“We’re having a little problem with Aikya in one of the girls’ rooms. I told Valerie that I would let you decide how to handle it.” I explained. Blaine’s eyes widened in surprise, and he let out a groan.

“I’m assuming this means Valerie finally told you?” At my nod he continued. “I should have known that rooming Valerie with Aikya was a bad idea… What did she do?”

“She called Valerie a dyke in front of the other girls, and no one defended her. I told Valerie that she could sleep on the pullout. She begged me not to talk to Aikya, but I just don’t feel right ignoring this.”

“Yeah, we have to do something. I don’t want to make Valerie even more uncomfortable, but this can’t go on.” Blaine pulled his hand through his wet curls with a sigh. “I really had hoped that the kids would able to be more understanding. I mean, so much has changed since we were their age. I guess I just thought that the hatred was gone.” I could tell that Blaine was hurting, and not just because of Valerie. There was a story there, but now was not the time for me to ask.

“I did too.” I said simply, and pulled Blaine into a hug. It was slightly uncomfortable with his wet hair and the awkward height difference but it was what we both needed. We stood there for a few moments, mourning for a generation that we had put so much faith in.

“Come on,” I said, detaching myself from his warm embrace reluctantly. “We need to decide what we’re going to do about Aikya.”

“Right. I think we should go talk to Aikya, and then when we get back to campus I’ll report the incident to the senior girls’ dean. What do you think?”

I agreed, and the two of us headed down the hall to the cluster of rooms where the students were staying after telling Valerie we would be back soon. I chose to ignore the suggestive eyebrow wiggles coming from Valerie, but I’m pretty sure Blaine wasn’t ignoring them. He really was that oblivious.

I could tell just from standing outside their hotel room that the drama had not stopped when Valerie left. Although it was nearing midnight, the girls were obviously still up, if the muffled yelling I could hear was any indication.

“What is your problem? I can’t believe you would just—” Blaine rapped on the door, interrupting the girl mid-rant.

“If that’s Valerie, you’re apologizing,” The girl demanded before the door was unlocked.

“Mr. Anderson!” Michelle squealed before slamming the door. “We’re in our pajamas!”

Blaine stifled a chuckle before knocking again. “Girls, can you get presentable? Mr. Hummel and I would like to talk to you.”

After a moment, Michelle slowly opened up the door. “Sorry about that,” she said sheepishly. The girls were wrapped in bathrobes, blushing the second Blaine looked at them. I wasn’t surprised—I was beginning to realize that Blaine’s charms were apparent to everyone.

We walked into the room, Blaine and I sitting cross-legged on the floor across from the couch where Aikya and Gina were perched.

“So. I think we all know why we’re here.” Blaine said. He paused, looking at the girls. The look on his face wasn’t anger, merely immense disappointment. From the way the girls began to fidget, I knew that it didn’t feel good to be on the receiving end of that glance.

Michelle walked away from the door and sat on the floor next to the couch. She had been shooting daggers at Aikya, but quickly turned to me.

“Mr. Hummel? Is Valerie okay? She left, but when I tried to find her Mr. Anderson said she was with you. Where is she?” She asked. I didn’t have Michelle in any of my classes, but I had seen the sophomore roaming the campus before. She seemed like a nice girl, and I was glad to see that she cared about Valerie. Valerie needed friends now more than ever.

“She’s fine. She needed to cool down a bit, so we went out. She’s in our room with Mr. Anderson’s daughter now.” I explained.

“We were upset to hear of what had happened. But, we’ve already heard Valerie’s story—what do you think happened? Why would you say we’re here, Aikya?” Blaine asked.

Aikya didn’t respond, merely staring at the floor. Gina took this as her cue, so she began.

“Aikya called Valerie a dyke,” she said bluntly. “Then Valerie started crying and ran out. Michelle started cussing out Aikya, and hasn’t really stopped until you got here. Well, except for when she left to try and find her.”

Michelle looked up at Blaine and me meekly. “I may have yelled at Aikya a bit,” she admitted. “But I guess you heard that?” She blushed at Blaine’s nod.

“Do you have anything to say, Aikya?” Blaine asked gently. “I’d really like to know what’s going through your head right now.”

“This is stupid.” Aikya finally said. “I didn’t mean to make her cry. I was just explaining why I needed to share with Gina.”

“Why couldn’t you share with Valerie?” I asked. I knew what her response would be, but we actually needed to hear her say it.

“Because,” Aikya said dryly, “That girl is a dy—” At Michelle’s glare she corrected herself, “Because Valerie is a lesbian, and I’m not into that crap.”
There were so many things wrong with that sentence that I didn’t know where to start. Blaine didn’t appear to have that problem.

“Aikya, what you did tonight was wrong. Even if Valerie was gay—”

“She obviously is. Have you seen the way she dresses?” Aikya interrupted.

“Her sexuality is the least of my worries here. The word you used was hurtful and not at all appropriate. I’m extremely disappointed in you, in all of you.” Blaine said, looking at all of the girls pointedly. “Mr. Hummel and I are going to have to inform your deans of this incident. Michelle, I’m afraid I’m going to have to report you for yelling at Aikya.”

Michelle nodded with resignation, but Aikya began to protest.

