The school bell rang as the New Directions filed into the choir room, soft chatters disrupting the gloomy ambiance of the room as the curly headed boy sat at in a corner with an empty chair beside him. When Mr. Shue signaled him to go up front with a sympathetic smile, Blaine walked up to the white board and faced his friends.

Blaine didn't know what possessed him to do this. He isn't a showy person by nature if it isn't for performances.

Maybe talking is not the answer. Maybe you need to show him how you really feel, in the best most honest way you know how.

No, he didn't know why. But he sang.

He couldn't help it when his mind drifted back to the break up, to the memory of Kurt's tear-stained face and his ocean blue eyes, shining with hurt and disbelief. Tragically beautiful, Blaine had thought. How he had wanted to just let this stupid mistake go and pull him into his arms, but he couldn't. Blaine couldn't be the burden to Kurt. He couldn't.

He wouldn't.

Blaine knew that while he had done it for Kurt, he had really done it for them. Blaine couldn't bare the thought of becoming a needy high school burden to Kurt. He wouldn't ruin the only sweet memories Kurt had in his high school life. Bittersweet, a voice in his head supplied unhelpfully.

If our hearts are never broken

Well there’s no joy in the mending

There’s so much this hurt can teach us both

Though there’s distance and there’s silence

Your words have never left me

They’re the prayer that I say every day

Come on, come out, come here, come here

Come on, come out, come here, come here


When the song ended, the choir room was silent except for a strangled sob, followed by the rush of footsteps out of the choir room.

-----------------------

Blaine Anderson was a mess. His eyes were always poofy from crying and he couldn't pick out an outfit each day without remembering how much Kurt loved dressing him.

He brushed his fingers gently across the checkered maroon bowtie Kurt had made for him last Christmas. The one identical to the bubble gum-wrapper ring Blaine had given him that very same week. Blaine pulled his hand away as if he had been stung and closed his wardrobe after hastily pulling out a sweater and a pair of jeans. He couldn't care less about how he dresses anymore when each piece of clothing had a memory of Kurt behind it.

Blaine opened his locker and took out his books, feeling the heavy weight of the textbooks in his arms. It was an odd feeling, but Blaine couldn't quite put his finger on the reason why.

"Blaine," a soft voice whispered behind him. Blaine turned around to see Tina looking at him miserably. "You can't keep doing this to yourself, Blaine, I'm su-" "Tina, please, don't." Blaine said. With a watery smile that he was pretty sure looked more like a grimace, he turned around and headed to his first class, clutching his books to his chest tightly.

Tina stood at Blaine's locker, gripping her phone in her hand as she worried her bottom lip. She sighed into the empty hallway.

--------------------

Kurt sat down at his table and opened his laptop. His nimble fingers typed out his password across his keyboard, and the fingertips stung from the needle pricks Kurt had given himself over the past week.

Kurt never pricks himself with the needle.

Taking a sip of his lukewarm coffee, he opened his mailbox and saw an email from Tina. It had no title and no message written, just a video attached. Kurt frowned as he downloaded the video from his friend. He really didn't need reminders of his high school glee club right now, Kurt thought. Especially when the majority of it are now memories of a beautiful boy with dark curls and shining honey hazel eyes. Eyes filled with tears.

Kurt let out a sob he hasn't known he had been holding. He wasn't sure who had broken whose heart that day, but he knew that he wasn't ready to think about that yet. He plucked in his earphones as the video opened up. The grainy quality of the voice coming from the speakers of the laptop tuned into the soft melody of a piano.

-----------------------

Blaine stepped out of the shower and dried his hair off with a soft white towel. His limbs felt heavy and there was a constant throbbing in his head. He wasn't sure if it was from the non-stop studying he had thrown himself into, or something else entirely.

Before he knew what he was doing, he grabbed an old Dalton shirt and pulled it on. Blaine was hit by the sudden wave of Kurt's scent and he quickly ripped the shirt off and threw it onto the floor with more force than required. Why was he so stupid, clinging on to the little remnants of Kurt in his room: the old Dalton shirt that Kurt wore whenever he came over to Blaine's house, the Margaret Thatcher dog sitting in his wardrobe, the ribbon from the bouquet of yellow and red roses pinned at his desk.

Hugging his knees, Blaine dropped down to the wooden floor and buried his face into the crook of his elbows. Whenever he thought he could no longer cry anymore, his body and heart proved him wrong. And Blaine hated it. He hated that he's still being bullied. He hated that he's just a boy left alone in Ohio with a broken heart. He hated that he still loves Kurt so much. He hated that he really meant it when he told Kurt he can't stand to be apart from the person he loves. He hated that he misses Kurt, his Kurt.

The soft melody of Candles filled the room as Blaine's phone vibrated on his night stand. Grabbing for his phone, Blaine hastily wiped his tears away and answered the call. God, whoever was calling was just going to think they called a frog by mistake judging by how scratchy his voice must be.

Fresh tears welled up in Blaine's eyes and he wept openly for the first time after the night at the park. His body was wretched with strangled sobs as he cried into his phone.

"Blaine, I'm sorry."