A/N: This is the final section of Blaine's therapy! Yayyyy, you made it. There are two songs in this chapter: Say Something (A Great Big World) and Beam Me Up (Pink).
*This is a very dark story that contains consistent and vivid descriptions of self harm. All other warnings (and there are many) will be on a chapter by chapter basis.
Chapter warnings: References to child abuse, PTSD, depression, and talk of religion.
Chapter 12 – This Is What Surviving Looks Like
(Blaine, February 2015 – December 2018)
"The problem is that you don't just choose recovery. You have to keep choosing recovery, over and over and over again. You have to make that choice 5-6 times each day. You have to make that choice even when you really don't want to. It's not a single choice, and it's not easy." – Carrie Arnold, What It Means To Choose Recovery
March 10th, 2015 – Blaine's Journal
Henley wanted me to write everything out one last time. She's been pretty set on me focusing on positive things lately, but this is an exercise she wanted me to do, so I'm doing it.
In my short nineteen years, I've experienced a lot of pain – probably more than most people have to go through in a lifetime.
Even when I was a little kid, I was used to the cruel, taunting words of my classmates and my father. They rang in my ears and echoed in my head, reminding me that I would never be loved for being who I was, not if I didn't fit into the box they created for me. I learned to grow thick skin and keep to myself, eventually finding comfort in the way the razor sliced apart my skin and the color of my blood as it washed down the drain. I was barely thirteen.
During my freshman year of high school, I was already more than aware of my sexuality. I knew what I was and who I was attracted to, but I made the decision to actively ignore all of the "sinful" thoughts I was having. I tried for months and months to get rid of something I knew was building inside me, like a cacophony of harshly screamed words: gay, homosexual, queer, wrong. It was spreading through me, filling my brain with a loud noise that I was never able to mute. And then one of my out, gay friends asked me to go to a Sadie Hawkins dance with him – as friends, even though we were both boys – and I knew the attention it would draw to me. It was just something you didn't do in my small suburb of Lima, Ohio, and all throughout the night, people has stared at us, whispering in disgust as we walked by. When we finally left, I was the one that ended up paying the price. My friend's mom had already picked him up, and as I was pulling out my phone to call Cooper again, a couple of guys jumped me from behind. The shape of the crowbar they slammed into me with their clenched hands is imprinted in my gut, the sound of my tormented screams still chills my bones, the dark of my blood on the pavement stands out against my eyelids at night like red paint on a black and white canvas.
I'd been in the hospital for two weeks after that with fractured ribs, a severe concussion, internal bleeding, and casts on practically every part of my body. They told me I almost died, and I knew I owed my life to a stranger that happened to have been walking by the abandoned store near our school, otherwise I would've bled out on the streets. When my father (and therefore my mother) refused to pay for the surgeries, Cooper did. "If he hadn't gone with that boy or made it seem like he was a goddamn faggot, this wouldn't have happened," is what my father said. "My son is not gay and he brought this on himself. You want to save him? You pay for it." So he did, without hesitation. They left and it was him that stayed with me for those long, painful days where I did nothing but cry and wonder why I was so wrong in my father's eyes, so unlovable. It was him that helped care for me when I went home to a cold house with absent parents. It was him that rearranged his entire life to always be there for me, regardless of anything else that was going on at the time. And it was him that had finally been the one to take me away from them and the toxic, hateful environment they'd created, after they'd hurt me in irreparable ways.
It was a mere six weeks after the dance when they found out I was gay. They overheard me talking to Cooper (who I'm sure already knew about my sexuality without me even telling him) and that was it. As my father kicked and punched and hurled his vicious words at my crumpling body – a mess of bloody, stringy stitches and cuts and bruised bones – my mother sat by and didn't do a single thing. For what seemed like hours, it was nothing but blinding, white-hot pain and all I could do was clench my teeth and wait for it to be over. And eventually, it was, when Cooper came racing in the door. Him and my father fought – a loud, nasty, awful fight – before my dad left, holding his hand to his throbbing jaw, telling him to take me and get out of the house. After being rushed to the hospital in critical condition, long weeks spent in the ICU, and lots of paperwork, Cooper officially became my legal guardian and I never saw my parents again. He transferred me to a new school, Dalton, but it didn't help like he thought it would. I was weighed down with a heavy guilt, the depression I've carried with me for so long just starting to make an appearance, and I tried to kill myself shortly after being released into his custody. I wasn't successful, but I continued to cut because it was the only relief I had from the pain I felt inside.
When I was sixteen and still dealing with the aftermath of all of those events, almost healed but not quite, I met a beautiful boy. He gave me the strength I needed to finally stop hurting myself, because he too liked to carve himself up from the inside out, and I saw the effect it had on him. He made me want to be strong for him, and though he lost almost every game that he ever played against the knives in the kitchen, he was the bravest person I ever knew. The war waging on in his head was a fatal one and he wore the battle scars on his arms, his legs, his heart. I tried to save him, but no amount of armor that I wore could've ever protected him from his one true adversary: his own mind. It told him to do things that he never should have done, like cut and keep secrets and get up on a warm July night and leave. It controlled him, and though he loved me with everything he had, though he wanted to get better, try harder, put the blades down and just breathe, that was never an option for him. So I had no choice but to stand by him for as long as he'd let me, frozen in time as I watched him slip between my fingers and fade away.
And now I have to let all of that go. I've been through two and a half years of hell without Kurt and I've carried the shame of how my father treated me for nearly six. I just can't do it anymore, any of it. The nightmares and the anxiety and the terror that I'll never be loved or worth anything, instilled in me by my father and the bullies; the loneliness and the emptiness and the desperate need to run away – things left behind from my relationship with Kurt.
