We never think it will end this way; a single, battered soul fading into nothingness with no more than a whimper. It’s a meaningless soul, a soul so small in the grand scheme of life that no one really notices its disappearance.

My name is Blaine Anderson. This is the story of how I fell in love.

I was twenty-five years old when I died.

I moved to New York City when I was twenty-two, just after I finished college near my hometown in Ohio. I graduated with a degree in music theory. It was useless, really, and I hated it. I wanted to perform, I didn’t want to teach and I grew to despise school. I moved into the hustle and bustle of New York, into a tiny studio apartment that was about the size of a shoebox with the small amount of money I had saved from attending college in state. I had been an RA the majority of my college years, so I never had to pay for room and board.

The rent for my shoebox, however, was still extremely expensive due to location and I immediately began searching for a job. I found work at an upscale restaurant down the road from my apartment but when I wasn’t wasting my time by doing absolutely nothing with my degree, I spent my free time on street corners strumming away on my guitar with the case open on the ground at my feet. On average, I only made fifteen to twenty dollars a day from busking but it didn’t matter because at least I was playing for someone besides myself.

I had been living in New York for about two months when I first met him.

The street corner was busy that day, I had over ten onlookers and he was among them. He was slightly taller than me with perfectly styled brown hair and eyes the color of an ocean I’d only ever seen in pictures. He was slight in frame, but from the way his shirt clung to his arms I could tell there was more to this man beneath his stylish ensemble. He remained a member of my audience for the last three songs of my set and when I shifted my guitar around to my back, he dropped a fifty dollar bill into my case.

“Thank you,” I said, truly baffled by his generosity.

“I envy you,” were the first words that I heard from his lips. His voice was higher pitched than most men, but somehow his tone intrigued me just as much as his adorable, crooked smile.

“What do you mean?” I asked as I began to gather up my tips from the case.

“I can sing but I can’t play guitar,” he informed. “I always wanted to learn.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Busy with other things,” he shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Can you sing?”

“I sang a lot in high school,” I said, shoving the bills and change into my back pocket. “I sang a bit in college too, but not as much.”

“So you can sing,” he concluded with a smile.

I shrugged and placed my guitar into the case, snapping it closed. “I guess.”

“You should sing then,” he said, “when you play. You might get more money.”

“This is just a hobby,” I said. “I don’t really do it for the money.”

“If you aren’t doing it for the money, then why do you leave the case open?”

I sat my guitar case upright and leaned against it, staring at this stranger who had the nerve to question my choices. He stood there, calm and polite as you please in his designer labels, while I looked him up at down. He couldn’t have been much older than me, I determined. His skin was flawless and his eyes gave way to a kindred, youthful soul inside.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but who are you?”

“Kurt,” he said simply.

I raised an eyebrow, waiting for a bit of elaboration or at least a last name to put with the first but he didn’t give it to me that day. Instead, he winked and walked away. Before he rounded the corner, though, he waved his hand in the air, back to me, and said, “See you around, Shirley Temple.”

The reference threw me completely off guard and I’m pretty sure I stared at the empty space where I had last seen him much longer than necessary.

I always came home at night alone, finding sanctuary from the busy city in my little shoebox. Two months into my New York life and I still had no friends. I never made friends easily; my friends from Ohio were always more like acquaintances. I never made the sorts of friends you could count on to bail you out of jail or come pick you up on the side of the road if your car broke down. Luckily, I never went to jail and I never had many car problems.

I had only two sort-of-friends at the restaurant I worked at. Julie and Marcus were their names. Well, I suppose they still are their names, seeing as I’m the dead one, not them. There was nothing special about them, we weren’t close. We never talked outside of work but they were nicest to me when we had shifts together.

Friends just…weren’t my thing. Ever since the guys I had considered my best friends in middle school beat the shit out of me when they found out I was gay, well, it was hard to trust anyone after that. I became a recluse, a quiet, reserved man especially after high school. I’m sure that the other people that worked alongside me as an RA in the dorm thought I was one seriously weird guy but I couldn’t care. None of it mattered. Ohio was never for me.

Three months into my life in New York though, the loneliness began to wear on my nerves and my sanity.

Without friends, I took to walking the streets alone, stopping to look in shop windows or take mental photographs of the giant, glittering signs in Times Square. New York was always so loud and crowded. The streets made me feel less lonely, even if they served as a reminder that I was very alone in the world.

