The first time Blaine Anderson thought about his sexuality, he was 6 years old. Though back then he hadn’t realized that it was his sexuality he was actually thinking about. That day he had played with the girls on the playground since none of the boys allowed him to join their games. An unfamiliar boy had arrived to the benches near the playground holding hands with a beautiful woman. When the boy had looked at the other boys at the playground he had scrunched up his nose and continued searching the playground until he laid his eyes on a group of girls. He walked over to them and seemed surprised when he saw Blaine. Blaine had wondered if this boy had thought he was a girl because of his semi-long, curly dark hair. The boy had stretched his hand out to Blaine and introduced himself as Kurt. The boy had chestnut colored hair and huge blue eyes. He was the prettiest thing Blaine had ever seen.  After Kurt had played with Blaine and the girls for a while he had told Blaine that he wanted to introduce him to someone. He had taken Blaine’s hand, just like that, and dragged him over to the beautiful woman he had arrived with. Kurt had introduced Blaine to the woman as “my friend Blaine” even though they had only been playing for an hour or so. He then introduced the woman to Blaine as “my mommy Elizabeth”. Kurt’s mother had greeted Blaine and asked if he wanted to come over to their house and play with Kurt, and Blaine had said that he needed to ask his mom. When Kurt and his mom had wanted to come with Blaine and meet his mom, Blaine had told them that it wasn’t a good idea and that they had to stay right where they were until he came back. Kurt had looked really sad when Blaine looked at him before crossing the playground to a picnic-table on the other side. He asked his mother if he could play at his new friend’s house and she had asked if it was a boy this time, which Blaine had replied “yes” to. His mother had been quiet while tying her long, curly dark hair in a bun on the back of her head and then told him that it was alright, as long as neither her or Blaine’s father had to pick him up later and that he had to feed himself that night. Blaine had promised and run back to Kurt and Elizabeth as fast as his legs would allow him. To his relief, they had still been there. Blaine followed them home and played with Kurt for hours and had even gotten dinner before it was time to get back home. He had thought about the distance on the way there: Kurt’s house wasn’t far from the playground, but his own house kind of was. He hadn’t said anything to Kurt’s family about that though, just said goodbye to them and walked the far way home alone in the dark. When he had arrived home his parents were already asleep so he went to bed. Before he fell asleep Blaine had thought about how much fun he had playing with Kurt that day. They liked the same things, things that the other boys had told him was “girl-stuff”. He thought about how Kurt had made him smile, laugh and feel happier than he had ever felt before. He thought about how Kurt was the prettiest thing he had ever seen, even more than the girls that Blaine had never thought about before going to sleep. Blaine had decided that Kurt was his best friend and that he liked him even more than his own parents.

The first time Blaine had been bullied - like actually bullied and not just ignored -, was when he was eleven years old. All the other boys in school had started getting girlfriends and started kissing. Blaine had thought that the only kid he wanted to be more that friends with, and kiss, wasn’t a girl. He was a boy that was taller than Blaine and had blonde hair and brown eyes, his name was Joshua. So he had asked Joshua at recess that day if he wanted to be Blaine’s boyfriend. Joshua had told him “no way” and ran off. At lunch all the kids had found out and a boy who was a year older than Blaine had pushed him to the ground - so Blaine scraped his knees – and called him a “fag”. Blaine had cried and skipped school the rest of the day and sat on a swing at the playground. He had thought about that day five years earlier when he had met Kurt at this playground. He had also thought about the day three years earlier when Kurt’s mom had died and Kurt had switched schools and stopped playing with Blaine. He had cried on the swing too, before he went home and called his aunt Sarah to ask her what a “fag” was. She had told Blaine about gay people and that the word was a nasty name people used to be mean to gay boys. Blaine’s aunt had asked Blaine if he thought he was gay, and Blaine had told her “yes”. She had then went on to tell Blaine that that was perfectly okay and that he shouldn’t listen to people who teased him and that he should call her anytime if he needed to.

The first time Blaine realized he was gay, was that same day while talking to his aunt.

