He knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help wondering how Blaine is feeling right now. He knows it must have been horrible to talk to a closed door, but he just didn’t have it in him to face Blaine, sweet and caring Blaine, when he was cracking open like that. The vulnerability of it, the pain in understanding that he needed someone so much that he shattered to pieces without, it wasn’t something that he could afford. But if he could have it one day, if he could simply let go and abandon himself in someone’s hands, he wanted and he still wants it to be Blaine.

Hours tick by and Kurt doesn’t move; he looks at the ceiling, bones cold and heavy. Nothing seems to make sense. Has Blaine really played with his heart all along? Had he really shared all those moments with Blaine? All those tears and all that love? His fingers dig in the sheets, holding on tight. He needs to know.

*

“Kurt! We were worried sick about you, where the hell…”

Gripping his coffee mug a bit tighter, Kurt takes a deep breath. It resonates inside of him like wind over a desert land. He has never felt so hollow in his all life. Not even after his mom’s death, when the world was tinted gray and every morning followed the other out of inertia.

“Kurt, are you there?”

He blinks, eyelids feeling oddly heavy, heart beating out of rhythm.

“I am, sorry, Quinn.”

“How are you? What happened? We…”

Kurt squeezes his eyes shut. His mind doesn’t deal well with questions right now. There are already too many of them spinning around, hitting the soft curves of his brain like moths blinded by the light.

“I…it…it’s all broken and I need...”

Quinn’s voice sounds so far away and Kurt has to struggle to breathe properly.

“Kurt. Calm down. We’re coming, alright?”

Kurt nods before remembering that Quinn can’t see him.

“Y-yes.”

“Do you want me to stay on the phone with you?”

Kurt slowly pads over to the couch and plops down on it, cradling the telephone closer.

“Maybe…just maybe I’m not made right. I…it isn’t normal for me to feel like this…for it…to hurt so much.”

“Honey, there’s nothing wrong with you. Please, believe me.”

“Then tell me why, Q! Tell me why I feel like this, so broken over…over someone…”

Quinn’s voice is astoundingly soft in his ear.

“Someone you love.”

Kurt blinks, tears blurring his vision. It leaves him like a sob, like a last breath.

“Yes.”

He falls silent after that, simply listening to Quinn as she mumbles sweet things down the telephone line.

“We are right in front of your apartment, honey.”

It takes all of his willpower to get off the couch and walk up to the door. Quinn’s arms are around him in an instant, pulling him close. He lets her, hiding his face against her hair. Rachel’s arms wrap around him too. They stand on the landing like that for a while. Kurt simply drinking in the warmth and the comfort of having someone to physically hold him.

Rachel disentangles herself and gently takes Kurt’s hand.

“Let’s get inside. I’ll put on some tea.”

Kurt nods and lets them drag him inside and down on the couch again. Quinn waits patiently by his side as Rachel potters around in the kitchen.

“I feel…I constantly feel like I am two people at the same time. I know it must sound crazy, but…”

Quinn’s hand finds his and holds on.

“It isn’t crazy, Kurt. It…”

She pauses and Kurt lifts his gaze to look at her. Her lips are set in a thin line, she seems paler.

“Q? What…”

Her fingers tighten around his but she keeps looking down at her shoes.

“I…I know what’s wrong and I…”

“Are you sure it is the best thing to do, love?”

Kurt spins around and looks at Rachel, standing in the doorway, eyes wide and hands clutching a tray with a teapot and three mugs on it.

“What are you talking about?”

Rachel looks from him to Quinn and back before walking closer to leave the tray on the coffee table and sit beside Quinn.

“We were supposed to never talk about this. The doctors told us as much.”

“Doctors?”

Kurt’s head is already starting to spin. Too much confused information all at once and too much heartbreak to handle.

“I…we are going to tell you everything, Kurt. But, please, promise me you’re going to listen and that you’re not going to hate yourself or Blaine at the end of it.”

“I don’t think I can do that. I can’t promise something I…”

“Promise me, Kurt.”

Quinn’s gaze is gentle and pained and Kurt’s heart throbs painfully. He nods and Quinn takes a
deep breath before starting to speak.

///

Rachel sits close to Quinn and looks at Kurt, wishing she could do something to avoid him all of this. If she thinks about it, it is actually absurd. How destiny has managed to tie him and Blaine together. She loves Quinn, she really does. It took her time to figure it out along with figuring out herself, but she is there now and she counts to remain with her for a long time. Still, she can’t even begin to picture how deep and wide Kurt and Blaine’s love runs. She is not so sure fate would pull her and Quinn back on each other’s path if they were to go through an erasure procedure.

