Thank you, thank you, thank you SO MUCH for all of your phenomenal reviews for the last chapter! I'm so glad that you all liked the little spin on prom, and I will tell you right now that I did not come up with the idea of forking! I am not that brilliant... or that insane! :)
Next, I just want to say that I promise I will be getting to all of your reviews as soon as I can! I am just very, very tired at this very moment and have got to get a bit of shut eye before tomorrow morning. However, I will be responding to every single one of them just as soon as I get the opportunity to tomorrow. I promise I haven't forgotten about you, and I absolutely love reading and responding to all of your reviews!
Also, I'm sorry that this chapter is a little bit later than usual. I had to put my dog of twelve years to sleep three days ago, and it has just been very tough getting back into the swing of things. I promise that I'm alright, and it was definitely her time, but it was still a bit of a world-ender for a few days. But I am back on my feet and ready to pump out the next few chapters!
And there's one last thing I know that you will all be interested in! The lovely bjaarcy wrote a spinoff story for chapter twenty-six, hilariously and perfectly documenting Finn's goodbye to Alan the sand crab. All of you should check out this story (titled "Goodbye, Alan"), because I know you'll love it! :)
Until next time (nationals!)...
Enjoy!
They really were growing up.
I think that's the hardest thing in the world for a dad to admit to himself, but it was true. And as much as I wanted to try to forget it, they were always finding ways to remind me.
Kurt and Blaine were constantly talking about everything they needed to do before they left for New York, and Finn would sit on the curb waiting for the mailman to bring him any information on NYU every single afternoon.
But even with all of that, I think the moment I really realized just how grown up they were was when the four of us were cleaning up the kitchen after dinner one night.
Blaine was sorting through the silverware in the dishwasher, and Kurt was trying to help Finn get a hot sauce stain out of his shirt.
"You know, Finn, this would be a lot easier if you'd just take the shirt off."
"But I've got to be at Rachel's in ten minutes!"
"Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you wore your one nice shirt to a dinner you knew would be messy!"
Finn kept his mouth shut and let Kurt continue scrubbing at the spot.
Blaine laughed, and when I turned to look at him, I noticed something I'd never seen before on one of his fingers.
At first, I thought it was just my imagination.
But as I kept looking at it, I could distinctly make out two black lines on the ring finger of his right hand that had never been there before.
"Hey, Blaine?"
I walked over to him, and he didn't even look up from the silverware he was still sorting.
"Yep?"
I grabbed his wrist, and he panicked, letting all of the silverware in his hands hit the floor with a loud crash.
"Well, I guess that was the answer I was looking for."
He sighed and looked to Kurt, who was trying to plan how to deal with the whole situation.
I held his hand up to my face and got a good look at that finger.
It was simple and discreet. Just a black V emblazoned on his skin.
I let go of his wrist and took in the look on his face. He had no idea what he was supposed to be feeling. Terrified? Guilty? Remorseful?
I turned to Kurt and Finn.
"Let me guess. You all got them?"
Finn shook his head, very proud of himself for being the only one of them who hadn't gone out and done something stupid.
Kurt looked at him in disgust.
"Finn was going to get one too, but he passed out when he saw the needle. It was embarrassing, to say the least."
Finn's cheeks reddened.
"But to answer your question... yes. I have one too."
Kurt was confident. His shoulders were back, and his face was bold and ready to argue anything I had to say about it.
I crossed my arms.
"Well, let's see it, then."
He rolled his eyes and put the rag he'd been using to clean Finn's shirt on the counter.
He walked over to me and held up his right index finger to reveal a black smiley face.
My face fell.
You see, when Kurt was little, he'd always curl up in his mom's lap when he was sad. And she'd grab a marker and draw a smiley face on that finger to always remind him to smile even when things weren't going his way or the world was against him, because he had so many people who loved him and thought he was the most perfect little boy in the world.
And every time, it made him feel better. Every time, she'd kiss his finger, and he'd kiss her, and the tears would be gone.
All because of one little smiley face.
There was no way I could be mad at either one of them.
Not with that.
It was too special, and I couldn't even formulate the right words to say to him.
"Dad?"
I sort of snapped out of it.
"Yeah, Kurt?"
His eyes were wide.
"Are you going to be alright?"
