Kurt picked the last letter up out of the wooden box, everything else tilted toward the front. This letter had arrived just that weekend. In fact, this would be the first time it had made it into the reread pile. Kurt reached out to touch the boarding pass behind it for a moment and then dove right into the letter. This one was certainly fresh enough in his mind that he didn’t need to prolong getting ready to read it. That and he was more than ready to open the box and see what Blaine had sent him today.

Kurt,

I feel horrible about going a full month without a package. I know that you know just how crazy life has been for me, but it doesn’t feel like a good excuse. I really wanted to make up for that by finishing this out strong. This will be a short note, I know, but I’ll send another longer letter later.

I am officially sitting in a hotel room in Las Vegas. We’re staying at the Rio, which has this whole cheesy Mardi Gras theme. It’s kind of great. It’s Friday morning now. We compete late this afternoon and then again tomorrow if we make it through. We don’t fly back until Sunday mid-morning, so Mr. Schuester and Ms. Pillsbury are going to take us on Saturday to see all the lights and things on the Strip. I bet they would have thought twice about it last year when they’d have had Puck and Santana along. I can only imagine what kind of mischief they’d have gotten into on the strip. Artie and Sam are much easier to keep in line.

Although, writing about keeping people in line, that wasn’t going so well last night. We found a small space to rehearse in, and it pretty much erupted into last year all over again. We have rather less volatile personalities this year, so I wasn’t expecting it. Maybe I should have been. Stress is running high and all. I really thought at one point that Artie was going to punch Sam. That’s how bad it got. Can you even imagine that happening?

Mr. Schuester finally got everyone settled down, and we finished rehearsal. There was no big bonding moment at the end of it though, most people just collapsed to bed in their hotel rooms. Tina and I pulled Ms. Pillsbury aside to talk. We convinced her take  the two of us out in the morning to get something to surprise the group with, lift everyone’s spirits.

That leads us to what I hope survived the trip in this box. You are getting Exhibit N (my ticket stub from the flight to Las Vegas), but the rest is just a present. Actually, it’s as much a present for Rachel as it is for you. After we landed yesterday, we got a little bit lost, and ended up in the Chinatown area of Las Vegas. We were all starving, so we stopped at a little noodle place. It might not be anything close to New York City, but it was actual, authentic Asian food, as far as I could tell. Well, right next door, there was a donut shop.

Tina and I got Ms. Pillsbury to take us there this morning to pick up some donuts for everyone. We talked to the nice older couple who ran the shop and found out that most of their donuts are vegan. Vegan donuts? (And they actually taste amazing.) That made me immediately think of Rachel. So, here you go. I’m going to try to find a way to overnight six of them to you. I hope they survive the trip. A piece of Nationals to share with Rachel even though you two can’t be here with us.

The donuts were a hit by the way. We sat everyone down in the girls’ hotel room (for cleanliness sake), and Tina and I gave them a pep talk. I hope we did a good job stepping into some really large shoes (what size are Finn’s feet anyway?) and doing that for this year. Mostly, we pointed out that everyone has worked really hard, and as long as we go out there and dance and sing our socks off, it doesn’t really matter what place we will come in. We will have done our best.

On that note, I’m going to go channel my nerves about this afternoon into shipping you donuts. I meant this to just be a short note, but it didn’t turn out that way, did it? I’m sure you’ll know how this turns out before the donuts even reach you, but I’ll still write to describe everything later.

I love you. God, I’m nervous.

Blaine

Kurt remembered just how good the donuts had been, even a day old. Part of the flavor had come from just knowing Blaine had taken time out of his crazily busy National’s schedule to send them to him. Kurt had shared the treat with Rachel, as intended, and with his roommate, Thomas. It had made for a nice little weekend moment. He knew that Rachel had considered begging Blaine to bring her more. Kurt had never quite gotten the whole vegan thing. Why deny yourself wonderful things like donuts and cheesecake?

With that last letter safely stowed back in his wooden memory box, Kurt reached out to grab the new box. He used his dorm key to slit the packing tape and opened the flaps. Kurt picked up the letter that lay on the top layer of the box and the pile of photographs sitting underneath. After a moment’s hesitation, he left in place the tissue paper covering something farther down.

