Blaine was speechless for a second. He neither liked the deadness in Kurt's tone nor the question being asked. He rose from his seat, pretending he hadn't heard Kurt speak at all. "Um, I should probably go once Carole gets back. You look like you could use some sleep, and-"
"Cut the crap, Blaine." His voice was louder this time. Kurt's hand was tight around his own, holding him back. He was staring at him, blue eyes wide and hard. "How much do you know?"
Kurt's fingers gripped his harder, almost like a vice. Blaine's knuckles burned from being crushed together so tightly. "Kurt, you're hurting me."
"How much do you know?" His voice was still flat, dead, though a bit more insistent this time.
Blaine felt his heart rise up into his throat, cutting off his air, choking him. He looked toward the door. It was still open a tiny bit. He could see the fluorescent lights reflecting off the tiled floor of the hallway outside, peeking in through the crack under the door and around the side. Phantoms and shadows of people passed by, obscuring the light time and again. He could yell. Scream for help. This was a psych ward. There were lots of people, lots of security. All he had to do was make a sound. They'd come running. But that meant that Kurt really wasn't well, that the medication wasn't helping. The he wasn't getting better. Blaine didn't think he could bear that.
His breath quickened as he looked from Kurt back to the door. Where was Carole? Shouldn't she be back by now? Shouldn't she have gotten her coffee and come back by now and made everything better? Why wasn't everything better yet?
"She's not coming back."
He looked to Kurt. The grip hadn't lightened at all; he could barely feel his fingers. Kurt's expression was still the same, and Blaine could feel hot blood pulsing through his veins with every fevered heartbeat. "What?"
"She's not an idiot. She knows I need to talk to you. Alone. Why else would she have left to refill a cup that's only half empty? She's giving us time to talk. She couldn't do that when my dad and Finn were just downstairs. They'd interrupt. Now sit."
Blaine shot one last worried glance at the door. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. He wanted to go home. Maybe then he'd wake up from this nightmare. Maybe then this would all be a dream or some sort of cosmic joke, and he'd wake up in his room with a light breeze blowing on his face and Pavarotti singing in the hazy mid-morning sunlight of a summer day. He would call Kurt, and they'd laugh and sing and everything would be okay. He could tell Kurt he loved him, just like he wanted to, and the boy would tell him he loved him back. This would all be a dream. Nothing but a bad dream. He wasn't really sitting here, scared out of his mind with this stranger wearing the face of his friend. Everything was okay; he wasn't here. Not really. This couldn't be happening.
But he could see Kurt's pale, pale fingers wrapped around his own. He could see the ruffled bangs in that familiar color he loved so much, the tiny red veins standing out in his soulful, blue eyes. The gaze was dead, the expression unreadable, but he could see something there. He could see Kurt in there somewhere.
He sat down again. The chair wasn't as comfortable as it had been just a few minutes before.
"How much do you know?" That question again.
"I know that you've been distracted these past couple of weeks. Wandering away in the middle of conversations, forgetting to comb your hair every now and again, things like that." He paused and took in a deep breath. His voice was too shaky. Kurt had to know that he was scared. This was so much harder than he'd thought. He wanted nothing more than be gone, away from this room, away from here, but he couldn't. Couldn't escape. Couldn't run away from this. "Do you remember Pavarotti?"
Kurt perked up a little at the name. "The bird you guys gave me when I joined up? The little yellow one? Did he die?" His face then sagged with a worried frown. "Did I kill him? He was there, I remember, in my room—his feathers were falling off—but then he just wasn't…anymore." He looked up at Blaine and his expression was so lost that Blaine's heart broke, if only a little bit.
"Did I kill him, Blaine?"
Blaine shook his head met Kurt's tortured gaze. He didn't want to see that look on Kurt's face—that painful, hurt look in his eyes—but it was better than the deadness that had been there before. He'd take anything over that. "No, you didn't. He's with me, actually. At home. He's fine. You…" He didn't want to do this. Didn't want to tell Kurt just how close he had come to killing the bird. But he couldn't hide this. Not if he wanted Kurt to get better. Not if he wanted the old Kurt back. "You weren't taking care of him, so I took him. He probably would have died if I hadn't. You never asked me about him, so I just figured you'd forgotten."
He quieted a moment. Kurt had released his hand, but Blaine hadn't bothered to move it from Kurt's reach. Trust. They needed trust. It was the first step in any relationship. That's what his mother always told him. Kurt wasn't looking at him. It was too quiet. Blaine kept going. Kurt needed to know. "Finn told me about the break-in scare. After you got home for the summer. He said you'd been acting a little funny before that, though. And the scissors. He told be about the thing with the scissors."
Kurt wasn't looking at him, just stared hard at the sheets and blankets covering his legs. The hand furthest from Blaine was curled tight around the topmost blanket. The silence was pervasive. Blaine wanted to bolt from the room, never come back. He almost stood to leave when he heard a low chuckle. Kurt was…laughing?
Kurt threw his head back, breathing in deep and loud through his mouth. Blaine could see tears in his eyes, though his face was completely dry. "I don't remember it."
"What?"
"The attack. I don't remember it. I only know what they told me. They asked me all kinds of things. Like why I did it. Why scissors? Why did I cut up my magazines? Why Finn, of all people? But I don't—I don't know. I don't remember…I think—I think they told me to do it. They were always telling me to do things." Tears were starting to run down his cheeks.
Blaine edged back in his seat. He hadn't just heard that. Kurt was fine. "I think I need to go. You should get some sleep. I'm keeping you awake when you need to sleep." He stood and readied himself to leave.
Kurt fixed him with a vacant stare. He stopped dead in his tracks. "You think I'm crazy, don't you?"
Blaine didn't answer him. Just stared back in silence until Kurt turned over, facing the window. "Go."
"I'll be back tomorrow-"
"Just go!"
And Blaine fled, nearly barreling into a confused and startled Carole in his mad dash to the parking lot, to escape this nightmare. What was he doing? It was one boy. Just one stupid boy that he couldn't get out of his head.
He realized he was crying when he got into the driver's seat of his car, and he tore at his face, trying to ease the pain in his heart by erasing the evidence left behind on his cheeks. What the hell was wrong with him? Why couldn't he do anything right? Why was everything so messed up? Why was everything so hard? A flash of pink caught his eye. The stupid nametag. He ripped the thing from his shirt and crumpled it in his hands. He was about to toss it to the floor but something stopped him. There was a tiny corner of pink peeking out from the sticky, wadded ball. Pink. Kurt had said the color brought out his eyes. He slowly peeled the tag free from itself, smoothing the crumpled paper as best he could, and stared at it. 'Blarn Anderson' glared back in chunky black marker, framed in that color Kurt had so admired.
He couldn't do this. He gently placed the crumpled nametag in one of the empty cup holders, laid his head on the steering wheel and wept.