Kurt reached out for the next letter in the box, pulling out the neatly folded piece of beige paper from behind it as well. He paused to stretch, finding space to angle his toes and give a new angle to muscles used so much in dance class earlier that afternoon.

Kurt smoothed out the folded paper with it, breaking tradition to look first at the ‘exhibit’ that had arrived with this letter, a creased and already slightly worn copy of the program for New Direction’s Regionals. He remembered not minding the bit of crumpling. That was just proof that this was the one that Blaine had toted around and probable stuck in the bag with his costume at some point.

Dearest Kurt,

What is it about Regionals that means that something crazy has to happen? Is it a New Directions tradition? If so, I think that it needs to be broken soon.

Alright, that’s probably rather more dramatic than this was all worth. After all, it’s not like the stories I’ve heard about someone going into labor backstage. It’s definitely not like someone deciding to get married way too young or someone ending up in a car crash either. (But please don’t let Rachel read this or mention that I thought the idea of her getting married suddenly after Regionals at the age of eighteen was crazy, even though it totally was. I can’t placate her with a duet right now.)

So, this year we had a great song all planned out and practiced. Actually, we learned from Nationals last year and had everything planned out and practiced early enough that I wasn’t having a fit. Everything was coming together a bit too well, despite the fact that we were up against the Warblers.

Which is a whole other tangent that’s easier to write out on paper then tell you face to laptop. When I saw we were up against them, I wanted to beat them so badly. Last year, I was torn when I found out we were competing. This year, I just wanted them to go down. I may still not have completely forgiven them for accidentally almost blinding me when they really meant to assault you. I’m still holding just enough of a grudge to want to kick their asses in a show choir competition.

Back to the story at hand, which I’ll probably have told you over the phone already anyway. We’d decided to open strong with a solo backed up by group dancing. Yes, it was mine. That part went down just as planned. It looked great on the stage. And hey, I didn’t even sing Katy Perry this time, not that you’re probably giving me any less eye rolls for singing Pink. Try is a great song, though.

We decided to end with another big dance number, more of a group song. That went great as well. We did Jessie J’s Price Tag. Tina had lead, but Sam and I had some vocals as well. Artie did all the rapping. What other Glee Club can claim to not only have a white rapper, but a white rapper in a wheelchair? I’m not sure if that makes us really cool or just really odd. It ended up being a great ending number this afternoon. It was perfect for ending on a great, upbeat note.

No, the problem ended up lying in the middle number. We’d had great luck with NSYNC at Sectionals, we decided to go boy band again. We have some really good male vocalists, not even counting my humble self (can you winky face in long form letters?), so we decided that for a middle slower number we would go even further back and perform some Boyz II Men.

It was all going really well in rehearsal. I wasn’t even singing in it. We had the rest of the guys out there though, even if it was one too many. Rory could take the really low stuff, and Elliot had the high parts. I heard it earlier this week, and it was beautiful.

All of that fell apart on Thursday. Poor Elliot. His voice cracked during lunch. By time we had Glee practice after school, it was pretty apparent we didn’t want him doing anything but lip syncing during the competition. Of all the times for his voice to suddenly decide to start changing with a vengeance, it had to be two days before Regionals. Not only that, but two days before Regionals when he was supposed to have a few solo lines.

No one else could really pull the high notes well enough for us to stick with the Boyz II Men. Maybe Rory, but then we’d have been out the base line. That meant that between after school Thursday and Saturday morning we had to craft a whole new middle number. Now you know why you didn’t get much more than frantic texts from me in that time. Too bad you couldn’t have just come back to sing with us and taken those notes yourself. Why did we never do something like that when we had you?

After some frantic scrambling around, we decided to stick with the boy band theme after all. We wanted to keep it on the slower side, so we went with Because of You by 98 Degrees. The guys managed to pull it together really fast. I think Artie and Sam both slept with it on repeat.

In the end it went well. The Warblers were good, but we kicked their asses, just as I wanted. Thank goodness.

Your Exhibit this time (are we really up to K?) is a copy of the regionals program, with the wrong second song listed for us. Thank goodness there’s no points taken off for last minute changes. New Directions would never have gotten anywhere if that was the case in that musty old Show Choir rulebook.

I will say that the biggest lesson I think I’ve learned in my time as a member of the New Directions is flexibility. Not that I like it, but I do admire the ability to change direction at the drop of a hat and do it so well. The Warblers would choke and burn under that kind of circumstance. It just seems to spur the New Directions on. Adversity makes us stronger. Or something.

I wish you could have been here to watch us. I’m so proud of everyone and how well we pulled this off. I’m sure that Tina will have video soon, from whoever her secret source is. I’ll email along a link as soon as I have one. I hope you’ll enjoy watching it even a fraction as much as I enjoyed performing it all.

I am so relieved, by the way, to be headed off to Nationals again. I don’t think that we’ll win, but we’ll do our best. I’m just relieved we didn’t crash and burn. We didn’t go from winning Nationals to not even making it there the next year. I am still wondering what was going through the head of adults that chose Las Vegas for a bunch of High Schoolers. At least we’re not bringing Puck or Santana.

I love you, and I can’t wait to talk to you about all of this soon.

Blaine

Kurt settled the letter back down into the box with a grin on his face. He could remember how unsuprised he’d been to find out that Blaine had written the letter on the school bus ride home from the competition.

 It had been clear not just in the occasional bumps in the writing, but also in the tone. Kurt had performed enough to recognize the excitement of a natural performance high shining through. A performance high further fueled by winning the competition was a heady thing. Sharing that feeling together with Blaine, and the rest of New Directions, was something that Kurt could easily add to his rather short list of things that he did miss about high school.