Chapter 21: Love, Imagined
This is not me sitting at the bar, knocking back shots. This is some other person.
And me, I'm in my hotel room, making love to the one person who has ever mattered.
This is a caricature of me, crude and wrong.
This is what dying feels like. Right this.
And my caricature finds out that not everything is free.
The game is called 'How Many Free Drinks Can We Get in Vegas Bars?', and it's plenty, as it turns out. A lot of, "Mr. Anderson, that's on the house," and I say thanks, that's very kind, or merci, should I say, or danke or arigato or kiitos, and they say that it's no problem at all. The kinder they are to me, showing that artificial celebrity adoration, the worse it feels. After one round of free drinks, we move onto the next bar. We get free cigarettes and cocktails and whisky and wine, and Jeff's off his face quickly.
We stop to do business with a guy who's standing idly in a street corner, trying to look non-conspicuous.
That does cost us something.
Jeff thinks it's hilarious, all of it, and the harder he laughs, the harder it is for it to sink in. That lump in my throat, that sharp pain in my chest isn't real. I'm on top of the world, so no, it can't be real, it didn't happen. It was imagined.
I refuse it to be real.
Eventually we settle in a deserted and godforsaken bar near closing time. Jeff goes into the bathroom and comes back out looking as high as a kite. He spots a pretty brunette at the bar and heads over to her instead of coming back to our table. I can't look at that initial contact, its warmth.
It's realer than it should be.
Nick sits across from me, and I feel like I'm being scrutinized and pitied. This is the first bar where we've managed to not attract too much attention. Nick hasn't been drinking since the show a lifetime ago, last night, hell, fucking six hours. But I've been drinking, I've been having fun, so much fun. Not anything weighing me down.
"You always take things too hard," Nick now says quietly, watching me take another shot. "The rare times you're happy, you're happy, and when you're sad, you're really fucking sad."
"I don't know what you mean." My voice has an alcohol burn to it. I can't. I won't. Although he knows. He saw me in that first stage of shock at the hotel, so he knows, but that didn't actually happen.
Because if it did, there's nothing. There's just – nothing.
"Look," he sighs, "Kurt –"
I flinch at his name, and the wave of heat flashing inside is immediate. It burns to kill.
"Don't," I stop him, holding the shot glass in my fingers, dangling it. "I can't."
I close my eyes and see him, and I hear his voice and his laughter and the way he says my name when he smiles, and the way he says my name when he comes, and the way he says my name when he refuses me. And there's so much joy there and so much love, and then there's just –
Nothing.
And the horror of that realization is trying to catch up with me, but I'm trying to outrun it.
But the water is retreating from the beach, is getting sucked back into the ocean, and that's a sign of a tidal wave, and when the wave comes, it will take the memory of him and me and Florida and the stars with it. But as I wait for that, I can still feel like I'm on top of the world. Nothing can touch me, I'm Blaine Anderson, so nothing and no one, certainly not –
Can't even think his name.
I stare into space, my chest feeling constricted. It'll hit me and tear me to pieces.
And because I know it's coming, we bought two bags off that guy standing idly in a street corner. Jeff's used his, and mine is in my back pocket. Nick knows this. I know it.
Codeine kept the pain away, kept me numb, helped me balance the line between escapism and reality, but now that line will be white, white, white if I want it to be. I try to keep away from the hard shit. I've seen it turn people's brains into jelly after years of use. But I also know that unlike codeine, which still kept me intact and which wouldn't let me forget, something illegal will blur reality for me, will bend it to my will.
Will transform me into someone else.
"I know that it hurts right now," Nick says, like now we're talking about this, whether I like it or not. "When Vicky dropped the news, I spent two days drinking, so I get what you're trying to do." Like their relationship can be compared to mine somehow. Like his youthful infatuation can be compared to Kurt and me in any way or form. This isn't something to just get over or accept or say, 'Guess we grew apart'. "You have to think of the future, man. I do it for Suzie, you know?"
"And who do I do it for?" I ask. Why would I try?
"For yourself." He leans over the table, looking stern. "You saw your old man yesterday, you saw what he did to himself. You don't want to go down that same road, Blaine."
But maybe I do.
Maybe my old man had it figured out, and I hated him all this time for being smarter than me.
"Love is a tricky thing," he says, and I can tell that he's launching into a speech. But really? It's 'tricky'? That's all he's fucking got?
He's never loved.
His story is four in the morning and sobering up and tired. He talks, trying to give me some insight, and I try so hard to focus on his words. He says he doesn't know at what point she stopped being happy. Things weren't perfect, he knew that, and maybe it stopped working because he wasn't happy. Nothing to do with her or their little girl – it was him. He just wasn't a suburban husband, and eventually she began to hate him for it.
His sentences are full of sighs and pauses and, "I never cheated on her, man, I never," and "Well, except that one time but –"
Forbidden kisses.