I laughed.
"Yeah, I'm fine... and I like that. It's nice."
His eyes widened even more.
"You like it?"
I looked to Blaine and Finn who mirrored Kurt's expression perfectly.
"I do. I do like it. You know, you guys are eighteen now, and... well, you can get tattoos without needing my say so, right? So, that's... that's it, I guess."
All three of them were frozen, and Blaine was eying that silverware on the floor, trying to decide if his stillness and my decision were in any way correlated.
"That's it?"
"Yeah, Kurt. That's it."
I patted him on the shoulder and walked out of the kitchen as Blaine scrambled to pick up all of the silverware.
They weren't kids anymore. They were men. They were tattooed men.
And what would getting mad at them do? Get rid of their tattoos?
Not a chance.
It would've only made me angrier and kept them from ever telling me anything that was going on in their lives once we weren't all living in the same house anymore.
Still, I hated that they hadn't just told me about it in the first place.
That they already felt so grown up that they didn't ever have to tell me anything they didn't want to.
They had every right to feel that way... but I still didn't like it.
And when I told Carole about all of it, she didn't like it either.
As we were getting ready to go to sleep that night, she could not believe that the two of them had actually gone through with getting tattoos.
"I mean, they mentioned it to me, sure. I told them I liked the idea, but I never thought they'd actually go through with it!"
"Wait, they told you about this?"
She laughed, seeing nothing strange about them telling her but not me.
"Well, yeah... sure, they did. But only as a hypothetical situation, not like they were going to go out the next day and actually get tattoos."
I pulled up the covers and climbed into bed.
"It's weird, isn't it?"
She followed suit.
"Yeah, I guess it kind of is. I mean... when did this happen? When did they grow up?"
She snuggled up next to me.
"We blinked."
She laughed.
"We blinked alright."
I sighed.
"I don't know... I guess it's their attitudes about the whole thing that have got me a little worried."
She looked up at me.
"What do you mean?"
"You know, how they didn't even tell us about this. Don't you think they're trying to grow up a little bit too fast?"
She considered it, and while I knew that she was concerned about the whole thing, I also knew that how fast Finn was growing up was something that had been worrying her for a long time now.
This wasn't a new thing for her in the same way it was for me, and I could see how happy it made her that our fears had finally collided.
"Maybe we could try to... slow them down?"
"What do you mean?"
She was smiling like she'd been turning over this idea for awhile now.
"We could stage an intervention."
I laughed.
"You think that would work?"
She knew it would.
"Sure! We could just do something that would remind them that they're not quite as old as they think they are."
"Like what?"
She sort of pretended that she hadn't already thought through this entire plan, and I loved that about her. She was always prepared and ready for anything but also always wanted to be precise in her timing.
And the time was finally perfect.
"Well, you know those boxes in the garage with all of Kurt and Finn's old stuff?"
"I do."
She smiled up at me.
"We could throw them out."
I had no idea what she was talking about. It sounded like the opposite of the right thing to do.
"Throw them out?"
"Not actually throw them out. We'll just pretend to throw them out in plan view of the boys. They'll go crazy when they see that stuff being thrown in the trash, you know them. It'll be perfect."
I laughed.
It really was a great plan. If there was one thing that I knew for certain, it was that all three of them really were still kids at heart. Their challenges and their fears had grown, but when it really came down to it, I knew that Kurt would still love to have another tea party someday. And I knew that Finn would still be more than ready to stage a war with his G.I. Joe's if he thought that no one was looking. And Blaine... Blaine still had a tattered stuffed bunny rabbit hidden in one of his pillowcases.
"You know, I really think you might be on to something here."
She laughed.
"We'll get those boxes down tomorrow, and when they get a look at that stuff, nostalgia is going to take over this whole house."
She sighed into the laugh, and I could see just how happy she was that we were going to do this.
"You're really getting into this, huh?"
She smiled and really considered it. She looked up at me, and her eyes were glossed with tears.
"It might be nice, you know. To have one last day to pretend like they're not leaving us in a few months."
I nodded and tried to stay strong for her.
She tried to brush away the tears, but it was to no avail.
"I don't think I'm ready for this."
I pulled her closer and rubbed her back as she let the tears flow.
