"Look, I was going through a bad time and I wasn’t makinggood decisions."

"I’ll say," Kurt muttered.

"I’m sorry, but we weren’t even dating then," said Blaine. "I did have the right to do things with otherpeople."

"Why did it have to be Rachel?" Kurt’s face was flushed and his eyes lookedwet. He wasn’t quite crying yet, but he was close. "Out of all the girls in theworld, why did it have to be Rachel?"

"What difference does it make?" Blaine asked. "Would you feel better about it now if it hadbeen Mercedes, or Quinn?"

"Yes, I think I would."

"Why?"

Kurt sniffed, and a single tear spilled down his cheek. "Because Rachel Berry getseverything."

Blaine got up and sat beside Kurt on the bed. He put his hand on top of Kurt’s, hoping hewouldn’t be brushed away again. "Shedidn’t get me," he said softly. "Youdid."

Blaine woke up feeling sweaty and disgusting, with apounding headache. It was like I fell asleep dancing and woke up feeling like hell. I didn’t even know where I was. For a brief but terrifying moment Blainewondered if he was in the hospital, but this was obviously someone’sbedroom. Kurt’sbedroom. It had to be, becauseKurt was there talking to his dad about something. The light was too bright and Blaine was sotired. He buried his head under a pillowand fell asleep again.

He wasn’t sure how much later it was when he heard Kurtcalling his name. "Blaine? Blaine, are you awake? You really need to get up now." Blaine sat up and rubbed his eyes. Kurt placed a plate and cup on thenightstand, saying "I figured you ought to eat something. Do you think you’re okay to drive? Because it’s probably best if you get back toDalton soon."

"What happened?"

"You had way toomuch to drink. I’ll tell you about itlater." Blaine must have looked as badas he felt, because Kurt asked "Do you need some aspirin?"

"Yeah."

Kurt vanished downstairs. Blaine took stock of himself and determinedthat he was hung over but uninjured. Hewas also fully clothed. Socks and everything. �That meant nothing had happened. Well, probably nothing had happened. �He didn’t feel like anythinghad happened, but it was hard to be sure when you had a full-body headache.

He could think about it after he ate. He looked at the nightstand and saw that Kurthad brought him apple juice, toast, and a little bowl with some kind of softboiled egg in it. Blaine didn’t feel upto dealing with runny yolk at the moment, but toast seemed safe. When he finished that he ate a little of theegg white.

Kurt returned with a bottle of aspirin. "You can take two of these," he said, handingthe bottle to Blaine.

He followed Kurt’s instructions, washing the pills down withthe whole cup of juice. Then, because hehad to know, he asked "Um, Kurt, we didn’t...do anything, did we?"

"Of course not." Kurt picked up the breakfast dishes with whatseemed to Blaine like an unnecessary amount of clattering. "Now please, get out of here. Go down the back stairs. I’ll deal with my dad. Your keys are in your shoe. Your shoes are by the couch." Then he was gone again.

Blaine made it back to campus and spent most of theafternoon drinking Gatorade and trying to concentrate on finishing Crime and Punishment for his AP Englishclass. It wasn’t easy. Thinking about what had happened last nightwas a lot more interesting, albeit at least as difficult to understand. He finally decided he needed a straight guy’sopinion.

"Hey Tyler, can I ask you something?"

His roommate didn’t look up from his Chemistrytextbook. "Your hair is fine, Blaine."

"No, I have an actual question. It’s kind of personal."

Tyler put his book down. "Okay, shoot."

"What’s it like to kiss a girl?"

Blaine was not amused when Tyler burst out laughing. "Oh my God," Tyler gasped. "That is so not what I was expecting!"

"It’s not that funny."

"It is hilarious,dude. I think I’m crying." He wiped his eyes with his fingertips. "Wow. All right, so you want to know about kissing girls? Like, my expert technique?"

"No, I was wondering how it feels. For a straight guy, I mean." Blaine felt he had to offer some explanationfor his question, so he held up his copy of Crimeand Punishment. "There’s a part inhere where the girl kisses the main guy, and I was just wondering aboutit." This was not, strictly speaking, alie. He really had been reading the scenewhere Sonia kisses Raskolnikov after he confessesabout the murder.

"I dunno, itfeels good. Like, reallygood." Tyler licked his lips. "Kind of soft and...good. I can’t explain."

"No, that’s fine," Blaine said. "I was just curious." He opened his book again and stared at thepage, not reading anything. As far as heremembered, kissing Rachel had felt pretty good. It definitely had not felt bad. She had soft lips and her lip gloss tastedlike strawberries.

Blaine knew that he liked guys. He had no doubts about that. But it had been a long time since he hadgiven any thought to the question of whether he might like girls. Blaine had been at Dalton since he was a sophomore. He could go for days without even seeing anygirls. So how could he be sure he didn’tlike them? Maybe his father had been atleast partially right after all. Maybehe really just hadn’t met the right girl yet. Not that Rachel was necessarily the right girl, he didn’t know her thatwell and he wasn’t going to make another mistake like he had with Jeremiah, butthis was an area where Blaine felt he could benefit from more experience.

