It’s early when he creeps into the apartment, just shy of 5 am. Blaine held out as long as he was able, through a sleepless night spent worrying and aching. At four thirty he’d given in, and left Jan’s apartment with a thank you note hastily scribbled on the white board decorating her fridge.

Blaine opens the door, expecting to find Kurt on the couch- he’s surprised instead by an empty room. The apartment is silent; it feels fragile and waiting. Kurt had told him, early in their engagement, about his promise to never go to bed angry- it had become a strange sort of superstition he’d held onto tightly through these difficult months, throughout this difficult year.  On nights when they hadn’t been able to patch things up, Kurt always chose to sleep on the couch. Needless to say, Blaine is surprised to find the couch as he left it, barren.

Shoes toed off carefully, Blaine heads toward the kitchen, thinking of coffee, and when he looks down the hall he can see Kurt curled tightly on Blaine’s side of the bed, back to him. There’s an ache, fear and forgiveness, sheltering his heart.  He wonders how Kurt managed to fall asleep in that bed, knowing Kurt as he does, he has to think Kurt must have thought they were over, that Blaine was done, curling up close to Blaine’s smell. Blaine knows that this would be the only reason Kurt would have for sleeping alone on a night like last. Feeling somehow, deep inside, that Blaine had walked away for good. It’s a realization that almost propels him into the bedroom; luckily he sees the tented paper on the kitchen counter first. Curious, he stops, and seeing that it is a letter, he begins to make the coffee.

When he picks it up, he finds pages of notebook paper, ripped carelessly out of a binder, and underneath them, Kurt’s ring. The apartment is still dark, winter pressing in on the windows with menace, and Blaine is sure for a moment he is going to throw up. Surely this cannot be what it seems. He refolds the sheets, gathers his coffee and the ring. Blaine moves carefully, completing each task with the utmost precision and care, taking his time and reminding himself to breathe.

When he can’t stand it any more, he opens the pages, smoothing them with shaking fingers against the laminate of their counter. Kurt’s ring is clenched in his hand, edges cutting into the soft meat of his palm and Blaine wants it, wants the biting like he’s branding the memory of Kurt indelibly into his skin.

Blaine,

First, I need you to breathe. I know you are looking at my ring and absolutely freaking out and I need you to stop. It doesn’t mean what you think it does, so just take a moment, ok baby?

I love you so much. I love you so much, in ways that I don’t even have words for.

I want the rest of my life with you. I can’t imagine anything else, I don’t want to imagine anything else. But when I see the rest of our lives, we’re happy.

I’m not naive. In a lifetime together, I imagine that there are going to be hard times. Big fights and little. Resentments and miscommunication and weeks without sex and slammed doors, and you know what? All of  that is ok. When I think of our lives together, I can’t help but think that at the end, in the final accounting, the good will always outweigh the bad.

This hasn’t been a great year for us, has it? I can imagine that sometimes you ask yourself, is this worth it? Do I really want to stay? Because you have no assurance that this will work out. You don’t trust me, and I get that. And I feel selfish, asking you to follow me blindly, for holding you to a promise you made out of love and desperation and hurting. Because you, Blaine Warbler, are the most honorable man I know. Well, you and my dad.

So I know that you think these rings are solid promise. And I meant them to be, but if you don’t want this, I won’t make you stay. I want you to. I don’t know what I will do without you if you decide to go. But what I’m asking, it’s a big thing.

Blaine, I want you to stay. Even if you aren’t sure, even if it means waiting through months or even a few more years like this. Because I think that a few years, even if they hurt and aren’t the best- they’ll be outshone by the better ones in the long run. I’d take ten bad years in the face of 60 beautiful ones. If I am lucky enough to be gifted a lifetime of loving you, I expect that the bad times will add up to a few years anyway. But the good ones, the best ones will so far surpass anything bad.

When I look back at the past six years, the things I remember are the good, the amazing, the incredible things we’ve done and shared. .

Do you remember our first kiss? The way my hands were shaking so much and you accidentally pushed me into that table and we ended up laughing because we knocked over all of my supplies and broke poor Pavarotti’s casket? I’d never imagined I’d find someone who would kiss me and then laugh with me and hold me and it would all feel like the most incredible thing that had ever happened to me.

The first time we made love- if you’ll pardon the expression because that’s all I can describe it as- I was so scared and I thought for sure that you’d hear my heart pounding and tell me to stop. I was so sure you’d tell me I wasn’t ready because I was so scared; scared to hurt you, scared because it was so huge, what we were going to do and, I’d never felt so many things at once. Never felt so connected and cared for. Never let myself feel so out of control and it was the most incredible feeling, trusting you like that, you trusting me with your self and your body.

But you did feel my heart, and you just smiled and put my hand on your chest, and your heart was pounding just as hard and everything was so overwhelming but incredible. Me inside you and feeling your heart beating everywhere and how we both ended up crying because it was so much.

                                                        
Oh, and that time when you came to visit me in my dorm room for the first time? I never told you this because I was mortified by the whole thing and I thought I’d never be able to look my suitemates in the eye because we were so loud. But after you left I found a dent in the wall from the bed frame hitting it and every night on the phone with you I’d press my fingers into that dent and it was almost like being close to you and I would cry.

That was hard, that year. But every time we saw each other it was better, and I don’t mean sex, I mean us. We had that invincible feeling, like “holy shit look what we’re making it through.” And we knew how strong we were and by the end of that year it was like nothing would ever come between us because we’d already done so much.

Do you remember that feeling?

Because I know we’ve fought. Before this all happened, we had fights and got angry. There was awkward sex and days when things were kind of distant, but you know what? Those aren’t the things I think about. That’s not what I remember or how I’ll remember us.

What I remember is  that time you convinced me to go to some nature conservation center in the middle of March. It was sleeting sideways and we had to go out on that walkway to get to the museum and I was sure I was going to kill you because we were NOT dressed for the weather. And no one else was there because of course we were the only dumbasses on a nature trail in the middle of a storm. But then the umbrella blew inside out and we were both trying to hold on to it and I was swearing at you but it didn’t matter because we were both laughing so fucking hard.

That’s what I remember.

I’m selfish. I’m so selfishly in love with you because I want it all. I want years of these memories. I want to wake up one day, 20 years from now and realize that we don’t even need words any more. I want a family, with you. A family of kids and maybe cat or something, and plants and everything. Just, everything.

So I’m giving you this ring. I love you Blaine. But I need you to want me, and to want this, and most importantly, to want this fight. To want to be in this fight with me, for us. I don’t want to be fighting with you anymore. I’m ok with anger, and rebuilding, but I want to know that we are both in this together.

I want you to keep this ring. And when you are ready, I am hoping that you’ll give it back to me. It doesn’t have to be now, or whatever moment you decide that yes, you are ready to work with me for this. Because, god, I’m banking on you wanting to work for this.

Just- when you know. When you have that feeling back, that thing that I broke that we need to rebuild, give it to me then, ok?

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you so much my fingers hurt. My eyelashes hurt and god our bed is going to be so fucking empty without you but I’m tired and I’m scared and the only thing I want is to feel you all around me and the only place I’ll get that is in our bed where your skin has been and it smells like you.

~K

The apartment is still, Blaine is still. He reads and re-reads the letter, never noticing the tears that drop onto the pages, blurring words and running ink.  Into the quiet, he closes his eyes and breathes, then stops, then breathes again and takes off his ring.