The second time I saw Kurt, he was sitting at a small table during lunch in the restaurant where I worked. I couldn’t believe he was actually in my section. He was alone, nestled against a window, with a sketchpad open in front of him.

“Good afternoon, sir,” I greeted formally, as customary for my workplace, “can I get you anything to drink?”

“A glass of water, thank you,” he said without looking up.

“Right away, sir,” I said, internally disappointed that he obviously didn’t recognize me. When I returned with his glass of water and asked if he was ready to order, he finally looked up at me. There was a sense of recognition alight in his eyes, but he squinted as if he was trying to remember where he had seen me.

I hated being under scrutiny and became uncomfortable under his gaze.

“If – if you’re not ready to order, I can come back in a few-”

“I know you from somewhere,” he interrupted. “Where have I seen you before?”

“You’ve probably seen me on a street corner,” I said, feigning nonchalance. I don’t know why I tried so hard to seem inconspicuous, but for some reason I didn’t want to let on that I still remembered exactly what this man had been wearing the day we met and the exact pitch of his voice. “I play guitar sometimes when I’m not working.”

“Ah, right, how could I forget?” he responded with that familiar grin as he leaned back in his chair. “Shirley Temple.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” I lied. “I never understood what that meant.”

“What? The name?”

“Yeah.”

“Well you see yourself in the mirror every day, I’m sure,” he said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “So I’m sure you’ve seen how curly your hair is. If you grew it out, you’d be her spitting image. With the proper products of course.”

“…I’m not sure if I should be offended by that,” I said.

“I shouldn’t think so,” he said, eyes flickering to my name tag. “It looks like you have a name of your own.”

“Blaine,” I said unnecessarily.

“So it seems,” he remarked, grin still on his lips.

I nodded and held up my pen. “So what will you be having, sir?”

“A salad,” he said shortly, eyes never leaving mine. “No dressing.”

“I’ll have that right out,” I said, wanting to get away quickly for some reason.

“When do you get off work?” he asked.

“I – I’m sorry?”

“When does your shift end?”

“In about an hour,” I said with a glance at my watch. “…Why do you ask?”

“Because I’d like to buy you a drink.”

I nearly fell over the chair behind me. “It’s not even one in the afternoon yet.”

“It doesn’t have to be alcoholic,” he amended. “We can get coffee or anything else you like.”

“But…why?”

“Because you look like you’re lost in this place,” he said. “And you’re too gorgeous to be lost.”

I should probably note that I had never been hit on or asked out. Ever. Not once. I had never had a boyfriend, much less been on a date with a man that was even remotely interested in me. Ohio wasn’t the greatest place to find a lover and, like I said before, I kept to myself a lot.

“Thank you,” I said apologetically, “but I-”

“Are you straight?” he asked pointedly.

“Well no, but-”

“Do you have plans after your shift?”

“No.”

“Then have a drink with me.”

I bit my lip and looked around, wondering if anyone had noticed just how much time this one customer was taking but no one seemed to care.

“Please,” he added.

We did end up having coffee that day. How could we avoid it? There was a Starbucks across from another Starbucks. Coffee in New York was like a religion.

He paid for our drinks, of course. We sat outside at a rickety aluminum table and I found it terribly difficult to keep eye contact with Kurt. There was something imposing about him, something too strong and too great for the likes of me, the lost boy with no friends and no real purpose.

Perhaps it should have been a warning.

“So,” Kurt began, just after taking a sip of his quad, nonfat, super duper whatever mocha, “who are you?”

For about two or three seconds, I was afraid I was dealing with a man who suffered from some severe memory loss.

“What do you mean?” I asked because I truly had no idea what he meant.

“You work at a restaurant as a waiter. You play guitar on the streets. You drink black coffee, no additives, no sweeteners, nothing of the sort,” he said. “But that’s what you do. I want to know who you are.”

“I thought coffee orders told a lot about someone,” I remarked.

“Then based on that alone, you’re either completely boring and unremarkable or you have a dark past and you embody an enigma.”

“I’d go with the boring and unremarkable one,” I said.

“I don’t think so,” he contradicted. Coffee in hand, he gestured all around us, pointing out the streets and the buildings and the city itself. “You’re here. You’re in New York. You can’t possibly be boring.”

“Maybe you were right and I’m just lost.”

“Then you’re looking for something,” he shrugged, setting his cup on the table.