I have to get better. I have so many reasons to.
March 16th, 2015 – Blaine's Journal
I learned about something really interesting in therapy today: the resiliency curve.
Basically, she said that all of us are accustomed to normal, everyday life and its typical stresses and ups and downs. But there could be something that triggers us and knocks us (those with anxiety or PTSD for example) out of that comfort zone, either up or down. If we go up, we're hyperactive. That means we're anxious, panic-y, angry, or manic. If we go down, we're in a depressed state: numb, fatigued, disconnected, and exhausted.
If a lot of things go wrong or if we're talking about a lot of bad things or if I've been thinking really negatively, I tend to go into both states, depending on the day. That's pretty much how I've lived my life for the last several years and now it makes sense. We're working on trying to find ways that can help me back into my "normal" state and we're gonna talk more about it next week.
It was the end of March when Cooper finally decided to leave us for good. He owned a business in Ohio, so he'd been flying back and forth between there and New York while I was going through the worst of my therapy – he'd spend two weeks with me and then a week at his own place in Kenton. And after six months, we both knew it was more than time for me to start handling things on my own.
"You don't need to love Kurt to be somebody, okay?" he murmured in my ear, hugging me tightly in the terminal of the airport. "You matter just fine being Blaine. You need to love yourself first and start taking care of you. You're doing a great job so far, but I don't want you to lose all of that progress because I'm gone, alright? I'm only a phone or skype call away if you ever need anything."
"I know you are," I told him, squeezing him once more before I let go. There was so much I wanted and needed to say to him, but the words stuck in my throat. "Thank you for everything. You've done so much for me and I just – I love you, Coop."
"I love you too, B."
I didn't know how I was supposed to do this without him – I wasn't able to the first two times, with my parents and then during that first year in Lima without Kurt – but I was going to have to find strength within myself and figure it out. I was definitely on the path to getting better, although it had only been about six weeks so anything could set me off again. I was still very fragile and I was terrified of him going away and what would happen when he was wasn't right there next to me. He'd been with me during the thick of my treatment and had done his best to help me work through my PTSD, finally helping me understand after so many years that what my father did wasn't my fault. I was grateful that at least he'd been able to leave me with some sort of peace, and I hoped that by the next time I saw him, I would be almost fully recovered.
When Rachel stepped forward to embrace him, she also murmured a thank you in his ear and he whispered something inaudible back. She bobbed her head up and down in agreement, giving him a smile.
"I love you guys," he said. "Rachel, take care of him. Blaine, take care of her."
"I will," she replied. "Promise."
"Cross my heart."
And then he was gone, walking onto his flight and away from us. She put her arm around my waist, letting her head fall onto my shoulder.
We would always be there for each other.
April, 2015
"Do you believe in God?" I asked Charlotte, swirling around the water in my glass before looking in the bottom and setting it down. We were sitting at a small table, facing each other, in the almost-darkness of the closed café.
"Do you?"
"No," I said automatically, because I didn't.
"I don't think I do, either," she finally settled on, her bright green eyes looking at me.
"I think if there was a god, things like this wouldn't happen. Everyone would just be happy. There wouldn't be war, or poverty, or disease, or hunger, or discrimination. I wouldn't be struggling with PTSD, depression, and self harm. People always say that going through difficult times is necessary to become a stronger person, but that's bullshit. People dying of cancer is necessary? People being beat into oblivion is necessary? That's teaching us a lesson, making us stronger? Where's your God when that happens? People pray and pray and pray, but does he ever answer you? That person is still sick when you walk out of the church. I'm still being almost killed by my father. And if someone's able to survive the sickness or the abuse, they're the ones that deserve all of the credit in the world, not a magical deity in the sky, because it's fucking hard, it's so fucking hard, but they did it. And Kurt and you and I and everybody else in this goddamned world with problems wouldn't go through what we go through if a god existed. And if he is there, that's pretty fucked up that he just lets all of this happen. I've almost died more times than I can count, either by other people or by myself. Will committed suicide. Your parents forced you into cutting. If God was real, then he would fix all of this shit, because the world is so fucking unfair sometimes and these things shouldn't be happening."
"That's a... that's a damn good point," she replied, taking a sip of her wine. "When I was younger, I always used to pray that all of the feelings I was having would go away. I was brought up to have God be the center of my life, you know, so I prayed because I thought he would make it better for me. But instead of answering me, he made me start falling in love with my best friend. And I was terrified out of my mind, because I couldn't lose her, but then she fell for me and that was the one thing I was never quite able to grasp. I just felt so... lucky. I've known her my entire life, since Kindergarten, and there was always a small part in the back of my brain that wondered if my parents might accept me if they knew it was her."
"Falling in love with your best friend," I mused. "What's that like?" I gave her a sad smile and she returned it.
"You know as much as I do that it never would've happened. Our parents just aren't meant to be parents. And they never knew Hen was gay anyways – we made it a point to never, ever talk about it at either of our houses – so it just made everything worse, actually. When they found out we were together, they started slipping in these nasty comments and wanted to send me to those camps and they just... hated me, and blamed me, and blamed her. That's when I stopped believing in God. Because the god I was raised to believe in never would have let that stuff happen to me. What she and I had, even then, it was never a sin and it will never be a sin. It's just beautiful."
