Struck By Love
A Trash Can Secret

Suddenly the lights turn on and with that ends the most beautiful dream that I have ever had. I was in my bed, with Blaine in my arms and we were sleeping and happy and everything was just the way it was supposed to be.

"Carson?" I hear my mom's voice. I grimace at the bright light and try to turn a little when I notice a weird weight on my stomach and chest. The memories from this afternoon suddenly come back and I open my eyes quickly and it's just what I expected. Blaine is wrapped around me, currently blinking and looking around the room, confused. His hair is messy and he looks adorable, I'd totally kiss him right now if it wasn't for the one other person in this room - my mom.

"Oh my God, mom?!" I shout. I didn't expect to sleep long, but outside is already dark and... my mom is actually out of the couch. The only time she chooses to actually leave the living room and come to check on me and it just has to be today.

"Who's that?" She asks and points to Blaine who just realized what is happening and is staring at my mom wide-eyed.

"Wait here," I tell Blaine, actually kiss him on his forehead (mom may be unstable, but she's not stupid, I bet she already knows what's going on, so there's no point hiding it anyway) and get out of bed, leading mom downstairs.

I think we're going to have to have that talk. What is it called again? Oh yeah, 'coming out'.

As soon as she's back in the living room, she sits into the couch in front of the TV and looks at me, expecting some answers. I sigh and sit on a chair in front of her.

"Mom," I start and suddenly my mouth goes dry. I've never done this before, is this what coming out feels like? Maybe I should have asked Blaine about it first, he's already come out to his parents. Mom stares at me, apparently getting tired of waiting, so I just shake my head and start again. "Mom," I say. "I'm- I'm g-gay." I say. I try to sound normal, it's not a big deal anyway, look at Nicholas and Scott, they're gay too.

"Okay," she says and then looks up to the ceiling where my room is. "Is that your boyfriend?" She asks then and looks back at me.

"Maybe," I answer. "What would you do if I said yes?"

She turns around to grab some pills from the table and opens a new bottle of wine. "Nothing, I guess," she says before swallowing them and getting comfortable on the couch again. "It's your life Carson," she continues. "I don't care what you want t get out of it, just make sure you don't get hurt... and all that parenting shit."

"Okay." I say a bit unsure if she really was okay with it or just drugged again.

"God I'm an awful parent..." she whispers, looking in front of her. I stand up and turn to leave, but look back at her again.

"And can he stay?" I ask.

"What?"

"Can he stay here? Overnight?" I repeat. My mom looks up at the ceiling again and then back at me. She nods after a while.

"Overnight." She agrees.

"Great," I say and hurry back into my room.

"Carson?" She stops me just before I start walking up the stairs. I turn to her.

"Yeah?" Seriously, what does she want again, I want to go back to him finally.

"What's his name?" She asks, looking at me. I swallow.

"Blaine." I smile then. "Blaine Anderson."

The door to Kurt's room open again and for a second I think it's his mom coming to kick me out. When Kurt's head appears though, I stand up and fling myself at him, relaxing into his warm embrace. Because what if she doesn't want me here and Kurt is just about to tell me that I can't stay? Kurt was right before, I have nowhere else to go.

"Hey, it's okay," He smiles and hugs me back. "You can stay here." He laughs.

"Really?" I ask and pull away slightly, looking into his eyes.

"Sure, my mom doesn't care." He says and kisses me. I moan into the kiss and close my eyes almost immediately. He pulls away then, takes my hand and leads me to a free chair in front in his table. "Come on, let's finish the homework."

"What time is it?" I ask and look for a clock. I can't replace it anywhere, where could it possibly-

"Shit," Kurt courses. "It's almost midnight."

With that he quickly pulls out his algebra homework and together we finally manage to solve the problem with the imaginary number. It still makes no sense, but at least we have the homework. Then he writes down a few names of the people he wants to blackmail tomorrow (I still don't agree and I will not take part in this plan, but it seems like there's nothing I can do to stop him).

