Ms. B is Becky ( backslashdelta on tumblr, ao3, and ).
A bad day turned into a lifelong friendship.
The PSATs, then a traumatic bus crash leads Blaine to meeting his platonic soulmate.
Based on real events.
The title is the title of the song that I was listening to when the bus crash happened.
Since transferring to McKinley High, Blaine's bad days had been reduced tenfold. He was happier, more excited, he walked through the halls with a bright smile on his face. Sixteen year old Blaine would have never even imagined that he could go more than a week without a panic attack, or at least without crying himself to sleep. Depression had plagued him all his life, and after being attacked at the Sadie Hawkins dance in middle school, the smallest things would trigger panic attacks; loud noises, the smell of blood, people slapping him on the back.
But Kurt had changed everything, beautiful, loving, understanding Kurt. Kurt had guided him to finding the ability to love himself. Kurt had led him to seek out help in the form of his therapist, Janice. Kurt had helped him stop seeing each day as just another opportunity to disappoint everyone, but as an opportunity to improve himself and make others feel special.
That being said, Blaine was human, and still had bad days, today had been one of them. He was not expecting to have the best day, as the PSATs were happening all morning, and then he needed to go to double chem and algebra II right afterwards, neither of which he had with Kurt.
The stress had been getting to Blaine, he had been struggling ever since the date for the PSAT had been announced. So when Cooper, home for three weeks, and without a car, had told Blaine that he would be taking his car for the day so that he could go on a date with a "hot chick", Blaine was not in the mood to argue; he would just take the school bus, thank god there was one from Westerville.
Blaine got off the bus with only a mild headache, a better outcome than he had been expecting from the loud bus ride. He rushed into the school building and to Kurt's locker. As he approached, Blaine saw Kurt's expression change from a worried frown to a bright smile.
"I'm sorry I'm late, Kurt," Blaine said, putting down his bag, "Cooper is home for a couple weeks and needed my car, I had to take the bus."
"Are you okay, love?" Kurt knew how much Blaine hated not being in control of situations, how much he hated his brother for not understanding that, and how much he hated school buses.
"Yeah, I just have a small headache, I'll be okay."
"But honey, you have the PSATs today, I don't want it to get worse," Kurt said, concerned, "hold on, I think I have some Advil in my locker." Kurt rummaged through his locker, then his satchel, sighing in annoyance when he didn't find any Advil. "Here, I'll take you to the nurse, she should have some Advil."
"I'm good Kurt," Blaine stopped him, "I'll just drink some water."
"Okay," Kurt looked around quickly, then pulled Blaine into a tight hug. "I love you," he told Blaine.
"I love you too."
As they pulled apart, the bell rang.
"Shit," Blaine muttered, picking up his bag, "I've got to go, I'll see you this afternoon, Kurt."
"Good luck!"
Not taking Advil had been a mistake; Blaine's headache had intensified throughout the test. The feeling of relief of finishing the test quickly turned into annoyance when one Addison Baker came strutting down the hall, her pumps click-clacking on the tile floor.
Blaine's headache pounded with every click-clack of her shoes.
Addison Baker was Blaine's lab partner in chemistry, she was not only the most fake person Blaine had ever met, but she also had a big crush on Blaine, a crush that she made obvious every time they interacted.
With the knowledge that he would need to suffer through an hour and a half of Addison's giggling, and her constant handsyness, Blaine trudged up the stairs, down the crowded hall, and into the chemistry lab.
To his surprise, instead of doing a lab, like they usually would during double periods on Wednesday, Blaine's teacher, Mr. Cliff had decided that instead they would be watching a documentary about the history of the setup of the periodic table, and they would need to write an essay about it. Blaine got his notebook and a pen out, ready for an hour and a half of note taking.
The documentary had been interesting, but Blaine's wrist hurt like hell after almost a whole day of straight writing. He stretched it as he walked to Algebra II, his last class of the day.
Although math had never been Blaine's favorite subject, his teacher, Ms. B made the class one of his favorites.
Today Ms. B was just having the class do some review work for a test they were having later in the week, so Blaine popped in some earbuds, turned on his favorite top 40 playlist, and got to work.
