mile a minute. Blaine looks at how the words come out of Ben’s mouth and he smiles and says things and laughs. And Ben has nice lips.
Blaine nods along when it seems like Ben is waiting for him to react, and blushes when Ben makes eye contact. He turns his eyes to the ground a few steps ahead of them, not wanting anyone to notice how intently he was just looking at Ben, particularly Ben.
Blaine knows there’s nothing wrong with being gay. He knows it. He’s just not actually sure that he is gay. And even if he is, it wouldn’t really make a difference in his life. No one is ever going to like him, not like that. No one is ever going to want to date him. He doesn’t even know how to have friends, how would he have a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend? Girls are even scarier than boys. They make him even more nervous.
Maybe that’s why it seems like he likes Ben. Because it’s hard enough talking to guys. Talking to girls is like impossible. Talking is impossible. It doesn’t matter what he is, who he likes, if he can’t talk to people.
For now, he’s just not sure.
He’ll figure it out, if it ever needs figuring out. If dating someone ever turns out to be an option. He can’t really imagine that situation.
But for now, what he knows is that he likes Ben.
When they get to Blaine’s class, Blaine points to the door.
“I’ll see you at lunch. You should come sit with us,” Ben offers.
Blaine blushes and smiles. His heart pounds. “Thank you f-f-f-fuh-for helping mmmmm-me yesterday in English,” Blaine splits out, much to his own chagrin. That’s not what he meant to say.
“Oh, no big deal. I could tell Ms. Turner didn’t know what was going on. Figured you were … having trouble,” Ben shrugs. Like it was nothing, like Blaine wasn’t having a horribly mortifying moment in a long string of mortifying moments for the past 15 years of his life.
Blaine breathes out a nervous sigh and waves goodbye to Ben, turning into his next class.
No one ever asked him to sit at lunch with them. In elementary school they sat by class, and in middle school there were tables arranged alphabetically by your last name. But in high school, you can eat anywhere in the building. Blaine’s been eating alone in a stairwell that no one ever goes into. Sometimes it smells like cigarettes, but no one’s ever in it when he is.
He takes his seat in his class and stares at his desk. He won’t let himself get too excited. He can’t get ahead of himself. Just because Ben is being nice doesn’t mean other people will be. Just because he can sit by the cross country team at lunch doesn’t mean they’re going to be his friends. Not really.
When Blaine walks into the cafeteria at lunchtime, Ben sees him immediately and waves him over. Blaine takes a deep breath and walks towards the table.
He doesn’t know all the guys at it, but they look up when he approaches. Ben introduces him, saying that Blaine is going to join cross country, and they nod and smile and greet him with various shades of interest. Blaine takes a seat, and pulls his sandwich out of his lunch bag, keeping his eyes on the table. (He can’t buy lunch in the cafeteria. Ordering with all those people around is nearly impossible for him.)
He darts a glance at the other guys, and they’re all back to talking and eating, no one paying any attention to Blaine.
He takes a nibble of his sandwich.
Someone makes a joke, a nice joke, not a mean joke or a joke at someone else’s expense, and everyone laughs, including Blaine. And he takes a bigger bite of his sandwich.
“What’s your average mile time like, Blaine?” one of the guys asks him.
He can do this.
“Um, about, um, ss-ss-six and a half.”
~~~~~
A moment of Blaine’s mom
“How was school today?” I ask as he comes into the kitchen.
He eyes me warily. He always seems to think I have some kind of nefarious plot against him. Like if he tells me the wrong thing, I’m going to laugh at him or stab him with my grapefruit spoon.
I’m not sure when our relationship became so dysfunctional. I know part of it has to be just him being a teenager. It can’t be all my fault. It just seems as though the harder I try the more he pulls away. So I work on not trying so hard. And while he doesn’t pull away, I’m certainly not improving our relationship in any way.
I wonder what kind of person he would be if he didn’t stutter. He’s very funny, when he lets himself be, when he’s not too embarrassed to say what he’s thinking. And he’s so smart it almost hurts. But I wonder what he would be like without his limitations. Without the barriers that he’s set up around himself.
When he still doesn’t answer, I get a little worried. Usually he’ll tell me something.
“Are you okay, bud?” I ask.
