Author's Notes: It’s still early when Kurt wakes, the sun creeping into the room despite the heavy curtains, forcing him to face the day and all he has yet to handle. His head is caught in a vise-grip, his stomach empty but still tied up in knots. He’d complain, but he deserves every last agonizing moment of it.

Getting embarrassingly drunk was a dick move—he should have just told Paul right then and there, but he was already slightly tipsy by the time he and Blaine left Antonio and Sarah’s party, and in order to deal, to take care of two hearts and remember his own, he needed all his wits about him.

Opening his eyes all the way, he whispers, “You’re full of shit.” It’s still too loud for this epic hangover, this massive mess.

In truth, getting drunk was the only way he could avoid sex without outright telling Paul why he never wanted any other man but Blaine for the rest of his days.

Glancing around the room, he’s not surprised to find the other side of the bed empty, nor is he surprised to find two little ibuprofen pills next to a glass of water on the bedside table. There’s also a note:

Went for a run. Breakfast at ten and a phone interview (both of us!) at noon. It would be perfect if you would cancel your afternoon so we can roll around a bit until our dinner reservations at eight. April found a lovely Italian restaurant downtown, Il Piatto. Love you!

It’s all very familiar—the hand at his back, the gentle persuasion, the surest fix for every problem. He’d long since abdicated to Paul; he let him lead, and fuss over him, and steer them in the right direction. He’d let him take over and paint their future in “appropriate” colors, fill in the gaps, patch up the holes. He let him do this because it wasn’t something he’d yearned for, or planned for; it wasn’t something he’d dreamed up one rainy day after a perfect boy took his hand and showed him a shortcut to the promise of total acceptance.

For that future, he would have had much to say. He would have stayed up until the wee hours of the morning weaving possibilities with interlaced fingers, playing with ideas and soft curls, laughing, and planning, and plotting, and hoping, and sharing in the creation of something inevitable, and rare, and true.

But with Paul he just nodded and smiled. He rearranged his iCal, and toned down his wardrobe, and generally felt fine with all of it, his handsome compromise.

He let him.

Still, Paul also pulled a dick move. Sending out a press release about their wedding, setting a date without discussing it with him—it was classic Paul James. They were both dicks—the more so because they let it all play out in front of Blaine.

He reads the note again and groans. He now has reservations at Il Piatto with two men—Paul at eight, Blaine at eight-thirty.

Fucking hell. What is my life?

He spots his phone charging on the desk next to his wallet, which is open and lying flat. His clothes are folded neatly on the corner chair, the little in-room coffee pot full, a clean cup and saucer next to it. He’s a bit woozy when he stands up and stretches the kinks out of his back. How the hell am I going to make it through this day?

He pulls out the desk chair and sits, reaches for his phone and turns it on. He sees a few texts from Deidre, one from Anthony and several from Blaine, all unread. The latest from Blaine shows up on his screen at the very top.

Blaine:
Call me when you wake up. I need to know you’re okay. And please read all of my texts.

He ignores the other messages and reads through his entire text exchange with Blaine, including the last few he hasn’t seen.

I love you. I love you. I love you.
I am that person.
Don’t forget that, baby.

This. This is how he will get through the day. Somehow he will find the courage to tell Paul everything and send him back to New York to dismantle the life they built together. He’ll call Deidre and Antonio and explain that he needs to take the day, and when it’s all over he’ll meet Blaine at the restaurant. He’ll be ready, then—to start over, to become the person he was meant to be and be with the man he has loved so long.

His forefinger hovers over Blaine’s name in his phone—how many times had he called him? So many, too many, and not enough. The marathon phone sessions when Blaine was this miracle, this boy who was proof of all that is good in the world, this giant. The shorthand. The drawn-out calls they’d had trying to fit in every detail of their big, beautiful, grown-up lives. Then, the distance in Blaine’s voice. The too-long, awkward pauses. The goodbyes.

He thinks back to the first time he called Blaine, so nervous to make good on his promise to “call if you need to talk;” how he looked at Blaine’s name in his phone like it was his secret gift and then, mustering every bit of courage he had, touched Blaine’s name with his finger—the same finger poised to call Blaine now—and called the boy that made him smile.

Blaine answers on the second ring.

“Kurt?”

“I’m okay. Terribly hungover, but okay,” Kurt says, his voice hoarse from screaming at Zozobra the night before.

“Do you need some ibuprofen? Can I bring some to your room?”

“I took some. Thank you. Blaine, I’m so sorry—”

“Don’t. It’s a mess. You were upset. I get it.”

“It’s going to be okay. Right? Can you tell me that?” Kurt says.

“Of course. Maybe not at first, but—you’re strong, baby. You can say what needs to be said. You’ll be okay.”

“I wish you could be here with me.”

“I’ll come right now.”

“No, I… I need to do this alone,” Kurt says. He moves to the door, listens carefully. “He’ll be back soon. I’m going to tell him this morning and then I’ll come to your room. Will you wait for me?”

