The Warblers left shortly after they'd eaten their pancakes and got dressed, leaving Kurt and Blaine to clear up the mess in the kitchen. Blaine couldn't help but mirror the smile that Kurt was now sporting, hoping that he'd played a part in making it appear.
"I'm sorry my friends are so crazy. We haven't seen each other for a few weeks so we had a lot to catch up on," said Blaine as he loaded plates into the dishwasher.
"I like them. They're funny," Kurt assured him. "Why did you leave Dalton anyway? You seem to miss your friends a lot."
"It's kind of difficult to explain. The main reason was that we moved here and Dalton's a good two hour drive away. I wasn't really up for boarding; I couldn't imagine staying at school every single hour of every single day. I like living at home. And I think I liked the idea of facing public school again. When I transferred to Dalton, it felt like I was running. I know I'll probably get bullied when people find out that I'm gay, but I'm going with the don't ask don't tell right now," Blaine explained.
"I like your way of thinking," Kurt smiled.
"So, I hate to be a party pooper, but are you ready to talk?" asked Blaine. Kurt's smile dropped and he hesitantly nodded.
"You don't mind do you? I mean you've just had a good night with your old friends and I've already ruined that by gatecrashing. I don't want to be a further bother," Kurt said. Blaine shook his head though.
"No, you're not a bother. And I had a good night with you too. The guys loved you!" Blaine insisted.
"They did? I thought they were just being nice because they felt sorry for me," Kurt said.
"Nope. They did like you. I think Nick's thinking of dumping Jeff so he can marry you or something," Blaine chuckled.
"You were right, by the way. Niff are adorable!"
"Everyone thinks so! Now, I'll make us some hot chocolate and we can go to my room to talk, okay?" Blaine asked.
"Okay," Kurt agreed.
When they were upstairs and settled on Blaine's bed, Blaine turned to Kurt with a reassuring smile. "So, why were you so upset last night?" he asked.
"It's stupid really. It was my own fault," Kurt murmured.
"Tell me," Blaine said, softly.
Kurt took a deep breath and looked down at Blaine's bed spread, playing with the material with his fingers. "I was at Alex's last night, as usual, and we were kissing and it was fine, but then he started to move his hand further up my leg until it was on my inner thigh and I pushed him away and told him to stop and said we should cool down. He got kind of annoyed and kept kissing me and wouldn't listen w-when I told him to stop. It wasn't until he started to unbutton my shirt that I p-pushed him and yelled at him to stop, which just made him more annoyed. H-he yelled at me, told me it was no wonder I'd never h-had a boyfriend because I was such a p-prude and wouldn't put out." A few tears leaked from his eyes and Blaine put a comforting hand on his shoulder. "He's right though, I-I should have just given him what he wanted and it would have been fine. We've been dating for four months, how can I expect him to wait?"
"No, stop," said Blaine. "Don't talk like that. It's not your fault. If he loved you, he'd wait as long as you needed."
"But he shouldn't have to!" Kurt insisted.
"Kurt, if you're not ready, he should respect that, okay? He shouldn't push you into doing anything you don't want to do. I'm just happy that you didn't let him," Blaine said, wrapping his arms around Kurt. Kurt rested his head on Blaine's shoulder and sniffed. "I still can't believe you're with that jerk."
"I can't leave him," Kurt sniffed. "He loves me. It would break his heart."
"It's breaking my heart to see you in such pain, Kurt. If he loved you then why would he treat you this way?" Blaine asked.
"I told you, he's always really sorry. He buys me flowers and gifts to make up for it. He doesn't stop apologising."
"And then he does it all over again. He shouldn't be treating you like this in the first place," Blaine insisted. "I don't want it to get worse. I don't want anything to happen to you."
"Nothing's going to happen to me!" said Kurt.
"It might," Blaine said.
"How do you know?" asked Kurt.
Blaine sighed and rubbed the back of neck. "I haven't known you long, but I can trust you," Blaine said.
"I... Yes, why do you say that?"
"Because I'm going to tell you something and I trust you to keep it between us. Only Wes knows this and it took me months to tell him, and I didn't even mean to. So I can trust you right?" asked Blaine, keeping eye contact with Kurt.
"Yeah, you can trust me," Kurt said. "What is it, Blaine?"
"Let me start by saying that my mom and dad... they're not my mom and dad," Blaine said.
"What?" asked Kurt.
