At group the following week, Emma threw them a bit of a curveball. Blaine blamed it on pregnancy hormones.

She was wearing jeans with an elastic band, a Harry Potter T-shirt, and her hair up in a loose ponytail. She looked decidedly unlike the Emma that Blaine had come to know. Maybe she was having a bad week? At least her command of the room seemed intact.

"Okay, group," she began, "we already talked about telling friends about chronic illnesses, but how do you tell your friends who they are allowed to tell? This week, I met with a patient referred by my mother, of all people. It wasn't until halfway through the session that I realized the patient knew a lot more about my medical history than was appropriate. I decided to terminate the session and find her someone else.

"I felt betrayed, embarrassed, and undermined, but it is not socially permissible for me to be angry at my mother for her oversight. Have you ever been 'outed' without your permission? And how did you respond to it?" She took a long breath in, and exhaled slowly, looking around the room expectantly.

Quinn spoke up first. "You know the job at the children's hospital that I mentioned? Well the same great guy at HR who helped get me the job also told some of the physicians at the hospital about me. It would have been completely ok if he just told them about the spoon theory, but he told them things about my illness that I would not have chosen to disclose. One of the doctors actually cornered me in the cafeteria one day and tried to cheerfully convince me that fibromyalgia isn't real."

Sugar, who was sitting next to Quinn, made a few high pitched, exasperated grunts in solidarity, which made Blaine smile.

"It was so embarrassing," Quinn continued, "I really didn't know what to do. So I just smiled, stayed silent while I ate my Jell-O, and said thank you. I tried to change the subject to something else, which finally worked because he got excited when I mentioned cheerleading. Apparently his wife used to be a cheerleader." She rolled her eyes. "The next day, I printed out a list of informational websites about fibromyalgia and left it in his mailbox. I don't know if he ever got it, or read it, or anything. Ugh! His demeaning way of looking at me and talking to me was so frustrating. And people at the hospital, nurses who I really liked, they loved him. Apparently he's this really warm person who gets all the cancer patients to smile by telling jokes. I wish I could have seen that side of him."

Sugar reached over to Quinn to pat her shoulder. "Douchebag!" she proclaimed with certainty.

"Lets try and keep the language PG in here, guys," Emma said. Though she also looked amused despite herself.

"I'll go next," Kurt said, after a few seconds of companionable silence in the room. He took a deep breath to rival the one Emma took at the beginning of the session. Blaine had the odd impression that he was preparing to breathe fire on his next exhale.

"I trusted a friend of mine with a lot of information about my problems, and I thought it was clear from how we met that it was not to be talked about with other people."

Blaine's heart started to beat faster, his eyes on Kurt who was looking right at Emma.

"This friend, we were sort of dating, and I guess that can make you tell somebody things that you wouldn't otherwise. When you want to be your true self so they can learn to love your true self."

Blaine's cheeks were starting to flush, and he began fidgeting.

"I think that he might have cost me a really important job, the kind of job that could have transformed my life and made me into a star. I was positive I was going to get that job. The only reason I can think of that the director didn't hire me is if this friend told the director about my illness."

"That is messed up," Artie said, leaning forward in anticipation of the rest of the story. "That is none of anybody's business."

Kurt continued, face impassive and voice evenly leveled. "I didn't know how to even bring it up, I was so upset. I felt betrayed, like you did, Emma, because it was someone who was beginning to feel like family to me, or at least someone who I thought one day might be family. How could he do that? How could he mess up my one chance when he promised not to say anything?"

"I fell into this depression that lasted a couple of weeks, that's why I wasn't at group. It was such a loss. I wasn't only losing the opportunity of a lifetime, I was also losing trust in a friend, and the possibility for a future with him. I just really want to know... exactly what happened, and what he said. I didn't know how to ask him. I was hoping that maybe this group could help me..."

The few seconds of silence right then felt like there was a fist squeezing his heart and lungs and ribs and he was waiting for someone to speak, to tell the fist to let go. Blaine wondered if this was what a heart attack felt like.