He licks his lips, nodding, and then smiles briefly. “Yeah. I um, I, I, I w-w-was, well, I mean, I,” he huffs out a frustrated breath, crossing his arms and turning away from me a bit. He’s so embarrassed all the time. Everything embarrasses him.
He rubs at his neck. “One of, of the, um, guys on the cross country team invited mmmm-me t-t-t-ta-ta-to eat lunch with them today.”
My heart skips a little at the prospect. Blaine doesn’t have friends. Blaine doesn’t talk about the other kids at school.
I smile what I can only hope is my kindest, warmest, most patient smile, begging that he’ll tell me more. That maybe he’ll talk to me for a few minutes. “Did you say yes?” I ask. Realizing that just because he was invited doesn’t necessarily mean he joined them.
He nods.
“That’s great, Blaine.” I try to reel in my enthusiasm a little. Please sit down, Blaine, please tell me more, please keep talking.
But the moment is over, I can see it in his eyes. The walls all came back up.
“I’m gonna p-p-p-p-put my stuff away and, and, and then … ssssss-peech.”
“Yup. I’ll meet you back down here in a few.”
Next
Word Count: 6640
Summary: Five Glimpses into Blaine Anderson's life, plus the first glimpse ever.
Author's Note: I'd like to thank my betas preciousmellow and countess7 for talking me through yet another fic. Their patience is the stuff of wonder.
It’s happening again, except this time it’s real life, not just a nightmare.
Blaine sits in class, the second week of his freshman year of high school and his English teacher calls on him to read. And he can’t.
He can’t anything.
Can’t seem to get any words out whatsoever. It feels like time is standing still. He tries to say, “I can’t,” or “I’m blocked,” or “I stutter,” but nothing’s coming out. No words. He feels his mouth moving, his jaw working, but he can’t even seem to breathe.
His hands clench and unclench of their own accord. He used to roll his eyes uncontrollably when he stuttered. Luckily, his previous speech therapist worked that particular tic out of his secondary characteristics. Which is good, because if it went on too long he got dizzy.
He was supposed to go to each of his teachers and tell them about his stutter. He talked to Paula about it, he talked to his speech therapist about it. That’s what he was supposed to do.
He’s just so shy. He has so much trouble approaching people. A few times over the past week, he would wait for the rest of his classmates to filter out of the classroom, slowly putting his books in his backpack. He would stand up and walk towards the teacher’s desk. They would smile at him and he would make a sharp turn for the door, suddenly unable to remember his prepared speech, unable to get his mouth moving.
But it would have been better than this. Sitting here mute and breathless. This is another lesson he’ll keep. It’s always easier to make a preemptive strike against his speech so that it doesn’t rear its ugly head and leave him wordless in front of a roomful of his peers.
His eyes blink rapidly. He’s waiting for someone to laugh. He’s waiting for his teacher to get impatient.
Instead he hears a voice behind him.
“Ms. Turner?” the voice says, a bit hesitant. “Blaine stutters. I think he’s stuttering.”
It’s Ben’s voice, filling in words where Blaine doesn’t have any.
Blaine cuts the block and breathes a sigh of relief, making eye contact with his teacher. He nods at her, hoping it says “Ben’s right, I stutter, that’s why I can’t talk right now.”
Ben’s always nice to Blaine. When the other guys are being jerks, or when people aren’t listening to him in class, Ben is always at least not mean. He never laughs at Blaine. Last year he sat in front of Blaine in math and sometimes if the teacher was late Ben would talk to him. And sometimes Blaine would even talk back to him.
On the first day of middle school, Ben sat next to him on the bus. Blaine thought he ruined any chance of being Ben’s friend by stuttering that day. But he hadn’t. And they’re still not really friends, but Blaine thinks if he had a friend, he would want him to be like Ben.
“Thanks Ben,” Ms. Turner says as Blaine tunes back into the classroom. “Blaine, can you stop for a second after class and talk to me?”
Blaine stares at his desk and nods again.
He tells himself not to panic. That even if he’s in trouble, it’ll be fine. He’ll have to explain himself to his parents, how he didn’t talk to his teachers about his speech. That’s going to be difficult, because his mom encouraged him to do it. But it’ll be okay.