Suddenly, our life flashes before my eyes, the one I made up for us: our love, imagined. Full of tours and best kept secrets and music business bullshit and staying in different addresses but always sleeping in the same bed by the end of it.
And now it's gone. It never even was.
Nothing Nick says relates to me, although he tries with some poor ideas of not all couples being meant to be even if we think so.
"And I love her," he eventually sighs, staring at the mouth of his beer bottle, cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. "But I don't think I'm in love with her anymore. You know? And it took me a while to realize that. Maybe with time you'll realize that about Kurt. You don't want to be with someone who doesn't return your feelings. Trust me, I know."
"But he has to feel this," I say silently, staring at the table, eyes fixed to one spot. He has to. I know he's never said it, but we don't need to say it like normal human beings do. He doesn't need to say it because I know. I thought I knew. But if he felt this, there would be no competition. If he felt this, he would not have been able to walk away.
So he never felt it.
And that's when the inexplicable pain rips my insides apart, that's when the tidal wave comes in. But where's the knife? Where's the wound? I look fine on the outside, can walk down the street like I'm just one of them, but I'm screaming, still screaming, they just can't hear it, and he...
"Why didn't he choose me?" I ask quietly, my voice breaking. In my head, I've yelled it and I've cursed it and I've seethed it and I've screamed it, but now all that's left is a soft fucking question. "I know I'm not perfect, I know that I've... I've done a lot of wrong." I glance at Nick because he's had a front row seat to so many of the shitty things I've done. "But I don't understand why. I thought we wanted this. I thought we..." And then I stop, wiping my cheeks with shaking hands. Not in public, some part of my brain tells me, the one clinging to dignity, but such luxuries have long been lost.
I take in a rattling breath, and my eyes feel wet even as I try to dry them. Nick looks like he doesn't know what to do. Neither do I.
How could he let me in like that and then just push me back out?
"You're better off without him, man."
"But I'm not."
And this is not like those other times when I knew that he'd come back to me. Something about this one feels more final. Feels like it's over. And I can drink myself to a stupor, but then tomorrow it won't be any different, and not the day after that, and he won't be there anymore, and I miss him, I can't not be with him, and I want him to go to hell. And Dave, that fucking Dave, I can't –
"I'm gonna beat up that fucking Dave Karofsky. I'm gonna motherfucking beat him to a pulp, and then we'll see who's laughing." And then I laugh, my knuckles dripping blood, I see it happening, blood, blood, blood, and no. No.
Kurt would rush to his aid, pushing me aside.
I've lost.
But I can't. I can't breathe. I can't think.
"I feel like I'm falling apart," I manage. "I keep- keep thinking it didn't happen. That I made it up. Because I can't be without him, Nick, I don't know how to be without him. I don't know how, I don't –" I cover my mouth, shaking, trying to breathe, my vision blurred.
"Blaine?" he asks, tone alarmed, and then he speaks but I can't make it out.
I'm dying.
I swear that I'm dying.
I wipe my cheeks again, but it's useless, and I stand up and dig into my back pocket with trembling fingers.
He doesn't try to stop me as I head to the bathroom to take a trip to a place where I don't love Kurt anymore, where all of this ceases to exist.
Where I cease to exist.
I vomit by the side of the highway, trying to make it all stop, trying to get it all out. I claw at my skin and breathe in the morning air. It won't go. My limbs feel heavy, and my insides are tiny insects crawling all over.
"You okay, man?" Jeff asks, the car door open. He's leaning into the backseat drunkenly. I close my eyes and sway slightly. Too much of everything. Not enough.
A single Joshua tree breaks the horizon of the desert. Morning, Arizona.
"'m fine."
I head back over to the car, crawling over him and crashing onto the backseat. I keep my feet in his lap. He chuckles at nothing, head lolled to one side. I wash my mouth with beer. God, this is all one big joke.
We ran out of gas before Phoenix, but we'll fix that when the drugs wear off. If they do. If we live. For now, passing out in the backseat of Nick's mom's car seems like a good idea, like I'm back in 1968 and none of us have ever gotten our hearts broken. We have never loved.
The spinning won't stop.
Sleep and alcohol and the waning effects of cocaine weigh down on me, but my senses are on full alert, tingling, thoughts and colors and heat flashes, and my mind is reeling. I can't stop my thoughts. I can't stop myself.
Nick's sleeping at the front. Someone sober had to drive. We were... heading to Phoenix. Yeah. That plane, man, I don't wanna be on that plane, the fucking forty minutes that the flight would take. Kurt. God, his name, and his touch, I can't get it out of my system, I can't seem to be able to sweat him out.
"Kurt," I say, repeating the name floating in the air. And then, "Kurt." And his fucking lies and games and treacherous kisses.
"Yeah, man. Exactly," Jeff agrees.
Kurt, Kurt, Kurt.