“I’m twenty-two. I shouldn’t still be looking,” I said, a little more morose than I intended for this…date.

“There’s no shame in being lost,” he said. “There’s no shame in searching. In fact, I think that, when we do find what we’re looking for, well that’s when we become boring. Besides, I’m only twenty-three and I’m still looking.”

“You’re only twenty-three?” I asked. “You’re only twenty-three and you dropped a fifty dollar bill into my guitar case. How can you be so young, living in New York, and afford such a stupid thing?”

“Is it stupid?” he asked and I began to feel like we were talking in circles. “What did you do with that fifty dollar bill?”

“I-” I lived off it for two or three weeks. I bought the cheapest groceries I could and the rest of the money I got that day went toward my rent.

“You didn’t give it to a drug addict, did you?”

“No.”

“You didn’t blow it on unnecessary things like ebay or booze, did you?”

“No.”

“Then it wasn’t stupid at all.”

For some reason, I can’t remember why, I became frustrated. I felt like I was being interrogated, I guess. It didn’t feel like a date at all.

“I don’t understand why you asked me out,” I said, shifting in my seat, avoiding his eyes. “I don’t understand what you want from me.”

“I told you what I wanted,” he said and if there was ever an enigma, it was Kurt. “I want to know who you are.”

“My name is Blaine Anderson. I’m twenty-two years old and I’ve lived in New York for three months now. I was born and raised in Westerville, Ohio. I attended college near there and graduated with a degree in music theory.”

“Westerville?” Kurt asked, lifting a delicate eyebrow.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“I was raised in Lima,” he informed me.

“You…really?”

“Mmm,” he nodded, taking a drink of his mocha. “I’m surprised we haven’t met before. When we first met, you said you sang in high school. Were you in glee club?”

“…Yes, actually. At Dalton Academy.”

“Odd that we never competed against you.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was in glee club too,” he revealed. “I went to William McKinley High School.”

“We did compete against you,” I said. “My senior year. You beat us, we never moved on from sectionals.”

“Ah. One year too late, then.”

“Did you attend college in Ohio?”

“No, I came here,” he said.

“What did you major in?”

“I have a degree in fashion design.”

I was then reminded of the sketchpad he had in the restaurant. It must be filled with designs. No wonder he had enough money to spare a fifty dollar bill to a lonely guitar player on a street corner. If he worked for a big enough line, he’d have loads of money.

“I’m guessing you got a job right out of school,” I concluded.

“I did an internship with a company my last year of university,” he said. “I was the only one from my group that went on to work full time.”

“You must be good.”

“I am.”

Kurt was a cocky enigma, I decided. His slight smile hinted at a joke, though, and he winked at me over the lid of his coffee cup.

“And you’re gay,” I supplied, needing clarification.

“One hundred percent,” he said. “And you?”

Once again, I shifted in my chair uncomfortably. It was the longest conversation I’d ever had with someone without knowing their last name.

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I am.”

“You say it like you’re ashamed.”

“I’m not,” I said at once. “I’m not ashamed. I’m just not…not used to talking about it so frankly.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I’m not.”

Kurt fell silent when I said that and I got the impression that he wasn’t used to being denied information. For a brief, fleeting moment I became scared that our conversation would end too abruptly. But would it have been abrupt? Would it have been bad to see him walk away without looking back? Did I want him to stay?

“What’s your last name?” I asked.

“Hummel,” he said. “My name is Kurt Hummel. And yours?”

“Anderson.”

“And why are you in New York, Blaine Anderson?”

“When do I get to ask the questions?” I wondered. “Because this date seems a little one sided.”

“Are we on a date?” Kurt asked.

“Well I – you said you wanted to – to buy me a drink because you thought I was…”

“Too gorgeous to be lost,” he finished for me with a smile. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

“I’m sorry,” I said while I stood. “I must have – I’m sorry, I didn’t-”

“You’re flustered,” he said, not moving a muscle. “Why are you flustered?”

I hated feeling stupid. I hated not knowing what to say and I hated having to explain myself to other people. I knew I avoided people for a reason, I knew why I avoided human connections. The longer I stood there the longer I felt like a complete fool in front of Kurt Hummel. He stared at me, unblinking, and even now I can’t understand why I felt so compelled to give in to anything he asked.

