It feels like I’ve been punched in the gut. All the air in my lungs has been sucked out.

“I think I’m just gonna walk home.”

I watch him stalk away from me, my lungs constricting further. “Blaine!” I call out, hoping he’ll turn around and listen. This can’t be happening. The night I had planned to show Blaine I can be as exciting as Sebastian cannot be going like this. He is not walking away without acknowledging me. I turn to look at Scandals, but the sight of the logo just fills me with dismay at the memory of the evening, so I turn further, facing Blaine’s car again. Blaine has disappeared beyond the bushes surrounding the parking lot.

What does he think he’s doing? He can’t walk home; someone could hit him with their car, or someone could attack him, or a potential serial killer could get him. I lunge into Blaine’s car, starting the engine to be accosted by Blaine’s “Kurt” mix CD. When Paul McCartney’s voice wafts through the speakers, I take a deep breath to center myself. Blaine loves me; I can do this.

I drive across the parking lot to pull onto the side road that holds Scandals. I make necessary turns to go the way Blaine was walking, but don’t immediately see Blaine walking along the poorly lit street. I begin to panic. He couldn’t have gone far, right? I continue to drive in the direction of Blaine’s, dread tangling in my stomach at the thought that I hadn’t stopped something from happening to him. I finally spot Blaine’s goldenrod shirt under a flickering streetlamp, and my anxiety begins to die away. I hurriedly roll down the window to shout, “Blaine!”

He startles, but he doesn’t turn towards me.

“Blaine, please get in the car!” I say, pulling up next to him. His head is ducked down, staring at his feet, his face pinched. “Will you please get in your car and let me take you home?” Blaine just keeps walking. I follow him silently for another minute until “Perfect” starts playing. Tears begin to fill my eyes and I’ve never been so glad to be driving at two miles an hour. “Blaine,” I plead, “I don’t want anything to happen to you. It’s after midnight; get in.”

He shakes his head without speaking, but I’m relieved to be getting a response at all. A car comes up behind me and honks at my near stop, causing Blaine to stumble over a crack in the sidewalk.

My breath catches and I brake to make sure I don’t leave him behind, the car having passed me. Blaine keeps walking, slightly slower and relying on his right foot. I blink and a tear slips down my cheek. “Blaine, please. You don’t even have to talk to me, I just want to make sure you get home and don’t get in trouble.”

Blaine scoffs, apparently at the idea that his parents could care enough to punish him.

“If you keep pushing that ankle, you won’t be able to perform in West Side Story.”

No response.

“Rachel will be furious.”

Still nothing.

“Alright, fine. I’ll just take your car home with me and you won’t be able to get to school in the morning.”

He doesn’t even pause.

“It’ll stay in my driveway. My father will come home on Sunday and find your car in our driveway. No matter what I tell him, he’ll assume the worst and I’ll get punished. There’s no good reason for me to have your car.”

Blaine’s feet stop, and for a glorious three seconds, I think he’s going to get into his car. But he shakes his head again and continues shuffling down the sidewalk. I try to convince him for another 15 minutes, but when it becomes clear Blaine isn’t going to respond, I just stop talking, following him home in his own car to make sure he gets home in one piece and doesn’t hurt himself further. I watch him limp into his house before slumping into the seat in order to rest my head on the steering wheel and cry.

Why did I even bother trying to prove I’m “spontaneous and fun” when I’m clearly not either of those things? I’m not the kind of guy that has fun at a bar. I want to go on a date with tables and wait staff or shopping. Even our houses would be preferable to being in a place where I’m supposed to dance without choreography and let strangers watch.

What if that’s what Blaine wants? What if he needs someone who will let loose and forget about everything for a little while? I don’t think I can be that person, even for him. I tried tonight, to dance and have fun and not care about beer getting on my Doc Martens and smoke infusing into my thrift store gems. But the niggling feeling that I was too awkward to do this or that I was making a horrible mistake wouldn’t leave me. I can’t just dance and not give a shit that people can see me. I can’t be sexy, especially not in front of outsiders.

But Sebastian could. He can give Blaine all of that. He can be carefree and just enjoy himself.

What if I’m too uptight for Blaine? What if I care too much about appearance and appearances to be with Blaine? I could try; I could try harder for Blaine, open myself more. It isn’t until I nod to myself that I remember that had been tonight’s plan.

And I had failed miserably.

The last track in the mix begins and it’s “Teenage Dream.” Of course. �My tears begin anew as I remember the playfulness in Blaine’s eyes and the hope burgeoning in my chest. It was an awful parallel: then, in his school, I had decided that I would try my hardest to be his everything; now, at his house, in his car, closer than I could’ve imagined, I’ve realized that I can’t.

At his house, in his car.

I have to get home, on the other side of Lima, and I don’t have my car. No one can pick me up because no one else knows where Blaine lives. Finn’s probably with Puck or making out with Rachel. So, without any other choice, I drive across town, Blaine’s musical thoughts of me accompanying me home.

-β-

When I pull into my driveway at 1:07 AM and see Finn’s Jeep, I run inside to find him in front of an almost completely dead fire, as if mourning it. He turns and looks at me with his general look of bemusement, but when he looks closer, he must see something troubling because he says, “You okay, bro?”

I shake my head, determined not to start crying for a third time that night. But when Finn stands, walks to some spot three feet away from me and opens his arms, I let out a sob. He takes the last steps and wraps his arms around me tightly.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he says, almost a question, patting me on the back.

