He couldn't take it. The thought of it made him physically ill, which was how he justified his absence. It had been easy enough to avoid Blaine during finals, to lock himself in the library during meals so he wouldn't have to sit so near him and remember how nice it felt to have Blaine's hand 'accidentally' graze his under the table between bites of baked ziti; he remembered more than enough without external reminders.

He remembered all the time. It was excrutiating.

It was a hectic day, with student move-out scheduled to begin right after commencement ended - Kurt supposed it was logical for the parents of seniors to not need to make the trip from wherever they lived out to Dalton two days in a short time span, but it made for an afternoon in which too many people were crowded into too-small rooms to lug too-large boxes of happily-discarded uniforms into their cars. Sam's parents had whisked him away almost immediately, complaining of the drive, with barely enough time for the roommates to say a quick goodbye. They didn't need to linger too long on formalities, since Sam would be barely a few miles away all summer after all; Kurt gave it three days before Sam was desperately seeking out somewhere else to spend his days because his parents were driving him crazy. They rode him less hard now that they knew it wasn't his fault, but harder now that they knew he indeed was capable of getting better grades.

Apparently Kurt wasn't the only one whose diagnosis was a double-edged sword. But at least Sam was allowed to stay where he felt like he belonged; Kurt could appreciate that, even if he would miss the boy when school started again in the fall.

His own father arrived toward the tail end of the afternoon. Back when they had been making arrangements, Kurt had expected he would be spending as many moments with Blaine as he could before they were flung to separate towns for the summer...then everything else had happened, and he didn't want to sound desperate enough to make his father change his plans, especially since he did have to worry about the shop and everything. He found himself sitting alone in an empty dorm, surrounded by boxes and suitcases because somehow his belongings had multiplied over the course of the year, feeling truly lonely for the first time in a long while. The gnawing feeling had been common when he lived at home, before Blaine, before he started smiling for no reason other than the inability to stop himself; now it was back with a vengeance.

A book of sheet music lay on his lap, and he absently traced the cover with his finger. "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" - should he have picked a different song? Would everything have been different if he could have just picked something else to sing? If he could have just turned down Blaine's invitation to listen to Garland at the Grove, he could have avoided this whole mess. He could have just-...just stayed alone all year and been his perfectly-eccentric, perfectly-lonely self. It would have been hard, but it would have felt better than this - he was sure of it.

"Hey," Finn said brightly from the doorway, and Kurt dropped the sheet music, flustered by the sudden voice. "Ready to go?"

"Finn," he said with a forced smile as he tried to recover, stooping to pick up the fallen book and shoving it into the nearest box. "I wasn't expecting you-"

"Yeah, your dad got caught up on a big project and asked me to come." He hadn't seen much of Finn since Christmas, just the week of spring break when Finn had spent most of his time working and Rachel had dragged him to every imaginable music store looking for the perfect sheet music selection for audition pieces for schools in New York...because it was never too early, apparently. Finn looked normal, the sort of moderately-contented expression he had always worn except last fall...and Kurt wasn't sure whether it had changed back because the pain of the person you loved moving away to never be heard from again genuinely did fade, or if Finn was just too simple to dwell on things for very long.

He thought about asking but had no idea where to begin.

"And he brought help," Rachel chirped as she appeared beside Finn in the doorway. In a way she was the last person he wanted to see, and he could only imagine how awkward the ride there had been...and how much more awkward the ride home would be as she tried to flirt with Finn while pretending she was talking to her non-boyfriend instead. But in a way she was exactly the right person; she was the only one who really knew what had been going on with him and Blaine, other than Mercedes who had come around but was a little less enthusiastic about it all than Rachel. ...to be fair, most people were less enthusiastic about most things than Rachel was. Besides, Rachel had at least had a boyfriend - however shortlived and disastrous that had been - so maybe she would have some kind of-

...not sage advice, really, because she was still Rachel, but at least a friendly ear.

"I thought an all-boys' school would be kind of intriguing but really it just smells like dirty laundry," she stated, and Kurt smiled very faintly.

"You get used to it," he replied, because it was true - he almost didn't notice it anymore. He wondered what it would be like to notice the smell of sweaty wool again; with any luck, he wouldn't have to for awhile.

"So you ready?" Finn asked.

"Wait," Rachel said, glancing up at him. "Can't Kurt give me a tour first? I've been so curious about this place, and I only saw the one building when I was here for the dance ..."

