Cut the Cord
Chapter 20

The week passes in a blur of anxious fussing on his mom’spart and lots of trashy TV shows. He texts Kurt quite a bit, but not all of thetime. Kurt has classes and work and peopleto meet and Blaine has endless amounts of reality TV to plough through. When hegets bored, he replaces his old Friendsboxset and starts to watch them, for once not unconsciously trying to comparehimself to the characters and their situations. He really is content to justsit there and watch the familiar plots unravel, lips twitching slightly at thewittier lines.

He still feels like a balloon most of the time, except nowhe dislikes the detached sensation—as if he’s about to plummet at any secondbut doesn’t quite have the energy yet, his stomach tight and waiting. Before hewas just resigned to it. He tells Dr Marissa this and apparently it’s a goodthing; it means Blaine no longer wants to fall, that his natural fight instinctis starting to overrule his brain. Still, it makes Blaine anxious and now that he’snot resigned to it, he’s kind of fed up with its ubiquitous presence.

Every time he feels like he’s drifting—usually either lateat night or when he gets up in the morning, occasionally at another random timefor no reason at all—his natural instinct is to think of Kurt. His brain tellshim to fight the stupid feeling before numbness creeps in and immediately hishead fills with thoughts of familiar arms around him, his fingers twitching toreach for his phone. But he can’t do that, not anymore.

It takes a lot of work to replace an alternative. He triesthinking of other things from his past that made him happy, spontaneous frontroom performances with Coop when he was little, replaceing his home at Dalton, hisfriends in the Warblers. All of them are either tainted in some way (Cooperalways critiqued his dance moves afterwards—you’reso boring to watch, Blainey) or make him achingly nostalgic which is almostworse than the floating feeling itself.

He tries to use techniques that keep him in the present next.He forces himself to eat a square of chocolate, or raids the freezer andpresses ice-cubes up and down his arms until he’s shivering (he’d read on theinternet that it’s meant to help with self-harming and figured it might justease the tension inside him in a similar way). Once he even tries to go for awalk until his mom freaks out over where he has gone and insists on picking himup in the car. He concludes that the present doesn’t help either.

His last resort is to picture a future that’s worth pullinghimself gently back to the ground for. He starts by imagining himself in NewYork, name up in lights, belting out the last note to a standing ovation. Butthat seems way too farfetched now; he’s made such a mess of things in this pastyear, there’s no way he can even pretend he deserves that sort of success.Plus, he’s pretty sure that the application he sent to NYADA is going to bewildly unsuccessful and he doesn’t possess the self-determination to move tothe big city by himself, not without the safety of college. So, no, he’s notgoing to end up on Broadway; that ship has long since sailed off into thesunset without him aboard.

Instead, he imagines a different version of himself—abrighter, more confident, talented version. More like Cooper, but minus thecockiness and obsession with melodramatic hand gestures. He pictures himselfeating lunch with a producer for his latest album, shaking hands and offering atrade mark grin before heading back to rehearsal at the theatre. He’ssurrounded by his fellow cast members who all replace him so funny anddown-to-earth, who joke around with him during breaks and watch in awe as theyrun scenes. Then he heads out into the bustling streets again, walking alongfor a bit, just enjoying the feeling that whilst no one’s watching him, he isn’t invisible in this crowd; he belongs. Hehails a taxi and gives his address, watching the huge buildings flash by withevery block. He climbs the stairs to his apartment, content not to use theelevator, and opens the door as he calls, “I’m home, honey!” to the person heshares his life with. He always cuts himself off there; he refuses to imagine anyversion of himself with someone who isn’t Kurt.

These mental pictures don’t make him happy, not really; he’stoo aware that the shoes he’s standing in don’t fit. They do make him feelbetter, though, less like gravity is about to drop him hard over some rocks. DrMarissa says that progress is progress no matter how small and shouldn’t beunderestimated. Blaine nods and pretends he believes him.

He goes back to school the following Monday and it’s just ashorrible as he expects it to be. The jocks still throw slurs in his direction,the New Directions are even more offputtingly nice than the last time, and histeachers keep trying to draw up study plans and tutoring sessions so he can graduateon time. He’s already had enough by lunch but he forces himself to follow Tinato the canteen, nodding vaguely as she talks about some choreography she saw onYouTube. His phone buzzes in his pocket and he gingerly reaches to retrieve it,still pretending to listen to Tina’s babbling.

