His hand’s in mine and I feel safe.

That’s all I ever feel with him around. I used to be so scared of everything, so scared that the world could break me apart so easily because it didn’t like who I was. But with him, I’m safe.

It what I’m thinking when we leave prom. Walk out the doors and laugh a little at the ridiculousness of it all. Laugh at how we made it. How we walked into an event like that, danced together, and walked out untouched. We’re finally safe in this world.

But it’s only a fleeting thought as we make our way through the parking lot towards my car. It’s dark now, things like this always happen so late, and the lights are on overtop of the cars, but it’s still eerily dark. Quiet, too. I want to revel in the softness of the night. But then I feel it as it travels up my spine: fear. Something’s wrong.

His hand is torn from mine as he grunts out my name, pushes me away from him, shouts for me to run, and I don’t know what’s going on yet, but I know I can’t leave him, I have to find his hand again. I can’t run without him.

I spin around only to get pushed harshly back, not by him, but by someone else entirely, and I fall to the ground. I see someone take him by the arm and punch him in the stomach. All the air rushes out of his lungs and he turns to me, uses any breath left and tells me to go. But I can’t. There’s more than one attacker standing there now and my blood turns to ice as I watch a hulking figure brings a bottle of some sort down on his head, pieces of glass shattering as some lingering liquid sprays out, dampening dark curls as he falls to the ground.

A scream rips out of my throat and I try to scramble to my feet, but I get pushed down again, get harsh words that I barely register thrown my way, but all I can take in is the way that there’s now blood trickling down his face.

I scream again, and it feels like I can’t stop. It’s his name on my lips, and the word is bleeding out of my mouth. I scream and scream as he gets kicked and kicked and kicked, another bottle coming down against his head. I can’t stop screaming. Someone makes me stop screaming, punches me in the side and thrusts me violently at the ground again when I try to get up. I hit my head as my back yells at me when it meets the pavement but I have to save him, I have to stop them.

He puts up a fight, blood dripping over his skin, but he puts up a fight, and it draws the one hovering over me away, and I know in that moment that he’s fighting like that on purpose. He’s trying to take the attention off me. I’m screaming again.

A pair of arms sweep around my middle and I’m clawing at them, trying to get them off of me, trying to get away, to fight back, but the voice in my ear is Finn and I know he’s not trying to hurt me. He’s trying to get me away from this fight. But I can’t. I have to save him, I have to save him. He’s trying to protect me, why can’t I do the same for him?

Finn’s stronger than me, built sturdier from years of football, and he drags me off. My voice is hoarse but I’m still screaming, and I’m thrashing against Finn. I have to save him. I’m being carried away, but all I can see is his face, and it’s covered in blood and he’s stopped moving and I’m screaming, I’m screaming.

I see Puck all of a sudden punch one of them in the face, and I look at the group and notice that one of them is already down. I hadn’t notice Puck before. But as Puck takes another one down, starts shouting abuse, my eyes dart back down to his face, and it’s bloody, so bloody, I can’t even really see his features anymore. His dark curls are matted down with the blood and he seems so lifeless. His arm is bent wrong and his limbs are limp, and I’m still screaming.

The group breaks up, they’re drunk and they’ve run out of steam suddenly with Puck throwing punches. Finn’s arms loosen just enough for me to yank them off of me and run over to the body that’s lying on the ground. My face is wet, and I don’t understand why until I reach up and feel tears.

He’s lying there and there’s so much blood, but I can still see one eye. My hand gingerly touches his hair, it’s soaked in blood and I’ve barely touched him. I realize I’m whimpering his name and I don’t understand, everything happened so quickly and I’m shivering but at least I’ve finally stopped screaming.

He looks at me and I reach my bloody hand down to hold his, it doesn’t seem broken, but I can’t pay attention to that anyways, as his head quickly seeps blood all over the pavement. I can feel a scream starting to build in my throat.

But then his lips part and everything in me silences. Everything waits and just prays that he keeps breathing because this isn’t fair, he’s not allowed to leave me. He breathes out my name and a small cry pours out of me and I’m suddenly so aware of my tears.