"Love isn't wrong and I don't care who tells us it is because it isn't. There's so many reasons that I don't think I've ever truly, honestly believed that there was a god, but that's a big one. I went along with religion because I had to, but when I hit about thirteen and started cutting and having all of these problems, I gave up faith in a lot of things. So now I believe that God is just a distraction. I think it's there to give people a false hope that things can get better when they're at their lowest, or to give them a promise of salvation, or to give them something greater than themselves to believe in. People can't handle being ordinary. They can't just… be. There has to be a reason for human existence, so they make up a god, an incarnation of the things they wish could be true. They pray to him to feel special, like they're more than they actually are. But in reality, we're all so absolutely normal, and I just – I tried to believe in all of that and it didn't work. Nothing happened."
"For me entire life," she began, "I've been told that his word is law. My parents said I was a sinner because I was choosing to be this way, because it wasn't in his plan for all of us, because of a few sentences in a book that was written thousands of years ago. Most bibles were originally in languages not native to us, like Arabic or Hebrew, and things get lost in translation. So many people use their holy books as an excuse for their bigotry and oppression of people and other religions, and it's not right. God supposedly loves everyone, but he creates a couple million gay people and he lets his followers go around telling them they're going to hell? He lets people abuse their kids and force them into camps just because they like someone the same gender as them? I've never understood it."
"We're entitled to our feelings, Charlotte, right?" I asked her, searching her face. "Everyone always says that I'm insensitive when I say God doesn't exist, but what about the people saying that God is real? Isn't that insensitive to me? To anyone that doesn't believe in god? If I'm constantly having religion shoved in my face, why the hell can't I say that I don't think any god exists? I'm not telling other people how to live their lives, I'm just stating how I want to live mine."
"Because it's not normal," Charlotte flatly. "It's not a belief that's common or ever portrayed in media. Sound familiar? Just like with sexuality. Just like with mental illness. None of these things are ever shown or talked about – and when they are, they're probably stereotypical misrepresentations of what it's actually like – so we're just all kinds of fucked up in the eyes of the world, aren't we?" she chuckled softly without much humor, shaking her head.
"It's infuriating. I'm fine, I'm normal. I'm not some kind of – some kind of alien just because I like penis." She burst into loud laughter. I shot her a look. "What? Am I wrong?"
"Well," she started, looking at me over the rim of her glass, "I don't understand your love of the male genitalia, but other than that, I suppose not, no."
"And I don't understand how you can get all up in it down there, so I guess that makes us even." I paused for a long moment. "It's crazy though, isn't it?" I said quietly, flicking my eyes to hers. "That we're so similar?" She reached her hand across the table and grabbed mine, squeezing it.
"I think... I think I was meant to meet you. I know that sounds corny or whatever, but I really believe that. You've helped me just as much as I've helped you. Henley's a miracle worker, but everybody needs more than one person to lean on. You and I, we're like soul sisters," she giggled. "And Henley can be our fairy godmother or something."
"We could be a movie on Lifetime," I told her. "Young, scared teenager realizes she's gay; tries to ignore it. Prays to god to help her but ends up falling in love with her best friend. Other young, scared teenager knows he's gay; avoids thinking about it but goes to a dance with his friend anyways and gets jumped. Spends two weeks in the hospital with a brother and no parents; six weeks later, almost gets killed again by his father, spends more time in the hospital. Both teens self-harmed for years, tried to kill themselves, and were abused by their religiously-zealous parents. But one day, the boy meets the girl's girlfriend and the rest, as they say, is history."
She was silent for a moment, the reality of our situation falling around us and dampening the mood.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said it like that –"
"No, no, it's okay. We don't have much if we can't laugh about it, right?"
"Yeah, I guess so," I murmured.
"No Kurt in your story?" she asked, taking a drink and setting her glass down.
"Wouldn't want to make it too depressing, right?" I told her. "I felt it would already be bad enough."
She let out a sigh, gripping my fingers.
"You know what I believe in?"
"What's that?"
"Love. I don't believe in a god, but I believe in love. I think that there are still good people out there with good hearts that can help us get through the tough times. I believe in Henley and in what we have, and that's all I really need. I believe that sometimes things happen for a reason, that people come into our lives with a purpose, but that we still have the power to ultimately make our own decisions. I believe that we can get back up after being hurt, that we can survive pain, because I did it. She did it. You're doing it right now. So that's what I believe."
"That's a… good thing to believe in," I replied shakily.
"What about you?" she asked me.
I wanted to believe in so many things – love, fate, the kindness of strangers. I wanted to believe in the power that I had to keep moving, to be stronger, and I wanted to believe in Kurt and in what we once had. I wanted to believe in something.
"I believe in my family – not the fucked up one I was born into, but the one I made. Cooper and Rachel and you, you've been so good to me over the last year but especially over these last few months. And I guess I can't really count Henley as family, but I'm so grateful for her, too. In a way, I guess I believe in love, too."
I finished my water and she finished her wine and then we just sat there, trading stories that we'd saved up for rainy days.
April 25th, 2015 – Blaine's Journal
Dear Kurt,
I've been thinking a lot about that night all those years ago, back in September when we sat on the porch swing. Then, I thought that we had a concrete future, an infinite one, and that as long as the stars were shining, our love was growing and we were gonna end up just fine.
And now the stars still twinkle in the night sky, but our love stayed frozen in time, nothing more than a hazy memory faded in a black and white Polaroid. Our stars have long been dead and I'm just sitting here waiting for the light to finally stop glowing so that I can tear my eyes away and move on.
