Blaine walks through the hallway, heading for first period glee. He stops at his locker and shrugs off the majority of his books, knowing he won't need them until after lunch. He ignores the noise surrounding him, focusing instead on the various pictures of him and Kurt pasted in his locker. There's one of them at Kurt's junior prom, with Kurt wearing a crown and holding a scepter, smiling hugely, as Blaine wraps his arm around the other boy's waist, gazing at him with a light smile that only Kurt could induce. Then there's the one from Kurt's senior prom, where they both sit on a dinosaur. Kurt laughs crazily from his vantage point beyond Blaine's wild frizzy 'fro, grasping one of his hands tightly as Blaine rests his other hand on Kurt's thigh. Both pictures of casual intimacy, both snapshots of perfect moments cemented in Blaine's mind. Both occurrences that will never be repeated.

Time, Blaine realizes, does not heal all wounds. It simply dulls the pain of festering hurts, infecting the injured with a cold numbness. Numbness. Yes, that was a good word for Blaine. He moves through his days without feeling, lest the intense agony of his situation with Kurt breach his consciousness. He no longer sang in glee club, no longer raised his hand to participate in class. His movements were completely automatic, almost bordering on robotic, and he wore a constant expression of dull pain. Such a change in a boy who used to be lively and happy. He was certain that if anyone from his past saw him now, they wouldn't recognize him. Even Kurt wouldn't know who he was now. Of course, Blaine himself wasn't sure who he was. Pre-cheating Blaine, the good, nice, caring boyfriend Blaine-He would never have done what modern day Blaine had. Of course, he did. So who was this Blaine? Who was this empty husk of a person wandering through the halls of Mckinley high school with a blank expression on his face and sadness in his eyes. He didn't know.

Tina Cohen-Chang had never been very close friends with Blaine. She resented him more than a bit for showing up Junior year and shoving her even father into the sidelines with his damn talent. Now, she downright despised him for hurting Kurt. Her friend Kurt, who had shared in the unfairness that was the shadows and yet still managed to make it out of this stupid town and try to live his dreams. Kurt, who had been nothing but the perfect boyfriend to Blaine whenever she saw the two. Kurt didn't deserve him. And now, after Blaine had committed his own treachery, he still walked down the halls like a kicked puppy. As if he had the right to be upset, when he had caused the break-up himself, with his own idiotic actions.

"And he was so cute last year, too." Tina turned with a start as Sugar responded, suddenly realizing that she'd voiced her thoughts aloud. "Oh! Look, there he is now." Indeed, Blaine himself was walking down the hallway towards the two girls, wearing the same expression he'd had since the break-up.

An idea lighted in Tina's mind and she gave a brief, slightly malicious smile. "Sugar, did you know what I heard from Rachel?"

"Hm?" Sugar looked at her asian friend, an expression of confusion crossing her features.

"Well, she mentioned that Kurt-" at the mention of his ex's name, Blaine stopped in the middle of the hallway, ears pricking up almost comically. Tina pretended not to notice. "Yes, Kurt went on a date last night with some guy from Rachel's classes. She said he came home late." Putting extra emphasis on the last word, Tina winked at Sugar, implication heavy in the air.

Sugar laughed, giving her friend a knowing smile. "I'll bet he was. Kurt's in New York now, city of the gays. People are going to start noticing how hot he is, and he's going to be getting a lot more attention."

"Of course he is," Tina responded with a slight laugh of her own "Just because the resident gays in Ohio couldn't appriciate him-" she threw Blaine a dirty look, "Doesn't mean the New Yorkers won't." And with that, both girls laughed once more, linked arms, and walked off to class, leaving Blaine alone among the rush of other students, still standing in the middle of the hallway with his books clutched to his chest, but with an entirely new expression on his face.

For Blaine, the day passes in a daze. One moment, he's sitting down in the corner of the choir room for glee, and the next, he's headed for lunch. Before he know's it, Chemistry is over and he's dismissed for the day. He's walking to his locker when the thought finally hits him. He and Kurt aren't together anymore. They're broken up. Kurt's going to be seeing new people now, and Blaine won't be able to do anything about it. Sugar was right. Just because the men in Ohio didn't realize how attractive Kurt was, sure as hell didn't mean that the New Yorkers wouldn't. Obviously, at least one of them had. Blaine wondered if Kurt had kissed him. Wondered if he'd gone any farther than kissing even. Wondered if- No. That wasn't something Blaine was capable of imagining. That part of Kurt was his, and that part of him was Kurt's. Sex was something they'd only given each other, the concept of someone else becoming that... Intimate, with his Kurt, was a completely foreign concept. Of course, Kurt probably still thought that Blaine had slept with Eli. Which he most certainly hadn't. God. Kurt was over him. He was nothing-absolutely nothing to the man he'd loved for two years. Everything they'd shared, all the memories they'd collected-gone now. God. He needed to box.

The workout gym at Mckinley had become something of a refuge for Blaine. His own sheltered haven, where no one he knew ever frequented, and there were no looks of judgement or whispers of disgust. He strode through the locker room, shedding his shirt and changing into an old tank top that he used specifically for this purpose. He grabbed his gloves, and made to enter the room, when he heard voices.

