“Paper, bow, scissors, tape…”

Kurt laid out all his supplies on his cutting table, rushing to get ready, eager to start wrapping. Wrapping presents gave Kurt a cathartic and nostalgic sense of overwhelming happiness. It reminded him of Christmas time when he was little, helping his mom wrap presents for his dad. Elizabeth Hummel would gather her son up in her arms and carry him off to her bedroom, the two of them giggling and shushing and trying to be quiet even though they were being as obvious as humanly possible. Kurt's dad would ignore them, as if he didn't have a clue where they could be rushing off to so secretively and why.

Kurt's mom would lay everything out the way he did now, organizing all of their supplies just so. She always used thick, expensive wrapping paper - the kind you bought from kids selling to raise money for the football program at their middle school, the kind that you paid way too much for and only got enough to wrap three boxes if you were lucky, the kind that was thick like linen and came complete with tags and bows in complimentary patterns and colors. Only quality, overpriced wrapping paper for Elizabeth Hummel's family, not the dime-store stuff that ripped if you looked at it the wrong way, with the print so poor that Santa's face was blurry and the Christmas trees were more blue than green.

It took the two of them hours to wrap all of his dad's presents, which usually amounted to around seven boxes total. It didn't seem like much; it shouldn't have taken so long, but the process of wrapping presents with a child under the age of eight, even a child as obsessed with perfection as Kurt, was slow and painstaking. But Kurt's mother had been an infinitely patient woman where Kurt was concerned.

Kurt's dad tried to continue the tradition after his wife died but it wasn't the same. Burt Hummel thought that wrapping presents was simply a matter of covering them with paper so that the gift underneath didn't show. Often times, when proper wrapping paper went unpurchased because, well, it wasn't the sort of thing that Kurt's father thought about, they used newspaper. He didn't understand the ritual, the ceremony, the subtle nuance of picking out the right color palette for the current season and making sure that all the peripherals were there, or that they matched.

To this day, Kurt wasn't exactly sure how much help he truly was but that wasn't the point. The point was that wrapping presents with his mom was a tradition that they shared as mother and son…as a family.

He wanted to start some family traditions with Blaine now.

He wanted to start a family with Blaine.

“What's going on in there?” Blaine called in a sing-song voice that fooled no one. Blaine knew exactly what Kurt was doing in his design studio.

Kurt stifled a childish sounding giggle as he cut through sparkly purple wrapping paper. He had to go to seven stores before finding the perfect sheet of gift wrap at a Papyrus in the mall.  He tapped his toes beneath his chair, bubbling with excitement. He lined the box up against the grid lines on the reverse side of the paper and folded the edges with all the expertise that years as a designer had given him.

It was February 1st, thirteen days until Valentine's Day - a day that Kurt had spent his life hating, but since it was now the date of his and Blaine's anniversary, he couldn't help but pick it as his new favorite holiday. Kurt decided to give Blaine his present early. He usually did anyway. He was never good at keeping secrets, but that wasn't the reason this time.

Blaine would need fair warning for this gift.

Kurt realized that he was taking a gamble, but he hoped that after years of patience and waiting, of lingering in the background, of following all the rules and not complaining (or at least not complaining too much) that his gamble would pay off. He taped down the edges, pulling the paper tight so it didn't wrinkle. He wrapped the whole thing in an elaborate silver bow, nearly as big as the box itself, and used the edge of his shears on the loose ends to make ribbon curls. Kurt sat back and looked at his gift wrapping masterpiece.

It almost looks too beautiful to unwrap.

That was the joke Blaine always made when he saw one of Kurt's wrapping magna opera, then he would pretend to carefully tuck the gift away in his bottom drawer for safe-keeping. Not this time. If Blaine tried to pull that trick, Kurt would tear the present out of his hands and rip the paper opened with his teeth.

Kurt sauntered into the living room with his hands behind his back, keeping his cool even though inside his stomach a constant flux of heat and cold swept through, filling his veins with one surge of emotion after the other – excitement, fear, anxiety, relief. The box in his hands was more than a present - it was an omen.

It would either be the beginning of something wonderful and amazing…or the end of it.

Blaine smiled when he saw his boyfriend with a pleased yet slightly nervous grin on his face, knowing that Kurt had a surprise to give him. He did this every year. The perfect model of calm, cool, and collected under pressure, Kurt Hummel was always done in by his impatience for the arrival of gift-giving holidays. Blaine couldn't tell exactly what Kurt had hidden behind his back, though he did see a peekaboo glimpse of what looked like silver ribbon bounce out from Kurt's side with every other swish of his hips, so he prayed that whatever Kurt had for him ended with him naked and a lap dance.

