Chapter Twenty-Six: How Chaotic My World Feels

Time was starting to speed up now that Rachel and I were back together and I'd adjusted to the initial culture shock of being back in North America. After Des Moines we went to Kansas City, while Rachel and I kept our newly rekindled romance a secret from Kurt and Blaine. We took advantage of every private moment to flirt or kiss or have sweet, satisfying sex. The tension between her and Kurt dissolved, and the mood in the RV improved significantly.

We went next to Nebraska to conclude the first month of tour on a high note with a sold out show in Omaha. June started with a trek across both of the Dakotas and then though Montana and south to Wyoming. By the time we got to Colorado, on the eleventh of June, we'd sold out ten more shows and were running very low on CDs and t-shirts to sell.

Our brief period of relative bliss ended when Rachel, Blaine, and I all got food poisoning in a restaurant in Denver. We spent a day clammy, nauseous, and rushing to the bathroom every ten minutes. It stalled our departure to Utah by almost six hours, but Kurt volunteered to stay up driving while the rest of us slept off our fevers and stomach aches. It wasn't until morning that I found out that the highway we'd planned to take into Salt Lake City was closed because of massive forest fires. The detour Kurt had to take meant that we didn't even pull into the city until an hour before the meetup in the park was supposed to start.

I was still feeling a groggy and weak from the food poisoning, but it was nothing to how exhausted Kurt looked after driving right through the night. Yawing, he sat down beside Blaine, who handed him his coffee cup. For Blaine this early in the morning, sacrificing his coffee was an unprecedented display of true love.

Rachel said, "Don't drink coffee, Kurt. Go to bed. You can sleep until we have to start setting up at the theatre."

Shaking his head, Kurt said, "I'm not missing the meetup." He drank the coffee, but I could tell he was dying to just crawl into bed. I was pretty sure one sleepless night was nothing compared to the abdominal torture Rachel, Blaine, and I had endured the day before, so I couldn't feel bad for him.

"How're you guys feeling?" Kurt asked, as though reading my mind.

"Much better," Rachel said, "Just a bit… wobbly. Know what I mean?"

Blaine nodded. "Yeah I hear you. A bit dizzy."

"Our blood sugar is probably tanked," I said, "We'll feel better after we finally get some food in us."

We did feel much steadier after breakfast, but it was a stiflingly hot day. Smoke from the forest fires down the road was hanging in the bone-dry air like fog, making our throats itch and our eyes water. Rachel was in another one of her moods, walking with her head straight forward, tight-lipped and silent except when she complained how badly she needed a shower. Kurt was exhausted and bad-tempered, and I felt bad for Blaine, who couldn't seem to stop coughing long enough to cheer Kurt up. Still, we felt united in our bad moods when a month prior they would have just divided us.

The meetup was small, and the sense of solidarity and family we got from the people who showed up made all of our bad moods lessen. We got to spend plenty of time meeting people, sharing stories. Kurt, Rachel, and Blaine previewed a song from Soundtrack acoustically for the group to great applause. After a while, we ended up sitting in a large group asking and answering questions and trying to stay cool in the shade.

"Okay, I'm going to take a nap," Kurt said later, after we'd had lunch and were back at the RV, which we'd parked on the street by the theatre, "I can barely keep my eyes open."

Rachel said, "Well, I saw a Laundromat a few blocks up, so I'm heading there. Give me whatever you need washed."

So she left and Kurt fell asleep. I looked at Blaine, who was picking at his guitar on the couch, repeating the same haunting phrase over and over in various configurations, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

I got the feeling he wanted to be alone to work on whatever he was working on, so I decided to go for a walk to see what there was to see. I was surprised, however, to hear Blaine follow me out the RV, asking, "Where're you going?"

I told him, and he asked, "Mind if I join you? I'm stir crazy."

Blaine and I had barely spent any time together without Rachel or Kurt, so this made me nervous, but I agreed.

The sun was piercingly hot. As we started walking, I said, "I know it's not a great day for a walk, but I like to see as much as I can while I have the time."