“Are you sure you don’t want me to help you tell him?”

“No, no. That was a bad idea. I need to give him the respect of privacy.”

“He can be very… never mind.”

“What?”

Blaine sighs. “He can be very convincing, Kurt.”

He can hear the concern in Blaine’s voice, shaky and soft. So Kurt says, “He can try to change my mind all he wants, but that has nothing to do with my heart.”

Blaine is quiet for a moment; Kurt hears just the sound of his breathing. And then “I’ll be waiting.”

“Go back to sleep. Keep your phone near you, okay?”

“Yes. Of course. I won’t be able to sleep, so call me anytime.”

“Blaine?”

“Yes.”

“I love you, too.”

Kurt hurries through his shower, not wanting Paul to return before he’s finished and get the brilliant idea to join him. As he goes through his routine, he practices what he’ll say, how he’ll start. “I’m in love with Blaine,” he says, as he washes his hair. “I can’t marry you because I love someone else,” he says, as he works conditioner into his hair from roots to ends. “I’ve been lying to myself, and to you, and I’m so very sorry,” he says, as he scrubs his body too harshly, skin red from the friction and heat. “Please forgive me,” he whispers, as he stands under the shower spray, rinsing clean.

He runs a towel over his hair and then ties it around his waist. He brushes his teeth. Just as he’s coming out of the bathroom he hears it: a knock.

Him. It began with a knock. No. It began with a song. Or maybe a hand, holding mine. No, no. It began with a wish, a tiny kindness, a word: courage.

Assuming he must have changed his mind and come to help him tell Paul, Kurt steels himself to see Blaine when looks through the peephole. Instead it’s Paul in his running clothes, hair wet with sweat, waiting. He opens the door.

Paul looks him up and down and smiles appreciatively. “I hope you knew it was me when you opened the door.”

“Yes, I checked.”

He kisses Kurt on the cheek and walks past him toward the desk. “Did you know one of your key cards doesn’t work? I must have grabbed a different one this morning, because the other card worked fine last night.”

Shit.

“I, uh—”

“You didn’t know?” Paul asks, fishing the other key card out of Kurt’s wallet and slipping it into his pocket.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Kurt shakes his head.

“You were hoping I would be able to join you, weren't you? That’s why you asked for two.” Paul asks, eyes gleaming.

“We didn’t plan on it, so—”

“Oh,” Paul says, disappointed. “Did they automatically give two cards when you checked in?”

Kurt could say easily say, “Yes.” He could nod in agreement and that would be that. “You can’t be a liar, too, Kurt.” His dad’s warning rings in his ears and he can feel Blaine urging him on from two floors below. He can do this. He can. He will.

“No, they didn’t.”

Paul is unfazed. “Next time tell Deidre not to leave her key card at the bottom of that cesspool she calls a purse. She didn’t actually stay in the room with you, did she?”

“No.”

“I’ll just take this one down to the desk and switch it out while you finish getting ready,” Paul says, holding up the other card.

Paul looks up at Kurt then, and frowns. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Are you not feeling well after last night?”

Kurt looks at the key card in Paul’s hand. He swallows, wills the words to come out of his mouth—I can’t marry you because I love someone else; I’ve been lying to myself, to everyone; please forgive me—but he can’t stop staring at the card.

Paul follows Kurt’s eyes to the card in his hand. He looks back at Kurt, expectant.

“Paul…” The words stick in his throat as he looks at Paul’s gorgeous face, tense with confusion.

“Fuck, this is hard,” Kurt exhales. He runs his fingers through his hair, still damp from the shower.

Paul looks at Kurt, eyes widening. His face heats up as he palms the card and squeezes around it, hard.

“Paul, I need to tell you something—”

Before Kurt can finish, Paul walks past him and out the door. Kurt runs after Paul, opens the door wide and realizes he can’t follow because he’s not dressed.

“Paul, wait!” Kurt shouts down the hallway, but Paul ignores him.

He rushes back into the room. Shit. Shit. Shit! Heart pounding, he opens a drawer, pulls out a clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt and dresses as fast as he can. By the time he makes it out the door and down the hall, Paul is getting on the elevator. Paul turns to face the doors, his face like stone.

“Paul! Please!”

The elevator doors shut and just like that, Kurt’s heart is in his throat. Feeling around in his pockets, he realizes he left his phone in the room and has no key card to get back in. He spots the red EXIT sign and flies down the stairs, barefoot, heart beating out of his chest. His mind races with images, the worst, the absolute worst possible ending, the soundtrack one refrain: Blaine, Blaine, Blaine, Blaine.

Bursting through the second floor stairwell entrance, Kurt scans the hallway leading to Blaine’s room. Paul is there, moving from door to door like a robot, swiping the key card twice at each room, just to make sure. Room 201, Room 202, Room 203…

Kurt runs to him, grabs him by the arm. “Paul, stop!”