He did not foresee that this would be so upsetting to Kurt,although maybe he should have. Afterall, he had set himself up as Kurt’s out and proud mentor. But since the Gap Attack incident he’d feltthat Kurt quite understandably did not look up to him anymore. When they went to the Lima Bean on Mondayafternoon Kurt started giving Blaine a hard time about getting drunk at theparty, and it struck Blaine that Kurt might actually now look down on him.

"You spent the entire night sucking Rachel Berry’sface. That, sir, is what we call rockbottom."

What kind of a thing was that to say to a friend? Or about a friend, for thatmatter. He knew that Kurt hadclashed with Rachel in the past, but he also knew she’d tried to protect himfrom Karofsky. Blaine hadn’t spent a lot of time with her, but she seemed like a nicegirl and she was a fantastic singer. Blaine figured a guy could do a lot worse than Rachel Berry.

At that moment his phone rang. Blaine checked the number and saw that it wasRachel. He didn’t even remember addingher into his contacts list. "Oh my God. Speak ofthe devil." He answered the call. "Hi Rachel. Kurt and I were just talking about you."

"You’re such a cutie pie with your blazer and yourpants." Not the traditional greeting,but it was nice to know someone thought so. "So...I have a question for you. Iwanted to know..."

"Is she drunk?" Kurt hissed. Blaine shushed him.

"Do you like old movies?" Rachel continued. "Because they’re doing a special screening ofLove Story at the Majestic...and Ithought maybe you’d like to go with me."

Well, why not? He hadwanted more experience with girls. class=GramE>"Uh, yeah!"

"Great, it’s at 7:30 on Wednesday night. Do you know where the theater is?" Kurt was still trying to listen in, so Blainemerely grunted in the affirmative.

"You don’t have to pick me up or anything, I can meet youthere."

"All right, I’ll seeyou then. Okay, bye." He hung up. Kurt was clearly dying to know what was going on. "Rachel just asked me out."

"Oh, that is amazing. She’s got a girl crush on you," said Kurt. He was practically giggling. Blaine didn’t know why Kurt thought it was sofunny that a girl might like him. He wasn’tdeformed or anything. "Wait a second,why did you say yes?" Kurt asked. "Youcan’t lead her on!"

"Who says I’m leading her on?"

"You’re gay, Blaine!"

"I thought I was, but I’ve never even had a boyfriendbefore. Isn’t this the time you’resupposed to figure stuff out? Maybe I’mbi. I don’t know." Kurt had mentioned before that he thought hisfriend Brittany at McKinley was probably bisexual, so Blaine figured he wascomfortable with the idea of people who weren’t completely gay orstraight. He expected Kurt to besupportive, or at least understanding, as Blaine tried to figure this out.

Instead, Kurt blew up at him. "Bisexual is a term that gay guys in highschool use when they want to hold hands with girls and feel like a normalperson for a change."

"Whoa, wait, wait. Why are you so angry?" Thisclearly wasn’t just about Kurt having a checkered history with Rachel. Blaine briefly wondered if Kurt might still benursing a crush on him.

Kurt’s response didn’t suggest any lingering romanticfeelings, though. "I look up toyou. I admire how proud you are, of whoyou are. I know what it’s like to be inthe closet, and here you are about to tiptoe back in!"

Blaine already knew he was a lousy mentor. He’d told Kurt as much back beforeValentine’s Day. Blaine felt bad about notbeing the kind of friend that Kurt wanted, but he also resented having his personalissues turned into another episode of TheKurt Show. "I’m really sorry if thishurts your feelings, or your pride, or whatever, but however confusing it maybe for you, it’s actually a lot more confusing for me. You’re 100% sure of who you are. Fantastic. Well, maybe we can’t all be so lucky."

"Yeah, I’ve had a lot of luck, Blaine. I was really lucky to be chased out of highschool by a bully who threatened to kill me."

Blaine couldn’t believe Kurt was playing the victim cardnow. Like he was theonly one who’d ever been bullied for being...not straight. "And why did he do that?"

"Because he didn’t like who I was."

"Sort of exactly what you’re saying to me right now, isn’t it? Iam...I’m searching, okay? I’m honestlyjust trying to figure out who I am. Andfor you of all people to get down on me for that...I didn’t think that’s who youwere." Blaine was tired and he didn’twant to argue any more. He stood up fromthe table and said "I’ll see you. I’dsay bye, but I wouldn’t want to make you angry."

By the time he got back to his dorm room Blaine regrettedcomparing Kurt to Karofsky, but he had been angry. He was still kind of angry. His sexual orientation wasn’t really any ofKurt’s business. If Blaine wanted to goout with a girl then he should be free to do so. Besides, shehad asked him out. He didn’t want to hurt Rachel’s feelings,especially not after she’d been so nice about letting him crash her party. And it was just one date; it wasn’t like theywere getting married.

