The first time Kurt really says that he loves Blaine, it is in the heat of battle, as we will call the quick shedding of clothes and toppling onto pillows. It is gasped out and Blaine’s not sure what to make of it.

One day Kurt sees Blaine considering a new type of coffee.

One day, Blaine sees Kurt refuse to watch a musical.

And they still kiss and they hug and they meet for coffee but it seems something’s wrong, something’s bad wrong and spiraling out of control. The barista asks where Kurt’s promise ring is when he goes to the coffee shop alone, and Kurt looks down mildly. “I didn’t even know I lost it,” he tells the woman, who furrows her brow in worry. He does not know her name, but he is worried by her look.

We’ll be on top of the world someday, Blaine says triumphantly after a number. Kurt flashes a quick smile and texts Finn to come pick him up.

One day Kurt comes down the oak-colored stairs of their house wearing nothing but his underwear, and Blaine stands still with his mouth open and his hands clasped, as if in prayer, in front of his night-shirt. His hair sticks up and rises up toward the ceiling, trying to escape. And Kurt smiles sadly and says don’t look so surprised but Blaine can’t seem to think too straight and Kurt laughs just a little, his giggle rising and falling over the toaster, that indifferent silver surface that stretches Blaine’s mouth into a frog-like hole when he looks into it.

The laugh quickly dies away and Kurt puts a shirt on, a shirt that is faded beyond all recognition but says something about liking boys. Blaine tries to kiss its neck. Kurt shrugs away, saying he has an audition today and it won’t do to mess up his hair.

Blaine tries to hide his disappointment behind his eyes and busies himself with too-sweet instant oatmeal.

Kurt can’t find the promise ring, though he calls a plumber to look down the shower drain. He dreads the day Blaine notices that he’s not wearing it.

One night he comes home to hear things coming out of their bedroom, noises that he doesn’t like at all because they’re not coming from him, though he can’t quite bring himself to be angry even though he knows he should be. And when he opens the door to the small room with the grey bed that seems too big some nights and too tiny some others it is not short hair that sweeps Blaine’s bare chest, but long and blonde.

A skirt lies discarded on the floor.

Kurt softly closes the door and tries to vomit, but nothing comes up except for a dry sob that doesn’t echo in the narrow hallway.

Kurt you’re wearing the same outfit you wore yesterday. Rachel has arrived for their semi-weekly shopping session. He’s forgotten she was coming, and has spent the morning staring into the reflective surface of a toaster.

I know, I know, he sighs. I just wasn’t thinking. He doesn’t tell her that he was afraid to sleep in same bed as Blaine or go to his closet and pick out something new. So he slept in the living room and tossed his clothes back on. He sees a skirt that looks like the one on the floor and a brightly patterned sock at the mall, and he shudders. Cold, he explains when Mercedes (who has met them there) asks. Just cold.

She buys him a pretzel that must be over four hundred calories. He wishes it was soaked in alcohol.

Blaine burns his toast to a crisp which is the only way he likes it and smears strawberry jam on it, thinking of how much less that unnamed woman meant than Kurt. He knows that Kurt hates the smell of burning bread when he comes home but he can’t bring himself to care overmuch, and wonders who he’s become.

And who Kurt has become.

He tries to sing along to Don’t Stop Believing on the radio and it seems that he’s forgotten the words. He can’t help crying when he can’t recall what comes after rolling the dice just one more time.

It was wrong, he knows, it was wrong to bring the girl back, and it felt wrong and everything was wrong wrong wrong but everything’s wrong anyway so how could it get wronger?

Then he puts his head on the empty table that smells like lasagna and cries more because he can’t quite recall the exact shade of Kurt’s hair or his favorite shirt or what he likes on his pizza, all of which he used to know better than his own hands.

Kurt comes home with shopping bags and sees Blaine hunched over, tears making his eyes puff comically and the rooster placemats that Kurt thinks are so tacky specked with wet circles. Go and hug him, comfort him, kiss him until he doesn’t remember his own name, let alone what’s troubling him, Kurt’s mind screams out, but while his mind is made of air his body seems to be made of lead. He glues himself to the counter and stays there until Blaine reaches out to him.

I’m sorry, Blaine sobs, his hands clasped around Kurt’s neck and his eyes pleading. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

It’s alright, Kurt says offhandedly, and when they kiss it is just as sweet as it used to be, but Blaine strokes Kurt’s fingers and his eyes kill Kurt when he finally realizes that Kurt is not wearing his ring. All that encompasses the beautiful man’s hands is flesh, flesh and bone and sweet caresses that suddenly repulse Blaine.

He is scared of his own lover, and he recoils. Don’t touch me, he says, and this time it’s Kurt’s eyes that well up and spill over, his face blotching red as it often does when he cries. Blaine remembers a time when he used to think the discordant redness was adorable. Now the word ugly comes to mind and it terrifies him because he’s never thought of Kurt as anything but gorgeous before now.

I love you, though, Kurt whispers, and it is not a statement but an excuse.
Blaine stalks out the front door and Kurt takes up the position of crying at the table. The smell of burnt toast fills his nostrils, like it does every morning, and he hangs his head and chokes off a laugh when he wonders why anyone would ever eat bread crisped like that.

When Blaine returns he is drunk and all too willing to go to bed with Kurt, who is by this time numb and shaking. And even his lover exploding over him in a frenzy of passion and hot breath cannot warm his frozen heart. He kisses Blaine softly when he falls asleep and tries not to whisper goodbye.

Maybe this time he’ll come back, Blaine thinks through his hangover in the morning. Maybe just this once he’ll decide to give me another chance even though I don’t deserve one. Maybe he’ll still love me and somehow we can make this work.

He throws a penny into the mall fountain and wonders if he could smell Kurt if he were to go into any of his favorite stores. But no, those are too painful to even look at, so Blaine crunches ice between his teeth and watching gaily laughing children play on kiddie rides while his organs seem to tear themselves out of his skin and fall on the dirty tiled floor, on top of those grains of brown rice from the southwestern grill by the corner.

And when he gets home evidence of Kurt is still everywhere. He wants to drink but the handle on the liquor cabinet seems to slip out of his grasp every time he tries to turn it. The fates don’t want him to be numb. They want him to feel every bit of his suffering and lick at his heart saying don’t you feel terrible now and the straight sex wasn’t even that good so ha ha on you. Blaine tells the voices that don’t exist to shut up and sleeps in the living room, but it doesn’t seem like he has much room to live.

Somewhere, Kurt blows a candle out and watches it rain.