Paul yanks his arm away and moves on to the next door, his face the picture of steely determination. He’s only three doors away from Blaine’s room, just moments from unlocking the door and discovering the truth. Hoping Paul will assume the next door is Blaine’s, Kurt crosses to the other side and blocks Room 205 with his body. He says, “Someone will call security! You can’t be arrested—it will be all over the news.”

“Move.”

“Paul, please. It’s not what you think—”

Paul scoffs, turns around to face Room 206 and swipes. The little dot above the handle lights up green and the door unlocks, a soft click that echoes in Kurt’s heart like a life painted on glass, falling onto concrete.

Paul turns the handle on Blaine’s door and opens it wide, the door banging on the inside wall. Kurt can’t move, can’t speak; he can’t even scream.

From inside, Blaine calls out: “Kurt? You didn’t call. Are you okay, baby?”

Paul winces and looks back at Kurt, his eyes filled with rage. He takes his hand off the door and walks inside. The heavy door swings to close and Kurt bolts for it, catching it just before he’s shut out of the room.

He finds his voice. “Paul, don’t—”

“Kurt—oh fuck,” Blaine says, running right into Paul, who stops short at the entrance to the main room.

Blaine backs up toward his bed, eyes on Kurt. Paul follows, sizing up the room. Shaking, Kurt grounds himself by positioning himself against the wall. He takes in Blaine, his sleepy eyes full of concern, his hair messy and his chest bare. He wants to go to him, wrap an arm around him, sink into his space. But the tension in the air is like a chain around his ankles; it keeps them apart. Blaine says nothing, and Kurt knows they’re both waiting for Paul to light into them, to attack and prod and blame, because they deserve it; it’s their due.

Paul looks at Blaine, who somehow manages to own the room despite Paul’s height advantage and the trouble at hand.

“Those are my pajama pants,” Paul says, his voice flat.

Oh, shit.

“I thought they were Kurt’s.”

“He borrowed them from me,” Paul explains, staring at the dove-gray cotton pooling around Blaine’s feet.

“It’s not what you think…” Kurt starts, searching for words.

“You said that,” Paul says, sitting down in the corner chair.

Paul stretches out, extending his long legs. He plays with Blaine’s key card, twirling it with thumb and forefinger in both hands. Only yesterday morning Kurt climbed into Blaine’s lap on that chair and played with the hair at the back of his neck. He can still feel Blaine’s strong hand on his thigh, holding him there as they exchanged soft kisses and planned their day.

“Let’s find out if it is what I think,” Paul begins, hands stilling as he looks over at Kurt. “I think you’re fucking your friend. Am I wrong? Are you fucking him, or have you just been having slumber parties and sharing each other’s clothes?”

Kurt looks down at his own clothing and realizes he’s wearing Blaine’s Berklee t-shirt again. Shit. It just keeps getting better. When he looks back at Paul he’s met with the disdainful look Paul reserves for his most hated detractors. He had hoped it would be better—not easier, but better. Different. He had hoped he wouldn’t ever be on the receiving end of that Paul James stare.

“I’m in love with him,” Kurt says.

And that’s it. He’ll tend to Paul’s heart as best he can, but there’s no going back, now.

Paul’s eyes darken as he stretches the moment out way past awkward. For a moment it looks as though he might cry, but just as quickly he pulls himself together, sits up taller in the chair and tosses the key card at Blaine’s feet.

Paul looks at Kurt and says, “Were you safe?”

“What?” Kurt asks.

“Am I going to have to get tested?”

Kurt moves to Blaine’s side. “Did you hear me? I said I’m in love with Blaine.”

“I heard you.”

“What does it matter, we’re not—wait. You think I’m—you want to take me back?” Kurt asks.

“Take you back? Since when did we break up?” Paul asks, getting to his feet. “You’re lonely. You fucked around. I’m pissed, and I’m quite sure that underneath this anger some part of me is shattered, but… this doesn’t change anything.”

Blaine moves closer to Kurt, folds his arms in a protective stance. They are inches from the edge of Blaine’s bed, the same spot where Kurt declared his love for Blaine just days before. Though he knows Paul deserves this moment to say his piece, Kurt can’t help looking at him like an interloper, invading a sacred space.

“No, I… I’m in love with him,” Kurt says.

Blaine says, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Paul. I can’t imagine what you must be thinking—”

“You do not talk. You don’t say anything!” Paul shouts.

Kurt says, “You deserve to be happy—”

“I am happy!”

“I just told you I cheated on you and you’re happy? We’re kidding ourselves, Paul. We tried. We both tried—”

“It’s cold feet, that’s all. People have flings. The distance and my schedule—it happens. We just need to spend more time together. We need—I’ll take two weeks off. After the vote, we’ll go away together. We’ll forget this ever happened and plan the wedding and—”

“Paul!” Kurt interrupts. “It’s not a fling. It’s not.”

