~

Blaine walked downstairs the morning after, groggy from sleep. The aroma of coffee filled his nose as he stepped into the kitchen, his bare feet padding against the hardwood floors. His aunt spun around, her curly blonde hair pulled into a bun. His aunt must have been a total heart breaker when she was younger. Not that she wasn’t pretty now, but there was something about her face; it was sad. When she smiled, though, Blaine thought he saw a little bit of the aunt he never knew, the younger and less troubled one.

April held a cup of coffee in her hands, and she gestured to the pot of the strong liquid on the counter. “Want some?”

Blaine shook his head. “No, thanks.” It was a sin to drink coffee. As he sat down, he couldn’t help but inhale deeply. He didn’t know why drinking coffee was bothering him so much; considering what he had done recently, drinking coffee was a cake walk. ‘No sin is an okay sin,’ he thought to himself. His mouth watered. What was it that seemed so appealing to him about it? Was it the sheer smell? Or was it the temptation it was imposing on him? He bit his tongue, and the next thing he knew, his lips were set against a cup of it. His nose wrinkled at the first sip, but by the third he was gulping it down like he was dying of dehydration. His aunt offered him cream and sugar, but he shook his head. He wanted the bitter truth the coffee was giving him.

It was the best thing he had ever tasted.

“So,” April said, leaning on the table to study her nephew, holding her mug of coffee in both hands. “Today I figured I’d teach you how to ride a horse. I have to shepherd the cattle in a few days time and I could use all the help I can get. What do you say?”

Blaine couldn’t help it; his eyes brightened. “I can learn to ride a horse? Really?” he asked, and his aunt just smiled and nodded. He felt the first bit of happiness he’d felt in a long time. Well, besides yesterday...but he stopped himself and abruptly stood up.

“I’ll, um, go get dressed and ready then.” He said, turning to the stairs.

“Okay, meet me in the barn whenever you’re ready.” His aunt replied, turning back to the window and sipping her coffee again.

Blaine didn’t reply as he dragged himself up the stairs. Suddenly there was a bad aftertaste in his mouth.

All night he had clutched his cross necklace to his chest, squeezing his eyes shut and willing the thoughts in his mind to go away. He wished he could just take them all out, like a poisonous rattlesnake bite. He couldn’t be having these thoughts. Not again. He couldn’t be thinking of Kurt’s full lips and the way his eyes danced when he smiled, or the way his skin was still a pale cream despite the harsh Nevada sun, or the way his chest had gleamed in that sunlight...he had to stop, before this got out of hand.

Tears prickled Blaine’s eyes as he began getting dressed into the only pair of jeans he owned. His father said proper men never wore jeans; they were too informal, but he needed a pair for when he worked. They were worn and a little too small for him now, so they clung to this thighs and he shifted uncomfortably in them, pulling on a white t-shirt (also the only casual shirt he owned) and slipping his shoes on, wiping his eyes and staring at himself in the mirror.

He didn’t know who he was anymore.

“Clich�” isn’t the right word, but it’s the first one that comes to mind.

His eyes were big and the circles around them make him look like a deer in headlights, his long eyelashes blinking through the tears threatening to spill over the edge. His chin was quivering from trying not to cry, and he couldn’t even look anymore. The physical wasn’t helping him figure out who he is on the inside.

~

Laughter echoed into the dark night sky, a small and insignificant sound in the landscape surrounding it. The air is still warm and there’s no breeze, and the moon is directly overhead, casting a silvery film over everything in it’s sight. Stars twinkle in the dark sky, and so does Blaine’s eyes as he looks around him. The crackles of a bonfire against bare sand fill the minuscule silences between laughter and conversation, giving the air around the group of teenagers a leisurely and care-free atmosphere in the late-night desert.

He doesn’t even know half of the people he’s with. Keith, the guy he’s sitting next to, the guy who invited him, is in his AP Biology class. The girl across from him, Jackie, is in his Calculus, and so is the girl next to her, Cassandra. Then there’s about seven other people from his school, faces he’s seen before but never really seen before. They weren’t his normal crowd of ‘friends’ at school, but lately he’d gotten to hanging out with them. His group, aka the Mormons at his school, were expressing a little concern at his lack of appearance to their lunch table, but Blaine just waved them away. There was nothing wrong with him spreading his wings a little, and besides, Blaine had known most of them since he was little, thanks to church and living in a small suburb of Salt Lake City; he needed a break.

