Fanfic - Getting Over It (part two)
“Kurt.”
Kurt hated registration. There were too many people, too may parents talking about asinine things, and the photographers always took the most unflattering shots for their identification cards. He frowned at the terrible picture on his new plastic ID before hastily shoving it into his wallet where he wouldn’t see it unless he needed to attend a sporting event or grab lunch from the cafeteria. It was terrible. Maybe even worse than his driver’s license. Thankfully, they always took the photos for the yearbook later on in the year when he had more time to prepare. At least that one wouldn’t be an embarrassment to hang on the walls at home or send to relatives he’d never see.
“Hey, Kurt.”
He moved through the jumble of parents and students while shuffling the stack of papers in his hands into some semblance of order as he tried to get to one of the walls near the entrance so he could wait for Mercedes. It would be quieter there, at the very least.
“Kurt!”
Kurt startled at the sound of his name and nearly dropped the messy papers in his hand as Mercedes ran to catch up to him. He smiled as she swept up to his side, panting a bit from her sprint.
“Hey, Mercedes.”
“Hey, yourself. I called you, like, five times.”
“Sorry. My mind was wandering. I wondered where you’d run off to, though. I lost you for a while back there.”
She straightened and scowled, jabbing her thumb toward a table near the front where a line of students and parents had gathered. “Yeah, well, some idiot put me down as needing bus service when they know damn well that I don’t. Never have. My dad always picks me up and takes me to school, and he will until I can get myself a car.” She shot him a sly look. “Unless, of course, you can convince your dad to let you have the Navigator back. Then you could take me.”
“I’ve been trying to get him to give me back my baby for the entire summer, ‘Cedes. It doesn’t really have anything to do with my tiara collection anymore; now it’s a worry about my safety on the road.” He rolled his eyes. Kurt was a perfectly safe driver, thank you very much, and if anything happened to the car, he’d at least have some idea of how to fix it. His dad was just being overprotective, and it was making him irrational. “I’m sure that after a few weeks of school, he’ll get tired of transporting me everywhere and let me drive again, since he refuses to let me ride the bus after that incident freshman year.”
She didn’t look overly convinced. “Mmhmm. So anyway, I had to get that mess sorted out, and I swear, they wouldn’t let me leave. Wanted me to pay for the whole thing, and wouldn’t listen because my dad’s not with me. Ridiculous.”
Kurt chuckled a little at that. “Yes, well, we’ve always guessed that Mr. Grissom has had it in for you.”
Her face darkened and she shot a glare at the offending teacher as he talked to the parent of another student in line for bus schedules.
“So what’s your schedule like?” he asked, trying to distract her.
“Huh? Oh, do you want to sit outside and compare or something? It’s a nice day, and my dad won’t be here for a while yet; this actually went a lot faster than I thought it would.”
Kurt shrugged. She was his ride home that morning, since his dad couldn’t afford to take any time off today to drive him, and the keys to the Navigator were still hidden somewhere he couldn’t find them. It was only registration today, and Kurt already had the necessary checks and things for student fees. They had time. “If you want, but before we head outside, do you want to check out where our lockers are? I really don’t want a repeat of my freshman year and have it end up somewhere stupidly inconvenient or, god forbid, outside the locker rooms.”
She leaned over and tried to catch a glimpse at his schedule and locker assignment. “Yeah, that would probably be a good thing to do. Hey, I think we’re in the same English class.”
He looped his arm through hers and rolled his eyes with a smile. “Walk and talk, Mercedes. Then we can get this done faster and get to the real important things, like how awful the new fall colors are for this year and what kind of animal Rachel will have on her sweater for the first day of school.”
---
Unfortunately, their lockers were nowhere near each other this year. Mercedes’s locker was upstairs in one of the main halls, conveniently close to their shared English class, but fairly far from her math classroom, while Kurt’s was downstairs, close to the bathrooms.
Kurt leaned against the smooth wall of lockers, his attention focused on the schedules in his hand, as Mercedes twisted in her combination for the second time, making absolutely sure that it worked. “You know, Mercedes, you’re going to have to take a science class sooner or later. They won’t let you graduate without one.”
