The members of New Directions were filling the choir room with their animated chatter, but Blaine didn't hear any of it. These days, he was deaf and blind to everything going on around him. He felt trapped in his own head, with no way to escape the memories that were haunting him. The thing is, those memories had once filled his heart with so much warmth he was sure he would explode. When he looked back on the day he first met Kurt on that stairwell at Dalton, on their first kiss, on all their firsts, he used to feel like the happiest man alive. And when he thought about his future with Kurt, he always felt sorry for the people who didn't have a future looking as bright as his. But now, thinking about all of that only doubled the pain he was already feeling. Because Kurt was no longer a part of his future. Because he broke up with Kurt.

Even though it hurt like hell, Blaine still believed it had been the right thing to do. Kurt had big dreams. Kurt belonged in New York and Blaine didn't want to hold him back. He couldn't do that . He loved Kurt too much to be the one thing keeping him from making his dreams come true. So he had decided to let him go. That way at least one of them would get the chance to truly be happy.

They hadn't talked ever since Blaine had gone to New York to break up with Kurt. Kurt had tried to contact him at first. When Blaine didn't answer his calls, he'd started sending him texts, begging him not to do this, telling him that his dreams meant nothing if he didn't have Blaine to share them with. Every time he read one of those texts, he imagined Kurt sitting on the floor of his dorm room, all alone, crying, and it only made things worse. So he'd started deleting the messages without reading them. There was nothing Kurt could say to make him change his mind anyway. And eventually, the texts stopped coming.

Suddenly, Blaine became aware of Tina standing in front of him. When he looked around the choir room, he saw that everyone else had left, so he guessed that glee had ended without him noticing. It wasn't the first time it had happened. Tina was saying something that sounded like ‘give you a lift home', but Blaine just shook his head, got up and made to leave. Tina was not convinced though. She took him by his arm with one hand and turned his head with the other, so he was forced to look her in the eye. "Please, Blaine. I know it hurts. I know you want to be alone right now, but I'm really worried about you. You still have friends here, you know. None of us is Kurt, but we still care about you and we want to help you. We're all here if you want to talk. So please, promise me you'll come to us if you need anything."
Blaine knew Tina only wanted to help him, but hearing her say all those things actually made him feel worse. Tina was really sweet and caring. She was a great friend, but Blaine didn't think he deserved her friendship. She had been there for him all along and he'd completely ignored her. Suddenly he realized that he had no idea what was going on in Tina's life. What if she'd had problems of her own and he had been too caught up in his own pain and sadness to be the friend she needed him to be? He knew he couldn't possibly make up to her for being such a terrible friend, but he had to do something. Tina shouldn't be worrying about him. He didn't deserve it. So he forced himself to answer her. "I promise. If I need anything, you'll be the first to know." He tried to smile, but Tina kept looking at him with that worried frown on her face, so he guessed it wasn't really working.
"I still don't think you should be driving home yourself, Blaine. Why don't you let me give you a ride?"
"I'll be fine, Tina, I promise. I've been driving to and from school every day. I can do it again. Don't worry, I'll be careful."
She at least looked a bit reassured now, so he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and left.

***

When Blaine came home, he immediately hurried up the stairs to his room. He just really didn't want to run into Cooper right now. Cooper had come home from L.A. about a week after the break-up. He'd claimed that he missed his family and wanted to spend some quality time with his little brother, but Blaine knew he was only there because his mom had called him and told him about what had happened. It's not that he wasn't glad to see his brother home. He loved Cooper. He just hated that whenever he came home, it was because something was wrong with Blaine. Sadie Hawkins. The slushie incident. And now this.

Cooper's presence at home always reminded him that his life was not going the way he wanted it to and that didn't help him to feel better at all. He wished he could just be happy to see his brother again. He wished he could talk to Cooper and hang out with him and have fun, but now he couldn't even look at him without thinking about Kurt.

The last time Cooper had been home was right after Blaine had had his eye surgery.  He'd visited his younger brother in the hospital every day. He'd sat by his bedside, telling him all these crazy stories about his life in L.A. Of course, Cooper wasn't the only one who'd wanted to visit. Kurt came by every day too. So it really was inevitable for the two to meet. After Kurt had left that first night, Cooper had been going on and on about how proud he was of his little brother for finding such a handsome and witty boyfriend. He'd said a lot of stuff about sex too, which had Blaine blushing furiously and refusing to listen to anything Cooper said for the rest of the night. When he was done testing how embarrassed he could get his brother, Cooper had started asking questions about how long they'd been together and how they had met, which eventually resulted in Blaine just gushing about his perfect boyfriend. He hated to admit it, but he'd really liked that evening with his brother. It had been nice to be able to talk freely about his boyfriend to someone, even if that someone had added a lot of embarrassing comments to the conversation.

Seeing Cooper again now only reminded him of that evening. And of course, thinking about that evening made him think about Kurt. Beautiful, fabulous, perfect Kurt. Kurt, who was no longer his. Kurt, who would probably at some point fall in love with some hot guy he met during his internship and forget all about Blaine.

Once he'd entered his room, he threw himself on the bed, sobbing uncontrollably. He didn't know he had any tears left after crying himself to sleep every night since he'd come back for New York, but somehow the tears kept coming.  He couldn't look at anything in his room, because there was nothing there anymore that wasn't in some way connected  to memories of Kurt, so he buried his head in his pillow, only to realize it still smelled like Kurt, which made him cry even harder.

Sometimes he just wished he'd never met Kurt Hummel.