“Kurt,” he says again and I lean in closer, wanting to touch him and to hold him but not knowing if that’s okay. It’s not fair and I want to plug my ears as he keeps rasping out my name because it sounds like a goodbye, but it can’t be, it can’t be, not now, not like this.

His lips close for a moment before opening again. “Kurt,” he repeats and it doesn’t make sense anymore, because that’s not his voice. My name keeps coming out of his mouth, but it’s not right, that’s not his voice, that sounds almost like–

“Kurt!”

My eyes refocus on my surroundings and something akin to disappointment settles in my bones.  I’ve done it again, gone back to the last time I saw his face. Bloody, bruised, cut up. It’s haunted me in my dreams for the past five years and I can’t get it out. No amount of counselling or distractions can get it to go away. He’s always there. He’s always that boy at seventeen lying there dying in the McKinley High School parking lot.

But I’m not there anymore. I’m here, in Tina and Mike’s new apartment, surrounded by boxes that Tina didn’t want to unpack herself while Mike was at work.

“Stop thinking about him.”

I turn to the voice, and I don’t know how she always knows that it’s him on my mind. But then again that’s probably the reason. It’s always him. Always.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I reply coolly. It’s no use, really. She knows I was thinking about him, and I’m already mentally preparing myself for the speech she always gives. She means it out of caring, I know that she does, but I’ve heard it so often now that it’s almost complete nonsense in my head.

Tina makes her way through the maze of boxes to where I’m sitting on the couch and drops down beside me, laying her hand on my knee. “You’ve got to let go,” she says so softly it’s almost like her heart is breaking, “move on. He wouldn’t want you to–”

“I can’t,” I say and I know I’m snapping at her, but I can’t. I can’t get over him even though it’s been years. I’ve tried, but I can’t. He’s the picture on the inside of my eyelids that I see every time I go to sleep or blink or do anything. He’s the love of my life, and I can’t just walk away from that unscarred.

She purses her lips slightly and tries to change her angle of approach, but it doesn’t matter. Five years of this means that she’s played all the cards already. “Yes, you can. Isn’t that what coming to New York was about for you? Leaving the past behind?”

I shake my head, I’ve heard this argument before, it’s what they all said when I pleaded to stay back in Ohio. I didn’t want to come here to move on from it all, “I wanted to come here with him,” I reply.

I can tell she wants to argue, she was always so good at making a point and getting her way ever since university taught her how to defend herself. But she doesn’t argue, and there’s only a small bit of fraying patience under her tone, “Well, he’s not here.”

 I squeeze my eyes shut, and it’s a bad idea, because it’s his face again, not like it used to be, when we were happy, but bloody, terrified, and looking at me like he’d do it all over again just to make sure I was alright. I hate him for that.

“How would you feel, Tina?” I ask defensively, “If it were Mike? If you didn’t know anything?”

Her nails scrape at my jeans for a moment, “That’s the thing, you don’t know anything. You have to move on.”

“That is the thing, I don’t know anything,” my face is starting to feel hot and I can feel the dampness behind my eyes, threatening to shake loose at any moment. I don’t know anything. No one will tell me anything. I know he was beaten to a pulp that night, I know that memory like the back of my hand. I know he went into a coma that night. But I don’t know anything else. I don’t know if he ever woke up. I don’t know if he even survived anything at all. I don’t know if he’s dead or not.

I stand shakily, I need out. I need air and I need to stop thinking about this so much. Helping Tina was supposed to distract me for a little while, get him out of my head if only for a few minutes, but here we are, talking about how I have to move on, but I can’t. “Look, I should just go for now.”

Tina looks uncertain when she looks up at me, “But, you were going to help me with all these...”

“Please,” I scoff, trying to lighten the mood. I didn’t come here for heavy, but it’s all I seem to get anywhere. “You remember enough of my interior design ideas from high school to finish up here. You just didn’t want to empty all these boxes on your own. Just get Mike to help you when he gets home.”