I've realized that people make promises in all forms. Sometimes they're clear cut and definite, sometimes they're hidden behind words and actions. They're enforced by law, by morality, by consciousness. When a mother looks down at the newborn baby in her arms, warm and pink, it goes without saying that she's promising to love that child and care for it as long as she lives. When someone signs their name in ink or holds their hand up in court, they're legally bound to whatever it is they're promising to do – to buy that house or to tell the truth about where they were that night. And when you said that you loved me farther than the stars, that was a promise to me, in my mind and in my soul, that you'd love me forever. You didn't need to write it on a contract or link your pinky in mine or even say the words out loud for them to have been concrete or definite to me; I heard it in highs and lows of your voice, felt it in your soft, caressing hands, saw it in the sincerity of your blue, blue eyes.
When we were lying together on that swing and you were telling me about the stars, my heart said yes to that always with you, to a future with the dog and the white picket fence and the kids and the man that I loved standing beside me. You had me from the moment you stopped me on the staircase and you had me then and I thought you would have me now. Maybe you still do, I don't know.
But you can't have me, because I can't have you.
I can't have you, Kurt. I know that now. I'm trying to accept it. It's hard to let it go when I imagine what things could have been like with us, when I picture the life I planned versus the life I have. I've tried to forget you and I've tried to hate you, but still, the most overwhelming emotion I feel, the one I've tried my hardest to ignore, is the love I have. I wonder if that's what true love is – unconditional, unwavering. Through everything, the tears and cutting and therapy and betrayal and loneliness, my love prevails, a small burning charcoal inside of me. But I'm no longer crippled by it, unable to move with its intensity and pain. I'm injured, deeply wounded, and I'll always have that little scar over my heart where your broken promises lay, but I think I can see the Other Side, and I hope it can be beautiful.
In therapy, I've learned a lot. I was dependant on you, so dependant that I didn't know how to function when you left. I was directly linked with you, my metaphorical oxygen and water, and it was like my brain associated you with safety, even when you were unstable. Maybe that was always the problem with us. We were never our own people when we were together; we were always a pair. We didn't just love each other or want each other. We needed each other, emotionally and physically, in a desperate and ferocious and animalistic way. That was never healthy and I never saw it.
I'm learning to be independent now, an individual, and it's difficult. Every day without you is hard, and some days, the stitches rip open and turn into a bloody, stringy, fragile mess. But there are days where I feel strong, healing. Mending. Life is a challenge, but it was never meant to be easy.
April 27th, 2015 – Therapy
The very first thing I did at my next session was read Henley my letter. I'd never done that before, but I felt I had to that time because everything was different. The world was different. I was different.
"I think – I think I'm beginning to realize," I began quietly once I was finished, "that I can be happy without him."
"How does saying those words feel?" she asked with a small smile.
"Liberating. It feels liberating. I can finally – I can move on. I can start to live my life again. Maybe not tomorrow, or next week, or even next month. But it'll happen. Someday soon, I'll be happy. Completely, fully happy."
"It's incredible to hear you say that, Blaine," she told me. "Absolutely incredible. I'm so proud of how far you've come and of what you've accomplished in such a short amount of time."
"You know, I used to regret loving him. I hated myself for stopping on the stairs and for giving him my everything so that when he left, I had nothing. I spent so long just… regretting us," I admitted. "And I still don't know if I should be grateful for what we had or to wish that I'd never met him. Maybe I'll never know."
It had been nearly three years since he'd gone, but I'd spent the first immersed in heartbreak and the second in denial, so it wasn't until the third that I finally dived in full-force and tried to understand it. It was by far the toughest, and those past months had been some of the most grueling of my life because it was when everything came to a head – my father's actions, Kurt's leaving, and all of the emotional baggage that had been piling up since I was thirteen. But slowly, I was sorting through my tangled mess and the knots in my rope were beginning to straightening out.
"Let me ask you this," she called out as I was almost through the door. "Is it better to have loved and to have lost or to not have loved at all?"
I paused, taking in a breath as I rested my fingers on the door handle. I smiled faintly, shaking my head. It was then that I knew. "Loved," I told her. "It's better to have loved."
From then on, I never regretted loving Kurt.
As soon as I got home, I headed to my bedroom. I pulled open the top drawer of my dresser and ruffled around until I found a letter. It was the same one that Henley made me write all those months ago, about my wishes and hopes for therapy. It was still sealed, so I slipped my thumb under the top flap and opened it. My eyes drifted over my scrawled handwriting, messy and shaky.
I want to be alive.
I crossed it out, writing underneath it.
I want to be happy. I want to move on.
My wishes had changed, and so had I.
May 15th, 2015 – Blaine's Journal
Today I realized something.
I am not untouchable. I am just a person, a boy, who wants to make his life mean something.
Maybe this is what I've needed to see all along. As humans, we aren't safe from pain or hurting or failure. We know this, so why do we react the way we do to situations that do just that – hurt us and cause us pain and make us fail? Again, it's because we're human. And we will get hurt, and we will be angry, and sad, and sometimes we will sit and marvel at the cruelty of the world and wonder why it tries so hard to knock us down.
But then we will wake up the next day and start all over.
I am not untouchable. The people around me are not untouchable. The universe it not untouchable. We all just want to live our lives and change the world and come out on the other side alright.
So that's what I have to do.
May, 2015
"Rachel, can you please stop pacing? You're distracting me."
"Blaine, you're sitting at a piano," she deadpanned, giving me a look. "I don't think anything could interrupt you."
I shot her a playful glare, continuing to scribble away in my notebook.
"What are you even doing, anyway?" she asked, coming to sit on the bench next to me. She put her chin on my shoulder, glancing at the pages filled with my sloppy-quick handwriting.
"Writing. And if you love me, then you will find some way to occupy yourself until I'm finished working."
"I'm just nervous," she said. "Thank you very much for your concern, B."