Quinn talks about the day Kurt and Blaine broke up for real, of the tears and the shouts. Kurt slept at their apartment for a few days. He wasn’t strong enough to be on his own and neither of them wanted to leave him alone, sailing through a place where every small thing reminded him of Blaine. Rachel remembers the way Kurt would sit on their couch, constantly wrapped in blankets as though the whole world had become too cold all of sudden. She had always known that Kurt loved too much and too deep. He had always been like that and they all had learned it in high school.

She steels herself when Quinn pauses in her recount. She knows all too well what comes next.

+++

It was raining the that evening. She and Quinn were lying tangled on the couch, watching some old movie. Quinn was carding her fingers through her hair and whispering gentle nonsense against her breastbone when the doorbell had rung. Kurt stood on the doormat, hair dripping and coat completely soaked. His eyes were red rimmed, his lips trembling. He was holding a piece of paper.

Kurt pushed it in her hands as soon as he was inside, as though it was burning. As Quinn helped Kurt out of his coat and started drying his hair as Rachel read.

Dear Mr. Hummel
We are sending you the present missive to let you know that Mr. Blaine Anderson decided to go through our erasure procedure. Please, do not try to contact him, he wouldn’t remember you.
Thank you for your collaboration
Best regards

Doc. Finn Hudson (Serenity Clinic)

Rachel had to read it again a second time for the information to truly register. Her first reaction was to feel sick, as though someone was squeezing her stomach hard. She just couldn’t believe that Blaine had gone and done something like that. A chill ran down her spine as she tried to imagine how hurt and broken he must have been to gather the strength to do something as extreme as that. She had seen him and Kurt together – they were right. They clicked and combined and made each other braver and happier. To have all of that deleted and thrown away…

“—chel, honey?”

Rachel tore her gaze away from those words, smudged by water and yet sharp like knives, and looked at Quinn. She was holding Kurt close, arms wrapped around him as he cried. Rachel wished she knew what to say. But what could be told to someone who had just discovered the love of his life had given up on him for real?

Somehow she managed to move and hand the letter over to Quinn. She sat on the carpet in front of Kurt and held his hand while Quinn read A soft and pained oh escaped her girlfriend’s lips and Rachel turned to look at her. She could see the sadness in Quinn’s eyes and leaned forward, pressing her palm against her knee. She tried with all her might to put everything she couldn’t say out loud in that touch. We’ve to be here for him. Please, don’t ever do something like that to me. I just love you so much.

Quinn covered her hand with her own without a word.

“Hey sweetie, do you want to talk about this?”

Kurt’s voice came out hoarse and broken. Instinctively Rachel reached up to card her fingers through his wet hair. Back in high school Kurt had hated when she did that, invading his personal space and his time. But slowly he had opened up to her and she was proud and honored to say that, indeed, she was Kurt’s best friend.

“What is there to say? He…he just went and throw everything away!”

“Kurt…”

“He erased me, Rach!”

It cut right through her, the infinite depth of the pain that was eating at Kurt in that very moment. And she was helpless. There was nothing she could do to fix it, not this time. She looked at Quinn, hoping she had an answer, a solution. She had always been the wise one between the two of them.

“Kurt…he was hurt, as you were and as you are. You need to move on.”

Rachel swallowed around the lump in her throat. It seemed so harsh, to ask Kurt to gather enough strength to do that. To throw it away as Blaine had done. Still…still if Quinn were to be the one to leave her behind, Rachel probably would have chosen to forget it all.

+++

Kurt doesn’t speak, he simply stares at them, his mouth slightly open. Rachel wants to reach out, to pull him close, but she also knows it isn’t the right time yet. Quinn waits patiently by her side.

“H-How…how could you…”

It hurts, like being stabbed. She couldn’t stand it if Kurt were to hate them for keeping everything hidden. What could they have done? Quinn’s hand finds hers and holds it gently.

“Kurt, you know that we didn’t have a choice. The choice was yours. We respected it.”

Kurt opens and closes his mouth. Rachel has never seen him so lost.

Quinn is about to speak again, Rachel can tell from the set of her lips and the determined light in her eyes, but she has to be the one to talk this time. She has grown up with Kurt, closer to him than anyone else, because they were tied by the same dreams and the same insecurities that came with them.

“We are not saying you made a wrong choice, Kurt. It simply didn’t work and we didn’t have any right to tell you anything. We didn’t even know if doing something like that would damage your brain after the erasure or not.”

She quickly looks at Quinn, who nods.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have told you all of this now neither, but…don’t you think it has a meaning? The fact that you managed to find him again? That you got these…memories back somehow?”

