No one knows why it happens; it’s just an accepted part of life. The day of your thirteenth birthday (the age when people typically start noticing other people in a more than platonic way) a name appears on your forearm. It is black block letters, almost like a tattoo, and it’s the same of your soul mate.

In recent years, it had become something of a fad to try and guess whose name would be on your arm. Sometimes girls would even come up with crazy rituals to try and make the name they wanted show up, even though having a soul mate didn’t mean you had to be with them.

A soul mate was simply the one person in the world that would understand you completely. Sometimes that meant love, other times it just meant an amazing friendship.

Whatever the case, it was universally understood that you never felt whole until you met your soul mate.

Kurt Hummel always knew he was different. He preferred dolls and tea parties to video games and football. He knew that was the reason he didn’t have any friends, but he never understood the names the other boys called him. When he’d asked his mom what “homo” meant, she said that was a name that people called people who were different. She also said that being different meant being special.

But then his mom died and Kurt learned the truth – that people called him all those horrible names because they thought he was gay, that he liked boys instead of girls.

By the time he was in eighth grade, Kurt felt more alone than ever. Not only did he still not have any friends, but everyone around him was learning who their soul mates were. Kurt would eventually find out who his was, but in the meantime he was growing impatient. Every time he walked down the hall, he wondered if the person passing him was his soul mate.

It was absolute torture.

The morning of his thirteenth birthday dawned and Kurt was awoken by a sharp pain in his right arm, followed by a persistent itch. Blinking the sleep from his eyes, he looked down to see the black letters he’d been waiting for.

Blaine Anderson

Kurt stared at it, his brow furrowed. Not because it was a boy’s name (he’d accepted long ago that he was gay) but because he didn’t know anyone named Blaine Anderson.

“Dad?” he asked, sitting down to breakfast. “Is it… possible for your soul mate to be someone you’ve never met?” In Kurt’s limited experience, people were paired with someone they’d known their entire lives.

“Absolutely,” Burt replied. “Why? Did you…?”

Kurt nodded. “Yep. Um… Blaine Anderson,” he admitted shyly. He may have accepted his sexuality, but he was still in the closet.

Burt smiled, almost like he already knew. “Well, I wouldn’t worry about it, buddy. You’ll find him someday.”

Pursing his lips tightly to hold back a sigh, Kurt nodded and looked down at his breakfast. He hoped he’d meet this Blaine guy soon because an empty feeling had settled in his stomach and he knew it had everything to do with the name on his arm.

Blaine Anderson was a normal little boy… for the most part. He played football and wrestled with the rest of the boys, but he also secretly loved musicals and other “sissy” things (as his dad called them). He had plenty of friends and never had any reason to suspect that he was different.

That was until middle school hit and people started liking other people that way and, perhaps more importantly, finding out who their soul mates were.

His friend Phil’s birthday was a month before his and Blaine watched as everyone ostracized him for the “Joshua Carver” written on his arm. Blaine stuck by him, however, because he was fairly certain that he, too, would be paired with a boy. No one knew he was questioning himself, of course, but he was comforted by the fact that he would have someone on his side.

It was exactly midnight on his thirteenth birthday when he was roused by a stinging pain on his left arm. Turning on his bedside lamp, he looked down, holding his breath.

Kurt Hummel

Blaine smiled faintly before becoming worried. There was no way he’d be able to keep this a secret from his parents now. Staring at the name of his soul mate, he did the only thing he could think to do – he called his big brother.

“Happy Birthday, squirt!” Cooper answered cheerily.

“Coop… I got my name.”

“This early? That must mean she already has your name. So spill, little bro. What’s her name?”

“It’s… It’s a boy’s name, Coop. Kurt.”

“Oh, Blaine…” Cooper knew as well as Blaine how their father felt about homosexuality and the thought alone was enough to make Blaine start crying. “Ssh, buddy, it’s okay. Don’t cry.” Cooper stayed on the phone with him until he’d calmed down and it was after two when they bid one another good night.

As he drifted back to sleep, Blaine hoped that wherever Kurt Hummel was, he was happy. Any other options hurt him too much to even think about.