"Hey Kurt! Over here!" Kurt watched Rachel wave emphatically from her chair as he walked down an aisle of the auditorium. She was sitting with the rest of the glee club only three rows from the front. There was an empty seat between her and Mercedes towards the end of the row. He rushed up and began shimmying his way past the other members of the club, who greeted him with a few "hey"s. He slumped down into his seat, facing the front and waiting anxiously.

"I wonder what this is going to be about!" Rachel exclaimed to no one in particular. Kurt decided to ignore her as he focused on his own nerves. Principal Figgins was in the front of the auditorium, speaking with someone he'd never seen before. A microphone stood in front of them.

"Still keeping Ms. Lieding's promise until the end?" Mercedes said lowly in his ear. Kurt turned to her.

"Oh yeah, you're in that class with me," he blurted out. She sat on the other side of the room.

"Yeah, and you never talk. I'm sure that you have valuable things to say, so speak up. We're singing for them tomorrow, anyway; she bought a gram during my lunch period and said that she wanted to hear my renowned vocal runs," Mercedes pushed her hair over her shoulders. "I don't know how much I could do during 'Sleigh Ride'! Anyway, she'll finally hear your voice!" She laughed.

"I participate!" Kurt insisted. "You're too busy checking out that guy in front of you to pay attention."

Mercedes laughed again and raised her hands up in defeat. "Guilty as charged," she said. Kurt smiled with her.

The small talk died, and Kurt turned back to the front, his hands gripping at his knees. How would BD-Blaine-go about presenting their opinions? How would he incorporate the books? What if-Kurt rubbed his hands up and down his thighs-what if Blaine mentioned that he worked with someone?

The microphone screeched, tearing Kurt from his thoughts and burning his ears. Principal Figgins was standing by the stand, tapping the microphone furiously.

"Testing, testing? Can you hear me?" He practically shouted, enunciating each word. When he realized that everyone was covering their ears from the volume, he lowered his voice. "Okay. Good morning everyone. We have a very special event for you today. First, I want to inform you that disrespect will not be tolerated, and that we expect that you pay attention at all times. Now I will read the introduction.

"From Westerville, Ohio, our presenter has always harbored an infatuation for written word. He taught himself how to read at a very young age, and it quickly became one of his favorite hobbies aside from performing and bow-tie shopping," Principal Figgins stopped for a second, confusion written all over his face from what he just said. He shook his head and continued: "Now he wishes to share his love for books with the rest of you, since everything is now focused on technology and so on. Without any further ado, put your hands together for Mr. Blaine Anderson!"

Kurt watched as the boy he saw earlier appeared from the right wing of the stage, hopping onto the ground from the edge and striding to the microphone. He looked the same as before, just a tad bit jittery. Kurt, however, still could not get over how absolutely stunning he looked. There were a few sporadic claps; everyone seemed confused.

"Hot damn, I wasn't expecting acutenerd," Kurt heard Mercedes mutter under her breath. All Kurt could think about, was Blaine's full name, which had finally been revealed to him. It all fit together.B, Blaine;D, possibly Devon;A, Anderson.

"Yo, what's going on? I thought we were going to have an old dude or something," Puck yelled, earning a few laughs. Kurt watched as Blaine looked up from what he was holding in his hands—the Book!—and grinned at Puck. He leaned over the microphone.

"I realize this is a little different, yes. I am, in fact, Blaine Anderson, and I'm a junior at Dalton Academy. I was instructed not to tell you that last bit, but I might as well, since a book isn't interesting if you know nothing about the main character. A book also is not interesting without a story or conflict, so I guess I'll give you some background about me, something that makes me different than everyone else.

"When I was younger, I wasn't accepted by people at my school simply for my different tastes. I was bullied, ignored, friendless, and eventually, I got beaten up. I transferred to Dalton because the public school just wasn't right for me.

"You may think that I got bullied for being a nerd or whatever. No. That's not the case. I was bullied because I'm gay." Kurt could feel all of the eyes belonging to the members of the glee club on him; he ignored them and continued to keep his eyes glued on Blaine. He became as still as a statue. "Just as girls have a different taste in clothing, or guys support different football teams, I have a different taste in gender from what is defined as "the norm". Even though I accepted who I was, no one else could, so I left. However, I'm not going to make this presentation a sob story, and I don't want any of your pity. I didn't wallow in my sorrow, either, when my life was at its lowest point. I did something about it. The way that I dealt with this pain, this misery I was experiencing, was through books.

"I don't want to make this about not doing drugs, or spending endless hours doing mindless stuff on the Internet, or watching television all of the time, etc. etc. etc., but honestly, there are so many other ways to deal with life than to use stuff that harms your body. I'm not going to use any statistics or numbers, because frankly I can't remember any (and you'd all forget them within the next few minutes, I can assure you), but last time I checked, reading is a lot healthier than all of those things. Just think about it. Yes, books may cause an expensive addiction if you like buying them, but that's what libraries are for," Blaine paused for a second, a warm smile on his face as if he was remembering a good memory. Kurt smiled as well; he knew exactly what Blaine was thinking about. The whole room was silent; hanging on to Blaine's every word. "As I was saying, I guess the point of this whole presentation is to revive reading.

"Some of you may be thinking, 'Well yeah, I read texts and Facebook postings all the time!' Let's be serious here. There's no plot or true meaning behind 'Procrastinating on insert-teacher's-name's essay'. You just gained some simple, unnecessary information from someone you've probably talked to once or twice in your life. Books aren't like that. They're..." He stopped.