“Oh, but I am.” She tugged at the lock, but the thing wouldn’t budge. No luck. Scowling, she once again inspected the combination scribbled on the little slip of paper she’d been given. Maybe she’d just put it in wrong.
Kurt raised an eyebrow at the soft curses escaping her lips and looked back down at her schedule in his hand. “I don’t know that this physics class counts.”
“It’s a science class; it’s got labs and stuff. And it’s more math than anything else. I’m way better at math than any of that nonsense they want us to know for chemistry or biology. Doesn’t mean I like it or anything, but still,” she shot him a pointed look and raised her voice a little higher so that she sounded almost exactly like her mother, “we have college to think about.”
He huffed out a breathy laugh. “That’s true, I suppose.”
“The advisor said it counted, so I’m taking his word for it.” The locker finally snapped open and Mercedes gave a whoop of victory. She turned to Kurt and jutted her hip out to the side. “Okay, white boy, how about we go try yours?”
“Sure thing.” He transferred all of the papers to one arm and extended the other, empty one out for her to take. His smile was light as they traipsed through the halls toward the stairs. He glanced at the sheets tucked into his elbow, and a sudden thought occurred to him. “So, how do you think Finn is going to do in Spanish this year?”
“Is he still taking that?”
“Probably. Mr. Schue is his favorite teacher, and I don’t think he’s been able to move past Spanish two, so he wouldn’t have to worry about getting a new teacher.”
“Not surprising. That sounds like Finn. He can’t pick up languages like you or Rachel.” They reached the tall concrete stairs and started up the steps. Another student, a sophomore by the look of him, passed them by with his mother, pointing out to her on his schedule where each of his classrooms were located.
He smiled down at her. He’d grown a couple inches over the summer and their height difference was pretty apparent now. “I think that’s one of the reasons Mr. Schue has stayed away from songs with lyrics in anything but straight American English.”
That got a laugh out of her as they rounded the corner to hall where Kurt’s locker was. Mercedes pointed at the top row of blue lockers spread out before them. “That’s yours, babe. 152.”
“How on earth did you know that?”
“I caught a glimpse at your papers. And I’m good with numbers, remember?”
“Whatever. Here.” He slid out his locker assignment and passed his armful of papers to her. Mercedes sighed and began to flip through them, glancing over the honor code and pages describing various school policies. She didn’t notice the change in Kurt’s breath or the way he started shaking like a leaf when he finally got a good look at the paper in his hand.
“Mercedes.”
“Hmm?” She didn’t look up form the papers, still rifling through them to see if there was anything worthwhile.
“Mercedes.” His voice was more insistent this time, and she caught a hint of a tremor there in his light tenor. She looked up with a confused frown.
“Yeah, Kurt?” His eyes were wide and she could hear the paper in his hand fluttering as he shook. He was breathing kind of funny too. “Hey, are you okay?”
“I-no. No, I’m not”
That scared her. Kurt never admitted to weakness.
“I-Mercedes, can we switch lockers?”
“Why? You haven’t even tried your combination yet, and yours is closer to most of your classes, isn’t it?”
“Can we trade?” It was like he hadn’t even heard her. His pupils had constricted into tiny dots, and she could have sworn he was starting to hyperventilate.
“Okay. Yeah, sure. Do you, do you need some water or something? I can try out the combination here while you do that. I mean, the bathrooms are like, right there.”
“Yeah. Yeah, water would be good.” He passed the paper in his hand to her and walked stiffly down the hall. Mercedes watched him go, worry etched into her brow. Kurt had never acted like that before and it scared her. She’d have to ask him about it later, maybe over ice cream or something. She inspected the locker assignment in her hand and set to memorizing the new combination.
4-17-0. Shouldn’t be too hard.
---
Kurt splashed the cold water spraying from the sink over his face, not caring if it got his hair wet. That could be fixed later. Right now he needed to get his head on straight.