Kurt glided up beside Blaine, revealing the present from behind his back. He hopped into Blaine's lap, crossing one long leg over the other.

“Oomph!” Blaine exclaimed, pushed further back into his desk chair, the force sending them sliding a slight distance across the polished wood floor. “Well, well, well,” Blaine said, wrapping his arms around Kurt's body, a welcome distraction from the writer's block he had been suffering mere moments before. “Look what we have here.”

“It's a present!” Kurt chirped excitedly, giddier than he intended, but necessary to hide his trepidation, which grew steadily from the moment he stepped into the living room where Blaine's work desk sat pushed up against the picture windows with their impressive views of the city. Blaine's penthouse had enough rooms for him to have his own dedicated office, but he liked having his desk out in the living space where he could still be a part of the action while he tried to meet his deadlines.

It was an old habit from back in the day when Kurt and Blaine lived in their loft in Bushwick. Kurt put together a workspace for Blaine. It was a tiny, cramped desk and some file folders, a cork board on the wall and basket to catch his mail, but it was the workspace of Blaine's dreams - though back then, everywhere in the loft was the living room, cordoned off by the use of strategically placed curtains and Japanese screens.

“I can see that,” Blaine said, looking at the extravagantly wrapped gift, and then back at his boyfriend. “I was referring to the gorgeous man holding the gift.”

“Is that so?” Kurt asked, leaning forward and capturing Blaine's waiting lips in a gentle kiss, just deep enough to taste the hint of coffee and peppermint on his breath from the Candy Cane Mocha he had finished minutes ago – an invention of Kurt's carried over from the Christmas holiday.  Kurt's Candy Cane Mochas had become a necessity since writer's block and too much procrastination led Blaine to frantically work on the last few paragraphs of his column (an advice column for the lovelorn called The Love You Deserve) late into the night.

Blaine didn't come to New York with the intention of becoming an advice columnist. He stumbled onto his profession quite by accident, the way most people who love their jobs find their true callings. After he graduated high school, he moved out to New York to be with Kurt and started attending NYADA, but even immersed in the theater lifestyle he had always dreamed of, he didn't feel quite like he fit. On a fluke (and in desperate need of money) he answered an ad in The Village Voice to write freelance theater and movie reviews.

On an afternoon when Kurt couldn't meet him for lunch, he decided to read the paper (he felt obligated to, seeing as they actual paid him and stuff) and stumbled on an advice column. It covered all sorts of topics regarding relationships – kids hating their parents, parents wishing they'd never had kids, college kids in love, and various other combinations of age, sex, race and creed, all trying to cohabit in the big city, some even trying their hands at falling in love.

One letter in particular (written by a gay man who reminded Blaine a lot of himself) caught Blaine's eye, and not because the advice that the columnist gave was poignant and heartfelt, but because said advice was total and utter crap. Blaine jumped onto his laptop and wrote a scathing review. He sent it without realizing that as a new pseudo-employee of the paper, there might be some backlash…which there was, in the form of a permanent, steady job at the paper, plus a raise, as long as he continued to write the advice column (a position that had recently become vacant).

His column gained attention from larger, more prominent and noteworthy media outlets. Soon he was moving out of the bare-bones offices of The Village Voice and straight to syndication. He worked via his own blog, and his column was printed in newspapers nationwide, but along the way Blaine realized there was one teeny little catch.

Blaine had spent so much time promoting himself solo while Kurt followed his own passions, making his own dreams a reality, that he had unintentionally created an image for himself – an image of a city-wise Alpha male bachelor, who seemed to have a preternaturally firm grasp on the concept of romance and love.

His readers ate it up, and his agent told him that if he wanted to keep his overwhelming, overnight fame, it might be the best idea to maintain that image.

That didn't mean breaking up with Kurt, per se, but keeping their relationship on the down low.

Blaine balked at the idea…at first. There was nothing he was more passionate about than his boyfriend. There was no way he was going to put Kurt on the back burner for fame. They were running a race together, Kurt always liked to say, and they would share their successes and their failures as a couple, as a team.

Blaine wholeheartedly agreed, and he had a plan to come out as a happily attached gay man in love, hell or high water.

That was until his parents called him, out of the blue, after not speaking to their son for years, to tell him how proud they were of him and his new-found success.

