Chapter 18 - Cookies
I'd never have imagined I would have been this happy to be going back to Lima. I could practically feel my heart beginning to race at the thought of being able to talk to Mercedes again, to gossip about the trivial dramas of New Directions instead of the real ones at Dalton. When I saw Dad I was going to give him the biggest hug on the planet – I'd missed him more than anyone. I was folding my socks to neatly place them in my suitcase when I heard a knock at my door. Walking over to open it I saw Nathaniel standing in the hallway and immediately my happy mood died. So I hadn't escaped.
"Hi Kurt." He said, obviously realising that I knew why he was here. "How's your packing going?"
"Good. I can't wait to go home." At this line I saw his face scrunch up in sympathy and sighed.
"Listen, I know this is not what you want to hear, and I hate doing this, but you broke the rules. And Wilde property." Feeling like I was back at kindergarten being told to stand against the wall I let my head fall.
"And despite what's been going on I can't let you get away with it, otherwise the other students will start to complain and I'll lose my authority and blah blah blah." I heard him smirk at his own words and felt a small smile flicker on my lips, but still stayed staring at the ground.
"However," suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Nathaniel looking at me with a meaningful expression, "I know things have been hard for you recently and cutting something else out of your life will only make things worse. So I came up with an alternative punishment for you." I'd never thought I'd ever see anyone smile about a punishment, but that's exactly what he did. "Come with me."
"But, I'm packing…" Gesturing back to my open suitcase Nathaniel shot me a mock angry look.
"Hey – I'm still the Head Boy here. Follow me."
By the time we reached the kitchen, my slight interest had grown to a great intrigue, furthered when I saw a selection of bowls and cooking ingredients set out neatly on the tabletop.
"I heard a rumour from some of your Home Ec comrades that you are a bit of a whiz in the kitchen." Nathaniel began, walking over and picking up an apron. "So, your punishment is to cook everyone in Wilde some goodbye cookies." I tried to stop my eyebrows from raising, but failed. What?
"Hey – I'm being nice. And seeing as I am Head Boy and should be able to take what I dish out – I'm going to help you." Slipping the apron over his head and tying the knot behind in a ridiculously short time he grinned, chucking me the other one.
"This is my punishment?" I asked, disbelief colouring my tone.
"Well, you also have to pay for a new timer and most of these ingredients, but yeah." For second I stood still, not knowing what to say, before eventually I shrugged my shoulders and slipped the apron over my head.
"Now mix the butter and the sugar in here." Nathaniel wasn't as good a cook as I thought he'd be – I was having to talk him through everything. We'd managed to weigh out most of the ingredients (the scales at Dalton were ridiculous – whoever had designed them had obviously had a fetish for buttons) and were now mixing them together in several different bowls due to the huge quantity we were making.
"Ergh, why is this so complicated?" I laughed, causing Nathaniel to shoot me a glare. "Hey!"
"We're only making cookies Nathaniel – it's not exactly rocket science."
"Well I never made things like this as a child!" His tone was still joking, but I suddenly stopped teasing. There was something more in that statement. We carried on mixing, the room becoming silent for a couple of seconds, before Nathaniel suddenly began talking again.
"I know everyone thinks I'm just this weird guy that loves making charts and organising everything, but I'm not."
"Nathaniel, I don't think you're weird."
"Well I know other people do. These walls are thinner than you think." Instantly sympathy swept over me – I wondered about reaching out a comforting hand but decided against it.
"I suppose it doesn't bother me that much. I mean, they wouldn't have picked me to be Head Boy if they didn't respect me a bit. But I have reasons for being the way I am."
"You can tell me if you want. I won't judge." I saw Nathaniel look at my smile cautiously, wondering whether to proceed. Then he took a deep breath, stirred his mixture some more and spoke.
"I have a sister, Nikki. She's older than me but she's got cerebral palsy, so it feels like she's younger. My Dad – he left before I was born, so my Mum and I looked after Nikki on our own. She would do the motherly things, like cook our meals and sew the buttons on our clothes, but I did everything else. Like literally everything. I've been organising things since I was four years old. Nikki always used to get upset when she saw how tired we always were, how I could never go out to play with my friends or Mum couldn't afford to buy herself new clothes – a couple of times she tried to do things herself and nearly set the house on fire – but I never felt any anger towards her. She's one of my best friends, I love her to pieces. When I was ten we got a letter from our lawyer saying that my Dad had been killed in a car crash – he'd never bothered to change his will so all his money and business shares went to us. Mum used the money to buy some more equipment for Nikki and I didn't need to do so much anymore. Then she found out about Dalton and how tolerant they are and thought I deserved a good education, so she paid for my tuition with the rest of the money. And now I'm here."
