The little landing in the curve of the stairs is special to Blaine. It’s where he learns secrets.

It’s where he found out Santa wasn’t real when he was six; it’s where he discovered that his parents were plotting a secret trip to Disney World when he was eight; it’s where he—much to his horror—learned what his babysitter did with her boyfriend after he was supposed to be tucked into bed when he was nine. Yes, this is the place for learning truths, and tonight is no exception.

Blaine curls his legs in tighter to his chest and presses himself in closer to the wall despite the aching protest of his battered muscles. He can’t see through the railing into the family room this way, and his shoulder aches terribly, but he doesn’t want to risk being caught eavesdropping. This is a conversation he needs to hear in its entirety.

“—you knew and you didn’t tell me.” His father speaks in a low growl.

“He never actually told me either, Michael, but I thought we both knew.” Blaine cringes over how meek his mother sounds. Stand up to him just this once; please, stand up for me.

“Knew?” His father spits, “You thought I knew my son was going to a dance with another boy? Why the hell would I just know that?”

“I wasn’t talking about the dance, Michael.”

Silence…

…More silence.

Blaine slides forward just a little to steal a look. He wants to bite his lip to keep quiet when his ribs cry out in protest, but his lip is just as tender—awkwardly swollen and constantly leaving a bitter, metallic taste on the tip of his tongue. He settles for pressing his fingernails tight into his palms.

His mother is sitting on the couch; her back stiff and her hands resting in her lap limply.

His father is facing the mantle and Blaine knows exactly what he’s looking at. Pictures of him in his baseball uniform. Pictures of him on their camping trip. Pictures of him acting the way he is supposed to act; being the boy he is supposed to be.

“It’s Blaine.” As though this somehow explains something; some flawed plot point in the story of their evening.

His mother says nothing.

His father turns to look hard at her, “It has to be a joke.”

The words hurt more than they should.

A joke? He walked up to Jason Donnelly at his locker—a lump of anxiety in his stomach and his head dizzy with nerves—and asked him to Sadie Hawkins as a joke? He went out and secretly secured a suit with the little money he had left from mowing lawns that past summer because it might be funny? He mumbled a quick “I’m-going-to-come-out-to-my-parents-when-I-get-home-from-the-dance” to Jason and his parents because he thought it was hilarious to tell them first? To tell people he’d only ever met at school carnivals growing up before he told his own parents?

Maybe it was funny.

Funny that he’d gone to the school and admired the tacky crepe paper decorations and the crackling speakers beside the stage and the silky red of Jason’s tie. Funny that he’d mumbled a quick “You-look-really-nice” and Jason had squeezed his hand and mumbled an equally quick “You-wanna-dance?”. Even funnier that he’d danced and felt himself relaxing and even considered kissing Jason at the end of the night if he seemed like he wouldn’t mind.

And the night had just gotten more comical by the minute, hadn’t it? He’d laughed and talked to the girls from his drama class who had all hugged him and asked to dance and patted his arm and “Blaine-we-had-no-idea!”. He’d slow danced with Jason and made up his mind that, yeah, he was going to kiss Jason in the parking lot before they left—he was just going to do it because being brave was great; being brave was shiny decorations and pretty smelling perfume and warm arms around his back and feeling like he was invincible.

So fucking funny.

He’d gone out into the parking lot; his fingers still tangled in Jason’s and the rush of adrenaline coiled in his toes and fingers only heightening when cold air struck his warm cheeks, and now he was gonna do it—he was going to kiss a boy because he could and because his skin finally felt like it fit right and every thought in his head was “Do it! Go for it!”.

Just as he was taking a little step closer was when things really got hilarious. He hadn’t even seen Tyler Welsh and his friends come outside, but there they were—smelling like alcohol and sweat and sneering at him and Jason with so much contempt it burned Blaine’s cheeks the second he met his eyes.

He’d been teased before, of course, he’s small and he keeps to himself and both these things lend themselves to making him a good candidate for someone to pick on a little. But for some reason, his fingers tangled between Jason’s turned Blaine into something else in their eyes. The normal shouldering and muttered “loser” were reserved for Blaine the Theater Geek, but apparently this was a new Blaine. This was “faggot” and “fucking disgusting” and a hard punch to his jaw. This was an equally hard left hook to Jason’s face. This was three against one when Blaine tried to throw himself at Tyler and the sickening crack somewhere in his body and white-hot pain blooming in his arm and cement biting the skin of his palms and knees. This was flashing police lights and a trip to the ER and “what color cast?” and “I don’t care” and an ice pack for his cheek and Jason won’t even look at him and Oh-God-there-were-his-parents and “what happened?” and “why would they do that?” and a tearful explanation and a silent car ride home and finally “Go to bed, Blaine.”

See? Hilarious!

The funniest joke Blaine has ever heard. So funny he could cry.

“Michael.” The quiet reply from his mother.

“I did not raise a gay son.”

You raised a son. You raised me.

His mother’s voice is so quiet he almost doesn’t hear, “He’s a good boy, Michael…he’s still your son.”

“He’s gay.”

Can’t I be both? Please, please give me the chance to be both.

