He wishes he was sixteen again. He wishes he was sixteen and dating the most beautiful boy in the world and dying every time he touched his hand. Blaine thinks that everything would be okay if he was still sixteen. He misses the simplicity of it all—going over to Kurt’s house before dates and sitting on the couch watching football with Burt while Kurt gets ready, his and Kurt’s giggly little dates when neither of them could stop smiling, trying to squeeze in a little kissing before curfew. He misses falling in love within those walls that were so safe and he misses Kurt blushing whenever he caught Blaine looking at him during Warblers rehearsal. He misses all of that, before they started crying about Kurt leaving, before there was that constant ache in his chest and lump in his throat.

He feels old in a bad way. Old and filthy and tarnished, because sixteen year old Blaine would never, ever let another person touch him like Kurt had touched him. Sixteen year old Blaine would sit down in the corridors at the stupid prep school that he used to love so much and play with Kurt’s fingers and give quick little kisses. He misses when he was so innocent and he wonders what it was that possessed him to not be anymore.

He hates McKinley. He hates it. McKinley has only ever been Kurt. It has been the place he visited Kurt on his days off and it has been the place where he told Kurt that he was transferring (for Kurt) and it has been the place where he has Kurt’s accessory and hasn’t cared a bit—because he was with Kurt. And the only people left at McKinley are Kurt’s friends and the new ones who haven’t really cared to talk to him much. Kurt’s friends aren’t talking to him. Blaine wouldn’t talk to himself if he were Kurt’s friends.

He hates himself. He hates himself and he has broken the heart of the boy who saved his life. Kurt used to be so proud of him, and Blaine would carry that with him like a trophy. And now Kurt hasn’t spoken to him in weeks, and that hasn’t happened since…ever. He doesn’t really remember his days anymore. They just sort of come and go, and Kurt never calls. Blaine’s left sobbing voicemails in the middle of the night, ones where he cries so hard, shakes so violently, he makes himself sick and falls asleep crumpled against the cold bathroom floor. But Kurt never calls. Blaine supposes he doesn’t even deserve a call.

On his back, in his bed, in the middle of the night, Blaine wonders how many times he has to whisper “I love you, I love you, I love you” into the silence of his bedroom until it takes away what he has done and brings Kurt into his bed. And Kurt would take him into his arms like he always did and Blaine would press his nose to Kurt’s neck and breathe in like he always did and everything would be sixteen again. Blaine chokes on the air in his lungs when he’s gasping from crying. Every time he sucks in a breath to suppress a sob, he sees Kurt’s face, dark in the shadows in the park that night, twisted and tragic and awful and because of Blaine. And that’s when he hates himself even more. He was never, ever supposed to make Kurt cry.

When he was sixteen years old, Blaine went starry-eyed when Kurt would take his hand and lock it with his own, a kiss pressed to his knuckles. He is eighteen years old now, feeling older than he should for reasons that shouldn’t be real, feeling dirty and gutted and like a different, more horrible man, and he’s sure he would die the most beautiful death if Kurt would do so much as touch his hand again.