“Make It or Break It,” Star Hot for Teacher?
Blaine Anderson, 16, whose single “Beautifully,” was released three weeks ago with predominantly positive reviews, was seen exiting Poom’s Tai Cuisine with Kurt Hummel, 24. A witness said that the pair seemed “close [and] talked intimately,” throughout dinner. Rumors have been swirling about the new recording artist’s sexual preference since his win on the hit summer talent competition. When asked about his romantic interests, Anderson has remained elusive stating that he is merely a “goofy looking sixteen-year-old who wants to play music,” and the PR department at Major Rift Records has yet to issue a statement regarding his orientation. Hummel – a member of the now defunct, New Directions – came out to the media a month after the abrupt breakup of the popular singing group four years ago. Since his very public, and some say drunk, break up with up and coming indie actor Benjamin Gray, 23, six months ago, Hummel has been keeping a low profile. He is slotted as producer for Anderson’s full length studio album due out early next year.
-In Touch Magazine
August, 2011

It takes a week to finish and record the song with full instrumentals. During that week, the studio transforms from a place of isolation to a place where music becomes an organic being constantly shifting, changing in an infinite conglomeration of lofty ideals and practical applications. It is not an instantaneous change brought on by one afternoon spent reworking his song with a man who understands shifts in details and the power of song. No, it’s a slow turning sensation as fingers find the necessary notes, hears the recording playing back in a clear representation, and watches the lines of music change shape as a bass line is intertwined and a simple percussive beat is layered on top. Finally he sings the lyrics that are new, a little foreign slipping off his tongue, but still tells a story of two friends entwined together within two different definitions of love. It’s the process he likes best, he decides, after he is handed the final mix. He stares at the neat, blocky handwriting inscribing his name and song across the shiny surface of the CD before sinking into Kurt’s arms in disbelief. And then the reviews come in. It takes less than a second for his heart to crash onto the tile in a mess of blood and despair when he reads Alex Ross’ review, posted on the therestisnoise.com, which informs the readers that Blaine Anderson does not possess enough jangly familiarity to assert any kind of influence on the mainstream charts nor does he have enough musical depth or substance to gain recognition in the indie community. Another reviewer insists that he is just the flavor of the week that will not last past the next teenage sensation. There are more good reviews than bad but positivity does not pierce and stick between the ribs the way that negativity does.

“Everybody gets bad reviews,” Kurt insisted pulling the bulky headphones down around his neck and pushing away from the control panel as the band in the recording booth resets for another take. “Accept the criticism and move on. You can’t please everyone, Blaine.”

So he tries to remind himself that Alex Ross’ opinion does not matter because his song is getting played consistently on the radio and has hit a plateau at the number seven spot onto Itunes top ten songs list. Seven is a good number, a number that he cannot quite comprehend, and he is ecstatic. But Nick has been awfully quiet since he handed him a copy of the final mix. Blaine shrugs it off and chalks it up to the looming gloom that comes with the imminent school year and hefty weight of ignored summer reading for their AP English Literature class. So he basks in Charlie’s praise and lets the conversation melt into Nick’s sly topic transitions. Nick has always had the talent of herding conversation in the direction he wants it to go. Eventually, he accepts that he may not have the smooth likeability of Bruno Mars (Grenade contains one of the worst metaphors, anyways) to conform to popular music standards nor does he do enough drugs to be the next Connor Oberst (Rolling Stones’ proclaimed boy genius of indie music), apparently.

It takes a lecture on image and reputation (one that mirrors his father’s lecture but he does not allow himself to pull parallels), a handful of meetings, and much longer than a week to figure out how to deal with the press. The picture was innocuous, really. A simple, gritty image of them leaving the restaurant, Kurt’s hand placed firmly in the middle of Blaine’s back as he ushers him through the door. He didn’t even see the cameraman that shot the photo from around the corner.

“My parents don’t even know,” he whispered when Shelby calls him into her office the afternoon after the tabloid drops. “I didn’t think . . . it was just dinner.”

Shelby slides onto the corner of her desk folding her hands in her lap. “Look, Blaine, we don’t care whether you are gay, bi, straight, purple, whatever but you have to be comfortable with what you show the public. People are going to judge and maybe even hate you for what you chose to broadcast outside these walls; more so now because you are getting played on the radio and people are starting to recognize you.”

