Last year I was a junior at William McKinley High School in Lima, Ohio. My boyfriend and I were the only out gay men at our school. There was a lesbian couple too, but I think only one of them was actually a lesbian. The other one was, well, Brittany. Nobody really knew how to label her, but I don’t think she really needs a label besides Brittany. It makes more sense if you know her. They didn’t get much crap for being gay. Kurt and I did.

Kurt was a senior, along with most of my friends there. We were all in the glee club together. They started to get their college acceptance letters in early spring and were then all busy and happy making plans for their futures. People kept asking me what I wanted to do after high school, after college, for the rest of my life. My parents kept asking me who I wanted to be, but I never knew how to answer. See, I knew who I wanted to be, but I didn’t know who I would actually become. Who I want to be is too far out of my reach.

That’s what happens when you’re pathetic, like me. Who you are and who you wish you were don’t align.

Even then, who I was and who people thought I was didn’t align. People thought I was this bright, cheery guy. They thought I was all smiles and optimism and encouraging words, but they were wrong. They were so, so wrong. But I couldn’t really blame them; they saw who I wanted them to see. If they saw who I really was, if they knew how I really felt, they wouldn’t have been my friends. Nobody likes depressed people, and nobody likes fakes. Nobody likes somebody who doesn’t even like himself.

So instead of letting people see the real me, I hid it from them. I left my true feelings buried away, where nobody could find them except me. I wrote everything down in a journal I kept hidden in my closet. Not even Kurt knew about any of it. I didn’t know what I’d do if he did because he certainly would have left me. He thought I was so strong and brave and he thought of me as not only his boyfriend, but also his mentor. I was the guy who could do anything, no matter what adversity I faced. I was the guy who held him when he needed me, but never needed it myself. If he knew how much of what he thought of me was a lie, if he knew how much I hated myself, he’d leave me. I had convinced myself of that a long time ago.

He couldn’t know about my parents, my self-loathing, and he most certainly couldn’t know about the cutting. He couldn’t know how I really felt about Finn after I transferred, or how I felt about the Warblers after they’d agreed to slushie him. He couldn’t know how much it killed me that they would do that to him, to me, and never apologize. I never thought I’d lose them, too.  I guess that’s where this all started. Well, no, that’s not actually true, but it is where it all started again. Let me explain.

I’ve been cutting myself since I was a freshman. I had just come out and I was getting all kinds of crap about it. My parents were not happy, not at all, and the kids at school were just plain cruel. My older brother had moved out by that time and he wasn’t really around to help me. Though he was always just a phone call away, it wasn’t really the same. Anyway, at first I only cut when I felt like I needed it, but as things at school got worse I found myself doing it more and more. Then came Sadie Hawkins. I went with a boy. We weren’t together, but we were the only out gay kids and we were friendly enough. Some jocks beat the shit out of us. I woke up in the hospital friendless and ashamed. I cut myself every day after that.

My parents transferred me to Dalton Academy, and the place became my safe haven. I put a smile on my face and a spring in my step and everybody loved me. I was gay and nobody cared and I had friends for life (or so I thought). They thought I was happy, but it was all a lie. My parents never called me, never even pretended to care, and I sunk deeper and deeper into darkness. I cut myself more and more and nobody suspected a thing. Why would they? I was Perfect Blaine Anderson. Then Kurt came along and my whole world turned upside down. I had a boy to love, a boy to love me back. He respected me, he looked up to me, and he understood me. It was all I wanted. The longer we were together, the less I cut. I actually started to feel happy when I never thought I would.

I transferred to McKinley because he was the most important thing in my life and I couldn’t stand to be away from him. But Finn treated me like shit, even after a pleasant summer. Santana treated me like shit sometimes, too. I never knew where I stood with her. Kurt never stood up for me, and it hurt, and I started cutting again.

Then came the Michael-off.

I don’t know what possessed me to do it. It was so stupid, and it was bound to go south. Of course I never realized that because, well, I’m me. And then I saw the slushie and Kurt standing in its way and I just dove because how could they fucking do that? I thought these guys were my friends. Why would they want to hurt Kurt? They had to know it would hurt me too, just not the way it actually did. Suddenly I had lost some of the most important people in my life. Why wasn’t I fucking good enough? Again! How come everybody I ever knew always turned on me? What was wrong with me? 

It had to be me, didn’t it? If it was one or two people then maybe I could blame them, or brush it off as us just not being compatible with each other, but every single damn person I knew eventually left me, hurt me. And why? I couldn’t figure out what was so wrong with me that everybody left. I still can’t.

So I started cutting more, cutting deeper. I did it often and once again I got great at hiding it, even with Kurt seeing me naked often enough. I prided myself in my ability to hide my pain, but it was tearing me apart inside. I became obsessed with hiding it from Kurt. I couldn’t lose him. I needed him.

He could never find out.