Blaine unfolds his arms and reaches for Kurt’s hand. It feels like too much, lacing his fingers with Blaine’s in front of Paul, but words are not working. And it is too much. At the sight of their joined hands, Paul reels back like he’s been punched.

Again, Kurt hears his father’s voice. “Whatever happens, you owe it to him to tell him the truth. All of it.”

“I’ve been lying to myself and—I didn’t know, when I met you—I wanted to get over him, but I… it’s not possible,” Kurt says, squeezing Blaine’s hand. The feel of Blaine’s fingers interlocked with his own takes him back to that very first day. Now, and ever more, he is that boy on the staircase. Now, and ever more, he will want the same ending to this movie that is their lives. “I’ve always been in love with Blaine. And I always will be.”

“So you’ve been fucking him all these years?”

“No.”

Paul leans back against the dresser, his body blocking the mirror. He sighs. “How long?”

“Just… just this week,” Kurt replies.

Kurt looks at the window, at a thin patch of light shining through the curtains. In the uncomfortable pause, he is transported to the morning after that first night, when he left the bed in his own room to pull back the curtains and let in the day. He felt no guilt that morning as they watched the brilliant sunrise, clutching each other, holding off goodbye. There was no hope of requited love, no promise of a future, of destiny fulfilled. There was only searing grief, tempered by the tender touch of the man he thought would never be his, a love he was sure he could not keep.

“We didn’t plan it,” Blaine says, breaking into the silence.

Kurt shoots a warning look at Blaine. He looks like he wants to say more, but instead he snaps his mouth shut, his eyes on Paul. Kurt follows his eyes and gasps. Before him Paul is crumbling; somehow he looks smaller, stripped of his veneer and hurting, hurting so badly. This is a side of Paul he does not know.

He lets go of Blaine’s hand.

“I owe you an explanation,” Kurt begins, moving closer to Paul while still giving him space. “I wanted—I take full responsibility for this. I thought I could love you knowing it wasn’t enough. I thought I could make it enough. I tried. I really did.”

“We were so young when this started, and we didn’t know how to handle our feelings,” Kurt continues. “There were so many missed opportunities and bad choices. I think we were both waiting for the other person to figure it out, and then we just gave up. And I’m so sorry, Paul. If I had ever thought there was a possibility that Blaine would return my feelings, I never would have said yes—”

“I’m your Plan B? Is that what you’re saying? You couldn’t have him so you settled for me?”

“No, I… I didn’t know I had a chance—”

“And that’s better?”

“I genuinely thought I wanted the life we made,” Kurt says, inching closer. “If it was going to be anyone else but Blaine, it would—”

“Don’t you say it. Don’t you fucking say it,” Paul whispers, shoulders shaking.

Kurt’s eyes well with tears and he pushes the heels of his hands onto closed eyelids to make it stop. It’s not his moment to cry. “I’m so sorry—”

“We should have told each other, long ago,” Blaine interjects. “It would have saved everyone so much heartache.”

Paul scoffs, glaring at Blaine. “You should probably shut up.”

“You deserve someone who loves you completely,” Kurt says, reaching out to touch Paul’s arm. When he doesn’t flinch, Kurt squeezes gently, steps a little closer.

Paul says, “You never answered my question.”

“What question?”

“Were. You. Safe?”

Kurt panics, remembers the last time, the feel of Blaine’s bare cock inside him, the way they forgot themselves, the way they didn’t care and didn’t talk about it and didn’t regret it for one minute. It had felt so right, so deserved. And yet now, standing before this man who loves him, this man who trusted him, it’s clear that it was not right, or deserved. It was an act of selfishness.

“Kurt, just tell me,” Paul presses. “Were you safe?”

Kurt squares his shoulders and steps back a bit. “No. Not every time.”

Paul tilts his head a bit and looks at Kurt like he’s a stranger, like he’s someone to fear. He looks down for a moment, then back up at Kurt, this time with wet eyes to match Kurt’s, the mask gone. On instinct Kurt moves to comfort him, but before he can lift his arms Paul pushes off the dresser and lunges for Blaine, knocking him to the ground.

Kurt hears the thud of Paul’s fist connecting with Blaine’s face and rushes to pull them apart. Before he can get to them, Paul throws another punch, but Blaine turns his head away. Paul cries out in pain when his fist hits the floor and then he’s on Blaine again, trying to pin him.

“Paul, no! Stop!” Kurt yells, as he tries to get between the two of them. He pushes Paul back enough for Blaine to get two hands up on Paul’s chest and hold him away. Kurt holds on to one of Paul’s arms, but he can’t seem to get him off of Blaine.

Paul breaks free from Kurt and lifts his arm, ready to do damage.

“Paul! Stop!” Kurt shouts. He jumps on Paul and tries to yank him off of Blaine. He manages to pull Paul back enough for Blaine to get out from under him and scooch back toward the wall; he sits up against it, wincing in pain.

