Chapter One - "Why Does It Hurt So Bad?"

Sitting on a rumpled bed in an unfamiliar room, Blaine Anderson felt numb.

Empty.

Dirty.

The door to the adjacent bathroom was ajar; Blaine could hear the hiss of the shower spray. The sound cut through him more than any shrieking siren possibly could.

The voice of his former Dalton roommate echoed in his head. "Dude, it's definitely a hook-up if you have to take a shower after," he remembered Jeff wisecracking once for some forgotten reason.

A hook-up.

He couldn't believe what had just happened...how he'd let it happen. Thinking about it made his skin crawl. He wanted to run from that room and drive home, fling himself into the shower and scrub himself until he felt clean again. The smell of sex was in the air; Blaine felt like throwing up each time he took a breath.

He picked up his phone. When he touched the screen, it lit. Oh, God. The Facebook mobile site was still there. The sight of those fatal messages did his stomach no favors.

Eli.C: Hey there, sexy.

Eli.C: Want to come over?

The hissing sound of the shower stopped. Blaine heard faint sounds of movement as Eli toweled himself off.

Blaine didn't even want to lay eyes on the other boy. Not for one second. He logged out of Facebook, hoping that banishing the evidence would make him feel even a fraction better.

Wrong. When his wallpaper picture came up, he felt like he'd been slapped across the face.

He and Kurt. Holding each other.

Smiling.

Happy.

Then it hit him. Kurt. Oh my God, oh my God ohmyGod...

Clutching the iPhone in his hand, Blaine felt like he'd just been kicked in the stomach...

Chandler (April 25): Are you an astronaut? Cause you're out of this world.

Clutching the iPhone in his hand, Blaine felt like he'd just been kicked in the stomach.

Chandler (April 25): I'm pretty sure you were Cleopatra in another life. You've got a great asp!

There were dozens of text messages. Literally dozens.

Chandler (April 25): You're like a song. I can't get you out of my head.

Chandler (10:23am): If you were Jack and I was Rose, I'd never have let go.

Chandler (12:18pm): If I had a star for every time you brightened my day, I'd have a galaxy in my hand.

Funny, flirty quips and cheesy pick-up lines.

Chandler (2:17pm): Your eyes are blue like the ocean. And, baby, I'm lost at sea.

Blaine didn't find them funny.

Chandler (3:33pm): I know your father's a mechanic. You've got a finely tuned body.

He'd only found them by accident. In Kurt's cell—in his boyfriend's cell. Obviously from someone named Chandler.

Chandler (5:37pm): If I could rearrange the alphabet, I would put "u" and "i" together.

Blaine didn't know anyone named Chandler.

Bzzzzzz.

Chandler (7:40pm): Sing into my voice mail. I want you to be my ringtone.

Obviously Kurt did.

Bzzzzzz.

And they kept coming, one right after the other. Faster. More insistent.

Chandler (7:43pm): When we get to New York, let's go to the front of the Plaza and reenact the ending of The Way We Were.

Blaine flinched. New York...always New York...

Kurt was down in the kitchen. Blaine had picked up the phone because of the insistent—almost constant—vibrating...afraid that it might've been one of their friends...or maybe Burt or Carole, calling from DC...someone desperately trying to get in touch with Kurt. He was trying to be a good boyfriend.

Reading these messages (and, oh God, the replies), he couldn't say the same about Kurt right then.

Bzzzzzzz.

Each buzz heralding a new message sliced into Blaine's heart like a razor-sharp blade.

Chandler (7:46pm): This time next year let's be laughing together.

This was obviously what Kurt had been giggling over during Glee today...and why he'd sat apart from Blaine, rather than in the seat right next to him. He remembered Sam looking over Kurt's shoulder at one point, grinning at something he was reading on Kurt's cell.

And how, after looking over at Blaine, the grin had slid off Sam's face.

He watched as Kurt trotted into the room, smiling and prattling on about stupid cheese plates and Being Bobby Brown marathons.

Wanting and not wanting to know, Blaine held up the offending phone and asked, "Who's Chandler?" trying and failing to keep a pathetic whine out of his voice.

Blaine got his answer when Kurt stiffened up and, in a clipped tone, asked, "Why are you going through my phone?"

The following conversation was unreal. After trying to proclaim that nothing happened (and from the guilty look on his face, Blaine could see that he didn't even believe it himself), Kurt actually tried to blame Blaine for this, saying that this Chandler made him feel good. Unlike Blaine, who it appeared had become little deficient in the romance department of late.

It didn't seem to matter that Kurt wasn't actually burning up the ether himself with hot and sexy texts—unless he thought Blaine had a secret fetish involving peach-colored shoe polish! And don't think Blaine didn't notice that Kurt never denied liking the guy, instead retorting, "When was the last time you complimented me? Or told me how special I was?"

It seemed Kurt had forgotten that promise ring he'd received at Christmas time—and the heartfelt pledge that came with it. As well as the fact that last September Blaine had left Dalton Academy, the Warblers and friends he adored to come to public-school hell where gay bashing was practically a varsity sport. Just so he could be with the boy he loved.

Oh, no. Like that old Janet Jackson song, Kurt was all about the "What have you done for me lately?"

