A/N:  Ill try to finish this in three chapters, but it may end up being four.  In either case, Ill continue updating it daily.

It's funny, the things you remember, and the things you dont.

I don't remember what Blaine Anderson was wearing when she showed up at my door, but I remember the swirl of the letters on her palm, traitorously spelling out Kurt Hummel.  I don't remember what we talked about at dinner, but I remember the devastated look on my dad's face when he first caught sight of her.  My heart didn't have to break in that moment; my dad's broke enough for the both of us.

It became a weekly tradition.  Blaine would show up on Friday nights in time for dinner, and stay through till Sunday afternoon.  Weekends, once my respite from the torture of school days, became the most dreaded days of all.

“Call me BJ,” she told me one day, her gloved palm rubbing my knee as we watched a movie on the couch.  “Everyone does.”

“Because your middle name starts with a J?” I asked, freezing as her hand moved higher up my thigh.

She smirked.  “No, because I'm very, very good at giving—”

“What're we watching?” Dad asked, appearing with a bowl of popcorn and plopping down on the other side of Blai... of BJ.  I shot him a grateful look.  He'd rearranged his work schedule so that he could always be home with us on the weekend.  Hed also had a stern talk with BJ one day, telling her, “Soulmates or not, my son is still a child.  I don't want any funny business going on while he's still a minor.  Got it?”

It wasn't the perfect solution.  But for now, I was off limits, and that was something.

Meanwhile, the bullying at school got even worse.

“How did you end up with a girl soulmate?” Dave Karofsky demanded one afternoon, punching the lockers over my head.

“And a hot one,” Azimio added.  “One in college.”

“A girl,” Karofsky stressed again.  “A girl.”

He cornered me in the locker room one day with a desperate expression and tried to kiss me, but a well-placed elbow to the ribs and knee to the groin kept him at bay.

I'd gotten pretty good at evading unwanted advances, after all.

“You should get a tattoo,” BJ said one day, tracing her fingertips along my upper arm.  It was the week before Christmas, and school was almost over.  We hadn't talked about whether she'd visit during the week once winter vacation began, but Dad had made a preemptive strike by announcing that I'd be going to work with him over break.

“A tattoo?”

“Yeah, like my name in a heart on your arm.  It'd be so sexy.”

“Your name is already written on me,” I reminded her, clenching and unclenching my hand beneath its glove.

“Kurt,” she whined, flopping back on the couch dramatically.  “Come on, work with me here.  You're not exactly what I expected, you know.”

“I'm...?”

“I always dreamed of Kurt Hummel as a big German guy,” she said, sulking.  “Someone older, with big muscles, and tattoos.  Maybe a ponytail.”  She looked over at me dubiously.  “Not... you.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” I said tightly, moving further into the corner of the couch.

“If you'd just get a tattoo—”

“I'm underage,” I reminded her.

“How could I forget,” she groaned. “My soulmate, the underaged fairy.”

I breathed in sharply.  “You think you're what I imagined?  Some blonde bimbo who's slept with every guy in Ohio?”

“I'm a virgin,” she said sharply.  “I saved myself for you.”

“Yeah right.”

“I am.”

I looked over at her, and she nodded with wide eyes.  “I swear.  I only ever did oral and anal.  I left the real deal for you.”

I got to my feet quickly.  “I need to go study.”

“Kurt—”

“Don't,” I said, heading for the stairs.

“Kurt, we have to talk about New Years Eve,” she called out.

I stopped.  “What?”

“My family's having its yearly reunion in Pittsburgh, and my parents want you to come.”

“To Pittsburgh?  With you?”

She huffed in annoyance, throwing her blonde hair over her shoulder.  “It'll just be a day trip.  We'll go in the morning and leave Pittsburgh after midnight.  I swear your precious virtue will remain intact.”

I breathed deeply, considering.  “Why do you want me there?  You don't even like me.”

“My parents keep asking why they haven't met you yet.  Besides, if you go to that, you'll meet my extended family too, so you won't have to go to other events for a while.  Lots of birds with one stone.”

“I'll have to ask my dad,” I told her finally.

“Of course you will.”  

The morning of the thirty-first, I rose early.  I pulled on a pair of tailored navy slacks and a gorgeous periwinkle sweater, with my best McQueen jacket over it.  I spent a long time on my hair, then glared at my reflection for a while.

Why was I trying to impress her parents?  It's not like their opinion mattered.  We were stuck together no matter what they thought of me.

BJ pulled up to the curb promptly at eight.  I waved goodbye to my dad, who offered to lend me a can of mace if I needed it, and ran out to get in the car.  BJ greeted me distantly, and we began to drive.

