Hey, guys! I live! Though you probably thought otherwise because of how long it's been. I apologize immensely for the delay. I have just been so busy. I was working about 80 hours a week between both jobs and then I used my little bit of free time to drive to Vegas (I live in Utah) just to see Chris Colfer promote The Land Of Stories: World's Collide. I just really love him. And then I lost one of my jobs and I wasn't in the right mindset to write but I'm still very invested in this story. I'm loving it. I don't know how much longer I'm going to make it but I'm going to make it as long as possible since I'm loving it so much. I'm going to stop talking now and let you read. Enjoy!

Blaine woke up the next day feeling guilty. He and Kurt weren't even dating but he felt like he was cheating on him. He knew this was going to break Kurt's heart and he didn't want to tell him. But he knew he had to before he found out any other way. He was prepared for the worst. He was prepared for Kurt to hate him, or throw things at him and to tell him that he never wants to speak to Blaine again…and though it killed him to know, he knew he had to do it.

Kurt had gone home the previous day angry. He wasn't upset and he didn't cry. Kurt was done with crying. He had done enough to last him a lifetime. But he didn't know who he was angry at. Nellie, obviously but he did feel some anger towards Blaine and he didn't know why. He knew that Blaine couldn't stand Nellie but there was something about him being with her and not inviting Kurt to go along that made him mad. Was Kurt jealous? No. He couldn't be, right? There was nothing to be jealous of. He threw his pillow over his head in frustration now frustrated at himself.

When Blaine arrived at their usual tree, Kurt wasn't there but Laura was.

"Hi, Laura!"

"Hi, Blaine! How are you?"

"I've been better, thanks. How are you? Where's Mary?"

"Mary left early today to go look for leaves. She decided to get started now and catch up with Kurt later. She'll meet us at school. What's wrong?"

"I just didn't sleep well."

"Where's Kurt?" Laura asked curiously.

"I don't know. I waited outside my house for 10 minutes and he didn't show. How long have you been here?"

"I've been here for about 5 minutes. Do you think he went on ahead?"

"I don't know. Should we wait or should we go?" Blaine asked with a tone of worry in his voice.

"I think we should go. We don't want to be late."

Blaine reluctantly agreed. As he was walking with Laura, zoning in and out of the conversation, he kept glancing over her shoulder; anxious to see the blue eyes. He needed to talk to Kurt. He had to.

They arrived at school shortly after, Blaine not even remembering walking there. He only realized where they were when he heard the voice of his least favorite person in the world.

"Hi, Blainers!" Nellie said, looping her arm through his.

"I told you that you were never allowed to use that nickname." Blaine said, removing his arm from hers.

"Oh, hello, Laura. What are you doing with Blaine?" Nellie glared.

"We walk together every day, Nellie. Why do you even care?"

"I don't really want Blaine talking to you anymore."

"What? You can't tell him what to do."

"Yes, I can. You see, Laura, Blaine and I are together now. And I don't want him to be around you or any other girl…or even Kurt for that matter."

Laura's jaw opened so wide, Blaine was sure it was going to hit the ground. Her eyes, wide with shock and hurt, were looking back and forth from Blaine to Nellie. Nellie had a big smile on her face as she looped her arm with Blaine's again while he looked away shamefully.

"Blaine, is this true?" Laura whispered.

"I…" Blaine felt Nellie nudge his side. "Yes…yes, it's true."

"You don't like her. You told me that yourself."

"Things change, I guess." Blaine said, still avoiding eye contact with Laura.

"This has to be joke, Blaine. There's no way you're with Nellie."

"It's not a joke, Laura. Believe me when I say that this is the most serious thing I will ever do." Blaine said, making eye contact with Laura for the first time.

Her eyes looked more hurt now than ever as she stared at Blaine.

"Okay. Fine. If Nellie doesn't want me around you, then I'll just go away."

"No, Laura! Wait!" Blaine shouted.

But it was too late. Laura was already halfway to the school from the Mercantile. Blaine felt even more defeated than he did this morning. Now he had no friends. Nellie was determined to make him miserable by taking away the only people that he truly loved.

