Lying is exhausting. Pretending to be someone I’m not in my own home is even more tiring. I love being at school, actually. In fact, I prefer it. Sometimes, I would rather be thrown into a set of lockers while being myself rather than smiling across the table at my father, pretending to be the boy I’m not.

It’s on Thursday that I find myself wandering the halls of Dalton Academy. Minutes after sneaking past the grand entrance, I meet a boy. The most beautiful boy I have ever seen. His name is Blaine Anderson. Seconds after meeting, he takes my hand and leads me through the gorgeous empty corridors of Dalton Academy. I can’t help myself as my eyes dart around, taking in every brush stroke on the wall, every little flower decorating the tables. Everything. This place is perfect, this place is heaven. I want to transfer here immediately. I soon realize that this boy is a member of The Warblers. He’s the lead soloist, actually. And he takes my breath away. I notice that his eyes don’t leave mine as he sings Teenage Dream. It’s almost as if he’s singing to me. I can barely take my eyes off of him. His voice is so smooth, so calm, so breathtakingly beautiful. And I’m almost certain that it’s love at first sight.

I learn so much about Blaine that afternoon. I learn that he’s gay and that he was bullied. He transferred from a public school and Dalton has been a safe haven for him. With each passing minute, I want to transfer here more and more. I knows my parents can afford it. My dad makes good money. He makes a lot of money, actually. But, what am I supposed to say? How am I supposed to ask my dad if I can transfer to Dalton Academy?

“I’m being bullied because I’m gay, dad. McKinley is living hell and I’m scared to walk the halls alone because I fear someone might hurl me into a set of lockers.”

Not likely. So, I come up with a plan. I spend the entire night doing my research. Dalton is one of the best schools in Ohio. It’s kind of like the Harvard of high schools. It’s difficult to get accepted, but I’m sure I can manage. I pull straight A’s at McKinley and almost all of my classes are AP. I can explain to my father that it would look good on my college application. And besides, many Dalton graduates have moved on to attend ivy league universities. These are great reasons.

“Absolutely not.”

I’m sitting at the dining room table, my father across from me. Across the table, there are printouts of information on Dalton and I haven’t even gotten to the statistics I’ve put together yet. And he’s already said no.

“Why not?” I’m unable to stop the words from coming out of my mouth.

“It’s unnecessary. You have no business attending some all boy’s academy,” my father says tightly, eyes on mine. His mouth is pulled into a thin line.

I swallow. I have a feeling this has something to do with the fact that it’s an all boy’s school.

“But I--”

“Kurt. I’m not going to argue about the matter.”

“It’s one of the top schools in Ohio, though. I’ll have a better chance at getting into a good university.”

“This conversation is over.” I watch as he stands and leaves the table without another word. My eyes flicker down to the table where the papers are neatly set out and I feel my heart sink deep, deep inside my chest. My eyes sting as I drop my head onto the table and I begin to cry quietly. I stay there for the next half hour. I think I hear my mother in the kitchen at one point, but she doesn’t call out to me to ask if I’m ok. She never does.

o~o~o~o

It’s been three days and I can still feel Karofsky dry lips pressed firmly against mine. I try not to gag at the thought. It’s both infuriating and disgusting. After all of that hate and bullying, he’s turned out to be a closeted homophobic gay guy. I never knew there could be so many contradictions in one person. I thought maybe there was a chance that Karofsky would be civil enough to apologize, maybe talk to me and Blaine. But, things have only gotten worse. Blaine agreed to drive down to McKinley to confront Karofsky about what happened, but it was all in vain. Karofsky has only become more aggressive after the kiss, if one could even call it that. It’s a lot harder to walk through the halls now. Every time Karofsky sees me, he makes his presence known by either shoving me aside or half throwing himself at me to make me flinch.

It’s nearly midnight and I’m on the phone with Blaine. I’m in my room lying on my bed on my stomach. My feet are kicked up in the air, crossed at the ankle. This position is very comfortable, very me. Something I usually can’t be at home. That’s why my door is locked.

“I tried talking to him again tonight,” I say softly into the phone, chin resting on my hand. “But he just pushed it aside, again.”

