Everyone has regrets. No matter who you are or if you’ve had the so called “perfect life”, the wager is that you’d find yourself asking “what if?” at some point in your life. I guarantee it.

Blaine found himself asking himself the same question every day since it happened and usually it was centred around Kurt. His boyfriend. No, ex-boyfriend. What if he said no? What if he just said he was sorry? What if, he simply didn’t fuck everything up? He remembered it like yesterday.

Blaine cradled the scorched scrap book between his shaking hands, staring intently at its burned pages. What if he didn’t set the lighter on it? It wasn’t Kurt’s fault after all. It was a far cry away from being Kurt’s fault. It was Blaine’s fault.

He recalled someone trying to talk to him, trying to bring his attention away from the disintegrated memories in his hands but he didn’t care. He wanted Kurt, he wanted his boyfriend to walk around the corner of the hospital corridor and laugh at Blaine’s hopeless state, he wanted Kurt’s fingers to massage those small gentle circles in the small of his back, kiss his forehead, run his fingers through his hair and tell him everything was going to be okay. Blaine wanted that more than ever. More than words could describe. More than words could describe. With a long audible sigh, Blaine held back a sob as he realised that what he wanted most was impossible because Kurt was gone and he wasn’t coming back and Blaine only had himself to blame for that.

He must have sat on the same hard plastic chair for what felt like days, no one bothered him. In his catatonic state, he screamed silently for everyone to stay away and leave him alone. So that’s exactly what they did. They stayed away and they left him alone to himself with only his thoughts for company. The longer he sat there, the more Blaine could feel himself falling apart. He could feel himself physically breaking, the ringing in his ears only got louder, the black spots would completely cloud his vision every now and again. His head was pounding constantly and the feeling in his hands was replaced with a really irritating tingling sensation. Blaine thought he would much rather stick pins in his eyes and it be more bearable than what he was putting himself through.

The same spot on the floor of the waiting room was so familiar to him by now. He had stared at it long enough he had led himself to believe that in brief moments of insanity he could engage it in conversation. On more than one occasion he’d move to do so but found that finding Narnia would be easier than finding his voice; or the will to actually move.

After about a week in Blaine’s mind (roughly a few hours normal time) someone joined his side. On another day, Blaine would have chuckled at the sight of his short five foot eight self sitting next to Finn’s towering six foot three gangly mess of limbs but he couldn’t bring himself to move, never mind to laugh. He faintly felt a hand rest on his knee and heard Finn mutter something about it being late, Blaine managed to force a small jitter that was an attempted shrug but he thought if he forced himself to move any more he would physically exert himself, exhaustion just didn’t cut it.

Before long Finn was snoring lightly and Burt has joined their gathering, he lips were parted slightly as he breathed heavily, his eyes half closed still swimming with tears. Blaine found himself envying the eldest Hummel, he himself so badly wanted to cry, to release all of the pain that was gathering inside his chest but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. This was his fault and so he deserved the pain that came with everything. In his pocket, his phone vibrated signalling a new message but he didn’t move, whoever it was could wait, they weren’t important. Blaine blinked a few times before looking up to meet the sympathetic gaze Burt was directing his way. Blaine quickly averted his eyes, not wanting to see the broken expression that would surely be creeping, screaming at him from Burt’s tired features. Suddenly he felt very claustrophobic, he needed to get out, the museum like white washed walls were closing in on him, the feint flickering of the energy saving light bulbs above his head flooded the room in their sickly yellowish glow. He made to move, fighting his inner turmoil so he could force his legs into a stable standing position, but before he could force his torso to make the move to the standing position, the two questioning gazes of the uniformed officers in the doorway caused him to pause and resume his position that included him staring at the same spot on the floor as earlier.

“Mr Anderson?” Blaine looked up into the towering form of one of the officers that now stood in front of him. He gulped but nodded, once again unable to find his voice, “Could you accompany us please? We’d like to take your statement” Blaine blinked but nodded away, forcing his limbs to work together so he could stand and follow the two officers into an empty room just down the corridor.

“Mr Anderson, I understand what you must be going through right now is hard and the last thing we want is for you to be uncomfortable, but we’d like to take your recount of the events that took place in the early hours of this morning whilst they are still fresh” The other officer explained. Blaine merely nodded ready to lurch into his tale about how he and Kurt had argued over dinner about something so stupid as the scrap book they’d started. Blaine had taken it to work with him so he could stick his latest photos in from their trip to New York to visit Finn and Rachel over the summer. It was a stupid thing they’d started once they both started college and moved in together, each of them would take turns behind the camera documenting their trips, random dinner dates and so on. Blaine hadn’t told Kurt he was taking the book who had gotten paranoid when Blaine was texting “Lucas”, a friend from work who had developed the photos for him which had resulted in an argument which ultimately led to the events that followed Kurt storming out of the house in a fit of rage claiming he was staying at a friend’s house while he calmed down. He never reached the friend’s house. He never actually reached the end of the road when a very upset lorry driver didn’t break at the cross roads whilst having a conversation with his wife over the phone and slammed straight into the side of Kurt’s navigator. The driver’s side.

Blaine could feel the tears building behind his eyes, he could feel the burning in his throat and the all too familiar breaking feeling in his chest resumed and God it just hurt so much. He took a moment to steady himself before preparing to lurch into the tale, to tell them everything but he just couldn’t find the words. No, at first he couldn’t find the words and then the more Blaine tried to speak the more obvious it was becoming to him. Blaine tried; he really really tried for a good twenty minutes before he gave in. His shoulders slumping as he gestured for a pen and paper.

‘I can’t talk’ he wrote.