Nodding, Blaine said, "I know you do. I'm sorry that you don't have much time to do it on this tour."

I appreciated that he'd considered how different this kind of touring was from what I usually did, but I was genuine when I said, "I don't mind. I've been to most of these places before, you know."

He coughed. "Yeah. Yeah I know. Sometimes it overwhelms me when I think about all of the places you have been. I don't know how you hold it all inside your head."

I laughed. "I don't. That's why I vlog."

Blaine said, "It's inside you, though. A whole world of experiences that I will never have."

"Only because you made other choices," I said, "You're much too ambitious to ever do what I did. You, Kurt, and Rachel all had dreams to run towards when things got tough. I didn't have a dream, so I just ran. And now somehow we all find ourselves running down the same path."

Blaine grinned, shaking his head in wonder. "Jesus, Finn," he said, "The way you talk sometimes… You don't hold anything back, do you?"

I felt a little embarrassed. We crossed the street and entered a park. "I've spent a lot of time learning how to say the right things in the right way to make people think. With the vlog, you know. I know it's weird. It's just a habit. Somewhere during Peregrination, I forgot how to speak casually."

He said, "It's not weird. It's awesome. You say what you're feeling. What you're thinking. I'm the opposite. People say I'm charming, but I never say anything that reveals anything real about who I am."

I was starting to feel uncomfortable about the sort of mood he was in, but I was intrigued enough by his sudden desire to have a real conversation. I was intrigued to hear him voice the thing I'd often thought about him.

"Yeah. You're a tough one to read, alright."

Looking guilty, Blaine said, "I know."

I shrugged. "That's who you are. I think your music speaks so you don't have to. We all have different ways of expressing ourselves."

"That's what Kurt says," Blaine admitted, "He says my brain wired for music, not conversation. And it's true. Sometimes…" he hesitated, and said in confidential tone, "Sometimes I don't think people realize how chaotic my world feels when I'm not making music."

I remembered what Rachel and Mike had said about him in Chicago about synesthesia, and I had a surge of affection for the complete enigma of Blaine Anderson. I shrugged. "And is that a problem? I mean, do you want to change that?"

Blaine shrugged too, coughing again. "Not really. I love what I do, and I'm good at it. And I have Kurt. He makes the chaos go away. But being around you does make me wonder how valid my preference for privacy really is. You live your life as an open book for the world, and you love it. I wonder if I shouldn't try a bit harder to be like that."

"Look," I said, "When I started vlogging, I figured out that what I had to say was relatable and maybe even inspirational to a lot of people. It made me want to keep talking. It's what I'm good at. You're good at other things. I'm not saying that you shouldn't try new things, I'm just saying… don't compare yourself to me. Know your strengths, and don't waste your life struggling to overcome weakness that don't need overcoming."

He smiled, a sudden look of peace coming across his face. He said, "Sound advice."

We were walking slowly, but he was breathless and obviously uncomfortable. I felt bad for him; the hot, ummoving air was heavy with forest fire smoke, and it was obviously hard on him; his coughs revealed a high pitched whistle rasping in his chest that made my hair stand on end.

I asked, "Is there something you want to talk about, Blaine? I mean, you just seem a little... weird."

"Oh." Blaine looked mildly surprised, but he nodded. "Yeah, I guess I am. I wanted to talk to you about something, and instead we just started talking about how I don't talk."

I stopped walking and sat down a slope beside a stream running through the park. He sat down beside me. "So what is it?" I asked.

Blaine cleared his throat and coughed a few times, gathering his thoughts. "Look," he said, "We've been on the road now for a month, and I don't… I don't feel like you and I have really… I dunno. Connected. Maybe it's in my head, but I feel like we just… like there's tension between us."

My stomach flip-flopped a bit, and I felt an extreme awkwardness fall over me. Slowly, I said, "Oh. Uh… yeah, I feel it too."

He said, "Look, Finn, it's no secret that you and I didn't get along in high school. We… we clashed."

