Blaine stared back at his computer screen, his face sheet white and cold as the world seemed to shake around him. How exactly could he put a feeling to complete and utter heartbreak? To an irrevocable sense of disappointment and anger?

Maybe if he fell back to sleep, he could pretend as though it was all a dream. Or that Kurt hadn’t done the exact thing he’d feared for months could happen. Or that he wasn’t some juvenile Stepford boyfriend waiting anxiously in West Ohio, of all places, while his college boyfriend gallivanted around the New York City and kissed whoever he wished.

He almost wanted to prematurely laugh; it was so clichéd that his heart ached at the pit of his chest. It burned so hard at the pit of him that he was sure it could shatter and break and he’d be left carrying around the fragments. Who were they kidding when they said that this could work over the long haul of a year? That Kurt wouldn’t get bored or find better merchandise on the shelf?

To make matters more complicated, graduation was only a couple of months away. Soon he’d get the cap and gown and walk the stage, wave his diploma, kiss his fellow upperclassmen and women on the cheek, make promises to keep in touch as often as possible.

Just when he thought he’d had it all figured out, even in the vaguest of terms, the universe had a completely different idea.

It was still early enough in the day that Blaine had to face his parents for the day. Or, at the very least, the matriarchy of the home, as his father was no doubt hitting putts on the green. Blaine had distractedly agreed a week ago to be his mother’s plus-one at a charity luncheon. Except all he wanted now was to toss the covers over his head and black out the world. He could fake being sick just fine, but he couldn’t face that look in his mother’s eyes, knowing he’d be leaving in a few months and likely never return, if he could manage it.

The truth was that Blaine Anderson was lonely. And as the moments passed by in slow motion – regret, embarrassment, contempt, and regretful longingfor the man who’d just hurt him – he only felt lonelier.

Closing the lid on his computer, Blaine shoved it aside and laid back down under the covers, barely closing falling asleep for a few minutes before his mother appeared at his door and rapped softly against it. He snuffled against his pillow and turned his head toward the entryway as his mom opened up the door a crack.

“Honey, are you awake? The luncheon is at noon.”

Maria Anderson truly was a kind woman, if not disarmingly sensitive. Blaine was the youngest of two and a complete “surprise” to the Andersons, in more ways than one. But while Blaine’s brother, Cooper, had always had a massive ego and a penchant for talking out of both sides of his mouth, Blaine had always been a sweet boy in argyle and tweed.

Charming to a fault to guests, bouncing off the balls of his feet to the beat inside of his head, always babbling on and making up little songs in his head, and never acting out.

His early life was almost perfect, really, until he had to go and like dick. But while his father was often nothing short of cold and awkward around him, he was still their special boy, his mother insisted, always kissing him on the forehead and reminding him to keep his hair straight. He was their specialboy, all right. But maybe not the kind of special Mr. Anderson had quite bargained for.

“I’m awake, mom.” He bit down on his lip, raking his finger through his unruly bed hair and pursing his lips in slight frustration. His mother came over to his side of the bed to touch his cheek and he nudged his cheek away. “M’fine.”

“Is everything all right?” She asked cautiously as Blaine blearily refused to make eye contact. The pounding in his head wasn’t a far cry from a headache, but he was sure it was just residual ache from his heart exploding.

“Mom…”

“How’s Kurt?”

He met her eyes before he stabbed his thumb into the bridge of his nose. “He’s great.” His stomach lurched, but thankfully his mother didn’t have a probe attached to his internal organs, monitoring his acid reflux. Not that he was aware of, at least. “I just have a migraine. Can I stay home today?”

Maria, no stranger to the altering moods of Anderson men, looked back quietly, clearly contemplating whether or not to appease her son’s wish. Blaine was set to fly the coop any day, and while she never exactly ironed Blaine’s socks or cleaned up after his shoes (they had a house keeper to do that), she knew an empty nest when she saw one.

Still, she offered a sympathetic smile and brushed her palm over Blaine’s forehead, which he didn’t bat away or resist. “Sure. Lay back, honey. I’ll get you an Advil.”

Blaine laid back once more, the edges of his lips twitching as he pulled the covers back over him. Maria returned swiftly with a glass of water and two pills. He took them quietly and smirked awkwardly, letting out a sigh as she fussed with his hair. Blaine had inherited her unruly mass of reckless curls, which she usually pinned back in a gracious bun and hair sprayed to precision.

“Are you sure everything is all right, sweetie?”

