Chapter 5

Kurt took a sip of his frappe as he appraised Blaine, who was sitting across from him and had been mindlessly stirring his medium drip for the last five minutes. There was no chance for any sugar to have survived that by now.

‘Crap, now I’m getting stressed from looking at you,’ Kurt said.

Blaine’s gaze snapped up to his friend’s face. They had barely exchanged a few sentences when Blaine filled Kurt in on the details of his conversation with his aunt. He’d been fidgety and at the verge of freaking out all morning, even though he kept on trying to tell himself there’s no reason to be nervous at all. Aileen was family, she seemed really nice on the phone, just the way he remembered her from a few years ago. And his parents had set the bar quite high in the who-sucks-at-communication-the-most contest.

‘Sorry,’ Blaine muttered, finally leaving his stirrer alone. ‘I just don’t know what to expect.’

Kurt nodded in understanding, sucking on his straw again.

‘Do you want me to come with you? For emotional support?’

‘No, I think I should go alone. But thanks.’ Blaine attempted a smile, his mouth twitching slightly up for a split second.

Another moment passed without either of them saying a word, the bustle of early afternoon in the Lima Bean enveloping them and filling the silence.

‘You haven’t told your parents yet, have you?,’ Kurt asked finally, studying his coffee carefully.

‘Nope. There was no point, I have no idea what she’s gonna say.’ Blaine shrugged, trying to dismiss his fears, but Kurt knew him too well not to know how deeply it worried him.

They parted in the parking lot, Kurt giving his friend a comforting embrace before Blaine got into his Chevy, rolled the windows all the way down and set off on his way to Aileen’s. Kurt didn’t move until the vintage care disappeared around the corner.

***

The house was relatively small, one-storey, but pretty, with a tiny porch and flowerbeds lining the foundations. There was a silver hatchback parked in the driveway, telling Blaine that his aunt was indeed home.

With his heart beating much more quickly than normally, Blaine locked his car and started slowly up to the door. He raised his hand and was about to knock, when the door swung open, revealing a smiling woman in her mid- or late thirties.

‘Hi!,’ Aileen said, immediately pulling Blaine in for a hug and a peck on the cheek, throwing him off guard.

‘Um- hi,’ he choked out in response, as she dragged him into the house.

Blaine barely recovered from one attack, when he was jumped at again. Something fluffy and very, very warm brushed against his leg and leaped up almost to his face with a happy bark.

‘Oh, that’s Goldie, she’s harmless,’ Aileen said with a laugh, and showing Blaine to follow her into the room to his right. The dog tagged along, wagging her tail.

An awkward silence fell as they entered the living room connected to the kitchen and a tiny dining space. Aileen motioned Blaine to sit down on the couch, and he obeyed without a word. Goldie hopped on the sofa next to him, putting her head in his lap and demanding attention, so he put his hand behind her ears.

‘Oh, she’s such a pet,’ said Aileen with a smile that seemed to have not ceased for a second since he came in. ‘Do you want something to drink? OJ, water, coffee maybe?’

‘OJ’s fine.’ For a second Blaine thought he wasn’t sure he could stomach anything, so he inhaled deeply to get rid of the nerves and nausea.

Within a minute, Aileen came back from the kitchen space with two tall glasses filled with orange juice and sat in an armchair across from Blaine.

‘So, you said you wanted to talk about something. Talk.’ Her smile became more encouraging than happy now.

‘Yeah, there is this one thing… I don’t really know how to start.’ Blaine winced at his awkwardness.

‘It’s best to start at the beginning.’

It took him a few silent minutes of stroking Goldie’s honey-coloured head to calm himself and decide what to say first.

‘Did you- Um, did you know that I was gay?’

Aileen’s face stayed kind and focused on his words; no hint of disgust or disapproval could be spotted in her features. A good sign.

‘No, I didn’t. It’s not like I talk to your mom often, she never said anything.’

Blaine laughed bitterly.

‘I didn’t expect she would have told you. They keep pretending I never came out. I mean, I have to keep reminding them, but then it’s like they forget all over again. Like they have some short-term memory loss or something.’ Aileen stopped smiling for the first time, but didn’t speak, so Blaine went on. ‘So I guess you can imagine it’s not fun to live under one roof with them.

‘Anyway, I have a friend, Kurt, he’s from Lima. Last year he ran away from home for a while, and I kinda helped him out, let him stay at our place and stuff. Well, that didn’t really help with Mom and Dad.’