"What if," I laugh desperately, "what if he is making up with Dave right now? What if they're fucking fucking? I can't, I can't." I rub my face, visions flashing in front of my eyes, and I hear his voice and I hear his groans, but not real, not real, that's just what I took, what we took again in the gas station at the state line. Seemed like such a good idea.
"Don't think of that, man."
But Jeff doesn't understand. I don't have the words to describe the way I feel, how it's thick, black liquid dripping inside me. How I want to scream until my voice is gone, how I want to trash the car, how dark it is, how angry I am, and Kurt, Kurt, Kurt, my Kurt, why would you do this to me, baby?
Nick was right. I take things too hard. I take things too close to the heart.
But I'll push Kurt out like he did with me. If it's that easy, which he's shown it to be. So fucking easy.
I'll show him.
"And even if he were fucking Dave," Jeff then amends, "what do you care, hermano? You could have anyone in the woooorld." He makes a broad arch with his hand and then chuckles. Yeah. I like that. Maybe I can just say that I didn't want Kurt anymore. Dave can have my leftovers. What the fuck do I care?
Jeff squeezes my ankle fraternally, smiling down at me. "I'm glad to have you back, man. He always messed you up. You're better off like this."
"But it was such a wonderful mess," I sigh, and it was. It was the most perfect mess. "Maybe I'll get myself a boyfriend. Piss him off. I'll start dating Bowie."
Jeff snickers, and I laugh out loud, obnoxiously, trying to be, but then it fades into trying to be funny when it's not, when I want no one except him. No one. Why can't I feel anything for anyone except him?
I'll get Kitty to come on tour, I'll propose to Rachel, I'll reconnect with Quinn, I'll have a lover for every finger, and they will love me, they will all love me.
And I won't love him. That manipulative fucker, probably only used me for a record deal, me and my stupid crush, how it must have fucking amused him, and even if – even if that had been the case, then god I don't care, I just want him back, I just –
"Blaine, hey," Jeff says soothingly, and I realize I've started hyperventilating. I wipe my cheeks – no, we're done with that bit, he's not worth it, I decided on that, he's just some stupid boy with a stupid smile. I shake my head and pull myself to sit up. Sunshine is coming in through the slightly dirty windshield, and the highway is getting busier now that morning's here.
"I can have anyone, right?" I ask him.
"Of course you can."
I exhale shakily, wipe my cheeks again. "Okay."
I scramble over to Jeff, straddling him on the backseat. He looks confused and drunken, and I kiss him. He stills, and my cheeks feel wet and my heart feels heavy. It's brief but forceful, and I pull back with a smack and stare at him. Something. Anything. God, I have to feel something.
"...Okay," he says, voice breathy. He looks dazed and stares at my lips with dark eyes.
There.
I kiss him again, and he exhales and fists the front of my shirt. We fall into it. Trucks go by, Nick's asleep in the front, and we make out in the back, and every kiss feels poisonous but I don't care. His reaction is immediate and stronger than I thought, and I can work with this, I can slip into this.
I grind against him, and he hisses. "Blaine, fuck." I suck on his lower lip, bite down, hurt him, and he tastes all wrong. He's getting hard. That makes one of us.
His mouth moves to my neck when I pull back for air. His hands are on me, so hungry, something that makes me think he's been patiently waiting for his turn. I close my eyes, focus on the press of lips on my throat, the scrape of teeth and stubble, and then – then I feel something. A spark in my chest. That particular kiss, that particular second, he felt just like –
"B, fucking hell, this is so –"
"Could you not speak?" I ask impatiently. That's not helping. That's ruining the illusion.
He stops with his groping and grinding and breathes hard against my Adam's apple. He then pulls back, slumping into the backseat. He gazes at me with blown pupils, not doing anything. He looks lost, frowning.
"What?" I ask, licking my lips, a foreign taste on them.
"This..." he begins and rubs his face. He shakes his head and laughs desperately. "God, this is not how I thought this'd be."
"Does it matter?"
His hand drops from his face. "Yes. Of course it fucking matters." He bucks his hips to escape from beneath me, and I let him go as I slide back to my seat. He gets out of the car quickly, hands in his hair, having a crisis or something that looks like a crisis. The alcohol is welling in my stomach, burning, making me feel sick.
I close my eyes, and the memory of him is still there, this random time in our hotel room, and how we had stupid sex – it was just that, stupid, we kept laughing, and he kept squirming, saying he was feeling ticklish, and we almost fell off the bed, and he just – god, he was clutching onto me, laughing against my neck, and that –
It was such a fleeting moment that now feels like a dream.
That moment was everything.
I didn't imagine it. I could not have.
And that means that he felt it too, but he's choosing not to acknowledge it. He is choosing not to feel it.
And that's even worse.
Jeff looks into the backseat and says, "I'm gonna get us gas or something." He averts his gaze, his lips still reddened, the outline of his cock still visible. He looks like a deer in headlights, unnerved and fidgeting. Should I feel shame? I don't. I don't care. I could have him, I could have anyone, and I'd deserve it.
"Sure."
