Author's Note: Thank you so much for all the feedback! I finally got around to updating this; it's actually been pretty difficult to write!
Summary: Blaine's past is a lot darker than he's admitting to Kurt. Blaine's story before he transferred to Dalton Academy.
Genre: Angst/Drama
Rating: T (for now)
Warnings: possible self-harm, violence, abuse, language
START AGAIN
When Blaine goes home that day, he types "gay" into the Google search bar. He sorts through the links advertising porn with a visible wince, but reads the lengthy Wikipedia article throughly. Once. Twice. Opens up websites on gay literature. Compiles a list of books that his local library has on homosexuality. His heart races as his mouse lingers on several "Are you gay?" quizzes and LGBT information links, but he doesn't click any of them.
And as he moves onto images, his breath catches in his throat. He scrolls through the glaring pictures of men and women in clearly sexual, explicitly "inappropriate" acts that make his face flush with embarrassment, but he ends up on one page of two men grasping each other almost desperately, one slender and small and the other more wiry and muscular, gently wrapped in an passioned kiss, their eyes closed and smiles at the edges of both or their mouths. He swallows hard and tries to fight the tears spiking at his eyes and his embarrassingly hardened arousal and the undeniable attraction he feels.
This can't be happening.
There's a noise from outside and he hears his mother call, "Blaine? Sweetheart?"
Hurriedly, Blaine stuffs the list of books into his pocket and opens his email in a new window on his computer screen.
After greeting his mother and helping her unload the groceries from her car, he returns to his computer. He clears his browser history, just in case.
The next day Blaine goes to the local library and checks out all the books on his list.
The librarian gives him a disdainful look, and he tries to forget her eyes boring deep into his and the way she purses her lips as she clearly judges him.
He tells her it's for a school project. He's pretty sure she doesn't believe him, and her suspicion makes the hairs on the back of his neck rise.
This can't be right.
Blaine hides the books haphazardly in his closet, in old shoeboxes, in his underwear drawer, underneath his jackets. On a second thought, he realizes that his mother will wonder why he's suddenly become messy, and he picks his jackets up off the floor. Crams the books behind the boards of his closet, deep inside his backpack, and leaves the ones in his shoeboxes and underwear drawer alone.
He takes out a hardcover book hesitantly, and flips open to the first chapter. The big title is "ARE YOU CONFUSED?" and he starts shaking and almost closes the book right then and there.
But instead, he digs deep down and searches for some courage, and decides to start reading. He finishes the first book in less than an hour. He moves onto the next and the one after, and after he's devoured three of them in a row, he closes them and hides them in his sock drawer, clambers onto his bed and pulls his covers over him. His heart is beating wildly and he remembers the feeling of Doren's hand on his and the spark that it sent through him and tears are pricking at his eyes and before he knows it he's crying, desperate muffled sobs because this cannot happento him. He's an Anderson, he's expected to hold up the family name, he's masculine and refined and successful like his father, he can'tbe...
It's probably just a phase, right? It's just a phase. He's just confused and he'll grow out of it, he tells himself, none of this is real. He'll be fine. Just watch, he'll see Penelope tomorrow and she is beautiful everything and he will see that and everything will go back to normal.
His desire to prove himself as normal doesn't carry over into his actions and he doesn't understand it.
Blaine doesn't pick up his phone or answer his texts for a whole week. At school, he tells Penelope that his parents grounded him for talking back and took his phone away, and somewhat suspiciously, she buys it. She doesn't press the issue too much. He makes a conscious effort to avoid sitting by her at lunch, claiming that he has a lot of tests to study for. This is a blatant lie; Blaine has never struggled in school in his life.
But...
He doesn't know what to do. Maybe he's just afraid that when he sees her again, he'll realize he's wrong.
Penelope approaches Blaine at school and asks if there's something wrong. She points out that they haven't spent one-on-one time for two weeks and she's worried and wants to talk about their relationship and Blaine really can't get around it. He mumbles something about having a big science presentation and tells her he's sorry but that of course nothing's wrong and he misses her. She squeezes his hand and tells him it's okay and asks if he wants to come over on Saturday night, suggestively slipping in that her parents won't be home.
Blaine feels nauseous, but he's a gentleman and in spite of recent self-revelations, he's still Penelope's boyfriend, so he says yes.
He arrives at Penelope's house at six, a bouquet of lilies in his trembling hands because those are her favorite flowers. She opens the door, her eyes bright and excited, her tumble of hair flowing out around her, and she thanks him and presses a small kiss to his lips.
