Chapter 4

Blaine continued to stare at the picture.

"Know what?" he asked his brother.

Cooper licked his lips.

"When I was 14 years old, we lived in Columbus. I had just started high school when I met her," Cooper nodded towards the picture. "I thought she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen."

She was pretty, Blaine thought and she looked familiar.

"I wasted no time in asking her out. A couple of weeks after we started dating I took her to meet my parents." Cooper snorted. "Mom loved her, and Dad was proud of me, I think, for having a girlfriend. Everything was going great." he looked at Blaine. "You know how Dad always goes to that Christmas party his partner throws?"

"Of course."

Blaine had tried to get out of going for the past two years, but his parents were adamant that he go. The party was torture; his father would disappear somewhere with his business buddies, and his mom would go talk to her "friends" leaving Blaine standing alone in a corner, trying to will the clock to go faster.

"Ok." Cooper's face turns red. "That year I convinced my parents to let me stay alone. I had to beg them for an entire week, but they finally said yes. I was ecstatic; finally no more boring parties where I had to act forty instead of fourteen."

Cooper's coughed. "There was another reason why I wanted to be alone," Cooper said, "I'd…I'd invited Linda over for a couple of hours."

Blaine's jaw dropped, and then he laughed, "Oh my God are you serious? You invited your girlfriend over?"

"Yea," Cooper smiled. "I did. We talked for a while, and then I gave her something to eat, and then," his brother's hands turned to fists, "and then I invited her up to my room for some…privacy."

Blinking, Blaine looked down at the picture. Mouth opening and closing he looked back up at his brother, who seemed to be doing his best to sink into the couch.

"Coop…you didn't. Oh my-tell me you didn't."

His older brother chuckled. "Yea…yea I did."

"You were 14!" Blaine said. "What were you thinking?"

Cooper shrugged, "I was thinking I loved her, and that she was super hot, and I really, really wanted to have sex with her."

"Wow," Blaine shook his head, "that is wow."

"Yea," Cooper cleared his throat, "that's not the end of the story though. Around…March I think Linda came over to my house. I hadn't seen her for a couple of days. Her friends told me that she had a stomach bug, so I didn't think much of it," Cooper looked at the picture that Blaine held. "When she came over to my house, Linda was pale. Her eyes were wide, and she looked like she was going to faint."

Blaine edged a little closer to his seat.

"She told me…" Cooper swallowed. "She told me that she hadn't been feeling well, so her parents took her to the doctor. And…and the doctor told her that she was pregnant."

Brain reeling, Blaine again looked down at the picture in his hand. Cooper had gotten a girl pregnant. Cooper got a girl pregnant when he was fourteen. Cooper got his girlfriend pregnant when he was a freshman in high school.

"Blaine?"

"You got her pregnant?"

Cooper nodded, looking ashamed.

"We didn't use protection," he whispered. "We were stupid. We thought that if maybe she, you know," Cooper blushed, "jumped up and down-"

"Ok!" Blaine sat up straight. "I get it, ok," he rolled his eyes, "Jeez."

"Sorry," Cooper laughed. "Didn't mean to traumatize you." He grew serious again.

"She was only there for a few minutes. After she left I was in a daze. All I could think about was that I'd gotten my fourteen year old girlfriend pregnant, and oh my God what was I going to do? What was I going to tell my parents?"

Everything suddenly made sense. Ever since Blaine was four, he'd been wondering why his parents hated his older brother, and now he had the answer. Cooper had gotten his girlfriend pregnant.

"Is-is this why-"

"Please," Cooper looked pained, "please let me finish telling the story."

"Ok," Blaine said. Rubbing a hand down his face, Cooper stared at the floor.

"When Mom and Dad came home, I was a wreck. I remember sitting on the couch, and Mom touching me, asking me what was wrong, and I just-I started crying. I cried to the point that even Dad started to get worried, and then I just," Cooper threw his hands up in the air, "I just spit it out. I told them that I got Linda pregnant."

"I'm," Blaine cleared his throat, "I'm guessing they didn't take the news very well."

Cooper snorted, "Mom slapped me across the face and cried all the way to her room. Dad dragged me up to my room and told me that," he cringed, "he told me that he was very disappointed in me."

Blaine winced in sympathy. Neither he nor Cooper talked for a minute.

"For weeks mom couldn't look at me without crying, and Dad just wouldn't look at me at all. A couple of weeks after Linda told me she was pregnant, Dad told me that him and Mom had been talking to Linda and her parents," Cooper let out a breath. "They told me that Linda didn't want the baby."

"Oh Coop…"

"I remember being surprised-I shouldn't have been really. I mean," Cooper rolls his eyes, "we were both fourteen years old. We had only been teenagers for two years. Of course she wouldn't want to keep the baby," he wringed his hands together, "but the more I thought about it…the more I realized that-that I wanted to be part of my baby's life. I wanted to see him. I wanted to know him. I wanted the chance to love him."

Blaine felt a lump growing in his throat. His poor brother; Blaine couldn't imagine what it would be like, having a child out there somewhere and not knowing anything about them.

"So I begged my parents to let me be part of his life," Cooper looked angry. "Dad screamed at me, told me I was too young and way too irresponsible to take care of a baby. I went to my room feeling like my life was falling apart and that there was nothing I could do."

Sniffling, Blaine stood up and went to sit next to his brother. He let his head fall on Cooper's shoulder.

"Mom came up later on that day," Cooper said softly. "She sat down next to me and told me that my father was right-that I was much too young to take care of a baby."

Cooper caressed Blaine's arm.

"But…but that they weren't."

Blaine stood up straight.

"Wh-what?"

"My mom told me that she would talk to my dad about adopting the baby." Cooper weaved his fingers with Blaine's. "She always wanted to have a big family. I don't know what she told dad to convince him, but he agreed in the end."

Blaine started to feel cold.

"They started buying the furniture and clothes for my baby." Cooper's voice was shaky. "Mom was ecstatic. Dad got excited in his own way, I guess. He started a trust fund and everything."

The picture in Blaine's hand felt heavy.

"And then when Linda went into labor, I pleaded with my parents to let me go with them. I wanted to be there when my kid was born, and I was hoping to maybe see Linda, but I didn't."

Blaine was starting to feel sick.

"We waited for hours and hours," Cooper let out a cry, "and then this nurse came into the waiting room with this tiny little baby wrapped in a blue blanket-"

"Cooper-"Blaine said.

"And before my parents could move, I ran up to her and took my baby into my arms and started to cry," Cooper wiped his eyes, "and while I held him, Mom and Dad signed the adoption papers."

Panting Blaine looked at the picture in his hand. He stared at Linda's hazel eyes, mocha skin, and dark curly hair.

"Oh…"

"They let me carry the baby out to the car. They let me buckle him in and sit next to him, and they let me take him into the house." Cooper took in a breath. "Before I could set the car seat down, Mom picked him up."

"No," Blaine said.

"She picked my baby up, and she told me that his name was Blaine-Blaine Anthony Anderson."

A/N-DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN! I know, I know-another cliff hanger. Sorry! In the next chapter, Blaine and Cooper talk a lot. A LOT. Blaine also has to decide what he'll do when he sees his parents again.