March 29 2013, 8:30 AM

Blaine floated on his back for a while. The sun was high, but the heat was bearable. His parents were still on the shore. Cooper splashed around near the beach, trying to impress the girl he'd just met. Blaine closed his eyes and listened to them, everyone talking, and now and again the water would flood his ears and all the sounds would be muffled. It was peaceful. Just floating, hearing but not seeing, being detached. He hoped they would come back here next summer.

"Blaine!"

He splashed and nearly lost his buoyancy when he heard his mother's voice calling sharply to him.

"Don't go out that far! Stay where we can see you."

He rolled his eyes. He was fifteen, for Pete's sake. He knew how to swim.

He couldn't stay mad at his mom as he swam closer to the beach. The sun felt too good on his back, the water too good around him. His eyes were drifting closed again, and he turned over to keep floating.

Newly fifteen, and nothing bad in the world had happened to him yet.

"Blaine."

Blaine was fifteen and a half when he and his dad had The Argument.

"If it's just a PHASE, why can't I take him to the dance?"

"Because, Blaine! You will get some idea stuck in your hard head that this is who you are, and you are too young to know who you are."

"I know what I want! This is what I want! Why can't you support me?"

"You told me that you didn't even like this boy."

"I don't. We're just friends."

"Then I don't see why this is so important to you. You're not going to a school dance with a boy. I'm firm on this."

"Why?"

"I said, it's done, Blaine."

"WHY?"

"Do NOT ask me again, or we will exchange words that you like a lot less than the ones we've just had."

"Like 'fag'?"

Mr. Anderson stopped with his back still turned to Blaine.

"Like 'queer?' I heard you talking to Mom yesterday."

Mr. Anderson turned around and walked until his chest almost touched Blaine's. He was taller by a wide margin, and not a weak man, but as Blaine looked up at him, all of his fear changed into something else. Defiance. Bravery. The need to stand up for himself.

"Blaine Anderson, you are not gay. You are not to go to the dance with a boy. And you will not use those words in my house."

"Why not? You do. And it's true. I am gay." Blaine trembled, saying it aloud like that. He'd said it before, but not so directly, and not to his dad. "I want to dance with boys. I like boys. I'm queer, Dad. I'm a fag, just like you said--"

He didn't even feel the slap. He heard it, but it didn't register until his dad backed away, hand still raised. It didn't start to sting until he lowered it and said in low tones, "To your room, Blaine."

Blaine didn't move. He stared at his Dad and touched his cheek. It was hot. His eyes were watering. He felt like he was five, being yelled at to keep his hands away from the stove--it had been to protect him, but he'd cried anyway, because they yelled so loudly. He thought then that he must have been a terrible child.

Mr. Anderson spoke again, softly. "Go to your room, son."

Blaine did. He turned and ran upstairs to his room and didn't come out for breakfast the next morning, didn't stop to say hello when he got home from school, didn't eat dinner until his dad was already in his study, absorbed in his work.

He would go to the dance with Nick, he decided. He would go and he would have the best time ever, and he would prove to his dad that being gay wasn't a bad thing. That he could dance with boys and live happily ever after and still be a perfectly good person.

"Blaine, it's okay."

Blaine was fifteen and a half plus one week when he danced with a boy for the first time.

It was...okay.

It was better than dancing with girls. It was harder, though, because there was some discrepancy about who should lead, but once they got the hang of it, it was nice. Nick's back was firm under his hand, his shoulder broad. Occasionally, Blaine's hand would slip on Nick's shoulder, or he'd misplace it after a turn, and he'd feel Nick's hair brush his fingers. It really was nice. They were only friends, but the dance felt intimate.

They left a little early. "Let's get some air," Nick had said, making Blaine's heart jump a little, so they went outside and sat on the curb of the school parking lot. Nick's dad was due to pick them up in thirty minutes. Thirty minutes felt like a long time all of a sudden, thought Blaine.

"That was fun," Blaine said anxiously.

"Yeah." Nick smiled at him, then smiled up at the sky. It wasn't quite dark yet, but Venus and Jupiter were shining brightly. "It really was. Thanks for asking me, Blaine." He reached for Blaine's hand and Blaine let him take it, in awe of how their fingers entwined. And thirty minutes was starting to feel like not enough time.

"So, do you want to--"

"Hey, gayboys!"

They both jumped. Blaine turned to look behind him and saw three angry boys walking towards them.

"Wanna dance with us, huh? We heard you like dancing with boys."

Blaine and Nick stood up, but they weren't fast enough, and the boys jumped on them.

"We don't like fags in our school," one of them spat, and then a punch square to the nose distracted Blaine from any other sounds around him. He did his best to curl into a defensive pose. One of the guys kicked him in the stomach and his breath left him. He rolled over, trying to suck oxygen back into his lungs. Another one punched his shoulder and he heard the words "fucking disease" thrown at him before, finally, they left. They ran, cackling and high-fiving. Blaine could do nothing but glare.

He coughed and inhaled a gulp of air before standing weakly to check on Nick.

"Nick, are you okay?"

Nick was sitting with his head between his knees, shoulders shaking.

"Nick."

He looked up, and Blaine saw blood on his face, a purple mottled bruise already sprouting on his cheek. He guessed that he didn't look any better.

"I'm sorry," Blaine said.

Nick shook his head and then dropped it down again, crying heavily now.

Blaine heard his voice, small and muffled. "Maybe we shouldn't hang out anymore."

"Blaine."

Finally, they left. They ran, cackling and high-fiving. Blaine could do nothing but glare.

He coughed and inhaled a gulp of air before standing weakly to check on Nick.

"Nick, are you okay?"

Nick was curled up in defense with his back to Blaine. Blaine stepped gently towards him.

"Nick."

He didn't move. Blaine knelt over him and then shrank back in fear. He was bloody, bloody everywhere, and Blaine was bloody too, he realized, and something about Nick wasn't right, wasn't---

"Blaine!"

--he wasn't Nick anymore, he didn't look real, and Blaine rushed around to the front of him, lifted his head and saw two broken teeth and remembered what his lips felt like on his after sunset, but his lips were bloody and everything was broken and he curled over him, sobbing--"Mike, Mike--"

"Someone, help!"

--there was a ringing in his ears, a flat tone that drove him mad, and he gripped Mike's shoulders so hard his fingers bit the skin---

"Stay with me, it's gonna be okay, stay here, Blaine!"

--bitingbitingbiting, and he was probably hurting Micheal, if he could feel anything at all, so he let go and--

"Thank you. Thank you."

--the tone stopped. It grew steady, an electric metronome in the background. He sighed and felt as though he was floating, floating, until he was sinking into the pleather backseat of a tan Taurus that was taking him away from the school. He looked to his left to see Nick staring out the window, holding a cloth to his face and still crying, but quietly now. Blaine looked down at his hand to see that he had a cloth as well, and he lifted it to his nose. Nick's dad glanced at him and Nick in the rearview mirror every few seconds. Nick was pressed against the car door, putting as much space between Blaine and him as was possible.

Blaine felt the tears start again.

He just wanted to go home.