The end of the day finally rolled around, and after a quick goodbye to Kurt, Blaine followed the crowd of students without cars onto the bus. He popped his earbuds back in, and got comfortable for the long ride to Westerville.
Blaine didn't usually look around when he was being driven places, he preferred to just close his eyes and listen to music, but for some reason, as the bus stopped at a stop light ten minutes after leaving the school, Blaine decided to look up.
It had been a mistake, oh god it had been a mistake.
Blaine looked up just in time to see the car. The car was flying. The car was flying towards the bus.
The bus started to rock back and forth, it almost felt like it was vibrating. Blaine was so sure that it would tip over, that everybody in the bus would die, and that they'd all just become another tragic story on the news, forgotten about within days-
And then it just stopped. Everything just stopped. Blaine couldn't hear the music playing in his ears, or the yells of the students on the bus, or the sirens of the police cars, or the sounds of passing traffic. He heard nothing. Until the fast bumbum bumbum bumbum of his anxious heart filled his ears, and it wouldn't stop, he couldn't hear anything but his heart. Oh god he wanted to scream.
He was so scared.
And then a wall of sound came crashing into Blaine's ears.
The students talking, and the police officers coming onto the bus, and the bus driver insisting over and over again that it wasn't his fault.
"I was just sitting here, and the car came flying, it's not my fault, I was just stopped at the stop light, I wasn't part of the crash, the car flew at me…"
And on and on and on, why couldn't he just shut up? Why did it matter whose fault it was? Blaine just wanted to get out of the bus that just kept on filling up with more officers, and more detectives, they kept asking if everybody was okay, and Blaine just wanted to scream that no, he wasn't okay.
But he didn't.
He just sat there shaking, thinking about what could have happened.
Lists, they had all the students on the bus making lists. Lists of their names, dates of birth, and addresses, lists of their names, phone numbers, and parents' names, lists of their names and ages, so many lists.
Just writing information that he knew by heart over and over again did help calm Blaine's nerves, just a bit. But every time he would look outside, he would be reminded of cars flying, and just the sound of absolutely nothing.
Through all of the chaos, the bus driver just kept on telling everybody who stepped on to the bus that the crash had not been his fault. Why does that matter? Blaine would think every time he would repeat that. Nothing really seemed to matter at the moment.
Blaine just sat there, wishing that there was someone on the bus who he knew well enough to talk to. He looked around for someone, and found couples huddled together, siblings hugging, and friends talking, but nobody who he knew.
The world started spinning a little too fast as panic started gripping Blaine a little tighter. He looked out the window, in hopes of distracting himself by looking at passing cars, but looking outside had been a mistake. Oh god, it had been a mistake.
He saw a person on a stretcher, with a bandage around their head, blood oozing out of the bandage. He tried to tell himself that it probably looked worse than it was, but the possibilities just kept running through his head
What if the person died on their way to the hospital?
What if they had a partner, or a child, or a friend who they would leave behind?
Oh god, so many things had gone wrong in just under two minutes.
Blaine could feel his heart start to speed up again, he needed out of this small, crowded bus, he needed to talk to somebody he knew and he needed to get home and do his homework. He needed his schedule to go as planned, he needed to make dinner, and call Kurt.
Oh god Kurt; if Kurt were here, he would hug Blaine and comfort him, tell him that everything would be okay.
Even though it felt like it never would be.
That image of the person with blood just oozing out of their head, it would never leave his mind.
The car, flying, flying, flying.
The bus rocking, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Forever.
Forever.
Forever.
Blaine felt his eyes start to well up with tears. It was all just so much, so unexpected. There were so many things that could have happened, so many things that would happen to the people who were in the two cars.
"Hey, you."
Oh god, he couldn't think about that.
What if Blaine was the last one to see that person on the stretcher?
"In the front, you."
What if the bus had tipped over.
What if the last thing Blaine would ever say to Kurt had been "call you later"?
"You, in the grey polo. Hey, you."
Blaine looked up to see the bus driver looking at him in the rear-view mirror.
"You okay? You look like you're about to cry."
"I'm fine."
Did he really think that was how you spoke to someone who looked like they were about to cry?
Shaking his head, Blaine sat back in his seat, ready to wait at least an hour for the okay from all the police officers to leave the bus.