Aileen furrowed her brow.

‘Why? Didn’t they approve of you helping your friend?’

‘Um, well, they didn’t really know Kurt was staying over.’ That seemed to a good enough explanation for Aileen. ‘And we didn’t really know each other before I let him stay, so there’s that. And they weren’t thrilled when they found out Kurt’s gay, too. We’re just friends, by the way,’ he made haste to add. ‘Or rather he’s like family, I guess, rather than, you know, a boyfriend or whatever.’

‘It didn’t even cross my mind,’ Aileen said. ‘Go on.’

Blaine took a moment to pet Goldie in silence before he resumed his story.

‘Not so long ago this idea came to me, to transfer to Kurt’s school, here in Lima. I don’t really have close friends at Dalton, and here I’d have Kurt and all of his friends, though some of them are complete nutjobs.’ Images of Rachel, Finn, Brittany, Puck and all the rest crossed his mind. ‘Only there’s one problem.’

‘You would have to live in Lima,’ Aileen finished for him.

Blaine nodded slowly. ‘Yeah. I’d have to live in Lima.’

‘So you wanted to ask if you could move in with me.’

It felt so good to have an adult, a family member understanding what he was getting at without him ever saying it out loud. Until now the only people that could ever do that were Kurt, Burt and Carole. But still, the situation made him feel uncomfortable. He didn’t like to beg.

‘Basically, yes. But it’s fine if you don’t want me around.’

Aileen was silent for a moment, clearly thinking this over.

‘Do your parents know about this idea of yours?,’ she asked finally.

‘Um, not yet. I wanted to talk to you first, to check if there was even a point in having this discussion with them, because that’s not going to be pretty. Or wouldn’t be, or whatever.’

He could feel his aunt’s eyes boring into his face, so he dropped his gaze to the shining fur on Goldie’s back.

‘You’re really unhappy there, aren’t you?’

‘Does it show?,’ Blaine mumbled in response.

‘It does. To a shrink at least.’ Aileen paused for a moment and when she spoke again, her voice was much more chipper. ‘So, which school you’re transferring to?’

Blaine lifted his head abruptly to find his aunt smiling warmly.

‘Seriously? I can move in?’

‘If you convince your parents you’re going to be happier here, then yes, you can.’

‘Oh my god, thank you!’ He almost pushed Goldie to the floor and he jumped up to hug Aileen. ‘At least, thank you for saying yes.’

His expression fell when he remembered a reason why his parents could resist his transferring. As long as they still cared about his safety.

Aileen scanned his face, as he pulled out and sat back down onto the couch.

‘Is there any reason they should object?’ She obviously knew how to read people. Blaine thought living with a shrink would probably take some getting used to.

He kept his eyes fixed on the coffee table.

‘They could say they want me to be safe and that a public school isn’t that, as I know from experience.’

Blaine’s words rang around the room for a moment, giving him the creeps and creasing Aileen’s forehead one more time.

‘As you know from experience?’

He bit his lip, realizing he’d just shared a piece of information his aunt did not have.

‘I got beaten up at my previous school. They never told you?’

Aileen shook her head slightly, shock clear in her face.

‘They mentioned an attack, but they made it sound like a robbery, not a hate crime. But then again, they never told me you were gay, so I didn’t even think of that.’ She swallowed loudly; she was beginning to think she didn’t even know her own sister anymore. Maybe had she told her that in person, instead of on the phone, maybe then Aileen would have seen there was more to the story.

‘I was in the hospital for two months, in physical therapy for another three, I had to skip a year at school, because of the fact my whole left leg was in pieces basically. I had an internal bleeding that they were barely able to stop. And then, when I was just beginning to feel a little bit better, they sent me to some camp to straighten me out. And they never even told our closest family?’ With each new word, his speech was becoming more and more slurred, his voice helpless and soaked with misery.

Blaine didn’t even notice when Aileen went around the coffee table and perched on the sofa’s armrest to cuddle him to her chest. The warmth of somebody else’s arms around him was exactly what he needed.

‘Do you want me to talk to your parents about this?,’ she asked quietly, stroking his hair. He didn’t even care if she screwed up his layer of gel, the touch was so comforting.

‘No, I have to do this alone. But thank you.’

And even though half an hour later he was setting off to confront his parents on his own, he had never before felt less alone in his life.