"I love you."

Blaine smiled at me from across the table, a goofy smile lighting up his face. His golden eyes twinkled at me mischievously, but I nearly choked on my coffee as his words registered in my mind. Something stirred in my chest - something I wasn't willing to identify - so I pushed the feeling away. Every thought I'd ever had rushed to the front of my mind as I attempted to formulate a response, panic squeezing my heart painfully. My fingers began to twitch, and a headache made itself known as my temple throbbed with each heartbeat. Quickly my breathing escalated, and I knew I was quickly on my way to a fullblown panic attack. "I-"

"You don't need to say it back." Blaine shook his head, but I saw through his placating smile. His hand reached over the table and found mine. I latched on to him and squeezed, needing skin to skin contact. "I just want you to know." My eyes shut and the world became dark - for a moment my breathing came easier and my heart stopped racing quite so hard. Trembles still shook my wrists and fingers, but eventually the anxiety faded. I reopened my eyes and Blaine was still there, worry in his eyes. His calloused thumb stroked the tender skin of my palm. My eyes filled with tears of gratitude that I blinked away. "Sorry," I whispered.

"Don't be."

I awoke in a cold sweat, my chest heaving heavily as I sucked in oxygen quickly. The nightmare I'd been having more and more lately was terrifying, and now more real than ever. To most it wouldn't be that frightening – no clowns with razor sharp teeth or giant spiders – but it hurt me because it was a reminder of just how crippling my fear used to be. A few words would be said to me, and no matter what they were, I would freeze and my body would go numb and I would just stare at the person, my mind flailing because I could never answer back. This particular dream had been plaguing me since I'd first met Blaine and truly knew how I felt about him – I guess in my subconscious, I was afraid he was going to tell me he how he felt and I wouldn't be able to say it back.

As I calmed down and my breathing slowed to a normal pace, it registered in my mind where I was. It was my bed, in my Dalton dorm room, and sunlight was streaming through the window on this beautiful sunny Saturday, and my left side was unusually hot. I looked down and was just a tad surprised to see Blaine's arm across my chest, his face turned away from me as he slept soundly on his stomach. I ran my fingers lightly through his messy brown curls as memories of our night together flooded back to me, causing my cheeks to heat up and my heart to speed up. It was only then that I became aware of just how naked we both were, his left side aligning with mine. I took the opportunity to admire the muscles that stretched under the skin of his back, flexing as he buried his face into my pillow and tightening his arm on my waist. I brushed my fingertips along each line of sinew and muscle, circling the birth mark at the base of his neck. I'm so lucky.

My fondling must have woken Blaine from his slumber, because his gentle snoring immediately came to a stop and he turned his head toward mine. My breath caught, and I realized this was probably the most stunning I'd ever seen him – hair loose and messy, eyes half-closed and blinking sleep from them, cheeks slightly red and a lopsided smile that turned my heart to mush. "Mornin'" he grumbled, and his hoarse voice went straight through my body like an electric shock.

"Morning," I answered, lost in his dark honey eyes.

Blaine shifted on the bed, pulling his hand off me to rub at his eyes. His chest was turned to me now, the covers dipping low enough that I could just barely make out . . . I flushed, somehow embarrassed, averting my gaze back to his face. Right now, the sunlight highlighting his hair and making his skin glow, Blaine could have been some sort of Greek god, golden and transitory. I put my hand on his chest just to confirm that he was real, not some hyperrealistic projection of my imagination, noting for the first time the contrast between our skin tones. No matter what I'd ever done, my fair skin had always burned, never tanned the way I'd desperately wanted it too, to not look so much like Casper the ghost every second of the day, even in the summer.

"I like waking up next to you," Blaine said casually, scooting closer to me and pulling me to him. "You smell so nice."

I crinkled my nose. "I thought I smelled like I really needed a shower."

Blaine places a gentle kiss to my shoulder. "I could join you, if you like."

A jolt of panic shot through me, and it must have been apparent on my face because Blaine kissed away my worry. "Not if you don't want to, of course."