"First of all, if this revival rumor is true, you're gonna get the part, Rach," I told her with a chuckle, rolling my eyes. "You know that as much as I do. Second, I feel like writing so that's what I'm going to do."
"It's Fanny Brice. I've wanted to play her ever since I was four! I have a chance at being on Broadway, Blaine. Broadway! This is beyond huge."
"This is just a rumor. It's in the works – it could take years to actually get started."
"Dream crusher," she muttered. "And it's been a rumor for months, it's just finally starting to gain more status now."
"We should go out tonight. Call Charlotte, see if she wants go to dinner later," I said distractedly with a wave of my hand, paying no attention to the antics I was long accustomed to at that point.
"I wish Henley would come out with us."
"She just has a strict rule about us not seeing each other outside of therapy. Which I understand, it's really unprofessional and I don't know, weird, I guess. Maybe when she's not my therapist she'll be more open to the idea. Plus, if we're close to Charlotte, it's not like she can avoid hanging out with us forever."
"Yeah," she sighed, laying her head on my shoulder. "You okay?"
"Right now, yeah I am," I said with a small smile.
One step at a time, I reminded myself.
August 15th, 2015 – Blaine's Journal
Kurt,
You left over three years ago. It's been a tough three years, and you've now been gone longer than we were together. But I'll be okay.
I'm trying, and I'll be okay.
August 23rd, 2015 – Blaine's Journal
"Say Something" by Blaine Anderson
Say something, I'm giving up on you
I'll be the one, if you want me to
Anywhere I would've followed you
Say something, I'm giving up on you
And I am feeling so small
It was over my head
I know nothing at all
And I will stumble & fall
I'm still learning to love
Just starting to crawl
Say something, I'm giving up on you
I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you
Anywhere I would've followed you
Say something, I'm giving up on you
And I will swallow my pride
You're the one that I love
And I'm saying goodbye
Say something, I'm giving up on you
And I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you
And anywhere I would've followed you (Ooh-oh)
Say something, I'm giving up on you
Say something, I'm giving up on you
Say something
October, 2015
"I thought that instead of writing it down, this time I'd just… tell it to you," I said, looking out into the dark night sky. There weren't many stars, because it was the city and the pollution made it nearly impossible, but I was able to imagine what they would look like if they were there. Rachel was out, so it was just me and all of the space from my apartment to the moon. It was eerily quiet, something very unusual for this city. I knew the noise was there – the cars and the people and the loud, thumping music – but in my head, it faded away into nothing more than a dimmed, muted sound.
"I don't know why I'm doing this, to be honest," I began, with a small sigh. "I'm usually okay with writing these letters to you. But I think tonight I just needed to talk to you. It's been awhile since I've been out here and counted all the constellations, wondering if you're in there somewhere. I'm not sure I believe that anymore, anyways. I know you loved me at one point, and I've accepted it because Henley made me realize that you probably had so much stuff going on in your head when you decided to leave. And I've sat here and screamed and yelled and I've been so angry for so long because of what you did. But I just – I can't do it anymore. I can't be angry. It's exhausting trying to hate you and hold onto that anger when all I want to do is let it go. So I've decided to not be angry anymore. I forgive you, Kurt. And I'm… I'm sorry. That I didn't realize sooner, or try and help you more. I know I did everything I could, but it wasn't enough and I'm sorry. I used to think that it was my fault that you left because I would tell myself that I didn't do anything to stop it, but that's not true. I never would've imagined that you'd leave like that, and I know now that I can't blame myself, and I don't. I can't blame you either, and I know that things just… turned out the way they did. We weren't meant to be, and I guess that's okay. I've come to terms with that, and Henley says that I'll probably be able to get off my depression meds soon, so I'd say they're working." I paused, listening to the faint honks and the wind blowing in the distance.
"You know, I used to think that everyone had a soul mate. I thought that we were all paired off and that once we found our person, we could stop looking because that was it, you know? The search was over. I thought you were mine, but I don't think I believe that now, either. If you were my soul mate, you wouldn't have left. So maybe they don't exist, or maybe not everyone has one. Who knows, I could have two soul mates. I don't know, I guess I'll have to wait and see. But I do know that you loved me, even when you decided to leave and even if we weren't supposed to spend forever together. Years ago, Rachel told me that you looked at me like I was the sun and the moon, but I said that wasn't enough because you were supposed to look at me like the stars. But the sun is a star, it's just different from all the rest. So you loved me, Kurt, and I'm sorry I doubted that."
I sucked in a quiet breath, leaning on the window frame. I put my chin on the palm of my hand, smiling faintly.
"There are all these rumors about a Funny Girl revival, and if it's true, there's no way Rach won't get Fanny. She's doing so wonderfully here, she was made to be in New York, and she's gonna be a big star one day, just wait. I wish you'd be here to see it, but I know that in a year, or two, or five, you'll be walking down the street of whatever city you're in, and you'll see a magazine, or a billboard, and it'll have her face on it. And you'll stop and think, 'she did it.' You'll smile to yourself, and you'll keep walking, continuing towards your destination, filled with memories of her laughter and our late night musical marathons. I remember this one time, where we were watching Wicked, and even though Rachel was sick like a dog, she insisted on singing along with every song. You told her to stop because it could damage her voice, but she looked you dead in the face and said no. She marched onto her basement stage, grabbed the mic, and sang the entire version of Defying Gravity from start to finish. Even though it was awful – her voice was cracking and she couldn't hold a note to save her life – I remember all of us laughing together, rolling on the floor and clutching our stomachs." I stopped, letting out a chuckle as I recalled that night. Once I was done, I continued, lips curved into a smile. "We hadn't laughed that hard in so long, but that night we did. And it's such a silly memory, but it's one of my favorites and I'll cherish it forever. Because even if you can't be here with us now, I'll always have all of the moments that you were there for."