Blaine barely saw Kurt over the next few days. They both went to Warblers practice, but theydidn’t have much to say to each other.

He did have another brief phone conversation with Rachelabout their upcoming date. She said shewanted to dress up as the Ali MacGraw character, andBlaine agreed that it would be fun to go as the Ryan O’Neal character. It wasn’t difficult to put together asuitably preppy outfit: collared shirt, v-neck sweater, and a plaid blazer heborrowed from Wes. When he met Rachel inthe lobby at the Majestic Theater he saw she was wearing a black turtleneck anda miniskirt with a wide belt. Blaine thoughtthey both looked great, very retro chic.

Rachel had paid for her own ticket, but Blaine felt heshould be a gentleman and buy the snacks. He ordered a medium popcorn and twodrinks. Rachel went to get straws andnapkins while Blaine paid the older lady working the concession stand.

"You two are adorable," she said. "Are you twins?"

"What?"

"Are you twins? Youlook the same age."

"Uh, we are, but we’re not – she’s not my sister." What was it with people getting confused abouthis relationships lately? "She’smy...friend."

A few minutes later Blaine and Rachel were in the theater mouthingthe famous opening line to Love Story,"What can you say about a twenty five year-old girl who died?" Blaine had seen the movie several times oncable and thought it was hilariously cheesy, although there were some genuinelytouching moments. He couldn’t help beingaffected by the Ryan O’Neal character’s relationship with his father, who cuthis son off because he disapproved of the person he loved.

Blaine’s own father was nowhere near that bad, but Blaineknew his relationship with his dad would be a lot better if he could have beenthe normal, heterosexual boy his parents had expected. His father would probably be delighted if heknew that Blaine was out on a date with a girl. A Catholic girl would have been preferable, but any actual female wouldbe enough to make him happy. Blaine waslong past doing things just to make his father happy, though. He’d agreed to this date with Rachel becausehe wanted to find out what it was like.

As the movie continued, it became increasingly obvious toBlaine that what it was like was going to the movies with a friend. He had a nice time at the movie with Rachel, butthat was all it was: nice. He did not feel a thrill when they bothreached for the popcorn at the same time and their hands brushed against eachother. He was not tempted to put his armaround her or rest his hand on her knee.

He was still a little curious about how it would feel tokiss Rachel sober, but not enough to attempt it. Blaine truly did not want to lead Rachel on. He’d had fun, and he told her as much as hewalked her out to her car, but when she said "Call me if you want to gettogether again!" he knew that he wasn’t going to call her.

When he stopped by the Lima Bean on Friday for his usualpost-rehearsal coffee he found Rachel waiting for him.� He thought at first that maybe she was goingto tell him off for not calling her, but she didn’t seem upset. She looked happy and excited.

He greeted her with a cheerful "Hi Rachel, what’s going on?" This wasn’t merely a polite question;he’d seen Kurt sitting at a table nearby and wondered what he and Rachel hadbeen talking about.

Rachel answered him with a kiss, full on the lips. It was much as Blaine remembered: soft, warm,and tasting of strawberries. But thistime, without the dizzy, light-headed, flushed feeling that he now knew forcertain had been caused by the alcohol, it felt...nice. Just nice. Nothing more than that.

"Huh," Blaine said out loud. "Yup, I’m gay. 100%gay." He glanced at Kurt, who hevery much suspected had put Rachel up to this. "Thank you so much for clearing that up for me, Rachel." She didn’t answer, but if anything she lookedeven more excited than before. "Listen,save my space in line, will you? I’vegot to go hit the rest room."

As Blaine washed his hands, he wondered whether he shouldstill be mad at Kurt about all this. Kurthad been less than sympathetic when Blaine was questioning his ownsexuality. On the other hand, Kurt hadbeen right, about Blaine at least. Therewere bisexual guys in the world, Blaine just wasn’t oneof them.

When he went back to the front counter, Rachel wasgone. Instead he saw Kurt waiting forhim with a paper coffee cup in his hand. "Medium drip for you, sir," he said. "No charge."

Blaine accepted the cup. "Where’s Rachel?"

"She went to go work on her songwriting or something. I tend to tune her out when she gets highpitched."

"Was she mad at me?"

"No, she actually seemed really happy."

"Are you mad atme?"

"I bought you coffee, didn’t I?" Kurt adjusted his scarf. "C’mon, let’s sit down. We’re getting in people’s way."

Blaine followed him back to the table where Kurt and Rachelhad been sitting before. "You know, somemen really are bisexual," he said as he set his cup down. "Alan Cumming, for instance."

"But not Blaine Anderson."

"No. I know thatnow." He tore open two sugar packets andpoured them into his coffee. "Did youask Rachel to kiss me?"

"Well, we discussed it. She wanted to. She...we bothwanted to be sure."

"I guess I wanted to be sure too." Blaine stirred his coffee and took a carefulsip. "It still wasn’t very nice of youto say I was only trying to be normal, though."

"I'm sorry."

"It was true, but it wasn't very nice."

"Are we still friends?"

Blaine smiled. "Yeah."