He regarded her curiously, not sure what she was up to. She cared enough for a tour when he was never going to be here again...why, precisely? All he wanted to do was leave and never see anyone (except Sam) for the rest of his life. Finn looked down at his watch, and Rachel mouthed, "Are you okay?"

He must be out of practice at concealing his discontent. He would need to work on that over the summer; it would be a true acting challenge.

He gave his best 'as if you need to ask' look, which she took as a sign that things were worse than she had anticipated. "I guess we can go on the tour, if it's not gonna take us too long to load everything. Mom's cooking dinner, but it's not too late."

"Why don't you load things into the truck, it would save us time," Rachel suggested to him with a winning smile. "It means getting home to dinner faster."

Finn smiled like that made sense, and Kurt was struck by just what their relationship would look like if they ever had one; at least her manipulation of Finn would be more innocent than Quinn's ever had been. Far less mean, too. "Yeah, okay," he replied. "We'll meet out at the truck?"

"Sure," Rachel replied, and Kurt drew in a deep breath as he stood and attempted to look like he didn't care about any of the things they were going to see, any of the memories he was going to relive as he wandered campus with a girl. It all felt so out-of-place, having her here; for one thing, she was a girl standing in the middle of a boys' dorm, and while he did kind of love her in the way he loved Mercedes - she was a good friend, much better than he ever would have anticipated - if he was going to have a dorm entirely to himself, she was definitely not who he instinctively wanted there.

He wondered if someday it wouldn't feel like his heart was being sliced open when he thought about things that were going to change now.

"Don't throw anything around, there are some breakable-"

"I know," Finn assured him, mumbling, "You break one vase...." as he picked up the first suitcase to take it out to the truck. Rachel took Kurt's hand and practically dragged him from the room.

* * * * *

"So he's just leaving?" she asked as they descended the stairs of the main building toward the Commons. "Just like that?"

"Just like that," Kurt replied quietly, his voice distant as he tried not to think too intimately about it. As he tried not to remember their fight.

As he tried not to remember meeting Blaine on these stairs. The way his hand felt warm as they touched.

"I'm so sorry." Kurt managed a faint smile of gratitude at the sentiment, but it was tight. Maybe things would feel better once he was away from here, he told himself. Maybe it would feel less wrenching once he was in a different environment - one Blaine had never really been in except for one weekend way back when. He wouldn't have to think about Blaine anywhere except at the bar, where he didn't plan on going too soon anyway, and it would hardly seem strange at all to sit on his own bed in his own room alone because that was what he was used to. He wouldn't find himself looking around every few seconds to try and catch a glimpse of slicked-down hair and geometric eyebrows and an infectious grin-

There he was. Flanked by his parents, still wearing his uniform as neatly as ever, walking down the hallway from the Commons. Kurt froze, fighting every urge to run away before he could burst into tears. He swore he hadn't cried this much in years, but these days it felt like tears were just sort of perpetually lurking, ready to sting his eyes at any moment. A look of panic crossed over Blaine's features for a moment before being replaced by something brighter and entirely fake.

He wondered if Blaine's smile would ever be real again. He doubted it would with a girl the way it was with him. He wondered if Blaine cared.

He wondered if Blaine wondered about him.

"Mother, Sir, you remember Kurt, don't you?" he said with just a tiny bit of quiver in his voice that Kurt couldn't understand. It sounded more afraid than sad, but honestly what did Blaine think he was going to do - tell his parents exactly what they had been to each other? He was devastated, not vindictive.

"Yes, of course," Blaine's mother said; she had the same fake smile as Blaine did, Kurt realized now. Was it genetic to be this numb, or just learned? She looked from Kurt to Rachel for a moment with a pointed look.

Right. He was supposed to introduce them, wasn't he? He couldn't believe it hadn't even occurred to him. "Mrs. Anderson, this is Rachel Berry-"

"Kurt's girlfriend," Blaine added quickly, and Kurt wanted to scream at him. After throwing Rachel in his face during their fight, he was going to make it a point to his parents? Really? Who did he think they were kidding anyway? Who in their right mind would believe that he and Rachel were actually a couple?

But did it matter what anyone actually felt, to Blaine? Wasn't it all just about appearances?

"Very nice to meet you ma'am," Rachel said with bright smile, but Kurt was more focused on the strange and yet proud look Blaine's father was giving him. He couldn't read it, but he could tell that Blaine could, and he wanted to ask but he couldn't very well ask now and it wasn't as though they were going to be alone later for him to get a translation, now, was it?