“I’m flustered because I don’t know what to do or say,” I admitted. “I’m flustered because I don’t talk to people easily and I’m flustered because I’m anxious and nervous and a dozen other things for no reason at all.”

Cocking his head to the side, Kurt raked his eyes up and down my body, as if surveying my stance, my posture, my clothing, my skin, my everything. For a second, it felt like he was reading my mind or searching my soul for answers to his unasked questions. Quite suddenly, his eyes went soft and his smile became sad. He looked less like a figurehead and more like a man.

“You’re so lonely,” he breathed, shaking his head. “So lost and lonely.”

“Stop it,” I said, becoming afraid.

“You sleep alone, you eat alone, you sing alone. You’ve never been touched by a gentle hand and you live in a shadowed world that you’ve created for yourself.”

Insanely, I thought I’d randomly met an alien or an empath or something out of science fiction. I wondered if his skin was cold. I wondered if he was a robot. I wondered if he had a heart at all.

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You’re so far from fine, Blaine Anderson.”

“Stop it,” I said again.

Kurt stood, walked around the table, and dropped his cup into a trashcan. He stood in front of me. He was so close, so very close and I was wrong, he was warm. I could feel the heat from his body.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I don’t mean to scare you.”

“What – what do you want from me?”

He smiled and laced our fingers together. His hand was scorching hot in mine and that was the moment I realized that I hadn’t held another person’s hand since I was old enough to cross the street on my own.

“I want to take you out on a proper date, Blaine.”

We parted ways that day with each other’s phone numbers. I left feeling terrified, confused, intrigued, and alive. I never felt so alive. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I agreed to go on a date with Kurt. He was so strange and shrouded in mystery. He spoke in riddles and he exuded confidence and knowledge.

By the time I got home that day, I discovered that I wanted to learn just as much about Kurt Hummel as he wanted to know about me.

The next weekend, I found myself in a restaurant at a table across from Kurt. It was an extravagant place and the food was more expensive than it was at the restaurant where I worked. The room was dim, the candles on the table emitted a romantic glow and everyone spoke in hushed tones.

“If you order the cheapest thing available, I’ll slap you,” Kurt said, perusing his menu.

I widened my eyes, surprised to be caught in my plan, and stared at him in shock.

“But I – I can’t afford-”

“This is a date, Blaine. You don’t have to afford anything.”

“I’m not going to make you pay for a thirty dollar salad.”

“Of course you’re not,” he said, eyes never leaving his menu. “I’d be offended if you only ordered a salad.”

When the waiter appeared, Kurt ordered two glasses of water and a bottle of sweet, red wine. When I refused to pick something off the menu, he ordered both his meal and my own, despite my adamant protests. I sat back in my chair and huffed in annoyance once the waiter had gone.

“Don’t look like that,” Kurt said.

“But I never wanted you to-”

“What?” Kurt interrupted. “You never wanted me to pay? You never wanted to be taken somewhere so nice? You never wanted to be wined and dined? You never wanted me to show you an ounce of kindness or generosity?”

“I never wanted you to waste money on me,” I said softly.

“Why? Because you’re not worth it?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“No, but it’s what you meant,” he said sharply. “And if there’s one notion I will disabuse you of, it’s going to be that annoying lack of self-worth that slithers like an evil serpent in the back of your mind.”

I dropped my head and crossed my arms. I knew I must have looked like a petulant child amidst the refined men and women that populated the restaurant but I didn’t care.

“Give me your hand,” Kurt instructed, holding out his own on the tabletop.

Resigned to an expensive evening, I finally looked up and saw the sweet, understanding smile on Kurt’s lips. He opened his fingers, revealing his pale palm.

“Blaine,” he said gently, “give me your hand.”

I did my very best to ignore the possible stares people might give us from nearby tables and slipped my hand into his. Even though I knew I was in New York and not Ohio, I was still wary of onlookers and disapproval from society. Once our skin touched, I immediately calmed and sighed in something like contentment. Kurt’s smile widened.

“Just one night,” he whispered. “I just want to give you one night of expensive wine and food in a quiet, elegant setting. You forget that we come from the same place. I know you’ve never had this before. And I can tell that you’ve never had this before,” he said, emphasizing his point with a squeeze to my hand. “Let me take care of you.”

“I don’t need to be taken care of,” I said softly.

“You might not need it, but that doesn’t mean you don’t want it.”

For some odd reason, tears began to form in the corner of my eyes and I did my very best to blink them away. He nudged my foot with his beneath the table.