"Bet you can't beat sixty." Jake. He was talking to Ryder as they both gazed at a bench press that Jake had just vacated, obviously challenging each other on the various workout machines.

"Five bucks says I can." Ryder grinned at his new friend before dropping to the press, lifting his arms to the bar and preparing to lift it from the rack. Blaine turned on his heel and walked back into the locker room.

No boxing then. Alright. Blaine bit his lower lip, worrying it between his lips as he exited the locker room, once again walking through the halls of Mckinley. Although this time, they were empty. Or maybe not so empty.

"Blaine!" Upon hearing his name being called, Blaine turned abruptly to face the speaker. Marley. "Hey," she says, slightly out of breath from running to catch up with the boy. "Are you alright?"

It's all Blaine can do to not stare incredulously at her. Did he look okay? Was she seriously that out of the loop? Obviously so. "Fine," he responds, slightly gruffly, making as if to bypass her and continue walking, but her arm shoots out and grabs his wrist. Without thinking, Blaine immediately twists his arm and pulls it back towards his body, yanking it out of the girl's grasp.

"O-Oh." She says, obviously a tad hurt and confused.

"I''m sorry." He mutters, almost to himself.

"I was just wondering... You know, if you like to maybe to to coffee with me? Um, maybe at the Lima Bean?" This time, Blaine did stare. Coffee? Was she crazy. Coffee was their thing. His and Kurt's. And the Lima Bean was their place. Blaine went there alone, a few times a week, to sit in his own puddle of memories and dwell on his past. Sitting in that coffee shop, with someone who wasn't Kurt, talking about something that wasn't Kurt? Unthinkable.

"Sorry, can't. I've got to go. Homework." Each sentence he utters is short. Clipped tones and a toneless voice assalt Marley, causing her to flinch as Blaine pushes past her, walking quickly through the hall and out the door.

Blaine wonders, as he pulls onto his street in his sleek silver Lexus, what it's like to have a family like Kurt's. What it's like to have a father that accepts him, and a mother who cares about more than just social events. Of course, Kurt didn't really have a mother, but he had Carole, which was more than Blaine could say for himself. Blaine pulls into the long driveway, parking his car in the massive garage and hanging up his keys as he enters the luxurious parlor that is completely and utterly useless, just like the two others exactly like it. For once, his parents are home when he arrives. His mother, cooking dinner as his father works on something vaguely lawyer-esque in his office. Blaine can't say he has any idea what that man really does for a living beyond the broad description of "lawyer." Obviously, it's enough to keep them in their living conditions. His parents acted as a team-his father, the provider, traveling across the country to represent influential people who got themselves into trouble, and his mother, the caregiver, following him in his travels, always the dutiful, obedient wife. And then, there was Blaine. Shunned by both for his sexuality and fascination for Music and Musical Theatre, he remained alone in the vast house most of the time, living off his plentiful allowance and well-stocked bank account. Of course, most of the time was not all of the time. And on this day, when he had just received even more awful news, they were home. And expecting him for dinner. Fabulous. As if he didn't have enough on his mind right now.

"Sheila, would you pass me the brisket, please?" Blaine's father, Robert Anderson, was as stiff and formal around his dinner table as he was at the office-which is to say, very stiff and formal.

"Certainly." Blaine's mother's own clipped tones were about as emotional as his fathers. The three Andersons sat in the formal dining room. Robert at the head of the table, and Sheila to his left. To Robert's right was the chair Cooper occupied when he visited. Blaine sat by his mother.

"What colleges have you applied to, Blaine?" As was customary for Robert, no lead-up was given to his abrupt question. Simple, blunt, and right to the point, much like the man himself.

"Well, there's NYADA, NYU, UCL-"

Robert cut him off before he could finish. "Don't speak in acronyms, boy. Tell me the schools you've applied to!"

"Um, I've applied to the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts, New York University, the University of California Los Angeles, and Juliard.

"Boy, I heard exactly one school on that list of yours that I'm familiar with, and that's Juliard. What about Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, hm? What about the proper schools?"

"Dad, we've been over this. I'm not interested in pursuing a business career, or becoming a lawyer like you. I want to go into music, be on broadway, act on a-"

"NONSENSE!" Robert thundered, interrupting his son once again. "I will not have my son try to make a profession of those parlor tricks! You may apply to those schools, there's no harm in that, but you will also apply to the right ones, so that when you finally wake up from your delusions, you can pursue a proper life!"

"Dad, I've told you! I don't want to do any of those things! I want to be an actor, a singer. Not some business man who spends all day in a starched suit! Cooper is an actor in Hollywood! You don't seem to have any problems with him!" At this point, both men were yelling at each other across the table. Sheila continued to chew delicately at her salad. Such spectacles were not uncommon at the Anderson family dinner table.

"Cooper is talented, Blaine! Cooper has made something of himself. You, however, need to wake up and smell the roses because what he's got, you don't!" Maliciousness spiked Robert's words as he shouted at his son, who froze, sitting completely still, before grabbing his cloth napkin from his lap, tossing it in his bowl, and storming out of the room in a fashion that would have made Rachel Berry proud. You know, if she hadn't hated him. "Blaine Anderson!" Robert yelled down the hall after his son. "You cannot simply get up and leave like a petulant child! Get your ass back in this room!"