(1. once when it’s a girl)

The McKinneys move next door to the Andersons the summer when Blaine is four. They have a girl his age named Grace and his mom takes him to their house to play all the time.

Grace likes to watch Disney Princess movies and play house. Blaine likes Power Rangers and playing tag. But Blaine doesn’t mind letting Grace choose what to play because she’s super nice and she gives him stickers and juice whenever he goes to her house.

Blaine thinks that Grace is awesome. They play together all the time and she teaches him songs that her mom sings to her. Grace is four months older than Blaine, but Blaine doesn’t mind so much because it means that she can teach him lots of cool things he doesn’t know yet.

Grace calls Blaine Blay and at first he thinks she’s being mean, but then his mom tells him that it’s just a nickname. When Blaine asks her what that is, she tells him that sometimes friends have special names for each other and those are called nicknames. Blaine thinks it’s really cool that Grace has a special name for him, so he gives her one too. He calls her Gracie from then on.

Gracie’s dad teaches them how to swim in the McKinneys’ pool. They can’t go to the deep end yet like Gracie’s older brothers, but they have fun anyway. Blaine’s and Gracie’s moms always sit on the porch and put sun-block on them and sometimes they even make lemonade.

Some days Blaine doesn’t see Gracie because her parents take her to the park and Blaine’s mom says that he can’t go because they need some family time. On those days, Blaine stays inside and watches the Disney movies that Gracie tells him about.

When his dad comes home from work on one of the days that Gracie goes to the park, he sits and watches The Little Mermaid with Blaine.

“Blaine,” his dad starts after the movie finishes, “Why do you like this movie so much?”

Blaine thinks that’s a funny question because who doesn’t like The Little Mermaid? He shrugs and says, “I like all the songs and Flounder and Sebastian are really funny. And I want to be like Prince Eric when I grow up.”

“Oh, why’s that?” his dad asks.

“I don’t know. I just wanna save people I love. Like how Eric saves Ariel.”

His dad smiles then. “So you want to save girls like Gracie?”

Blaine tilts his head to the side, “Maybe,” he says. That might not be too bad, to be Prince Eric, and to have his best friend – because Gracie is his best friend – be his Ariel.

He plans to tell Gracie this because after all, Gracie needs to know that Blaine’s always going to be there to save her.

“Gracie,” Blaine says when he goes to her house the next time, “I love you, you’re my bestest ever friend.”

Gracie frowns. “Blaine,” she says. “I don’t want to be your friend anymore.”

“Why?” Blaine asks, his lips shaking.

“Katie from the park says that girls can’t be friends with boys. She’s seven so she knows more. She’s my best friend.”

She walks away and Blaine wants to cry, but he won’t because he’s almost five and five year olds don’t cry. Besides girls are stupid anyway.

The next day when  his mom asks him if he wants to go play with Grace, Blaine says no and stays at home and watches The Little Mermaid again.

When they start kindergarten, Blaine plays with the boys and Grace plays with the girls. They don’t talk to each other again until they’re in the eighth grade and Grace stops Brian Andrews from pushing him into a locker.

--

(2. once when it can’t love him back)

Blaine is seven when his parents take him to New York City. His mom holds one of his hands as they walk down the crowded sidewalks of Times Square and his dad holds the other.

He’s smaller than most kids his age and has a mop of dark, curly hair that falls over his eyes if his mom doesn’t brush it back. He likes it when his mom sweeps his hair back because she always presses a kiss on his forehead and tells him that he’s the world’s most amazing boy.

Blaine finds everything about the city amazing. There are lights everywhere and people are always moving from place to place. Nothing ever seems to stand still and it makes him kind of dizzy with excitement. It makes Blaine want to let go of his parents’ hands and run around and see everything, but it also makes him want grab on tight and never let go because it all seems so big and scary.

He stares at his dad as he tells Blaine about growing up in the city when he was Blaine’s age. He can’t imagine his dad having been seven years old because his dad has always been a grown up. He tries to think of what it would be like running around these crowded streets like he does back home in Ohio. He thinks that it must be really scary to walk around New York by yourself when you’re Blaine’s age because it’s kind of terrifying just to walk to Jonny Hamilton’s house five doors down from his own in Westerville.