"I assume you'd like to say your goodbyes, dear - we'll be out by the car," Mrs. Anderson said, turning to Blaine, and he simply gave a nod as his parents departed back the way they had come, leaving the three of them alone at the foot of the stairs.

"Kurt..." Blaine started awkwardly, glancing over his shoulder to see how far away his parents were, as if he were a dog checking how much leash he had left.

"Yes?" Kurt kept his face neutral, a incredibly difficult feat, save the raise of his eyebrow with extreme skepticism that there was anything Blaine could say right now that he honestly wanted to hear. Had they not been through this before, Kurt might have believed it; he might have believed whatever apology was forthcominng, bought any lines about how sorry he was and how this didn't need to be the end. He wanted to believe it. But a part of him knew...this wasn't going to change Blaine one bit, was it? It wasn't going to suddenly make him brave, to feel him slipping away. Blaine would remain exactly as cowardly as he had been six months ago.

He felt cheated. Betrayed. Used. Like everything he had had been freely given and then wasted.

But he also felt lonely. Heartbroken. And frustrated because he didn't want to be heartbroken or lonely when the alternative was running off without him to California. He didn't want Blaine back if this was who he was going to be. If this was the life Blaine wanted-

He had tried to give Blaine every chance to believe in something better for them, to believe that they deserved all the good things in life, and Blaine...

...didn't even try to apologize. Didn't say a word, just stared at him with big, sad, sorry eyes that Kurt wanted to trust but couldn't.

"Why?" he asked so quietly he could barely hear his own voice, but Blaine understood him.

"Because someday it was going to have to happen anyway, and I can't watch that," Blaine replied quietly. "Because the world you're envisioning isn't going to exist and I can't-"

"Stop."

"You asked."

There was a tense silence hanging over them as Rachel shifted in her pennyloafers and the boys stared at each other. A year of being able to say anything and everything to each other left them knowing exactly which buttons they could hit if they wanted to detonate the entire thing.

In the end, it was Kurt who moved first. "Well," he said shortly, his tone high-pitched and tight so it almost squeaked. "I guess I should grow up then. Learn to be more realistic."

"Kurt-"

Kurt pulled Rachel to him quickly and cupped her face as he gave her a hard, fast kiss that would have been rough had it come from anyone else; from Kurt, it was just desperate. This was what Blaine wanted, wasn't it? For them to just be happy with girls, to ignore how they felt for each other and who they were? This was what Blaine thought he should do, wasn't it?

But he knew it wasn't. He knew that for all he was trying to show Blaine just how wrong this was, his real aim was cruelty - lashing out because of how badly he was hurt.

She tasted like the wrong brand of toothpaste, and her lips were sticky from the lipstick, and her face was too soft under his palm. Her hands were tiny against his forearms, not broad like Blaine's and nowhere near as strong, and there was no low rumbling in her chest as they kissed. He had always loved that when he kissed Blaine- the sound, the taste of it all-

He wanted to say something to Blaine right then, to ask sarcastically if this was what he wanted to see then, to ask if Blaine had any tips for this because he did such a great job on his own-...but he couldn't. For as angry as he was at Blaine, he didn't think there was any amount of willpower that could keep him mad at the boy if he saw how badly he had hurt him right now.

A part of him wanted to say Blaine deserved it. A part of him said it wasn't fair but at least it was a clean break - not like last time. All of him wanted to sink down in the middle of the floor and not get up for a very long time.

It wasn't until he heard the frantic dash of loafers up the stairs, slipping and slapping, that he finally pulled back. This was wrong, everything about it - every single last bit of his life was wrong and there was no fixing it.

Rachel looked up at him with big brown eyes, her mouth opening and closing slightly like a fish in surprise, as she tried to unsmear her smeared lipstick. She seemed more stunned than traumatized, and Kurt wondered if she would complain mostly because she didn't have a chance to rehearse first so as to give a more convincing performance. That would be typical Rachel, and the thought was almost reassuring. "So," she said quietly, studying Kurt's face as he tried not to cry, his chest heaving up and down and his hands practically quivering at his sides. "That's over, then?"

He looked up the curved staircase toward the upper level but saw nothing - not the blue wool of a familiar blazer, not the shined black leather of a loafer, not the tie he had hated from day one. There was nothing left in the hall but silence and ghosts and a girl he had never meant to date, let alone kiss.

"Yeah," he whispered, his gaze dropping back to where Rachel stood with a concerned, tender expression. "It's over."

~FIN~