Courage.

He reads the little word—he would know who it was from evenif his phone didn’t tell him— and although he is trying really hard not to basehis entire being on Kurt, he can’t help the way it lifts his mood exponentially.He actually offers his opinion on the skirt Tina is waxing lyrical about asthey join the queue for food.

He soon falls back into a routine and, to his surprise, hedoesn’t feel like he’s about to shatter. Not once. Yes, he still has bad daysand they probably slightly outnumber the good, and he’ll definitely be glad toleave high school behind when he graduates, but he doesn’t cry himself to sleepand he stops feeling numb for long periods of time.

He even makes it through the worst Thanksgiving of his life,sitting at the table and forcing small talk with his parents (Cooper convenientlyunable to return from LA where he’s shooting his latest commercial). The turkeysort of tastes nice and his dad smiles when Blaine compliments him on it. It’snot an idyllic family holiday and when he gets off the phone that evening fromhis half-hour conversation with Kurt, he allows a few tears to escape onto hispillow before he forces himself to sit up and go back downstairs. He watchessome lame movie with his mother and doesn’t get into bed until half ten—a latenight for him. It only takes him a couple of hours to fall asleep, too, even ifhe has to clutch Margaret Thatcher Dog to his chest to do so.

It’s all fine, really, until his Christmas plans areshattered. He’s been looking forward to Christmas break for weeks, partlybecause it means no school for a while, but mostly because he gets to see Kurt.Then Kurt rings him up one night, the conversation drifting round to festiveplans, and everything goes a little pear-shaped, Blaine’s steadily-expanding worldsquashed in a heartbeat.

“I’m not coming back to Ohio.” Kurt says the words in arush, as if he didn’t want to let them out in the first place. When Blainedoesn’t say anything, he keeps going. “It’s just not possible to get more timeoff work—I tried, I really did— and I’m late on a couple of school assignmentsso I really need to get those sorted. I just can’t afford to fly back for twodays in the middle of it all and I’m really, really sorry, Blaine. I’mdesperate to see you, I promise, I miss you so much.”

Kurt’s voice cracks, but Blaine feels strangely calm as thewords sink in. I’m not coming back.

“Ok…” Blaine says evenly, hand pushing an annoying curl backfrom his forehead. “That’s ok.”

“It’s not, Blaine, and I’m so sorry—”

“It’s not your fault.” Blaine cuts him off, unable to standthe despondency in his voice. “Does, um, does Burt know you’re not comingback?”

“Yeah, he…well, he’ll probably come to me for a few days—if he can get the time off at the shop!” Kurtadds, as if somehow Burt’s intention to visit makes him feel guilty. Blainedoesn’t see why, though; of course Burt Hummel would fly across the country tobe with his son.

“Cool.” Blaine says, feeling tension leave his stomach, anemptiness left in its wake.

“Cool?”

“Yeah.” Blaine glances around his room for inspiration. “Oh,weren’t you going to tell me about the new summer collection in the works?”

“Um, yes, I—yeah, I was.” Kurt doesn’t sound at allconvinced by Blaine’s calm topic change, but he starts talking about Vogue.comanyway and Blaine just lets his voice pour over him, closing his eyes andtrying not to drown.

When Kurt reluctantly hangs up twenty minutes later with promisesto call the next day, Blaine breathes out in relief and sinks back into themattress. The act is over, but he still feels like he’s in someone else’s body.Each time he thinks he’s going to get his own skin back, it distorts intoshrunken rubber and he’s a balloon once more. He can feel himself lifting offthe ground again, string slipping through everyone’s lacklustre fingers andzigzagging into the night.

He’s right back to square one after that; he can’t sleepagain and his appetite drops, everything becoming inanely pointless. He doesn’twant people to catch on, though, especially when his mom’s been so happy withhim lately. He doesn’t want to see the disappointment on her face when sherealises that it’s not going to get better; Blaine is stuck in some stupid,maddening circle that always leads him right back here and there’s nothinganyone can do about it.