Blaine goes to The Met, Central Park, Liberty Island and the Empire State Building. He drinks it all in with an ever-present smile on his face. Everything is bigger, and brighter and better here. Blaine thinks that he never wants to leave here. Maybe he’ll hide under the hotel bed until his parents go back to Ohio and then he can live here forever.

When he tells his dad, he smiles and shakes his head.

“You can’t stay here by yourself, Blaine,” he says. “But I’m sure that one day, when you’re older, and you’re in college, you can live in the city.”

Blaine grins, thinking about all the fun he can have in New York when he’s an adult.

“I will, dad,” Blaine says. “I’ll come and live here and I’ll love it just as much as I do now when I’m all grown up.”

“I’m glad, Blaine,” his mom laughs. “It’s a wonderful thing to be in love with.”

He smiles and nods eagerly. Blaine squeezes his parents’ hands tight and drags them along as he skip-runs down the sidewalks of New York City. They stop in front of a hotdog stand and Blaine lets go for a minute to look in the window of a toy store. When he turns around, his parents are gone.

For an entire twenty minutes, Blaine is left alone on the streets of New York. Suddenly, the bright lights and the big buildings don’t look fun and exciting anymore – they just look dark and scary.

Blaine sits in one spot because that’s what his mom and taught him to do. He doesn’t talk to strangers and he doesn’t go looking for his parents.

Blaine just sits on a bench and thinks that maybe the city doesn’t love him quite as much as he loves it.

--

(3. once when it brings nothing but bitter disappointment)

On his tenth birthday, Blaine’s dad gives him a guitar and a book that teaches him how to play along with some sheet music.

“This is my old one,” his dad says, “I used to play it all the time, but it doesn’t get much use now. You seem to be doing really well in your piano classes, so I thought it was about time you started on something else.”

Blaine grins from ear to ear and jumps up to hug his dad. “Thanks dad!” he exclaims.

The guitar is beautiful, Blaine thinks. It’s a little big for him to play standing up, but he can handle it if he sits cross legged with it on his lap.

He tells all his friends at school and they all think it’s really cool. Jonny Harris’ big brother plays the guitar and teaches Johnny how to play so Blaine asks if he could go over and learn with Johnny.

Every Wednesday Blaine goes to the Harris’ house and sits in the basement with Johnny and David, his brother, learning how to form chords and strum the strings.

Blaine spends night and day practicing his guitar. He gets really good at it too. He loves the feeling of plucking the strings and sliding his fingers down the fret board. Sometimes his dad sees him playing in the living room and smiles.

“It’s good to see that you like playing that thing so much, Blaine,” he says.

Blaine nods eagerly. “I love playing it!” he says. “Even more than I like playing the piano!”

 “Alright Blaine, just don’t let it get in the way of your schoolwork,” his dad replies.

Blaine likes playing the guitar because it makes beautiful noises when he plays it right. He also likes it because it gets his parents to pay attention to him. Lately, his mom has been working too much at the hospital and some nights, his dad doesn’t even come home.

Blaine knows that something is wrong, but being ten years old, he can’t really tell what. He just sees that the house is emptier than usual and they don’t have family dinners anymore.

His parents get really distant and he barely talks to them anymore. The only time he sees his mom smile anymore is when he sits with her and plays her the newest song he’s learned. The only time he ever talks to his dad is whenever he sees Blaine with the guitar.

So Blaine plays the guitar all the time. He even starts bringing it to school and playing it during recess for his friends. He discovers that he can sing too. He puts on shows on the playground and all his classmates flock around him and watch. It makes Blaine feel special.

He auditions for the school talent show and they let them have the closing number. Blaine doesn’t know what that means, but his music teacher assures him that it’s a very good thing.

Blaine goes home with a wide grin on his face, excited to tell his parents about the show, but no one’s home. He’s pretty sure that no one will be home until after Blaine’s bed time, so he writes a note in his very best handwriting and puts it and the tickets to the show on the kitchen counter.

His mom comes and wakes him up in the morning. She congratulates his and kisses him on the forehead promises him that she and dad will be at the show.

There’s something sad about her smile that Blaine can’t quite pin point, but he doesn’t dwell on it too long because his parents are going to come see him play his first show.