She smiles a little and follows me over to the door as I shrug on my jacket. It’s late April and while the temperature is warming, it’s still a little cool outside. “I like this,” Tina says as she fingers the lapel.

I preen a little and look down at the fabric, “I made it last week.”

“I always knew you’d do fabulously,” she grins, and I feel my face fall slightly. I always knew I’d be here with him, but I guess I was wrong. We don’t know anything as kids.

When I leave I decide to stop by a nearby coffee shop before heading home. Some caffeine and a new space might clear my head enough that I can get a few sketches in. There’s a shop close to Tina and Mike’s new apartment that I used to frequent back when I was in school. I lived closer to this area then, and I stumbled upon it once, liking it for its charm and the part about it that always made me think of him. I’ve moved since then and it’s not close enough to really go out of my way to specifically stop at this one, but I’m in the area for now, so I see no reason not to.

 I’m debating what to drink when I walk inside the shop. It’s a little different than I remember it, and my eyes scan around the place. It’s during their travels that I see him. The same as I always do: dark hair, tan skin, thick bushy eyebrows. It’s the same way I see him every time I pass someone on the streets, or turn the corner too quickly. He always looks the same, but whenever I blink, he’s gone.

But this time, when I do blink, he’s still there. At first I don’t understand but then it hits me like a million pounds of bricks. He’s really there. He’s really here.

Blaine’s here.

I stare for a moment, and suddenly I notice the changes. He’s not the same as the guy my mind provides when I walk the streets and see him far ahead in the crowd; no, he’s older, I can see that now. His face a little more mature than it was at seventeen, hair left curly and soft. He’s different, but the same.

It’s the distinct honey-hazel eyes that peek up at me after a moment that makes me snap my gaze away and I suddenly don’t know what to do, how to react. It’s been five years of waiting for this beautiful boy, and I don’t know what to do anymore. I’m flustered, flabbergasted, all those fancy words that describe the chaos that suddenly reigns in my brain. I’ve been waiting on answers from Ohio, but he’s here in New York.

Of course, I’d dreamed of him showing up at my doorstep, the same dreamy boy I’d been in love with all those years ago, but I’d never thought it would happen. That kind of life is reserved for movies and novels, and my life is neither of those. But, still, here he is.

Blaine hasn’t moved from his seat, and I garner that to the fact that either he doesn’t want to see me for some reason, hasn’t recognized me, or that my thoughts have been moving faster than the speed of light and it’s only been a few seconds that I’ve lingered in the doorway, evaluating this new unexpected situation. Had I really just been talking to Tina fifteen minutes ago about moving on? And now this is happening?

I start towards the counter, needing some time to think, needing to get my emotions under control as they get over their shock and start to wage a war against me, taking over and seizing my ability to function like a normal human being.

I can’t help peeking back at him though, sitting at a table surrounded by papers and books: studying, my brain provides. I see him look up a few times at me as well, and I feel bashful enough to hide my face each time.

His expression isn’t full of understanding, instead a little confused, and even a tad bit interested, as if he were considering making a move on me. But that’s ridiculous. What’s even more ridiculous is that I haven’t said anything yet. Blaine’s probably sitting there waiting for me to strike up a conversation. But my lips won’t move. And that’s ridiculous anyways, he’s the one I know nothing about anymore, the one who practically showed up at my doorstep, even if it’s in the form of a coffee shop. He’s the one who owes an explanation for his presence. But that thought process leaves me even more confused, so I pay for my drink, and hastily sit down at a table near him, hoping to start something.

Blaine doesn’t start anything though. He looks deep in thought, his eyes shifting slightly to me every now and then, but he shows no signs of recognition. Two can play at this game, I suppose, so I pull out my sketch book, intending to get a few sketches in for work.

I feel his eyes on me for a moment before they’re not there anymore, so I look up at him. I look at the softness of his skin and hair, and the way his hands shift through his papers. I look at the scar against his temple, peeking out from dark curls, and suddenly it hits me, just like the fact that he was here did. And I understand then, life couldn’t simply hand this beautiful boy, no, man now, back to me. The world would never work if those kinds of things happened. I understand.

