He makes the appointment on a Thursday and by Wednesday he's climbing the stairs to the second floor of the health center, half of him wanting nothing more than to turn around and go elsewhere. It’s not that Blaine thinks he’s particularly okay-he knows he isn’t, knows it’s not exactly normal to feel so empty all the time-but it’s that he knows he isn’t crazy. He doesn’t need counseling, he’s just a little worn-down by the stress of transitioning to college, the pressure to be perfect all the time. But the last thing Blaine needs is his RA getting involved, so he takes it upon himself to go before Andrew loses his mind.

He checks in and sits in the waiting room, surreptitiously eyeing everyone else there. The girl in the corner is far too thin, though she's trying to hide it under a sweatshirt that's four sizes too large. Three seats down from her is another girl hunched over her folded arms, snapping a rubber band on her wrist every few minutes. Everyone else seems ostensibly normal, Blaine thinks, pretending not to look as he scans the room. He's not sure what he expected-surely the counseling center would be full of visibly insane people, rocking to themselves and talking to invisible friends. He didn’t expect the reality-six or so people sitting scattered throughout the room, none of them whispering to themselves or looking anything like something out of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

This realization puts him simultaneously at ease and on edge, part of him glad that maybe he’s not so strange, part of him wondering exactly how many people do this every day, how many of his classmates have problems or issues or reasons to be sitting where he is.

He fills out the paperwork quietly, working through questionnaires with rows upon rows of tick-boxes: “Over the past two weeks, how often have you felt low or down? How often have you felt blue? How often have you been blaming yourself for things? Had thoughts of suicide or killing yourself? Thoughts of hurting yourself?”

He answers them as best he can, silently growing more and more frustrated while he checks off “almost all the time” on nearly every row. He’s not sure what they’re testing for, what these boxes mean for his future, but he’s never been okay with lying and he figures he might as well tell the truth here. Each check feels a bit like a strike against him, though, and he considers one last time throwing the papers away and walking out. But the clipboard is handed back to the receptionist almost by accident, and ten minutes later his name is being called by some guy at the door to the waiting room.

“Blaine?”

He looks up, meets the older man’s eyes and swallows, nodding. The guy offers a hand as Blaine meets him at the door, introduces himself as Jason and asks Blaine to follow him. They reach another door, and Jason lets them into his office, gestures for Blaine to sit in one of the armchairs. He has Blaine’s file spread on his lap, flips through it briefly before addressing Blaine.

“So what brings you here today, Blaine?”

Blaine blinks, stares dumbfounded at Jason for a moment. Isn’t it written out in the papers-the questions that defined his mood and his life and level of happiness?

“What?”

“These are just questions, Blaine, but I want to hear it in your own words. Why did you come in? How have you been feeling for the past few months?”

Blaine pauses, thinks. How, exactly, has he been feeling? He’s not sure what, specifically, brought him into the office. There’s a list, a collection of things he’s felt since August (that’s been just below the surface for awhile now) that comes to mind, but he has no idea how to vocalize it.

It’s the three days he spent in bed while Andrew was home for the weekend, three days spent waiting for someone to check on him before realizing no one would.

It’s the inability to drag himself out of bed, even on a good day, the inability to fall asleep until four in the morning and the lack of a desire to wake up before one-if at all.

It’s the loss of his appetite, the meals he’s skipped because he just doesn’t feel like eating.

It’s the emails from his mom, telling him about his father’s latest award or promotion, emails telling him how much they both miss him, how sorry they are that they won’t be home for Thanksgiving so he has to stay on campus.

It’s the classes he’s missed, the tests he’s failed, the assignments he’s half-assed or hasn’t even turned in.

It’s the slow realization that he doesn’t see a future for himself anymore, doesn’t know where he’s going or where he’s supposed to go from here.

It’s the nights he sits in bed playing with the blade on his pocket knife for hours after Andrew falls asleep, wondering how quickly it could be over.

It’s all of these things combined, not just one of them, and it’s the resulting sense of despair that he can’t explain in words. It’s not necessarily that he’s sad all the time, because that’s not really the case. It’s more that he’s tired, and sometimes just wants the world to stop so he can get off, catch his breath.

“Blaine?”

“I don’t know.”

“What don’t you know?”

“Why I’m here.”

Jason pauses, seems to consider this before choosing his next words.