The night of the concert, Blaine doesn’t go back home. He stays after school and rehearses and helps set up. Blaine’s psyching himself up, sitting backstage and high-fiving every person that finishes performing. He doesn’t look out into the crowd because he’s scared that it might freak him out.

When they call his name, Blaine slowly walks onto the stage with his guitar and the stage hands bring out a stool for him to sit on. The stage lights are really bright, so he can’t really look out into the audience and try to find his parents. He focuses instead on playing the write chords and singing the right lyrics to Good Riddance by Green Day instead.

The audience claps and cheers loudly for him and it causes Blaine to feel a rush of excitement and happiness run through him. This is the best he’s ever felt, he thinks. Blaine rushes out into the crowd of friends and family to look for his parents, but they’re nowhere in sight.

Maybe they’re outside waiting for him, Blaine thinks. But they aren’t. In their place, is Mrs. McKinney, waiting to tell him that his parents couldn’t make it. She says sorry on their behalf and Blaine can tell that she, at least, is. Even if his parents really aren’t.

Mrs. McKinney guides him to her car and lets him sit in the front seat as a treat. She takes him to the twenty-four hour ice cream place near their houses and tells him he can pick anything he likes.

“After all, you were the best performer of the night,” she says.

Blaine smiles and thanks her, but he still can’t shake the feeling of disappointment growing in the pit of his stomach.

His mom doesn’t ask him about the show the next morning and his dad doesn’t come home that night. Blaine doesn’t talk to his parents for the rest of the week and he doesn’t touch the guitar for a whole month.

--

(4. once when he gives it up)

Blaine is twelve and sitting at the kitchen counter after school, waiting for his mom to give him a snack.

He does this every day now because if he doesn’t, he won’t see his mom for the rest of the day. She’s been transferred to the emergency room at the hospital and she’s working night shifts now. His dad comes home right before she leaves, but mostly, he Blaine spend their time living around each other rather than with.

His mom’s complaining about Mrs. Clearwater who lives four doors down.

“I just don’t understand why she thinks she’s better than us!” his mom exclaims as she slices cheese to put on his crackers.

Blaine puts his chin in his hands on the counter. “Isn’t Mrs. Clearwater the one that makes the macaroni salad for our barbecues and feeds Randy-from-next-door’s cat when it gets loose?”

His mom laughs. “Oh, Blaine,” she says, “you have an artist’s eyes.”

“What does that mean?” Blaine asks. Because that just seems like a really random thing to say.

“You’re just always looking for the good in people, that’s all. It’s not a bad thing,” she explains.

“But, Blaine,” she continues, “You have to realize that sometimes, that good isn’t there.”

Blaine doesn’t understand. He thinks that there always something good to see in people. Even if they’re mean to you because someone out there likes them so there must be something nice about them.

He tells his mom this. “That’s a good attitude to have, Blaine,” she says, although, Blaine doesn’t think that she believes it.

His mom works at the hospital for three straight days, only calling home to remind him to eat and do his homework. On the weekend, when she comes back, she brings him a bag full of paints and brushes and pencils and sketchbooks.

Blaine is sitting on his bed doing his homework when she comes and sits beside him and offers him the plastic blue bag.

“I don’t know how much you’ll like it,” she says, “But I figured it was worth a try. I was talking to Dr. Patterson in the psych ward and she said that it might be good for you to draw the things you see in people.”

Blaine smiles and accepts his gifts, but he doesn’t think he’ll put them to much use. He doesn’t like art that much, at least, not what they teach him at school. He doesn’t like cutting up construction paper and making pictures with them, or making collages using old magazines and newspapers. He doesn’t even like making sculptures with papier-mâché because it’s always really messy and he can never get it to work the way he wants it to.

He tucks the bag of art supplies in the drawer of his bedside table and goes back to finishing his homework.

Blaine doesn’t think about the paints and the brushes sitting in the drawer until months later when Jamie Holland finds out that Blaine thinks Randy is cuter than Grace and everybody starts using words like gay and fag when they talk about him.

He gets home from school and runs up to his room without saying hello to his mom and flings himself onto his bed. Blaine tries to remind himself of why Jamie was ever his friend or why he ever thought Randy was cute because all they ever do is make fun of him now.