It was stupid. He was bring stupid. Those numbers didn’t mean anything anymore, shouldn’t mean anything anymore. It was just his stupid locker number from the third grade, not a death sentence. But seeing them all together like that had caused his chest to tighten and his hands to go numb.
He looked up at his reflection, his bloodshot eyes and pale face. God, he was a mess. He leaned forward and tried to inspect the thin veins discoloring his eyes. But as he got closer, his face morphed into someone else entirely. The curve of his jaw became softer, his eyes bluer, his hair longer with a soft curl at the bottom. He placed his hand on the smooth glass of the mirror, not really believing what he was seeing.
“Mom.” His whispered voice echoed throughout the empty bathroom, like a prayer lost in the confines of the cool tiles, trying desperately to escape.
The image disappeared as fast as it had appeared and Kurt realized that there were hot tracks of tears coursing down his cheeks. He touched his hand to his face and tried to banish the image of his mother from his head.
She was dead. Had been for a long time now. There was no need to keep doing this to himself. She was dead.
He shoved his hand back under the cool rush of water and scrubbed it over his face. He needed to get himself together. Mercedes was waiting.
---
Kurt could have sworn he was over this by now. The darkness of his room, usually so calming and comforting, now felt suffocating, like it had crept into his lungs and was now consuming him from the inside out. He desperately wanted to climb up the stairs, escape the plain white walls of his room and check on his dad. Or just do something. Anything but sit here alone in the dark.
He’d been okay for so long now, and he couldn’t believe that something so stupid as a set of numbers at registration would set him back so far. He’d been fine. No nightmares. No flashbacks. Nothing. And now, weeks later, he couldn’t stand to spend time alone in his room without getting so anxious that he wanted to tear off his skin. The thought of actually falling asleep terrified him to no end, so he sat there, perched on the edge of his bed in his pajamas, waiting for time to speed the hell up.
The insomnia was really starting to do hell on his grades, and the bags under his eyes were becoming prominent enough that people were starting to notice. Even Mr. Schuester, the king of obliviousness, had pulled him aside yesterday to ask if he was all right. Kurt ran a hand through the messy ends of his hair. This whole thing was getting out of hand again, and Kurt really didn’t know what to do. He glanced at the stairs, his ears straining to hear any kind of movement from upstairs. There was nothing. He should go check on his dad. See if he was okay. Kurt couldn’t stop seeing him crunched up and broken in the driver’s seat of his truck, and it was only making the restlessness grow, even if he knew for certain that his dad was simply upstairs, asleep in his bed.
He should go check on him. Just to be sure. But he couldn’t get his feet to move.
For the first time in months, Kurt was glad that his dad still had the keys to the Navigator. His dad had left it unlocked the other day, and Kurt had climbed inside on a whim, trying to see if he remembered the feel of being behind the wheel, of sitting in the driver’s seat.
He still hadn’t quite gotten over the twist of shame that curled in his gut at the thought of his dad finding him bundled up in the car, his face red and swollen from tears. He’d apparently been crying there in the cab for hours, but Kurt had lost all that time. He didn’t remember anything past getting into the car. It was like waking from a nightmare he could only half remember to his dad’s worried face hovering above him. He dreaded to think what might have happened if he’d actually tried to drive.
He looked at the clock again and then back at the walls. The shadows thrown across the room from the lamp on his bedside table were making him even more nervous. He gripped the fabric of his sheets tight enough to bleach his fingers white. This was far more difficult than he’d expected, and he wasn’t sure how much longer her could hold out just sitting here waiting for dawn. What if something was happening right now, and he was too cowardly to go upstairs and do something about it? The silence was only making things worse.
He should talk to his dad. Tell him about the anxiety and the return of the flashbacks. The last thing he wanted to do was worry the man, but this was starting to get out of hand. He needed to talk to someone again.
Kurt released his grip on his blankets and forced himself to his feet. He’d just go upstairs for a little while. Maybe check on his dad, see if he was okay. Maybe do some cleaning or something. That always seemed to calm him down. He headed for the stairs, his bare feet barely making a sound on the soft white carpet.