He sits on his hands to stop fidgeting eyes casting down to the floor. “Are you suggesting that I censor who I am?”

“No,” she said decisively. “I want you to be whoever you want to be but everything gets twisted, distorted out there. People find hate so much easier than love, than acceptance, and it is so easy to lose yourself in the whirlwind of outside perspectives. Be yourself, Blaine. Love yourself but protect yourself now while you can.”

He lets his fingers brush Kurt’s bicep when they pass on the stairs.

“Not now, Blaine,” he muttered freezing but not turning to face him, “we will talk tomorrow, ok?”

Kurt is moving again before he can respond taking the steps two at a time disappearing into Shelby’s office without another glance. Charlie is waiting for him at the bottom of the staircase, book clutched securely to her chest. She doesn’t say anything easily falling into step with him in silent support – something she has always supplied without pretence.

The beach is alive with a certain energy that comes with the last week of summer vacation. Kids dart the length of the pier, parents playing caboose as they bounce from one sight to the next. The older kids lean against railings staring in cool detachment, beanies pulled low over heads despite the lingering heat, skateboards propped by their sides, cheeks blushing with sun and excitement. They wade through the hordes of people, order greasy, over priced burgers from the Carousel Caf�, and wonder down the length of the beach to an empty life guard stand stationed between the pier and Venice Beach. The smog is thick mixing with the hazy heaviness of the latest heat wave making everything slow and blurry. Surfers bob beyond the break line patiently waiting for the perfect set of waves to take them home. Mirages of half finished sand castles stand desolate, lonely just out of reach from the crush of the waves. They laugh in the face of destruction in the way that Blaine never will be able to.

“He is twenty-four,” she started breaking the silence with the crinkling of paper being compressed into a ball. “What are you doing, Blaine?”

He trains his gaze on the ruins of the pretend empires and nods, “I know.”

Launching himself off of the observation deck, he stumbles, momentum pulling him down and forward in an uncoordinated mess of flailing arms and tangling legs. It takes a few steps to regain balance and redirect his body into a forward state of movement and then he is at the waterline, toes digging into the sludge as the cool fingers of the waves wrap languidly around his ankles before retracting. He pulls himself away from the drag of water and circles the crumbling towers of forgotten sandcastles. Without hesitation, he topples them with a firm press of his barefoot. He sinks down, sand contouring to the negative spaces of his body, feet stretching towards the water, head tipping upwards towards the dull sky.

“He understands what it is like.” He whispered when Charlie finally sprawls out next to him in the burning sand.

“It doesn’t hurt that he is absolutely gorgeous, I would imagine.” She laughed kicking sand over his lower legs.

He blushes almost instantaneously, “yeah there is that.”

“Ah, Blainey has a crush,” She sing-songed wiggling a finger into his side. “He is so smitten. He wants to wear Kurt like a mitten.”

He rolls over in an attempt to stop the assault on his side burying his face in his forearms. “Why am I friends with you?

“Well,” she said tapping a finger to her chin in contemplation, “your face has been plastered across the front page of a tabloid which means that you have reached super stardom, of course. So you have to keep me around to make sure your head doesn’t inflate with the growing size of your ego. I am incredibly adept at bursting bubbles, if you must know.”

“That makes so much sense,” he nodded mouth twisting up into a grin. “However, I think it simply means that we finally found a use for you.”

Their laughter fades in waves and sore abdomens. He rolls back over, sand hour glassing through his fingers, and watches a family creep past in a quest for sea glass.

“So,” she said, her gaze following the gleefully disjointed movement of the kids bouncing off of each other and into the surf while their parents stroll, arms wrapping around waists comfortably, securely, slowly behind them radiating contentment. “What now?”

He hums to himself, absentmindedly shifting the sand beneath his fingers in swirling abstractivity, “anything. Everything and nothing.”

She shifts pulling herself until her legs are crossed and her shadow splashes long, dark over his upper body. Late afternoon light filters golden hued and lovely across skin burned dark by the sun pooling shadows under high cheekbones. His eyes are closed, lashes fanning thick against flushed skin, a gentle smile pulling at the corner of his lips. It’s funny, she thinks as she listens to the wispy strands of an unknown song spill unconsciously from the boy in front of her, that he is, despite life speeding in different directions all at once, the stillest she has ever seen.