Kurt set the stack of photos down beside him, ready to look through them if it fit the letter. He resisted the urge to flip through the pile first, instead opening the handwritten letter, ready to read the familiar scrawl of cursive.

Kurt,

I’m flying high right now. Literally. Sorry, I couldn’t resist, even though it’s not even that funny rereading it. Ah well, I am sitting on an airplane, in the window seat, even! Yes, that was kind of a fight. I’m in a row with Elliot and Tina. Elliot insisted that it’s not fair to make him sit in the middle just because he’s the smallest. Tina then informed him that he was actually stuck in the middle because he’s the youngest. Poor kid.

This weekend was amazing, once we got past the fighting. I told you all of this over the phone, but for posterity, we did indeed make it into the second round. But then we went on to finish sixth. Ah well. We danced our socks off as promised. No one messed up or did anything stupid. It was actually amazingly smooth considering we’re New Directions. Our best just wasn’t as good as five other teams this year. After graduating eight seniors last year, I don’t feel too badly about that.

I’m enclosing enough exhibits to finish the alphabet, since this is probably the last package I’ll get to send. I felt sad about that for a moment, but then I remembered why. We get to see each other in the flesh! So soon! This time, it doesn’t even have to end, because when you go back to NYADA next year, I’ll be off to NYU. Even though we won’t see each other every day, we’ll see each other so much more than we do now.

Exhibit O is the program for Nationals. Just so you can pour over all our song selections again. In case I haven’t babbled enough about all of it over the last month or so.

Exhibits P-Z (and maybe more) are photographs from the trip. I have a whole little file saved on my laptop to print for you. Elliot and Tina helped me choose the best on the first leg of our flights.

Let’s start at the top of what will be your stack. Those are from Nationals itself. I guess I can see one reason they hosted it here. The theater they held it in was really, really nice. The Smith Center it’s called. Brand spanking new, in the world of such things at least. It only opened a year ago, but it’s pretty vintage in the styling. You’d think it was older except the sound system and all the furnishings and everything are so great. The first part of the stack are either things I found to take pictures of around the theater or  pictures of New Directions ourselves.

The next set are from our Saturday afternoon excursion. After the winners were announced, we were all starving. It was late for lunch already, so we didn’t want to go far. There was this outlet mall nearby, and it had a food court. We had at least changed out of our costumes. The next picture is from when we convinced Mr. Schuester to give us some time to shop. We didn’t have anything else scheduled after all. When we came upon a Brooks Brothers outlet store, Tina insisted on taking my picture in front of it. Something about how I was wearing Brooks Brothers from head to toe already.

No, I didn’t buy out the store, or any of the stores. We only packed carry-on luggage aside from a couple of checked bags that included everyone’s costumes. There was no room to pack too much shopping. That was probably the saving grace of my budget for the rest of the summer. I will admit that I did buy a couple of things though. (And only one was a bow tie.)

You would have had so much fun on that shopping trip. I was amazed by the number of designer outlets they had intermixed with a Nike store and the food court. P.S. Not everything I bought was for me. (I think one of the reasons we got time to shop was that Ms. Pillsbury spotted a Kate Spade store.)

After we took all the spare Nationals outfits and such back to the hotel, along with our shopping purchases, we hit the Strip.

Oh my gosh. Lights and lights. It was all neon and tackiness. The best kind of tackiness. We couldn’t go play slot machines, of course, but we had fun seeing everything else. That would be the rest of your stack of pictures.

My favorite of the hotels was the Bellagio, I think. Inside, they had this amazing flower show that Rory and Artie had fun pretending to be bored at. It reminded me of Rose Parade floats. You know? How they make everything with flowers? It was a spring theme with cute, giant ladybugs and dragonflies and the like. All made out of thousands of flowers. Outside, they have these giant fountains that dance in time with the music. We managed to see two different shows. You have a picture of how high the fountains go, and another of that of the group waiting for it to start. There was music playing through the speakers for people clustered around. So what did we have to do? Sing, of course! I think we actually had people give us, like, five bucks.

Oh, we have to put tray tables up. I hope you enjoy the peek into our trip, as well as the presents I’m packing underneath it.

I love you, and I can’t wait to see you when you get back to Ohio!