---
The large brown warehouse that was McKinley High rose up before them, and Kurt shrank a bit into his seat, clutching at his seatbelt hard enough for the edges of the strap to cut faint red lines on his palms.
His dad pulled up to the drop off point and shifted the car into park. He didn’t make any move to unlock the doors, silently staring at the dashboard for a moment before turning to his son. “You sure you’re going to be okay, Kurt? I know you-”
“No, dad.” He quickly unbuckled himself from his seat and reached down to grab the satchel at his feet. His dad had been walking on eggshells around him since he’d admitted that he wasn’t coping again, that he should probably go back to see Dr. Robinson for the first time in months. He pulled his bag into his lap and shot his dad a quick, shaky smile. “No, I’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure? Because-”
Kurt silenced him with a hand over his dad’s calloused fingers. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”
“Okay.” He seemed hesitant, but didn’t push the issue. “But you call me if anything’s wrong.”
“I’ll do that.”
“I’ve got my cell phone on me, but you can always call the garage.”
“I know that. I’ll be fine, dad.”
“I know, but I worry, Kurt. You haven’t had anything like this for a while now, and…” He trailed off, but Kurt knew what he meant by it. They hadn’t had to deal with this for a year or so and now it was back full force with very little explanation as to why. Things would get better; they just had to give it time.
“I know,” he whispered, his hand tight around the door handle.
“Well, have a good day. Give me a call when you need me to pick you up.”
“Okay.” Kurt stepped out of the car, giving his dad one last quick smile before walking away into the building. “I’ll see you after school.”
---
He wasn’t really sure what the glee club was all abuzz about, but Kurt was more than a little irritated that he seemed to be one of the last to know about this gossip. He leaned down to tap Mercedes on the shoulder and get her attention.
“What’s up, Kurt?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s everyone flocking to Puck for? Did he manage to piss off the mayor by sleeping with his daughter or something? I wouldn’t put it past him. That vasectomy story he was throwing around was as implausible as his insistence that flexing his muscles is all it takes to get him everything he’ll ever need in life.” He picked at a loose thread on the cuff of his sleeve. It really was a shame that not everything in his extensive wardrobe could be designer quality, but no amount of saving and scouring the shelves during sales could allow him a full closet of nothing but well-labeled clothing.
She giggled a little, rolling her eyes. “No, though I like your theory better than the reality. It was his birthday this weekend, and his aunt in Cleveland went out and helped him get a car.”
Kurt looked up from his sleeve and drug his eyes over to the cluster of kids on the other side of the room. Finn looked to be unreasonably excited about the whole prospect of his ex-best friend getting a car, but Kurt supposed that after a summer of dragging Puck’s sorry butt around town in an effort to rekindle their friendship, any reprieve would be a welcome one.
“What model did he get?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t see him come in this morning. Something used, I suppose, but I would kill to have a car of my own to drive.”
“Hmm.” Kurt had one, though it sat unused in the dark safety of their garage.
“Speaking of which, has your dad let up on you yet?”
“No.” He hadn’t told her that even if his dad had given him back the keys to the Navigator, he wouldn’t have been able to drive it. Not right now.
She sighed and sunk down into her seat, her arms crossed indignantly in front of her chest. “I don’t understand why he’s being such a hard ass about this. You dad’s usually such a cool guy.”
Kurt raised his hand to inspect his nails. He really didn’t want to be having this conversation right now. “He has his reasons.”
She didn’t sound convinced. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Hey, Kurt?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think we could maybe hang out after school? I feel like we haven’t done anything together outside of glee club in forever.”
He bit his lip for just a split second before he realized that it might give him away. “I can’t today, Mercedes.”
“Why not? You’ve kind of been avoiding me for a while now. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. I just, my dad has needed some extra help at the garage lately-we’re kind of short-staffed since one of the guys quit-but I should be free Wednesday after glee.”
She raised an eyebrow at that. “Why not tomorrow? You busy then too?”
