January 20th

BLAINE

"Blaine?"

I look up at the sound of my mother's voice.

"They called your name. It's your turn."

I sigh and stand up, the rubber chair making loud sounds. A kid across the waiting room laughs, says "it sounds like you farted mister."

I shoot him my scariest don't-fuck-with-me look, turning my red-rimmed eyes into slits, and he averts his gaze to his lap. I smirk, feeling sickly triumphant. Three months ago, that would have made me laugh. Maybe I would have squished the seat cushion again just to make the kid giggle.

Andrew would have loved it too.

I clench my jaw and bite the insides of my cheeks so hard I taste blood on my tongue and then follow the nurse through a few hallways into a room with light blue walls and cozy-looking furniture.

The nurse smiles at me, gestures for me to sit down, "just have a seat, make yourself comfortable."

I choose a brown leather couch, sit on the edge of it, fold my hands in my lap.

She smiles at me again, all teeth and says "Dr. Hummel will be in shortly."

She leaves the room and I look at my hands and close my eyes.

The second my lids shut, it all comes back to me.

"ANDREW WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" Screeching of tires, impact, pain...

"Mr. Anderson?"

I open my eyes. There's a man standing in front of me. He's tall and impeccably dressed. He has kind blue eyes and a small smile on his face.

He sits down across from me and holds out a hand for me to shake.

I refuse to take it.

"Mr. Anderson, I'm Dr. Hummel. Can I call you Blaine?"

I keep my gaze on his. "Whatever."

He smiles. "Okay. Then you can call me Kurt."

I snort. "Kurt. Sure." I say.

He keeps that sweet fucking smile on his face.

"So...Blaine. Tell me why you're here."

I sigh and roll my eyes, thinking maybe he'll give up on me like everyone else has, but he waits patiently.

"I...because I tried to kill myself."

Kurt nods and writes something down on a notepad. "Uh-huh...and why was that?"

This time, I don't snarl or roll my eyes or sigh. I squeeze my eyes shut and then open them quickly, not wanting the flashbacks to start again.

Instead, I look down at my shoes, dusty old blue Converse that I've had since high school, that Andrew always said he hated, but every time I put them on, he would chuckle quietly and say, "you're the only person I know who could make those ugly things look good."

My heart lurches thinking about him, about Andrew, and I bite my cheeks again.

"Blaine? What are you thinking about?"

I look up.

"My husband," I whisper.

Kurt nods again. "From what I can gather, you were really in love with him."

I'm silent. I won't, I can't talk about Andrew.

"Blaine? Is that true?"

Silence. More silence. The clock ticking in the background. A dog barking outside.

"Blaine? Do you want to say anything?"

Silent again.

He writes something else down on his notepad and I can see it in my head. "Patient unresponsive, pain in my ass, giving up on him."

"Blaine, you can talk to me and try to let me help you, or we can sit here in silence for the next..." he looks at his watch, "thirty-eight minutes. It's up to you."

I glare at him and then stand up, gather my coat from the cushion beside me and head for the door.

"Fuck this." I mutter before opening the heavy oak door and slamming it behind me.

KURT

I step inside the door to my house and flip on a light. It's chilly, I turn the heat off when I'm at work, to save money, so with my coat still on, I adjust the thermostat to seventy degrees and wait for the radiator to come on. I deposit my heavy wool coat on the hook next to the door. My cat, Professor (short for Professor McGonagall) bounds out of my bedroom and starts rubbing up against my legs. I smile and scoop her up, then sit down on the couch and cover us with a blanket. She purrs loudly and curls up in my lap, goes to sleep, and I turn on the TV with the remote sitting next to me. I settle on an old cycle of America's Next Top Model and curl my legs underneath me, causing the Professor to open one eye and adjust her position in my lap. I smirk at her and lean my head against the back of the couch, silently relive my day in my head.

There was the mother who had lost her son, Agnes. I'm extremely proud of her, she's made a huge amount of progress since she started seeing me in October.

The little boy whose father molested him. He's a sweet kid. Also making a ton of progress and today was only his third appointment.

I always get paired with the most fucked up patients.

My colleagues get the JAPs who just need someone to listen to them, the wives trapped in sexless marriages. But I always end up with the seemingly incurable cases. And I like it that way. I like to really, truly help people who need me.

My mind drifts to the last patient I saw today. That young man, Blaine. I wasn't told much about him, besides the fact that his husband had died and he had attempted suicide. I like to know as little as possible about the patients I'm assigned to so that they can choose to open up to me.

Normally, most of my patients are a lot like Blaine. They were forced into therapy by someone who loves and cares for them. They don't want to be there, they don't want to talk to me. We usually sit in silence for the first session, but by the second, the spouse or the parent or the sibling or the best friend has convinced them to come back and we talk and slowly, things start to get better for them.

I'm proud of my patient success rate. All of my former patients keep in touch with me. Recently, I had dinner with a woman who was raped and beaten by her ex-husband. She lives on Long Island now with a new husband and three beautiful children.

I'm fucking good at my job. I know that.

But I've never had a patient walk out on me the way Blaine Anderson did today. Most of my patients are at least somewhat willing to get the help they need from me.

Blaine...for a few minutes he seemed...almost willing. But then, he shut down. The second he mentioned his husband, his eyes changed, from angry and defensive to sad, incredibly lonely.

Thinking about it now, I know this is what I'm going to have to work on. Getting Blane to talk about his husband. He's going to be tough, really tough, but if I can change his attitude towards me, just a little bit, if I can get him to talk about his husband, maybe I can get somewhere with him.

Maybe he'll be another success for me.