Blaine doesn’t remember me.

It’s a moment of peace, the calm before the storm, before everything inside me is screaming, and I try to fight the urge to run, but I can’t win. He doesn’t know who I am. I’m in love with the man in front of me, and he has no idea who I am.

I’m biting back a sob, blinking away the wetness in my eyes, as I rush to get out of my seat. I need to get out of here, it’s suddenly suffocating. I’m in love with someone who doesn’t, and probably can’t, remember me. My heart cries with the injustice of it all, and I need out. I need to think and wallow and get out, get out. So, I stand in a hurry, grab my things quickly, and sweep out the door with one last look over my shoulder. He’s watching me leave curiously, but I can’t think about that now. He doesn’t even know me. Do I even know him?

I go back to the coffee shop more than I am really proud of. Every single day in fact. I barely take any time off at work because I’m so worried that unoccupied time will lead to my head swimming with Blaine’s face, so I’ve got some time stored up, which I take now. My boss seemed a little worried when I marched in and declared that I was going on vacation for an undetermined amount of time, but he lets me go anyways. I’ve worked solidly for my entire time there, and he knows I’ll come back.

I sit in the corner that I saw Blaine sitting in before and sketch all day, waiting. Waiting for something, anything to prove to me that I wasn’t making it up. That it was really Blaine sitting in this very chair.

I never really made a plan when I came back, stumbling into the coffee shop early in the morning, desperately whipping my head around, hoping to catch his face. But he wasn’t there. I’d been filled with such boyish hope. Hope that the love of my life would be sitting there like Prince Charming, just waiting for me to return, waiting to love me again like I never stopped. But he’s not there, this is real life after all.

So I sit and I wait. Day after day in the coffee shop that’s logically too far from my home to make daily visits, but I go anyways. And with every day, my hope seems to diminish slightly. I’d just been thinking of him too much that day, and so I made him up again. Just like any random stranger on the street who magically becomes Blaine, the guy in the coffee shop did too. He was probably terrified of the seemingly unstable man who couldn’t stop looking at him. Of course it wasn’t him. But still, I go back. Compelled to sit and wait. The hope I had once that Blaine would wake up has revived itself.

It’s two weeks into my coffee shop sit-in that feels different. I arrive a little later than usual, but I don’t panic about possibly missing him, I simply walk in, smile at the barista who goes about making my usual when she sees me, and sit, sketching a few designs. I feel calm today, like everything that needs to be in place is in place. I would question it, but I don’t, because life rarely feels this easy anymore, and why would I want to jinx that?

The bell over the door rings a couple hours later, and I’m filled with hope today instead of restlessness as I look up. I blink once, twice, and then I believe it. It’s him. It’s Blaine. There’s relief coursing through my body and I have to look away. He’s here, he’s here, he’s here. He’s real and he’s alive and he’s breathing. He’s here.

I glance up once and see him walking towards the counter to get a drink, and then I look back down at my sketches, focusing intently. Sudden doubts fill every corner of my mind. What am I even doing here? Didn’t I come to the conclusion last time that he doesn’t know who I am?

I’ve thought about it a lot during my daily visits to the coffee shop, about him not remembering who I am. I haven’t got it all figured out, but I got some working theories. He was in a coma when his parents last told me anything about him. The doctors weren’t allowed to give me information and once the Anderson’s moved Blaine out of the hospital to take care of at home with a stay-in nurse, they didn’t have any information to give me anyways.

I never stopped calling Blaine’s parents after that, trying, begging, to get any kind of information on what was going on with him. First every day, then every week, then month, and now sporadically, when I think I can startle the information out of them. All I wanted to know was if he was still alive, still breathing, but they never offered anything. As if watching my boyfriend get attacked and beaten wasn’t enough, I had to live with no knowledge for the past five years.

