I didn't get in...

Kurt spends his summer equal parts determined and depressed. Blaine is wonderful, like he always is whether it's helping search for apartments and back up plans and part time jobs in New York or holding Kurt while he cries himself to sleep, he's there.

Until he's not. Because he's back at school and preparing for college and going to glee club and doing everything Kurt wishes he was. But now Kurt's just the child who's too big to play on the swings. He's older and no wiser and even more terrified. He decides to go to New York: his dream, his fantasy, his illusion. He'll work for a year, apply for colleges (more than one) and then he and Blaine can live together, study together, graduate together. For a second he almost thinks this could be better than his original plan.

Then they both zig when they think the other is going to zag and they miss each other by a hair's width.  A chink in the armour that threatens to kill the soldier. Their lives start to twist away from each other, convulsing and writhing and running in opposite directions. Misunderstandings and miscommunications and lots of other misses begin to drive them apart.  And so it begins, they zigzag their way out of each other's lives. Slowly and reluctantly and with vials full of tears on the way. Grappling hooks are prised from their places in hearts and the boys are left to fall into oblivion. It's mutual, in the sense that they are both mutually to blame and mutually reluctant and mutually aware that it is probably for the best. They break up and Kurt goes and Blaine stays and that is how it is, even if nobody else seems to understand why. Because Blaine wants Kurt to be happy and Kurt wants Blaine to enjoy and neither of them think they are best for the other. It started with fights and it ended with sacrifice.

And that is how Kurt finds himself living in New York, a crappy studio apartment that there's barely room to breathe in. With A minor speaking part and a well-earned place in the chorus of a show that is yet to open, and an evening job at a bar singing cover songs late into the morning. He spends his days rehearsing and his evenings working, trying to juggle enough money to pay rent and eat and save money for college next year. He still doesn't know where. What. How. His spare time is used to write musicals and songs, to design clothes and cook: romantic meals for his boyfriend and dinner parties for his friends, for Kurt doesn't know what he wants, but he knows that he wants something.

That is how Kurt finds himself with a boyfriend, 3 years older than him, and studying law. Tate is a blond, handsome man who cares for Kurt, maybe even loves him but has neither the patience nor interest for Kurt's ‘Theatre' or ‘Enthusiasm'. He admires Kurt's voice, but in the way one might admire a flower on the roadside: you can see its beauty but have no intention to pick it up. It seems that Tate has no hobbies of his own, he enjoys things yes, but in a dispassionate ‘it will pass the time until I go back to school' sort of way.  Kurt likes him nonetheless, he's serious and grown up and  doesn't treat Kurt like he's breakable, as much as Kurt loved his relationship with Blaine, it always felt too good to be true, like he was just waiting for a new pack of bullies and homophobes to steal everything he loved away from him. Tate is what real life feels like, honest and ordinary and content.

That is how Kurt finds himself with a new set of friends, young attractive people like himself, working in the theatre and struggling for money. A colourful and energetic lot, far too talented to be mere backup dancers, yet that is all any of them can achieve. He had tried to stay friends with Rachel, intended to, even. But she would come round, look sadly at his studio apartment that he hadn't had two well off parents pay for and give him pitying looks. Pitying! The last thing Kurt Hummel needs from anyone is pity. Maybe the pity was the spark that ignited the flame but it wasn't long before he grew tired of dodging the raging fire that encased her whining and self-pity. For it seemed that both teachers and students alike overlooked Rachel Berry's talent and disregarded her dedication. Kurt couldn't bear to hear her sulking about being overlooked, because Rachel Berry got everything she asked for, she got the solos and the boyfriends and the college placements, and even when she had them she didn't appreciate them. Kurt came to realise she got everything she wanted not through hard work but through determination, not the kind that leads to hard work but the kind that leads to uncontrollable tantrums when she doesn't get her own way. Then again maybe he's just bitter, bitter and jaded and jealous, either way he gave up the waning war that was their friendship and it's not often that he thinks of Rachel Berry anymore. He barely thinks of his old life at all.

It happens occasionally though; a wistful thought here, a longing ache for what was there, and fading memories of things that were never meant to be. That is how he finds himself thinking of his life this time last year and how he had dreamt of it at the same time in years to come. Living in a spacious New York apartment with his brother, best friend, and boyfriend. It would be tastefully decorated by him and Blaine of course. He and Rachel would be attending NYADA with Blaine in the year below. He'd never actually believed Finn would get into the actor's studio, it was a silly, undeveloped dream fuelled by his longing to be with Rachel and a lost sense of discontentment. A feeling Kurt was now all too familiar with. He'd gone along with the plan anyway, trying to be a supportive brother if Finn did make it and looking into other college options and apprenticeships and good starting jobs for if Finn needed them. He'd seen himself trying out different recipes on his roommates, the four of them going for romantic walks in the evenings. He'd seen himself and Rachel gossiping in the kitchen whilst throwing fond looks at their boys shouting over the football. He'd seen himself waking up every morning cocooned around Blaine. It had been a juvenile dream, a communal one the four of them had shared and sometimes he's so sad it hurts that he isn't living that life. But he's happy enough and it's been a long time since he's even thought of his shattered dream world. Like Alice thirty years in the future when she can't quite remember what the hatter looked like or Lucy when she's all but forgotten how to get to Narnia. He's reminded of it occasionally, when he gets a rare phone call from Finn or he goes to the other side of town and passes the Nyada campus. It's certainly been a long time since he's thought of Blaine Anderson.

