The slow and simple melody
Of tears you cannot keep from me
It's alright if you don't know what you need
I'm right here when
You need someone to see
It's not speak
Or forever hold your peace
It's alright to take time
And find where you've been
You are perfect porcelain

Kurt was grateful when March rolled around. The temperatures began to slowly rise, melting and washing away the memory of winter. Kurt hated winter. Besides an excuse to dress with so many layers, winter was nothing but lack of sunlight and a bunch of holidays for him to spend by himself as a reminder that both of his parents were gone and he was forced inside by a monster he called uncle. The end of winter meant, of course, the arrival of spring. With spring came sunshine and rebirth; A new beginning for the world around him, and this year, for himself.

On a Thursday morning before school, Kurt happily placed his heavy winter coat back into his closet, pulling out a much lighter one, a red one, and threw it around him in the rush to get out of the house and enjoy as much warmth as the morning allowed him before he disappeared into the school for the next eight hours.

It wasn't until he was walking through the parking lot of McKinley, when Kurt placed his keys in his pocket, that he noticed that his pockets weren't empty. Inside the silk lined pocket was a piece of paper. As he walked down the hallways towards his locker to get ready for another exhausting day of avoiding Blaine, Kurt pulled out the folded up notebook paper, unfolding its creases and instantly recognized the first line on the page was written in Blaine's hand writing. Clean black ink pen strokes against the page in a note that Blaine had passed to him in English. When they were just partners for a project. When they hadn't yet kissed.

I'm excited to go over to your house today.

Why? You're there almost every day. And all we ever do is homework.

Top Model is on Kurt. Top Model.

Kurt remembered laughing then and he laughed again in the mostly empty halls.

You're ridiculous.

I'm obsessed. And it's all your fault.

Some people get blamed for nuclear disasters. I get blamed for Blaine Anderson's addictions to reality television.

Someone has to take on that burden.

Kurt couldn't contain the smile that played on his lips at the same time his chest tightened just enough to make him want to crawl back into bed and hide underneath the covers until the feeling faded. The feeling that ate at him on a daily basis. The feeling that hadn't gone away since he'd broken up with Blaine weeks ago. He'd always imagined what it would be like to fall in love. And in a way, despite the less than stellar circumstances, and the lies that he wished he could tell, it was everything he thought it would be. The flirtatious smiles, the lustful eyes. Dissolving at the touch of another while a tidal wave of heat crashed low in your belly. Quick kisses, long kisses, and not wanting to spend a single moment without each other. But now, he wasn't sure how to make himself fall out of love. And he wasn't sure that he really wanted to. But he needed to. Didn't he? He'd made up his mind a long time ago that a clean break was the best way to escape the small town. If he could leave Lima with no friends and no family and no boyfriend, than he could create a different life, one without all the bad that had accumulated over the years, one that couldn't come back and haunt him. But things had changed over the last six months. He couldn't run away as easily from the things he'd once wanted nothing more to do with. Rachel was going to New York. He wasn't about to go into a strange city without knowing a single soul, he would have his best friend. But then there was Blaine. Was it possible to keep a relationship with Blaine despite the distance? Despite the fact that he never intended on stepping one foot in Lima once he was gone? Was it fair? No. But could Kurt be faulted if he wanted to want it? Absolutely not. Blaine had become something more to him in just six short months. He'd become his second best friend. He was the first person that Kurt let in after he'd vowed to be alone as long as he was in Lima. Kurt wasn't sure anymore that he could just pack everything up and throw all of that away.

The Monday after Kurt found the note from Blaine, the questions and doubts were still circling violently in his mind. That morning Kurt read over the note for the hundredth time from the front row of the auditorium while Rachel stood center stage rehearsing what she hoped would be her solo performance for nationals. He read it over and over as if somewhere in Blaine's words was the answer to everything. But the solution he longed for wasn't hidden in innocent note passed between two friends. But he felt like it was locked inside of him. He just had to figure out how to get it out.

Kurt, lost in his own thoughts, didn't hear when Rachel stopped signing or when she hit pause on her iPod leaving only the buzzing of the lights and the sound of Rachel's shoes as she stomped towards the front of the stage, calling Kurt's name and startling him back to reality. He hated reality.

"Just talk to him," Rachel said, looking down at him from the stage, her hands on her hips, "You're obviously still beating yourself up over how you ended everything."