Other parents got to space these things out. They send one kid off to college, and then a few years later they send the next one and then the next one.
But we didn't have that.
We were losing all three of them at one time. Three goodbyes, three heartbreaks.
Which is why it was imperative that our plan for the next day go perfectly.
Carole and I hauled all of the boxes from the garage into the living room and set up some huge trash bags to really get the point across.
And when all three of them came home from glee club practice, their reactions could not have been more perfect.
Blaine wasn't really sure what was going on, but from the fire that was practically shooting out of Kurt's eyes, he knew that there was going to have to be some quick thinking to keep him from panicking. Finn just looked like his entire world was crumbling right before his eyes.
"W- what's going on here?"
Carole stuffed his Power Rangers into a trash bag.
"Oh, we're just going through some old stuff."
She was so nonchalant, and that only made them even more horrified.
Kurt stepped up, while Blaine kept his distance to watch this whole thing unfold.
"Going through or throwing away?"
I laughed.
"A little bit of both, Kurt. Why? You need something?"
Kurt's jaw dropped open.
"Yes! Yes, we need something! How can you just throw away all of this stuff without telling us? These are valuable memories!"
I smiled.
"Really? They've just been collecting dust in garage, and since you're graduating soon, we just figured you wouldn't even need this stuff."
Finn looked like he had never heard a falser statement in his life.
"The fuck we do!"
"Finn! Language!"
A breath caught in his throat in fear, and he calmed down enough to keep himself from digging an even deeper hole.
"I'm sorry, Mom, but this is serious business."
He was trying to be firm, and he reached across to grab the trash bag and retrieve as many Power Rangers as he could grab.
"You can't break up the red and yellow Power Rangers! It's against the laws of nature! And the laws of love!"
Kurt grabbed a few of them out of his hands, his face set in disbelief.
"Wait... you put red and yellow together? Red was always in love with blue. They were the only stable relationship, Finn!"
Finn turned to Kurt, his eyes just about to pop out of his head.
"Are you out of your mind? Red and yellow, Kurt! Look at their chemistry! They're perfect for each other!"
I looked to Blaine, who was trying to go along with the whole thing but really had nothing to say. He was just standing there awkwardly, pretending to smile like he had any idea what they were talking about.
I stopped Kurt before he could rage right back at Finn.
"Alright, hey!"
They both turned to me, and I tried to be as stern as I could in explaining something that they were just going to have to accept as a simple truth.
"We'll go through this stuff together, okay? But some tough decisions are gonna have to be made."
Kurt sighed and looked to Finn, whose muscles were still tensed.
"Power Rangers can stay, though?"
I laughed.
"Sure. Power Rangers can stay."
Finn immediately relaxed, and everyone found a spot on the floor to start rummaging through all of the boxes that had taken over the living room.
Carole was right.
Nostalgia was all over the place.
Every time either Finn or Kurt would pull something out of a box, there'd be a story attached to it that had to be told.
There were so many, "Mom, do you remember that time when..." and, "Dad, I can't believe you kept this even after..." statements that we really lost count.
We were laughing, and Carole and I loved every single moment of reliving those memories.
Finn told the story about how when he was in the first grade, he'd jumped off of a jungle gym and landed on top of a girl, knocking out her tooth and breaking his arm. The rest of the class had to spend the rest of recess looking for that little girl's tooth in the rocks of the playground. He said they never found it, and because it was entirely his fault that she'd lost the tooth in the first place, he had to write the Tooth Fairy a letter to make sure that she still got the money she deserved.
Of course, Carole still had that note, and Kurt was doubled over, he was laughing so hard.
"I was six! And she broke my arm! I think we should all be happy that I even had the decency to write that note."
Carole laughed with Kurt.
"You knocked out her tooth, Finn! We were lucky the school didn't expel you for jumping off of that thing in the first place."
Finn sulked.
"I still don't think that was my fault."
Kurt just shook his head.
"I can't believe that you were the reason they closed that playground for the rest of the year. So much of my young life is finally starting to make sense!"
Blaine laughed along with them, but he still hadn't said anything other than agreeing with Kurt and Finn since they'd come home. He didn't go to elementary school with them. None of the things in front of him had an ounce of sentimental value to him.
What was he supposed to say?