Blaine's parents, more specifically, his need for their love and acceptance, was his Achilles' heel.

Blaine's relationship with his parents was strained, at best, starting during high school when he came out as gay. They tried, in their own way, to deal with the news. His father spent more time with him, exposing him to all the things he and his own father had done together when he was a young man – fixing cars, playing baseball, going to football games – but when none of those things seemed to ‘help', his father gave up and retreated further and further away. His mother sided with her husband, and before long, Blaine was simply a stranger who lived in their house until he graduated and moved away.

When he got that phone call from his parents, when he heard his mother crying tears of joy and not disappointment, that's when he caved. He told Kurt the truth – the whole, unadulterated truth - and somehow convinced him to agree. They would play down their relationship in public, just enough so that Blaine could keep his carefully crafted persona and his popularity.

Kurt had no problem playing the part. Besides, he spent so much time working at Vogue and designing his own line that he didn't have the opportunity to accompany Blaine to any of his promotional events or signings or television appearances. Kurt was content to have his boyfriend when and where it really mattered - at home, alone. The problem was that they became so good at playing the role of bachelors (with Blaine even unconsciously claiming he was single in a recent interview on Ellen) that Kurt began to wonder if Blaine preferred life that way.

“Yes, that's so,” Blaine said against Kurt's lips as he kissed him over and over, small pecks around the contours of his lips to keep the taste of him in his mouth.

“Well, as fabulous and amazing as I am,” Kurt admitted modestly and with a teasing smile, “I think you're going to like this just as much.”

“Wow,” Blaine said with sincere admiration as the glittering purple present was thrust into his hands. “I think you've truly outdone yourself.”

“Have I?” Kurt batted his eyelids.

“By far.” Blaine turned the present over in his hands, examining it from all angles. He lifted it to his ear and shook it, listening to the contents slide together. “You gave me tax paperwork?”

Kurt slapped Blaine on the shoulder, laughing nonchalantly, but all the while in his mind screaming, “OPEN IT!!”

Blaine looked down at the box and sighed.

“You know, it's almost too beautiful…”

Kurt tore the present out of Blaine's hands and attacked the sparkly paper, tearing it to shreds while a flustered Blaine, taken completely by surprise, laughed so hard he nearly choked on his next words.

“Baby...(snort)…I was only joking…(chuckle)…I would have…(wheeze)…opened it…”

Kurt handed Blaine back a plain, silver box, while the confetti remains of once exquisite wrapping paper settled like a flurry of winter snow around them.

Blaine opened the box quickly beneath Kurt's humorless glare and looked at the contents. It took Blaine a moment to register exactly what the stack of tickets and colorful brochures meant, but once he did, once it struck him, the smile fell from his face.

Kurt cringed at the utter lack of enthusiasm on Blaine's somewhat stony face.

“So…what do you think?” Kurt asked, eager to keep the conversation positive, trying to recapture the upbeat, playful tone from seconds earlier. “It's a whole vacation – Jamaica, Aruba, Tahiti, Hawaii. We'll leave on Valentine's Day and be gone for three weeks.”

“Kurt,” Blaine said, his tone clipped tight and condescending, as if he was reprimanding a spoiled child, “I thought we talked about this.”

“I know, I know…” Kurt tried to sound as apologetic as possible, “but we need a vacation. We deserve one. We haven't been on one, a real one, since you started your column a million years ago.”

Blaine shook his head and slid the top back on the box. Kurt worried that any chance he had of getting Blaine to see his side might be shut up in that box along with the tickets and all of Kurt's hopes.

“It's been almost five years, Blaine,” Kurt implored, looping his arms around Blaine's neck, hoping he would look up into his eyes and see him, the love of his life, sitting in his lap. “If they don't know about us by now, I'm sure they suspect.”

“Kurt, you know this isn't the best time…”

“You're an established writer with a good reputation,” Kurt interjected, trying to overwhelm Blaine's objections with his own logic. “Your column is one of the three most popular in the Times, and your blog…let's just take a moment and talk about how amazingly popular your blog is, Blaine…”

“Kurt, I have an image to maintain.” Blaine shifted beneath Kurt in his seat and Kurt stood up from Blaine's lap, giving his boyfriend space to get up and pace the floor. Blaine held the box with the plane tickets in his hands, tapping on the lid while he tried to get Kurt to see reason. “It sucks. I know it sucks, but it's a necessary evil. I thought you understood that.”