I realised I'd stopped mixing completely – my hand hovering over the bowl as my mouth hung open. Marc Jacobs…
"Nathaniel…I never knew…"
"Hey, don't worry about it. It's not like I go broadcasting it around. Very few people know actually, they just assume I was always organising my family for fun. The two of them can't make it to Dalton very often because Mum works from home." I watched him stir, bringing up his spoon and letting the mixture slop back down into the bowl slowly. How had I never realised this? And how was he so blasé about it? I realised in effect Nathaniel had sacrificed an important and highly private detail about his life, in order to make me feel better about mine. The thought was humbling.
"Well, you do a good job of hiding it. I'd never have thought you had any problems." A short laugh escaped from his lips.
"Hah. Really?"
"Yeah. In fact, when you first showed me around Wilde I thought you were possibly the most confident kid I had ever met. I kind of wanted to be you." I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment, but Nathaniel smiled, a warm contented smile, and it was worth it.
"Thanks." I had always stood up for him, but now I was glad I had. "You know, sometimes, I wonder if my Dad never changed his will on purpose. If he felt guilty for leaving without a word and figured his death money could somehow make up for it, almost like he was repenting his sins. Well, at least that's what I like to think. I never knew him so he could have just been lazy." Nathaniel had set his spoon down, his eyes staring into the distance and I smiled, making him smile back too.
"Come on – let's get these spooned out and in the oven."
Without sounding cocky – our cookies were a masterpiece. We'd barely taken them out of the oven when Christian Gard rolled into the kitchen (he looked so badly like Artie despite the fact he was in a wheelchair I'd sometimes called him said name by mistake. Not that he minded.) looking hungry.
"Dude, what are you guys making? We can smell them from down the corridor!" He exclaimed, saliva practically dripping from his mouth.
"Kurt's made everybody punishment cookies." Nathaniel replied with a smile. (I noticed how he didn't try to take any of the credit – even though I had done most of the work.) "Hey! Don't touch!" A hand snapped out to slap Christian neatly on the wrist and I laughed as the boy let out an indignant shout, before sulkily wheeling back to his room. They did smell amazing though, I could feel my stomach beginning to rumble and realised I hadn't even had lunch yet.
"We need to wait for these to cool down before we give them out, so go finish your packing and I'll call you down." I nodded and slipped my apron off, resting it on the table as I exited the room.
As I walked up the stairs towards my room, I once again thanked the powers that be that I had such decent friends. I guess I was going to miss some things about this place. I was even at the point of whistling a tune to myself as I bounced down the corridor, when I reached my door and stopped dead.
Kurt. WE NEED TO TALK.
The note was tacked to my door, obviously made in a rush. I noticed some paper had been borrowed from my notepad to create it, and I imagined my parker pen had been used too. The handwriting was unmistakeable.
Tearing down the note I marched into my room and was about to scrunch it into a ball when I saw another one lying on my bed.
CALL ME AS SOON AS YOU SEE THIS. PLEASE.
Once again I responded angrily, grabbing it so hard my finger tore a hole in the centre. Both messages went straight into the bin. As I sat down on my bed I noticed my phone lying on my bedside table and paused. He wouldn't have… My hand darted out and brought it to my face. He would. Six messages.
Kurt. I need to talk to you. Come and see me.
Please just call me. It's important.
Where are you? I just went to your room. CALL ME.
Kurt I can't find you anywhere.
Don't ignore this – I'm being deadly serious.
PLEASE.
The last one was the worst. I almost gave myself a blood blister from pressing delete so hard. This was ridiculous. Blaine hadn't spoken to me in days. He'd repeatedly ignored me and said to my face that he was bored of us – why now did he need to talk? Surely there was nothing more to say? To my horror I knew there was a part of me that wanted to reply, to even arrange a meeting, but I buried that part away. I had to pack.