He's quick to leave.
I fall onto the hotel bed like a sack of concrete. Lauren's heaving, having helped me. There were fans waiting outside. Lauren had to support me. It was funny. I lost my sunglasses in the mess.
"Hey, I'll play the show," I tell her before she can even start. I didn't take off to some random direction, did I? No. Headed to Phoenix for the show. I'm fucking dedicated. I'm a fucking professional. "I fucking will. Don't you worry. Where'd we park the car? I don't remember where we parked the car."
"Fuck you, Blaine Anderson," she snaps.
"Don't be like that, Lauren," I say tiredly. I fell asleep in the car for a while, but this reality isn't any better. "I thought you were on my side."
"You never disappear on me like that! Is that understood?!" she barks, and all this yelling is giving me a headache.
"Where's Nick? Where's Jeff?"
She sighs exaggeratedly. "Nick got himself a room to catch sleep before he drives back to Vegas, and Jeff's passed out in the car. I thought I'd deal with you first."
"Oh."
I close my eyes and focus on breathing. It's been such a blurred few hours. She sits down on the bed, and I feel her eyes on me, taking me in carefully. "Blaine," she says, but now it's a soft tone, and it fills me with dread. I preferred the yelling. "When Jeff called me from the gas station, he told me what happened last night." I don't want to hear whatever she's got to say. "Look, I'm sorry. He pulled a number on you, I get that."
"I don't wanna hear it."
I don't want to think about it or feel it or acknowledge it. I'm so fucking sick of it.
"No, listen. You're on tour, so you gotta keep it together. You can mourn later. There are bigger things at stake here."
"I'm fine!" I snap, but my voice breaks and it's her fault for reminding me of it.
"Blaine," she says again, in this sad pity tone. "We'll send Kurt and Dave both home, alright? Dave can pull a documentary out of what he's got. You need the distance, it's not good for you to be around Kurt right now."
She's being practical about this, clinical. Like removing Kurt from close proximity will help, like he's a tumor that can be cut out and removed and forgotten. But he isn't.
"But if we send him home, he's gone." Irrevocably gone. And maybe that'll be better, maybe that'll lessen the pain, but then – How can I just let him go? Will it be better to see him with Dave and slowly go insane than to never see him again? Because there is no world where he doesn't exist. Where he is a thing of the past.
I built us an entire future in my head.
"Did he and Dave make up last night?" I ask quietly. Did they have a romantic Las Vegas reunion after he walked out on me?
"I don't know. Everyone panicked when you disappeared, so I really don't know. I didn't see either of them last night." Her voice is softer now, comforting. But their disappearance means that they probably were together, and Kurt seduced Dave, because Kurt's good at that. Seducing people.
Now there's a boy who can get what he wants.
And I fell for it.
"You want me to be honest?" she asks, and no, I don't. "It seems to me that you cared more for him than he did for you. So you think about that."
She's lying. That's not true. She's just jealous, like she always was.
She smoothes my hair motherly and then stands up. "Get some rest and don't leave this room. I'll pick you up before the show."
She heads for the bedroom door, leaving me to lie on the bed, the ceiling as my friend, coming in and out of view. "I almost slept with Jeff," I blurt out into the room.
Her footsteps stop. I wait. Smile sadistically.
"How fucking fantastic for you two," she then says, tone as cold as ice. She slams the door shut after herself, and I chuckle against a pillow when I hear the hotel room door close in the other room. God, all these strings are too easy to pull and jerk. It's the most fun I've ever had.
I kick my shoes off, snuggle into the warmth of the bed, still laughing, finding it so funny, and her words too. That I was running after Kurt, who reluctantly let himself be caught. Is that really how it was?
Is that... really how it was?
As that disgusting thought eats its way inside me, I shiver on the bed, my stomach churning. I can't sleep, but I'm under house arrest.
I find the minibar in the next room and place all the tiny bottles in a row on the coffee table. So, so pretty, and I put them alphabetically, place them in a pretty order. I'm not stopping yet, this is just the start.
One minute I recall all those small, intimate moments with him, when I was convinced that we loved each other, and the next I recall all those small, intimate moments with him, when he turned away too quickly.
And the more I think about it, the angrier I get.
Maybe Lauren's right, maybe I gave more, but that's because I knew it'd take more time for him to come around. I gave more to tell him that it was okay to feel what we felt. He needed time. He was confused. He was scared. So I gave and I gave, and he fell into me more and more, so it only made sense to assume that... he'd fall completely. Like I had.
It was a fair assumption.
And then he takes it all back.
How dare he fucking do that to me?
The minibar collection is pathetic. I pick up the phone and call the reception. "Yeah, it's room, uh... I don't. I don't know what room I'm in. What? It's – Oh, right, yeah, I see it, okay." I peer at the three digits that are on the sticker on the phone. "Six... four... seven. And I need more –" A knock on the door. "Oh, you're already here. Quick service, thanks." I put the phone down, pleased. At least something works around here.