In the past few weeks he’d felt something stirring in him, and he wasn’t sure what it was, but there was something changing in him. In church, when he wasn’t doing homework or chores or sleeping, he wasn’t really listening. What was the point? He could practically recite the Bible by now, not like that was a bad thing, but still; why did they need to study it so much? Shouldn’t they be out there, practicing everything God was telling them? Shouldn’t they be out there, helping people and spreading His word to help make the world a better place, instead of sitting in this room reading the same book over and over again?

Just the thought of the Bible filled him with guilt, and he focused on the fire, biting his lip. He clasped his hands and rested them on his knees, as if he were about to pray. All he wanted was for one night to be normal. He didn’t want to think about anything; he just wanted to be a normal teenage boy hanging out with some friends. Especially Keith. ‘No, not especially Keith,’ he corrected himself. ‘Just your friends.’ Right. Just friends.

After all, that’s what he and Keith were, right? There wasn’t anything special between them. Sure, they had been hanging out a lot lately, but all guy friends hung out outside of school together. Sure, they had been passing notes during class, and yeah, Keith had sent him a wink that nearly melted Blaine in his seat, but he had gone straight home and prayed, trying to convince himself that this was all normal; yet, no matter how much he prayed and tried to convince himself otherwise, he couldn’t help but fall asleep every night thinking about him.

“What are you thinking about?”

A startled shudder swept through Blaine as he was jolted out of his thoughts. He looked towards the source of the voice and found that Keith was staring at him with a curious look in his eyes, his head cocked to the side. He smiled and laughed a little, shaking his head. “S-sorry, I was just zoning out.”

Keith bumped Blaine’s shoulder with his own and chuckled. “Hey, no worries. I’d just hate for you to spend a night like this lost in thought, when you could be lost in so many other things.”

Blaine’s heartbeat skipped a beat, and he looked at the fire in hopes that his skin wasn’t burning up like the flames in front of him were. “What do you mean?” He asked. He turned when he felt Keith’s body shifting closer, an internal battle being fought inside of his head.

“You tell me.” Keith whispered, looking from Blaine’s eyes to his lips and back again.

Blaine faltered, unable to think of something to say before Keith’s lips were on his own. Blaine was frozen, in shock, before his brain started up and he pushed Keith away from him, tears beginning to spring into his eyes.

“Wh-why did you do that?” He asked, panic beginning to pump in his veins instead of blood. His eyes were wide and he was shaking, scared. He should never have agreed to coming. What was he thinking? Father Smyth’s voice echoed in his head; ‘Be not deceived; abusers of themselves with other men shall not inherit the kingdom of God (Corinthians 6:9)’.

His heart ached.

Keith, however, seemed undisturbed, still wearing a half-smile that Blaine couldn’t help but think as beautiful.

“Well, you’re gay, dude, so I thought you wouldn’t mind-”

Blaine shot up, standing and glaring at him. “I-I’m not gay!” He snapped, trying to cover up the gem of fear in his eyes.

“Really?” Keith said, laughing and standing up, his nose a mere inch away from Blaine’s. Blaine could feel his breath on his lips. “Awfully defensive, aren’t you? Poor Blaine, a good Mormon boy, yet he’s almost as far in the closet as his mommy and daddy’s wedding vows.”

Blaine took a step away. Why did it suddenly feel as though everyone else was gone? Why was Keith doing this to him? “What does that even mean?” He spat, trying to seem fiercer than he felt.

Keith followed him, accusation in his face and tacit dripping from his voice. “It means that, try as hard as you may, you aren’t fooling anyone, Blaine Anderson, much less me. You want to kiss me right now, don’t you?”

“That’s the last thing I want!” Blaine yelled, turning to walk away.

“You look me in the eye and tell me that you really mean that.”

“Controversion” isn’t the right word, but it’s the first one that comes to mind.

‘Don’t turn around, don’t turn around, don’t turn around,’ Blaine begged himself, feeling the tears threatening to spill over his cheeks.

He felt Keith pressing up against his back, his breath making the hair on his neck prickle. “What are you so afraid of?” He hissed, slipping a hand around Blaine’s waist and spinning him around. Blaine tried not to look at Keith’s face as he attempted to move away, but Keith just grabbed his cheek and forced Blaine to look him in the face.

“Say you don’t want to kiss me.”

Blaine stares up at Keith, and shame fills his voice as he chokes, “I want to.”

