miss july.

She appreciated that he didn’t waste her time with feeble excuses but he sure as hell didn’t look ready to get it together. This one needed a healthy dose of tough love, and she believed in him enough to give it to him herself.

“Aw,” she said, lips gathering into a pout, mocking pity. “The novelty of the big city wearing off? You lonely? Homesick?“ 

It was tough on kids—she remembered her first months in New York, living off dreams, ramen noodles and weekly calls home. She’d pushed through it, throwing herself so deeply into her work that she couldn’t think about anything else. The sooner he learned to do the same, the better off he’d be.

Probably wrong of him to assume that an apology and a promise to not make excuses was going to get things back on track and let her give the students (all of them) her attention.  Didn’t stop his heart from falling to the floor and taking his stomach along with it on the way down when she kept her focus right on him.  So much for assuming.  Everyone knows what ‘assume’ means in the first place.  Right?

He could feel what guts he had left twist when she started to mock him.  Deep down past the nerves he felt were sandpapering themselves against their own edges as they became undone, frustration and anger began to simmer.  Hot, hotter…  The back of his mouth tasted awful.

Blaine swallowed the flavor of adrenaline and bitterness that tone drug out from where it’d been buried deep. His hands swung behind his back and clasped together to keep themselves from fidgeting.  “No.  Nothing like that.  As I said.  Excuses.  That’s all it’d be.  Thank you for asking.”