I cleared my throat, adjusting my elbows on the window sill. I felt the warm night air on my face, the breeze blowing softly.
"I've been in therapy for almost a year and a half, since last July. It's crazy, absolutely crazy. No wonder you didn't wanna go. But I needed it. I still kinda do, even if I think I don't. And it's okay to admit that, because I had to get help. Without it, who knows where I'd be. I wouldn't have met Henley, that's for sure, and she's just – she's so amazing, Kurt. She's such a wonderful person and I wish you'd have gotten the chance to meet her. She's so passionate about the work she does and she's the proof I needed that it's possible to live with pain. She's been through so much, but she's still here. And Charlotte is probably the cutest, loveliest person I've ever seen. She just gets me, because she is me, really. Her life – it's been really hard, just like mine, but now she's so bubbly and bright and she doesn't have an ounce of bad in her. She's helped me so much, and she's one of my closest friends here, besides Rachel. She's got the greenest eyes and the reddest hair that you've ever seen, but it works for her.
"And I'm in my third year of college, you know? I went into music, just like you said I should. I work at a children's center so I get to help them discover their passion for music, and I work at Charlotte's coffee shop a few times a week, so I get to show off all of the songs I wrote about you. Everybody loves me there, but they should really be giving you the credit. I wouldn't be as good as I am today if I wasn't given a chance to write about you. You move me, Kurt. Even today, you inspire me. You always have.
"'It is in the destiny of the stars to collapse,'" I recited softly after a few minutes of silence. "I heard that once. And it's true; the universe is nothing but a black hole that creates and destroys. It creates things just to destroy them, and then it destroys those things to be able to create new things. Maybe that's what happened with us, you know? We were made specifically to be destroyed and turned into something new. So that's what I think. I believe that we were something special, something extraordinary. We're a part of a universe that cares so little for people as individuals, for love, and for moments, because all it wants is to destroy and create. But as long as I have our memories, it can never destroy us. I can't just pretend like we never existed, Kurt, because you've changed me in irreversible ways. You saved my life once, then you almost ended it. You're a part of who I am today, and you were such a huge part of my story for so long. We may not be together, but I'm so thankful that I got to have you in my life, no matter the amount of time. And maybe I'll never know why you left, but maybe it wasn't meant for me to know," I said. "So I'm going to give you what you never gave me."
I glanced up as I remembered something Kurt had said to me all those years ago.
Whenever you miss me, or anytime you're feeling sad, I want you to come outside and find that star, okay? It's the North Star. And every time you see it, I want you to know that I love you and that I miss you too. And that wherever I am, I'm thinking of you, always.
And maybe it was ironic that I wouldn't be able to see that bright star. Maybe it meant that it was time to move on. His words weren't a reality, but a memory – a forgotten promise, part of a love that was once one for the ages. And that was okay; we both said things in the past that don't hold truth today. I wouldn't be looking up at the night sky anymore when I was sad, because I knew that he wasn't there and neither was his love. I would look up at it when I wanted to remember the good times that I had with the person I used to love, or when I needed some peace, or when I needed to remember that this was not the end – because the universe is so inexplicably immense, because what I have now can't be all that I'll ever have. I know that there's more waiting for me somewhere, opportunities to be had, dreams to be followed, people to meet. I just had to find it.
"Goodbye, Kurt."
November 18th, 2015 – Blaine's Journal
"Beam Me Up" by Blaine Anderson
There's a whole other conversation going on,
In a parallel universe
Where nothin' breaks and nothin' hurts
There's a waltz playin' frozen in time,
Blades of grass on tiny bare feet
I look at you and you're lookin' at me
Could you beam me up?
Give me a minute
I don't know what I'd say in it
I'd probably just stare,
Happy just to be there holdin' your face
Beam me up
Let me be lighter
I'm tired of being a fighter
I think a minute's enough
Just beam me up
Saw a blackbird soarin' in the sky
Barely a breath, I caught one last sight
Tell me that was you sayin' goodbye
There are times I feel the shiverin' cold
It only happens when I'm on my own
That's how you tell me I'm not alone
Could you beam me up
Give me a minute
I don't know what I'd say in it
I'd probably just stare
Happy just to be there holdin' your face
In my head I see your baby blues
I hear your voice and I
I break in two and now there's
One of me with you
So when I need you can I send you a sign
I'll burn a candle and turn off the lights
I'll pick a star and watch you shine
Could you beam me up?
November 29th, 2015 – Blaine's Journal
A few weeks ago, Henley said I didn't need to come weekly anymore. She suggested twice a month, and I agreed. Going is just a formality at this point. It's a day where I can sit and vent about the stresses of my life, or when I get to bond with someone that's helped me through so much and that's been there for me through thick and thin, even when I screamed or cried or threw things.
I'm not angry now, about you or even about my father. I've accepted that I'm not at fault for either of your actions, and I want to focus on the good in my life. I have Rachel and Cooper, and I have Henley and Charlotte, and that's all I really need. I have four wonderful people in my life that were willing to drop everything to help me get better, and there's nothing that I can ever do to repay them.