“Are you here because you want to be, Blaine? Is there something in your life that you’re unhappy with?”

“I’m not-I’m not unhappy, I just-I don’t know who I am anymore.”

It all comes out in a rush, and Blaine doesn’t take time to consider the words before he speaks, but he instantly knows that they’re true. This is the core of his problems, the driving force behind what he thinks he’s been going through-he just doesn’t remember the Blaine from high school, the Blaine who was in love with Kurt Hummel and the lead singer of the Warblers, who took New Directions to a second national title his senior year.

They say people change, grow up, when they get to college, but Blaine doesn’t remember anyone telling him people lose sight of themselves when they get there. He started with a dream and hope for the future, and barely halfway through his first year he’s already tired of it. Everything feels like too much, too much effort and too much stress. Sometimes Blaine wonders if this will last forever, for the next four years, beyond that. If he’ll ever remember who he is, what it’s like to feel normal.

“Do you have a family history of depression? Other mental illnesses?”

Blaine remembers the week Mom spent in bed after her mom died, remembers Dad bringing her food and the sound of her crying down the hall, but he was so young, he doesn’t really know what that was, if it was depression or if she was just sad. He doesn’t know about the rest of his family-Dad has three sisters scattered across the country, but they haven’t seen each other in years. He thinks he might remember Grandma Anderson mentioning something about the antidepressants Blaine’s great-times-three aunt might’ve been on, but he doesn’t really know.

He shakes his head, shrugs at the same time. Jason nods absently, flipping through Blaine’s file again before setting it aside, regarding Blaine critically for a moment.

“Do you feel like what you’ve been feeling has affected your ability to live your life on a day to day basis?”

Blaine snorts, the only answer he gives Jason. Has it been affecting his day to day life?

He hasn’t gone to a Philosophy lecture in six weeks, hasn’t been able to get himself out of bed in time for the eleven o’clock class. He’s missed two history Discussions and his last Math test had come back with a 42 scrawled across the top in red ink. Homework is something he can’t bring himself to do-it takes too much effort to read his assignments when it feels like everything goes in one ear and out the other. He can’t comprehend anything anymore, even when he tries; reading is too difficult, retention takes too much effort.

Studying is something else that requires effort, so he just doesn’t. He doesn’t have time, anyway, since he sleeps most of the day and mindlessly surfs the internet the rest. Things that don’t require concentration take up his time now-flash games and Rage comics occupy his “free” time.

Social interaction is something else that’s fallen to the wayside recently. He hasn’t been out on a weekend night in five weeks, hasn’t hung out with the guys on their floor in three. Some people are just not social butterflies, Jason suggests, but Blaine knows that he just doesn’t feel like it. Very few people still invite him out, and they never press when he turns them down. Interacting with them takes effort anyway, so he just doesn’t.

So yes, Blaine thinks, it’s been affecting his ability to function recently. He’s not sure he wants to see his GPA after this, and he’s not sure he’ll have many friends left once everything’s said and done.

Jason regards him quietly for a few moments, his intent stare unnerving Blaine further until Blaine is just a mess of nerves, wringing his hands in his lap while he waits. He knows Jason’s contemplating where to go next, what to do with him, and that scares him. Blaine wants this over, wants to be past this and through it and moving on to the next thing.

He leaves the counseling center twenty minutes later with a piece of paper detailing weekly appointments with Jason and an appointment with the campus psychiatrist the following Tuesday. He doesn’t feel different-doesn’t feel better-than before he walked in. He feels the same, crushing emptiness and the same despair he felt when he walked in. The world doesn’t seem brighter, it’s not like the sun has suddenly pierced the clouds and he sees hope. He just feels the same.

Blaine goes to bed early that day and sleeps until the following afternoon, wakes up and goes through the cycle again. He wonders if the antidepressants Jason mentioned he’d probably need will help, or if they’ll do anything at all. He wonders if talking to Jason is going to make all that much of a difference. He wonders if he’ll eventually give up and stop trying because this is just getting to be too much.

He wonders a lot of things, but mostly he wonders how he’s going move from one moment to the next, and whether it’s worth it. Something keeps telling him it is, so he does. He doesn’t have a particular reason, there’s no single person he keeps waking up for. He just feels like he has to, so he does.

Eventually things might get better, he hopes, but right now he exists, and that seems to be enough.