I remembered. "Yeah. But I was insecure and jealous. I had no idea who I was or what I was good at, and you… you had it all together."

He said, "I was very good at acting like I had it all together. And that's probably why I rubbed you the wrong way. Because it was an act. Come on, Finn. I was just as insecure as you were. Probably more."

I shrugged. "Maybe that's true. I don't know. Anyway, that's different now. I've got me figured out. I just… I sometimes feel like you resent me a little for coming back."

Blaine nodded and a coughing spell overtook him. I frowned in concern when the coughing dragged on longer than could be healthy, but he rolled his eyes and gave a dismissive wave. He finally said, "Gross. Sorry." He cleared is throat. "Look, Finn; what you've done with your life… the travelling and the YouTube stuff… Finn, it's amazing. And it's exactly what you should have done. But it doesn't change the fact that… that you weren't here. You left."

I grimaced, stomach churning. I said, "Trust me, Blaine, I am hyper aware that there are things between you and Kurt and Rachel that I will never understand. You're right. I wasn't here. And maybe I should have been."

He shook his head, staring at the water and sitting very still. He said, "It's not like that. I know that you're intelligent and empathetic enough to understand just about anything. I think that leaving was exactly what you needed to do."

I wanted to interrupt, but he kept talking. He said, "It's just… it took me a long time to feel human again after the shooting. And your vlog… you showing your journey to the world… it constantly reassured me that life could go on and still be wondrous. You were a big part of my healing process without even being here."

He paused, coughing again, and I swallowed the sudden urge to cry. I hadn't expected that.

He said, "Look, I know I'm not making much sense. But I've never been able to include very many people in… the psychological trauma I've had to recover from. It's a very private part of me, and I think I've done a good job of boxing it up and burying beneath more joyful things. But now you're here and it feels like you're inside that box without being invited, and it scares me."

Blaine stopped, taking a few shaky breaths, and added, "So it's like… I don't know. I can't explain it. I'm not good at explaining stuff like this. I'm just saying… you make me nervous. And I'm sorry if I've made it awkward between us. Because I appreciate what you're doing for us way more than I can express. Really. I just don't know how to relax around you."

I slid closer to him and gave him a hug. It must have been exhausting and scary for a guy like Blaine to say what he'd just said to me, and he looked so vulnerable and embarrassed that it almost hurt to look at him.

I said, "Blaine, you don't have to apologize, but I'm glad you told me. I think I understand how you feel pretty clearly. And it a lot of ways, I've felt the same way. You make me nervous too. I don't know what the taboos are-I don't know what's okay to talk about and what's not. It's hard to talk to you without remembering that day—that day I'm afraid to talk about with you."

He said, "It's not a taboo. It's just hard. I don't know what to tell you. Because I think you probably understand the horror of…that day…better than anyone except Tina. But you and I have never talked about it."

I nodded, feeling tears threaten me again. "I know there are no answers. I'm just glad we can acknowledge it. Because honestly? For most of the time I was away, I didn't know if you were okay. I had no idea how you'd recovered and moved on. And I was afraid to know. Because it was bad enough that ten people had died; if you or Tina had been broken beyond repair, I wouldn't be able to deal with it."

"We're not broken," Blaine said, "And even if we were, it wouldn't have anything to do with you."

I said, "I know it. But it's still a hard thing to live with. I have to work hard not to let the guilt take over."

He said, "It's hard. I know. But that's the difference between us and certain other people. We work hard to keep our lives productive and rewarding, while they let the pain and the guilt drag them down."

We were both crying, and I felt like a very large stone has been removed from my stomach.

He laughed a little through his tears. "Fuck," he said, "It's way too hot for tears today. What a miserable fucking day to have a heart-to heart."

I joined his quiet, apologetic laughter and gave him another hug, standing up and wiping my eyes. He choked on his tearful laughter and started coughing, getting to his feet too. I said, "I'm glad we talked."

Nodding, he said, "Me too. I just hope that what I said made some sense."

"It did," I assured him.