“So serious,” he mumbled, eyes slitting open, glimmering in the warm light.

She shrugs, smiling slightly, fingers burrowing through the sand. “You look happy.”

“I think I am in a state of denial, maybe ignorance.” He smiled stretching long before pillowing his hands under his hand. “I am happy, though, despite everything. Plus I am out at the beach on an incredibly beautiful day with one of my best friends pretending to be a regular, average person. Why wouldn’t I be happy?”

“Hmm,” she hummed settling back into the sand, shoulders brushing, “and what about your summer reading, Mr. Average Joe?”

“We are so not talking about that.” He said waving a hand dismissively. “What we need to talk about is wardrobe choices for the house party that Jeff is playing at and Nick says that we absolutely need to show up to.”

There is fuzziness in the late night atmosphere that suspends everything in a hazy looseness which dulls the senses and let’s time flow liquid. The party, held in a large pent house in the Silver Lake district, is in a state of stasis when they walk in late enough for everyone to be in a happy state of bleariness where laughter slurs into philosophical discussion about nothing. People are swaying bending their bodies to the slew of notes being spewed around the room offering mangled words of worship whenever the lyrics resemble something they understand. A red cup that smells like skittles but burns when swallowed is thrust into his hands contents rocking in a dangerous parabola with the force of the hand off. He loses Charlie in the press of bodies as he navigates through the never ending chorus of hellos. The drink is gone by the time he reaches the kitchen and he can feel it sliding hot down his esophagus warming his body in an electric tingle. An intense game of King’s Cup has gathered a crowd around the oak table and he takes a long pull of his refilled drink watching the wavering hand of a girl he didn’t know place a card onto the teetering stack mushrooming on top of an overturned cup. A cheer erupts and play continues. Blaine props himself against the door frame out of the way of flying limbs and watches the party shift, contort around him blending into the soundtrack of the night. A blonde boy, all flailing arms and uncontained energy, shimmies his way over stopping close enough that he can tuck his head onto the shelf of Blaine’s shoulder.

“Oh, hello, friend,” the boy sighed readjusting the lopsided bright red beanie body still swaying to the pulse of the room. Blaine stares down at the boy who is attached to his side raising an eyebrow as the boy blinks heavily, pupils blown wide with intoxication, and giggles. “Blaine Anderson, I have seemed to have lost my shoes.”

Blaine laughs at the bare toes wiggling against the hard wood floor and slings an arm around his shoulder. “I see that Jeff Harrison.”

“But don’t worry, kind sir,” Jeff said, arm shooting out in an all encompassing gesture amber liquid sloshing onto the floor, “they shall return when the time is right.”

“You have magical shoes,” he agreed, clinking their cups together.

“You know what’s magical?” Jeff asked closing one eye in order to focus, “your song, dude. It’s fucking haunting and shit. So not gimmicky corporate crap no matter what people are saying.”
“Thanks, Jeff,” He murmured.

“Anytime, man, anytime,” he said downing the rest of his drink before disentangling from Blaine, “except for right now because I have to go play my magnum opus on the topic of love. I love tonight, tomorrow too, and, possibly, Wednesday but that hasn’t been decided yet.”

Blaine laughs, head colliding with the wall behind him. “That sounds like a very necessary action, my friend.”

“Huzzah!” Jeff shouted zigzagging his way through the cluster of people cup held aloft in salute.

Blaine slips back into the kitchen just as the first twangy guitar chords bounce off the walls. A couple of measures later, a swinging bass line weaves its way into the melody and the drums join on a down beat. Bodies collide with his as he pushes back into the main room clutching a shot of tequila in one hand and a full cup of the skittle infused vodka punch in the other. People are gathering around the designated stage dancing to the infectious rhythm jostling together as the music flows up through the soles of their feet, consuming them. He raises the shot glass in silent appreciation before throwing it back and chasing it with the punch.

Jeff quirks an eyebrow, meeting Blaine’s gaze, “Even though I owe them money / I think it’s pretty likely / That my whole family loves me. / My lovers tend to like me. / My teachers love to hate me. / The haters love to fuck with me / The fickle love me lately.”

He joins the crowd shoving forward into any space available before leaping onto an open spot on the couch and losing himself to the music.