I can hear Blaine sigh on the other end of the line and I can practically see him pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. “He’s being so stubborn.”

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I mutter softly before sighing and rolling onto my back to look up at the ceiling. And then, a thought occurs. Before I can stop myself, I’m speaking. “Do you have skype?”

Blaine goes silent for a moment and then he laughs quietly. “Um. Yeah, why?” he asks carefully.

“I do, too.” And then I’m scrambling off of my bed and dropping down onto my desk chair as I poke at the keyboard, watching my laptop screen come to life. “Give me your e-mail,” I say and Blaine doesn’t argue. He does just that. It takes a few tries, but I finally get Blaine’s e-mail added to my contacts and we’re connected. I see Blaine’s smiling face on my screen and I smile as I hang up the phone. “Much better,” I say quietly.

Suddenly, I get the urge to show Blaine around my room. We spend the next hour talking aimlessly. Laughing softly at stupid jokes and discussing the newest trends in fashion. This is something I’ve never done with a boy and it feels amazing.

As the days go by, I wonder what my father would think about Blaine. I wonder if that adorable boyish charm would work on him. Or if my father would call Blaine mean names behind his back. I’m almost afraid to introduce him to my father. Blaine has become my best friend in just a few short weeks. I spend almost all of my free time with him now and I can’t seem to get enough of the boy. I’m almost sure I’m madly in love with him. With Blaine, I feel something I didn’t feel with Finn. Things with Finn were very…one sided. It wasn’t that Finn was mean to me or anything. He just kind of brushed me off every now and then, probably because I made him uncomfortable. He would give me these looks, his eyes would beg me to stop what I was doing. Stop “accidentally” brushing my shoulder against his, stop shooting him flirty little glances during Glee club. But, I pretended not to notice it because I was so desperate. Because I wanted him to want me so bad. Because I wanted a boy to have feelings for me and not flinch whenever I sat too close.

It’s so different with Blaine. He doesn’t mind if I sit too close. He pats my knee. He smiles at me like other boys have never smiled at me. It warms my heart and I almost wish I could ask him how he feels about me. But I don’t. Because I’m afraid of being rejected again. I know with Blaine I have a better chance because he’s gay. But, that’s just it. If he rejects me, I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I’m not sure my heart could take something like that at this point of my life. There are far too many things I’m juggling right now.

But, that doesn’t stop me from having feelings for Blaine. And it certainly doesn’t stop me from admitting to myself that I’m in love with him.

We meet up for coffee a lot and sometimes I find myself just staring at Blaine a little longer than I probably should.

Like now, as Blaine is showing me around his dorm room. But, unlike our first skype date, I’m actually in his room. It smells nice in here. It smells like boy. But not the nasty kind of boy smell like the locker room at school. It smells like Blaine’s cologne. Something that I’ve grown to love and memorize. It smells like Blaine’s car. It smells like our friendly dates to see The Sound of Music and Rent and trips to The Lima Bean. It smells like those warm hugs in the bitter winter air.

“I would give anything to transfer here,” I say, sitting on the edge of the bed. For a moment, a little thrill shoots through me at the idea of sitting on Blaine’s bed. I push the thought aside as Blaine takes a seat beside me, head turned as he looks at me. I continue to speak. “It’s like the complete opposite of McKinley. For one thing, the students here actually care about their school work.” I turn my head to look at Blaine who is smiling sadly at me.

“I’m so sorry, Kurt,” he mutters. He looks like he wants to offer more words, but nothing comes out.

So, I just shrug. “Yeah. Me too.”

o~o~o

It’s the last day before Winter Break and part of me is grateful while the other is kind of dreading it. I’ve spent the majority of the day trying to figure out how I could avoid being at home. Ever since I suggested transferring to Dalton the very atmosphere within my own home has been nothing but tension. The conversations that flow around the table are forced even more so than usual. The laughs are fake. I’m half expecting my father to snap one night and just scream at me. It hasn’t happened yet and I’m doing my best to keep myself from giving him any reason to do so. The best way to avoid the situation is to just avoid him all together.