His throat dried as he looked up, hazel meeting hazel, and Blaine finally noticed how similar they truly did look. Blaine always wondered if his father ever cheated. Cheated. He felt a chill and nodded his head, clamping his mouth shut as his gaze fell.

He felt a kiss on his cheek, briefly muttered “I love you, too,” back to his mother, and briefly heard the door click on her way out. But it was all a blur as he turned back on his side and succumbed to sleep, the only way he knew how to numb the dull ache in his chest.

= = =

A week passed in radio silence. Blaine turned a blind eye to the barrage of phone calls and texts from both Kurt and from his classmates. And if his mother asked, he just turned his head away and consumed himself in his homework. He knew he was falling behind in school that week. And after a scuffle in glee club with a catty freshman, a one-to-one in Mr. Schuester’s office was eminent.

“I don’t know what you’re going through right now, Blaine, but think you could really benefit from the theme this week,” Schuester suggested, looking back at the upperclassman empathetically. Empathy for what, Schuester didn’t know.

On top of his main problem, Blaine just couldn’t the muster up the energy to care about glee club. At the end of the day, Mr. Schu was a good guy with good intentions, but even the best of karaoke didn’t patch over even the worst of problems.

“Do you really think ‘scene week’ is going to attract anyone into the glee club? We’ve already lost Regionals.”

Schuester sat back in his chair, his hands folding under his chin. “Maybe if you embraced the theatricality of it…”

Blaine looked back at him with the arch of an eyebrow and actually scoffed under his breath. Schuester noticed and raised a silent brow in kind, fidgeting awkwardly with a pen from across the desk. It wasn’t like Blaine to ever be this way, but he wasn’t in any mood for kumbaya.

“Theatricality? No offence, Mr. Schu, do you even know what ‘scene’ means? It’s not even one thing. That’s like saying…” He let out a sigh and didn’t even care to continue. “Nevermind. Besides, we’re glee club. We may have won Nationals, but we’re basically like the lamest club in school again.”

Blaine almost wished he could take back the words once they’d passed his lips. Even on his worse days, he was always an optimistic, carefree student with a lot of ambition and an exceptional love for show choir. Schuester could only assume that something was up at home or with Kurt, but he didn’t pry.

“Look, Blaine, if you’re not going to be a team player, maybe you should sit out the rest of this week.”

Blaine looked back at him pointedly, but he truly needed no invitation to leave his office. His chair scraped against the linoleum floor as he charged out of the room and toward his forest green Volvo, his bed anxiously awaiting him as he sprinted up to his bedroom two steps at a time.

His room was impeccably clean, so much so that he picked up a pillow and threw it against the wall with a punch, just to mess something up. But to say his life wasn’t already in disarray would be an understatement.

He knew he had to call Kurt, but it didn’t make the actual act of doing so any easier. He pulled his phone from his pocket and frowned at the myriad of texts and calls he’d gone out of his way to avoid. His finger thumbed over Kurt’s name as his chest tightened on impulse. He knew what he had to do. He’d had a whole week to think it over. But it didn’t soften the ache as his eyes caught a spot on the floor and gazed longingly.

He’d given Kurt a ring made out of gum wrappers.

Kurt was the love of his life. He’d wanted to move to New York and be his boyfriend and attend Pride annually. He’d wanted to marry him. He still… God, he didn’t even know. Of course he did? But a week ago, he was sure as hell a lot more confident.

To think how much could change in a week.

His thumb pressed against Kurt’s name in his address book before he could stop himself. Holding his breath, he listened for the dial tone and curled into a fetal position, anticipating the sound of Kurt’s voice on the other end.

“B-Blaine?”

His own name struck him like a blow to the chest. Just Kurt; god, his voice. His arms wrapped around himself tightly, and blinking slowly back to consciousness, he tucked his cheek into the inside of his arm and pressed the phone to his ear. “Hey, Kurt.”

He could practically hear the other man fumbling on the other end of the line. He closed his eyes once more, breathing in the silence.

“How… how are you? Did you get my calls?”

Although Kurt couldn’t see him, Blaine nodded in reassurance and contorted his lips into something of a wiry smile. Because maybe if he smiled even to himself, he could convince himself that this would be easier.

“Are—are you okay?” Kurt prodded quietly, tenderly. Blaine longed for that intonation, but in an entirely different context. Now, he wanted to shun it away and block it out, but he couldn’t. This was real. Kurt was real. Their problems were real. And there was no backing out of this.

“You with me, Blaine?”