He wanted to come up with something substantial, but he just couldn't.
Kurt continued by reminding all of us of the bloody trauma of being hit in the back of the head with a tire swing and easily segueing into the story of his starring role in his fourth grade play.
"It was the only time anyone has ever truly appreciated my talent."
Blaine's eyes widened.
"Do you honestly believe that?"
Kurt nodded.
"Yes, yes I do. I played Davy Crockett in the riveting tale of Davy Crockett, and I was fantastic. Right, Dad?"
His eyes were lit up, and there was nothing I could do but laugh.
"You were. It was a good show, and when you threw glitter into the audience from your coon skin cap when the whole thing finished was pretty great too."
He smiled even bigger.
"That was my shining moment! And even though my teacher was so angry about such a brilliant improvisation, you stayed at the school with me all night to clean it up anyway."
I remember that night. Mopping up glitter off of a tile floor and vacuuming it up off of cloth chairs is significantly harder than you might think. But I enjoyed every moment of it, because the entire time we were cleaning, Kurt was giving me his mile long list of reasons for why Davy Crockett himself would have loved his rendition.
Kurt and Finn were laughing, and Blaine was trying to. He really was. He wanted more than anything to be able to just get it like they did.
But he didn't understand. He wasn't there, and he didn't have that.
There wasn't a single person in his life who remembered those things about him. There wasn't a single memory in one of those boxes that was his own.
He didn't have anyone who'd keep it. And I knew that he wanted to be happy and enjoy all of these memories and stories, but it's hard to when you haven't got it for yourself.
And I wasn't the only one who'd noticed.
Kurt laughed along to the end of his own story and grabbed Blaine's knee.
"Why don't you tell us one, Blaine?"
He was still smiling, and I think he was a little surprised when Blaine's face didn't mirror the same expression.
"What... tell you a story?"
Kurt nodded, trying to match his enthusiasm level with Blaine's to help ease him out of his comfort zone.
"Yeah, you know... tell us anything at all."
Blaine smiled uncomfortably and looked at each of us, trying to come up with anything at all to say.
He nodded and cleared his throat.
"Okay... well. Um, let's see..."
He scratched the back of his neck, and I knew that everyone was just counting down the acceptable number of seconds to let him fumble awkwardly with this before telling him that he really didn't even need to tell a story.
"Oh, here's one!"
He smiled, and Kurt's face lit up.
"So, I had this English teacher in elementary school. Really great guy."
We all liked where this was going.
"He really opened all of our eyes to a lot of great stuff, and he really wanted the best from us, you know?"
We all nodded, but I could tell that Kurt was already sensing that something was wrong.
"Well, he really got us into poetry, and so -"
Kurt's face fell.
"- we formed this club where we'd go into this cave after school and read passages aloud from the greats. You know, Whitman and -"
"Blaine?"
Kurt looked like he was about to cry, Blaine was still completely consumed in his story, and Finn had absolutely no idea what was going on.
"Yes, Kurt?"
Kurt pulled his knees to his chest.
"That's the plot of Dead Poet's Society."
I looked to Carole, who I knew had sensed that even before Kurt had and was trying to figure out the best way to keep this from blowing up into something it didn't need to.
Blaine pretended to look puzzled.
"Oh... I guess it is then."
He laughed.
"I suppose I should have realized that I never had Robin Williams for a teacher, am I right?"
Finn laughed a lot louder than he should have, mainly because that was the only part of it that he understood and because he wanted just as much as all of us did for the whole thing to just kind of go away.
But Kurt still looked upset, and he didn't like that Blaine was just brushing this aside as if it was actually an accident.
Carole and I let it slide, though, knowing better than to make a big thing out of it when Finn had so easily started raving on about his favorite Robin Williams movies.
And Blaine just sat there listening, letting himself forget that anything had even happened that was in any way alarming.
But Kurt wasn't forgetting.
And neither were Carole and I.
We let it be, and we let Kurt ask him about it later.
And when I came home from work the next day to find a stack of mail that had been completely ignored on the coffee table, I shuffled through it mindlessly.
Which is why my heart just about stopped beating when I found a letter from NYU addressed to Finn amongst the bills and junk mail.
I held it in my hands and tried to determine if he'd actually seen it or not.