It's more than four hours to Pittsburgh on a normal day, but the traffic was particularly bad that morning.  I fiddled for the radio for a while, letting the sounds of top 40 drown out the awkward silence in the car.

“It's not that I don't like you,” BJ said finally, as we sat on Route 376. 

“Oh, please.  You can't stand me.”

“Thats not true.  It's just... I think we both had a lot of expectations about what our soulmates would be like, and we need to make some adjustments, that's all.”  She swallowed hard.  “You're a really nice person, Kurt.  Plenty of girls I know ended up with assholes.  I'm lucky I got a nice one.”

I shifted in my seat, surprised and a little touched by her words.  She was right, of course.  Everything had been so built up in my mind, ever since I was a kid.  Id spent so much time imagining the swelling orchestras and tingling skin and fireworks when I first touched my soulmate.

In truth, we had each other's names on our hands.  That was it.

But maybe, that could be enough.

“So tell me about your family,” I said, as the traffic finally began to move.

“We're all descendants of the Anderson empire.”  At my blank look, she shook her head.  “Seriously?  Cooper Blaine Anderson was a Scottish immigrant in the 1800s.  He formed a partnership with Andrew Carnegie, and together they took over the steel industry in America.”

“Carnegie I've heard of.  Wasn't he a big philanthropist?”

“Yeah.  Cooper, not so much.  He kept all his money, so his descendents are all loaded.  And every year we have a reunion on New Years Eve at great-great-great-granddaddy's estate in Pittsburgh.”

“That sounds nice, I guess.”

“It's okay.  A few hundred relatives flaunting their money and their latest boob jobs.”  She sighed.  “At least I won't be mocked for not having met my soulmate this year.  Even if you arent what I told everyone to expect when I was younger.”

“All that wealth, and you wanted a tattooed biker guy?”

“I just wanted someone... unique.”  BJ sighed wistfully.  

“I guess I'm that.”

She laughed, and tousled my hair.  “I guess you are.”

It took me twenty minutes to fix my coif afterwards, but I didnt really mind.

The Anderson estate was the sort of place I'd only ever seen in movies.  A large wrought-iron gate led to sprawling, beautifully-landscaped grounds and a massive mansion sitting atop a hill.

BJ parked the car, and we walked side by side into the mansion.  A blonde woman walked by and gave her an air kiss.

“Good to see you, sweetheart.  Everyone's out back.”

“Who was that?” I whispered as we walked on toward the back of the house.

“No idea.”

Behind the mansion was a huge patio, along with a pool and tennis courts.  And as far as the eye could see, blond people decked out in gorgeous clothes and jewelry.

“Are these all relatives?” I gaped.

“Pretty much, yeah.  Relatives and in-laws.”

"Do you know most of them?"

"No, but its not really a problem.  Its an Anderson tradition that the first-born son is always named Cooper and the second-born — or the daughter — is named Blaine.  In honor of great-great-great-granddaddy, of course.  So you have a 50/50 shot of guessing the right name, no matter who you talk to."

She led me toward a blond couple that looked exactly like the others.  “Hello Mother, Father.”

“Blaine, dear,” her mother cooed, pressing a dry kiss to her cheek.

“You look well,” her father said, then looked me up and down.  “This is the soulmate?”

“Yes, Father, this is Kurt.  Kurt, these are my parents, Cooper and Diane.”

We shook hands stiffly.

“Good of you to join us today,” he said.  “Please make yourself at home.  Blaine, may we have a word with you in private?”

BJ shot me an apologetic look as they led her off, but I didn't mind.  I felt like I was at a Stepford Wives convention, and people-watching was one of my top hobbies.  For a while, I tried playing my own version of Where's Waldo, looking for non-blond heads.  But other than a tipsy-looking brunette and a tall dark-haired man who kept pointing at the swans, I came up empty.  So then I played Spot the Bottle Blond, but there were too many to count.  Eventually I grew bored, and wandered off to explore the grounds.

It was beautiful here.  Id never imagined that Pittsburgh could be so lovely.  The farther I wandered from the mansion, the quieter and stiller the air became.  It felt like it might snow soon.  I passed a small pond and smiled, imagining a little family of Mallard ducks swimming by in warmer weather.

BJ really wasn't so bad, I thought, as I continued to walk.  Her heart was in the right place.  I could have done worse.  We just needed to, well... get all our ducks in a row. 

After a while, a large field appeared on the horizon.  It was less manicured than the rest of the grounds, but even more beautiful in its natural state.  I smiled a little sadly, remembering how I used to dream of meeting my soulmate in a place just like this.  There was a wide wooden bench beside the field, and although it was occupied, there was plenty of room for two.  I made my way over to it, hoping that the boy with dark curly hair wouldn't mind sharing with me.

To be continued...