~~~~~
A moment of Paula
“She w-w-w-was rrrrr-really nice about it,” he tells me. “She said, she said, um, class p-par-par-pah-par-part,” he takes a deep breath, and slows every syllable down, even though he’s told me in the past he hates talking like that because he thinks he sounds like a robot. “Pah-art-ic-ip-ation counts, but she won’t call on mmmmmmmm-me unless she has to. If I, I, I, I, I just raise my hand and answer questions when I can, she’ll count that.”
He smiles. I can tell how relieved he is.
“That’s great, Blaine. Did anything else happen today?”
“Well, after that, in gym class, um, the, the, the, um, the coach asked if I mm-mm-might want to join the cross country team.”
“And do you?”
He nods.
He’s quiet and swallows several times. “I talked to B-B-Bah-Ben today. Well, he talked to me … first, but, but, but, but I talked b-b-b-back.”
I smile encouragingly. He’s practically triumphant with the idea that he talked to someone.
“I wish I-I-I-I had thanked him fuh-fuh-f-for helping me in English class.”
“You still could.”
“I, I, I, I,” Blaine starts. “Um, yeah.”
“What did you talk about?”
“Uh, well, um, he’s on the cross country t-t-t-team. And he s-s-aid I should join too.”
His eyes travel around the room. He’s very relaxed today. Some days he comes in here wound so tightly, coiled like a spring, unable to get much of anything out of his mouth until he calms down. But today, he’s leaned back in his chair, stuttering of course, but not blocking heavily. He talks animatedly, gesturing with his hands, smiling.
He’s happy.
I’m not sure what’s making him happiest. Ben speaking up for him in class, the idea of joining the cross country team, or something else entirely.
“We have 10 minutes left Blaine, do you have anything else?”
Sometimes if I give him a gentle reminder, I find that he has some topic saved up for the end, and today is one of those days.
“If I-I-I-I join cross country, I have t-t-t-to quit ssssss-peech,” he blurts out.
I don’t immediately see the correlation.
“Cross country is, is, is everyday after ssss-school, and sometimes there are even Saturday mmmmm-meets. It dah-dah-doesn’t leave much time.”
Now he’s grinning delightedly.
I know he really wants to quit speech, but hasn’t had a reason too. We’ve discussed it, how nervous he is to talk to his parents about it. That he’d rather continue going until he finds an outside reason to stop.
“Are you ready to talk to your mom and dad about it?”
“I-I-I th-th-think so. I think it’s a, a, a, a good enough r-r-r-reason, right?”
“I think the fact that you don’t want to go to speech anymore is a good enough reason on its own. You’re a mature kid, I think if you took your time and explained yourself to your parents, they would listen to you.”
He lowers his eyes and nods.
“I know it’ll be hard for you, but try not be too nervous Blaine, it’ll be okay. Just take your time and explain yourself.”
He looks at me and smiles, his cheek twitches and he glances away.
“You can do it.”
I almost think he believes me.
~~~~~
Blaine waits for a quiet moment at dinner.
“So,” he starts, making both his parents look at him. His eyes drift to his plate before continuing. “I, I, I, I-I-I, um, I’m going to join the cross country t-t-t-team.”
“That’s a great idea, Blaine,” his mom says, smiling.
His dad just nods.
Blaine clears his throat. That was the easy part, now it’s time for the hard part.
He clears his throat again.
And again.
“Blaine?” His mom’s voice is concerned.
One more throat clearing.
“I w-w-w-w-want to quit s-s-s-s-spa-spa-pa-eech.”
“Oh, but Blaine, you’re sounding so good these days!” his mom exclaims.
He bites his tongue to keep from yelling out “bull shit!” or some other expletive that doesn’t start with a b. But of course he doesn’t. He just wants to get through this.
“Um, cross country p-p-p-practices everyday. There are mmmmm-meets on Saturdays, s-s-s-s-s-sssss-sometimes. So, I-I-I-I-I-I w-w-won’t have time.”
“I don’t know,” his mom says, glancing at his dad.
His dad shrugs. Blaine wonders why his mom even bothers. It’s so obvious that his dad doesn’t give a damn about Blaine, or his speech, or if he’s going to run cross country. He could run cross country on the moon, and he doesn’t think his dad would notice. He notices him when he does something wrong, but never when Blaine wants him to, or needs him to.
“What brought this on?” his mom asks. “You never wanted to join a team before.”