There was no way he'd just leave it on the coffee table for everyone to see. He would have taken it up to his room and stared at it for hours without telling anyone.
No, he hadn't seen it.
And I knew that he'd have to face the music eventually.
And why not rather sooner than later?
So, I took a deep breath, walked upstairs, and knocked on his door.
"Finn?"
"You can come in!"
I slowly opened the door and was surprised to find that I could actually see the floor.
The room was spotless, really, and Finn was sprawled across his bed with a book.
"What's going on here?"
He looked confused.
"What do you mean?"
I gestured to the floor that I then noticed was actually vacuumed.
He laughed.
"Oh... right. You can thank Rachel for that."
He put the book down and crossed his arms.
I knew that he wasn't really at home in a room that was more Rachel and less Finn, and I wasn't so sure if I actually wanted to thank Rachel at all.
"You like it better this way?"
He just shrugged.
"Yeah... I guess so. It's easier to get around, that's for sure."
I nodded.
Rachel was an entirely different subject, one that was not the reason I was there.
He hadn't even noticed the letter in my hand, though.
"Hey, you mind if I sit down?"
He nodded and sat up straighter.
"Yeah, sure."
He motioned for me to sit down but looked very skeptical about the whole thing.
I sat down in front of him, just as I'd done the first time this letter had come, and held it out for him to take.
He didn't panic.
He didn't even look like he knew what it was exactly.
Instead, he just peered forward and read the words on the envelope without taking it from me, without touching it at all, actually.
And when it all made sense, he slowly leaned back again, like the letter might somehow be radioactive but he didn't want to alarm me of it.
"Oh my God."
He was still staring at it.
"When did it get here?"
I just laughed.
I knew that he could do this, and the fear was all in his mind.
"Today."
He just nodded his head and kept staring at it, not sure at all what to do.
"You gonna open it?"
He gulped and tried to smile as cooly as he could.
"I mean... yeah. Yeah, I'm gonna open it."
But he didn't move a muscle.
"You gonna open it right now, Finn?"
His hand twitched like he was going to lurch forward and grab it out of my hand.
I gave him a look, and he took a deep breath and took it from me.
"Yes, I'm going to open it... right now."
He slowly thumbed open the envelope and looked at me.
My face was set in my confidence in him, and he knew that it was time to just do it, no matter what that letter said.
I knew he was freaking out.
We were both freaking out.
Last time was like a trial run, but this was the real thing. This was the real answer, the yes or no that we'd all been tiptoeing around and waiting so patiently for.
There wasn't a single person in his life who didn't want this for him more than anything in the world.
And the time had finally come.
I held my breath.
"I... I did it."
He laughed, and the biggest smile spread across his face.
"Oh my God. Holy... wow."
He rested his head on the wall behind him and closed his eyes, trying to soak up every single emotion, every single thing he'd felt for the past few months.
He'd finally gotten there, and he could finally breathe easily again.
His smile only got bigger.
"This is actually happening!"
He leaned forward again and was suddenly glued to the words on the page, trying to make sure that they were actually real, that he hadn't accidentally made a mistake.
I clapped him on the leg.
"What'd I tell you?"
He laughed and shook his head in disbelief.
"Hey, Finn?"
He looked up at me, and I honestly had never seen anyone that relieved in my entire life.
He was practically emitting happiness, and he looked like he wanted to run to the mountain tops and scream the news for the entire world to hear.
"Congratulations, and I'm really proud of you."
He laughed and put the letter down for the first time since he'd been brave enough to open it in the first place.
"Thank you. That... that means a lot to me."
And I knew that it really did.
All Finn ever wanted was to be heard. He wanted to be accepted and important and something bigger than what he already was.
And for the first time, NYU was writing to say that he was.
He said it himself... he'd done it.
He'd finally gotten that letter, and he'd finally done it.
"Wow. I've gotta call Rachel!"
I was a little surprised to hear that that was the first thing he was so excited and determined to accomplish, now that he'd just gotten that life-changing letter.
I thought he might want to tell his mom or Kurt and Blaine... but he'd chosen Rachel first.
I just smiled, though, and stood up to leave.
"Call away."
He reached for his cell phone, and as I shut the door behind me, I smiled as I noticed the red and yellow Power Rangers lying next to each other on his desk.
