Coffee and Past Memories
The house smelled like coffee but felt like memories he'd wished to forget.
It had been years since he stepped foot in that house. Seven years, to be exact. He didn't come home at all. This wasn't really home, though. It was more like a prison, of sorts. Except instead of encasing people, it stole his childhood, his happiness, and his faith in himself and in life.
As he stepped through the front door, he immediately took notice of every detail. The paint on the walls was cracked and chipped, the once bright white now tinted with gray. The floorboards were caked over with dust, older than they'd ever looked, and creaking with each step. The furniture was dusty and worn out. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling like decorations. It appeared as though no one had been in here for years.
However, the moment he walked in, that familiar smell wafted through his nose. Coffee. It was something he'd come to love over the past years, yet it still lingered with the memory of this house. Each morning smelled like fresh coffee, just how his father had liked it. Coffee made that man stay awake most days.
He remembered how his father would walk through the house, a mug of coffee in his hand, just before he stopped to see his wife and son. He talked with them for a while, sipped his coffee, and passed down the hall and into his office, disappearing for work. Those were the happy morning in this house, all in the early years of his life.
He put his hand up against the wall, moving forward down the rickety hallway. Old photos guarded each end of the wall, some with cut out faces and torn pieces. Others hung at odd angles, others had yellowing paper and broken frames to suit this broken house. The doors had been removed, exposing bathrooms and staircases and, finally, his old bedroom.
Nothing had changed. The bed was in the corner, with the blue and green bedding. The bookshelves, the photographs, the music records, the notebooks, even the wardrobe- it was all here. It was just timeworn, dirty, and oh-so-obvious that no one had touched it in years. This room held more of his stolen childhood than he'd liked to recall.
Things got ugly as he got older. Coffee was still a prominent aroma, but it didn't mean cheerful mornings and exchanging stories and laughing at jokes. It meant to recover from hangovers the night before, to keep awake from lack of sleep, to rid himself of the memories of harsh fights that led to the split in their marriage. His father drank coffee twice as often by then.
He himself could reminisce it. All those fights, all those many years ago… When he was a child, he'd lay in his bedroom at night. Yells would echo through the walls from the kitchen- screams of his father, of his mother, both directed at each other. They never fought in front of him. Just in the dead of night, when they'd tucked him into bed, only for him to hear their shouts and swears and cries until he fell asleep with a sense of agony fresh in his mind.
That bed, in this very room he stood in… it held so many sleepless nights and nights of sleeping through anguish. It was all attached to that one object. Something he never thought he'd have to look at again… but he here was. Standing in his old house again, in his old bedroom, with the memories running around in his mind and trying to get him to catch them.
It was so stupid. All of it was. Coming back to this place was. He didn't want to, but he needed to. He didn't know why. He just did. He needed to put everything behind him, once and for all. Now that his father had passed away… there was nothing stopping him from coming back here. But it was still stupid.
He sighed, turning out of his bedroom and down through the corridor. He had taken about four steps down the hall when an overwhelming memory hit him, swooping down and seemingly punching him in the heart. This hallway was the same passage where he'd first…well, where he'd first been hurt by his father.
It was the day he'd come from school, a mere 12 year old boy, having been bullied about every part of himself by his peers because he was different. By different, he meant that he was… gay. They'd gotten into a fight, a terrible, terrible fight. And he felt absolutely horrible about it.
He had sunk down to the ground, after shutting the front door, shaking with the sobs he wished hadn't come. The scent of coffee and alcohol wafted through the house as he sat there, bawling and trembling and wishing that none of that had happened.
He sat in that position for a good twenty minutes, crying his eyes out. He then got up, wiped the tears his pink-rimmed eyes, and down the hall in the hope of going to his bedroom. His father, however, had grabbed his wrist, yanking him backward. The alcoholic smell was more prominent than ever. Vodka and red wine stained his father's breath and penetrated the air like an infectious disease. He could practically taste the alcohol when his father looked him dead in the eye and whispered these words: "You're dead."
Then a hand was raised and a face was slapped, the face being his own and the hand being his father's. A kick, and then a punch, and then another slap, another kick, another punch, another slap, and more and more and more followed, until he was lying on that hallway floor, covering his face in protection. Bruises were forming on his side. Pain shot through his veins, adrenaline pumping to an almost fatal point. His father, though, just looked at him, anger written on his face. And then he walked away.
However, the look on his father's face told him all he needed to know.
Today, though? His father was dead. Alcohol poisoning, they'd said. But it was still very, very real. He leaned against the wall in the middle of that same hallway. Everything seemed so real now that he was back in this house. It brought back everything he'd tried to block out of his system.
He had to keep walking. Get out of the hallway. The hallway contains the worst of it- at least, he's pretty sure that corridor has the worst memories plugged into it. But he's wrong. When he sees the kitchen, he knows he's wrong. This is the worst memory. The place where everything fell apart.
This is the part of the house where his parents fought a lot. Their yells and taunts still rang in his ears. This is the place where his dad drank a lot. He could still see beer and wine bottles hidden strewn everywhere in the kitchen. This is the place where he tried to commit suicide. He still remembers where the pills and knives are hidden.
SNo. He can remember it clear as day now. The day he reached into the cabinet, taking out a bottle of pills. Swallowing 12 of them. Taking a knife and slitting his wrists for good measure. Waking up on the floor in the morning, not dead. Wishing he was.
It was really the worst part of the house. So many things came out of there. Screaming. Abuse. Attempted Suicide. Divorce papers. Punching. Curses. Oh God, it was all coming back to him now. The kicking and screaming and fighting and wanting to run away and wishing death would come as his escape.
He shut his eyes, taking a shuddering breath. He was going to pass out. Or have a panic attack. Or have a panic attack and then pass out. One of the three. He had to get out of here. He couldn't stand the memories and the pain it brought with him. He had to leave. He had to-
"Blaine," the familiar voice told him. A hand, cold yet familiar, wrapped around his, pulling him out of the room. "You alright?"
"Yeah, I'm… I'm fine." He replied. "Just thinking."
"Come on, we'd better go," said the voice. The hand tugged on him again, turning him over to look at his face. And he turned to see the face of his love. "Are you sure you're alright?"
"I'm fine. This house just has… a lot of memories attached to it."
"Do you think you can let them go?" his love asked.
"Yeah… yeah, I can. I don't need them anymore."
And thank goodness he'd found his love, because without love, the hope of painful memories leaving would never have come.
Author's Note: Sadly, I don't own Glee. (If I did, we'd know a lot more of Blaine's backstory by now.)
Thanks so much for reading! I wrote this based upon what I thought Blaine may have gone through as a kid and leading through some of his teenage years. Somehow I feel like he's a much more hurt person than he leads on. But hope always come through, despite his circumstances. I know there are a lot of mistakes, mostly in my rambling sentences. However, I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope you enjoy reading it!