“Oh. Oh, yeah, I saw.” Blaine rubbed at his temple, sighing into the phone as he’d gone deadly silent. “Sorry I didn’t call you back sooner. It’s just… can we talk maybe?”

Kurt smiled anxiously from his small haven in New York City, six hundred miles from Blaine’s childhood bedroom. “Of course, you called. I mean…” Kurt nibbled at the edge of his lip, unsure of what to even say as he played with his comforter between his fingers. “I-I’ve missed you.”

Blaine’s heart clamped. Kurt’s empty chair in the choir room, his empty spot in his bed, some stranger occupying Kurt’s locker. “I miss you, too. All the time.” His eyes found a spot on the floor as he shifted on to his side and pressed against the pillows. They were engulfed by silence once more, and though Blaine knew the ball was in his court, it didn’t make the conversation any simpler.

But finally, he grabbed the bull by the horns and spoke up. He was upset, but he was angry. And god, he wasn’t going to cry, he told himself, as he balled a fist and pressed it against his lips.

“You’ve just got a new life out there, don’t you?”

Kurt seemed less prepared for the gravely tone on Blaine’s voice, or the quick turn of conversation, no matter how eminent they may have been. He may have been playing the vague card, but he knew very well why Blaine had avoided him for a week. He grasped that.

“W… what? I mean, New York is amazing, I’m not going to lie, but I don’t understand…” His brow furrowed as he followed Blaine’s line of thought. “You’re coming to be a part of it, too, aren’t you?”

The dull reminder that he’d had been accepted into Columbia University, one of the most prestigious schools in the nation, throbbed in Blaine’s chest. His voice grew almost cold as he brushed his fingertips over his bottom lip.

“Yeah, I mean, I’m all set to go still. Can’t very well back out of it after I made such a big deal out of going. And it’s Columbia, so.”

“Yeah, absolutely. So…” Kurt jumped in quietly, his voice lightening. “I mean, I know it’s practically on the other side of the island, but we’ll still have plenty of time to see each other, you know? We can make time. And… and! My schedule next year should be a lot lighter. We can do lunch in the city all the time. Walk through the park…” He let out a wistful sigh. “I’m still so proud of you for getting into Columbia, you have no idea.”

Blaine grew more and more spookily quiet as Kurt enthused at a seemingly endless rate. And it was a long pause before he spoke again, his voice barely faltering.

“That’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”

It was Kurt’s turn to draw in the silence and take in the true brevity of Blaine’s words. “I…” But the words caught in his throat as he closed his eyes. God, he thanked his lucky stars that his roommate was out. “You want to break-up… don’t you?”

Blaine blinked slowly, calmly. “I’ve thought about it this week.” The tears welled up behind his eyes and he sighed in frustration. He didn’t want to lose it, but then Kurt let out a small sob from against the phone.

“Did I… fuck, Blaine.” He let out a short series of breaths, knuckles pressed to his mouth. “Blaine, if this is about last week, if I screwed this up…”

“No, no, Kurt, it’s not—“ Blaine stopped short and seethed through his nostrils, because who the hell was he kidding? “I mean… well, yeah? Maybe?” He hissed under his breath and started over. “Maybe it was the catalyst?”

Kurt’s heart tightened in his chest as he tried not to jump the gun, his voice a quiet but sharp. “I said I was sorry. And I haven’t even… I haven’t even been out in the last week, nothing’s happened. I don’t understand.”

“Kurt, has everything been all that perfect lately? Really perfect? We’ve been distant. I’m wound up in my life, and you’re obviously…” Blaine interjected quickly.

Kurt paused once more, before he spoke up again, a tiny bit louder. “I know we’re both super busy, Blaine, but I didn’t think it had been bad enough to consider something like… this. Have you been planning this?”

Blaine shook his head vehemently and actually scoffed. “No! Not even. Why would I…” He let out a frustrated, but quiet, groan, his speech quickening as his emotions rose rapidly. “I just don’t think you get how embarrassed I am. I feel like such a child. You’re off in New York going to parties and drunkenly making out with guys, and I’m here and I’m bored and I’m alone. Just like I said I would be.”

“Blai…”

“No, Kurt, I’m lonely. I miss… touching you, all the time, being with you, kissing you, and then finding out someone else is doing that, and you’re…. you’re telling me that’s okay.”

“Blaine, no, honey—“

“You don’t even know how insignificant it makes me feel. It’s like you don’t even care.”