"'Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light'" Blaine began speaking again. Kurt felt his heart stop for a second. He knew that quote all too well.

"Oh," he muttered under his breath.

"I'm sure a few of you recognized that quote, however, it's not from the book, but rather the movieHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. The book is definitely better than the movie, at least in my opinion...nevertheless, it's definitely a quote worthy of Albus Dumbledore, one of the greatest figures in literature. Now I feel it is appropriate to mention that I was not alone in this project. The person who worked on this with me truly is the manifestation of this quote.

"My friend," Kurt could feel himself shaking in his seat, "has been going through a pretty rough time. By some miracle, he found this Book," Blaine held up the blue Book Kurt had held countless times before, "and decided to write to me." Blaine flipped it open to one of the first pages. "'Tag your spoilers, please!'Charming, right? Those were his first words to me. I would have never guessed that underneath those words, he was going through such a rough time in his life, as I learned while we continued to communicate. However, he was able to 'turn on the light', despite all of the countless setbacks he faced. Do you know what helped him? Books."

You, more than anything, though, Kurt thought, feeling his heart begin to swell at Blaine's thoughtful words.

"He found an escape through them. He shared his opinions about them. Through these criticisms, I could just tell how much these books touched him. When you read a really good book, it's not just a one-time experience: it becomes a part of you. It stays engrained in your heart forever. They teach you not only about the general plot, characters, and so on, but about life lessons. They enhance your emotions. They enhance your being.

"My friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, is a true inspiration to me. He got right back up when he was knocked down (literally), and continued to be himself. He found a way to deal with these problems, not through doing stuff like taking drugs, but by experiencing an even better 'high' by reading. I think he's incredibly brave. Honestly, when is the last time you read a book on your own? Not for school, just because you wanted to." He paused, allowing everyone to reflect on this. Kurt was staring into his lap, trying as hard as he could to blink back the tears that Blaine had brought from within him.True inspiration...incredibly brave....it was all too much.

"Exactly. Now here is my challenge to you: I'm quite sure that most of you probably zoned out during this, or fell asleep, or tried to finish some homework, and so on, but I want to make sure that my message somewhat gets across. Although I hate how I have to do this, I need to give you a little incentive to go through with this contest." Kurt watched as a few heads perked up at the word "contest".

"I challenge all of you to read a book. One book, that's all I ask. After you read it, I want you to write about it. No, I do not want an essay. Please, for the love of God, don't send me an essay. I have school work to do too, you know, being a student like you. Just three sentences will suffice: I need evidence that you actually read the book, and then I want at least one sentence about how you felt about it, how it relates to your life, and so on. Scratch out what I said before; if you need to explain how it made you felt or whatever in a whole essay, go ahead. I understand.

"If I just left it at that, I'm sure that I'd maybe get a few papers back. Again, however, I meant for this whole project to be a revival movement. Whoever writes the 'best' review, i.e., they give evidence that they read the book and give a truly moving response about how the book affect them, will get a prize, which I will explain in a second. I don't need it to be super wordy or cerebral, you just need to get your point across to me, so I know that you understand what I mean by the fact that books reach into you and augment your thinking.

"Now for the prize: you will win a night with me. By 'night', I mean that if you like football, I'll take you out to the next Buckeyes game (which I conveniently have really good seats for). If you like a whole 'girl's night out' thing, I'm all for it; I can pay for dinner and everything. If you like being serenaded, I can bust a tune-"

"Oh really? Sure you can," Puck called out. From what Kurt could tell, serenading "the ladies" was his thing, and only his thing.

"Alright, uh, let's see... 'You think I'm pretty without any make-up on,'" Blaine sang in perfect pitch. Puck did not reply. Kurt felt himself melt a little. His voice was better than any sound he'd ever heard. "Okay, I think you get the point. So basically, I'll be back in a month to announce who's the winner—in the meantime, I'm going to put a box in the local library for you to put your submissions in. I go there every day, so...yeah. I know this must have been pretty boring, and I'm sure you don't really care about what I have to say, but honestly, you need to go experience it for yourself. If I get one of you, just one of you to go pick up a book by yourself, I would be over the moon. Just knowing that this impacted one of you would mean the world to me, and yourself. You will escape your life and become engaged in something completely new and different, whether it's a different world or a small town in New Jersey or whatever. I don't even care if you readTwilight. Just try something new. As my good friend quoted from Marilyn Monroe, '...it's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring'.Step out of your comfort zone, try something new. Thank you, and have a nice day." Kurt clapped along with the other students, with more enthusiasm than their mechanical, customary intentions. He watched Blaine shake the hands of the principal and the superintendent, and then walk up the stairs to the stage. He took one last look into the crowd; Kurt could have sworn that his eyes stayed glued onto Kurt for a second. Blaine Anderson then vanished from Kurt's view.

"C'mon, Kurt, let's get to class." Mercedes said, standing up—Principal Figgins had begun to dismiss everyone from the auditorium.

"Wait a second," a hand wound around his right wrist. Kurt looked up into the wide eyes of Rachel Berry. "Was that who I think it was?"

Kurt felt his own eyes widen. He told her, and she remembered! She remembered right in front of the rest of the glee club.

"It was! It was! That's whatever his name was! You were the friend he was talking about! Oh my God, that's so cute! You two totally need to get together. If he was into girls, well, I'd've already claimed him as my own, but then again, I have Finn," she giggled, "Mercedes, you have to know about this!"

"Know about what?" Mercedes asked.

Oh no, Kurt thought.