“I’ve never – I don’t know how to-”

Kurt interrupted my insecurity by bringing my hand to his lips and kissing my knuckles.

“You don’t have to know anything,” he said. “I can teach you everything.”

I gave him a shaky nod and he released my hand, though his foot stayed against mine. The rest of the evening was spent with divine, delicious food and many glasses of red wine. We spoke of our pasts in Ohio and I learned that Kurt’s mother had died when he was very young. I told him about my parents and how I lost contact with them when I started college because they never completely agreed with my ‘lifestyle choices’. We talked about music and films we wanted to see, we talked about Kurt’s fashion designs and we talked about our favorite colors.

The night ended with Kurt on the sidewalk with me in front of my apartment building.

“I – I guess this is goodnight,” I said, stuffing my hands in my pockets.

“Did you have a good time?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I admitted. “Yeah, I did.”

“So did I,” he said, brushing a lock of hair away from my face.

I inhaled sharply at the contact, surprised by the tender touch and the warmth of his hand. He brought his knuckles down over my temple, down my cheek, and underneath my jaw. Unable to stop myself, I leaned into his touch and felt lost at sea when he dropped his hand.

“You’ve never been kissed, have you?” he asked.

My heart began to race and I stared into his eyes. “No,” I said, hoping the night would swallow my words and the pathetic trace of shame in my voice.

“Would you like to be?”

Maybe it was the wine, but at that question, it felt like my entire world tilted, like I’d fallen into another dimension where I was beautiful and wanted and kissable. It was a place where I had friends. It was a place where nothing was ever cold and starlight gave me strength.

I wanted it to be real.

So I said, “Yes.”

And kiss me he did. He took a single step forward and wrapped one hand around my back while the other tangled into my hair and he kissed me. His lips were smooth, sweet, and wonderful. I never understood why people enjoyed kissing so much until that very moment but then maybe that’s the beauty of a kiss. In theory, it’s a plain, simple action that’s taken for granted but then you experience it for the first time and everything changes. Kurt was so solid, so very real around me that I clung to him, to his shoulders like I’d lose my life if he ever pulled away.

When he did pull away, I thought I saw my soul in the space between our lips.

“I’ll kiss you every day if you’ll let me,” he whispered. “Every day.”

I nodded, speechless at his lovely words and he tugged me against his chest. I felt his cheek rest on the top of my head. I breathed in his scent, drowning in the smell of honeysuckle and rain water. It felt like a fairy tale, like maybe I’d found a happy ending to the horrible, lonely life I’d lead so far.

If only I’d remembered that fairy tales weren’t real.

“I live in a shoebox,” I warned him weeks later.

“We all live in shoeboxes when we first move to New York,” he said as I led him up the stairs to my apartment.

“You’re not going to approve.”

“It’s your apartment, why do I have to approve of anything?”

I shrugged and turned the key in the lock. I had never invited anyone into my apartment before. I had no reason to. I had no one to invite. He followed me inside and my stomach twisted up into my throat as he began surveying my private little space. It wasn’t much and I knew what he saw. My bed sat in the far corner, sheets and blankets amiss. I had a tiny, two-seater sofa against the wall which was silly, really, considering I’d lived there for four months and the closest that sofa had ever come to two people was right then. A television and DVD player were situated on the opposite wall on top of an old dresser I found at a secondhand store. I had a closet holding my very limited wardrobe and a kitchen that doubled as a dining room. A small kitchen table sat awkwardly in the middle of the kitchen space with two chairs, one dusty from disuse.

“You’re quite the minimalist,” he said, looking around at the bare walls.

“Food is a bit more important than decoration.”

“Most would agree,” Kurt said, settling onto the little sofa.

“You don’t?”

“I’m a fashion designer,” Kurt said pointedly. “Accessorizing is just as important as air, food, and water.”

“Do you want something to drink?” I asked. “Coffee?”

“Am I the only other person to set foot in this apartment?” he wondered.

“Well,” I said, wringing my hands, “the pizza delivery guy stands in the doorway instead of the hall sometimes.”

Kurt raised an eyebrow and patted the sofa cushion next to him. I walked over and sat on the edge, spine ramrod straight and palms sweating in my lap.

“Why are you so tense?” he asked softly, rubbing my back with his hand.

As per usual, I immediately relaxed under his touch and released a nervous sigh.