"That was not part of the agreement." Blaine said turning to Nellie. "You just said that I had to be your boyfriend. You didn't say anything about me not being able to have friends. And you especially didn't say anything about me not being able to be around Kurt."

"How is this going to be real if you're around Kurt and other girls all the time? You'll only like me if you're only around me."

"That's wasn't part of the deal."

"Do you want me to tell everyone? Because I will if you don't stay away from them." Nellie said, sneering.

"I hate you. I hate you so much."

"Not for long, Blainers."

"Stop calling me that." Blaine shouted.

"So, what is it going to be?"

Blaine sighed. He was starting to have a headache. But that wasn't anything compared to the aching in his heart.

"Fine."

Get up. Get out of bed, Kurt. You're going to be late.

But how? You can barely move. How do you expect to get to school in your condition?

Well, you're just going to try. If you stay home from school, Pa will beat you harder than he did last night. Plus, do you really want to spend a whole day with him?

No.

Then get out of bed.

Kurt had been in a battle with himself all morning. When he finally convinced himself to get up and out of bed, he almost cried out from the pain. He got out of bed, limping to his drawer, ignoring the stabbing pain in his head, back and foot. He knew he was going to be late for school no matter what but he wasn't upset about that. He had become in the habit of walking with Blaine and Laura every day and he was going to be upset about missing that.

He pushed through the pain long enough to get on his clothes. He grabbed his books and left this lunch pail on the table. There was no point in bringing it if there was no food to put in it. He opened the door slowly, pausing long enough to hear his father snoring, and left to go on the walk to school. He walked as fast as he could with the limp and tried his best to ignore it. He had to. He'd just tell everyone that he fell out of a tree. And that he hit his head after getting up. And no one had to know about his back.

He didn't even do anything to make his pa mad the night before. He was just sitting on his bed doing his schoolwork when his pa walked in, drunk as ever and started beating him. He had gotten 4 strikes to his back, had head thrown against a wall and he had hurt his ankle when his pa pushed him off the bed. Burt's alcoholism was getting worse and worse and Kurt was scared. Before, Kurt just had to do something wrong to receive a beating. Now, he was getting beaten if his pa had just one drink too many. He was scared that one day, his pa was going to snap and Kurt was going to get hurt more than he already did.

He took a deep breath and walked up the stairs to the school, nervous to walk in late. He walked in on Miss. Beadle talking about the nature assignment.

"Now, there are a lot of different types of plants. There are…oh, hello, Kurt. I'm so happy you could join us."

Kurt saw as everyone in school turned to face him. He gave her a smile and limped towards his seat.

"Are you alright, Kurt?"

"Yes ma'am. I just fell out of a tree yesterday."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, ma'am." Kurt said politely with a smile on his face.

"Alright." She continued with her lesson.

Kurt already wasn't paying attention. He was aware of Blaine's eyes on him. He turned his head to face him. Blaine looked worried and Kurt knew that Blaine was going to find out why he was actually limping.

"Are you okay?" Blaine mouthed.

"Yes." Kurt mouthed back.

Blaine didn't look convinced at all and he turned his attention back towards Miss. Beadle who had moved on to math. He felt a nudge on his shoulder and turned to Blaine who had written in his notebook.

Will you tell me later?

Kurt sighed and wrote his response.

There's nothing to tell. I fell out of a tree.

Kurt, please don't lie to me.

I'm not. I'm fine, really.

Blaine looked even less convinced than he did before but decided to drop the subject, knowing that Nellie couldn't control him talking to Kurt after school. He would just walk home with him and talk to him then.

"You are all excused for lunch." Miss Beadle said, breaking Blaine of his thoughts.

"I'll see you outside?" Blaine asked.

"Yeah…Yeah. Sure." Kurt responded.

Kurt was in the process of standing up when he saw Nellie grab Blaine's hand.

"Come on, Blaine. You can sit with me under the tree I like."

Blaine didn't have time to respond before Nellie pulled him out of the building. Not before he saw the look of pure devastation that made its way onto Kurt's face.