Then this hot mess of a discussion took a serious detour through Crazy Town when Blaine again heard this was all his fault—this time for being the "alpha gay". Whatever the hell that was. Blaine guessed it was a "straight gay man" (thank you, Sex and the City, for those clairifiers) whose traditionally masculine good looks made him attractive to both guys and girls. Kurt even threw the infamous drunken kiss at the Rachel Berry House Party Train Wreck Extravaganza in his face for the umpteenth time.

Then it was all how that big, mean, attention-whore Blaine made po' wittle Kurty feel all inadequate by stealing all the Glee solos—this coming from the same person who had reamed out his stepbrother Finn for expressing the same thoughts earlier this year.

As for the whole thing about texting not really meaning anything...? Hadn't their relationship had already collided with that particular can of worms once already? One Blaine had foolishly opened labeled "Sebastian Smythe". And it had almost cost Blaine an eye—protecting Kurt from what turned out to be a rock salt-laced slushie facial.

But now, Kurt was actually trying to rationalize his behavior. It was innocent and though Blaine was, for some bizarre reason, upset he insisted "it's okay!"

Blaine couldn't believe what he was hearing. "It's not right...but it's 'okay'?" he concluded, staring at Kurt, incredulous.

Kurt just sat there, lips stubbornly pressed together, staring at him like he was the crazy one.

Blaine couldn't be there anymore.

Feeling the tears welling up, he turned and left Kurt's room as fast as he could.

He wasn't going to cry.

Surprisingly, Kurt didn't try to follow him as Blaine charged down the stairs. He paused only long enough to fumble his keys out of his pocket. He could see Finn and Sam sitting in the family room.

Finn just stared dumbly as he dashed by. Sam at least managed to rise halfway off the sofa, calling "Hey!" before Blaine was gone, slamming the door behind him.

Speeding away from Lima on I-75, going a good twenty miles over the speed limit and slaloming his way through the slower moving traffic, Blaine was tormented by one thought.

Kurt cheated.

Two words Blaine Anderson had never thought he'd utter in his life. The Kurt who got jealous if anyone—male or female—even looked at Blaine...that Kurt had just had the gall to tell him what he'd just seen was innocent?

The whole drive home, Blaine ignored his phone. It tortured him by playing his Kurt ringtone: "Teenage Dream". That chance encounter on the staircase at Dalton and the performance in the senior commons seemed like it had happened a million years ago.

Getting off the interstate, Blaine drove wildly through the quiet streets of Oakwood, tires squealing as he took the turns. Finally reaching home, he left his Jag in the driveway and ran up the front walk.

Barely pausing to key in the alarm code, he shoved the front door open with a bang. He didn't care. It wasn't like there was anyone else at home these days to scold him for his behavior. Or to even ask him what was wrong. He stalked through the silent house and sank into the well-worn leather wing chair in the library, wrapping a decorative throw around himself.

He pulled out his phone. There were seven missed calls, six voice messages and four texts. All from the name number: My Kurt

He stared at the screen, stomach clenched. My Kurt...

Then a voice deep inside his head whispered mockingly, Hey, shake it off, Blainey boy. "Nothing" happened. Kurt said so. All those texts with that guy, they're "okay", remember? "LOL", right?

Grimacing, he thumbed his "My Kurt" text thread.

My Kurt (8:19pm): Please come back. :-(

My Kurt (8:26pm): Why are you so mad? NOTHING HAPPENED!

My Kurt (8:32pm): You are being ridiculous, Blaine Anderson.

My Kurt (8:39pm): How could you even THINK I would do that to you?

Blaine chuckled mirthlessly. And there he is, ladies and gentleman. Stubborn, self-righteous Saint Kurt of Lima. Won't admit he's done anything wrong. Can't even say "I'm sorry". Oh, wait a minute, my bad—he did: "I'm sorry that this made you upset."

As Blaine watched the screen, another text arrived:

My Kurt (9:01pm): If you want to be that way - FINE!

Are you kidding me?! Blaine now felt the anger burning in his gut. He knew he shouldn't do what he was about to do, but he couldn't help himself. Now knowing what it was like to "see red", he jabbed a reply into the key pad on his phone, intentionally using "text-speak" because he knew how much Kurt hated it—

Me (9:02pm): kma! & btw: fuck u 2 ! ! !

—and pressed "send" before lobbing it across the room.

He was disappointed when it ricocheted off the wall and landed on the window seat, safely burying itself in the cushions.

He'd wanted to see it shatter into pieces.

Just like his heart.

He wasn't going to cry. He wasn't—

Too late.

TO BE CONTINUED

A/N: I know this isn't going to be the most popular of stories right now. I started writing this in July, after watching "Dance With Somebody" with my girlfriend. After it was over, we both turned to each other and, having one of those "simpatico" moments, said, "You know, Kurt never even said he was sorry." "I was thinking the same thing."

I added the beginning after seeing "The Break-Up".

I am being naughty and not working on my two other WIPs...but school's getting insane and I'm starting to find myself falling asleep at my desk most nights. Wish you could absorb information via osmosis when you're unconscious with your face planted in the book.

Let the games begin. Thanks for reading! Lemme know what you think.