“Yes.” She didn’t need to know that he had his first therapy appointment in months tomorrow, and that it was freaking him out so badly that the very thought of seeing his therapist’s face made his stomach turn. Dr. Robinson was a nice woman, really, and very good at her job. Kurt just hated to admit that he needed her help again after he’d finally gotten all of this under control.
He smiled down at her, trying to change the topic. “But I have a better question for you. Just how long do you think it’ll be before we end up seeing Puck’s car at the shop?”
Mercedes grinned back at him, even though she knew he was deflecting. “Probably a week.”
Kurt glanced over at the group once more. Puck was posturing, grandly boasting about drag racing and all of the other asinine adolescent mischief he could get up to now that he finally had his own car. Kurt let out an amused snort and shook his head. “Darling, I think you’re give him too much credit. This is Puck we’re talking about. Three days at best.”
“You wanna make a bet of it?”
“What kind of stakes are we talking here?”
“I win, I pick your outfit for a day. You win, you pick mine for a day.”
“I think I could live with that. You’re on.”
---
Kurt stepped outside the building toward the student parking lot, his phone out and ready to call up his dad. His day had hardly been noteworthy, but he was glad for once that they didn’t have glee rehearsal after school. His nerves were starting to get the best of him again, and by the end of math class, he’d been itching to see his dad again and make sure that he was safe. He hated the nagging feeling that something had happened and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
He looked up as he punched in the last number, and he spotted a small gaggle of students gathered around one of the cars still left in the parking lot. He recognized Brittany, Santana and a few of the other cheerleaders. And Puck was there, looking prouder than ever. This was probably his new car. Kurt huffed out an amused breath as he hit ‘send’ and pressed the phone to his ear. He craned his neck to the side, trying to get a better look at the car through the forest of bodies surrounding it. The thing was probably nothing special, but since it belonged to one of the biggest badasses in school, it was big news. Whatever.
“Kurt? Is that you, bud?”
“Yeah, dad. It’s me.” He chuckled lightly. “Did you even look at the caller ID?”
“No. I never really bother with that thing. You’re pretty much the only one who calls my cell phone anyway. You need me to come pick you up?”
“Yeah, I-” he stopped short as s group of girls moved over to the side, and his eyes caught a flash of crimson metal. Oh god.
“Kurt? You okay?”
He didn’t answer. It was taking almost everything he had just to keep the phone in his hand. That was his mom’s car. Puck’s car was exactly the fucking same. His breath came in heavy and fast, and a sudden rush of static filled his ears.
“Kurt?” His dad’s voice was getting louder and more worried. “Kurt, I need you to talk to me.”
“Dad, I-” he swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump that had formed in his throat. He could see it, the crushed metal, the shattered glass. His mother’s bloody, broken body lying mangled in the front seat. “I need you to come get me.”
---
Red. Everywhere he looked was red. Everything, every single surface was stained that same terrifying shade of scarlet that had haunted his nightmares for the past several years-red like the roses that used to grow in his grandmother’s garden, red like the color of his mother’s old red sedan, red like blood-and suddenly Kurt couldn’t breathe.
He knew that he must have fallen to the ground because his feet had somehow pressed themselves up tight beneath his thighs and tiny bits of rock found their way to the hard curve of his knees, digging and gouging into the skin there like tiny knives through the fabric of his pants. He didn’t know how exactly it happened that he ended up on the ground nor does he particularly care. Just so long as the static filling his head went away in a reasonable amount of time.
His fingers and palms felt oddly wet and sticky against what had to be pavement against his skin, like sweat had worked its way over the appendages and dried, leaving behind a terrible residue to be washed away when the sensation finally became unbearable. He lifted up his hand to inspect it, to reassure himself that what he was feeling was just an overreaction, but as he held his hands up to his eyes to inspect them, to make absolutely certain that he wasn‘t losing his mind, his heart sank. The skin there was a dark, dark crimson-almost black to his eyes. Just as though he’d dipped them in blood (maybe he had, and his mind was just blurring everything for the sake of what little sanity he had left).