Ten minutes and one sandwich later, Blaine saw Kurt limp his way out the door and down the stairs. He didn't have any lunch with him and he was all alone. Blaine stood up to make his way over.

"Where are you going?" Nellie glared.

"I'm going to talk to Kurt."

"Do you remember what I told you today?"

"I think it's fair of me to go over and tell him that I can't be friends with him anymore. That's the right thing to do. Something that is clearly lost with you."

"I'm giving you 5 minutes to talk to him. If you're not back by then, I'm coming to get you."

"Whatever." Blaine scoffed, walking away.

Kurt watched as Blaine started working his way over to the log that Kurt had sat on. He wanted to get up and walk away but his ankle hurt too much. The walk to school hurt him so much and it still hurt so bad he was considering stopping by Dr. Baker's on the way back home.

"Hi." Blaine said.

"Hello." Kurt responded still looking down.

"May I sit down?"

Kurt shrugged, which Blaine took as a yes.

"Listen, Kurt-"

"No. I don't want to listen. I don't want to know what is going on. I don't want to know that you are in love with Nellie. I don't want to know that you two are together. I don't want to know anything like that. I trusted you, Blaine. I trusted you and you broke that trust. You made me believe that you liked me too."

"I do, but-"

"No, you don't. If you did, you would not be sitting with Nellie Oleson right now. Would you? No. So just tell me the truth. Tell me that you two are dating and then leave me alone." Kurt said, his eyes swimming with tears.

"Yes. We are. But Kurt, you need to understand something. Please just let me explain."

"Why?" Kurt said, folding his arms.

"It's not what you think. Willie was in the woods watching us when we kissed."

Kurt's grip on his folded arms loosened drastically as he gasped.

"What? But there was no one there."

"He hid in the woods. He saw and heard everything and told Nellie. Nellie threatened to tell everyone unless I agreed to be her boyfriend. I couldn't do that to you so I agreed. She means absolutely nothing to me. I have no feelings for her at all."

"Are…are you serious?" Kurt whispered.

"Every word, Kurt. I love you; so much. And I am doing this because I love you."

Kurt leaned forward because his head hurt so much and he couldn't believe that even Nellie would do something like this.

"I love you too, Blaine. But you really don't have to do this. I'd rather be with you and have the entire town hate me than have you be dating her."

"I can't do that. I won't be doing this for too long. I won't let it last long. I can't."

Kurt sighed. "Okay. I trust you."

Blaine smiled and stood up to go back to Nellie.

"Oh, before I forget." He said turning around. Kurt looked at him, urging him to go on. "I can't talk to you at school. She made it very clear that I'm not allowed to talk to anyone but her. But she can't control me outside school. So I'll talk to you later." Blaine winked before turning and walking away.

Kurt watched as his best friend sit with his worst enemy. He didn't know how long this was supposed to last but he already felt lonely.

After lunch ended they all worked their way inside to their seats to begin their schoolwork for the day. Kurt was having a hard time focusing. He had other things on his mind like Blaine, how much his ankle hurt, Blaine, and the fact that his head was hurting more and more with each minute. He started feeling lightheaded and everything was starting to go blurry and quiet. Maybe he just needed water. He didn't eat lunch so he might be hungry too. He raised his hand.

"Miss. Beadle? May I please go get some water?"

"Yes, Kurt. Please hurry back, though."

"Yes, ma'am."

Kurt went to the back door and walked to the water spigot just outside. He drank slowly and a lot. But it wasn't helping. He was still light headed and his hands were shaking now. He had never been in this much pain after a beating before. He had just assumed that, with all the other ones, he would need a few days to heal. He decided to just push it aside and not focus on it. Just a few more days and he would be fine.

Kurt walked back inside in more pain than ever. He could barely walk on his ankle now and he could barely see because of his head. He started making his way back to his seat and was halfway down the aisle of desks when his ankle gave out. Kurt felt himself fall to the floor and distantly heard some gasping before everything went dark.

What did you think!? Leave a review and let me know! Once again, I am beyond sorry for the delay. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and are looking forward to the next one. Peace and love! :)