Blaine Anderson stood still and quiet as Marcus Flynn quickly flipped through his latest portfolio, barely giving the photos a first glance. Blaine had been particularly proud of these photos and put a lot into each shot, but when Marcus flipped the book closed and shook his head, Blaine's heart sunk deep down inside.
"Blaine…Blaine, Blaine, Blaine. You can do so much better than this. I don't understand why you're giving me crap photos." Mark said with that disappointing tone in his voice and that tilt of his head.
"What do you mean? These are all once in a lifetime shots that I got…I don't understand what's wrong with my pictures." Blaine questioned this every time and never got a direct answer or anything that could be useful for him to improve on. For example, the portfolio Marcus just looked at contained pictures from the night Mike proposed to Tina. They were his friends and something that could never be forgotten. What about that isn't personal and memorable?
"Look at this photo over here that's going to be one of the featured pictures in tonight's gallery," Marcus put an arm around Blaine's shoulders and walked him over to a nearby picture mounted on the wall. "You see this? This is a picture of a seven-year-old boy who caught his first ball at a baseball game."
"You took that picture…" Blaine sighed and rolled his eyes because every collection that gets featured is Marcus'.
"It's up here because it's relatable and personal and it has meaning." Marcus pointed at the picture, punctuating each word as he said them. "And if others were capable of creating such masterpieces, they could be featured too."
Blaine nodded and took his portfolio back, staring down at the black cover.
"It isn't that these aren't…good. I actually need another collection since Melissa's collection is so atrocious that they cannot even be seen," Marcus trailed off slightly but came back around to his point. "This isn't your moment. It's theirs. In twenty years you're not going to remember that night and what happened even with pictures. They will no matter what. You need a moment you will remember the rest of your life, photo or not, but you capture it anyway because of the way it makes you feel and if that reflects in the photo, everyone else will see and feel it too."
With a clap on the back, Marcus turned around and walked away leaving Blaine to his thoughts.
"Alright, that's it. I quit!" Blaine shouted as he burst through the front door of his and Kurt's New York home. Kurt was sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop open writing his newest article for Vogue and looked up with just enough time to see Blaine toss his portfolio on the island and they both watched it slide across the gray granite right onto the floor, a few of the pictures peeking out.
"You say that every time you see that photo gallery guy and yet you keep going back," Kurt pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose turning back to his laptop and continued typing. "What did he say this time?"
Blaine sighed, almost a little too dramatically and sat at the table across from his husband. "The same thing he said the last fifty times: "there's not enough emotion, your pictures don't mean anything, make it more personal, they suck…my fish could take better photos," yadda yadda yadda."
"And yet he keeps using them in his shows…that has to count for something, right?" Kurt looked over at Blaine above his glasses, putting a small smile on his face.
"Oh, that's because mine, and I quote, "suck the least out of everyone else's."" Blaine sighed putting his face in his hands. "I don't know…I feel like no matter what I give him it's not going to be good enough…he did say he'd use the ones I took of Mike and Tina though."
Kurt's shoulders slumped slightly, but his smile stayed and started to grow a little after a few seconds. "I talked to Corryn this morning…" Blaine immediately perked up and intently stared at Kurt waiting for him to continue.
"She said it could be any day now." Kurt's smile now engulfed his entire face and Blaine's were sparkling brighter than any star. "Someone will give us a call when it's time."
Blaine laughed, still smiling as he ran a hand over his face and through his hair, ending up resting his chin on his hand, looking over at his husband with so much love it should be unbearable but Kurt just looked back at him with the same expression.
"I can't believe we're going to be dads…" Blaine huffed out. "I can't wait to be a dad…"
It wasn't until a few nights later when both Kurt and Blaine were in bed and asleep that they got the phone call. Kurt was the one who woke up to the phone ringing. When he answered, Corryn's brother Brian told Kurt that she had gone into labor and they were at the hospital. After getting the information and hanging up after telling him they would be there shortly, Kurt turned to Blaine and shook him until he woke up completely startled.
After they both put clothes on – Blaine originally got up and ran out the bedroom door with absolutely nothing on – they got in their car and drove as quickly as they could to the hospital. They did, however, have to turn the car back around because Blaine forgot his camera – Kurt was determined to keep going but Blaine was insistent that he wasn't going to miss something like this. It felt as though they broke a dozen laws on their way there but it didn't matter because in a matter of hours, they were going to be parents and nothing was going to get them down.
When Kurt and Blaine reached the maternity ward, they saw Brian standing outside the delivery room and immediately made their way towards him.
"Brian, hey! How's she doing? Is everything alright?" Kurt immediately started spewing questions as soon as Brian was in earshot.
"Yeah, everything's good so far, well, from what I can tell anyway." Brian smiled at the both of them. "Come one, she's down this way."