Kurt goes to Blaine, crouches down to his level. Hand on Blaine’s chin, he turns his face from side to side to assess the damage: an eye that will surely be bruised the next day and a tiny cut above his right eyebrow, most likely from Paul’s ring.

“I’m fine,” Blaine says, tilting his head away from Kurt’s hand.

“What the fuck, Paul?” Kurt says, looking back at him.

Paul is breathing heavily now, clearly shaken. He sits on the edge of the bed and stares at his own hands; he says nothing.

“Let me get something for that cut,” Kurt says, moving to stand. Blaine grabs hold of his hand and pulls him down to sit next to him, then brings their joined hands into his lap.

“I’m fine,” Blaine assures him.

Kurt leans back against the wall and surveys the room. Aside from the two of them on the floor, one bleeding, and the dejected man on the bed, nothing looks out of the ordinary. No furniture overturned. No clothes strewn about. No evidence of that which has been broken, of three hearts beating off rhythm and much too fast.

Suddenly he’s looking down on the scene, feeling that familiar yet absurd wonderment. “It’s an aerial moment,” Blaine had said that first night in this magical, weird city, sitting on Deidre’s kitchen floor. Blaine held his hand then, too, like he had so many times before, his thumb on Kurt’s wrist. There was something different about that night—possibility, a dormant connection woken up by fate, a chance, terrifying.

Now, in this moment, there is a similar sense of danger, the unknown laid out before him like an empty desert highway, endless, the horizon not a destination but a thin line where sky meets clay.

Paul slumps over, stares at the floor, his hands on the back of his neck.

“We fucked up,” Blaine says to Paul, his tone strong but apologetic. “Kurt is everything to me, and I’m not giving him up. This is bigger than us. This is true love. But I know we made a mess of things, and I apologize for that.”

“And I’m sorry you had to find out this way,” Blaine continues. “I’m sorry you were dragged into this at all, but it’s meant to be. What are the odds we would run into each other, here of all places? It was inevitable.”

Paul looks up then, flexes his fingers and then shakes out his right hand. Then he turns to them and says, “You’re both full of shit. Fucking cowards.”

He stands, picks Blaine’s key card off the floor and pockets it.

“True love. Please. You say this is true love, and yet you let fate handle it? Bullshit,” Paul says. “Do you think we’d have national marriage equality if I waited around until the time was right? If I didn’t push and push and push for it? The time was ALWAYS right, and I wasn’t going to stand around waiting for a bunch of narrow-minded closeted cocksuckers to give me the green light.

“You think this is real? That this is meant to be? Fuck that,” Paul continues. “If this were some epic, ‘inevitable’ love, you would have fought for each other. You didn’t even TELL EACH OTHER how you felt, let alone fight for what you wanted. Pining after each other while you fuck other people? While you promise your future to OTHER PEOPLE? That’s love? That’s meant to be? Don’t kid yourselves. That’s not love. That’s a fantasy, that’s—if you wanted each other, you would have done something about it. You really want something in life? You go get it.”

Kurt is in shock. Paul is rattling off some version of their truth like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Like they’re not idiots, but deluded. Cowards. Deluded, cheating, asshole cowards.

The old fears creep up like a bad dream, pushing at the soft corners of his mind, blanketing his short-lived happiness with age-old shadows.

Blaine squeezes Kurt’s hand like he knows, like he can read his mind and feel his fears. Paul steps forward, towers over them, and Kurt is acutely aware of how vulnerable they are. He feels small, and young, and… caught.

“What were you doing with me, huh?” Paul asks. He looks off to the side, eyes fixed on Blaine’s bed. “I would have swum the ocean to get to you, Kurt.”

Kurt gasps. Next to him, he can feel Blaine tense up; the hold on their intertwined hands loosens, and he’s not sure which of them initiated it.

Whatever he expected from Paul, it wasn’t this. It never occurred to him that he would find their story ridiculous—unbelievable, even. Ask him to stay, yes. Call him a cheater and tell him to get out, yes. He could have dealt with most of these outcomes. But Kurt never expected Paul to hold a mirror up to Kurt’s own face—close, too close, like the unforgiving makeup mirror his mother kept on her vanity that revealed every line, every blemish, every scar not visible in plain sight.

Without another word, Paul walks out, the door slamming loudly behind him. The sound is like a gunshot, snapping Kurt to attention. He slips his hand out of Blaine’s grasp and stands up, starts pacing around the room. The guilt, once blissfully absent from his psyche rears up like a giant bear woken up from hibernation a month too soon. It will crush him, this guilt. It will tear him apart. He can feel it coming down hard; there is no escape.

“I’m such an asshole, oh my god,” Kurt says.

From the floor, Blaine says, “Then we’re both assholes.”

“I can’t believe I—Blaine, this isn’t me. I’m not a liar. I don’t cheat. I don’t hurt people with my reckless behavior—”

“We couldn’t help ourselves, we love each other—”

“That’s bullshit. Are you listening to yourself?”

“Kurt, we handled this badly, yes, but please don’t make it sound like we’re some reality show rejects, here. That’s not what this is, and you know it.”