My humiliation at my embarrassment only increased as I felt Blaine's semi-hard member sliding against my thigh. Our eyes met at the same time, and before I could really register what I was doing, my arms were bracketing Blaine's shoulders and I lowered my hips to hips, grinding against him experimentally. Our gasps were simultaneous, the friction delicious and arousing. Our tongues met before our lips did, our teeth clashed and it turned from innocent touching to urgent thrusting all at once. Blaine ran his hands up and down my back, cupping my ass and pulling me down, increasing the pressure between us. I moaned as I felt my orgasm building up, wanting to ride it out with Blaine. By his desperate whimpers I could tell he was close too, so I reached down and took both our erections in my hand, squeezing and rubbing, bringing us both to climax. My world went dark for a moment as pleasure shook my body, and Blaine's name slipped past my lips as I collapsed bodily on top of him. For a moment I lay there, soaking in the heat of his body, before rolling away. Blaine mumbled a sigh of protest but curled up into my side, eyes closed and knees tucked to his chest. Like last night, I reached over to the bedside table, grabbed some tissues, and began wiping us down. Blaine laughed as I tickled his tummy lightly, placing gentle kisses to the toned outlines of his abs.

"Morning sex is amazing," Blaine grumbled into my neck, sucking and biting delicately at the skin there. I nodded in agreement, so sated and content that I didn't think I'd ever be able to move.

"Thank you," I said suddenly.

Blaine pulled back to be able to look into my eyes, his hands sliding into mine. "What for?"

My forehead rested against his. "For everything. For being so supportive of me as my friend, and for loving me as much as you do, and for protecting me when I needed it. Honestly I couldn't ask for anyone better."

Blaine fluttered his eyelashes as he cast his eyes down. It took me a moment to realize that he was looking at the scars on my wrists. I didn't pull away, just let him see them and run his fingers over them. They were pale and raised, so a part of me now that I hardly noticed them anymore. "How long ago?"

I felt a tightening in my throat. "Early summer." I hesitated a moment, breathing in enough oxygen to clear my head. "The first time."

Blaine's grip on my wrists tightened almost imperceptibly. "The first time?"

Now my eyes were burning with unshed tears and my throat was aching as I swallowed down sobs. I felt shame rise up in my body until it possessed every inch of me. "The first time was a suicide attempt," I choked out. I heard Blaine gasp, heard him move on the bed and whisper something that I couldn't make out, but I refused to look at him because then I knew the tears would fall. "And there was another attempt after that, involving pills."

My boyfriend's hands moved to encircle my waist and pull me close, crying gently into my shoulder. I thought maybe it was a little backwards, and shouldn't he be comforting me? But I didn't care, because I knew Blaine was picturing me dead long before we'd even met. If it had been the reverse situation, I'd be holding on so tight, knowing how close I'd come to losing him for good.

I knew what I was saying was hurting Blaine, but I had to continue. "I still cut while I was going through therapy. Here and there, when I was feeling particularly low. It wasn't with intent to take my own life; kind of the opposite, actually. I cut to feel alive. After that first time, I chased the high of that pain, kind of like a junkie with a drug. Every slice felt so brilliant and beautiful, but I was careful to make them shallow, so they would heal without a scar. The only ones on my wrists were my suicide attempt; the rest were on my thighs-," Blaine placed his hand on my inner thigh, stroking the soft skin there "—And sometimes on my stomach. Places were the cuts weren't noticeable."

Blaine was silent for such a long time, eyes closed and tears leaking from them. I had the sudden fear that maybe he'd be disgusted with me, after he knew what I did to my body, and he wouldn't want to be with me anymore. It didn't hurt to talk about this; in fact, Blaine was the one person I felt comfortable talking about my self-harm with. I trusted him wholeheartedly, with my heart and my deepest secrets.

Finally, Blaine gathered himself enough to lift his head and meet my eyes. They were so haunted, the look of a man who's been dead inside for years. I wondered briefly if this was what Blaine was like before me, away from the prying eyes of his peers. If, somehow, he was just as empty as I was. "Do you still?"

"Cut?" Blaine nodded weakly. "No."

He breathed out, clearly relieved by this. "So when did you-,"

"When we met."

His eyebrows shot up despite himself, and his grip on my hips was bruising but I didn't care.