Kurt spoke up in a low, pained tone, clutching the phone as her rubbed two fingers against his temple.

“It happened once, Blaine. D-do you not even trust me? Do you think I’m hiding more from you? Do you think I don’t miss you every god damn day? Don’t miss your laugh or just holding you or…” He shook his head, letting out a pathetic sigh in agony. “And to say that I don’t care. If I didn’t care, would I actually be telling you right now? Wouldn’t I have just… thrown it under a rug? Pretend it never happened? I told you for us. Can’t you see that?”

Blaine’s blood broiled as he thought back to the initial argument last Saturday, the one that had ended as soon as it began. Kurt had thrown a similar accusation in his face, and far as Blaine knew, a week clearly hadn’t done much to cushion his boyfriend’s insouciant attitude toward cheating.

He was fired up, to say the least.

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better? God, thank you, Kurt, for telling me you made out some asshole in the heat of the moment.”

“Blaine, just give me a chance to—“ Kurt was gasping to re-enter the conversation.

“—It really shows how much you care. Thank you for showing me what an ungrateful person I am for not bowing down to your shining level of empathy.”

Kurt attempted to interject, but Blaine cut him off once more. “No! Go ahead and make out with whoever you want, because god knows you care, Kurt. That’s your scapegoat. At the end of the day, you care.”

The conversation had derailed so quickly that Kurt was at a loss for words. “Blaine, please. Can’t we just… move on from this? This has been the week from hell for both of us. You know, I… I don’t know what you want from me! I’m really sorry you couldn’t handle this, but it’s… we’re…”

Blaine was at a loss for words once more. “No.”

“We’re going to make it out of this! You’re going to come to New York. We’ll…”

Blaine pressed the heel of his palm into his eye. “You… you just….”

“Blaine. Honey…” The brevity of Kurt’s words hit him like a brick. The moment he’d said the wrong thing, he knew he’d crossed a line, and he actually gasped, a hand flying over his mouth as he cursed himself under his breath.

“M-maybe I expected too much from both of us, maybe.” Blaine sniffled loudly, running his palm down his cheek to catch the excess of tears.

Kurt was quick to shake his head. “Blaine, I’m so sorry, I didn’t—“

“Maybe I can’t handle this. Maybe I don’t want to handle this. Maybe I just… fuck, like… I don’t know, trusted you? And I thought…”

Kurt swallowed raggedly. “Honey, I came on too strong, and I didn’t… I love you so much. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes, you do, that’s why you said it.”

Blaine had lost control of his emotions, his throat tight and constricting and his cheeks pink and flush from tears. But he didn’t even care. He was breaking up with his boyfriend, his first love, and he didn’t know how to fix it. Maybe he was being a touch dramatic, but he was young and he was entitled to it and they’d screwed this up and he didn’t know what to do.

The tears spilled down Kurt’s cheeks, his wrecked voice practically dulled down to a mere whisper. “Blaine, please, we can fix this. Please. I never beg, you know I don’t, but I- I don’t want to lose you.”

“I can’t, Kurt. I ca…” He shook his head back and forth before he sat up, back pressed straight against the headboard.

Kurt curled up in his head, pressing the side of his head against the wall next to him and shaking. “You mean so much to me, and I know you think I’ve broken your trust, but I swear that it was all just… a huge mistake! It was just a stupid kiss. I-I never wanted to hurt you, Blaine. Please, believe me.”

The tears stung in Blaine’s eyes as he sat in silence. Kurt wasn’t one to beg, yet that was precisely what he was doing.

“Please, Blaine. You’ll be here so soon.  I’m coming to your graduation, then there’s the summer, and then you’ll come here. Th… then we can see each other every weekend, and maybe even on the weekdays. Huh?”

“We have our whole lives ahead of us, Kurt. We’re eighteen. How do we even know what we really…” Blaine closed his eyes tightly and couldn’t even believe he had gone there, but the words were out in the open before he could take them back.

Kurt fought against the sob knotting in his throat, before he started crying in earnest. “I don’t care, Blaine. I want you. I’ll always want you!”

A part of Blaine believed him, and while he was still wound up with emotions, he nodded his head against his chin and spoke quietly into the phone. “I know you’re sorry, Kurt. But it doesn’t change what you…  I mean, I know you didn’t mean… but you still did. And everything you said—“  He shook his head as he rambled into a proverbial brick wall.