“We cheated, Blaine,” Kurt says, voice resigned as he sits down on the bed.

“I’m aware of that.”

“We didn’t use a condom.”

“I know. That was—”

“I don’t do that, Blaine. I don’t. I think somehow I lost myself, I forgot—but it didn’t feel that way. It felt like I was finally waking up, like I was actually remembering something, something I needed—”

“Kurt, stop. Don’t you realize what’s just happened?”

“I think I do, Blaine—”

“Paul knows. He knows, now, and we can finally be together,” Blaine says, pulling himself up. He sits down on the edge of the bed next to Kurt, one leg up so they can face each other.

Kurt looks at him, touches his cheek, a barely-there brush over his sore eye. “Your face.”

“I’m okay. I deserved it.”

Dropping his hand, Kurt says softly, “I’m not sure who I am anymore.”

“Baby, why? I know this was awful, and intense, but—”

“I always use a condom.”

“Why are you stuck on that? Yes, it was unsafe, and that’s not like you, or me. But I’m clean, you’re clean. We’re okay,” Blaine says.

“Because I would never—because he’s right.”

“About what? Kurt, no—”

“What would you have done if we hadn’t run into each other?”

“Kurt—“

“Because I would have married Paul. I would have loved you and missed you and when it was safe to do so I would have cried for you. But I had no plans to tell you. And you might want to tell me that you would have come for me eventually, but those are just words,” Kurt says, shoulders slumped in resignation.

“Baby, you know how sorry I am that I didn’t—”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you come for me? Why didn’t you tell me everything?”

“I told you—I didn’t know how and then I thought you were lost to me.”

“But it shouldn’t have mattered,” Kurt presses. He’s done it now. He’s cracked the one box they were afraid to open, the one brimming with difficult questions, and bitterness, and pain.

“I did try to tell you. I sang a song for you, but you didn’t listen,” Blaine says, his brow furrowed.

“You fucked Adam while I was in the next room!”

“Kurt! Seriously?”

“Yes! Do you have any idea how much that hurt—”

“You were with Caleb—”

“And every other time? Wasn’t I worth fighting for?

“Of course!” Blaine says, voice raised. “But Kurt, why didn’t you try harder?”

Kurt looks at the floor. “I told you how I felt.”

“We were kids! Are you telling me I blew my chance with you at sixteen and that was it?”

“Clearly not. I did just cheat on my fianc� with you.”

“Stop. Wait. What is happening here?”

Kurt stands and starts pacing again. He’s distraught, the words and memories swirling around them in a frenzy. He’s panicked now, the weight of their indiscretion and the old fears pressing down on every inch of him. “I don’t know. I just—vacation is not reality. This place is—maybe we’ve been kidding ourselves.”

“Are you saying you’ve changed your mind about us?” Blaine asks, his voice strained.

“No, I just—could I breathe for a minute? I feel… out of my body and—I just don’t think the issues we had are going to disappear just because we finally admitted we had—”

“Issues? What fucking issues, Kurt?”

“We had every opportunity, Blaine. Why didn’t we take just one?”

Blaine stands, arms crossed. “I thought we just did.”

Kurt is wild, now, as he lets it all back in; the old hurts stack up like bricks between them. “You’re saying I’m worth it now? Why not two weeks ago? Or ten years ago?”

“You moved on! You pushed me away and—I tried. I tried to get you to come with me—”

“Where? To London?”

“Yes! That day, I told you how I wished I could take you with me—”

“And is that what I’m supposed to do now? Hmm? Drop everything and move to London to follow you?”

“Whoa. Fucking hell, Kurt. These aren't our issues you’re worried about. These are your issues.”

Kurt stops pacing. He takes in Blaine’s red, angry face, the hurt in his eyes. He shouldn’t say it, the last thing. It could shatter them forever, but he has to do it. Because it’s real, and it can’t be avoided.

“I may be a mess about this, but Blaine, you spent years jerking me around, confusing me with your innuendo and charm. You were oblivious to my feelings and I can’t help but wonder now…”

“What? Just say it, Kurt.”

Kurt sighs, slips his hands into his pockets. “I can’t help but wonder how you could love me so much and still not see me.”

Blaine’s eyes go wide, as if he’s seen a ghost.

“Well, looks you two are off to a good start.”

Kurt turns to see Paul leaning against the wall near the bathroom, a bucket of ice under one arm.

“Paul, I—”

“Here,” he says, looking at Blaine as he drops the bucket on the dresser. “For your face.”

Blaine forces out a “thank you” and then folds his arms again; this time he is the one sizing up Paul.

“I’m going home,” Paul says to Kurt. “I think you should come with me and sort this out. I think you owe me that.”

Paul turns on his heels and leaves, the door slamming shut behind him. Kurt falls into the chair, head in hands.

“I don’t even know who I am anymore. I don’t—I would never do these things to another human being. Why was it so easy?”