But when I open the door, it's the man who ruined my life.
His existence feels like a punch in the guts.
"So you are awake," he says in this angry tone that he's never used before because why would he be angry? Why would he be when he's got my man? "Hope your disappearing act with Nick did you good."
He walks into the room, carrying a large, black duffel bag and a tripod. The bag looks heavy, and it lets out a clank when he places it on the floor. Repulsion pools at the pit of my stomach at the sight of him. "The entire crew and band are kind of pissed off at you and Jeff," he then says, now kneeling by the bag, unzipping it, pulling out wires and cables. There's a furious urgency to his movements.
"What the hell do you want?"
He looks up, that stupid fucking hair of his falling over his eyes. "What does it look like? I'm interviewing you. And no! No, you don't tell me that we're doing this later! I've been trying to get you to sit your ass down for weeks, and I'll be damned if I don't get this done. I'm so fucking tired of people just thinking that I don't mind, no, no, Dave won't fucking mind, Dave has infinite fucking patience." He places the tripod in the middle of the room. "Now sit down!" he barks and points at the couch.
I'm so surprised that I actually obey.
If he's here, at least he's not with Kurt. If he's yelling at me, he's clearly not...
I study him more closely as he sets up the video camera.
Taking off seemed like the logical thing to do back in Vegas – I have no collar on me, I'm a freeman. They all think Nick and I just took off partying, grabbing Jeff along for the ride. But Kurt knows what happened. Now Lauren knows too. And I've been thinking that Kurt spent last night making up to Dave in such vivid detail, winning Dave back over one kiss at a time, but Dave's a fucking mess.
I almost laugh: he's a fucking mess too. Well done, Kurt. Is this what you wanted?
Dave's been looking more and more exhausted ever since we got on tour, but now he's starting to resemble a dead man. The dark circles around his eyes make him look older, and his eyes lack that mindless gleam of the earlier days. His hair is dirty and messy, he looks like he's been wearing the same clothes for two or three days now, and he's got a fair layer of stubble – the overall scruffy tour look, just magnified. But he's not smiling. That's the biggest difference. Because even when he was tired, he'd smile, joke, kid around.
Now he looks furious, sad and devastated.
He leans over the camera, peering into the viewfinder and adjusting what he sees. He grabs a lamp and fiddles with the lights, drawing the curtains, going back to the camera, swearing, sweating, mumbling.
"Right," he says finally, pressing buttons on the camera until a red light comes on. I flinch, blink, taken aback. He grabs a chair and sits behind the camera, presumably now pleased with the lights and the focus and whatever else. "Okay, Blaine Anderson," he says, digging into the duffel bag and pulling out paper. It looks like scribbled questions. He has pages and pages of them. "So talk to me about this new band. How's that?" He sounds angry.
"Do we have to do this now?" I ask quietly. "I've had a rough night."
I sound like it, my voice raw. I probably look it: alcohol, coke, self-pity and misery, and now anger, brooding, bitter anger.
"Yes, we do. We really, really do," he laughs desperately.
The red light remains aimed at me, but I look beyond it, at him. He isn't here to listen to me open up about the band. He doesn't care about his documentary right now.
"Switch that thing off," I tell him. He looks at me with sad, almost fearful eyes.
"What?"
"Switch it off."
He hesitates, but then reaches over, and the red light dies.
"Spit it out, then."
He's confided in me before, so it only makes sense in his head. I don't care. I won't sympathize. He looks pale and sick as he slumps in his chair. "I think he's cheated on me," he says quietly.
God. Really? You're only six months late.
"Oh." A hint of shock and sympathy in my tone. Fucking perfect. I'll tell him right now: I fucked him. I did it. Me, me, me, me. "He has cheated on you."
"Well, I have no proof," he says before I get to the punch line. That's disappointing. He doesn't even bother to disguise that this is what he wants to talk about, not me. "But his stories don't add up. And little things all of a sudden, like sometimes he's smelled like... someone else. Or times when he disappeared for a night or a day or an afternoon, but I just thought that his explanations made sense, but they don't. They didn't. And I don't know how many men he's been... But then what if it's all in my head, but I just – God, I'm going insane!" he laughs like a man who, well, is going insane, which is actually more entertaining.
"You need one," I say, pointing at the coffee table where the bottles stand in such a pretty, pretty row. He exhales shakily and grabs the bottle nearest to him, uncorks it, but then he shakes his head and puts it down again.
"You think you know someone," he rants. "You think you really know someone, you know? But then it's all just lies, and you realize that you don't even fucking know who you're sharing your bed with. And he's sorry, I know, he's so sorry, but if it makes him feel that bad, why did he lie in the first place? Fuck. I don't even know his real name. I don't know if – if Kurt Hummel is his real name, because he could've gotten that changed, couldn't he? I don't know where he's from. Don't know where he went to high school. All those things, and the times when he'd shower the second he got home, they all make sense now. That's pretty bad, right? When you don't even know who your boyfriend is having sex with, when you don't even know his fucking name." He's vomiting it all out, it seems.