Inside, she carefully assembles the lilies into a glass vase, offers him some water. He politely refuses, clapping his hands nervously at his sides, and she grins wolfishly at him and tells him she knows what he's waiting for. She grabs him by the hand and drags him up to her room and shuts the door behind her and pulls him onto her bed.
And then there are Penelope's hands on the clasp of his pants, and Blaine starts to hyperventilate. He strains and thrives to keep his breath steady and almost forcefully pushes her away.
"Can we just not?" he manages breathlessly, his throat closing around his words. He can hear himself start to choke up and all he can think is No,notrightnow.Thisisallwrong.
"Okay," Penelope says simply, letting go of his pants. Blaine knows she's frustrated, even though she's trying to hide it, when she pushes her hand through her silky brown hair and her forehead lines with distress. "What's wrong, Blaine? Am I doing something wrong?" Her voice is sad and self-accusatory and Blaine hurts so much because this is wrong. He doesn't want to hurt her.
Blaine buries his head in his hands, the words IthinkImightbegayfading on his lips. Instead, he manages to mutter, "I don't think I can do this anymore."
Penelope cocks her head, her lashes dark and prominent and framing her huge brown eyes. A few freckles dot her pale face. Her lip trembles a little, but she looks at him resolutely, impassive.
"When did you know?" she asks him, her voice softening towards the end of her question. Gentle.
And Blaine realizes that she knows.
"I'm sorry," he answers in a broken voice instead of answering her question, but she looks at him. Takes his hand.
"No, I'm sorry," Penelope whispers, an apology on her lips. She squeezes his hand, and the dam bursts and the tears come and he's clinging onto her like a child because he is so, so scaredand this is all wrongand he doesn't know what to do. He sobs openly, brokenly into her shoulder, and he feels her hands wrap protectively around him.
"It's okay," she shushes, rubbing smooth circles on his back. "It's okay," she croons and holds him as he cries to the point where his eyes will feel swollen and he'll be sleepy the next day.
And, sitting there with the girl who he loves but never really lovedat all, his head buried into her soft blouse, Blaine tries to convince himself, in that moment, that it'll be okay. That it'sokay.
It's okay.
It's okay.
He doesn't love Penelope, at least in thatway. Blaine realizes he fell in love with her voice, in love with her mind, in love with her passions. But he's not physically attracted to her, not sexuallyattracted to her. He loves her as a friend, as a confidant... just not as a lover.
The news that he and Penelope have broken up spreads faster than Blaine thinks possible, and the unfortunate thing for him is that he's propositioned right and left by desperate girls who feel like going to a high school dance alone is the end of the world. At his school, a girl who goes single to the Sadie Hawkins is a red flag for someone who wasn't cool or popular or pretty enough for a boy to say yes to. The upcoming dance is a Sadie Hawkins, which means the girls asks the boys, and since he's readily single and still looks dapper and well-dressed and is rich without being condescending and attractive and intelligent, the overeager girls of his high school are ready to pounce.
Blaine has declined three girls, who roll their eyes and declare that they didn't want to go to the dance with him anyways,and he's getting a reputation as an unstable heartbreaker, when he starts to think he's had enough.
Penelope suggests they could just go as friends, if he'd like, but he knows that it would hurt her, and he can't bring himself to hurt her any more than he already has, so he politely declines and tells her that she should go with Jeremy Hyde, since he's nice and sweet and single and has asked her. (Blaine knows that Jeremy will no doubt be Penelope's rebound but he doesn't have the right to say anything since he broke her heart). Penelope looks worried, but he can also see the relief, so he's happy he's let her know that she doesn't have to take care of him anymore.
To be honest, Blaine has been eyeing Doren. Doren Cassallos with his hair spun of gold and his pale, effeminate features and the fact that he's gayand Blaine is trying to wrap his mind around the fact that he's finding a male beautiful. The fact that he can't take his eyes off the small dash of freckles on the bridge of Doren's nose and his wide, almost doe-like eyes that are reminiscent of Penelope's. There's something so inherently forbidden about the whole thing, and Blaine finds himself slipping Doren a note during English class.
Doren,
Can we talk?
-Blaine
He gets a reply as Doren subtly slips him a yellow post-it at the end of class.
Meet me at the bleachers after school. 3:30.
Author's Note: Sorry this chapter was so short guys, but it should start getting juicy next chapter! I just want to do justice to Blaine's coming out process so it may not be moving as quickly as originally intended. Please leave a review if you'd like to see an update!
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