That never happens, Blaine thought to himself. Never. If Blaine’s father ever spoke to him, it was in pointed statements with little emotion involved. It was always things like, “Take this to your mother.” Or, “Deposit this check at the bank for me on your way to school, will you?” He hadn’t even said that much to him in quite a few years. But Blaine knew what this was about. In fact, he had been hoping this would happen. He just never expected it so soon; after all, he’d only stepped off the plane two hours ago.

Growing up, Blaine and his father, Gordon, bonded over anything and everything. From a young age, Blaine got excited about watching football on the couch with Gordon, and eventually asked if he could sign up to play football on a team. Gordon couldn’t have been happier teaching his son the proper way to throw a football, or how to tackle. On summer evenings, Gordon would take Blaine out for coffee ice cream after dinner (because all real Anderson men loved coffee, not chocolate or cookies & cream). Blaine asked his dad once if he could teach him to play chess, and for a month they’d spend a couple of hours a day examining strategies and learning rules. But Blaine’s favorite thing they did together was read – everything from Shakespeare, which Gordon would read aloud and explain to Blaine no matter how long it took, to Captain America, which Blaine would read aloud and explain to Gordon. Blaine was the dictionary definition of a daddy’s boy, and he didn’t want it any other way. He was, simply put, happy.

And then one day, Blaine’s father took him to Toys R Us after one of his pee-wee football games. Blaine’s team had won, and Gordon’s eyes shone with pride as his seven-year old ran up to him, drowning in slightly-too-big shoulder pads, hair damp with sweat, and tackled him in a hug. The journey to Toys R Us was always special; it was slightly out of the way of their drive home, and Blaine’s family only ever took him for real celebrations. “You can get one thing,” said Gordon when they entered the store, and Blaine took off running down the aisles, looking for something he had been wanting, he realized, for almost two whole weeks.

After a bit of searching, he walked triumphantly up to his father with a box almost the size of his torso, eyes wide and smiling.

Gordon frowned. “What’s that?”

“This is what I want,” said Blaine, looking down at the box excitedly. “Becky has the same one. She showed me how it works at her birthday party. It’s so awesome, Dad. We can use it—”

“Absolutely not.”

Blaine tilted his head to the side, as if he could somehow take in more of his father’s intention this way. “What do you mean?”

“You can’t have that. Pick something else.”

“But why?” he whined.

“That’s not appropriate for you.”

Blaine chewed on his lip. “But I like it.”

“Well, you’ll have to pick something else.”

Blaine started to protest more, but Gordon held up a hand and silenced him. He slowly turned around, feeling quite confused and dejected, and took the pink Easy Bake Oven back to where he found it. He came home with a new set of Hot Wheels, but he didn’t really care. Later that night, Blaine heard his mother and father yelling at each other in their bedroom. He curled up in his bed and hugged his pillow, trying to understand what he’d done that was so bad.

A few days after the Toys R Us incident, things settled down again. Blaine hardly even noticed that his dad was suddenly much more insistent that they throw the football around, or that their reading sessions focused more and more on Captain America and Spiderman than Shakespeare. At least he wasn’t mad anymore, thought Blaine.

But a few years later, Blaine screwed up again. “Dad,” he started tentatively. They were sitting around the television watching the Buckeyes, who were losing this particular game.

“What’s up, kid?” said Gordon, clearly focused more on the TV.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You just did.”

Blaine shifted on the couch and looked down at his hands.

Noticing the silence, Gordon turned to him finally. “You can ask me another,” he said, smiling.

Blaine took a deep breath. “You love Mom, right?”

Gordon nodded. “Of course.”

“Are you – um, attracted to Mom?”

Gordon stopped smiling. “Excuse me?”

Sensing he was on thin ice, Blaine started speaking very quickly. “I don’t mean – I was just – it’s just that I was talking to Becky at school, and she said that she was attracted to – well, I just mean I don’t know if I understand what she was saying.”

Gordon blinked. “What?”

Blaine sighed in frustration. “I’m not sure what to say to Becky at school tomorrow.”

Still not quite clear, but wanting to help, Gordon asked, “Is this Becky girl someone you like?”

Blaine thought very hard for a moment. “Okay. Well, Becky said she liked me. And that she was attracted to me. And, I mean, I like her, but just like a friend. I don’t think I’m – attracted to her.”

Gordon sighed and gave a small laugh. “That’s all right.”

“It is?” asked Blaine, hopefully.

Gordon laughed. “Of course. You’re only 11, Blaine. You don’t have to like girls right now.”

Blaine sat up straighter. “Oh,” he said, sounding very relieved. “So it’s normal that I like boys?”

All the color drained from Gordon’s face. He turned back to the television and turned up the volume. Blaine kept his eyes on his father, waiting anxiously for him to say something, but he never did. And from then on, two things happened consistently in the Anderson household: Gordon spoke to Blaine in pointed statements with little emotion, and Blaine felt like a complete failure.