Kurt’s voice is hard when he speaks.

“They’re not memories, Rachel. They are hallucinations and this conversation…”

“They are not!”

Rachel is taken aback by the strength behind her own words. At this point it’s really important for Kurt to understand, in order to break free from this cocoon of pain and decide once and for all what his heart wants. She is pretty sure his heart has been calling out for Blaine’s all along, but this isn’t her answer to give.

“They are not, Kurt. They are memories. You know it, deep down. It wasn’t a coincidence that you met Blaine in Montauk, the first time you saw him you were there.”

Kurt’s eyes widen, his back suddenly so straight Rachel has the feeling it may snap.

“What did you say?”

Rachel takes a deep breath. They’ve come this far and there’s no way they can go back now.

“You met him at David’s party. Back then you were going out with Andrew.”

Kurt might have always kept his core guarded, shielded even, but Rachel has been by his side for so long and she has learned how to read him. Now she almost wishes she couldn’t, because the confusion and the desperation she sees reflected in his eyes and etched in his posture are almost too much to bear. She can’t do anything to ease it all, to fix it. Kurt has to do it on his own. Her voice is barely a whisper when she speaks, but she is sure Kurt will hear her in the silence that has fallen upon them.

“You’ve to talk to him.”

///

Quinn drives, Kurt’s apartment block soon getting swallowed by other buildings in the rearview mirror. Rachel is silent in the passenger seat, looking out of the window, her hands fisted on her knees. Quinn’s shoulders ache as the tension starts to slowly slip away. Kurt asked them to leave him alone – his voice hard and his eyes stone cold. Rachel didn’t want to go, but Quinn gently took her by the wrist, her thumb stroking soothing circles over soft skin. Kurt didn’t accompany them to the door, he remained sat on the couch, his shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

“Maybe we shouldn’t have…”

Rachel’s voice breaks and so does Quinn’s heart. She reaches over the gearshift and takes Rachel’s hand.

“We did the right thing, baby. He is just too hurt to see it right now.”

“But, what if he hates me and…”

Quinn shakes her head.

“He loves you, Rach. He just need some time to process all this.”

Rachel squeezes her hand back.

“You promise?”

“Promise.”

Quinn kisses her the moment they stop at the next streetlight.

///

His fingers start to hurt, but Kurt doesn’t care. He keeps digging through the cardboard boxes piled up in the storage closet. There’s dust in his hair, on his face, on his clothes. He coughs and his eyes water. He doesn’t stop. It’s as though his whole body is burning and he needs to put off the fire or something will get charred and broken beyond repair.

At last his hand closes around a small velvety box, hidden underneath old high school photos and mementos of his first year in New York. Heart lodged in his throat, Kurt takes a deep breath – dust scratching at his throat. every single muscle in his body tenses up, his knees hurt from being pressed too hard against the floor.

His fingers are trembling when he unlocks the box, his lungs burning as he holds his breath. And there it is. A silly, beautiful, perfect ring made of gum wrappers. The light from the hallway brushes over it. It seems to glisten and Kurt feels as though someone has just punched him in the stomach.

“Kurt…”

He had heard Blaine say his name so many times before – moans and whispers and shouts – but this time it seems to weight more, to be rounder and richer than ever.

“It’s a promise ring.”

Kurt heart jumped almost painfully, hitting his ribcage like a hammer. Speaking felt like a hardship.

“But what are you promising?”

“To always love you. To defend you even if I know you are wrong. To surprise you. To always pick up your phone calls no matter what I am doing. To bake you cookies at least twice a year. To kiss you whenever and wherever you want. But mostly to make sure you know how perfectly imperfect you are.”

Kurt doesn’t have the strength to stand up and move. He kneels there, surrounded by discarded memories and ghosts of the dreams he once had. He remembers it all now – how perfect it had been to fall in love with Blaine and how painful it had ended up to be.

He remembers that day at David’s party now. The way all of sudden there was no place left for anyone else but Blaine in his thoughts. The days that had followed that night in Montauk had been a blur of texts and stupid butterflies taking residence in his stomach. It felt like being a teenager in love again. It was scary and dizzying and it left him breathless. It had been hard to explain Andrew that he couldn’t be with him anymore. Kurt had never liked to hurt other people. He had always been the one hurt, the one whose heart was stomped on. He felt bad about it, but how could he still with Andrew when a “When can I see you again?” from Blaine managed to set his heart running?