The first time Blaine cut himself, he was fourteen years old. He had been bullied for three years because he was gay, or at least because all the kids at school thought he was (since he hadn’t told anyone the truth). Since Blaine’s dad was a doctor it had been easy for Blaine to steal a scalpel from his dad’s briefcase without him giving it much thought, since he lost them pretty often. Blaine had sat on the floor of his bathroom in his parents’ house seeing the red liquid from his veins dribble through his hand, down his fingers and drip slowly onto the white tile. At first he had felt happy again, for the first time since he had played with Kurt that time so many years ago. For a fraction of a second he felt like everything was right and that he could do anything. No school bully or homophobic family member could stop him from being who he is. No one could harm him, but himself. But that feeling disappeared as fast as it had come. He had rinsed his arm off, dried it with toilet paper that he flushed away and hidden the scalpel in his plastic pencil case in the bottom drawer of his nightstand. He had put on a sweatband that covered the red line and no one had asked him about it.

The first time Blaine got beaten by his father, he was also fourteen years old. Blaine had received a death-threat that day at school. When he had arrived home he had told his parents about it. His father had calmly asked why that had happened. Blaine told his parents about the bullying for the first time and the reason for it. Blaine’s father had asked Blaine if that was the truth, if he in fact was a “fag” and Blaine had told his parents that he was gay. Blaine’s father had told Blaine’s mother to take a walk around the block, which she had done without a trace of concern on her face. Blaine’s father had dragged Blaine by the front of his shirt into his room and thrown him to the floor. He had beaten Blaine twice in the stomach before punching him once over his eye and once on the side of his jaw. He had yelled at Blaine that he had twenty minutes to pack all things that he didn’t want his dad to burn and get out of their house. He had then gone back into the living room to watch TV. Blaine had been stuck on the floor for a few minutes before he could even get up due to his aching stomach. He had taken his suitcase from under his bed and thrown a few pieces of clothing into it and then moved on to grabbing his favorite book and a few other belongings. The last things he had thrown into the suitcase were an old photo of him and Kurt on the slide at the playground and the plastic pencil case with the scalpel in it. He had closed his suitcase and run down the stairs where his father had yelled “three more minutes” from his place on the couch. Blaine had realized he had nowhere to go so he decided to call his aunt. He called her and told her about everything and she had promised to come pick him up and that everything was going to be okay.

The first time Blaine Anderson moved, was that same day when his father threw him out and he ended up moving in with his aunt.

The first time Blaine felt like he was able to breathe again, he was fifteen years old. He had lived with his aunt Sarah for a few months. He had started going to Dalton Academy, a school where bullying was forbidden and no one seemed to care that he was gay. There were even other gay boys there. He had gotten his own room again, after sharing with his five year old little cousin Lorily. Blaine had liked the fact that the tile in his bathroom was once again white and not gray like they were in his aunt’s small apartment.

The first time Blaine felt happy again, he was sixteen years old. He had been walking to class when he was suddenly stopped by a boy on the staircase. They had introduced themselves and run hand in hand to the room where the Warblers were getting ready to perform. He had sung “Teenage Dream” by Katy Perry and the boy who had stopped him - Kurt - had looked impressed. They had talked over coffee that day before Blaine got Kurt’s number and gone back to his own school. They had talked about the fact that they were best friends for two years when they were kids and briefly about how their lives were now. When Blaine had gotten back to his room that evening he had cut himself. He did more than one line that time, which he had never done before. The first one was for himself and the second one was for Kurt, who had gotten bullied at his school.

The first time Blaine though about stopping the cutting, was when Kurt had transferred to Dalton. At first though, he had cut two red lines - which he did all the time now, one for himself and one for Kurt - because someone had actually threatened Kurt’s life. But then he thought that maybe things would only get better from here. He had his best friend back. He hadn’t actually stopped though.

The first time Blaine cut more than two lines on his arm, was the day that he realized he had been oblivious to Kurt’s feelings about him and serenaded a guy that he didn’t even know. He had thought that he deserved more than what he regularly did.

The first time Blaine realized he was in love, was when Kurt sang “Blackbird” to his dead pet canary out of his uniform, in his “normal” clothes while crying. Blaine had hummed along with the other Warblers at first but gotten lost in his mind. He had realized that Kurt was all he wanted. He stopped cutting Kurt’s lines that day.

The first time Blaine kissed a boy, was when he had blabbered on in front of Kurt and the dead bird’s coffin that Kurt was bedazzling. He and Kurt had become boyfriends that day and Blaine decided that he would stop cutting himself.