“I understand that, baby,” Kurt said. “I do, but…”

“But what?” Blaine snapped with irritation, sounding more judgmental than sympathetic. He slammed the silver box down on his desk.

“I don't know how much longer I can stand it,” Kurt said quietly, his eyes dropping from Blaine's face to the floor. “I read the articles that say you're single, or worse, the ones that try to connect you to some random starlet or whatever. Sometimes, there'll be a picture of me, following you like a puppy in the background. I just don't…” Kurt sighed, his shoulders slouching in defeat, “I don't want to be denied.”

“Denied?” Blaine chuckled dryly, opening his arms wide and gesturing to the lavish apartment around them. “41st floor penthouse with city views is denied?”

“Blaine,” Kurt said, staring back at his boyfriend, jaw hanging open in shock, voice cracking painfully as he spoke, “I'm a designer with a name brand of my own. I can afford my own penthouse, and even if I couldn't, do you think I'm really with you for your money?”

“No, I don't,” Blaine admitted, frustrated and embarrassed by his rash response. “I'm sorry.” Blaine shoved his fingers into his hair, grabbing at his curls in handfuls. “I just feel so trapped right now…so backed into a corner. I have deadlines and interviews and obligations…”

“What about us?” Kurt asked, crossing to where Blaine walked chaotically back and forth, wearing a track into the dark wood floor. “When do we get to have a life of our own?”

“A life of our own,” Blaine scoffed, avoiding Kurt's arms when he reached out to him. “Say that to me again when Fashion Week comes around.”

“But, at least I always offer to take you with me,” Kurt argued, feeling the push of Blaine's anger as he shoved him further and further away - with his posture, with his words, with the angry heat in his eyes. “Blaine, most of our friends are married and starting families and…I don't know. Maybe I feel kind of left out.” Blaine rolled his eyes and Kurt felt the sadness in his chest start to simmer into resentment. “The truth of the matter is I've wasted way too much of my life in the closet to be shoved back in there by the demands of your career.”

“Yeah,” Blaine nodded, stepping away and turning on Kurt with a rage Kurt had never seen before, “and I've spent too much time on my career to let you destroy it all because you're so desperate for a ring around your finger.”

Kurt gasped, stumbling back on his heels, feeling like the wind had been knocked completely out of his lungs. His eyes went wide and he saw everything clearly for the first time.

Maybe he had been lying to himself the whole time.

Maybe there wasn't a future for them.

“I…I…” Kurt tried to think of anything he could say to defend himself, but there were no words.

The worst part was that Blaine didn't look the least bit guilty.

“I…” Kurt tried one last time, but he found his body had made the decision for him, turning and running for his room, shutting the door behind him and locking it. Away from Blaine, away from his anger and his accusations, away from the hurt and the pain, he could finally breathe.

He collapsed to the floor and cried.

***

Blaine felt like shit – absolute and utter shit. He didn't mean to be so cruel, especially not to Kurt.

God, no. Not to Kurt.

Every year Blaine quietly promised Kurt – and himself - the same thing. He'd come out to his fans, he'd make his and Kurt's relationship official in the eyes of the world, and he'd finally be true to himself.

He'd live an authentic life once and for all.

It might cost him his career.

It might cause him to lose the love and respect of his parents again.

It might mean losing the lease to his penthouse and moving into a shoebox apartment on the Lower East Side – not as craptastic as that loft in Bushwick they started out in, but a smaller one than he'd gotten used to over the past few years.

His whole life might change completely, but no matter what, in the end, he'd have Kurt.

He'd have his dignity and Kurt.

It wasn't that bad a trade-off, to be completely honest.

He was being dramatic, of course. His money was well-managed, properly invested, so they wouldn't be poor. And he'd never lose all of his fans or his syndication. If joining tumblr under the pseudonym supergayteenagedream proved one thing to him it was that most of the social media users of the world loved gay men more than they loved themselves.

He'd be safe in his career, but most importantly he'd be free from the lies. He could write a book. He could pursue other interests.

So, what was stopping him?

He had an idea, but it wasn't developed enough in his head that he could give voice to it. He wasn't ready to admit it to Kurt, and maybe he didn't have to. He didn't necessarily need to tell Kurt the reason he was holding back. He just needed to get over the break and take the next step.

He stared at his iPhone, willing himself to pick it up and call his agent, Quinn, and tell her that he was prepared to make a statement. He reached out his hand to pick it up. He went so far as to touch it, to wrap his fingertips around it, but he couldn't.