And so Blaine and Kurt followed Brian down the hall to where Corryn was. When they got to her room, they saw Corryn in the bed looking as uncomfortable as an eighteen-year-old pregnant girl could be.
"Hey sweetheart, how're you doing?" Kurt walked up to the side of the bed and took Corryn's hand, giving it a soft squeeze.
"Never been better…" She tried to smile but it immediately turned into a look of pain as, what it looked to be, another contraction made its way through her body.
"Just hang in there, you're doing great and it'll be over soon," Blaine smiled down at the teenage girl.
"I'm going to go get something to drink, does anyone want anything?" Brian asked as he walked towards the door.
"I think we're ok, thanks though, Brian." Blaine replied as he and Kurt got comfortable.
After they arrived, there wasn't really much to do except to wait until Corryn was ready to push. In the meantime everyone was pretty quiet with the exception of Corryn and the contractions that kept coming and never seemed to stop.
Two hours later, Corryn was ready to push.
There was a lot of encouragement from Kurt, Blaine and Brian while their mother continued to sit in a corner as though nothing interesting was going on. From Corryn there was a lot of screaming and cursing going on and general incantations of "get this damn baby out of me now!" and different variations of the phrase.
The doctor announced he saw the top of the baby's head and as soon as rest of it came out, he knew something was wrong. The baby wasn't making any sounds or crying. He told Corryn to keep pushing and as soon as the baby was out, he didn't announce whether it was a boy or girl. He asked for immediate assistance from another nurse to cut the umbilical cord and then they brought the baby over to a side table and immediately started cleaning it off.
"What's going on? What's wrong? Why wasn't the baby crying?" Kurt spoke up with a shaky voice. He noticed something wasn't right when the baby came out and the doctor became extremely serious – not that he shouldn't be already, but this seemed to be a different kind of extremely serious. "Blaine…what…"
Blaine couldn't even give a verbal response. The only thing he could do was grab Kurt's hand and hold on as tightly as he could praying all of this was just a dream. Blaine looked over at Corryn who was still grasping Kurt's other hand and had tears streaming down her face. He couldn't help but notice how much younger she looked when she cried. She's too young to be dealing with something like this. Then again…is there an old enough age where you'd be ok with something like this?
After some more conversion between the doctor and the nurses, the baby was taken out of the room by one of the nurses as the doctor walked over to everyone else with the saddest look anyone had ever seen.
"I…I'm so sorry to say that the baby didn't make it."
And that's what broke Corryn down into a sobbing mess.
"I-I'm so so-sorry! I'm sorry!" she cried and cried apologizing so many times over. Kurt let go of Blaine's hand and sat on the bed taking Corryn in his arms, holding her as she cried.
"It's ok…it's ok…it's not your fault…" he kept repeating softly until she calmed down, and when she did, it was Blaine who spoke up.
"What…happened?"
"What happened is what we call stillbirth which is the delivery of a child who is not alive. Sometimes death happens before delivery or during. This time it happened to be during when Corryn was pushing. What actually caused this, I can't tell you."
"I swear, everything was fine. I didn't think anything was off-"Corryn began to babble again, but Kurt cut her off.
"No one's blaming you, sweetheart." Kurt said quietly, then stood up and turned back to the doctor. "Was it…was it a boy or a girl."
The doctor gave the smallest smile. "You would have had a baby girl."
A baby girl.
That's what they both wanted. A little girl.
Kurt looked over at Blaine who had been quiet this entire time, and then he looked down at the floor and then back up at the doctor with a small, watery smile. "Can I…can I hold her?"
The doctor smiled and nodded his head, and left the room indicating he would be back momentarily. When he did, there was a small bundle in his arms wrapped up in a pink blanket. He moved towards Kurt who put his arms out ready to take the baby. As soon as he was settled, he sat down in a nearby chair finally getting a look at her little face.
It didn't look as though she had passed away, just that she was in a real deep sleep dreaming about whatever babies dream about. Kurt couldn't help but think about how beautiful she was and how he's never going to see how beautiful she would become.
"Oh baby girl…you are so beautiful…" Kurt wanted to continue, but he couldn't think of anymore words to say. Maybe there wasn't, but for a baby who will never get to live her life, he felt like there should be plenty more. "I'm so sorry you didn't get the chance to live your life…there are so many things we wanted to do with you like teach you how to ride a bike, help you with your homework…even do the not so easy things like bra shopping or getting through your first broken heart…I would have loved to see you on your wedding day, getting married and starting a family of your own…"
Kurt was quiet for a moment before continuing.