Their lips crash, but this time Blaine doesn’t fight it. He lets the humiliation and the want and the pain and the instinct take over him as he and Keith kiss. It tastes salty from his tears and it tastes salty from their sweat; this kiss is nothing but bitter. It’s only minutes later when Keith’s hand begins to slide down towards the hem of Blaine’s pants that what he’s doing hits him.

However, it doesn’t hit him quite as hard as the headlights that suddenly glare in his eyes.

Blaine springs away from Keith faster than he can blink, and he stares in horror as his father steps out of the truck, slamming the door. He can barely see his father against the headlights, but Blaine doesn’t want to see the expression on his face right now.

“Get in the car.”

He doesn’t give Keith the satisfaction of seeing the tears falling down his cheeks as he trudges to the passenger side of the car, shutting it quietly. His dad gets back in and then they’re driving across the desert towards the road, towards home. His father doesn’t say anything, so Blaine tries to hide the fact that he’s terrified, sniffing quietly and wiping his eyes. He’s half expecting his dad to pull a gun out of the hand glove compartment and hold it to his head. ‘I don’t deserve any less’, he thinks to himself, staring out the window. He can still feel Keith’s lips on his own.

They get home, and his dad kills the engine, opening the door and getting out, slamming it harshly. Blaine follows him into the house, and the sound of the door closing sounds like a guillotine being dropped on his head. He doesn’t look away from the floor, beginning to hyperventilate. He can hear his sisters in the living room, playing with dolls in front of the television. He can smell the lingering scent of dinner coming from the kitchen. He can feel the last breath of the heater as it shuts down for a while. He knows he’ll remember everything about this night for the rest of his life.

He isn’t surprised when his dad’s fist collides with his head, with a force that made his head spin. His body tries to follow it as he falls towards the wall, but another fist aims for his stomach, stopping him in his tracks. His back hits the ground. He gasps as his father begins to kick him in the ribs.

“Do you feel this, Blaine?” his dad yells, accentuating each word with another blow. Something cracks and Blaine’s vision blurs in pain as a rib snaps. “This is God punishing you for what you did! I will not let you become a fag, Blaine Anderson! Do you here me? Not in my house, not ever!” His dad grabs him by the collar and drags him up, punching him in the jaw again. Blood pours from Blaine’s lip and his eyes are stinging with tears. “God did not sacrifice His son so you could fuck around with other men and taint His world, you sick son of a bitch! I did not raise a sinner!”

His ears are ringing with his fathers’ words, and he can smell the whiskey on his fathers’ breath. In the back of his mind, he knows he deserves this. He deserves all of this. His father lets him fall to the ground with a thud, stepping over him. “You’re going to stop this, Blaine,” his dad says through clenched teeth.

“Even if I have to beat it out of you every goddamn day.”

“Detest” isn’t the right word, but it’s the first one that comes to mind.

~

Blaine was still staring himself in the eyes through the mirror, lost in memory. He had the bruises and scars to prove that his father had been true to his word. Each one reminded him that what he was trying to fight was unnatural, sick, and completely against what God wanted. He just wanted to prove to God and his father that he could still be a good person, that he deserved to be happy, but that would never happen.

He left down the stairs and out the door, blinding for a moment by the bright sunlight. He stopped on the porch and just stared out at the world in front of him. It was so beautiful, and yet so desolate. He wondered why God would make deserts in the first place; they were so lonely. There was nothing for them to look forward to; no trees to take care of, no animals to have depending on them, nothing but sun and scalding sun and freezing nights. It seemed to get the worst of what God had to offer, and for the life of him, Blaine couldn’t figure out what the desert had done to deserve it.

The gravel crunched underneath his black shoes as he approached the barn. He heard voices coming from the back, so he headed back there curiously, running a hand over his hair, which he had gelled back like always. Even if he wasn’t in his normal white shirt and black pants, he was still going to try to look as presentable as possible. Besides, he wanted to hide as much of his body as possible.

“Aunt A?” He called as he opened the barn door, the musky scent of hay and feed and wood overwhelming him. He walked in and saw his aunt stepping into a stall where her brown horse was. She turned to smile at him.

“Blaine! Glad you finally found your way out of the house!” she teased, coaxing her horse out. “I’m going to attempt to get Snare out of her stall, so why don’t you go see Kurt and he’ll give you some riding lessons?”

Blaine froze. “K-Kurt’s here?”