I walked back to my own bedroom, still laughing at how easy it was for Finn to be both a teenager and a child.
He wanted his girlfriend, but he also wanted his Power Rangers.
And he could so easily have both, too.
I opened the door to mine and Carole's room and was surprised to find that she wasn't the only one in there.
Blaine was snuggled up right next to her in the bed, and the two of them were looking through her scrapbooks.
It was so weird to me, and I felt like I was interrupting something so sacred.
I had to wonder how many times they'd done that.
How many times Blaine had needed a mom and gone to Carole, how many times no one had told me about it, because it simply wasn't my business.
Just from the way they were sitting, I knew that it was a whole lot more that I ever would have guessed.
And I really liked that.
He needed me, but he needed her too.
I could never in a million years be good at the things Carole's good at. She's kind and warm and nurturing, and she'd let this sad kid snuggle up next to her and look through a scrapbook. And she'd rub his head and tell him that everything was going to be okay.
Because he needed that so much more than he might've needed anything else right then.
Because he'd never had a mom either, and he'd never had someone who cared enough about the things going on in his life to print out photos and cut up construction paper and glue it all in a giant book.
Because Carole was always there whenever anybody needed her. And after everything that had happened the day before, Blaine needed her. And she was more than happy to have a kid who was willing to admit that he still needed a mom.
That was all either of us really wanted... to always feel needed by our kids.
And I loved that they had that. I hated that somehow, after all this time, I'd been so blind to it, but I loved it for both of them.
"Hey, you two."
Blaine popped his head up from behind the scrapbook but stayed where he was.
"Oh, hey."
Carole just laughed.
"We were just going through a few fun memories."
She closed the book, and Blaine's face fell in understanding.
He hopped off the bed, and Carole looked at me like some huge secret had finally been revealed to the world.
I held up a hand.
"Wait, hey... you don't have to leave if -"
"No, it's fine."
He smiled.
"I'll just be downstairs."
He walked out of the room, and I sighed.
"I'm sorry."
She laughed.
"Don't apologize. These aren't going anywhere."
She lifted the books up off the bed and set them on the floor.
"Still... I didn't mean for him to have to leave."
She just shrugged.
"You two do that a lot?"
She laughed.
"I don't know if a lot is the right word. I like to think that I soften him up for every time he talks to you. Blaine and I only talk about the easy stuff, the happy stuff. And then I send him to you for the hard stuff."
She sighed.
"I don't know how you can stand to hear those stories from him, Burt. It breaks my heart just thinking about everything he's been through. I'm not even sure how you come up with something to say to him."
I laughed and leaned over the bed to kiss her.
"I'm not sure how you do, either, you know. Thank you for being the best mom -"
I kissed her.
"- and the best wife -"
I kissed her again.
"- that there ever was."
I kissed her a third time.
"Goodness, you should come shopping with me and Kurt sometime if a scrapbook can get you so riled up!"
I laughed.
"You know what this means, though, right?"
I had no idea.
"I softened him up... now you need to go talk to him."
I leaned up off of the bed.
"It's not good, is it?"
She shook her head.
"Not too good, no."
I stood up and walked to the door.
"You'll still be here when we're done?"
She smiled.
"Absolutely."
I walked out the door and made my way downstairs. He was in the kitchen with a magazine and a box of Cheez-Its.
I walked in there and sat down at the table next to him.
He just looked at me.
"Hey."
I leaned forward.
"Hey."
He blinked a few times and looked back down at his magazine.
I really was terrible at conversation starters. We'd been at this for almost a year, and I was still battling the same awkward things I'd battled the first day we were together.
But it was perfectly comfortable, really.
Him sitting there, crunching those Cheez-Its like they were from Ace Hardware, and me just sitting with him.
That was the difference.
"Kurt know you're eating those?"
He smiled and popped a few more in his mouth.
"If I say yes, will you let me keep eating them?"
I laughed and held out my hand. He turned the box over and shook a few of them out for me to eat.
And as he did so, I saw it again.
That flash of black on his finger.
Those two lines that formed a point. Just a V etched onto his skin.
"V, huh?"
He had no idea what I was talking about.
"What now?"
"Your hand... the tattoo?"