But, after all these years, he had gotten used to it; he had his friends, who never asked too many questions, and he had music to get lost in. And, of course, he had Kurt.

Blaine didn’t respond right away. Of course he had a minute to spare, but he was caught entirely off guard. “What’s up, Dad?” asked Blaine.

“Come in here,” said Gordon, waving Blaine into his study. The last time Blaine had been in there without a fight involved, the two of them had read a Batman comic together 16 years ago. After that night during the Buckeyes game, their reading sessions fizzled out. And the house was so big that when Blaine was living there, he felt no reason to intrude upon his father’s space when he had his own. Gordon shut the door behind them, and clapped a hand on Blaine’s shoulder in an attempt to be affectionate. “Have a seat, kid.”

Blaine raised an eyebrow at his old pet name, not sure what this meant. “Everything okay?” he stuttered, trying to be calm.

Gordon cleared his throat. “Sure. Just have a seat.”

Blaine hesitated a moment longer, but eased himself down into the chair across from Gordon’s desk. He opened his mouth to speak, but he lost his nerve and simply sat there, waiting.

“I think we should have a talk,” said Gordon. “It’s been a long time since we had a talk.”

After his father didn’t take the news so well, Blaine decided it was best not to tell too many people that he liked boys. In hindsight, Blaine understood that his mother, Kathleen, always knew. After Toys R Us, Gordon had been distant, and it had hurt Blaine. But his mother had hugged him tight and told him he had nothing to worry about. That was the first time she had done that, but it certainly wasn’t the last.
In particular, Blaine remembered a time when he was 15 years old; he was sitting in the kitchen while his mother was fixing him breakfast. He was leaving for school in just 20 minutes, but he had decided two days earlier that he had to talk to her. And that while maybe other people didn’t have to know, she did.

“Mom, you remember Steven?” he asked, trying too hard to sound casual.

“Who?” she asked, easing scrambled eggs out of a pan and onto a plate for Blaine.

“Steven. He’s in choir with me. He came over here a couple of weeks ago to study.”

“Oh,” said Kathleen, walking the plate over to Blaine and placing it in front of him. “Sure. Nice boy,” she said with a warm smile.

Blaine smiled back tentatively. “Yeah. Really nice.” He ducked his head to start eating, and couldn’t manage to stop again to look back up at her. He silently cursed himself for being such a coward.

A moment of silence passed where Kathleen watched her son eat. “What about Steven?” she said finally when he had eaten nearly all of his eggs without stopping to breathe.

Blaine looked up, suddenly very incapable of swallowing. He reached for a glass of milk that he had poured himself and tried to wash the eggs down. He was mostly successful, but still choked.

Kathleen walked around behind him and patted his back as he coughed. “Okay, there?” she asked.

Blaine coughed once more, then nodded. He took a deep breath and composed himself. “Steven and I are going to the Sadie Hawkins dance together,” he said quickly. “I asked him.”

Kathleen nodded and smiled. “Sounds like fun. Do you need a suit?”

Blaine looked at her anxiously. “So, that’s – that’s okay with you?”

Kathleen’s eyes softened with understanding. “Of course that’s okay, Blaine,” she said.

“I mean it’s – okay? You’re okay that I’m – okay?”

“You can say it,” she said softly.

Blaine searched her eyes to make sure he understood her correctly. “I’m gay.”

Kathleen nodded.

“I’ve known for a while now.”

“Mmhmm,” she replied, rubbing affectionate circles on his back.

He didn’t move, still anxious, anticipating.

“I’m very proud of you,” she said. “Very, very proud.”

And even though he felt stupid for doing so, he cried.

Kathleen gathered him up in her arms and kissed the top of his unruly curls, the same ones she had. “Any way I can convince you to get a haircut before the dance?” she asked, tugging at a knot she found.

Blaine laughed through his tears. “No way. I’ve worked hard on this,” he said, taking a long curl between his fingers and pulling it tight until it bounced back against his head.

“Okay,” she said. “Well, hurry up and finish eating. You gotta get going.”

He squeezed tighter as she started to pull away. “I love you, Mama,” he whispered.

Kathleen kissed the top of his head again. “I love you, too, baby.”

After the dance, when Kathleen burst into the hospital demanding to see her son, she held him in her arms again and gently kissed his split brow.

“I’m sorry,” he groaned. “I’m so sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about.”

“They wouldn’t stop. And Steven, they hurt – ”

“Shh. It’s okay.”

He cried again, clinging to her. “Mama,” he groaned.

“I know,” she said.

When they got home very late that night, Gordon looked Blaine up and down once. He nodded his head, looked at the floor, and walked into his bedroom. Kathleen spent the night in Blaine’s room, hunched over in a chair next to his bed, while he stared at the ceiling, sleepless, wishing the pain would just stop. All of it.

Two weeks after that, Blaine walked through Dalton Academy’s doors.