He became paralyzed with fear.

He pulled his hand back away from the phone and in the process brushed the silver box he had smacked down onto the desk. Kurt's present – a box filled with plane tickets and hotel reservations. All that planning. All those arrangements. All the energy Kurt had put into throwing together the perfect vacation for them, and Blaine had ruined it. He bit his lip. He bit it hard till it hurt, disgusted with himself.

Fucking asshole, he thought to himself. That's what I am. Such a fucking asshole.

Blaine blew out a long breath between his teeth, trying to push the shame out of his body along with it, but that failed. He stood at his desk, staring at the abandoned box, his hands resting on his hips. He listened to the sounds of the penthouse around him.

It was quiet, all except for the lilting strains of the Vivaldi CD he had been listening to before Kurt came in with his present. He swore he had heard Kurt sobbing in his room, but now as he strained to hear him, there was nothing. Blaine took this moment to formulate a damage control plan in his head. He needed to make this right. He needed to calm things down so this would all blow over. Kurt was his priority, but he also had a deadline, and with a glance at the time on his iPhone clock he knew he only had four more hours to meet it.

He made a mental checklist.

He would get him a dozen sterling roses. He'd order in dinner from Kurt's favorite Thai place. He'd buy him something from the Burberry catalog. He hated that he was simply picking from the overused bag of tricks he resorted to every time this same argument came up, but all he needed was to turn things around for now so that he had more time to come up with a permanent solution.

Blaine heard the lock to Kurt's door click open, but he couldn't turn and face him. He couldn't look into his crumpled face, his eyes red from crying. He knew he was acting like a coward, but he couldn't do it.

Just like he couldn't make that phone call.

He watched Kurt in the reflection of the picture windows walk out of his room, wearing the same Alexander McQueen suit he had on earlier, but now with a long cashmere coat over it. When Blaine heard the sound of wheels rolling across the wood floor, something inside him cracked. Blaine knew the sound of Kurt's Rioni Signature rollaway luggage anywhere. He spun on his heel, hoping it wasn't so – that Kurt wasn't actually leaving.

Kurt didn't look at Blaine, too focused on maneuvering his suitcase over the threshold of his room out into the living room, closing the door behind him and heading to the front door.

“Kurt…” Blaine said. “Kurt, no. What are you…where are you…”

The words wouldn't come out right. He didn't know how to put them together to get the answer he wanted.

No, Blaine. I'm not leaving you. I'm just putting this one bag into downstairs storage.

I still love you, Blaine. I'm just taking my clothes for a walk around the block.

This fight didn't matter, Blaine. Don't worry that I'm taking this bulging suitcase out for a walk. I'll be back in twenty minutes.

It didn't matter that all the excuses he thought of sounded ridiculous, he would take any one of them. Anything other than, “Blaine, I'm leaving you.”

But he knew that was the answer. The ‘where' didn't matter as much as the fact that Kurt, his Kurt, was leaving. Blaine told his feet to move, to rush to the door and stop him, but the paralysis from before hadn't completely worn off yet.

Meanwhile, Kurt didn't have a word for him. No explanation whatsoever.

No explanation was needed.

The last few years of their relationship were the only explanation he needed as a reason to leave.

Blaine told him he loved him all the time, but he gave him no guarantees.

No hope.

No future.

Kurt would be fine. He knew he would be, but the prospect of a life without Blaine was still too heartbreaking for him to process. He needed to stay numb to it. He'd find a place and throw himself into his work. His new clothing line would preview in Paris in a few weeks, and who knew? Maybe he would stay there. He'd always wanted to live in Paris.

Now he had a chance.

“Kurt…” Blaine repeated, trying to get anything from Kurt, any little drop of hope that he could hold on to.

“Don't,” Kurt warned with a voice that broke slightly.

“Aren't…aren't you at least going to tell me where you're going?” Blaine begged, taking a step forward, far enough so he could watch Kurt open the front door.

“No,” Kurt said quietly, his eyes glued to his luggage. He couldn't look up. He couldn't see Blaine standing there or he'd never have the strength to leave.

And he needed to leave.

“Are…you going to call me when you get where you're going…so that I know you're okay?” Blaine's voice became smaller and weaker as he spoke.

“I don't know,” Kurt said. He stopped with his luggage right outside the door, and waited. All he needed to do was to keep walking and he would be starting his life over again, on his own. He weighed his next words carefully. Maybe he shouldn't say them out loud, but it didn't seem right to leave without them.