"Remember when you gave me that whole long speak about how you knew I was hurting, and that clearly I wasn't happy with my life, but to never give up music?" Blaine's head moved up and down in concurrence. "That was sort of the turning point for me. I asked for my dad to bring me my iPod from home, something I hadn't touched in close to a year, and I listened to my favorite songs over and over, constantly, remembering why I'd loved them in the first place. Music . . . it heals the soul. It makes you understand that there's something out there that's worth you surviving so you can have it. It takes music to grasp the idea that sometimes you have to go through the worst to find the best. I was certainly at a very low point in my life when I tried to take my life, but now look at me." My mouth tipped up in a small smile despite myself. "I have the most amazing boyfriend in the whole world, and I'm at a school where people accept me for who I am, and I'm finally happy. Happiest I've been since my mom died."

"You're so inspiring, Kurt," Blaine whispered, wiping tears off my cheeks. "To have gone through so much and come out so strong because of it. I almost lost my life to bullying, but it ended up making me a more positive person. And maybe instead of brushing those people's empty words off, you took them to heart, and you believed the lies they fed you to make you feel worthless. But in the end, you came out alive; you beat the odds because you were meant to find me. We were meant to be together. I know it."

I sat up, sliding my body to rest against the headboard. My heart hurt, felt like it was splitting in two but for a good reason, because Blaine was accepting this instead of pushing it away, and a weight was suddenly lifted off my shoulders and I could breathe without pain. Making a split second decision, I opened my dresser drawer and quickly pulled out my key necklace, dropping it slowly into Blaine's palm. For a moment he just stared at it, eyes wide and glistening. I waited with bated breath, wondering what he would do. Finally he closed his fingers around it, exhaling loudly before saying, "Kurt . . ."

"Please, Blaine, don't. You know I know exactly how much it signifies. If you don't want it, then please hand it back. But I trust you completely, Blaine, and I want you to know that. I've never felt this way about anyone, and maybe we've only been a couple for twelve hours, but I've loved you since we first met. I just thought you were this annoying happy boy, with a guitar and a warm heart, but you turned out to be so much more than that. You're compassionate, and you do something to my heart that makes me miss you even when you're here in my arms, because I know, eventually, I'll have to let you go. Not to mention the sex, which is mind blowing. When you tell me you love me, Blaine, I never want to stop hearing it, and I never want to stop telling you I feel the same way. This is it. What everyone wants and very few get. It's love, but you and I both know it's so much more than that. I feel you inside my body, under my skin and laced through my mind. Every moment, every touch, every word . . . I never want to forget a single second of this. You taught me how to live again, Blaine. You taught me to see the world as a beautiful place, instead of something that could hurt me. I see now that people can't touch me if I'm above them, if I have the support to make it through day to day, because of you. And because of you I've become so independent, I'm standing on my own two feet but at the same time I'd fall apart if you left me. So please, please take this and know how much I love you."

Blaine's solid gold eyes were unreadable, and for one terrifying instant I thought he was going to hand back the necklace. But then in a swift movement, he pulled the chain over his head and let the key rest just over his heart. Seeing that necklace that I'd kept so close to me my whole life on someone else was both petrifying and exhilarating. My eyes watered but I wiped them immediately, not wanting to cry and ruin this. There was no end to this happiness, this feeling that swept over my body and made me want to dance and sing and run outside in the sunshine, enjoy little things that I'd been depriving myself of for so long because I didn't think I deserved them. But now that I had Blaine, it was apparent to me how foolish that was, how I could have been enjoying my life instead of wasting it away, wishing for something that wasn't there. I leaped into his arms and he enveloped me into a warm, naked hug, kissing my head and my arm and whatever he could reach. "I love you so much, Kurt."

"Me too," I said back, my voice thick with emotion. "Forever."

"Forever," Blaine agreed. "Thank you for telling me what happened to you. I know that must have been hard."

"It was hard, but I know you needed to know everything. That was, well, everything. I made a lot of mistakes," I grumbled miserably.

Blaine stroked my hair, pulling me in even closer until there wasn't a millimeter gap between us. "We're all only human, Kurt. And I'll never expect any more or less of you, I promise you that."