“Aikya, I think you should stop while you’re ahead. Technically, what you did is borderline hate speech. If Valerie wanted to press the issue, it could be Headmaster Douglass that we were reporting you to instead of the dean of students.” I said, quickly interrupting her sputters. Gina rolled her eyes and elbowed Aikya.

“Fine.” Aikya snapped. Blaine just looked at her, a mixture of pity and hurt on his face.

“Okay, then. Goodnight, girls.” He said softly, before we left the room.

“That certainly could have gone better,” I muttered as we headed back. “Do you mind if I still take a shower? It’s getting rather late.”

“Go ahead and shower. Thanks for today, by the way. I know I already said this, but I had an amazing time. I hope Anna didn’t scare off Rachel too much. I know she can get a little out of hand, but she was just so excited tonight.”

“Rachel loved Annabel; in fact she was practically threatening me with bodily harm if I don’t bring her up again.” I whispered as we entered the room where Annabel and Valerie were sleeping. Blaine grabbed my shoulder before I headed into to the shower. He looked into my eyes, expression unreadable. The air was thick with some sort of tension, but Blaine simply squeezed my arm and let me go.
***
“So, you’re doing what?” Rachel questioned.

“I’m making a Halloween costume for Annabel. She wanted to be Galinda after seeing the play last weekend. Of course, that’s not something Blaine can just pick up at the store, so I told him I’d help him transform last year’s ballerina costume into Galinda’s signature pink dress. And, since Blaine is useless with a sewing machine, that lead to me making it myself.” I said, balancing my cell against my ear as I worked on sketching a pattern.

“That’s an awful lot to be doing for someone who’s just a friend,” Rachel said cheekily.

“Well. About that…”

“Oh my god! Something happened didn’t it? Tell me, tell me, tell me!” Rachel squealed into my ear. I knew that I would probably regret telling Rachel, but I needed to discuss the latest incident with someone or I would burst.

“Okay, well, you know how I told you about the episode with Aikya? We had to go deal with the girl afterwards, so we stayed up rather late. So then, when we were on the home, we both fell asleep. When I woke up, Blaine had his arm around me, and he was just stroking my hair.”

“And you let him?” Rachel gasped. “You never let anyone touch your hair!”

“It was… nice. I may have even pretended to sleep for longer, just to see if he would keep doing it.” I admitted sheepishly. “It felt like high school all over again—butterflies and mixed emotions. It was such a little thing, but it just felt right. In his arms, I mean. God, I sound like a teenage girl.”

“No you don’t—you sound like a romantic. And, I’m telling you, this guy’s a keeper. You need to man up and ask him out on a real date—without his munchkin tagging along.”

“I know, I know! But I still don’t know what the story is with him and Sebastian. I’m not even sure that he’s single!”

“Well, he wasn’t cuddling with Sebastian on the bus, now was he?” Rachel quipped. “But speaking of Sebastian, how’s Fiddler going?”

“We’re having auditions this weekend, so we’ll see how that goes.” I sighed.

Blaine, Sebastian, Mike, and I had decided that we would have the auditions on three separate days, so that we could focus on each aspect of each audition separately. Mike and Brittany would be teaming up first to coordinate the dance portion of the audition, then Blaine would follow with the singing, and Sebastian and I would finish with the monologues. I had discussed the auditions with all of my students, and Blaine had posted flyers all around campus. Hopefully we would get enough people auditioning to perform such an intense show.

I was feeling quite confident about the auditions, and that feeling was only intensified when Valerie came up to me after class on Thursday.

“I’ve been thinking,” Valerie began, “And, I think I’m going to audition for Fiddler tomorrow.” I had been hoping as much, but I wondered what that would mean for Valerie. After her hushed confession this weekend, I had doubted she would be doing anything to call attention to herself. When I heard that Aikya had been given a week’s worth of detention I was even more positive that Valerie would try to lie low.

“Oh? What monologue will you be using?” All the boys were reading the Tevye monologue I had set out, while the girls would be reading Yente.

“I was thinking that I could read for Tevye, if that’s okay.” Valerie said softly. When I looked in her eyes, I saw my fourteen-year-old self reflected back at me. Scared, yet desperate to finally be who I knew I really was. This was such a huge step for Valerie—a step towards coming out, maybe even one day transitioning. I wanted to do nothing more than scoop her into a hug, but I played it cool.

“You’d better start practicing then.” I replied with a smile. “See you tomorrow.”

I had meant to head back home as soon as school let out, but Puck caught me on my way out.

“Kurt! I’ve been meaning to talk to you for a while; do you have a second?”

“Sure. What’s up, Puckerman?” I asked, allowing him to pull me into the empty teacher’s lounge.

“It’s about Fiddler, actually. I was just wondering how things were going?” Puck asked, shoving his wrinkly hands under his armpits and flopping onto a ratty armchair.

“Things are going fine, but you know that. You’re on the committee. What’s this really about, Puck?”

Puck sputtered a bit, but then he just sighed. “You’re right; it’s not about Fiddler…” He slumped back in his chair with exhaustion, for once looking his age. “I’m not usually one for gossip, but considering it’s about your job I figured you should know. Yesterday, when I walked into the lounge outside the Headmaster’s office, I overheard Sebastian talking to Headmaster Douglass.”

“And?” I asked, trying not to get worked up prematurely.

“And I think your job may be in jeopardy.”