Half an hour later, even after we'd packaged up the cookies and handed them out to grateful Wildeians, the messages were still coming. Now I was getting missed calls and burbles down my answer phone – I didn't listen to any of them but each new message sent another jolt of pain through my body. Was this a new level of the game? Because I wasn't playing anymore. My stuff was nearly packed, but I kept recounting things and forgetting what I had ticked off – before long Dad and Carole were going to be here and I was going to get out of here as soon as possible.
When three o'clock dawned I didn't even wait for them to arrive, lugging my bags out the door as quickly as I could. Holy hell – was this how I was leaving? Running away like I was being chased? This was worse than McKinley. I managed to make it down the stairs and was just reaching the main entrance when my whole body sunk. There he was.
"KURT!" Blaine came running towards me faster than I'd ever seen him move before. His expression was wild and desperate.
"Kurt!" I was surrounded my bags so had nowhere to run to – when he reached me he moved to give me a hug and I screamed out as a distraction, making him jump but also causing him to move away, creating the desired result.
"I've been looking for you everywhere where the hell have you been have you lost your phone or something I've been calling you constantly-" His voice burbled uncontrollably and for a second I wanted to ask what was wrong, before I remembered I didn't want to talk to him.
"Blaine, why are you talking to me?" I said as plainly and as bluntly as I could. The sentence made him stop and stare at me, before a new expression graced his features.
"Oh Kurt, I'm so sorry. I've been a complete ass. I know." The words were confusing but I focused on the last few.
"Know what?"
"I know that you love me." For a second I froze, not knowing how to act. Then confusion began to grow.
"How?"
"Wes told me. He was outside calling Carmen during the party when he saw you and Gabriel. He heard everything." Blaine's expression was really starting to unnerve me – he looked upset but I couldn't work out why. Surely this information had already been established…
"What does this even have to do with us?" I spoke slowly and watched his look at me in concern. Like he couldn't understand what I wasn't getting.
"Kurt. This has everything to do with us. I thought…I thought you were with Gabriel."
"What? I was never with Gabriel. He just got the wrong idea." Blaine laughed, a high-pitched mocking laugh. He was beginning to scare me.
"I know!"
"Blaine. Is this another part of the game? Because I thought we established that this was over." At this I was shot another crazed look.
"Can't you see? I lied! I lied about everything! I thought you and Gabriel were together so I lied and said I never loved you. I lied!" Now he was stepping closer to me, but I backed away. This caused him to falter slightly but he carried on.
"Kurt, when I came to your room that night, I was coming to apologise. I got scared because I like you so much and I didn't want you to regret your decision, but then I saw you and Gabriel and I got really mad, jealous even. It seemed like you really liked him so I said those things, to try and hurt you, like you'd hurt me. Afterwards I felt terrible, but I kept seeing you around with Gabriel so I thought, well I thought you were sticking the knife in. So I stayed angry and I stayed lying. But now I know you didn't love Gabriel. Now that I know the truth – everything is solved!" At this I stopped.
"Blaine…" I began cautiously. He hung on my words. "Nothing is solved." Blaine's expression dropped.
"What?"
"Nothing is solved. I still don't understand – you effectively said you used me for fun, then didn't even acknowledge my existence for a whole week."
"Yes, but that was all a misunderstanding, I didn't mean it-"
"-You didn't mean it? Well it felt like you did. I cried more than I've cried in years this week. Almost as much as when my Mum died." I watched his face become torn, the sight making my own gut scrunch up and twist painfully.
"I want to make it better Kurt, I can be there-"
"What?" I almost laughed. "You want to be there for me? You're the one that caused this!"
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!" I felt a hand reach out to touch mine, the feeling sending shivers down my spine as I remembered all the times we'd shared, how good it felt. But I pushed it away.
"I love you Blaine. I love you so much it hurts. But what you did isn't something I can just forgive. How do I know you're not just going to turn around and tell me this was act two of your show?"
"It's not, I promise-"
"-That's not enough. A couple of days ago I would have given anything for you to say these words, but now I'm different. These constant mood swings – they're not healthy for you or me. It's not healthy for me to be around you anymore. So I'm going to go home, and you're going to go home. I don't think you should try and contact me in any way. Then next year I might be able to look at you without wanting to kill myself."
Blaine had stopped trying to protest, He'd stopped doing anything, tears beginning to stream down his perfectly formed cheeks. One trickled down to his chin.
"Kurt, I…"
"Don't."
I didn't stay to watch it fall.