God, it's a hell of a lot to take.
"You want some grass?" I offer, and as I say it, I –
I should send him away. And I could pretend that that tiny thought did not enter my head, but it did. Would he really?
"No, I'm okay," he says. Oblivious. Or is he? Why does he keep coming back to me to tell me how messed up his relationship is? I'm not doing anything he doesn't want.
"'kay," I say, "well I do." He follows me to the bedroom where I dig out a lighter and a ready rolled joint from a cigarette pack. I motion for him to sit on the bed, and he does, spilling out his woes.
"He's not giving me the truth. I fucking know it." He scoffs bitterly. "He thinks we can just go back to the way we were? He's wrong. He's fucking wrong. He either spits it all out, or we're done. I'm not putting up with that anymore."
"You shouldn't put up with it."
"I know!" he exclaims.
"He's just stringing you along."
"God, I know." He sighs heavily and rubs his face tiredly. "It's shit when something you were so sure of just... disappears."
I know exactly what he means. And it's not Dave that I want to punish. He and I are relatively innocent in all of this. It's Kurt. His doing. And –
This is the biggest joke of all. This will be funny, something to write home about. This is where I give them all the finger, where I get the last laugh. It almost makes me smile.
I sit next to him, joint between my lips, and I inhale deep, eyes closing. I don't think of Kurt or what'd this do to him or us because no, no, he murdered us. So let me murder him in turn. Let me kill something that is holy to him. Maybe then we'll be even. Maybe then it'll stop hurting.
"You sure?" I offer, breathing out smoke, the air smelling of bitter grass. "Fuck, it's some strong stuff."
"Nothing strong enough to fix this," he says, defeated, but he's wrong about that: you can blur the world around you with chemicals until you can bear it. I should know.
My hand shakes, although the high is already kicking in. This is good. This is a brilliant idea. I'll do this one my way.
He fidgets, exhales. He pulls on his collar. I drop the joint onto the carpet, and he stubs it out with his shoe, both of us equally uncaring of the damage.
"So," I say.
"What?" he asks, looking at me with faux innocence.
"So," I repeat, meeting his eyes - maybe throwing in a bit of The Look myself. Hey, I had a great teacher. I can imitate. And he gazes at me almost dreamily, eyes dropping to my lips.
So much for their eternal love.
I lean over, pause, and - he closes the gap and kisses me. Something inside me dies at the first contact. Good. He fumbles, his breathing hitches. First Jeff, now him. He exhales shakily and he squeezes my knee. Fumbling, fumbling. "Christ," he whispers, sounding awed. Breathy. Willing. Of course he's willing.
It's disgusting.
I don't care.
I kiss him back, push my tongue into his mouth and taste his fucking taste, and something about it reminds me of Kurt, like I've tasted it on Kurt before, and it sickens me. And he kisses somehow similar to Kurt, like their years together have turned them the same. But he doesn't kiss like Kurt, it's not Kurt, and every touch reminds me of it.
And if he had any decency, he'd stop to say 'I don't think I can' or 'This feels so wrong'. But he doesn't. He's into it, so into it, falling onto the bed and me moving on top. The springs of the mattress squeak as we move. He squirms and pants and his hand moves down to feel my ass.
I snatch his wrist and pin his arm above his head. He groans. He likes getting controlled.
It doesn't feel good. None of it feels good.
Once it's done, and I'm breathing hard, and I've almost fucked him, there, I've fucked him too, and good luck in your fucking relationship when I've had you both, and once it's done –
I stagger out of bed, barely recovered from the realization. I stagger across the room and into the bathroom, kicking my pants off as I go. I stagger into the shower and turn it on. A water spray hits me, and only then do I breathe. I wipe my eyes, and I pull at my clothes, and I grab this tiny hotel soap in this fucking wrapper, and I use my teeth to get it out, spit out paper, and then I scrub the soap on me, and I scrub it on my softening dick, and I scrub it against my pubes, and my stomach, and my chest, as my removed clothes are a pile on the bath floor, and I scrub the soap against my tongue and I gag and I spit and I hold back screams and sober up so fucking quickly that it makes my head spin.
I twist the tap until the water stops. I lean against the tiles and breathe.
This is all a big joke.
I grab a hotel towel, press it against my face and try to calm down.
So I almost fucked Dave. That's not that bad. That's not... Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
I wrap the towel firmly around my waist as I head back out. Dave's sitting on the edge of the bed. He looks up when I walk in, eyes lingering on my bare chest and I feel the need to take another shower.
"How was that, then?" I ask. "Good?"
"Yeah," he admits, "it was." But the pleasure is already tainted with shame. He looks around, confused. "Oh god," he breathes out. It's almost panicked as he looks at me, my hair wet, clad in nothing but a towel. "Fuck, what did we do?" He stands up and starts grabbing his equipment.