Kurt flexed his fingers, and the blood moved with them. He couldn’t hold in the tears now. This was real, too real, and his hands were coated with his innocent mother’s blood, and oh god, this was all his fault, wasn’t it?
His breath came in hitching little gasps, catching in his throat and causing a terrible stabbing tightness in his chest, making him choke. Tears were stinging his eyes, and his cheeks were hot and burning. This was too much, far too much, but he couldn’t make himself stop. Someone was screaming above the static in the background, but he couldn’t make out any words, he couldn’t figure out who it was or where the sound was coming from. He wondered absently if his mom had been screaming too when she died. Maybe she was the one screaming now. It was too much. It was too hard, and Kurt was lost. He really didn’t know what to do.
“Kurt? Kurt, are you okay?”
“Wha?” There was a warm hand on his back, and he looked up, trying to focus his gaze on the hazy face before him. The darkness around the edges of his vision was fading, the red bleeding away to allow for faint hints of color to seep through, though a great deal of red still remained. It was brighter than before, and edged with white. And pale yellow. Like yellow hair. Blonde. He knew the person in front of him very well; his brain was just having trouble placing a name to the face. “Brittany?”
The tall blonde smiled down at him, her hand never leaving where it had firmly planted itself on his back. Her smile quickly fell only to be replaced with confusion. “Why are you on the ground?”
Kurt ignored her, searching the pavement around him in fumbling, awkward gropes. “Where is it?” he mumbled, more to himself than to anyone else. There were vague murmurs floating around above him, coming from multiple different sources. Brittany wasn’t alone. Fantastic. He was breaking down in the middle of…wherever the hell he was, and he had an audience. Fan-freaking-tastic. He searched a little faster, his movements oddly frantic.
“Where is what, Kurt?”
“My phone,” he murmured back. He wasn’t really sure who had asked the question in the first place. It had sounded far too masculine for Brittany, but he couldn’t be sure. Nothing made sense anymore. “I can’t find my phone.”
His fingers brushed over the rough pavement until they hit smooth plastic. His palms were most assuredly scraped, the broken skin burning, but his heart rate slowed. He had his phone. He still had his phone, and everything was going to be okay. That meant his dad was nearby, and he was safe. His cell phone meant he was safe because his dad could find him.
“Kurt, are you okay?”
“Hey guys, what’s going on?”
“It that the gay kid?”
Oh god, it was getting worse. There were still people surrounding him, still people hovering over him and looking at him like he was some sort of animal at the zoo, and more were coming, judging by the growing number of voices and unfamiliar shoes clustered together in his line of sight.
“Go away.”
“What?” Brittany’s voice was close and overly loud in his ear. Kurt could feel the soft press of her breasts against his shoulder. Her breath smelled sweet, like she had been sucking on some sort of hard candy. She was too close.
“Go away. Please. Just go away.”
No one was listening to him. No one was leaving him alone, and the pressure was becoming unbearable. His vision was back in full and the attack had passed, but the embarrassment was overwhelming. Everyone saw. Everyone knew. And there was nothing that he could do about it.
He curled himself over his knees and brought his phone up in front of his eyes. The time. He needed to know what time it was. It was too late already. Far too late, but his dad was on his way, and it would only be a few minutes before he made it to school grounds. Then everything would be okay, and everyone would leave him alone. Just a few more minutes and everything would be okay.
He pressed one of the tiny buttons on the side of his phone, and the screen lit up like a beacon. The numbers burned themselves into his retinas as the device slipped from his fingers once more. It wasn’t fair. It really wasn’t fair.
The tears started up again in earnest, and everything faded away. It wasn’t fair. His mom was dead and his dad was missing, and it was all his fault. His palms were cut and bleeding from the shattered glass of the windshield, his head caught in a vice of mangled car frame, and he couldn’t breathe.
The screen of Kurt’s phone faded away as it switched over to sleep mode, taking the time with it. But it didn’t matter. He could still see the numbers-he could still feel them like a knife to the chest.