His face lit up in realization, and he looked down at his hand as if he was making sure that it was still there.
"Oh... right."
He waved his hand in the air.
"V."
He laughed, like he knew that I wanted him to elaborate but was trying to pretend that I didn't.
I sighed and crossed my arms.
"It's... a lot of things."
I smiled.
We were getting somewhere.
"Tell me one."
He still looked uncomfortable that I was so comfortable with him having the tattoo in the first place.
I knew that both of them were expecting me to be mad about it and that both of them had geared up to defend the decision.
But because I wasn't mad... Blaine had no idea how to handle all of it.
He never thought that I'd actually be interested in what it meant or why he'd gotten it in the first place, so he didn't prepare for that conversation.
He took a deep breath.
"V is the first initial of my mother's maiden name."
He looked at me, trying to determine how I felt about that.
I smiled and nodded, and he knew that he could continue telling me about it.
"It's also the first letter of my father's middle name."
And that part I didn't like.
I mean, it was fine. I got why that had occurred to him. I got why he'd done it, I guess.
I just didn't see why, of all the people in the world, he'd chosen the two who'd made all the wrong choices to honor in a tattoo that he had to look at every single day.
"But it's not just a V."
He took another deep breath.
"It's also... a five, you know. That was the number of years I knew that I was gay before I told anyone, the number of months it took me to know that I was in love with Kurt... and it was the fifth month of the year that I walked into your shop."
He blushed slightly and grabbed a few more Cheez-Its to divert the attention.
I smiled.
"You put a lot of thought into that."
He nodded through the crunching.
"Well... there's no taking it back, you know."
I nodded.
"I just wanted to... you know, sort of be reminded to not forget the past but that... that the present and the future will always be more important."
He nodded a few times and furrowed his brow, like he knew that was true but still wasn't necessarily expecting me to believe it.
I liked that a lot, though.
It was really something that all of us needed to learn.
Having Kurt as a little boy will always hold some of my favorite memories, but I'll always want him to grow up and explore and be himself too.
I always thought that I was supposed to be the one teaching him, but here he was teaching me.
If he could tattoo it to his finger, I could remember it too.
I could remember that sometimes you've got to let go of the things you once knew, the things that were always so special and so sacred, to give into something even bigger.
To let your kids be your kids forever, but to let them grow up and shine.
It was always about accepting that.
And even though I wasn't quite ready to do that just yet, it was one more step in the right direction.
"You're a good kid, you know that?"
He laughed.
"Yeah... I think I heard a rumor about that once."
I grabbed a few more of his Cheez-Its and stacked them up in my hand.
"Tell me something."
He nodded and sat up straighter in his seat.
"That stunt you pulled the other day... with the movie plot memory?"
His face fell.
"You don't have to tell me why you did it. I just wanted to make sure you were alright... and I wanted to see if maybe there was something you might like to share."
He sighed and considered it very carefully.
I loved him, and he knew that he could say anything that he wanted to say without any kind of repercussions. We were completely comfortable with one another and had an immense knowledge of how our relationship worked.
He was my kid, and I was there to do or be whatever I could to keep him happy and healthy and himself.
It was on his plate this time.
"Would you believe that I was a deformed bell ringer in fifteenth century Paris?"
I laughed, and he leaned forward.
"How about that I died in icy waters after an unsinkable ship crashed into an iceberg?"
He smiled and shook his head.
"There's just... there's just nothing to tell."
He shrugged.
"I feel like I've tried so hard to block all of it out that I genuinely just can't remember any of it."
He leaned back in his chair, and I knew better than to interrupt him.
"There was a long string of nannies and a lot of orders. That's what I remember. It was... lonely. And every toe out of line was a battle."
He sighed.
"It was just one big, pathetic cry for attention, and... I don't know. It just isn't worth telling, because it's not worth thinking about."
He looked right at me, and even though my heart was breaking, I knew that he firmly believed every single thing that he'd just said.
He wasn't sad about it. He was accepting of it.
He'd realized that that was just the way it was, and that it would only be in vain to try or to want to think differently.
"Do you think that ten years from now, I'm going to be telling my kids about how my dad used to hit me?"
He leaned forward and grabbed some more Cheez-Its, like what he was saying was the most nonchalant thing in the entire world.