So he gets good at hiding hollowness behind feigned interestand fake smiles. It’s not hard; he’s been perfecting them for the better halfof his life. No, the only tricky part is his nightly phone call with Kurt, whois far more perceptive than anyone else—or maybe it’s just harder to act whenthe audience cannot see your face. He notices straight away when Blaine soundsoff, when his performance starts to flag after a long, exhausting day ofpretending. Kurt’s voice does that thing where he sounds concerned with anundertone of fear—he’s still afraid ofyou, Blaine—and he always makes up ridiculous excuses to keep Blaine on theline longer. The one small blessing is that he doesn’t rat Blaine out to hismother. He’s not entirely sure who created the diaphanous bubble that surroundsher at the moment, but he knows he cannot be the one to rupture it.

He feels trapped, like everything is imploding inwards inslow-motion and he’s just stood there, transfixed by the beauty of the dustparticles, unaware that everything is self-destructing besides from a strangesense of claustrophobia. Except part of him does notice the demolition;sometimes the numbness he clings onto isn’t enough. Sometimes he locks himselfin a bathroom stall halfway through class and allows the dust inside to pourout through his tears, or he waits for his father to be at work and his mom tohave popped out to the shop and screams at the ceiling. He feels sorry for hisceiling, to be honest. It’s so white and guiltless, yet Blaine still insists onhurling blame at it—blame that he knows belongs to him and him alone.

The thing is, he doesn’t understand how he became so trappedin this cycle in the first place. He knows what everyone thinks, he can heartheir whispers; they all believe that the break-up destroyed him, that hebrought it on himself and then couldn’t reap the consequences. But he can’tremember it being like that—the numbness started before then, although he can’tfor the life of him place his finger on an exact date. He doesn’t think thereis one; he hasn’t been damaged by a single emotion or event, but rather thedamage has prevented him from dealing with them. In fact, he feels strangelydetached from everything that’s happened in the past few months, as if he’sjust an understudy in someone else’s life.

He has become used to setbacks while growing up, knows thefeeling of devastation when he lets everyone, including himself, down. He usedto promise himself that he would become stronger than the thing that set himback, that one day he would laugh when someone mentioned it because he would beso far above it all. The setback would become the one in the wrong, not him.Lately, he’s discovered he can no longer do this. He replaces it hard to pickhimself back up again, not because of the setback like everyone immediatelyassumes, but because he has no hope of overcoming it. He has no hope in himself.

He wishes he was invisible because the pretending is exhausting. Hewishes tears were imperceptible so he could cry all day and no one would askmeaningless questions: Why are you crying?Why are you crying? Why are you crying? He can hide himself from them andthey don’t look too closely, but it’s just a lot of effort. Too much effort.

One evening he replaces himself sat on his bedroom floor,fingers of his right hand curled around a fresh bottle of sleeping pills, notsure whether they belong to his mother or his father. He opens the cap, earsbuzzing at the satisfying ‘pop’ sound it makes, and tries to tip a pill onto hispalm. Except it won’t drop down, so he tilts the bottle further, coaxing thelittle white disc out from where it’s caught on the edging. In a sudden surgeof muted frustration, he gives the bottle a shake and, before he can stop them,dozens of pills tumble out, most of them missing his palm and ensconcingthemselves on the carpet.

“Fuck,” He swears under his breath, hand clenching aroundthe practically empty bottle and then, suddenly, he feels his eyes widen,eyelashes curiously wet as they blink in shock. He freezes and then throws thebottle away from him; it doesn’t make it very far but the dull thud is enoughto make him jump to his feet. He can’t do this. Not again.

He sets about replacing the pills in the bottle, fetchingthe hoover from the closet under the stairs for good measure, and then grabshis phone. His heart is pounding too fast, but he needs the sound to keep communicatingto him as he taps the number onto the screen. The call is picked up after two rings.

“Hello?”

“I…don’t think…I’m okay.” He croaks out and lets Dr Marissatalk at him, allows his words to make sense inside his head and follows hisinstructions to write down an appointment. He breathes a sigh of relief; DrMarissa has caught the end of the string and is guiding him out of the wind.

No, he thinks asembers glow inside—not quite a fire yet, but kindling—you caught the string yourself this time.