Blaine wipes his hands on his pants, wishing his palms didn’t sweat. He takes his time, wanting to present his thoughts as succinctly as possible. During gym today they were running the mile and Blaine ran it in 6 and a half minutes and his gym teacher was really impressed. And while his gym teacher was talking to him about joining the cross country team, another guy from the team came up to them and said he really thought Blaine should join.
Ben said. Ben said he should join.
Sometimes Blaine thinks that maybe he likes Ben. Like as not just a friend. He’s not sure if he’s gay though, because he likes girls too. Like Emily, his lab partner from middle school, says hi to him in the halls sometimes, and he gets nervous and he blushes. He thinks she’s cute. Just as cute as Ben.
Blaine shakes his head to clear these thoughts. His parents don’t need to hear all of that.
“The, the, um, I mean, mmmmm-my gym teacher is one of the cross country coaches and, and, and today we r-r-r-r-r-ran the mmmmmm-mmmmmm-mile in gym.” He pauses and looks at his mom, hoping she’ll put the rest of it together and put him out of his misery.
Instead she looks at him expectantly.
“He said, he said, he s-s-s-said that I-I-I-I-I-I-I did a good job, and that they’re ssssss-till looking for guys f-f-f-f-f-for the t-t-t-t-team.”
And Ben’s on the team, he adds silently.
“Michelle,” his dad says. Blaine had forgotten that he might even be listening. “It’s his decision. Let him quit.”
Blaine breathes a sigh of relief. If he’s honest with himself, as soon as he realized that running cross country wouldn’t leave him enough time for speech therapy, he was ready to sign up. He hates speech therapy. He hates how it makes him feel like a specimen. He hates the journals, and the videos, and trying to “hit your targets” and “find your fluency.” He’d rather be quiet for the rest of his life than go to speech therapy. He’s come to terms with the fact that he’ll never “find his fluency.” And who is he talking to anyway? He never talks. He doesn’t need to talk.
“Fine,” his mom says, dropping her fork onto her plate. “But you’re going tomorrow and you’re telling Doris yourself that you’re quitting.”
Blaine knows he can handle that. It won’t be fun, but if it means the end of practice sets and an hour a week making a fool of himself and never improving, then he’ll take it.
“But I think you should still go to Paula,” his mom adds.
Blaine nods. He’s fine with that.
~~~~~
The next day Blaine is at his locker first thing in the morning and he doesn’t even notice Ben approaching.
“Hey!” Ben greets him enthusiastically.
Blaine looks over and waves, trying to be casual even though his mouth is a tight line and his eyes won’t stop blinking.
“Are you gonna join cross country?”
Blaine nods.
And Ben claps him on the back. “Awesome.”
Blaine gestures down the hall, he needs to get to class, and Ben falls into step next to him.
“I know we’re just freshmen, but I figure … “ Blaine stops listening to the words pretty quickly, and instead focuses on Ben’s mouth. How it just works. Blaine’s not sure he’ll ever understand how some people can talk but he can’t. No matter how hard he tries, the words that are in his brain don’t want to come out his mouth. So instead he observes other people’s mouths. Like right now, Ben’s mouth is just moving a mile a minute. Blaine looks at how the words come out of Ben’s mouth and he smiles and says things and laughs. And Ben has nice lips.
Blaine nods along when it seems like Ben is waiting for him to react, and blushes when Ben makes eye contact. He turns his eyes to the ground a few steps ahead of them, not wanting anyone to notice how intently he was just looking at Ben, particularly Ben.
Blaine knows there’s nothing wrong with being gay. He knows it. He’s just not actually sure that he is gay. And even if he is, it wouldn’t really make a difference in his life. No one is ever going to like him, not like that. No one is ever going to want to date him. He doesn’t even know how to have friends, how would he have a boyfriend? Or a girlfriend? Girls are even scarier than boys. They make him even more nervous.
Maybe that’s why it seems like he likes Ben. Because it’s hard enough talking to guys. Talking to girls is like impossible. Talking is impossible. It doesn’t matter what he is, who he likes, if he can’t talk to people.
For now, he’s just not sure.
He’ll figure it out, if it ever needs figuring out. If dating someone ever turns out to be an option. He can’t really imagine that situation.