Time is no longer functioning in linear measurements by the time the song dies into the crackling white noise of cheap sound equipment. There is a moment when everything is too loud, clanking words clashing with out of sync conversations slurring loud without the dampening effects of solid noise. He hears only snippets at first – meaningless words floating out of order over the crush of bodies still swaying to the silenced music. There is a rhythm to their conversation, a give and take, which pulls him in even as he remains balanced precariously, arms windmilling, on the edge of the couch. The person who adds his name to the jumble of words (sell out, over produced, no musical integrity) is familiar in the scruffy, bandana wrapped around his head, wholly music festival (Live Oak 2001) t-shirt under a blue plaid shirt paired with tattered converse, kind of way. It takes awhile for his brain to play connect the dots aligning, rearranging the words that he can grasp around his name so that they make some sort of sense but they don’t settle long enough for him to decipher. The band (Agent 3-6 or so Jeff announces) rolls in with throbbing bass lines and a crunchy lead guitar. Jeff wails a song that may contain Harry Potter references but he doesn’t pay attention focusing on the group of guys trying to yell their conversation to a close. He doesn’t hear anything more. The couch is moving when he attempts to step down on shaky, uncoordinated legs. He pitches forward shoulders colliding with the couch before he finds himself staring up at the ceiling swirling with black dotes and blurry edges. A hand reaches down clasping with his own and pulls him to his feet. It takes a moment to steady himself, to regain his bearings, eyes darting around the moving mass of bodies. That same hand which pulled him from beneath the feet of the oblivious people is pressing firmly, too hot in between his shoulder blades
.
“You ok?” The bandana wearing boy called, free hand cupping around his mouth in an attempt to direct the sound.

“Yeah, fine, thanks,” he yelled back side stepping away from the hand.

The boy shrugs, arms crossing over his chest, mouth curving into a smirking half smile as he turns back towards the band, head bobbing with the beat.

A full red cup is pressed into his hands in passing with a shouted, “you look like you need this,” and a slap on his back as he works his way out of the room. It’s too hot despite the cool air blowing fast out of the air vents along the walls. His heart is shoving against his ribs in a dub step rhythm and eyes slide off his back leaving shivering goosebumps in their wake. It’s quieter in the kitchen but the too bright lights sting his eyes and lashes against the throbbing pressure in his temples. A thick, sweet cloud of smoke hangs heavy over the balcony when Blaine slips out of the sliding glass door in search of cool quietness. The fake stucco of the Spanish styled building is gritty and rough as he slides down the wall shirt rucking up his back in the process. The friction grounds him against the spinning vortex that he had been sucked into.

“You ok, Anderson?” A slow, clumsy voice asked from somewhere on his right.

“‘M fine,” he said inhaling deeply through his nose waiting for his chest cavity to burn before releasing the spent air. He cracks his eyes open when he feels the ground calm beneath him finding Nick’s heavy lidded stare.

“Good, that’s good,” Nick said handing the half finished joint to the girl slumping next to him.

“Hey,” the girl said after taking a long drag, smoke curling out of her nose and mouth, “you are the guy that won that singing thing over the summer.”
“Yeah,” he nodded.

She grins and scrapes her hair away from her face. “That’s cool man.”

He shrugs fingers picking at a loose thread on his jeans.

“Dude,” Nick started again, voice thick, syllables spilling loose and incomplete from his mouth, “you should know that it isn’t your fault that your single is crap. It can’t be helped when you have an ex-boybander who’s trying to make you into the next Justin Bieber.”

“You know what, Nick,” Blaine spat ignoring the murmured reactions of the others caught somewhere between uncomfortable and curious, “fuck you.”

Nick is laughing, shoulders shaking, eyes flashing bright. “I would say yes please but last I heard you were fucking Hummel.”

“Not cool dude,” a gravelly voice muttered somewhere to the left of Blaine.

Maybe Nick’s comment is supposed to be a joke, a low blow meant to elicit a reaction and strip away equilibrium. Maybe it was because weed makes Nick lose all social filters but reasons and intent does not matter in the quiet of the night with the slow thrum of the base rattling through the wall while everyone freezes and stares at the boys reeling in revelations. Blaine is the first to blink breaking their silent game of calculations rubbing a hand down the length of his face and shifting to feet made unsteady by the ground crumbling beneath his feet.

