"I thought you weren't coming home until tomorrow," Natalie said, getting up and going around the table to greet her husband.

Blaine still hadn't turned to face his father yet, using the meal in front of him as an excuse to stay where he was.

"Well, luckily I managed to wrap up the deal early and get a flight. Your calls were getting a little distracting." Blaine heard the unspoken reprimand in his father's voice and from her response, so did his mom.

"I'm sorry, it's just… I didn't know what to do." He hated when his mom sounded like a little girl who'd been chastised; it was something he heard a lot through the years when she was talking to his father.

"Well I still don't know what the big deal is… it's not like we haven't been through something similar before. I would have hoped you would have used that experience to deal with it this time, Natalie." There was a pause and Blaine could feel his father's eyes boring into his back. He still couldn't bring himself to turn around though.

"Aren't you going to greet me Blaine? There's no excuse for bad manners."

Blaine sighed and closed his eyes for a split second before opening them again, he slowly stood up before turning to look at his father.

For a brief second, Blaine thought he saw a wince of sympathy before his usual look of cool indifference took over.

"Hello, Dad," he croaked out, his voice suddenly very dry.

"Is that going to scar?" he asked, pointing to the still- healing cut on his forehead.

"I don't know," Blaine admitted.

"Well, let's hope not," Bill said, his eyes traveling over the rest of Blaine's visible injuries with a detached, assessing eye. "Well you don't seem to have any broken bones, so it's not even as bad as last time." He turned back to his wife, clearly irritated. "Really, Natalie, I don't see what's so important that I had to rush back. I'm sure you could have handled this yourself."

Blaine saw the way his mom paled at the words. She shot him a concerned look before attempting to defend herself.

"Bill, it was three grown men that...,"

Bill interrupted her before she could continue. "Yes, I knew that already," he said, turning back to Blaine now. "In fact, that's something I've been meaning to ask you about. Why would three grown men attack you? I mean, I understand why those boys at school did, they knew you, knew all about you."

Blaine tried not to let his father's words sting, now having to hear him say that he understood why he'd been attacked before almost made it sound like he sympathized with the boys who had done that to him.

"But why would three strangers single you out? What did you do to provoke them to do this?" He raised his hand and gestured at Blaine's face almost flippantly.

Blaine was completely at a loss for words. How the hell was he supposed to answer that?

"Bill, honey," Natalie spoke up from the side where she'd almost been forgotten about. "This wasn't Blaine's fault".

Blaine looked at his mother in shock. Up until this point, he hadn't been sure what she really thought about what had happened, whether she blamed him or not. Hearing her say those few words made him want to hug her, especially when she chose to say them in his defense to his father.

"Those men were sick and Blaine didn't deserve what happened to him." Natalie sounded on the verge of tears now and together with her choice of the word, "sick", Blaine cringed in anticipation. His father may have been many things, but one thing he wasn't was stupid.

"Sick..." he said, his eyes darting between the two of them. "What do you...what exactly happened?" His eyes were wide with dawning realization, but Blaine could see the anger burning there as well.

"Those men...they hurt Blaine really badly." Natalie was crying now, tears making their way down her face and ruining her carefully-applied make up.

"What? Hurt…how…?" Blaine knew his father wasn't this dumb, but he didn't seem to want to make the connection himself.

"They...,"Natalie trailed off when Bill put up a hand to stop her. "No, I want to hear Blaine say it".

Why? Blaine wanted to shout, what difference will it make? He shook his head slightly, he didn't know if he could. He didn't know if he was strong enough to look this father in the eye and tell him that everything he'd ever warned him about was true. That what he was made him weak, made him a target, and that he would never be the man he wanted him to be.

"Blaine," the authority in his father's voice gave no room for compromise.

He looked at his mother again, and while he was glad she was sticking up for him he couldn't help but notice that she made no move to come to him, instead choosing to stand at her husband's side. He'd file that piece of information away in his mind to dwell on a little later.

So Blaine had no choice. He had to do the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life, alone.

"They...," the words got stuck and he had to clear his throat. The noise sounded painful even to his own ears.

"Well, spit it out, Blaine." and Blaine knew then that he wasn't going to get any sympathy from his father, because looking into his eyes he could tell he already knew what he was going to say. He knew and yet he was going to make him do it anyway. He had some twisted idea that he needed to be a man about this, face up to it. At this moment in time, Blaine had never wanted to be a little boy more in his life. He wanted to run from the room and up to his room… hide under the covers until this whole thing went away. But he knew that wasn't an option, he wasn't a little boy anymore and while he wasn't a man yet either, he knew that's what his father expected him to be. He needed to face him like one, show him that he wasn't as pathetic as he thought. Oh the irony of it. He needed to man up and tell him those three words that would actually confirm all of his father's worst ideas about him. Make them true.

He took one more deep breath and said the three words that he knew would ruin any chance he would ever have of his father truly respecting him.

"They raped me." It was amazing, the power of those three little words. Blaine wondered if they would ever lose their impact. He flashed back to a few short weeks earlier when three different words had seemed like the biggest deal in the word. He remembered sitting in that coffee shop watching Kurt talk so enthusiastically about New York, and they'd just slipped out. He'd done a good job of hiding it, but in those few seconds it took Kurt to swallow his coffee and reply, his heart had stopped beating in his chest. He was terrified he'd screwed things up by saying it too soon, had come across as too needy. But then Kurt had smiled at him and said it back, and everything had fallen right back into place. Thinking of Kurt now gave him the strength to stand there, to not run away and to wait for his father's reaction.

He wasn't sure what he was expecting, but that fleeting look of utter devastation wasn't it. The room was silent apart from his mother's soft sobs, but Blaine couldn't look at her if he wanted to. His eyes were fixed on his father's face and that's why he didn't miss it. The moment his dad made a decision, it was as plain as day.

The devastated look that for a brief moment had given him hope that maybe he'd been wrong, maybe his father didn't hate him, disappeared. What replaced it was exactly what he had been expecting. It was the look he'd been waiting to see on everyone's face once they knew.

Disgust.

Bill Anderson looked at him as though the mere sight of him made him sick and then he looked away. Blaine kept looking at him but his father never once brought his eyes back to his face. He simply wouldn't look at him.

"I think you should go to your room, Blaine. Your mother and I have some things to discuss," and that was it. Blaine had almost expected him to yell at him, to tell him how disgusting he was, but he just dismissed him instead, as though he really didn't matter.

He looked over at his mom and she nodded at him sadly. He walked out of the room with his head down, noticing that when he passed his father to leave the room, the man moved slightly away to make sure that he didn't need to touch him to get past.

He stood in the hallway for a minute looking between the front door and the stairs that led to his room. The temptation to leave, to go to Kurt, was almost overwhelming, but this was his home, this was where he belonged. He made his way up the stairs with feet that felt like lead, each step harder to take. He entered his room shutting the door behind him.

He didn't even bother to take off his clothes, just lay back on his bed and shut his eyes. It was a sticky summer evening he should be too warm in the thick sweatshirt, but all Blaine felt was cold.

He couldn't hear anything from downstairs, his parents never raised their voices when they argued but he knew that's what was happening, the air was thick with it. He wondered whether he should check on his mother but couldn't bring himself to open his eyes let alone get up. He lay there with his eyes shut willing sleep to come, it was going to be another long night.