And I think I gave you too much credit for my depression. After working through everything, I think one of the biggest reasons that it's been so hard for me is because I felt abandoned. Just like I did with my father. Maybe I'll never get completely to the bottom of it, but I feel like he played a much bigger role in my breakdown than I wanted to admit. I wanted to believe that I loved you enough to spend three years missing you, and I wanted to believe that it was possible for me to be stronger than to let my father do this to me, but if he hadn't done what he did to me, I don't think I would have been so crippled by you leaving. And in a way, I felt guilty for trying to move on. You helped me so much, even if you didn't realize it, and I thought it was… wrong, somehow, to forget you. But I'm not forgetting you, I'm just tucking you away where the memories of you can be safe and away from the gunpowder that sometimes still lines my brain.
I never really dealt with what happened, I just packed up and got out of that house, and it's why I have PTSD. But I'm okay. I got help, and I'm working through it, and I'm okay.
December 22nd, 2015 – Blaine's Journal
Dear Kurt,
I don't feel stuck anymore.
I got my taste of forever, and it doesn't have to last a long time in reality for it to last eternally in my memories. You know, maybe forever is just one person. Perhaps it's not this great and immeasurable concept of time that everybody sees it as. Forever has to end at some point, ours ended when you walked out the door and away from me. I used to think that my forever was you, but maybe it wasn't. It couldn't have been. Things change, and life happens, and you suddenly find something that was once forever to you is now nothing more than a cloudy memory in your past.
Henley told me that I was in love with the idea of you, and I think that as time passed by, that became true. It's been three and a half years, and wherever you are, you're a completely different person now. You've changed and I have too; that's what time does to people. I know that you aren't the same person that I fell in love with anymore, nor am I the hazel-eyed boy that saved you on the Dalton Academy staircase. I was in love with our memories, of what we had once been, and I have to let all of that go. She said that I had to live for me, not for other people and not for the past. So that's what I'm going to do.
I was watching The Notebook the other day, and I thought of you – of us and the night that we laid in the grass and recited quotes to each other. I have another one, the full version, that wasn't of complete use to me at the time.
"I'm not bitter anymore," Noah said, "because I know that what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I'll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent the summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that's what you've given me. That's what I hope to give to you forever. I love you."
It's true, it's all true.
A bird isn't meant to be caged. You have to let it go free and trust that it will come back to you, and if it doesn't, then maybe it wasn't yours to begin with. I know that once, you were my beautiful, big-winged bird that loved to spend his days dreaming about what was out in the world. And then that's where you went, and you weren't mine to call anymore. I realize now that I couldn't make you stay with me, because maybe that's not where you were meant to be. You had to fly, and your wings took you away from us, and it's okay.
It's okay.
January 19th, 2016 – Blaine's Journal
"And it has been
one hell
of a year.
I have worn
the seasons
under my sleeves,
on my thighs,
running down my cheeks.
This is what
surviving
looks like, my dear."
- Michelle K.
January 26th, 2016
"It's been a little while," Henley said, glancing at me as I walked through the door to her office. "You only come once every two weeks, if that."
"You finally had dinner with Charotte and Rach and me two nights ago," I told her, laughing as I sat. "I just saw you."
"But this is different. And when you're not my patient anymore, maybe we can have dinner again, but for now, this is fine."
"Maybe it is different," I replied. "But not bad different."
She hummed in agreement, and then asked me how I felt, like she always did. She flipped her folder shut, adjusting herself in her chair. She put her chin in her hands, smiling at me, because she knew the answer.
"I feel good."
She looked at me, her smile growing, and said, "I know you do, Blaine. I know you do."
"It's been a hard three and a half years," I said. "But I got through it." I made it to the Other Side and I lived to tell about it.
I ended my therapy shortly after that, in early 2016, after twenty months. It wasn't easy, but after a long, excruciating road, things were finally beginning to fall into place and I became happier than I'd ever been. I knew I would always have the scars of my past, both physical and emotional, but they made me into the person I'd become and I was okay with that.
In August 2016, after months of anticipation and rumors about the revival of Funny Girl, it was confirmed that the show would indeed be taking a second run. Immediately, Rachel started doing everything she could to prepare for the audition, and when she went in to see the director, she nailed it. And then in October, she finally got the news – Fanny Brice was hers.
She and the entire cast spent close to four months practicing and opened the show in late January 2017. It ran off Broadway for about eight months before it moved to Broadway after getting raving reviews from critics – because no one expected it to do as well as it did, not without Barbra, of course. But it did fantastically well and the theater world was abuzz with this new Rachel Berry and just exactly where she'd been hiding. She had magazines and newspapers after her for interviews since the show started, but come September, when it found its home on 48th street, her fame only began to grow.
And incidentally, when the New York Times interviewed her for the second time, right after the official Broadway opening, it happened to be someone she already knew.
"I'd been seeing him for months down at the coffee shop," she explained. "Every morning before rehearsal I'd go and get my coffee, you know, and I always saw him sitting in the back, in the exact same chair every time. For like two months, I noticed him while I was in line, eating his bagel or drinking his coffee or whatever, typing away at his computer like an Olympic champ."
"Isn't that just a little creepy?" I asked with a barely contained smile. Of course she would pay attention to something like that. "I mean, just staring at someone?"
"I'm telling you, Blaine. It was weird. And being the kind of outgoing person I am, I finally went up to him one day and struck up a conversation."
"You didn't."
"Oh, I did. He was cute, obviously driven, we have the same taste in coffee…" she trailed off, moving her hands in the air. "Anyways, he told me he was the Events writer for the New York Times, so I told him he should come to the first show and write about it."
"Only you wouldn't waste an opportunity for shameless self promotion, Rachel Berry," I laughed, shaking my head.
"Well I was trying to flirt but he clearly got the message because he told me he had a boyfriend –"
"You have two gay dads and your best friend slash brother is a gay man, how would you not pick up on that?"