I shake my head into his shoulder, trying to compose myself and figure out what to say, settling on, “I’m not enough.”

Finn tenses for a moment against my body before he pulls away and says, “You’re plenty, Kurt.”

I take another deep breath; the count of those must now be in the hundreds. “Can you follow me to Blaine’s house in your car?”

Finn’s brow furrows. “Weren’t you just with Blaine?”

I nod. “He—we—I—” I didn’t know where to place the blame, maybe there isn’t just one place it belongs. “He couldn’t drive.”

Finn nods. “I can do that for you.”

“Thank you,” I say, so grateful that my body sags under his hands on my shoulders. Posture doesn’t matter anymore. I lead the way out the front door and get into Blaine’s car again, waiting for Finn’s Jeep to start before pulling out of the driveway. I drive to Blaine’s in silence, not trusting myself to listen to his music without crying. By the time we get back to Blaine’s it’s almost two, but the lights in Blaine’s room are still on.

I park his car in the place he usually parks it but I don’t get out, staring up at Blaine’s window for any sign of what he’s doing, feeling intrusive for the first time since Blaine and I got together. But I see no shadows or silhouettes to signal that Blaine’s even awake. Maybe he passed out with the lights on.

Finn knocks on the window, breaking me out of my reverie. When I get out, Finn says, “Why don’t you call him or ring the doorbell or something?”

I go back to watching Blaine’s window for a few moments before saying, “I don’t think he wants to hear from me.”

I can see Finn looking puzzled out of the corner of my eye, but I’m going to focus on Blaine until I can’t anymore.

Finn doesn’t ask any more questions or say anything else, for which I’m thankful.

I can’t go into it tonight.

-β-

When I see Blaine wince on a turn during rehearsal the next day, I know it’s because he stumbled on the sidewalk going home from Scandals. I watch him when I know he’s not paying attention. His ankle probably hurts when he walks or does any of the dance routines, but you wouldn’t know it from his demeanor. Only I know he’s hurting, probably in more ways than one given the forlorn look in his eyes when he thinks no one is watching. And no one is, apart from me.

But he hasn’t made any attempts to speak to me today, so I don’t know how to tell him to be careful with his ankle so that he avoids permanent damage. I thought of leaving him a note, but I have no idea how to tell him I want him to be careful because I love him too much to watch him in pain without the forcing the fact that I love him down his throat when he could be thinking of breaking up with me.

So, I go to Beiste, feeling infinitely childish for essentially tattling on Blaine. But Beiste knows the dangers of pushing an injury too far, and I know she’ll make sure he’s taking care of himself.

Any guilty thoughts abandon me when I see her pull Blaine aside and talk to him quietly. Blaine’s nod fills me with such reassurance that I slump in my seat in the house.

-β -

Sebastian’s presence in the audience makes my skin crawl, but there’s nothing I can do about it, so I just go back to my space backstage. I look down on the personal effects spread out on the bench, Blaine’s picture staring playfully up at me from the background of my phone. I know people are rushing around me, going through costume changes and reapplying stage make-up, but I can’t hear them. I just keep seeing Blaine’s hazel eyes sparkling from two weeks ago as he tried on his The Situation costume.

I press my lips together and forcefully turn to find the man himself sitting in his chair in front of the vanity he shares with Rachel. He’s slouched over a 3x5 of our Prom picture, his thumb brushing over my face slowly and I can see from the mirror that he’s wistful. I watch him for a long moment, wondering what he’s thinking. His face scrunches up slightly, and his eyes look distinctly wet. My stomach erupts and I can’t breathe. Blaine, the boy I’ve been mourning for days, is sitting over there, mourning me. I want so badly to tell him that there’s no need, that I’m right here, waiting for him, that I still love him, that I still want him. But I can’t move. I’m stuck, slumped on my bench, on the outside of Blaine’s life.

The spell breaks when Santana brushes past me in her tight red dress, exclaiming something about how “the Hobbit better not try to sing over her again.” At the word “hobbit,” Blaine’s head shoots up and he turns around to make sure no one caught him, sitting up straighter with an instinct obviously ingrained in him from childhood. Sit up straight; don’t let them see you weak and improper. Don’t let them see you’re not the perfect son.

My heart seizes up to see Blaine working so hard at his facade, the facade I’d had to work so hard to penetrate.

A facade that Sebastian doesn’t even recognize.

And with that realization, I’m not concerned about Sebastian anymore.

-β-

Finding Blaine practicing the move that caused him to grimace in rehearsal yesterday doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. He’s always been a perfectionist when it comes to his performance. Although it doesn’t shock me, it does trouble me, so I say, “Shouldn’t you be celebrating?”

But he doesn’t stop working on the turn, so I keep talking, hoping it’ll convince him to stop pushing himself, horrified to hear myself bring up Sebastian. My shoulders tighten and rise minutely closer to my ears. Everything had been going well; Blaine had been looking at me with his usual warmth rather than the apprehension I’d received over the last two days. �I’m even more dismayed when he stops looking at me after I say it, as if he is thinking about the conniving weasel.

But he has ceased trying to perfect his choreography so relief still reigns in my stomach, a smile at my small victory rising against my will.

When Blaine reassures me that not only did Sebastian’s efforts go unnoticed, but that he doesn’t find my romanticism objectionable, I know I can tell him the thought that occurs to me every time I see him perform.

“You take my breath away.”