all this time

.

if I never see you again
I will always carry you
inside
outside

on my fingertips
and at brain edges

and in centers
centers
of what I am of
what remains.

-charles bukowski, katherine

It has been seven years, six months, four days, and thirteen seconds since his high school graduation day.

It has been five years, three months, twelve days and fifty-two seconds since Kurt last heard Blaine's voice.

Nevertheless, when his cell phone starts ringing in the midst of auditioning for his latest editorial, Kurt knows immediately, can feel it in his bones, who is on the other line.

He pulls his seat out from under the table, flashing a quick look to Elisabeth, his co-editor on the fashion piece. His eyes scream Carry onI really need to take thisGive me a momentPlease and Elisabeth, the kind soul, grants him a small nod. Grateful for the break, he strides over to the back door, pushes on the hot glass, and takes a turn into the alleyway. He sits quietly on an abandoned metal chair.

To his mild surprise, Blaine doesn't start with hello.

"Have I always been in love with you?"

The reception isn't the greatest, so it takes a minute before Kurt can piece together the broken question in his head. He can feel his heart sink into his stomach.

His mind flashes to the handwritten wedding invitation that arrived in his mailbox just over a year ago. The date is still circled on the old calender Kurt doesn't have the strength to throw away. He couldn't bring himself to go, but when he's drunk and lonely, he looks at last year's calender and fabricates the wedding in his head, based entirely on the second hand descriptions he had been told afterward.

From the clock chiming in the background, the soft bustling of papers on the other side of the call, Kurt ventures to guess that Blaine isn't calling him from home.

He doesn't want to be honest with Blaine, because honesty will require revisiting the ghosts of memories and feelings long locked away in his mind. Even after all these years, Kurt has a difficult time dealing with emotion and a harder time showing it.

But Kurt has always strived to be completely honest with those he cares about, and five years apart from his best friend hasn't changed that fact.

"I used to think you were. Before you left."

"Before my graduation?"

"From the beginning."

The silence on the other end is deafening.

"All this time?"

Kurt doesn't answer. He's not sure he has the words.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Kurt can hardly hold back the scoff that escapes his lips, the audible sound of regret that he can still hear ringing through his head even today.

"I wanted to. After Jeremiah rejected you, I tried... but the words just kept getting stuck in my throat."

"I wish you would've said something." Blaine sounds old and tired. It hurts Kurt's heart to think of any twenty four year old, especially Blaine, sounding so old, so very young.

Kurt shakes his head, briefly forgetting that Blaine can't see him.

"We can't change the past, Blaine. It happened and it's over and we're both different people now. We don't fit together anymore. The past is just that. Past."

"It would have changed everything though. For the better."

"We don't know that. It could have changed nothing. Maybe it was meant to end this way all along."

Blaine doesn't answer. He doesn't have to.

Kurt can hear the glass door behind him open. It takes all his willpower not to turn around and slap the person coming to take him away from this phone call. But he has a job now and he's a different person than he was in high school and Blaine must be too, he's married for God's sake, so he brings his phone back up to his ear.

"I have to go."

Kurt can hear the quiet rustling of papers stop suddenly.

"Okay," Blaine finally says, his voice barely above a whisper. "Kurt, for what it's worth, I'm sorry I didn't realize until it was too late."

Kurt ignores the twisting heat curling in his chest and closes his eyes.

Blackbird, singing in the dead of night-

"I can't say that it's okay," Kurt says truthfully. "But I'm thankful that I had you in my life for the time I did. You made me into the person I've become and there will always be a place for you in my heart. First love and all that, right?"

Blaine lets out a choking sound. "First love. Right." He pauses for a minute and Kurt debates whether or not to end the call. He can't hear anything on the other end. But then the crackle of Blaine's voice erupts in his ear and, against his will, Kurt's heart soars again.

"I love you, Kurt. I always will."

Kurt opens his mouth to reply, with what he isn't entirely sure, when he hears the tell tale click.

All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise-

Kurt brings the cell phone down to his suit pant, opening his eyes to stare at the clouds above. His mind replays the last image of Blaine he ever saw in person, curly hair in disarray and tears in his eyes, hugging the life out of his best friend in the doorway of his dorm room at NYU.

The little piece of his heart that had left him that day felt restored somehow, that last piece of closure had finally come to be. For the first time in years, Kurt felt nothing but a dull heartache for the boy who changed everything. Now he could move on with his life and stop wondering what if.

He would lock his memories of Blaine in his heart and cherish them, keeping them safe from the rest of the world. It was time to move on and now that everything had been said between them, he finally, fucking finally, could.

Kurt tucks the phone back safely in his pocket, walking and grabbing hold of the scorching door handle. He pauses for a moment and whispers a quiet "Goodbye" to the empty alleyway behind him, a stand-in for the boy who could have been everything.

The door opens.

A bird sings overhead.

He lets go.

You were only waiting to this moment to be free-