Chapter 1
Blaine feels like a balloon. He’s been drifting, always drifting, since middle school when he suddenly didn’t fit into the world anymore, when he stopped making his parents proud. Kurt had momentarily grabbed hold of him as he floated by, attaching a string onto him so he wouldn’t drift off again, grounding him for the first time since he was a kid. But then Kurt had had too many new, exciting things to grab hold of in New York and suddenly he’d been fumbling with the string as it slipped through his fingers. One gust of wind and he’d let go of Blaine completely.
So now here he is, drifting alone again, trying not to think about what’s below him. He can feel the air leaking out of him, too slowly to notice unless someone was looking. But nowadays, no one is; they just stare right through him. He knows it’s only a matter of time before he shrivels completely and then he’ll fall downwards, picking up speed until he lands in a mangled heap on the rocks below. The string that had once felt like an anchor will twist around him, choke him until there’s nothing left. Ironic that a lifeline will ultimately destroy him.
The thing is, though, he knows it’s his own fault. It’s too draining to pretend otherwise anymore. He might as well have taken a pair of scissors and cut the string out of Kurt’s grip himself. Sometimes he thinks he did. His parents always did tell him that he brought these things on himself, that if he just tried harder, these things wouldn’t happen to him. He deserved everything he got and they were tired of him. He doesn’t blame them; he’s tired of himself.
Somewhere along the way, he has forgotten what he is fighting for. The fake, bright smile that he used to put on for performances has become the only smile he knows how to wear. It’s painfully unnatural to him whenever he catches fleeting glances of himself in the mirror or in pictures, yet no one else seems to notice. Or perhaps he has distanced himself enough that they simply no longer care. He vaguely registers that this revelation ought to sting but, as usual, all he feels is numbness—starting somewhere in his chest and spreading out towards his fingers and toes. It had terrified him at first; now, he likes it.
As he sits there on his bed and stares at the wall (completely blank, all the posters and pictures long since torn down), he wonders for the billionth time why he still insists on drifting like this? Why he doesn’t just stick a pin in himself so all the air rushes out faster? Why doesn’t he just end it? At first he’d dismissed them as stupid, rash thoughts and then, as they’d become more appealing, he’d convinced himself that he was far too much of a coward to actually go through with it. But if he has nothing more of himself to lose, no one else left to hurt, what’s the point of his body even being there, wondering around in a useless, never-ending routine?
He gets up slowly, stretches his arms above his head and relishes the small, satisfying crack of his shoulders. As he empties all the little pills from the bottle he’d found in the bathroom cabinet onto his desk, lining them up in neat rows of four, he feels so calm; the calmest he’s felt in months, really. Once they’re arranged in a perfect formation, he debates which row to take first. He selects the one furthest away from him in the end and pops it into his mouth, flicking it with his tongue before swallowing it down, chasing it with a gulp of water. He vaguely registers his phone buzzing on his nightstand but he’s too transfixed by the tiny dots on his desk to pay it any attention. They’re so small, yet so powerful; he is in awe of them. He pops another in his mouth, then another, and another after that. His phone vibrates again, persistent, and he wonders if he should have said goodbye to people, or at least left a note. But then, who would really care? They’d only try to stop him out of moral obligation and he’s too tired to get into that argument. Besides, he refuses to be a burden for a moment longer. Isn’t that the point of all this?
Shrugging to no one, he swallows three more pills in one go, not even intermittently swigging back water anymore; he likes the way they stick in his throat slightly, a barely-there scratch. Ten more and he starts to feel drowsy so he scoops up the remaining little ovals in his hand. He curses under his breath when he realises he has ruined the pattern and isn’t that just typical? He shoves the whole handful into his mouth before he can ruin anything else; this time he has to take a gulp of water to physically make himself swallow them all.
Lying back on his bed, he rolls onto his side and stares at the empty wall again. He wishes his life was a blank canvas too, wishes he could start over. But he can’t and this is the next best option. As he slips unconscious, his eyelids fluttering shut of their own accord, he feels relief trickle through him. He doesn’t have to disappoint anyone anymore; he can stop feeling numb and just fade away into nothing.
He has been a balloon for far too long; he’s sick of it. He wants to fall to the ground already and if he has to give himself the final shove, well, so be it.