 “P-please give us another chance, Blaine. Couples fight. Every couple fights, right? You’re my everything, and I will spend as long as it takes for you to understand that Timothy means nothing to me.” Kurt sniffled loudly and shivered as he bound his arms tighter to his chest.

Blaine turned to grab a pillow and press it against his chest, the phone cradled in his shoulder. The stream of tears had been replaced by pure numbness, but the tracks laid deep and worn down his skin. “M… maybe we should just take a break. So we can just…”

“A break?” A miniscule lilt in Kurt’s voice appeared.

“I need time to think this over.”

“If, if you feel that way. A break is just—temporary, right? I don’t to stoptalking to you.”

Blaine opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out, at least not at first. He felt small; even smaller than usual, as he pulled his legs back in and stared back off into space. A natural pout formed on his bottom lip, and he knew he was on the verge of losing it once more. Kurt seemed to realize it, too, as a helpless sob fell from his lips. Blaine was quick to appease it, despite the whole situation.

“Shh, shh, Kurt. It’s—it’s okay. R-really.” He hiccupped another sob, his mouth clamping shut as the truth slapped him in the face. Because it wasn’t okay. It really wasn’t. And he didn’t know who he was fooling.

Kurt sniffed messily and used the back of his palm to wipe across his face. Screw vanity. He was a mess, but he didn’t care. “Don’t lie. It’s, it’s not okay, is it? It’ll never…”

Blaine rocked his head  back and forth slightly, only remembering moments later that Kurt couldn’t actually see him. “T-this is just…”

“You’ll never forget. And t-that’s why… you want the break-up.” Kurt pulled his knees to his chest and tried to muffle the few spare sobs into his pajama pants. “I k-know you’re hurting, and I’m so sorry for making you, and I…”

“You’re my best friend in the world whole, Kurt. I don’t think anything could ever change that.”

Kurt smiled in spite of himself, his thumb stabbing back against his eye. “’Cept this.”

“Kurt.”

“T-this did, didn’t it?”

Frowning deep in his brow, Blaine pressed his eyes closed to blink out huge, crocodile tears. As they reopened, his eyes found the ceiling, his vision swimming in a pool of tears as he held the phone against his chin. “You b-broke my heart.”

Kurt tugged his blanket higher, at a loss for words as the tears dried against his cheek. He couldn’t even breathe, let alone think. His left ear was pink and swollen from the press of the phone. “I will spend the rest of my life regretting it.”

Letting out a long huff of breath he hadn’t even known he was holding, Blaine attempted to ground himself back on the earth as the tears spilled out relentlessly. And because he couldn’t muster up the words, he let out a small sound of defeat. He was too sensitive for his own good. He always had been.

“Sometimes… I think you underestimate how much I love you,” Kurt added after a minute of pure silence. The sound of two hearts breaking seldom needed a voice.

Blaine’s jaw locked as he bobbed his head tiredly, worn from his world shattering around him. He could run a marathon and not be as fatigued as felt did in that moment. His voice was so small and stripped that it was practically unrecognizable. “I love you, too.”

Kurt swallowed back the lump in his throat in an effort to regain his voice. He could be pricked with a million needles and not feel a single one. The world was practically spinning around him as he came to a cold and clear realization. A life without Blaine, a life pretending he could know this man and not be his everything. A life waiting for Blaine to trust him again after their nearly-perfect high school romance was shattered by reality.

A life in which he pretended they could be “just friends.”

Blaine deserved better than to wait around and well up the courage to trust Kurt again. He deserved a man that held on to him and fought, fought so hard that both their bodies broke in the effort. He deserved everything.

“I take it back,” he spoke up again, breaking the silence once last time. “Maybe we shouldn’t talk.”

Blaine sat up suddenly, but for lack of breath, he couldn’t speak. The wind had literally been kicked out of him. He’d thought… he’d even hoped…

God, all he wanted was to feel important. Most of all, he just wanted to forget.

“I really hope Columbia goes well for you, babe,” Kurt continued.

Blaine could hear the dull throb in his head heighten, as if his whole equilibrium had been shifted from underneath him. He felt so dizzy, he could actually throw up. “I – same to you.”

Blood nearly drew from Blaine’s bottom lip as he clamped his teeth down hard against it. He couldn’t even remember his own name as a small word dropped from Kurt’s lips from a dorm room in Manhattan, a city wound in so many of his owns hopes and dreams.

“Goodbye, Blaine.”

There was a sharp intake of breath on Kurt’s side of the phone, a breath of hesitation, but Blaine spoke past it.

“Bye, Kurt.”