“I love you, Blaine,” he said, whispering down to his shoes, watching the tears start to fall.

Blaine held his breath.

There was a pause that felt like it existed out of time, a second that held on too long before ticking to the second after it. That was the last second Kurt was going to let Blaine have.

Kurt took that first step down the hallway.

It was harder than he ever thought.

It was also easier than the thought.

He took a second step, and then he kept going.

Blaine got his feet to move, got them to chase after him, but by the time he reached the door Kurt was walking into the elevator. Blaine barely caught a glimpse of Kurt's purple wingtips as he stepped inside and the doors closed behind him.

His head spun with thoughts of what to do next.

Chase him.

Let him go.

Go after him.

Give him space.

I need him.

You're not giving him what he needs. Let him find it somewhere else.

I love him.

You don't deserve him.

I don't want to be without him.

The doors to the elevator opened back up. Blaine didn't realize he'd been rapidly hitting the button until he saw the empty elevator car in front of him. Blaine raced in and hit the button to go down. When the doors didn't close immediately, he hit it again and again and again.

The doors slid shut.

The elevator lurched and headed down.

Standing and glaring at the light on the floor buttons as it hopped from number to number, Blaine never noticed how agonizingly slowly their elevator moved.

He was grateful when the elevator finally hit the lobby floor that no one else had called for it in between. He didn't know what he would have done to the poor person who he would have faced down when the doors open, and he didn't need anyone reporting him to the board. Blaine raced out past a few people waiting for the elevator. He sped through the lobby, ignoring the sour faces of some of the older residents who frowned on him running in the lobby, as if Blaine was a petulant six-year-old and not a grown man. The doorman smiled as he approached, but frowned when Blaine blew by him, shoving the door open with his entire body and stumbling out onto the sidewalk.

“Kurt!” he yelled, turning right and staring down the sidewalk. “Kurt!” he yelled again, turning around to his left.

“Mr. Anderson! Mr. Anderson!” he heard a voice call out to him, but Blaine ignored it.

“Kurt!” Blaine yelled till he felt his throat go raw. “Kurt!”

“Mr. Anderson!” The doorman rushed up to him, waving his gloved hands to get Blaine's attention. Even when the man stood right in front of him, Blaine tried to peer around him. “Mr. Anderson! Mr. Hummel isn't here.”

“Wh…what do you mean?” Blaine asked, his discouraged frown deepening. “He's not here?”

“I hailed Mr. Hummel a cab,” the doorman confessed, smiling in the face of Blaine's distress.

“Did he tell you where he was going?” Blaine asked, resisting the urge to grab the man by the arms and shake him.

“No,” the man said. “No, he didn't.”

Blaine considered asking what directing the cab took, but what would he do with that information? Would he run down the street after him? Would he search for him on foot in the dark in a city of hundreds of cabs? Kurt could be headed anywhere, and Blaine didn't know.

Blaine stomped his foot on the sidewalk and cursed, raking his hands into his hair and pulling again, not caring that with every tug he began to look more and more demented. He didn't want to give up. He needed to do something. He spun around in a circle and made a decision.

He'd go back upstairs.

He'd meet his deadline.

He'd pray that Kurt called him eventually, but since he was fairly sure that was not going to happen, he would drink himself stupid.

He stalked back to his building, letting the doorman open the front door for him this time around. He stomped past the sour faces and the new crop of concerned faces, ignoring the people who stared at him openly yet said not a word. They mumbled under the breath to each other, but didn't have the decency to ask him if he was alright.

They probably didn't care.

Or maybe they could tell without asking by the dull, distant look in his whiskey-colored eyes that his life was now over.

Blaine took the elevator back up to his floor, and this time it stopped several times to let riders on and off. He sulked in the back corner as parents got on with their kids in tow, leaving four floors later. Another couple of floors passed and a young couple stepped on. They kissed and giggled and whispered among themselves quietly as if he wasn't even there. They left and he was alone again, replaying the events of the evening – specifically everything he had said and done wrong.

Blaine walked into his penthouse and locked the door behind him. On his way to his desk, he peeked into Kurt's studio to see if maybe he had come back, but he hadn't. He pulled his desk chair back over to his laptop, and dropped heavily into it. He ran his fingertip over his mouse pad to refresh his screen and sighed. He had absolutely no desire to do this right now. He had no care in his entire body for the problems of other heartsick people. Not tonight. Not when his own love life was circling the proverbial drain.