"Linda and Andrew aren't my parents. Well, they are, just not biologically. They adopted me. They're Linda and Andrew Adams," explained Blaine.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"You'll understand in a minute," Blaine said. He lowered his eyes to his lap before he began to speak. "I have a brother, a real brother, called Cooper. He's 13 years older than me and works as an actor in LA. When he was about 9, my dad - my real dad that is - started drinking. Quite heavily I believe. Cooper told me he used to come home drunk almost every night and when he was drunk, he got angry. He'd shout at my mom and Cooper. He'd tell them they were worthless, call them horrible things and then he'd sleep it off and be apologetic the next day, buying mom flowers and Coop toys to make up for it. After a while, he started getting abusive. He didn't hit Coop, but he hit my mom. He was still apologetic afterwards, but he continued it. My mom would send Cooper to his room as soon as he got home and he'd listen to music to drown out the sounds of him yelling.
"He stopped hitting her when she got pregnant with me. Cooper thinks that he'd been raping her when he was drunk and felt bad that she'd gotten pregnant. He even tried some AA meetings, but after I was born he started drinking again. I used to wake up in the middle of the night to the sounds of banging and yelling and go climb in with Cooper, who'd sing me to sleep. The only reason she stayed with him in the first place was because his family were funding Cooper's college fund, but when she had me, she knew she had to stay so that she had financial support to look after me. She couldn't cope with it and she started self harming. Coop told me that when I was young, I'd see the scars on her arms and ask what was wrong. She'd tell me that mommy hurt herself and I'd go to the kitchen to get a band aid for her scars and kiss them better. Cooper left when I was five to move to LA and without him, my mom had to work extra hard to look after me. She managed okay, I guess. I was never hurt. But then came my sixth birthday.
"My sixth birthday is one of my clearest childhood memories. I remember I woke up needing the bathroom. My dad hadn't come home until late the previous night so my mom and I had stayed up drinking hot chocolate and watching Disney movies. So I woke up, needing the bathroom, and super excited because it was my birthday. I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom and went to go in, but the door was locked. I knocked, but no one answered. I knocked again and again, but still no one answered. I looked around the whole house for my mom, thinking the door might have been stuck, but she was no where. The only place she could have been was the bathroom. I waited until I was completely desperate for the bathroom and she still wasn't answering so I put on my dressing gown and slippers, grabbed her house keys and went and knocked next door.
"A lovely middle aged couple lived next door, Mr and Mrs Jones. They sometimes looked after me if my mom got a bad injury and had to go to hospital. But I went and knocked on their door and explained that my mom was in the bathroom and she wouldn't answer me and I was really desperate. So they let me come in and use their bathroom and Mr Jones got his ladder, climbed over the fence and went to look through the bathroom window. I remember me and Mrs Jones were waiting at the bottom, her arms wrapped around me protectively, and Mr Jones looked down and just shook his head sadly. I was really confused because I thought that he meant she wasn't in there and I got worried that she'd ran away.
"Mrs Jones sat me down in their living room with a glass of milk and put on some cartoons whilst Mr Jones talked on the phone. I just wanted to know where my mom was. Police and ambulances showed up and the police man asked me about what had happened that morning. I asked where Cooper was and they said they'd called him and he was booking the next flight, but they wouldn't tell me where my mom was. Finally, a police woman came in and sat next to me and told me my mom had gone to sleep. I remember I told her 'I know how to wake her up. You just shake her really hard,' but the police woman shook her head and told me that mommy wasn't going to wake up.
"I found out when I was older what had happened. It turned out that she'd been self harming in the bath and she'd cut too deep. She hadn't tried to stop the bleeding or call an ambulance and in the end she died of blood loss. Cooper came home for a month to look after me. He'd given evidence against my dad and I think my dad got done for domestic abuse or something. I didn't see him after that anyway. Cooper had to go back to LA for college so I went into care. For a year I was in and out of care homes until I was fostered at 7 by Linda and Andrew. Then, when I was 8, they adopted me. But that's not why I was telling you this story." For the first time since speaking, Blaine lifted his gaze to look at Kurt. Both boys had tears in their eyes and Kurt lifted a hand to wipe his away. "I'm telling you this because I don't want something like that to happen to you. I know your situations are different, but I don't want you to get caught in something and not be able to get out of it. I don't want it to get worse than it is now."
"Blaine..." Kurt whispered, his voice cracking. "I-I'm so so sorry." Kurt reached over to wrap his arms around the boy. Blaine accepted the embrace and rested his head on Kurt's shoulder.
"Do you see why I worry about you so much?" asked Blaine.
"Yeah, I see. I didn't realise- I'm so sorry," Kurt said, squeezing Blaine tightly.
"Don't apologise. Just... please let me help you. I'd feel so bad if something happened to you," Blaine replied.
"I-I don't know how you can help me," Kurt admitted. "I don't know how to get out of this."
"We'll do this together. We can try," Blaine suggested.
Kurt felt tears falling onto his cheeks at the same time that he felt them pooling on his shoulder. "We can try," he repeated.