Blaine wants to cry, but he won’t let himself because he remember his dad telling him that big boys don’t cry and he remembers the boys in his gym class teasing Johnny Harris when he cried because he fell down. So Blaine doesn’t cry. He lies down on his bed and tells himself over and over that there’s always a reason why someone is mean to someone else. He doesn’t let himself think bad things about any of them, because how does that make him any better than them?

Blaine reaches into the side drawer for his glasses because his head hurts, but his hand lands on the plastic bag full of art supplies. He pulls it out and looks at the paints and brushes again. There are also a few books in there that teach you how to use the paints and about different types of pencils and different ways of shading.

Over the next few days, Blaine comes home only to run up to his room and take out his paints and brushes. He falls in love with the bold stokes of colour he can make with his brush and the colours he can mix with the paints. He learns about crosshatching and dry-brushing and pointillism and lots of other things.

Blaine starts spending his lunches in the art room more and more often. Ms. Brady, the art teacher, leaves him alone and lets him look through her books of paintings and photographs. Sometimes Blaine stands in front of one of the easels and just throws paint on and sometimes he sits quietly draws in one of the sketchbooks his mom bought.

Ms. Brady tells him he’s got a real talent and it makes Blaine feel more proud than when his math teacher hands back his test with a big, bold A+ on it.

On days when he doesn’t want to go outside for recess because the all the other kids are being especially mean, Blaine curls up in a corner of the library and learns about all different kinds of artists. He reads books about Marcel Duchamp and dada and surrealism. He uses the computers to look up pictures of the art in the book and to look up other artists.

One time, Blaine finds a book on Vincent Van Gogh. He looks at pictures of Starry Night and Irises and Sunflowers. Blain loves all the colours and brush strokes. Blaine loves that the paintings don’t really look like what you would see, but more like what Van Gogh was seeing. Blaine also really likes that Van Gogh was kind of like him – they were different, and because of that, everyone made fun of them.

Mostly, Blaine draws the kids in his school. Except he doesn’t draw them but the good things he sees in them. Because it’s the only thing that can possibly help him keep going. He can’t hate them because they all used to be his friends and at one point, they used to stick by him. So Blaine chooses to remember everything good about them and cling to that.

At some point, Blaine starts bringing his sketchbook everywhere with him. He draws things he sees from the car window when he and his family drive somewhere, or he draws his mom when she cooks, or he draws in class.

He starts writing little poems beside his pictures and his sketchbooks become his life. He wonders if his parents have noticed that he doesn’t go anywhere without that little black book and a pencil and gets his answer when he comes home one day and finds a stack of brand new sketch books sitting on his bed.

Drawing is something Blaine can control. He can erase and change the stroke of his brush or the lines of the pencil. He can’t do that with anything else in his life. He can’t change the way the kids at school look at him. He can’t erase the feeling of being letdown yet again every time an adult turns a blind eye. So he paints and he draws.

One day Johnny Harris pushes Blaine too hard in the halls and Blaine lands on his arm.

Ms. Brady sees him and helps him to the nurse’s office. They call his mom and she takes him to the emergency to get his arm x-rayed. It’s broken.

Blaine’s arm is put into a cast and for the next six weeks, Blaine can’t write or draw or paint anything. But then, he thinks, what’s the point anymore?

What’s the point in drawing the good he sees in people if all it does is remind him that they’ll never be any good to him?

--

(5. once when it saves him)

Blaine is fourteen when his life falls apart.

He’s officially out, has been since last summer. It hasn’t made his life any easier, in fact, it’s much harder now, but Blaine is happier not having to hide who he is anymore.

His parents take the news in stride when he tells them.

His mom pats his back in a way that doesn’t really comfort him because it doesn’t say I’m here for you like you would expect a mother to say, it says that’s nice honey like it’s insignificant information and she’s getting ready to move on with her day.

To Blaine, his dad’s reaction is worse because he just goes silent and doesn’t say anything for days. But it’s not like that’s anything new. Blaine’s used to the quiet of their house now. His parents are always out – at work, at a banquet, anywhere that’s not with Blaine.

Blaine tries not to blame himself because he can’t find anything he’s done wrong, but he can’t help it. Other kids have it worse, he scolds himself. He has no reason to be so dramatic.

Things get a little better when Danny Mason comes out, two weeks into Blaine’s freshman year. Suddenly, Blaine has someone to talk to, someone who’ll listen, and understand.