I’m at my locker gathering my things and shoving them into my bag. The only reason I’m still around is because of football practice. Coach Bieste decided to work us to the bone today, claiming it’s the least she could do since we won’t be seeing each other for two weeks. My limbs are throbbing and I feel absolutely disgusting. Every part of my body is sticky with dried sweat. It’s when I’m putting away my final notebook, about to shut the locker that I overhear a voice that sounds very similar to Quinn’s. I pause for a moment, a hand on the door, looking around the halls but see nothing. They’re completely empty. I hear the voice again. It’s definitely Quinn.

“I don’t care what you think. As far as I’m concerned, Finn is the father, not you. Leave me alone.” I hear something snap shut and seconds later, Quinn is walking around the corner. She sees me immediately and I could almost swear that I see the color drain from her face as her eyes go wide. They’re red and puffy. It looks like she’s been crying for hours.

I say nothing, though I immediately know what I just overheard. Something I wasn’t supposed to hear from the look on Quinn’s face.

“How much of that did you hear?” she suddenly breathes.

I stay silent for a moment before shutting my locker. “Enough to know that you’re pregnant,” I finally say.

My heart feels heavy and I’m not sure why. Quinn and I were never close. She never acknowledged my existence before she joined Glee club and even now, she’s hardly ever looks at me. This is probably the most we have ever talked. But, for some reason, I feel absolutely awful. The look of sheer terror on her face rips through me.

“Does Finn know?” I ask slowly and she shakes her head. My eyebrows knit together. But, didn’t she just say he was the father?

As if she read my mind, Quinn speaks. “He’s not the father,” she nearly sobs, voice quivering. “It’s Puck.”

Holy shit.

Quinn, the president of the celibacy club has cheated on her boyfriend and slept with his best friend. Before I can say another word, Quinn is throwing herself at me. I freeze, arms at my side as she begins sobbing into my shoulder, her weight pressed into my body. I pull my arms around her to keep her from falling. I lead her to a bench that’s a few paces away and she cries into my shoulder. I loose track of time as I sit there, hand on her back, eyes locked on the white wall across from us. She almost seems relieved. Like maybe she’s glad somebody else finally knows. Part of me wants to remind her of all the times she ignored me and brushed me off. Treated me like I didn’t exist. But I can’t. Because the girl that’s crying into my shoulder is a completely different person. The girl crying into my shoulder is lost and doesn’t know what she’s going to do now that she’s sixteen, carrying a child fathered by somebody she isn’t even dating, and from the looks of it, never plans on it. All I can do is silently comfort her within these abandoned halls of McKinley.

We end up sitting in Quinn’s car for the next hour and talking. She tells me everything and it takes me a little while to get over the fact that suddenly, Quinn is trusting me with all of these secrets. It’s almost as if all of this information was bottled up inside her and she was just dying to get it out. She tells me her dad doesn’t know. I tell her that she should probably tell him, but she’s terrified. Burt Hummel is the only family member Quinn has in Ohio. She tells me that they have a great relationship and she’s horrified she will become a disappointment by telling him that his little girl screwed up and got pregnant. She doesn’t want him to see her as a failure. I don’t want to push the idea, but I let her know that she needs to tell him sometime, especially if she plans on not aborting the baby.

I’ve always really liked Burt Hummel. I’ve only met him once at one of those school open house nights. I met him through Finn and immediately I felt this amazing…aura about him. It would be a complete lie if I said I haven’t thought about what it would be like to have someone like him as a dad. I wonder how he would handle my being gay. I wonder if he would accept me.

It’s something I try not to think about too much because it’s a ridiculous idea. Burt Hummel isn’t my father, Russell Fabray is. And my father knows that I’m gay, though he refuses to admit it. He expects me to live my life doing the same, and I have.

Up until I met Blaine.

Blaine’s changed everything. I want to be with Blaine so badly. I want him in my life, I want him to be a part of my family. I’ve never wanted to tell my parents I’m gay. I’ve never had such a strong urge to sit them down and say, “Mom. Dad. I’m gay.”