Kurt huffed as he sank lower in his seat, "And what am I supposed to say?"

"Try I'm sorry. It usually works perfectly when trying to make amends with someone," Rachel said coming to sit on the tip of the stage in front of Kurt.

"Isn't it easier if he hates me?"

"He doesn't hate you."

"He should," Kurt said hiding his face behind the note that he had showed Rachel the day he'd found it, "Plus, even if he accepts my apology, it's not going to change anything."

"It doesn't have to change anything, but it would make both of you feel better," Rachel said

Kurt hung his head and groaned, "I hate when you're right. Do I have to do it right now?"

"No. But you should probably do it soon," Rachel said standing up again, "Because even if you can't be with Blaine the way you want to be, which I still don't understand but I'm being supportive, won't it be better to leave for New York without all those negative feelings. Haven't you had enough of those to last a lifetime?"

Kurt nodded and a half smile played on his lips. Because despite how much he hated when Rachel was right, he really did have the best best friend anyone could ask for. Kurt checked his watch, if he left now, he could meet Blaine at their lockers before he went off to class. But he didn't. He stayed put while Rachel went back to rehearsing her solo. If he wanted to make things right with Blaine, at least maybe be his friend again, he'd need to plan something more than a simple I'm sorry. He'd need to find a way to explain everything to Blaine without actually telling him everything. Was that even possible?

It took a couple of days for Kurt to figure out what he was going to say to Blaine. He had to come up with the perfect words, the words that would hopefully make Blaine forgive him, even just a little bit, for the way Kurt had treated him. But he didn't find the courage to actually say everything he'd come up with to Blaine until the end of the week.

He'd let Rachel know that he would be late meeting her in the auditorium that morning (he didn't actually tell her what would be making him late in case he chickened out) and waited at his locker for Blaine to show up. But Blaine must've been running late because he didn't appear next to Kurt until it was almost time to go to class. Kurt waited until Blaine had his locker open, keeping himself occupied by pretending he was searching for something inside. But he couldn't keep standing there or the anxiety of the whole situation was going to swallow him whole. With a deep breath, Kurt shut his locker door and turned to face Blaine.

"Hey," Kurt said, his voice small and trembling so much that when Blaine didn't immediately react to his words Kurt was worried that Blaine hadn't heard him.

"What do you want Kurt?" Blaine said closing the door to his locker and after a moment of hesitation, turned his head to look at Kurt who was taken aback by the icy tone of Blaine's voice and the daggers that were shooting from his eyes. He'd been expecting it, but nothing could have prepared him for actually seeing it.

"Hi, uh," Kurt said bouncing on his feet as he tried to get everything he'd planned through his lips. But he was failing miserably, "I w-wanted to t-talk to you. To ex-explain what-"

"No, Kurt," Blaine said cutting him off with a sharp tone in his voice, "You can't keep doing this. I get that you're going through something that you obviously can't talk about and I'm not trying to push you into letting me in, but you can't push me away time and time again and expect me to keep coming back."

"This wasn't how any of this was supposed to happen," Kurt said, "And I just need you to know that I'm sorry."

There was more that he wanted to say. He wanted to tell him that he was in love with him. That breaking up with him was one of the most painful things he'd ever done in his entire life. And he knew pain. That the ache was with him every moment of every day. That Blaine could make it better, the it he didn't even know about, by just holding his hand or, even better, wrapping his arms around him, making him feel safe. But Blaine was angry and he couldn't actually say all those things. So he settled for sorry.

"I-I can't keep sticking around until the other shoe drops and you run away again before coming back, apologizing again. It would be really stupid of me if I let you be that selfish."

"I'm not—"

"Maybe, you are, maybe you aren't. But either way, I don't want to hear it, Kurt. Not today. I don't know if you're apologizing because it'll make you feel better about breaking up with me through your front door or because you actually mean it."

"I do, Blaine. I really do mean it. "

"Well then maybe I'm just not ready to care," Blaine said turning for a moment, looking at Kurt. His eyes locked with Kurt's and Kurt struggled not to break down and cry. The hurt look in Blaine's eyes, the look that he'd put there, tore right into him, deeper and more painful than anything his uncle could ever do to him. And now that he'd tried, and failed, at apologizing he wondered if Blaine would ever be able to look at him with the same honey hued eyes that had once been so bright, so passionate, so loving when they looked into Kurt's.

As Blaine stomped away without another word, Kurt was certain that they would not.