And so I’ve gotten really good at my ability to rationalize things, to try and understand them, because for so long I had to make sense of what they did and what they hadn’t told me. And so, just like I had to understand that, I had to make sense of this situation. If there was no recognition in Blaine’s eyes the last time we saw each other, then it only makes sense that when he woke up from his coma, after however long he was in it, he lost his memories. Who knows how much, or if he’ll ever get them back, but I don’t want to think about him being in a coma for five years and only now waking up with temporary memory loss. Plus, it wouldn’t even make sense what he’s doing in New York when he should be in Ohio. If he’s here, then it only means that he’s been awake long enough that his parents would part with him.

He was here all along, and still his parents never said a thing. They probably hoped New York was too big for us to find each other again, but don’t they realize that my soul is attached to his? I would search until my dying day just to find him.

There’s a slight shadow over my sketchbook suddenly and I feel my eyes widen as they take in Blaine’s legs just on the tips of my range of vision. I have to bite my bottom lip to steady myself. He came over to me. I don’t really understand why, if he doesn’t know me, but I feel so shaky. He’s here and it’s been so long, and all I want to do is start crying and kiss him and tell him how much I’ve been dying without him. But he doesn’t remember me, so all I can do is look up at him and take in the beauty that is Blaine Anderson: the boy turned man who I couldn’t stop loving if I tried.

There’s a moment of silence as we stare at each other and it feels like a lifetime to be held in his eyes, but too quick before he’s pulling back his gaze. “Thought you could use a refill,” he says, holding up one of the cups in his hands.

His voice it was does me in. It’s like his face, so similar but so different. Like he’s the same boy I fell in love with, but at the same time, he’s changed so much. His voice is a little deeper, but it’s everything I wanted to hear, everything I’ve been waiting for all these years. I open my mouth to say something, but nothing can compare to what I’m feeling, and only a gust of air comes out. I have to close my eyes and steel myself, make an internal promise that I won’t mess this up, that I won’t just leap on him and start sobbing. If he doesn’t remember, then I don’t want to scare him, I don’t want to frighten him away. I just got him back, and I want to be selfish, I don’t want him to go again.

Blaine puts the drink down on the table when I open my eyes again and I look up at him. “Thank you,” I manage. He smiles lightly, but his eyes look miles away, swimming in the depths of his brain.

I’m suddenly so nervous, it’s like meeting him for the first time again and I flounder a bit as I invite him to join me. He chuckles and sits as I shut my sketchbook closed and I can suddenly feel in the air that we’re both a little nervous about this. He asks politely about what I’m working on, but I push it aside. I don’t want to talk, I want to hear him talk. I want his voice wrapping around me like the hug I’ve been missing.

“I’m Blaine, by the way,” he tells me calmly and it’s like my heart stops and I don’t really know why. I guess a part of me was expecting this to be some cruel joke, was expecting Blaine’s twin or something, or a really good look-alike. But it’s him, he’s just confirmed it, and I fix the smile back on my face so that he can’t see how much I feel like I’ve just been run over by a train.

“That’s a nice name,” I reply softly, then add, “Kurt.” I’m hoping to jog his memory, but I’m not sure I do. He reaches his hand across the table and for one crazy moment I think he’s going to take mine, profess that it’s all some silly joke and that it’s him, it’s Blaine, can they stop this game and just kiss? But it just sits there in the air as I watch it and I realize that he wants to shake my hand. I reach out and grasp his when he starts to pull back and my whole body sparks into life. I’ve missed him so much.

I barely catch the gasp that leaves my mouth at the feeling of his skin touching mine before he’s pulling his hand back. I feel like everything inside me that got out of place over the last five years just fell back into place. There’s no question that this is the man I belong with.

After we settle back into our seats, looking a bit sheepish after all that, I start on my task to get him talking, to hear his voice again. “What about you? What brought you to New York?” His eyebrow raising just a smidge and suddenly my words are ringing in my ears. What did I just say? He doesn’t know me, I’m a stranger, I’m not supposed to know he’s not from New York. “I mean, that is if you haven’t been here your whole life, I just assumed for some reason.” I feel like kicking myself in the face.