But for now, what he knows is that he likes Ben.
When they get to Blaine’s class, Blaine points to the door.
“I’ll see you at lunch. You should come sit with us,” Ben offers.
Blaine blushes and smiles. His heart pounds. “Thank you f-f-f-fuh-for helping mmmmm-me yesterday in English,” Blaine splits out, much to his own chagrin. That’s not what he meant to say.
“Oh, no big deal. I could tell Ms. Turner didn’t know what was going on. Figured you were … having trouble,” Ben shrugs. Like it was nothing, like Blaine wasn’t having a horribly mortifying moment in a long string of mortifying moments for the past 15 years of his life.
Blaine breathes out a nervous sigh and waves goodbye to Ben, turning into his next class.
No one ever asked him to sit at lunch with them. In elementary school they sat by class, and in middle school there were tables arranged alphabetically by your last name. But in high school, you can eat anywhere in the building. Blaine’s been eating alone in a stairwell that no one ever goes into. Sometimes it smells like cigarettes, but no one’s ever in it when he is.
He takes his seat in his class and stares at his desk. He won’t let himself get too excited. He can’t get ahead of himself. Just because Ben is being nice doesn’t mean other people will be. Just because he can sit by the cross country team at lunch doesn’t mean they’re going to be his friends. Not really.
When Blaine walks into the cafeteria at lunchtime, Ben sees him immediately and waves him over. Blaine takes a deep breath and walks towards the table.
He doesn’t know all the guys at it, but they look up when he approaches. Ben introduces him, saying that Blaine is going to join cross country, and they nod and smile and greet him with various shades of interest. Blaine takes a seat, and pulls his sandwich out of his lunch bag, keeping his eyes on the table. (He can’t buy lunch in the cafeteria. Ordering with all those people around is nearly impossible for him.)
He darts a glance at the other guys, and they’re all back to talking and eating, no one paying any attention to Blaine.
He takes a nibble of his sandwich.
Someone makes a joke, a nice joke, not a mean joke or a joke at someone else’s expense, and everyone laughs, including Blaine. And he takes a bigger bite of his sandwich.
“What’s your average mile time like, Blaine?” one of the guys asks him.
He can do this.
“Um, about, um, ss-ss-six and a half.”
~~~~~
A moment of Blaine’s mom
“How was school today?” I ask as he comes into the kitchen.
He eyes me warily. He always seems to think I have some kind of nefarious plot against him. Like if he tells me the wrong thing, I’m going to laugh at him or stab him with my grapefruit spoon.
I’m not sure when our relationship became so dysfunctional. I know part of it has to be just him being a teenager. It can’t be all my fault. It just seems as though the harder I try the more he pulls away. So I work on not trying so hard. And while he doesn’t pull away, I’m certainly not improving our relationship in any way.
I wonder what kind of person he would be if he didn’t stutter. He’s very funny, when he lets himself be, when he’s not too embarrassed to say what he’s thinking. And he’s so smart it almost hurts. But I wonder what he would be like without his limitations. Without the barriers that he’s set up around himself.
When he still doesn’t answer, I get a little worried. Usually he’ll tell me something.
“Are you okay, bud?” I ask.
He licks his lips, nodding, and then smiles briefly. “Yeah. I um, I, I, I w-w-was, well, I mean, I,” he huffs out a frustrated breath, crossing his arms and turning away from me a bit. He’s so embarrassed all the time. Everything embarrasses him.
He rubs at his neck. “One of, of the, um, guys on the cross country team invited mmmm-me t-t-t-ta-ta-to eat lunch with them today.”
My heart skips a little at the prospect. Blaine doesn’t have friends. Blaine doesn’t talk about the other kids at school.
I smile what I can only hope is my kindest, warmest, most patient smile, begging that he’ll tell me more. That maybe he’ll talk to me for a few minutes. “Did you say yes?” I ask. Realizing that just because he was invited doesn’t necessarily mean he joined them.
He nods.
“That’s great, Blaine.” I try to reel in my enthusiasm a little. Please sit down, Blaine, please tell me more, please keep talking.
But the moment is over, I can see it in his eyes. The walls all came back up.
“I’m gonna p-p-p-p-put my stuff away and, and, and then … ssssss-peech.”
“Yup. I’ll meet you back down here in a few.”
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