“There’s nothing easy about this.”

It’s his own damn fault. Paul has done nothing but love him, and move them forward while Kurt remained passive and agreeable. How could he complain about Paul’s shortcomings and compare him to Blaine when he had gone along with all of it, without question? If he’d lost some part of himself it was his own doing, and splitting up with Paul wouldn’t mean getting that part back. Running off into the sunset with Blaine wouldn’t give him that part back either, for that matter. That was his job, and his alone.

His tone is sad and wistful when he says, “In the beginning I thought we’d end up together eventually, like Harry and Sally. I kept thinking we were just caught in the second act, that soon you’d realize you loved me and come for me. But you never did.”

“Why did you leave it all up to me, huh? I was a kid.”

Kurt looks up at his love, this man he has adored for so long. They’ve done so much damage—to themselves, to each other, to the men they recruited as substitutes. A tear falls down his cheek. He wipes it away, but more soon follow. He says, “If we were supposed to grow up together, how can we be sure we grew up at all?”

Blaine steps back, lands on the bed as if someone has pushed him. “I don’t know.”

Kurt crosses to Blaine, stands before him and takes his face in both hands. He smiles at him through watery eyes. He knows what he has to do.

“Do you know what I wrote down on my paper, the one I dropped in the box for Zozobra? I wrote that I was afraid this wasn’t real. I was afraid that we wouldn’t last outside of this place…”

Blaine is crying now, too, tears in lines down both cheeks. Kurt wipes them away with his thumbs, but they just keep coming.

“I need to go, love.”

“Kurt—”

“I don’t recognize myself. I haven’t for a long time. I need time. I need to breathe, figure out what I want to do.”

“You’re going back with him.”

“I’m going back to New York, yes. But not with him. There’s no one else for me but you. I just—I need to face what I’ve done and make some decisions outside of this.”

Blaine reaches up and pulls Kurt’s hands off of his face, holds them in his own. “How long?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not giving up.”

“I hope not.”

Kurt leans in, presses his lips to Blaine’s. The kiss is soft, barely there, a sharp contrast to the feel of Blaine’s hands on his hips, fingers digging in, sure to leave marks. Pulling back, he sees the question in Blaine’s eyes, and the disappointment. He wants to soothe his worries with definite promises of where and when, but he won’t do that. Not while there is still so much for him to face.

“Go, then,” Blaine says, his voice flat.

Kurt kisses his forehead. And then he’s walking away from him, his heart. As he leaves he slows the closing door with one hand so it will shut quietly; he’s not looking for an ending.

Bare feet sinking into soft carpet, he walks to the elevator, his own heart numbing from the inside out. When the doors close he pulls Blaine’s t-shirt up and uses it to wipe his face. He will not cry in front of Paul.

Back on the fourth floor, he knocks on the door to his room and waits. Paul opens it almost instantly, then retreats back into the room, clearly on a mission. He has all of their suitcases open on the bed, the curtains pulled wide and CNN on the television.

“Our flight leaves in four hours. I called for a car. It will be here in an hour.”

Kurt nods and gets to work; there’s no point in correcting Paul’s audacious expectations. He may be going back with him, but he is not going home.

He’s on autopilot as he packs—shoes in bags, pants on hangers, jeans rolled up, toiletries secured. He stashes away his treasures, trinkets he bought for Finn and his girls, for his parents, for himself, leaving one box out next to his carry-on. He texts Antonio and Deidre with promises to explain later and packs his carry-on with files, his sketchbook, his laptop and chargers.

When the front desk calls to inform them that the car has arrived, Kurt is ready. As he leaves he does not look back at the room, the bed, that place near the door where he hugged Blaine, held him close, reveled in the wonderment of finally, finally, yes please, finally.

In the lobby, he separates from Paul and walks quickly to the reception desk. He goes through the motions of checking out like a robot, his answers monosyllabic, his face a mask of polite response. Once finished he takes out the small wrapped box, slides it across the counter and says, “Please see that Blaine Anderson gets this.”

Outside he slips on his sunglasses, walks down the steps and meets Paul, waiting for him near the town car.

“After you,” Paul says, holding the door for him.

Kurt slides into the backseat and situates himself behind the driver, as close to the door as possible. He stares out the window, his body rigid and unwelcoming. This may be the longest “walk of shame” ever known to man, but that doesn’t mean he has to give into Paul’s silent demands. That he’s not sure how to sort out the last ten days, or the past fourteen years, or tomorrow and the day after that, is beside the point. Right or wrong, Kurt has always made his own choices, and he will not be swayed.

It seems only a moment has passed, and they’re already approaching the exit for I-25. On earlier trips, he never paid attention to the signs and markers; he was always focused on getting back to New York, on gossiping with Antonio, on his phone, his schedule, his plan, his project. Now, with miles of highway in front of them and this strange, beautiful city behind him, he is struck with a sense of loss so profound, so all-consuming, he is once again that boy on a bus bound for Chinatown, willing himself not to cry.

