To disbelieve is easy; to scoff is simple; to have faith is harder.
-Louis L’amour

“No one,” Blaine states. “What are you doing with my journal?”

“Seems like someone. Seems like someone with bright blue eyes and dark brown hair and pale, perfect skin. Seems like someone who looks good in tight, black jeans and vests. Seems like a freaking guy.”

“He’s – it’s not like that,” Blaine says. “We have to keep a journal for – for a creative writing class and-”

Skylar snaps the little book closed. “How about you stop lying to me and tell me what’s really going on.”

“Why did you even look at it?”

“Well considering you always tell me whatever’s bothering you but then last night you got so pissed – I was super worried about you. Never would have thought it’d be this.”

“Please don’t do this,” Blaine begs, taking a step closer to his friend.

“Don’t,” Skylar says lowly, taking a step back. “Don’t even come near me until you can tell me what this is about.”

“He’s just – just a friend,” Blaine says. “He’s my best friend down here and-”

“Best friend, huh? Did you write in your old journals like this about me? Did you?”

“No! It was never like that with-”

“But it is with him.”

“I – I-”

“I can’t believe this,” Skylar mumbles, tossing the journal onto Blaine’s bed. “I can’t believe – all this time you were – you’re a fag.”

“I’m not a – that’s not what this is about, Skylar, it isn’t.”

“I don’t know what you think it’s about, then. Because I don’t keep journals where I talk about how good some guy’s butt looks in a pair of jeans. And I also don’t include pages full of apologies to our Lord for thinking that. What the – what is this, B? What is wrong with you?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” Blaine states, angry tears bubbling up in his eyes. “He’s-”

“There’s a lot wrong. You know what the Bible says about homosexuals. You know.”

“I know what the Bible says,” Blaine says, knees beginning to tremble because this is exactly what he was afraid of. “But the – the Bible was written by man and it’s not always-”

“This,” Skylar says, storming over to Blaine’s desk and picking up his Bible, “is God’s word. This is His word and you don’t get to question that or doubt that. You don’t get to be a fag!”

“You’ve never had doubts?” Blaine whispers. “You’ve never had questions, you were never confused about anything, you never-”

“No,” Skylar says. “Because I was raised right. And I know what’s right and wrong and this says that homosexuality is an abomination.”

Blaine stares at his friend, wondering if he sounded this mean whenever he told Kurt something along the same lines.

But Skylar doesn’t have the right to do this. Not after-

“You don’t get to preach to me,” Blaine says. “You don’t get to preach to me about this because I know where you went wrong.”

Skylar freezes, recognition and fear clouding his expression.

“That’s not even the same thing.”

“You slept with Jessica last year after that spring dance at church. You slept with her in the back seat of your dad’s car. God doesn’t approve or premarital sex either, Skylar. And I know you know that because we were raised in the same town, in the same congregation.”

“People have sex all the time, it’s not-”

“And there are plenty of gay people and there are plenty of people who are just as confused as I am. My sin is no worse than yours.”

Skylar glares at him, eyes hard and unforgiving. He drops Blaine’s Bible back onto his desk.

“So this is how it is, then? If I tell anyone about your stupid journal, you’ll tell everyone that I had sex with Jessica.”

“I don’t – I don’t need anyone knowing about this stuff I’m going through. I don’t even know what it is, okay? But if this is the only way I can be sure you won’t-”

“Fine,” Skylar says firmly. “Your little faggot secret is safe with me.”

The two boys fall into silence, the air thick and heavy with unspoken resentment. Blaine looks at his friend, this kid he’s known his entire life, this same kid who he has always trusted with everything. Skylar was his everything back in Missouri.

“I’m sorry,” Blaine says quietly. “You’re my best friend.”

“I’ll never be friends with someone like you.”

“I’m still me,” Blaine says with conviction. “I’m still the same person.”

“The person I knew always told me everything. The person I knew was a good Christian, a good, straight Christian.”

“I don’t even know if-”

“It doesn’t even matter,” Skylar grumbles. “Because you know what? At least I slept with a girl.”

“I haven’t slept with anyone.”

“Whatever. Just don’t – don’t even think of talking to me again unless you know for sure that you’re normal.”

Blaine stares blankly as Skylar shoves past him and stomps out of the room. His steps on the staircase are too loud in Blaine’s ears. He hears Skylar say something to his parents about Blaine having a bad stomachache and that he won’t be joining them on the ride to the airport.

The front door slams shut.

Blaine’s knees give out and he begins crying into his hands because this is exactly what he’s been so terrified of: the rejection, the hate, the preaching.