Before I even think about it, it's 1:30am and we both took a quick shower (separately, I don't think we're ready for that yet and Kurt agrees.) We're both cuddling in bed now. I never knew what a cuddle whore I am before I met Kurt. I've never cuddled with anyone before, and when I do with Kurt now, it just feels so nice! I don't think I'll ever want to stop doing this.

He's lying on his side and we're spooning. He has his arm over my stomach under the blanket and his nose is in my hair. I breathe slowly in and then out, enjoying the moment of comfortable silence. It feels like home when I'm here with him, but... I'm not home.

"Kurt?" I whisper and already feel my eyes starting to burn. "What do I do if your mom doesn't let me stay here after tonight?" My voice trembles a little and I entwine our fingers under the blanket. He tightens his hold on me.

"She will let you stay here." He says. I'm not sure if he wants to make me believe that or himself. I take a deep breath.

"But what if she doesn't?" I ask him and turn around to look into his eyes. He looks at me and instead of answering he kisses me and presses his forehead against mine, holding the back of my neck with his hand.

"I'll take care of you," he promises. "I swear that I'll take you with me to Northwestern and that we'll live together so we can cuddle like this every night.

I feel myself smiling. "I'd like that." I whisper.

"Me too." He smiles and I kiss him goodnight. It's time to sleep after all and when I feel Kurt's presence right next to me, I feel safe and I don't have any troubles falling asleep.

Clovergate Day Two has been better than Day One! Today I blackmailed Dwayne and Vicki. For Dwayne Malerie prepared a fake weed and for Vicki I googled some Satan-worshipping cults. And you know what? It worked! She might not hide this from her peers, but she definitely doesn't want her parents to replace out. They teach Sunday school and something tells me they wouldn't be very happy if certain photos of her daughter with a whip in her mouth got in their hands.

I managed to do so much today, I think I didn't even go to the classes! I don't care though, I got chills that are telling me that my Northwestern acceptance letter would soon be on its way!

As yesterday I'm leaning against my car in the student parking lot, waiting for Blaine. I look at my wristwatch and then to the school's entrance. I sigh and close my eyes. It's really bad what happened to Blaine. It makes me so angry with his dad. My dad left me and mom and his dad kicked Blaine out. That would probably be one of I don't know how many things we have in common – shitty dads.

I look up again and see him walking towards me. He's wearing a bright violet top with green and red striped bow-tie and green trousers. As always, he looks gorgeous.

"Hi," he smiles at me, takes my hand and gives me a quick kiss. Since his dad already knows that his son has a boyfriend and my mom knows I'm gay, we don't have a reason to pretend. Blaine said that he was already out at his old school, and I don't care what people think about me, so that's one less problem for us. We can hold hands and kiss in public.

"Hello Mr. Handsome," I grin and kiss him again.

"Oh, so that makes you Ms. Handsome or Ms. Pretty?" He laughs and I open the door for him.

"No, I'm always Mr. MoreCleverThanYou," I answer in my best serious voice. But then we both laugh and I start the car, heading home.

The ride is mostly silent, but it's not the uncomfortable silence. It's comfortable like this, just him and me sitting next to each other, happy. Mostly happy. Okay, I admit it – I'm worried that my mom won't let him sleep in my room, there's still a chance that she'll say no. But she's drunk most of the time, so I'm almost 80% sure she'll say yes. I'm still worried though.

When we finally arrive home, mom is watching TV again and doesn't mind me and Blaine at all, so I check the mail as I do every day – still nothing. After that, we go to my room. Blaine pulls out his guitar from a big bag and after he tunes it and sits on my bed, he starts playing. He's not singing though, just playing. I don't know the song, but it's really nice.

"What song is that?" I ask after a while of listening to him and doing my homework.

He smiles to himself and answers. "It's Cough Syrup." Then he finally starts singing and I look up so I can watch him.

Life's too short to even care at all oh woah oh,

I'm losin' my mind, losin' my mind, losin' control.

These fishes in the sea, they're staring at me waoh oh,

Oh oh oh oh,

A wet world aches for a beat of a drum,

Oh.

If I could replace a way to see this straight

I'd run away

To some fortune that I should have found by now

I'm waiting for this cough syrup to come down, come down.