More silence, and it makes Blaine wonder if this is what the rest of their lives are going to be together. Silence and tension and hiding behind corners to hear occasional whispered truths.

“What are we going to do?” His mother again; her voice reedy.

His father sighs; a sound Blaine knows well. It’s the sound reserved for cars that won’t start and excuses for why they can’t go camping this weekend because of work and the sound for stomach viruses and ruined shirts. It’s the sound he makes that usually gets followed by a disgusted grunt and “There’s nothing to be done for it.”

“There’s nothing to be done for it.”

Blaine swallows down the lump forming in his throat because if he cries right now it’s going to be loud. And if he’s loud he’ll be found out, and if he’s found out, he doesn’t know what comes next.

“The Donnelly’s are going to the school on Monday to talk to the principal…” She doesn’t suggest that they go, too. She just puts the idea out there. What they’ll do is up to him. It’s always up to him.

It’s against his better instincts, but Blaine can’t help the silent plea already forming in his head. Please say you want to go, too. Please fight for me. Please believe I’m still worth fighting for.

“That won’t change anything.”

But it does. It changes everything for Blaine.

His father will not go to the principal’s office. His father who taught him to be confident and brave and a man of integrity will not fight for him.

“What if they hurt him again, Michael?”

And Blaine feels a pang of anxiety in his chest because he hadn’t thought about that. All of the sudden the carefully thought out apology for Jason he’d planned on delivering to him at his locker on Monday doesn’t matter because school is broken bones and bloodied lips and bruised ribs. He doesn’t want to go back there; he isn’t safe there. He slides forward a little on the step because he needs to go downstairs and tell his father—beg his father—to do something; to make it safe again for him.

“They were just boys being boys, but they had too much to drink and things got carried away. They won’t touch him in the middle of the school day.”

Blaine freezes because …what?

He understands that his father is confused right now. He’s been reasoning with himself about it all night. It’s defensible.

He understands that his father does not like that he’s gay. Again, he can excuse this easily enough. It’s a lot to take in; it’s hard.

What he cannot form a proper excuse for; what he has to be somehow misunderstanding is that his father is defending these boys. These boys who called him “faggot” and “disgusting”. These boys who bruised his skin and broke his bones. Surely this isn’t right. This can’t be what his father is saying.

Blaine stuffs his knuckles into his mouth and bites down hard because that stupid sob in his throat keeps trying to come loose and it really needs to stay buried down where he can hold onto it.

“But what if they do try, Michael?”

“We’ll… we’ll transfer him somewhere else,” His father lets a long breath out his nose, “We’ll worry about what ifs when we arrive at them, Marie. He’ll be fine.”

And now he doesn’t care if they have more to say because he needs to get back to his room; he needs to close his door and maybe stay there forever because he is not fine. He’s so incredibly far from fine.

He buries his face in his pillow and sobs as quietly as he can; his ribs aching with the hiccupy heaving of his chest; his cheeks stinging when salty tears burn hot into raw, open skin. He digs his fingers in tight to the sheets, and all he knows for sure, all he considers to be absolute right now, is one thing.

This is what it feels like when your heart breaks.

He lets himself cry until his body is exhausted and he’s sure his whole face is going to be red and swollen and awful when he wakes tomorrow. He thinks vaguely that it’s strange that he’s been able to cry for so long without interruption. His parents always come in to say goodnight…maybe they’re still fighting downstairs; maybe his father has changed his mind and they’re making plans to go to the school on Monday after all…

He turns his face out of the pillow—cool, fresh air burning against clammy, hot skin and drying, tear-stained cheeks. The crack of light seeping in under his door is gone.

His parents have gone to bed.

No one is coming to say goodnight.

He feels like maybe this is worthy of his tears, too, and probably some sort of secondary heartache, but he doesn’t have room for any more pain. His head throbs; his limbs are sore; his ribs burn. Everything fucking hurts.

Since he doesn’t know what else to do, he untangles his hands from the sheets and pushes himself off the bed only to sink to his knees beside it. He folds his hands tight on the edge of the mattress and presses his forehead to them.

Dear God… I don’t know if you love me anymore either, but, if you do—I hope you do—please, please let him love me again…he’s my dad and…

There’s something so futile feeling in it. Praying for a fire already burned cold and dead, so he swallows and tries again.

…Please let there be someone out there for me…someone I can love…someone who can love me. I don’t want to do this all by myself… Amen.

He pushes himself back up and eases himself back under the sheets. His pillowcase is damp against his cheek and the silence of the house is so oppressive, he is sure he can feel it physically bearing down on him, but still sleep begins to thread between his thoughts and weigh on his eyelids.

Even as his eyes drift close and his grip on the edge of his pillow slackens; the prayer hangs on his lips; offered to whatever soul might somehow be threaded to his own so he isn’t so horribly alone in this world of disappointed sighs and ‘you’re-not-worth-fighting-for’.

Maybe it’s just desperation or maybe it’s blind faith…

No. He is sure. He closes his eyes tighter and longs to see him because even with his broken everything and wretched heart, Blaine knows. He knows without a doubt he will not be lonely forever. He—whoeverhe is— is out there, and maybe he’s lonely, too, and praying the same desolate prayer.

Please come find me. Don’t give up before we meet.

I need you.