"I don't know!" she exclaimed. "That's not the point. Okay, so I dropped the whole thing and then we just started talking about everything and he's like, ridiculously nice. And well-spoken. And so polite. Did I mention drop dead gorgeous? I mean, if he didn't have a boyfriend, I'd insist that he ask you out."
"Is there a moral to this story, Rach?" I asked her, wondering why on earth she was telling me about a writer for a newspaper. "You're rambling."
"Yes, actually, let me finish," she told me, giving me a look. "We've been talking in the mornings when we get our coffee, right? And then we became friends and he came to the off-Broadway opening to do the article on the show, blah blah blah, you know that. But he showed up last night to write about me, Blaine, not just the show. The New York Times wants to run an article on the actress behind Fanny!"
"Oh my god, that's amazing!" She launched herself at me, squealing, so I wrapped my arms around her and gave her a hug.
"And you know, because he's the one doing the story, it's bound to be good. So I don't have to worry about whether or not they'll be hard on me or dig up dirt or anything like that, which means that we can fully celebrate! Thank you, Sebastian Smythe."
"Sounds pretentious."
"Oh, you have no idea. He knows he's good so he owns it. It's not a bad thing and I can't say that I blame him," she responded. "His boyfriend must be a lucky guy. I wish I could get someone like that. But you've got to meet him. I think you two would be good friends."
Between juggling her last year in school and the play (she'd quit her job after she got the role), Rachel was rarely home. I was still pretty busy myself, but it gave me the time I needed to get re-acquainted with who I was, post-therapy, post-antidepressants, post-Kurt. Now that I was just Blaine, I had to figure out who that was and where he was headed.
I was someone who loved his friends like they were his family, so I made sure that Henley, Charlotte, Rachel and I all stayed close after therapy. I was someone who watched TV and read books and ran for pleasure, not because I had to, but because I wanted to. I was someone who enjoyed my time in school and finally realized what being a college student in New York was about: freedom and fun. I was someone who lived for music, so I spent my days strumming away at my guitar, playing the piano, and composing song after song just because I could. I was someone who was finally able to breathe again.
After Rachel got her news, Cooper decided to move up to New York. He wanted to expand his business anyways, so he'd spent the year previous lining everything up and finding someone else to run the office in Ohio. Once he set up the New York office, he was living just three blocks away from me. I was long better by the time he came, so it was nice having a normal relationship with my brother – something that we'd never had before. In Ohio, we were dealing with my father and legal papers and Kurt leaving. And then when he came to visit me, it was all about my depression and therapy, which meant that there was never any room for anything else. I spent weeks showing him around the city, and after that, it was as if nothing had ever been wrong. The only sign that I'd ever been sick were the fading scars on my arms.
There were a few boys that I went on a couple of dates with, but nothing serious ever came of it. I never did anything more than kiss them, because I knew that I couldn't give myself to someone else emotionally and physically without truly meaning it. When I had gone through the thick of my depression, all sex did was make my situations and feelings towards myself worse, and at the end of the day, I wasn't ready to commit to them. I knew that getting involved would only lead to messy breakup's before we even got a chance to really begin, so it never went farther than a few weeks. I needed to focus on myself and my passion for music, and living the single life didn't seem like such a bad idea to me.
I graduated in May of 2017 with a Bachelors in Music Performance, and after that, I wanted to go after my dreams, so I did. Instead of going to school for two more years like I'd originally planned, I poured every ounce of my energy into my singing career, which eventually led to me making the tough decision of quitting my job as a music counselor at the Manhattan Children's Center. I had worked there for almost four years, so it was difficult saying goodbye to it, but I knew that it was something I had to do in order to brave the tough New York crowds and make a name for myself. There were millions of people living in that city, and I was at the age in my life where I had to start making choices that affected my life after school. When I left my work, it became very evident that job and career were very different things. Working with the kids was a job – one that I enjoyed and was honored to do – but it wasn't my career. My love was for music in its barest form, for the feeling of a pen scribbling away on a blank piece of paper, for the calluses on my fingertips, for giving everything I had on a stage in front of whoever was willing to listen. I was born not to be a singer or a vocalist, but a performer. And while helping children discover their love for the arts was allowing me to be able to sing music and play instruments, it would do nothing for me in the long run on the path for what I really wanted to be.
Throughout the rest of 2017 and 2018, I set out to record a short album as a way to get my voice known – I had to start somewhere and I figured that was my opportunity. I'd saved up some money so I would be able to rent out a small studio to produce it professionally, and Cooper had insisted for fronting the rest for anything else I needed. Because my best work came from my experiences with Kurt, I used the songs I'd written about us and named the album To Build A Home. I promoted it wherever I could, put it online, and sang it on an endless loop at the café, hoping that the right person would come along and find interest in it. Then finally, in November, my hard work paid off. Someone had heard me playing the tracks in Charlotte's coffee shop and said that he wanted to set up a meeting with me. When I met with him to discuss the legalities of it all, he said he wanted to represent me, and I accepted his deal. Just like that, my dream of becoming a recording artist was on its way to being fulfilled.
Life couldn't have gotten any better.
A/N: So Blaine is all better – I told y'all, you just had to be patient ;). Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!
Also, this is the video where I learned about the resiliency curve, for anyone who's interested. youtube watch?v=ny6KQ1_F-pI (skip to 8:53)
This is the chart of the curve: elissaslaterisaqueen . tumblr post/122179398282
Finally, this is the lovely, lovely drawing my editor did for Henley and Charlotte ages ago, when they were just barely characters: sparklevamp . deviantart art/Hen-And-Char-391801802?ga_submit_new=10%253A1376006829