"Hey, it happens," I tell him, downplay it. It happens.
"I just cheated on Kurt," he laughs hysterically, like this didn't even occur to him while I was in him. "With you."
"Like I said, it happens."
"I need to..." he says, motioning at the door. He's panicking. He heads straight to the other room and frantically starts packing up his equipment. I follow, a sick smile taking over my face.
"You know what's funny?" I cross my arms and look at him in amusement. He has no idea what I'm about to tell him.
"Nothing's funny about this. I just cheated on my boyfriend." He angrily shoves the tripod into his bag.
"Who, coincidentally enough, also cheated on you with me. Guess you guys can bond over that little fact." I drop the bomb and watch as it explodes. Red colors Dave's face. The sound of the camera hitting the floor is the only thing that disrupts the deadly silence.
"What?" He asks disbelievingly.
I smile again. I'll tell Kurt about Dave. And how I told Dave about him and I. And then he'll be sorry he ever crossed me.
Kurt is hard to find before the show. Sam's not talking to me, so I guess Mercedes is finally pleased. Sam will forgive me for acting out again, though, once I tell him why I took off. He gets love, so he'll understand my dark and ugly love. Maybe. Roderick can't afford to give me an attitude, so he just smiles nervously.
Kurt is here at the venue, though, one of the roadies told me so.
And I need to have a word with him. I have some interesting news to tell.
So I find him, and I'm so pleased, so, so pleased. He's in the canteen, in the corner table by himself, staring at a plate with some cold looking mashed potatoes on it. Others have left, and he's alone. Like he deserves to be. And the last time our eyes met, he left me. A lifetime ago.
See, that was someone else. Some fool who felt his heart swell at the sight of him. Some naïve fool.
Not me.
"Rough day?" I ask, sitting down beside him. He startles, and like yesterday, he has these reddened eyes like he's been crying – again. What's that all about? He's crying so much all of a sudden. He never used to. He was so tough and independent, unreachable. And now he's soft. He's gone soft.
"Yeah," he says, surprising me by not taking off. I thought I'd have to yell it to his back. And his misery affects me none whatsoever, doesn't make it harder to breathe, doesn't fill me with concern or regret because I hate seeing him sad. Because it kills me. No, it doesn't affect me at all. "Is it true that you, Nick and Jeff drove down here?"
"Yeah, man. Impromptu road trip. Felt like I needed it after you left me."
He flinches. He doesn't get to act sorry about it now. He left me, and I've since taken control of my life once more.
Fuck everything we ever had.
"You've been drinking," he says, sounding disappointed.
"I know." Needed to wash away the taste of Dave. Soap didn't cut it. "You seen Dave lately?"
Because I have.
"He's avoiding me."
Because I made out with him. And then told him about us.
"God, because the... the funniest thing happened. You'll love this." I laugh already, and he looks alarmed. Something about this doesn't feel good, but it will soon. It will. "See, I've kind of been in a bad place since, well, yesterday, and we bought this coke and I just have not been making the best decisions as of late, so –"
"Baby, you need to stop doing this shit to yourself," he whispers, eyes so sad, and I forget what I meant to say. My thoughts scatter all over, and a familiar tug feels in my chest. Something warm and powerful. No. No, not that. "Blaine," he says softly. He reaches for my hand, lacing our fingers together, and I stare at our hands in confusion. "You have to take better care of yourself."
But why would I care for myself when he doesn't?
"You don't get to worry," I say quietly. One touch, and everything I'm so sure of seems to vanish. One touch, and the scab gets pulled off prematurely, and it's fresh blood all over again. "You chose Dave, so you don't –"
"I worry. I don't... know what I'm doing." He laughs like that'd be the day. "I don't know if Dave and I..." Yeah. Yeah, Dave's not forgiving him, is he? And Kurt's realizing that now. "And then there's you, and it's all up in the air. And Dave might. He might leave me, but you won't, right? You won't."
I won't...? But he. He left me. He said it was over, and now he's –
He doesn't know what he's doing.
He just said it, but he – he really doesn't know what he's doing. At all. Last night it was Dave, today it's me, and tomorrow it'll be Dave again. All this time I've been looking for an answer, a simple, unifying truth that would explain his actions, why he pulls me in, clings onto me, pushes me back, leaves me, then comes back again.
Something that would explain it.
But there is no answer. There is no end reason.
It's not me. It's him.
He has no idea what the hell he's doing. And that's even more insulting to what we had, to what we felt.
What good will it do to break his heart?
Will it bring him back to me? Will it fix my own?
Will causing him pain make me feel any better?
He's still clutching my hand, turned towards me, earnest eyes on me. I can't look him in the eye. An overwhelming sense of loss hits me. It doesn't matter what he'd choose in the end now, even if by some miracle it'd be me eventually. I made sure we were over. That he'd never forgive me. It'll just... be easier like this.