It feels like yesterday. It was raining and Kurt’s heart was racing as he approached the coffee shop where Blaine had asked him to meet. He was standing under an old and battered umbrella, a hoodie on. He was gorgeous and free and so much brighter than the rest of the gray world surrounding them. As he walked closer, Kurt’s skin seemed to thrum with electric energy. He had never felt that way before.

He dips his hands inside old cardboard boxes again. There’s nothing better to do, after all. What can he do now except from digging through debris of a past that he probably will never get back? He cuts his fingers on random sheets of paper, but he keeps going. If he didn’t have the courage to throw away the ring when he cleared everything out before the erasure, he might have left something else behind. He might have been fool enough to leave another door opened, just as he has been crazy enough to put his heart on the line again. A small voice at the back of his mind tells him that if he were to go back in time he would do exactly the same. For Blaine, always. It cuts right to the core of his bones.

Kurt woke up late. It was Sunday and Blaine had left earlier to go to work. There was a pot of coffee and toasted bread on the table in the kitchen. A postcard was propped up against a vase holding a single tulip. It was an old photo of Penn Station as it was back around the beginning of the XX century.

Taking one smooth petal between his fingers, Kurt remembered the time he had told Blaine about his mum. How she had loved New York and had kept books of photography stacked in her working room.

The stack of letters and postcards is kept together by a ribbon. It used to be red, but know the colour has faded to a pale pink. When Kurt first moved to New York after high school ended, he took with him the good luck messages Mercedes and Tina wrote for him and some of those sepia-coloured pictures of his mum and his dad when they were young. Burt smiling at the camera with an arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders. His mum knitting with a round and big belly. As years went by he added his dad’s letters and small notes Rachel used to leave around their shared apartment to make him laugh on gloomy days.

If he kept a letter or a picture of him and Blaine it must be here. There are no such things, there’s a postcard, though. A simple glance is enough for Kurt to know that it was from Blaine. A black and white entrance hall of Penn Station looks up at him. With trembling fingers he turns the postcard, heart stuck in his throat and memories of a Sunday morning years ago flooding his brain.

Kurt presses the postcard to his chest and closes his eyes. Everything is dark and trembling Fear and hope and longing twisting together, pulsing brightly. Those words, Blaine’s loopy handwriting, the way they had made love on the couch as soon as Blaine had been back home that Sunday, everything floats around inside of him. And he knows, with sudden clarity, that he misses Blaine. That he has never stopped loving him, despite the pain, the wounds and the scars.

“Why do you have to be around him, Blaine?”

“Kurt, Sebastian doesn’t mean anything to me.”

Blaine moved closer, hand splayed over Kurt’s heart. It was warm and gentle, but Kurt resisted the urge to lean into the touch. His stomach lurched unpleasantly as he remembered the way Sebastian had been leaning into Blaine’s space the other night, hand on Blaine’s arm as though it belonged there.

“How...”

“Please, believe me.”

Kurt blinked and for the first time since the beginning of the conversation truly looked at Blaine. He took in the watery depths of his eyes, the way his teeth sunk in his bottom lip.

“I...”

“You are the only one, Kurt. How could you doubt that?”

Blaine’s fingers pressed down a bit more firmly. Kurt’s heart skipped a beat.

“I don’t doubt you, Blaine.”

“Then trust me on this.”

And Kurt leaned forward and kissed him, all teeth and tongue and love. Because it was Blaine and he would never stopped trusting him with his heart.

Maybe it is a mistake, but he isn’t strong enough to throw it all away a second time. Not when it all managed to get back, not when his whole body seems to ache with the need to see Blaine, to hold him and never let him go again. Not again.

“Someone you love”. Quinn’s voice echoes soft in his ears. The truth behind those words shines quietly along Kurt’s very veins, up up to his heart.

Slowly, he gets back on his feet, legs hurting after being crouched on the floor for so long. Still clutching the small box and the postcard, Kurt makes his wobbly way to the couch. The phone his cold as he fishes it out from under the cushions.

To Rachel:

I am sorry for earlier. I just needed time, I still do. I remember now, I think. And I know none of this is your fault. Thank you for being there for me. I love you.

His fingers hover uncertainly as he thinks about the next text. Kurt casts a quick glance to the objects resting on the cushions by his side - tokens of a past that has come back, that won’t go away.

To Blaine:

Meet me in Montauk tomorrow at 3 pm?

The room feels too small as he waits, breath stuttering past his lips and heart beating too fast. He opens the box and takes out the ring. So silly and so perfect. Everything Kurt needs. The phone skitters on the coffee table. Kurt doesn’t let go of the ring as he opens the incoming text.

From Blaine:

Of course. See you there.