But part of the reason he had (only minutes ago) lost what he could conceivably call the ‘love of his life' was for this stupid column, so he might as well do it and be done with it so that it wasn't all in vain.

He had two open tabs on his computer. The first was his email account – his inbox filled with letters and requests he had yet to answer. The second was his blog, with an empty journal entry ready to be filled. Blaine scanned the column of emails and picked one at random. He usually tried to answer them in the order that they were received, but tonight he felt no reason to be fair. He opened an email from a Ms. Judy Collins of Nassau County, who wanted her letter signed online as Jilted Judy.

Blaine skimmed through the letter, jumping from point to point, looking for highlight words such as sex, cheat, love, hate…blah, blah, blah. Blaine reached the middle of the email and stopped. He blinked and went back to the beginning to read it over again word for word.

“Motherfucker,” he muttered under his breath.

Of all the fucking emails – literally hundreds of emails – this is the one he had to choose.

He couldn't get a husband cheating on his wife.

He couldn't get a college student with latent sexual feelings about her professor.

He couldn't get a good old-fashioned I think I'm in love with my boss.

No.

He had to get the one letter in the bunch that pretty much mirrored exactly his current predicament. He read it over and over. It seemed to mock him. The parallels were uncanny.

“Dear Blaine:

I think my boyfriend isn't as serious about our relationship as he seemed when we started dating three years ago…high profile job…doesn't want to admit in public that we're dating…won't introduce me to his parents…won't introduce me to his friends…I don't think his co-workers know that he's dating….always trying to set him up…”

Blaine read it till he memorized it, repeating the most damning points over and over until they stuck in his psyche. Judy's letter made him physically sick. He considered not answering this one. He could simply erase it and move on to a more promising one. He thought he might have seen a letter with the subject line RE: experimenting sexually with my lesbian roommate. Fuck, that would be a walk in the park compared to this.

He moved the cursor over the delete button and let it hover there.

Instead, he hit ‘select all' and then ‘copy'. He hit the tab for the empty journal entry and pasted the email into it. He moved the cursor beneath the pasted text and started to type out a reply.

“Dear Jilted Judy:

I'm sorry, Judy. I appreciate you writing to me with your problem. I am more thankful than I can ever express that you would entrust me with the state of your relationship. I know that you expect me to help fix your problem, but unfortunately I can't answer your question tonight. You see, Judy, I realized earlier this evening that I am a complete and total fraud. There are people all over the world in love and falling in love, arguing with spouses and getting back together with ex's – all with absolutely no help from me. In fact, I am sure that there are people out there in New York tonight who know way more about romance than I ever will. How do they do it? How do they nurture their relationships every day? How do they make them thrive and grow? To tell you the truth, I don't have any fucking idea.

The love of my life left me tonight, and I let them. Let them walk right out the door and didn't do a thing to stop them. So there is no way that I am qualified to help anyone with their love life. But I definitely need some serious help with mine.

So, I'm putting out a call tonight to all you readers out there – to anyone who reads this bullshit column, wherever you are in the world. Teach me something about love. How do you love? How do you win someone's love? How do you win someone back? From now until Valentine's Day, the advice, the stories, will all be yours. Tell me, friendly blogosphere, how do I win back the love of my life?”

Blaine typed it out in nearly no time flat without a single backspace, without a single mistake. He re-read it and scoffed. Sure. It's what he wanted to say, but he would never dare write something like that. He might as well shoot himself in the foot. Blaine shook his head and reached for the delete button. He read his journal entry one last time, and decided to add one last thing, just to see it written on screen.

“P. S. Jilted Judy…dump your stupid boyfriend. He's an insufferable ass.”

Blaine chuckled bitterly.

The chuckles became choked.

The chokes became sobs.

Blaine looked at the email tab, displaying that he still had 500+ emails left to answer.

500+ people turning to him for an answer.

He switched over to his email tab and looked down at the subject lines, at the names, at the sheer amount of people unlucky in love.

He hated them all.

He selected the select all box at the top of his email screen.

Then he hit delete.

In the blink of an eye, all the emails disappeared - every single problem gone.

But that's not how things worked in real life. There was no magic button that would rid him of all his problems. Blaine picked up his phone and looked at the screen, praying that Kurt had texted him while he was typing out his little tantrum.

The screen was blank except for his screen lock picture (a photo of Kurt, of fucking course) and the time.