“I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve never – I’m not used to people being here. I’m not used to…spending so much time with someone.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No!” I said quickly. “No, please don’t leave.”

“Okay, calm down,” Kurt hushed soothingly, pulling me closer to him on the couch. He tucked me under his arm and stroked my shoulder with his thumb. “It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, closing my eyes. I felt so small. I felt like a child or…or a bird with a broken wing that could never be healed.

“Don’t be sorry,” Kurt said. “Everything is new and scary, I understand.”

“I wish I wasn’t like this,” I admitted even though I didn’t want to.

“It’s just anxiety,” he told me. “You’ve been alone for a long time. You’ve denied yourself human contact and it’s frightening.”

“You must think I’m a complete nutcase.”

“I don’t,” he said. “Do you…want to know what I really think?”

“…I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t know if I was ready to hear the truth about myself.

“I think something very bad happened to you in the past,” Kurt said. “I think it was horrible enough to scare you away from people, from relationships, and from confrontation. That doesn’t make you a nutcase. It makes you timid and shy, but not a nutcase.”

My throat closed up and I had to wonder if I was that easy to read or if Kurt was just that perceptive. We had only been dating for three weeks and already he knew more about me than anyone else on the face of the planet.

“Am I right?”

I swallowed, willing my throat and voice to work again. “Yes.”

“…Have you talked about it with anyone? Anyone at all?”

“No.”

“Not even your parents?”

“My parents know what happened, but I never really talked to them about it,” I said shortly.

“Do you – do you want to talk to me about it?”

“I don’t even want to remember it anymore.”

Kurt kissed my forehead and leaned his cheek onto my hair. “I think talking about it might help. But I won’t force you to talk about it if you’re not ready.”

I turned my head and nuzzled my face into his neck. It was weird, being able to touch Kurt. It was so foreign to have someone to hold me or someone to show affection to. As foreign as it was, though, it was extremely comforting and I always felt safe around him. Despite having been absolutely terrified of him on our first coffee date, I found myself attached to Kurt now, almost unhealthily so. I couldn’t help it, though. He was right, I had starved myself of human contact and now that he was there I found myself very unwilling to let him go.

And if talking about this would help bring us closer, then maybe I should speak up.

“It was in middle school,” I began quietly. “I had only just come out. There was an end of the year Sadie Hawkins dance and I went with the only other gay guy in the school. We weren’t – I mean, we were just friends. I was never interested in him at all but we figured, why not, you know? We were good enough friends and we wanted to go to the dance, if only to prove that we weren’t really the social lepers everyone thought we should be. So we went and the dance was fine. But afterwards, when we were waiting for his dad to pick us up…a bunch of guys jumped us.”

“Oh god.”

“There were six of them,” I recalled. “Six of them against two of us and we were – we were tiny.”

“Did you see who they were?”

I nodded and wiped away the tears that began to fall. “I still remember their names. They were – they were my friends.”

“What?”

“Before I came out, they had all been my friends. They were my best friends and they beat the shit out of us because we were gay.”

“Blaine, I’m so sorry,” Kurt said.

“I told my parents what happened and begged to be homeschooled or something just so I didn’t have to go back there. They transferred me to Dalton Academy as soon as high school started, just so I’d stop whining about it.”

Kurt turned and pulled me down with him, spooning me on my small, two-seater sofa. We scrunched up together in the limited space and he held me so tightly I thought I might lose the ability to breathe properly. He let me cry into the emptiness of my apartment and my sobs echoed off the bare walls and I think we fell asleep like that.

My shoebox had never felt more like home.

I feel like I’m going off on a tangent, telling this story. So far I’ve only mentioned the good things when really it’s all about the bad. I suppose the good is just as important as the bad, though, considering the good leads to the bad. If I hadn’t trusted Kurt as much as I did, if I didn’t put all my eggs in one basket, if I didn’t put so much stock in person…well, I might still be alive.

But I didn’t.

And I’m dead now.

No, don’t cry, don’t feel sorry for me. Everything happened because I let it happen. I had choices and I made the wrong ones, that’s all. Besides, being dead isn’t all that bad. It’s nice here, honestly. I don’t really know where here is, but I can always see the stars and it’s always autumn here, which is my favorite season. I don’t know if I’m alone, I haven’t wandered far from where I woke up but it’s…really quiet. It’s peaceful.

It’s far more peaceful than life ever was.