Losing people he cares about.

It isn’t fair, none of it is fair. It isn’t his fault that he feels this way about Kurt, it isn’t his fault that he’s attracted to another boy. He can’t stop it. He can’t stop being who he is. And now, in order to keep his old friends, he has to pretend to change? He had to be normal?

He doesn’t even know what normal is anymore.

Rage and pure, undiluted pain coils in his stomach, leaking out into his system and the house is far too quiet, far too still.

He breaks.

Hot, angry tears spill down his face as he stands and reaches for his journal, his stupid journal that he thought would never be read. He had been foolish to think he could keep secrets. White noise tingles his ear drums as he opens the little book and begins ripping out the pages by the fistful. He tears them, tossing them about his room. They scatter, drifting down to cover his floor. Some pages, including those with the longest apologies to God, he shreds into tiny pieces. He tears and he tears and he cries and he cries.

“Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for one who loves another has fulfilled the law,” he keeps repeating to the empty room because he can’t lost himself, he can’t lose everything he has learned at the cost of these pages. “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”

When there are no more pages to tear, he tries to rip apart the cover of the journal but he has no more strength to do so. He throws the thing across the room and it collides against the wall with a satisfyingly loud sound. Blaine pants, emotion and physical strain exhausting his body, his little soul aching inside his chest. The floor of his room looks like it has been covered with snow, stained with scratches of black ink.

Nothing will ever be the same.

Everything has collapsed.

Suddenly frantic, Blaine reaches for his phone and dials Kurt’s number.

“Hey, you,” Kurt greets happily upon answering.

“Can you come over?” Blaine chokes out.

“…I thought you were taking your friends to the airport,” Kurt says. “I just got back into Lima. I was going to text you and see-”

“Please come over,” Blaine begs. “Please. Please.”

“Yeah, of course. Yes, I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Thank you,” Blaine whispers.

Blaine’s sitting on the floor with his back against his bed, knees up to his chest when Kurt knocks on his doorframe.

“Oh. Whoa,” Kurt says when he sees the state of Blaine’s room. “I um, I knocked on the front door and no one answered but it was unlocked so I…what happened?”

“Go ahead, read them,” Blaine says, gesturing to the torn pages littering his bedroom floor. “It doesn’t matter now.”

Kurt gives Blaine a long look and then his eyes seem to catch sight of the battered journal cover in the corner. Rather than reading the pages, he begins picking them up off the floor, one by one.

“What’re you doing?” Blaine asks tiredly, beginning to shiver as he still hadn’t taken the time to throw on a shirt after his confrontation with Skylar.

“I’m not going to read your journal,” Kurt states. “If that’s what this is, then I have no right prying into your thoughts.”

He tosses a handful of paper into Blaine’s tiny trashcan by his desk.

“They’re all about you, anyway,” Blaine admits. “Nearly every page.”

“…Just another reason why I shouldn’t read them,” Kurt says softly, turning to look at Blaine. “You look like you’re freezing.”

Blaine shrugs but Kurt decides to busy himself by rooting around in Blaine’s closet, looking for something warm. He finds a plain, soft, cream colored sweater and crouches down onto the floor.

“Arms up,” he whispers.

Blaine stares for a moment at his friend, his maybe-more-than-friend, and he can’t help but smile at how caring he looks. He uncurls his knees from his chest and lifts up his arms so Kurt can tug the soft sweater over his head to cover his bare torso. When the sweater is in place and his body stops shivering, Kurt takes a seat on the floor next to him.

“Can you tell me what happened?” Kurt asks.

“Skylar, the friend I texted you about, he walked in last night while I was writing in my journal. He wanted to know what I was writing about because he knows I like to um, keep journals when things rough or when it’s hard to talk about stuff. He wanted to know and I wouldn’t tell him. I got out of the shower earlier and walked in on him reading it.”

“…I’m assuming he didn’t have very many nice things to say, depending on the content,” Kurt concludes.

“No,” Blaine whispers. “He didn’t.”

“What – what happened? What’d he do?”

“I sort of blackmailed him I guess. I know about something that happened last year between him and someone else that…well, let’s just say doesn’t really adhere to the Bible’s standards.”

“Ah. You tell, I tell.”

“I didn’t have any other choice. He would have-”

“I know,” Kurt says with a sad smile. “I understand.”

“I don’t want to be like this anymore,” Blaine says miserably. “I don’t want to have to – to hide everything. I don’t want to be confused, I don’t want – I just…”

“What?” Kurt asks, shuffling closer on the floor.