For the next week, Kurt took extra precaution to make sure he didn't run into Blaine at all. He'd even ducked into the guy's washroom once, hiding in the stall for five minutes until coast was clear and he wouldn't have to deal with the ever increasing awkwardness at their lockers. Blaine must have been doing the same thing because on Wednesday when Kurt was running late and skipped his morning meeting with Rachel and arrived at school per his old schedule, a schedule that should have meant that he would come face to face with Blaine at their lockers, found Blaine's locker blocked by a couple of freshman making out with Blaine nowhere in sight.

By Friday he was actually glad the week was over. Now that Uncle Tim had been working during the day for a while, Kurt had been able to put together a perfect schedule for himself at home which had only allowed him to cross paths with his uncle twice, but the older man just walked past with him with not so much as a glance. His plan seemed to be working. The light at the end of the tunnel was a speck, but it was finally in sight.

Kurt walked into the auditorium, expecting to see Rachel waiting for him, but he found nothing but the piano sitting in the middle of the stage. He threw his bag up on top and sat down on the bench, his fingers ghosting over the ivory keys. It had been a very long time since he'd last played the piano. He started taking lessons when he was six and would practice with his mom every night. When she died, he kept going to the lessons and sitting at the piano in the family room every night to play. It made him feel closer to her. But when his dad died and he and Uncle Tim moved into a different house, just up the road, the house was much smaller and they had to sell the piano. From then on outside of some Glee rehearsals, Kurt never really got a chance to sit down and tickle the ivory.

"I'm sorry," a voice said breaking Kurt from his thoughts, "I'm supposed to be meeting Rachel here."

Kurt looked up and found Blaine standing there nervously and, thankfully, not looking as angry as he had the week before.

"I'm meeting Rachel here," Kurt said standing up from the piano bench.

"Oh," Blaine said, "Maybe she just forgot that she was meeting you when she asked me. I'll just text her and we can reschedule."

"She didn't forget," Kurt said over Blaine who had begun rambling.

Blaine looked at Kurt, bewildered. God he was so adorable.

"She set us up," Kurt explained, "This is her way of getting us to talk to each other."

"Oh."

Kurt pulled his phone from his pocket and immediately dialed Rachel's number, "Let me just call her," Kurt said as the phone rang in his ear.

No answer.

A moment later, Blaine's phone buzzed in his hand Kurt watched as Blaine busied himself with checking it a moment before his own phone went off. He had a text.

'Tell him' was all that it said.

"That was Rachel," Blaine said as Kurt looked back up at him, "She says 'Let him tell you'."

Kurt didn't know whether to be grateful or to be furious. Grateful that she'd done the hard part for him; she initiated the conversation. Blaine knew he had something to say so now all he had to do was say it right. But no, he decided, he should be furious with her. Rachel lured him and Blaine to the auditorium for the sole purpose of Kurt telling Blaine his deepest and darkest secret. Telling Blaine everything was a risk, a risk Kurt and only Kurt would have to take. And that risk could cost him everything.

"You don't have to tell me," Blaine said, "I can tell your freaking out."

"I want to," Kurt said as his heart rate quickened, "I'm just not sure I know how."

"You don't have to," Blaine repeated.

"It's just," Kurt started, continuing only after he'd taken a moment to collect his thoughts, "It's not a little secret. It's kind of huge actually. And if I tell you, you're going to see me differently, you might even pity me. And I don't want that. But I hope that if I tell you, you will see that I'm not trying to run from people, not intentionally at least. I'm not being selfish."

"I'm sorry for the way I acted the other day. I didn't mean to be so cruel."

"You have every right to be angry with me, Blaine."

"I'm not angry," Blaine said continuing after a moment of thick silence between them, "I'm just hurt."

"I know. And I hate that I hurt you," Kurt chocked out, his voice breaking, "But another reason I'm afraid to tell you, of telling anyone, is that telling you could hurt me. If anyone else found out—"

"I won't tell a soul, Kurt. If you tell me I won't tell a soul. I lo-," Blaine started without thinking but realizing this wasn't the time or place for slip ups like that, "I'd never betray your trust like that."

"I won't hold you to those promises until you've heard what I have to say," Kurt said, "We're going to miss class if I tell you everything now."

"I don't care," Blaine said.

"Okay," Kurt said taking a deep breath, he wasn't sure where to even start, "I guess I'll start from the beginning."