The air was crisp and chilly when Blaine stepped out of the car early that autumn morning. His destination was far from the road, and he could hear nothing but the leaves crunching under his feet and a bird singing somewhere in a nearby tree. It was peaceful here. He was glad he came. He pulled his coat around him, shivering as he walked up the path towards the wrought iron gates which might have looked sinister had Blaine not known what he did about what lay beyond them. He didn’t think anything bad could happen here.
The gates creaked, and were cold against his fingers. He’d always hated the idea of walking in a cemetery, scared, perhaps irrationally, by what under the ground beneath his feet. But the headstones didn’t look so ominous today, they stood alone and uninterested in him. Distant, lonely and yet meaningful- like a memory.
He found what he was looking for quicker than he would have thought, but he was too sensible and rational to put that down to fate or destiny. It was just what happened. Things just happened sometimes, right? Things that shouldn’t have been, things that could have turned out differently. That was something that Blaine had needed to come to terms with as he grew up and, slowly but surely, he was becoming okay with it.
He knelt down on the ground beside Elizabeth Hummel’s headstone, the morning dew leaking into his jeans and making his knees wet and cold, but he barely noticed. Before long, he realised he was already crying, he did that sometimes when nobody was watching. He opened his mouth, breathed in a breath of cold air, and began.
“Hi,” Blaine’s shaky voice cut through the silence of the cemetery, and he almost felt guilty. “Hi, my name’s Blaine.” He bit his lip. “You and I never met, at least not properly, but I wish we’d had a chance. I guess-” He could feel his voice shake a little “I guess I came to thank you. Even though we’ve never met, I can still imagine what you’d be like. You’d probably have his smile; I bet you’re a lot like him. I bet you were just as stubborn and determined; I bet you got your own way all the time and had Burt wrapped around your little finger the way I’m wrapped around his. You probably laughed a lot and had a kind heart and cared about everyone around you more than you cared about yourself, even though that probably isn’t healthy.” Blaine let out a soft laugh “I probably sound like an idiot.
“I’m just guessing all this, of course. Burt always said the best part of Kurt comes from you, so...” He trailed off, stopping to wipe a tear from his eye. “Anyway, like I said, I came to thank you. When I first changed schools, you see, I was absolutely terrified. Sure, I didn’t show it- I put a smile on and I walked with my head high, but inside I was lonely, you know? My parents were still scared of me, of the way I was. I still had scars from that night at the dance and I still cried myself to sleep every night. I had no one to hold me or hug me and tell me everything was going to be alright.” Blaine stared at the words on the headstone. Mother. Wife. Sister. Friend.
“I haven’t told anyone else this, but I figure you aren’t going to pass it on, so I’m going to tell you. One night at Dalton, before I went to bed, I pretended I had a headache so that I could get into the nurse’s office. I broke into her medicine cabinet and I took a load of things from there. Sleeping pills, painkillers- that sort of thing. And I stuffed them all under my bed in case I needed them. Then one morning I woke up and I did.”
The tears were flowing freely now, and Blaine knew he should have felt ashamed. “I feel like an asshole right now, your life was ended too soon, and you’d hate me for choosing to end my own when I could have lived it out. But honestly, I didn’t think I could go on. I told myself that I’d go for one last day, and I got up and I walked down the stairs and someone tapped me on the shoulder and then... Then my life changed forever.”
Even though he was crying, he could feel a smile spread across his face. “Without him, I wouldn’t be alive. It’s like he’s an angel or something, it’s like he appeared just when I needed him the most, and he knows exactly how to make me happy. He gives me hope, he makes me laugh, and he’s like a lighthouse in a storm. Before I met him, you see, I was only half a person.”
He ran his fingers over the rough, cold stone- tracing the letters out with his fingertips. “I just really wanted to meet you, Elizabeth. Kurt talks about you sometimes, and he always says how you would listen to him whenever you needed to talk. I had to say thank you. I had to thank you for bringing into the world the most amazing, strong, brave and beautiful person I have ever met. You should be proud of him. I know you are.”
The spiritual atmosphere Blaine had been feeling slowly dissipated as he walked slowly away from Elizabeth’s grave, his hand in his pockets as he shivered from the cold. The tears were drying on his face in the icy wind, and he smiled. Everything was going to be okay.