Chapter 18

 Kurt was frozen; a buzzing rang out in his ears, as if he was going to pass out soon. He held onto the sink and took a deep breath. He could faintly hear Blaine calling someone as he ran after them, but he was so numb that he couldn’t even tell if Blaine was shouting a name or just asking the person to wait. He realized after he had stopped hearing him, that now he didn’t even know if Blaine knew the person that had walked on them or not.

Whoever it had been, his mind was stuck on one single question: were they going to out Blaine? For Blaine to come out on his own terms, was something extremely important to Kurt. He knew he hadn’t been completely comfortable with being in public with Blaine and not being able to be who he was, but that didn’t change how much he wanted Blaine to do this in his own time. As much as he didn’t like hiding, he would for Blaine, he was doing it for him. He was doing it because, when Blaine came out, he wanted him to do it for himself, not for Kurt, not for anyone else, but because he was ready. Because he was prepared to deal with the consequences and had accepted what may come in order to get to be himself. To get that taken away from him, to be forced to deal with it without having made his own decision, scared him, in thinking how much it could affect Blaine.

Kurt managed to compose himself enough to decide he should leave the bathroom. He made it to the large room where the party was being held and he looked around. He could tell by how normal everyone was acting that Blaine and the person he was chasing hadn’t been there. Was he talking to them somewhere else? Had he chased them out of the building? He couldn’t tell if that was a good sign, but at least it hadn’t been brought to anyone’s attention that something was going on.

From the corner of his eye he spotted Wes; he had just grabbed his phone and answered it, his eyes opened wide. He started to talk rapidly. At first he looked angry, but then he just looked concerned. That’s when Kurt freaked out. He knew it had to be Blaine on the phone with Wes and a thought formed clearly on his mind as if that was the only possible explanation for how they were going to deal and what was about to happen. Blaine was going to break up with him.

He just knew it, in that moment, with the certainty of having been told. It was going to be Blaine’s word against someone else’s and Allyson and Blaine’s whole staff were going to convince him that his best option, if he was to be outed, would be to separate himself from Kurt and say everything was a lie. Kurt couldn’t help but believe that was Blaine’s best chance, to deny everything, say they were just trying to humiliate him. And stay away from Kurt.

Kurt looked around one more time; Wes was gone from his sight. He kept walking around, not sure what he was looking for, but then he saw Allyson, shouting at the phone in her ear frantically. She turned to where Kurt was and he moved fast to hide from her. She was the last person he needed to hear what was to come from. He just couldn’t stand having to confront her. Or even worse, break down in front of her.

He made a quick decision and started to move fast. It took him a couple of minutes but he finally saw Jenny talking to a guy near the open bar. He almost ran to her, put a hand on her arm to make her turn and said “Tell Rach I went home”, as soon as she saw who he was.

Jenny took a look at him and, as he was turning to leave, she grabbed his arm and stopped him. “Are you okay?” She was eyeing him suspiciously and Kurt knew she could see he wasn’t okay at all.

“I’m fine, I just need to go.” He answered quickly, a little too quickly he realised.

She looked around a little, as trying to find an answer, still not letting his arm go, “Where’s Blaine?” she finally asked, true concern in her voice.

He ignored the question and just said “I need to go”, tugging his arm away to break from her grip and walking quickly to the exit.

He could hear Jenny calling his name and, from the corner of his eye, he saw Allyson turn towards him, when she, too, heard Jenny’s shouting. He needed to get out of there.

When he reached the front door, he was actually running. He made it to the street and tried to get a cab. When he finally found one, he heard Allyson shouting, telling him not to go; he acted as if he hadn’t heard her as he entered the cab to leave.

His phone had started to ring: it was Allyson. He turned it off without thinking twice. He wasn’t going to deal with this through Allyson; he just wasn’t going to give her that.

Kurt made it home and changed into a pair of sweatpants, throwing himself on his bed over the covers. He rubbed his watery eyes and told himself not to cry, not to break yet. He tried not to let his mind go to his conviction that he was going to lose Blaine, but his mind was not having it. It was his only thought as he finally fell asleep out of emotional exhaustion.

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When he woke up at dawn he felt tired as if he hadn’t slept at all. He got up without bothering to change, not even daring to look in a mirror or try to moisturize. He decided he was going to take the morning to indulge and feel sorry for himself before he decided he would have to stop avoiding the subject and do something about it.

The moment he opened the door to his living room, he realised that was going to be impossible. There was no way to avoid the subject when the subject was sitting on his couch, looking at him with sad, beautiful hazel eyes.