Worrying his bottom lip between his teeth as is his habit, Blaine stares down at his lap and takes a deep breath through his nose.

“I just want to be with you,” he says with a tired sigh, leaning his head back to stare into Kurt’s surprised eyes. “I don’t – I just want to be with you.”

Kurt’s breathing comes rapidly, shallowly and Blaine thinks he can hear his friend’s heartbeat in the tense silence. Kurt reaches out a trembling hand. His fingertips are cold from winter but Blaine leans into their gentle caress, letting those fingers brush against his cheek and his jaw.

“But you-”

“It’s the only thing I know for sure,” Blaine interrupts him. “I don’t know if I’m – if I’m gay or straight or anything like that. I don’t know if I like boys or girls or if I like one more than the other but I know…I know for a fact that I want to be with you. Nothing makes sense anymore. Nothing except you. When I look at you it’s like…for just a moment everything is right and everything is good and nothing else matters because I’m with you and you – you make sense, Kurt.”

“Blaine,” Kurt breathes, moving his hand from Blaine’s cheek to tangle in his slightly damp curls.

“I just know that I love you,” Blaine admits for the very first time aloud. “I love you. And it scares me so much because you’re – but I can’t – there’s nowhere else to go. I love you and I don’t know what to do.”

Kurt silences Blaine’s fears with a soft, tender kiss to his lips. It’s just a small kiss, a promise of understanding and comfort. It doesn’t last more than a few seconds but in those few seconds, heat tickles under Blaine’s skin and he feels safer than he ever has.

My Kurt.

“Come here,” Kurt says, standing and reaching into his pocket. He pulls out his phone and begins to scroll through a list of something.

“What?”

“Dance with me,” Kurt smiles, pressing play on his iphone and setting it on Blaine’s bed. The music drifts through the room, and though the sound is a little tinny and a little faint coming through the small speakers, Blaine stands. Kurt takes his hand as the piano plays on, resting his other hand on Blaine’s waist. Blaine’s heart thrums about as quickly as a hummingbird’s wings as he slips his hand onto Kurt’s shoulder.

When the road gets dark
And you can no longer see
Just let my love throw a spark
And have a little faith in me
And when the tears you cry
Are all you can believe
Just give these loving arms a try, baby
And have a little faith in me

Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me

The words twist around Blaine’s fluttering heart, spreading and growing like vines as Kurt claims his soul. Blaine takes a tiny step closer as they sway together and Kurt presses his warm, sure palm against the small of Blaine’s back. It’s perfect here, Blaine thinks.

And when your secret heart
Cannot speak so easily
Come here darling, from a whisper start
And have a little faith in me
And when your back’s against the wall
Just turn around and you, you will see
I will catch you, I will catch your fall, baby
Just have a little faith in me

Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me
Have a little faith in me

Safe in Kurt’s arms, they dance amidst the tatters of his journal entries and his apologies to God, the snowy white papers rustling under Blaine’s bare feet. They’re barely shuffling because the space around Blaine’s bed isn’t all that big. It doesn’t matter though because he’s here with Kurt and a new year is starting soon and Blaine thinks that maybe it’s an opportunity for a fresh start. Maybe now’s a good time to learn that, while he has his faith in God, he can have a little bit of faith in Kurt too, in the boy he’s grown to love.

Maybe that’s what his story has always been about.

Well, I’ve been loving you, for such a long, girl
Expecting nothing in return
Just for you to have a little faith in me
You see time, time is our friend
‘Cause for us, there is no end
And all you gotta do, is have a little faith in me
I will hold you up, I will hold you up
And your love, gives me strength enough to
Have a little faith in me
Hey hey
All you gotta do for me, girl
Is have a little faith in me

The song ends. The piano chords fade back into the tiny speakers of Kurt’s iphone and Blaine looks up at Kurt, tears on his cheeks once more. Kurt smiles down at him and drops a soft, sweet kiss to Blaine’s forehead.

“I love you too, Blaine,” he breathes into Blaine’s hair.

Blaine exhales, hot and hard and he pulls Kurt to him, slipping his arms around Kurt’s neck.

“I don’t know what to do,” Blaine admits. “I called you because I felt like I lost everything and I didn’t know what to do. I’ve never – I don’t-”

“We’ll be okay,” Kurt assures him. “We’re going to be just fine. You just – you have to trust me.”

It’s hard because Blaine knows, deep down, he shouldn’t be putting his trust into any kind of temptation, especially that in the form of another boy who would be his ultimate sin. But love…love isn’t a sin. If nothing else, love is the ultimate good.

And it would be remiss of him to deny trust in love.