"But we're not going to get to do any of that with you and it breaks my heart…um…I don't believe in a Heaven or a God and things like that…but I believe that you're in a safe place where you can grow up and nothing can hurt you. Also, can you say hi to my mom for me? Or your grandma, I suppose…and just tell her I miss her and I love her…"
Then he went quiet and all he could do was stare at the precious girl that he didn't notice the tears falling down his face, but he did hear the click of a camera go off beside him. He turned to face Blaine who had knelt down his camera just below his chin and his eyes were a little red, but Kurt couldn't see any tears. Also in that time, he didn't notice that they wheeled Corryn off with Brian at her side to a more private recovery room.
"Do you want to hold her?" Kurt whispered because he knew that was all he was capable of.
Blaine shook his head. "I can't…" he choked out.
Kurt didn't give a response. He just turned back to the baby and then stood up, walking over to the nurse in the room. Kurt stood in front of her, looked down at his baby one last time before whispering, "Goodbye, baby girl…I love you, so much…" and then gave her a kiss on her forehead and giving her to the nurse who walked out of the delivery room.
He turned to his husband who had stood up from kneeling and walked over to Kurt and wrapped his arm around his shoulder while Kurt wrapped an around Blaine's waist as they walked out of the room to say one last goodbye to Corryn and Brian and then to go back home to bed.
Blaine and Kurt spent most of their time in bed. The night they came home from the hospital, all they did was get in bed, hold each other and cry until sleep took over their bodies. The next morning Blaine couldn't sleep anymore so he got up and went downstairs to his studio where he did most of his work. He grabbed his camera from the night before, looking at the only picture on the card.
This would be the only picture they would ever have of their baby girl so he uploaded it to his computer and edited the photo until it looked perfect. Once it did, he printed it out using his special printer and then went to the storage room to find a particular frame that he had been saving. As soon as he found it, Blaine went back to his studio, took the photo and put it in the frame and then set it against the wall, walking over to his desk to grab pen and paper.
Once everything was all set, he put the paper with the picture, wrapped it up getting it ready to bring to the post office to drop it off. Once that was done, he would go back home, get back into bed with Kurt and stay there for as long as they need to.
A couple days later Marcus Flynn would receive a package at his gallery. He would open it up to find and exquisite photo, already framed and ready to be hung. Marcus noticed a piece of paper fall to the ground so he picked it up, read it and was thoroughly amazed.
Marcus decided this would be the only featured photo at that night's gallery showing.
"Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please?" Marcus stood up at the podium waiting to have everyone's eyes and ears. "First, thank you all for coming out and enjoying this fabulous evening with all of this fabulous photography." *Applause* "Now, I would like to start off with our featured photo. This…this is a very special photo. I did not take it, I know mine are usually up there because they're brilliant, but this one was sent to me and was taken by a photographer who has had a lot of his work here so you may recognize him. He goes by the name Blaine Anderson. There was a letter accompanying the photo and we all know a picture speaks a thousand words, but…I think with this you'll find there to be more than a thousand words,
"Dear Marcus Flynn,
Every time we've spoken, you told me my pictures sucked and that they had absolutely no life in them at all. You even told me once your fish could take a better picture. I have always disagreed with that – I think others have too – and have said many times before that I would go somewhere else and hopefully they would like my work. However, this last time you did actually give me something to work with. You told me, and I quote, "You need a moment you will remember the rest of your life, photo or not, but you capture it anyway because of the way it makes you feel and if that reflects in the photo, everyone else will see and feel it too." This is that photo.
This is a photo of my husband Kurt holding our baby girl the night she was born. He's not crying because he's happy.
She was a stillbirth baby meaning she died before ever having a chance to live. There isn't a reason of why it happened, it just did. During the time Kurt was holding her, his eyes never left and he never stopped telling her how beautiful she looked. I couldn't agree more. I hate knowing that I have to go through life never knowing my daughter. I hate that this is going to be the only picture I have of her.
When we were sitting in the hospital and Kurt was talking to her about his mother…she had passed away when he was only eight and all I could picture was Elizabeth holding the baby in her arms telling us that she's safe, that they're both safe, telling Kurt, telling us how much they love and miss us.
The title of this is 'Proof That Life is Too Short' and it's one hundred percent true. This photo is beautiful and devastating all in one. Life should never be taken for granted because it's too fragile for any of us to fully understand. Some know more than others, Kurt and I being two of those people.
You can do whatever you would like with this. You can toss it, you can show it, you can sell it…I don't need it back. This will be the last picture I take. Maybe for a moment, maybe forever, but right now, I just need to be with my husband.
Thank you for your time and your last piece of advice.
Blaine Anderson
Oh, if you were looking for her name, Kurt and I discussed it before any of this happened. It would have been Corryn, after her birth mother because she is the strongest person we know and we couldn't thank her enough for what she did for us."
After the letter was read, there were many people who wanted to buy the picture but it wasn't for sale. Marcus Flynn never took the picture down. He even framed the letter from Blaine and hung it up as well so others can read the story that goes along with the picture.