Maybe he won't understand it now, but one day he'll see that I was right.
"Can I ask you one thing?" I whisper, and he nods instantly. "Did I... imagine it? Us?" I push away the memories that are too pure to think of right now. "What we felt? Was that just me?"
"Of course it wasn't." He's frowning, looking hurt. "Walking away from you last night was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. God, you haven't imagined us. Back when things were easier, I'd just find myself smiling thinking about you all the time. Butterflies in my stomach," he says a bit sheepishly. "My heart skips beats. A rush of blood. All those things."
That's good. That's comforting to know at last.
A little too late, not changing anything, but it makes me feel less insane.
"I did something bad," I say slowly, to bring down the sword that's hanging above our heads. "I did... something wrong." I pull my hand from his warm clasp. The skin of my palm feels cold now, without his touch. "I thought it'd make me feel better. It didn't. I thought that... hurting you would make me feel better. But it won't."
He's staring at me, suddenly pale. "What did you do?"
I look up and, as if by fate, a man walks into the canteen but stops and hovers at the sight of us, of seeing his boyfriend sitting with the man they both cheated on each other with.
Kurt follows my gaze. Dave looks like the guiltiest and angriest man alive. It's written all over his face, and Kurt looks at me again.
"Blaine." Voice rougher, more demanding. "What did you do?"
"Only what was expected of me," I reply and stand up because his tone is urgent, and he knows already. He knows.
When I get closer, Dave says, "Lauren said you're needed on stage." He sounds like his tongue is swollen and his throat is closed off, and he stares at Kurt with such an obvious, scared yet hateful expression that I know it's a matter of seconds before it's all publicly known.
Dave doesn't move as I pass him, like he's made of stone. He stares at his boyfriend, his boyfriend stares at him. And maybe I should congratulate myself on leaving the two of them to stand in the ruins of their love, but I don't.
Walking away from him is the hardest thing I've ever done in my life.
Lauren's by the stage, chewing gum ferociously, and the band is there, too, ready to go on. "Hey, you alright?" she asks, giving me the onceover, and I don't know if she's still pissed off about earlier, the coke and Jeff and me being such a prick. She sees something written all over my face, however, because her eyes widen in surprise when she takes me in. "Blaine?" she asks. Jeff's busy not looking my way, and fuck. Fuck, I fucked it all up again.
Lesson learned: never trust anyone. My old man taught me that at a fucking young age, but I forgot. I just forgot.
Kurt made me forget who I am.
"I want Kurt and Dave out of here."
The words burn my throat.
She blinks at me and then nods. "Okay."
"I want them out of here now."
"They'll be gone by the time you come off stage," she says, snapping her fingers at a guy who hurries over to wait for a command. "They're off this tour," she tells me, and then she quickly mutters something to the guy, something about escorting off the premises, and the guy looks surprised – one of the roadies, whatever his name is – but Lauren stares him down until he realizes she's not kidding.
"Yes, ma'am," he says, looking confused and uncomfortable.
"Take their tour passes," she says after him, and then she turns to me for validation, if that's good enough for now. It is for now.
"I don't want to see them again," I say, tone almost pleading.
"You'll never have to. I'll put them on a plane back home."
"Lauren, listen. I can't see him again. I can't."
Not after what I've done. What we've both done.
Her hand lands on my arm, and it calms me, steadies me, pushes back the inevitable panic and horror and shock and loss.
"Don't worry. Kurt's out of your life. He's gone."
And it's not what I ever wanted, but it's something that I made happen. Something that, in the end, I needed. Because Kurt wasn't entirely wrong about one thing: he and I have a knack for destroying each other.
"You need to go on stage," Lauren says, and I nod, shaking, trembling like a leaf. Okay. I head over towards the blinding, purifying lights, but then stop when it weights me down, tightens around my throat, threatens to cut off my air. My band's already there, having just walked on to roaring applause.
"Lauren, I need to get this off," I say, pulling on the chain around my neck, and she hurries over and says, "Okay, okay, let me," and I shiver as her nimble fingers reach the clasp, and then the simple silver chain is gone. Its familiar weight is no longer there.
I rub my throat and cough and try to breathe. Breathe. He's gone. Breathe.
She pockets the chain and smoothes my shirt, trying to smile supportively. "There, that any better?"
No.
"He's gone, right?"
She smiles sympathetically. "Yeah. He's gone."
He's gone.
And so I walk on stage because there is no other place for me to go.
And the cheering doubles, triples as the thousands of fans see me, and I've never been so lost in my life. He's gone. I've sent him away, but not before we destroyed each other. Like those smarter than us knew that we would.
The stage lights illuminate me and give me a halo.
And I take my place behind the microphone, where I will stand, where I am doomed to stand and privileged to stand, by myself, always by myself.
Where I am never wrong, where I have never erred, my eyes flying over the rows of lifted arms, euphoric cries, devoted gazes.
Where I am finally loved.
End of Volume 2
