Blaine locks his eyes on the punching bag, refusing to see anything other than the smack of his fist against it despite the bile rising in his throat at the sound of Finn's voice.
"I said I think we should talk," Finn says.
"For the past few weeks, you've barely said two words to me," Blaine bites out through clenched teeth. "I'm not at your fucking whim, Finn."
"I think you'll want to listen to what I have to say."
"I think I don't really care right now," Blaine returns, landing a sharp punch to the bag.
"I'll stand here as long as it takes," Finn says calmly, "but I can't let you leave here without talking to me first."
"Are you gonna explain why you've been acting like such an ass to me lately? Because that's something I'll talk about."
"If you were standing in my shoes, dude, you'd say you deserved it."
"Jesus, I haven't done anything to you! But you - you look at me like I make you sick!" Blaine shouts, dropping his arms because he thinks he'll break them if he continues swinging so carelessly. He turns, feeling the fire sizzling in his eyes and hoping he burns Finn with his gaze. "And it's like - shit. I don't even - what is your problem with me, anyway?
"I've got a few right now," Finn states. "And I think you do, too."
"I don't have any problems, not beyond whatever this is with you."
"Well why don't you just come out of the closet?"
Blaine stops breathing. He feels as if someone smacked him in the stomach with a baseball bat. Finn simply stares at him, pity and sorrow twisting his expression into one Blaine doesn't recognize. He looks pretty tired, actually. Blaine can sympathize. He's exhausted.
But still, he has to fight. He sucks in a breath of air in an attempt to dissolve the dizziness he feels swimming behind his eyes. There's too much at stake now. He's too deep into this lie that he's created for himself and even though every day feels like he's digging another foot for his own grave, he steels himself and offers up a shrug and a blank stare.
"What are you talking about?" he asks.
"That must hurt," Finn says with a similar shrug to Blaine's, "to not be able to admit to everyone how you really feel. I bet it was really hard for Kurt, too, back in the day."
"Look," Blaine says, tugging off one of his gloves in order to flex his fingers. "I honestly don't know what you're talking about."
"I think you do," Finn says. "Most guys would get really angry about this. If I called another guy gay and he wasn't, he'd be pretty pissed. And then he'd probably try to fight me or something."
"Maybe I'm not most guys," Blaine snaps. "Being gay isn't an offensive thing to me. I have nothing to be mad about. But I don't know why you think I'm gay because I'm dating Rachel, in case you haven't noticed. And she's very much a girl."
"I know that. I also know that I saw you kissing my brother in the auditorium after the opening of West Side Story."
At first, all Blaine can do is gawk because Finn is very serious and Blaine knows he's serious because yeah, that's definitely something that happened. Blaine remembers it perfectly; he remembers the way Kurt had smelled like his face wash and hairspray and the tiniest dab of his cologne because Kurt doesn't like to overuse it. He remembers how soft Kurt's lips had been against his. He remembers the solid thumping of Kurt's heart beneath his chest where Blaine had placed their hands.