He laughs and it’s not such a big problem that I just let that slip, so I relax. “I just moved here a couple years ago,” he answers, “do I scream not-native New Yorker?”

I smile as relief fills me, he moved here a couple years ago, he wasn’t in the coma for too long then. Before I saw him the first time, I was dreading that he was still in it. “I just had a feeling.”

He starts to answer my other questions, “I go to NYU. I’m studying music.”

I can’t stop the joy that seeps through my veins at that. My Blaine, who protected me that night after prom, getting beaten and bloody, going into a coma, and still, here he is. My Blaine, going into music, doing what he always wanted to do. I can feel the tears as they start to burn at the back of my eyes and I blink rapidly to force them down, hoping he doesn’t see, but he does.

“Look,” he says, starting to stand, “I didn’t mean to interrupt, you were obviously busy working.”

I reach out and grab his arm without really thinking. I can’t let him leave, he can’t leave me again. I start to plead, and I know it must sound odd, but I can’t let him go, “No, no. You didn’t interrupt anything. Please, sit back down.”

He sits and I have to explain somehow, but I’m not sure what to say. I finally realize that the only thing I can do is give him some form of the truth without revealing that it’s him. I don’t want to lie to him, I just can’t scare him off with the truth. So I stutter through some version that leaves him out but tells him everything. I tell him that I ran into an old friend and that it’s thrown me. When he asks if it was someone special, I sigh and tell him that he was. He is.

I suddenly realize that I’ve got his arm trapped under my hand. I hadn’t been thinking anything of it, it felt so comfortable and so much like home that it hadn’t occurred to me that I can’t just do those things anymore. I pull back quickly and change the topic. Blaine asks about my work, and I talk for a while, knowing he doesn’t fully understand it all, but that it’s a safe subject for now.

I trail off from one of my stories and realize that he’s staring at me funny. He’s sporting a huge smile and it doesn’t make sense, because he doesn’t know me, and that’s one of the smiles that he always saved for me. “What?” I ask, but he only shrugs and offers no more. I feel my cheeks heat as I laugh, “I’m sorry, I’ve just been rambling over here, tell me about yourself.”

He opens his mouth to speak, but my phone lets out a small chime and for some reason I know it’s Rachel.  And when Rachel sends texts, you better read them immediately or else there will probably be dire consequences. I mumble a sorry and pull my phone out of my pocket and read it.

The happiness drains out of me as I look away, it was Rachel, and she needs me home immediately, another thing it’s best not to ignore if you don’t want her threatening your clothes with scissors and fire. I look back at Blaine and I don’t want to leave ever, but I have to, and I can feel my eyes drinking in the sight in front of me. I’m terrified that I’ll never see him again.

“Is it something important?” he questions and my eyes flit to his lips temporarily, remembering when I used to kiss him goodbye before going to deal with Rachel. But I can’t do that anymore, so I shake it from my mind and smile back at him.

“It’s my roommate,” I explain, “I... I have to go. I’m sorry.” I wish I could stay forever.

He looks a little disappointed, and I don’t know what to make of it, so I start to grab my sketchbook and pack up, but he grasps my hand suddenly and it startles me so much I can feel my insides jump. He looks at me a little desperately, “Please tell me I can see you again.”

I want to cry, or scream, or laugh, or just do something because the emotions in me feel so big. I don’t trust my words, so I nod and smile.

“That French restaurant down the street...” he starts, “would you like to have dinner with me tomorrow? At 6?”

I feel my mouth drop a little, how did he think to pick French food, Blaine knew I loved French food, but this Blaine doesn’t know me. He knew I wanted to try that very same restaurant when we were younger and spent days researching New York online. He doesn’t know me now, so how...? I simply nod again and give him a bigger smile, “I would love to. I’ll meet you there?”

“Yeah, okay,” he says is a sort of daze.

I feel the smile take over my face as I brush his shoulder on the way to the door. I look back only once to see him touch the spot I touched, and I think that maybe something really good could come out of this.