He lets the people, and sounds, and moments, and colors of his Santa Fe heart fill him up as he stares at the car’s immaculate floor. Antonio’s arm around his shoulder; a bowl of green chile; the smell of ash and burning paper; Sarah’s infectious smile. The boots, and the promises, and the ancient rites. The sweet honey on sopapillas, hot from the oven. Adele’s laughter. Kisses—for the first time, on a dance floor, compelled by a song; in a bed, trying for too much; quick coffee-flavored pecks they’d ducked into Burro Alley for; and one more, the last, the one he hoped would carry them, keep them, help them find their way.

Just before La Bojada, the tall hill that will obscure any view of Santa Fe, he turns for one last glimpse out the back window. Somehow, the picture soothes him. Somehow, the landscape is different: the endless sky, the slope of desert rolling into mountains. Somehow, it’s no longer just a place; it’s a beginning.

“You’ll see,” Paul starts, breaking into Kurt’s thoughts.

Kurt turns, expecting to find Paul staring at him with hopeful eyes, but instead he’s met with a profile as Paul stares out his own window. Does he know I found my heart here? Does he know the dirt is magic, that it heals? Or is it just a place to him? Another campaign stop, another ally on the map?

Perhaps sensing Kurt’s eyes on him, Paul turns, his expression guarded behind sunglasses and well-practiced neutrality.

“I’m going to forgive you,” Paul says.

“I’m… I’m so glad. I hoped you would.”

By the time either of them speaks again they’ve passed two casinos, sprawling oases in the desert. Kurt isn’t ready for the big conversation, the one in which they strategize announcements, divide up furniture and friends. So instead he says, “I’ll stay with Harper until you head back to D.C.”

“He’s a mess. And a gossip,” Paul says. “He’ll have told everyone by tomorrow morning.”

“Not if I ask him not to say anything.”

Paul grunts. He maintains disdain for Kurt’s friend Harper Abbott’s life of leisure, despite the fact that Harper had helped raise millions for President Cuomo’s presidential bid.

“He will tell even more people if you do that,” Paul warns.

Kurt shrugs. “So I’ll get a room at the W.”

“I wish you’d let me manage the situation. Just come home. I’ll stay in the guest room. It’s only two nights.”

He looks at Paul, a sad smile on his face and thinks about how easy it would be to just fall back into it. The life, the work, the friends, the promise. He could pretend that the last few days were just a dream—a beautiful, life-defining dream—and get back to the world he built with Paul. It was a good life. It is a good life.

But it’s no longer home.

The outskirts of Albuquerque are upon them when Paul takes hold of Kurt’s hand and says, “I don’t mind, you know. Being second best.”

It’s heartbreaking and suffocating, watching Paul holding onto him for dear life. He loves him too much to let him beg.

“It’s not about that,” Kurt says, letting Paul keep hold of his hand. “It’s what I’ve always wanted and I can’t turn my back on it now. I’m sorry.”

Paul gives his hand a tight squeeze and then lets it fall back into Kurt’s lap. “You’ll see,” he says, looking out the window again. “Sometimes we have to let go of the life we hoped for in order to live another life. Just because you can be sure of me doesn’t mean I’m not worthy of your consideration.”

“You think I’m crazy, don’t you? Reckless,” Kurt says.

Paul is quiet for a moment, and it’s too long—long enough to make Kurt shift in his seat. They’re turning off the highway toward the airport exit when Paul finally says, “I don’t think you’re crazy.”

Seconds later Paul mutters, not softly enough, “I think you’re a fool.”

It’s like a punch to the gut, his own deepest fears on the lips of the man he wronged. Paul is astute—you don’t climb to his position without keen instincts and the ability to size up people and situations. He knows in his heart that Paul is wrong, but the old nagging worry keeps creeping in, blurring the edges of what he knows to be true.

The driver pulls up to the departures drop-off and Kurt is out of the car, hauling his own bags from the spacious trunk. Paul tips the driver and they walk into the airport and up to the first class check-in in single file, as if on some fashionable death march.

There is one couple ahead of them, so Kurt turns away from Paul and glances around the airport; anything to distract him from the tension between them. In the main hall vintage planes hang from the ceiling, including an orange wonder right out of the Wright brothers’ “impossible” fantasies. It reminds him of summer days, his back on the grass and his eyes on the clouds as the Blue Angels danced along a powder blue sky.

Stepping up to the counter, Paul hands his ID to the agent and nudges Kurt to do the same. Kurt slides his ID toward her, hoists his larger bag onto the scale and then glances back at the plane. It looks like a sculpture, like it couldn’t possibly fly. But it did fly, once upon a time. It did.

“Have a good flight,” the agent says as she hands him his boarding pass. He looks down at it—ABQ to ATL to JFK—and then hands it back to her.

“Kurt?” Paul asks.

“I’d like to change my ticket. One ticket to Dayton, Ohio, please.”