10:23 p.m.

Blaine had about an hour and a half to make his deadline.

He thought about Judy's letter and grimaced.

“Sorry, Judy,” Blaine said, getting up out of his chair and heading for the kitchen, “but I'm way to sober to give you a decent answer.”

***

Beep

…

Beep

…

Beep

…

Beep

Blaine's left hand groped its way across the surface of his desk, scattering papers, knocking over pens, sending three beer cans and an empty bottle of champagne straight to the floor.

Luckily, it didn't shatter.

He managed to molest every item on the left half of his desk, but still couldn't locate the source of the infernal beeping. Without lifting his head, his right hand went to work, shuffling underneath letters and papers, moving his tablet aside and finally locating his iPhone. He brought the phone closer to his face and by the tone alone he discovered that someone had set his alarm.

Someone whom he would find and shoot in the foot as soon as humanly possible.

He swiped the screen with his index finger, hoping that he would blindly manage to turn off the alarm since there was no way in hell he was lifting his head off the desk. He wasn't sure he would even be able to without a crane or some other heavy piece of construction equipment. He felt like his head, his neck, his entire body was being crushed by a mass of heavy anvils trying to force him into the earth.

He swept his finger across the screen over and over, but he couldn't disable the alarm.

He would have to open his eyes.

The sunlight flooding into his penthouse through the massive uncovered windows already burned his eyes through the thin skin of his eyelids. That bright sunlight awaited him when he finally pried his eyes open.

He wasn't looking forward to it.

While he readied his head for the inevitable stab of pain, he tried to remember exactly how much alcohol he had drunk the night before.

Beep

…

Beep

…

Beep

…

On and on the alarm continued, refusing to be dismissed.

“Alright,” Blaine whispered to himself, not talking any louder than he needed, “on the count of three…one…two…three…”

Blaine peeled his eyes open. The light sliced through his corneas and went straight into his brain, a torturous wave of nausea physically pushing him back in his chair and forcing him to the floor, his arm thrown over his eyes, his phone clutched in his hand.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,” Blaine mumbled, scurrying beneath his desk and hiding from the light. Blaine risked opening his eyes again so he could look at his phone. His eyes were slits that he peeked through in order to read the screen.

11:45 a.m.

Now that he could see the time on the screen, he could also see that the alarm wasn't an alarm, but a collection of message alerts – all of them from his agent, Quinn.

8:45 a.m.

From: Quinn

Call me.

9:30 a.m.

From: Quinn

Call me now.

9:45 a.m.

From: Quinn

Blaine, God damn it!

10:35 a.m.

From: Quinn

Fine. Don't call me. But I hope you know what the fuck you're doing.

Shit.

His deadline.

He must have missed his deadline.

“Dammit!” he muttered softly, nursing his aching head. He scrabbled up into his desk chair and fumbled with his laptop. “Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!”

He rolled his fingertip over the mouse pad to bring the computer out of hibernation, thrumming his fingers lightly on the desk as he waited for the laggy piece of crap to come back to life. He seriously had to consider updating this…

The screen lit up with its blinding pastel blue background and interrupted his thoughts, which were just a means to keep anxiety at bay. So he submitted his column late. This was, what, one time in how many years? The world can wait twelve extra hours for his suck-ass advice.

“Oh, God,” Blaine groaned, typing in his password, flinching as the sound of his fingers touching the keys pounded like jackhammers into his brain, vibrating sickeningly down his spinal cord. Immediately he saw the message he had been in the middle of typing, and his heart stopped dead.

Over the form for a new blog entry, which was now blank, he saw the words “entry posted”. With trembling fingers, he brought up his blog and read quickly.

“Dear Jilted Judy:

I'm sorry, Judy. I appreciate you writing to me with your problem….”

“Holy shit!” Blaine screamed, wincing at the sound that fired through his skull like a gunshot. He minimized the tab, unwilling to look at the comments listed below.

That's what Quinn meant. That's why she wanted him to call her so badly, not because his column was late. Oh no. By the time stamp on the post he had gotten it uploaded right under the wire.

He had posted his rant from the night before.

He had called himself a fraud.

He told the world that the love of his life had left him.

And he had called Jilted Judy's boyfriend an ass, but that was beside the point.

That's why Quinn was flipping out.

That's why…

All thought stopped when Blaine caught sight of the second tab still open on his screen.

His email inbox – which he had completely cleared the night before – now with over a thousand new messages.