He and Danny start spending all their time together because no one else will talk to them. Mr. Mason tells Blaine that he’s always welcome at their house and that if he and Danny ever have problems at school, he should come and tell Danny’s parents.

Blaine really likes Danny, he’s nice and funny and very cute. But Blaine’s not sure if liking Danny is a good idea because Blaine’s almost certain the Danny doesn’t like him back. So he just tells anyone who cares (which is barely anyone at all) that they’re just really close friends. Because that’s all they really have.

Sure, Blaine has Jesse, the lead soloist for their high school’s glee club who tries to stand up for him, but even he can only do so much. Blaine appreciates Jess because he goes out of his way to make sure that Blaine and Danny make it through a school day without fresh bruises. However, Jesse can’t understand what Blaine feels quite like Danny does.

No one at Carmel understands what Blaine feels like Danny does.

It’s possibly the worst year of Blaine’s life, but for the first time in almost three years, Blaine has friends. And not the superficial kind like Jamie Holland either – the real kind that actually worry about you and take care of you.

Blaine asks Danny to the Sadie Hawkins dance in October – just as friends, but he figures that they should go to make a point.

They have fun, no one says anything. Blaine is sure they want to, but Jesse has threatened to – to do something to them so they all keep their mouths shut and leave Blaine and Danny alone.

Blaine dances with his date (who is a boy) and they laugh and drink punch and make fun of the terrible music. At the end of the night, Danny calls his dad and asks him to pick them up, a block away from school because the parking lot is over crowded and Mr. Mason would never be able to find them there.

They hold hands as they walk down the sidewalk because even though they’re still only friends, they’re still technically on a date.

They’re talking about nothing at all, just laughing and smiling because it’s the most fun they’ve had in a long time, when, out of the blue, they hear shouting. Blaine makes out words like fag and queer and faerie, but before he can react, he’s being pulled away from Danny and pushed onto the cold cement.

Blaine hears Danny shout his name but he doesn’t have time to respond because there’s a fist being thrown in his face and there are feet kicking his ribs. He can hear them taunting and jeering at him – telling him he’s worthless and a sin and wrong.

Blaine squints his eyes, tries to put names to the voices and fists and boots. He sees Monroe James and Johnny Harris standing over him and Brian Andrews holding Danny down. Remember this, Blaine tells himself. Remember it was them, don’t forget, damn it Blaine!

He’s coughing up blood and his mouth tastes like he had tried chewing on pennies. He attempts to call out to Danny, but he ends up choking on his own bile.

He struggles a little, trying to fight them, but it’s hard when everything hurts and you just want to sleep. And then there’s a cold, blunt, metal thing hitting his head and everything goes black.

He wakes up in a bright, white room. There’s soft beeping sound in the background and every part of his body aches.

Blaine looks to his right and sees Mr. and Mrs. Mason standing there, looking absolutely devastated and he looks to his left to see his mother sleeping in a chair beside the bed he’s lying on.

He groans, trying to make some sort of sound to let them know he’s awake. Everyone in the room jolts up and his mom exclaims, “Oh, Blaine, you’re awake!”

The next few hours are a blur. Doctors come and go, poking needles in his arms and asking him questions like what’s your name and who’s the president. They tell him that he’s been in a coma for four days. His leg is broken, his wrist is sprained, and he has two fractured ribs, a mild concussion and several cuts and bruises everywhere.

All the while, Mr. and Mrs. Mason stand there and watch him. Blaine wants to ask why they aren’t with Danny, but he’s too afraid that the answer will be something he doesn’t want to hear.

In the end, curiosity and utter worry gets the better of Blaine, but he waits until his parents leave the room to get dinner to ask.

“Where’s Danny?” he rasps, his vocal chords rusty from lack of use and straining.

Mrs. Mason bursts into tears and runs out of the room. Mr. Mason grabs Blaine’s hand and looks straight at him and straight through him with the saddest eyes Blaine has ever seen.

“Blaine,” Mr. Mason says shakily, “Blaine, Danny didn’t – he didn’t make it.”

“No,” Blaine whispers. Because how can the world be this cruel? How can it take someone so amazing, so kind and wonderful like Danny, away from him?