In the beginning Kurt found himself comparing Tate to Blaine in every way. Tate wasn't a bad boyfriend, not by any means, he was caring and thoughtful, he took Kurt on romantic dates and told him he was beautiful. But he was pragmatic and realistic, serious in everything he did. He would tell Kurt he was beautiful but it was in a more ‘I have assessed your body and come to the conclusion that you are beautiful' way. Blaine would tell Kurt he was beautiful even when he had his eyes closed, like just the way Kurt breathed was beautiful. That was Blaine though, he said exactly what he thought (and he was a romantic dork) of course he would seem calm and collected on the outside but for some reason he had let Kurt in, got out of warbler mode and into Blaine mode, just for him. Blaine was joyous and excitable, happiness seemed to flow  from his very being. Kurt often wondered how he did it, he'd met Blaine's parents, heard horror stories about his past and yet still the boy was hardly ever seen without a smile on his face, at least not when he was with Kurt anyway. Tate was the opposite: straight faced all the time. Sometimes, when Kurt told him that he should let loose and do something fun, he half expected to be told that ‘fundamentals are the building blocks of fun'. It seemed that Tate was always in lawyer mode, this wasn't necessarily a bad thing, lord knows Kurt had needed a wakeup call, someone to pull him out of his self-deprecating state (because Kurt had turned up in New York feeling useless and lost and had put on 10 pounds in the first two weeks because he did nothing but eat cheesecake and wallow In his new bed) and teach him how to be an adult. But even adults need to play in the sandbox sometimes. It's like he used to date the mad hatter and now he is dating the people who would have scorned at a mathematician writing a children's story. He doesn't compare them anymore, not only because it was painful and he had promised himself to put all these Blaine thoughts behind him, but because Blaine couldn't be beaten. He was his first boyfriend, his best friend, the boy who saved him when he was at his lowest. He had turned up in his dapperness and his blazer and shown Kurt that there were still good people in the world, Kurt may have idealised Blaine a little (okay a lot) but he was charming and sweet and had been with Kurt at a time when their biggest worries were what songs to sing in glee club and if their hair products could last them until the weekend. This is the real world, so Kurt keeps reminding himself. Blaine Andersons don't exist in the real world.

He emails Mercedes occasionally, brief, paraphrased updates of their lives

‘My family is doing great'

‘I'm enjoying myself'

‘I saw a gorgeous jacket that would've looked amazing on you the other day'

He had started it, accidently found her in his contacts and decided to make amends. Apologised for a year's lapse in judgement when Rachel Berry had become his best friend. Of course he knows it doesn't really matter now, there's nothing to be done, but there was a time when Mercedes was his favourite person in the world: the first person he ever came out to, the girl he talked fashion and music and boys with. There was a time when he and her spent hours mocking Rachel, impersonating her late into the night until bitchiness and hilarity and sleep deprivation had made them laugh until they cried. And then they didn't do that, they were friends, yes, but so was Rachel, there were movie nights for three and a growing cataclysm of nothing between Kurt and his once best friend. He apologised, told her how much he had once loved her, said sorry for letting Rachel and Blaine and growing up get in the way, and asked her how her career was going. She replied. Told him he was being silly, that people change, they had grown up and she and Sam and the trouble tones had been partly to blame. She asked him how he was and directed him to her website. He downloaded her songs immediately, always having been in awe of her voice. She asked about Blaine, he tried to sound nonchalant but even in writing he couldn't hide it. She didn't ask again.

 And so it began, the awkward friendship (rekindled friendship) that wasn't quite there, a phantom, an ideal that meant a lot more to both of them then they let on. There was talk of meeting up but neither of them were sure if it was real.

‘If you get to New York.'

‘If you're ever in California.'

This is how Kurt's life is between September and May. He arrives in New York the same time that school starts for the rest of the world, an apartment for one already rented and his pride stitched back together and sat atop him like a plastic prom crown. He spends two weeks crying because he has no job and no plans and he misses high school and Blaine and his Dad. He never expected to miss his Dad so much, even with his daily phone calls. He throws himself at the rebound guy, a flamboyant barista at a coffee shop that was soon to become Kurt's regular hangout, who notices within the space of 26 days that Kurt is not over his previous boyfriend and promptly calls the whole thing off. Then Kurt has something else to wallow about because he never does anything half-heartedly and has a slight tendency to cling to people who are nice to him (he most certainly hadn't been fantasizing about the two of them going furniture shopping when they eventually moved in together and playfully arguing over which chaise longue they should buy)  . Then Tate steps in, or rather Kurt steps in. In front of him and then doesn't even have the energy to care that this (albeit rather cute) Blonde idiot has spilt coffee all over his expensive clothes, because even if Kurt is depressed beyond help it doesn't mean he has to stop dressing well. Tate had been standoffish and didn't seem to care in slightest about Kurt's clothes, but he'd offered to buy him another drink and since Kurt didn't really have any money he didn't hesitate to accept.