"Hell no. I'm going to be telling them about how you kept me from that."
He pointed at me and threw a few of the Cheez-Its into his mouth.
"I'm going to tell them about this, right now. Because that's what's important to me."
He smiled.
"This is the life I want to remember. Right here, because this is the best thing that's ever happened to me."
He shrugged.
"The past is... well, it's part of who you are, sure. But it's got nothing on the future. And I know I don't need it when I've got something so perfect right in front of me."
He popped another Cheez-It into his mouth.
"I have this family, right? That's all I need."
He was so genuine, and it was something it'd taken him a year to finally be comfortable with. He could say it so cooly, because he knew it was true.
From everything that we'd been through over the past year, he finally knew that he was a part of this family, and he finally knew that he was my son.
It was like the biggest milestone of them all had finally been crossed.
I couldn't believe that I wasn't screaming in victory yet.
I guess the only problem was that he'd only gotten this family on the brink of having to let it all go for an even bigger dream.
But it was my turn to talk, and from everything Carole had said... I really did know exactly what I wanted to say.
"You know, Blaine, I really -"
"FINN! This is incredible! Oh my - wait, no! Finn, put me down!"
And then there were two voices but only one set of feet clunking down the stairs.
Finn, with Kurt slung over his shoulder yet again, came into the kitchen, still clutching his letter from NYU.
"Honestly, I refuse to let you make a habit of this."
Blaine smiled.
"What's going on?"
"I got into -"
"Finn got into NYU! Hooray!"
Finn pouted.
"Kurt, I wanted to tell him!"
"Well, that's what you get for carrying me around like a sack of potatoes!"
Blaine laughed, and Finn sighed and set him on his feet.
"I was just excited! And I like to pick people up when I'm excited!"
Kurt readjusted his outfit.
"Finn, this is incredible!"
Blaine stood up, and the two of them went in for a high five that turned into a handshake and then a hug.
It flowed perfectly, and it was like they'd rehearsed that.
Or like it was some kind of new teenage guy thing that was simply understood those days.
"God... the three of us at one school. What are they going to do with us?"
Blaine leaned in and wrapped an arm around Kurt's waist, who looked very surprised by the whole thing.
"That's a great question. As long as Finn keeps from picking up every person he sees when he's excited, I think we might just be able to keep from being expelled. Well... at least for the first week or so."
Blaine laughed, and Finn reached in to grab Kurt again.
Kurt flinched violently, and Finn just patted him on the back.
"No promises."
Kurt rolled his eyes and smiled.
"We need to go celebrate!"
Finn's eyes shifted from side to side, like there was something in the room that was going to keep him from that celebration.
"Frozen yoghurt?"
Blaine laughed.
"Kurt, is this acceptable?"
Kurt sighed and looked to the table.
"How many Cheez-Its have you had? Your inorganic food intake cannot be -"
Blaine leaned in and kissed him again, and when he pulled away, Kurt couldn't help but laugh.
"Frozen yoghurt it is, then."
Finn cheered and grabbed his keys.
"I'm driving!"
Kurt's face fell in horror.
"No, you're not."
Finn shook his keys and laughed, slowly backing up to the door.
"I'm not too excited to drive! We'll be fine."
Kurt shot me a look, but I just shrugged my shoulders.
Finn ran out the door, and Kurt ran after him to keep him from actually starting that car.
Which left me alone in the kitchen with Blaine again.
He laughed and nodded a few times, still glued to his spot.
He looked at me.
"Thank you, Burt."
He started to walk toward the door, and I stood up.
"For what?"
He smiled.
"For what I know you were going to say."
I laughed.
"Kid, you're making this too easy."
He shook his head.
"Nope, you see, you've got that backwards."
He laughed and grabbed the door handle.
"Goodnight."
I raised a hand.
"Have fun."
He left, and I waited for the car to pull out of the driveway.
I smiled, and I let myself think about everything that had just happened.
Jesus, they were crazy. And I couldn't believe just how much craziness they'd been in not even a year.
I laughed to myself and started walking toward the stairs.
Until I started sprinting, of course, when I remembered who was still waiting for me.
And with a future like that, well... it was getting easier and easier to be happy that the children were growing up.
Thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear what you thought of it if you get the chance!