“Got to hell, Duval,” he said before turning his back to the group and stepping back into the house where people are still smiling lost in the flux of time.

He is still drunk. He feels it in the heaviness of his limbs as they pull him away from the humid, choking cramp of the apartment and the way his fingers fumble uncoordinated against the sleek touch screen of his phone. It is not the first time he has been drunk. No, that landmark event happened over the previous summer when the wine coolers tasted pink and laughter bubbled up unrestrained from nowhere and without reason. Tonight, though, walking alone down a swimming sidewalk, he wants to cry and punch something hard enough to hurt (he swings a boneless fist at a tree, misses, and falls). The voice that answers his call, once he figures out how his phone works again, croaks a muffled hello after three shrill rings. There is a hitch, a small moment of hesitation, between the rough greeting and when he starts talking, babbling, words disjointed sliding together as he stumbles into tangents that never hook back into the main conversation because sentences are started but never finished and he doesn’t know what he is say or what he wants to say. All he can do is talk and tell street names and ask for a ride.

“I will be right there, Blaine. Don’t go anywhere,” he said in a sigh.

“Ok.” Blaine said, half sobbing, pressing back into the tree that he had yet to escape from underneath.

He pulls his knees to his chest, eyes closed against the florescent glare of the streetlamp, and tries to find the breath that is playing hide and seek in his chest until the heavy slap of feet hitting pavement echoes in the air and cool fingers brush against his cheek.

“Open your eyes, Blaine.” A too far away voice called breaking through the fogginess of his mind. “I need you to open your eyes for me.”

Being cognizant, operating on a command, is exhausting but he complies slitting his eyes open wide enough to focus on the man kneeling in front of him. “You came.”

“You called.” Kurt shrugged dropping his hands to rub the length of his bicep. “Can you move or do you need to sit for a little longer?”

“I am sorry, Kurt.” He said clambering to his feet stumbling back into the tree before leaning heavily into Kurt’s side, “So sorry.”

A strong arm snakes around his waist steadying, comforting. “Let’s just get you to the car.”

Kurt doesn’t ask questions, doesn’t lecture, and does not say a single word during the drive back to Santa Monica. Fingers clutch tight around the steering wheel and there is a visible weariness etching lines across his forehead and around his mouth. Blaine watches him in the neon glow of the dashboard lights searching for the words that could explain what happened, what went wrong. He wants to ask how he can keep himself from toppling when his world is tilting and swaying against gravitation pull. He wants to say that he doesn’t know how to be the person his friends want him to be and the person Major Rift wants him to be and the person he wants to be all at the same time. It is like he is fracturing into a million fragments even when everyone is telling him to be himself but within parameters. Don’t sell out. Don’t forget who you are. Censor what the public sees. Protect yourself but still remain approachable. But they are pulling to a stop along the curb next to his house and Kurt is killing the engine with a decisive click of automatic locks. The house is dark, quiet. His parents are out of town, again.

“Everything that is happening to you right now is scary as hell, I know,” Kurt said twisting in his seat to face the younger boy, “but don’t let yourself spin out of control. It is so easy to do and so hard to stop.”

“I don’t . . . I am trying to figure everything out.” He said with a shuttering intake of air.

Kurt stares at him, temple resting against the top of the leather seat, and softly asked. “What makes you the happiest out of everything in your life, Blaine?”

Blaine draws is bottom lip into his mouth rolling the question around in his head until it becomes clear. “Music, always music.”

“Then you should play and sing,” Kurt smiled, eyes squinting, “but not for Nick, the reviewers, or that pretentious hipster standing next to you at some house party critiquing things he probably does not understand. Play because it makes you happy and nothing else.”

“Is that why you sang?” He asked meeting the soft gaze of the man sitting beside him.

Kurt shakes his head and runs a finger tip around the circumference of the steering wheel. “No. I sang to escape.”

Blaine studies the shadows the bruise across his face, the lamp light haloing above his head, and, without thinking, he is leaning across the center console, right hand finding support on the jean clad thigh, left hand brushing the hollow under the cheekbone, lips pressing firm and urgent to the other man’s. Kurt stills, inhales sharply, and shoves Blaine away.