From there Tate had wasted no time in asking Kurt out, an offer he politely declined because the last thing Kurt wanted to be was the guy who can't stand on his own two feet and instead jumps from one relationship to another. Somehow Tate had stuck around, Kurt doesn't remember how or really why, all he knows that there was a time when Tate wasn't in his life and then there was a time when he was. Tate had forced Kurt into getting up in the mornings and looking for a job (Kurt had made a vow not to go after any of the ones Blaine had found for him) and then forced him to go to it even if he himself didn't care at all for the bar or the singing or the friends Kurt made there. It was a month later and too many failed auditions to count that Kurt got the part of Steward in an amateur production of into the woods. That was the moment he realised that the first person he wanted to call was Tate. So he did. Not that the older boy really shared his enthusiasm 

‘That's great Kurt, I'm really happy for you, but you already have a job and it's not like they're paying you that much. Don't you think it would be better to spend your time preparing for college or figuring out what you want to do with your life?' Kurt found himself craving even the most unsupportive inputs from Tate, because even if he didn't agree with what Kurt did he never tried to change him and Kurt liked knowing that someone was interested in what he was doing, that someone was paying him attention. Naturally friendship turned to something more, it wasn't with a declaration of love or a sudden moment of realisation, it was slow and steady and ‘so can I take you on that date now?' He even met Kurt's friends from the theatre. They didn't get on. Tate seemed to think most of them were throwing their lives away ‘there's only so many years you can keep dancing around a stage, and what happens when you can't and you've never done anything else with your life?' And they seemed to think Tate was (in their own words) a sanctimonious dick ‘so you're going to spend some of the most important years of your life, where you should be discovering yourself and making friends and enjoying your life, studying just so you can spend the rest of your life convicting innocent people?'. There was even an awkward conversation with Burt in the hallway as Tate left and Burt and Carole came. It wasn't awkward in the way that Blaine had been when he first met them as Kurt's boyfriend (even though he practically lived at the house) nervous and scared and shy. It was awkward because Tate had been confident and calm and it was clear that Burt didn't like him from the second he laid eyes on him.

So his life continues, he works and he lives and he enjoys himself, he really does. He ends up spending a lot of time at Tate's apartment, it's big and it's plain and Kurt can't help getting a little carried away imagining how he would decorate it, but Tate just rolls his eyes when he brings it up and kisses him some more.

It's January when he decides, he'd sent applications to so many colleges, applying for theatre and fashion programs and trying to make sure that he's covered every option but by the time January comes round and he's been exposed to the real gritty world of theatre he's already decided it's not for him. Fashion is where his heart is.

 He agrees to stay with into the woods, it isn't actually going to run on Broadway, just a small community theatre and although Kurt can't imagine why anyone would go to New York and see a play that wasn't on Broadway he stays with it, his friends there think he's crazy, most of them themselves musical theatre majors, and none of them can imagine why he'd give it up. But as it turns out one of his friends, Katie, has a sister in Fashion who is more than willing to give him a leg up into the business and is working on getting him an interview for an internship at vogue.

By the time February rolls around he's so worried about getting his acceptance letter to Parsons (his first choice college) that he doesn't even notice it arrive in the mail. He's throwing everything that isn't from various schools to the side while ripping the others open and sighing in exasperation when he's been accepted in their drama course. Tate finds it, he'd stayed the night and was flicking through the newspaper when Kurt threw his discarded mail at him.

‘Kurt? Who's Will Schuester?... And Emma Pillsbury?'

‘Hhmm? Oh yeah they were teachers at Mckinley'

‘You're invited to their wedding'

‘Oh?'

...

‘Kurt?'

‘mmm'

‘...It hasn't arrived yet has it?'

‘I got into FIT'

‘That's a great school'

‘I know... It's just'

 ‘Have you ever thought about going to other schools?'

‘Of course, I'm not making the same mistake twice. I just really want to get into Parsons'

‘Because you have to be prepared that you won't get in'

‘Wow, Thanks for the support'

‘You have to be realistic'

‘I am being realistic, I just-‘

‘Look, I'm not trying to make you feel bad but If you're going to get in you'll get in, so stop worrying and come tell me what your teacher is doing inviting you to his wedding.

‘He doesn't have many friends.' Tate hugs Kurt, who isn't even paying attention he's so busy worrying about acceptance letters, and frowns at the invitation.

It had only been six months, but to Kurt it felt like years since he'd been cowering in McKinley's hallways. He had a new job, new hobbies, new friends, a new boyfriend, new options. He'd shed his old skin, the one that was frayed and ripped and didn't really fit him anymore, and with it had gone his old life. So when the invitation comes he isn't exactly thrilled. He'd been pretending to himself for far too long that his old life was just a fantasy and out of nowhere came a blaring reminder that it wasn't. Eventually Curiosity, Tate's encouragement and a forgotten promise to Mr Schue got the better of him. He sent his reply, confirming that yes; he would be attending the wedding of William Schuester and Emma Pillsbury on the 17th May 2013.