Deera caught on before anybody else. She turned so she was squarely facing Blaine, raised her eyebrow, and asked, "So, Blaine? Did you do it?"

Sugar whistled and Artie looked shocked. Emma had a small frown on her face and appeared to be deep in thought.

Blaine thought back to the conversation with Cooper.

"Okay Blaine, I have to ask you something. I'm sorry to say this at all, but this is a really important decision that is going to affect my career. Can you tell me anything about Kurt that should stop me from hiring him?"

Blaine had been tired, flustered, disappointed that Kurt wasn't going to hang out with him that night as planned. What had he said exactly?

"Umm... I'm not sure what to say. Kurt's my friend, maybe my boyfriend. He's wonderful and talented and special, so what if he gets anxious or depressed sometimes, he's going to be a star."

Cooper's face had morphed into a thoughtful expression as a nauseous realization of his words dawned on Blaine.

Cooper seemed to be musing to himself but he spoke aloud. "So he has problems with depression and anxiety? That could cost a lot of money for everyone involved if he doesn't show up to work one day. And I would be blamed for it since I'm the one who hired him."

Blaine had started to panic. What had just happened? "Cooper, no you should definitely hire him. I know him and he is really reliable when it's for something important. Acting and singing is his whole life and he would put all of his heart and soul into your show."

"Sure, little bro," Cooper had said, and smiled the fake smile that Blaine hated. "See you next week for dinner, okay?" Cooper had given him a quick hug, then, and left for the night.

Blaine had spent that entire night tossing and turning, and wondering what would happen. But then he had convinced himself that it was just a small comment, not a big deal. After a couple days he had decided to put it out of his mind, since there wasn't anything he could do about it. Then Kurt had stopped calling him.

A hand on his brought him back to the present. It was Kurt's. He wasn't smiling, or frowning, just expectant. "What happened, Blaine?"

Blaine repeated his conversation with Cooper to the group, his eyes tearing up and a lump forming in his throat that made the last few words difficult to get out. He concluded with the only thing he could think of. "I'm so sorry Kurt."

Kurt nodded, and Emma asked to see Blaine alone after group ended.

Deera shared a story about a colleague who had brought up her illness at a board meeting, and how she retaliated by bringing up that that same colleague had cheated on her husband, a board member. She told it without remorse and with a lot of humor. It probably would have been a funny story if Blaine hadn't been so stressed out. This couldn't be good for his body, he needed to calm down.

He couldn't get himself to participate in the group meditation either, so he just sat there until everybody else left, and looked at the floor. Emma eventually sat down next to him.

"Blaine, I know it was an accident. That you didn't mean to do anything to hurt Kurt. But you did violate the written agreement of the group. The fact that you two were dating without disclosing it to the group is also a problem, but speaking about private things outside of group is a worse problem. I want you to reflect on what happened, and come see me for an individual session next week. But," Emma looked sad now, "I have no choice but to ask you to refrain from attending this group from now on."

Blaine's body wanted to cry, so he let it cry. He nodded and got up to leave. Emma pulled him into a quick hug before he made it out the door, and he could feel her pregnant belly.

---AAIGAAIGAAIG---

Sobbing openly in New York City as you walk back to your dorm wasn't actually as unusual an occurrence as one might think, so Blaine didn't get very many stares. A homeless man who smelled like urine told him that everything would be okay. Would it? He didn't see how.

He went to the small corner market a block away from his dorm and went straight for the ice cream. Chunky Monkey, mint chip, and vanilla. He then found the candy aisle and picked up Reese's Pieces and Peppermint Patties to put on top of the vanilla.

Back in his room, Andy started speaking to him in French immediately, asking if he could share the ice cream.

"No, not tonight," Blaine had said, pulling Andy's pink curtain closed between them. He opened up the pint of mint chip first, and said aloud one of his favorite mantras that helped him with his diet.

"Sugar is like poison for your body. Milk is like poison for your body. It will make you sick and in pain and eventually give you cancer."

He put the first spoonful into his mouth and it tasted delicious. He put on his headphones and kept eating.