Blaine thinks that it must be a joke.  But no, it isn’t. Because the next thing he knows, the cops are asking him questions about the guys that did this to him – that did this – that killed Danny. And Blaine remembers them because he made himself promise he would. He names them and the police take it from there.

A few days later, he’s being pushed into a funeral home on a wheelchair and there’s a microphone put in front of him and he’s expected to say nice things about Danny. He has a speech written down, except when he goes to say it, no words come out. So Jesse comes up and reads it for him. Blaine thinks that he must have written a pretty OK speech because Danny’s family members keep coming up to him and patting him on the back and thanking him.

Blaine’s life for the next few months is doctor’s appointments and court dates and homeschooling. It’s funny, he thinks, that it took this – this almost dying – to get his parents to notice that something may have been wrong. But Blaine can’t even laugh, because it hurts too much.

He goes to court to testify and then he stays to hear the verdict and the sentencing. Blaine sees red when he hears that they’re only being sent to Juvie. He wants to scream and shout.

DON’T YOU SEE WHAT THEY DID! DON’T YOU SEE THAT THEY KILLED A BOY! THEY KILLED MY BEST FRIEND!

But he stays quiet and lets his parents take him back home where he’ll just spend another day walking around the house like the ghost of a person he once was. His mom and dad sit him down for dinner that night and explain to him that he’s not going back to Carmel.

They tell him about a boarding school in Westerville – Dalton. They tell him about the zero-tolerance-policy and the all boys aspect of it and everything else you can learn from the pamphlets the school probably hands out.

Blaine thinks that anything’s better than here, where everything reminds him of the friend he’s lost.

His mom helps him pack his things and he’s at Dalton within the week. The school is the epitome of posh private school and if Blaine weren’t so damn disconnected from everything right now, he’d probably make a few Dead Poets Society jokes right now.

The halls are big, and looming, but warm and welcoming all at once. Blaine meets his roommate, an Asian boy named Wes, and he’s immediately greeted with a smile and a handshake.

The classes at Dalton are far more interesting and Blaine finds himself buried in schoolwork and too busy to even think about Danny.

It takes a few weeks to adjust to Dalton because everyone is nice here and no one bothers him. Wes goes out of his way to make sure Blaine feels at home and the teachers help him catch up on missed work and the other boys show Blaine the ropes.

Blaine is totally in love with the school because it’s the first place that hasn’t judged him for being him. For the first time in a long time, Blaine Anderson feels like he’s home.

--

(6. once when he only fools himself)

At sixteen, Blaine makes a lot of stupid mistakes.

Namely thinking that he loves Jeremiah.

It’s a last ditch effort to make himself feel like he has something to hang on to, he knows that. And it’s probably not such a good thing that Jeremiah reminds him so much of Danny, but Blaine thinks that maybe he should try this dating thing.

So he asks Jeremiah out for coffee and they talk and laugh and have fun. Blaine lets himself believe that there’s something there, that he can feel like this again.

It’s stupid he knows that; somewhere in the back of his mind he knows. But he doesn’t let himself think of that. He focuses on the he could be my boyfriend and the maybe I could sing to him instead.

So Blaine makes a fool of himself. It’s not a surprise; really, Blaine’s always kind of been an idiot when it comes to these things. He ends up regretting it and the thought that hey, here’s another thing Blaine Anderson can’t get right, hurts more than the rejection does.

Then Kurt’s treating him to coffee and telling Blaine that he likes him. And wow, Blaine has never felt so clueless in his life.

It’s like Blaine can’t read anyone anymore. He’s so used ignoring all these feelings that he can’t even see them in his best friend. He feels terrible and he tells Kurt so.

He tells Kurt that he’s scared to mess this up, to mess them up and Blaine hopes that maybe, somewhere along the line, he will find the courage to open himself up again.

--

(0. and once when he takes his time)

It takes several months, and many more cups of coffee. Sometimes it takes nights of crying and sharing fears. Other times it takes soft kisses and reassuring squeezing of hands. One time it takes a dead bird and a Beatles song.

But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that Blaine is sitting in a Lima Bean with his subpar coffee listening to his boyfriend tell him about his misadventures in the Big Apple when he realizes it.

Blaine loves Kurt. And not like he loves Dalton, or like he loves Wes and David either. Blaine loves Kurt like he wants to spend the rest of forever with him and hold hands with him and kiss him until he can’t breathe anymore.

