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More than anything, it’s the sleeping in the same bed that gets to Kurt. It’s the domesticity of it all, the way it feels like he doesn’t deserve this.
It feels like he’s living someone else’s life sometimes. The engagement ring feels like a trap, like a trick. It scares him more than anything that he’s not willing to commit as much as Blaine seems to be; He can’t comprehend what it would mean, even, to spend the rest of his life like this.
His hands shake in mirror some mornings, and he does not cry. He does not mourn the loss of his younger self, the boy who was so carefree and didn’t care what others thought of him. Sometimes it feels like he’s moving backwards, like he’s undoing all the self-love he taught himself in high school, toning down the crazy outfits and trying desperately to come off as more serious. As less “in-your-face” about it.
He doesn’t deserve Blaine, who’s so unafraid of intimacy and unabashed about his emotions. He used to be like that, too, he supposes. Back when he and Blaine first got together, Kurt was still afraid , but with Blaine it felt like he could really be himself―not just around him, either.
(Part of him knows he’s lying to himself about even this; he might’ve been happier back then, but he’s always been holding back. He thought he could be himself in New York, but then he got there and felt so out of place that going back to Lima actually felt like home.)
He’s walking a fine line, he thinks, between being himself and being successful. He wishes the himself in his head didn’t make people uncomfortable. He wishes he didn’t care so much.
Blaine feels like a reminder. Blaine feels like hope. It hurts Kurt more than he can say. The idea that he could go back to standing out―in the wrong way―if he let Blaine get close again. If he got comfortable again.
So, yeah, it’s been hard these past few months because Kurt’s too scared to do anything more than sleep in the same bed, or talk a little to each other about classes, or kiss now and then. Sometimes he’s even scared to do that. Sometimes it feels like a touch will break him.
One night, after classes, he and Blaine lay down and watch Moulin Rouge! and Kurt does not cry, because he’s taught himself not to, but he can’t look at Blaine. He can’t bear to see the vulnerability in his eyes. Kurt’s never thought of himself as fragile, but he feels like a wine glass with a hairline fracture. If Blaine tries to talk to him, he doesn’t know what’s left for him to do but crack even more.
It feels even worse when he thinks of how Blaine looks at him, like he worships him, like Kurt’s something made to be loved. It makes Kurt sick to his stomach. He doesn’t deserve this. Not when he can’t―can’t give Blaine back what he gives him. Can’t share himself back, can’t show Blaine who he is without abandon. Not anymore, at least.
When Kurt first breaks, it’s Valentine’s Day. He makes Blaine a playlist of songs that they listened to, sang together, dreamed of performing together. He and Blaine listen to it together, after dinner at their place, and he doesn’t realize he’s shaking until Blaine takes hold of his hand.
Kurt cries. Blaine asks if he did something wrong, and Kurt says nothing.
They go to sleep in the same bed that night, but something about it feels off. It reminds Kurt of back when Blaine was just a guest. The back of Kurt’s mind supplies a memory from a few years ago, when they laid just like this, both of them convinced that they had just lost their happy ending.
He thinks Blaine knows, by now, that he’s regretted his decision. He thinks, but he also knows Blaine is oblivious, and he wonders if maybe this is what Blaine expects married life to be, and he knows Blaine would suffer through this awkward, tense monster of a relationship if it meant that he got to be with Kurt in the end.
Kurt wonders if Blaine hates him yet, then wonders why the “yet” part matters so much.
A few months after he breaks up with Blaine, Kurt remembers I’ve been looking for you forever. And he thinks about the forever bit for too long, and he books a flight to Lima, Ohio.