He stops playing and looks at me. He laughs and then I realize that my mouth is open and I'm staring at him. I laugh too. "You have wonderful voice." I say and he blushes a bit. I chuckle at that.

"Thanks," He smiles then. "Hey, don't you want to try to sing too? I'm sure your voice is just as amazing." He suddenly says and I smile again. Wait, wh-what? He wants me to do what?

"What?" I stutter and blink a few times. He laughs again.

"C'mon, Kurt," He says and stands up to take my hand. Weird enough, I don't refuse and let him lead me to the bed. We sit down again and he smiles at me. I suddenly panic.

"Blaine, I c-can't sing." I say. "I've never tried it, I'm horrible at singing."

"If you've never tried it, how do you know you're horrible then?" He says and gives me an old folded paper – the lyrics.

"O-okay then." I stutter again and prepare myself for the worst humiliation in the history of Carson Kurt Phillips. He doesn't take his eyes off of me, he just starts playing. It makes me wonder how does he know where exactly to put his fingers on the guitar to make it sound the way he wants. I hesitantly take a deep breath and in the next second I'm singing.

I don't know the song, but thanks to Blaine I remember the melody. At least bit.

Life's too short to even care at all oh

I'm coming up now, coming up now, out of the blue oh

These zombies in the park, they're looking for my heart

Oh oh oh oh

A dark world aches for a splash of the sun oh oh

I stop because I forgot the melody. I'm looking down, but when I hear no response from him I look up just to replace Blaine staring at me with his mouth open. I bet he looks like me just a minute ago.

"I know, I know. It was awful," I say and actually cover my face with my hands. Then I feel Blaine's fingers brush against my wrist. "What?" I ask and look at him again. "I know you're better, no one's ever taught me how to sing."

"Kurt," he starts and suddenly a huge smile appears on his face. "That was amazing!" He laughs and carefully puts away the guitar to give me a hug.

"You think?" I ask, my mouth against his shoulder.

"Kurt, I know it." He smiles and pulls back. "Your voice sound magical. I guess you're a countertenor."

"Which means?" I ask, I've never heard this word before, actually everything around music is foreign to me.

"That you can sing really high notes that even I can't hit." He explains. I don't know what's gotten into me, but I'm happy about it. I don't have to say that I sound like a girl anymore, I'm a countertenor and that sound really cool.

Blaine continues playing and I continue singing with him. We're having a great time, but after about half an hour we both get tired so we stop and start working on our homework again. I sit to my table with Blaine next to me and we start with Chemistry.

"Do you have water or something?" I ask after a while. "I'm thirsty."

"Yeah, of course. You can take the glass from a cupboard above the sink down in the kitchen." Kurt mumbles and continues writing on the paper. It's Chemistry and it involves pH and some acid and well... I'll leave him to it, that would probably be the best.

As I go down the stairs, I hear Kurt's mom. "Blaine?" She says. I tense a bit, but come to the living room anyway.

"Yes, Ms. Phillips?" I ask. I'm nervous, I've no idea what does she want to say.

"How long do you know Carson?" She asks, but doesn't look at me, the programme on the TV is probably more interesting for her.

"Um, about two weeks." I answer. Now that I think about it, it isn't really that long and look how far in our relationship we already are.

"Well that didn't take long," She mumbles. Then she looks at me. "Just don't hurt him, okay? I don't think he would take the betrayal of two men in his life very well, and who would wake me up in the morning then."

"I won't," I answer. Honestly, I don't know what else to say, but after I see that Ms. Phillips has turned her full attention to the TV, I just go to the kitchen for the water.

In all the mess around I manage to replace the cupboard and I take one glass that looks less dirty than all others and fill it with water. Then I turn around and lean against the sink. Their kitchen is messy, like the rest of the house, but it's still better than in my old room at old school.

The trash can is right on the other side of the kitchen and when I look at it, something catches my attention. I go closer and closer until I'm standing right next to it.

It looks like a...

I reach my hand and pull it out. It's a letter, suspiciously looking letter. I turn it around to read who is it from and gasp.

It's from the Northwestern University.