Sometimes Blaine is slow on the uptake. Wes blames it on the years of emotional repression Blaine’s been through, and Blaine’s willing to acknowledge that fact because it’s sort of true. Kurt has to sing about his dead bird to get Blaine to realize that he wants do more than just be best friends with Kurt.

It’s June, they’ve been dating for three months and Blaine thinks that it’s not as scary as he may have led himself to believe. Because it’s exactly like being best friends with Kurt, except now, he gets the added benefits of kissing him and holding him and calling him his boyfriend.

Blaine’s only known Kurt for a bit more than half a year, but it feels like they’ve already spent a lifetime together. He’s never felt so complete in his life and it doesn’t even matter that there’re still these gaping holes in him that aren’t filled. Because the Kurt-shaped hole in his heart that he didn’t even know was there before, isn’t there anymore.

He feels happy to just sit there and watch Kurt. He feels like he’d be just fine sitting there and looking at his boyfriend for the rest of time.

Kurt makes Blaine want to confess everything. He makes Blaine want to lie in bed all day and tell him about all the things he’s afraid of and all the things he dreams about.

One day Blaine tells Kurt about how much he loves to draw and Kurt asks to see his sketchbooks. The only other person who has seen his art before is Nick and only because Nick is an artist too. But Blaine trusts Kurt so he brings his portfolio and his art supplies with him the next time he goes over to the Hudmels’ and shows Kurt everything.

Kurt asks Blaine to draw something for him so Blaine goes back to his dorm and fishes out a picture he took of Kurt when he fell asleep on Blaine’s lap. He paints the sharp corners of Kurt’s cheekbones and the soft curves of his lips. He fills in the blush on Kurt’s skin and does his best to capture the way the light falls on his hair.

When Blaine gives Kurt the small canvas the week after, Kurt’s eyes well up with tears and he pounces on Blaine for a hug and doesn’t let go for a good ten minutes. The painting is now on an easel on Kurt’s bookshelf between a picture of Kurt’s mom and another of Kurt, Finn, Carole, and Burt.

Kurt rambles on about singing a medley of New York songs in Times Square and Santana’s breakdown and subsequent outburst at Rachel after they don’t place at Nationals and all the while Blaine just sits there, mesmerized by his boyfriend.

All his life, Blaine’s been looking for someone to save, someone who’s stuck in a tower and a needs him to rescue them. But then Blaine met Kurt and now he thinks that maybe it was Blaine who needed the saving.

Kurt turns his world upside down. Blaine’s always thought he was going to be Prince Eric and he was going to find his Ariel, but now, now Blaine thinks he may have had it wrong. Maybe Blaine is the one looking for new footing, a new voice. Maybe Kurt is his Prince Eric, waiting to save him from the storm.

Except not really because Kurt is not some Disney prince. He’s just Kurt. Kurt who is so unafraid and unapologetic of who he is and what he is. Kurt who wears bondage clothes to school and thinks that designer shorts and jackets make a perfectly OK disguise for spying on an all boys private school. Kurt who makes him open up and feel. Kurt whom he loves.

Kurt says something about the plane ride back being absolutely silent. Blaine rests his chin in his hand and says something like I don’t get it and you don’t seem sad at all. And Kurt responds with it was still amazing and I had breakfast at Tiffany’s and sang on a Broadway stage.

It’s been eight months of ups and downs. Of stolen kisses and embarrassing serenades. Of awkward sex talks and awkward drunken nights. Of self discoveries and discovering each other. Of I’ll never say goodbye’s and I’m crazy about you’s. It’s been eight months of courage and Blaine thinks it’s finally time to heed his own advice.

“I love you,” Blaine says. He doesn’t hesitate to say it because he doesn’t want it to be some big declaration. He wants it to be a simple statement of fact because that’s what it is. Like a Lysol commercial – fact: Blaine Anderson loves Kurt Hummel.

Kurt’s eyes light up as he takes a sip of his coffee. He smiles and says, “I love you too,” like it’s the simplest thing in the world.

They grin at each other for a while until Kurt says, “You know, when you think about it, Kurt Hummel’s had a pretty good year.”

And while Blaine doesn’t necessarily believe that to be true, he thinks that yeah, Blaine Anderson’s had a pretty good year too.