4:17 pm.
It was too late. It was always too late. His parents were dead and it would never stop being his fault.
---
Kurt didn’t come back until Friday, allowing the news of Kurt’s breakdown in the parking lot to take hold amongst the student body and spread like wildfire. There were eyes watching his every move from the second he stepped out of his dad’s car and whispers that haunted his footsteps as he navigated the halls.
He’d been expecting it-his therapist had even talked to him about how he should deal with the whole thing during their last session-but the reality was far harder to bear. Everyone knew. Everyone knew he was crazy. And there was nothing that he could do about it.
He held his head up high as he made his way toward the nurse’s office, doing his best to ignore the soft rattle of pills coming from his bag that he simply knew everyone could hear. He just needed to drop them and the permission slip off with the nurse and be done with it. Everyone already knew he was crazy, so what did it matter trying to hide anything?
He pushed open the heavy wooden door and faked a smile at the kindly old woman behind the desk. He’d only been in here once, maybe twice before, and it made him supremely uncomfortable. The office itself was small, and posters of various maladies and how to avoid them littered the walls. He dug into the main pocket of his bag until his fingers caught on the curved surface of the pill bottle buried at the bottom. The paper he wanted had been slid between the cover of his English notebook. He plucked them out and carefully laid them on the counter.
“My dad said I needed to give these to you.”
Her small wrinkled hands grabbed the paper and pill bottle, pulling them behind the desk so she could inspect them better. After looking over the items for a moment, she looked back up at Kurt, straightening her glasses to keep them firmly on the bridge of her nose. “Thank you, dear. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No, I’ll be fine. So, um, I’ll just come and get those from you later? Like, when I need them, right?”
“According to your form and prescription, yes, Mr. Hummel. If you feel like you need this, just come in and see me. Anytime.”
Kurt swallowed, straightening his back and gripping the strap of his bag so hard under his fingers that the skin began to pale with the pressure. “I will. Um, thank you. Mrs. Hartman. I’ll see you around.”
---
Kurt was restless. His foot tapped endlessly against the hard tile of the cafeteria floor, and his thumb flicked over the metal tab of the can of soda water he’d brought with him. The rest of his lunch sat before him, open but untouched. It was small and light, certainly healthy lest his dad get the wrong idea. But really, he didn’t know why he’d bothered packing the damn thing in the first place. He wasn’t hungry-hadn’t been for several days. He’d only eaten at his dad’s insistence anyway.
“Kurt?” Puck. Dear lord, he was probably the very last person Kurt wanted to talk to right now. The muscular boy sat down across from him, his tray of mushy, unappetizing cafeteria food clacking loudly against the table with him.
Kurt twisted the metal tab around, his eyes glued to the tiny red stain on the table in front of him. Probably from some sort of fruit drink. They all tasted the same anyway, and that color was a bitch to get out of most every surface imaginable. “What do you want, Puckerman?”
Puck reached over and grabbed one of the pretzels from the open bag containing Kurt’s lunch, popping it into his mouth. “What do you think?”
Kurt sighed and looked away, his glare shooting off toward the open doors leading out into the hallway. His body shifted with the added weight of more bodies joining the pair at the table. It was the glee club. Well, most of them. Those that hadn’t been there Tuesday afternoon had probably gotten all they needed to know from Brittany or Santana. Or Puck. Or whoever the heck else had been there that day.
He could see Artie wheeling up to them along the edge of the table out of the corner of his eye. Puck was crunching loudly on the pretzel, his eyes completely fixed on Kurt. Someone was touching his arm in a vain attempt at comfort.
“Seriously, Tinkles, what the hell was that the other day?”
He shot her a scathing look. “Really? That’s the best you can do?”
Santana didn’t say a word. No one did. Tina was seated beside him; her small hand was warm on his arm through the fabric of his sleeve. Kurt’s eyes swept over the group that had gathered around him, every eye was fixated on him.
“I’m fine, okay? Nothing happened.”
“You were sobbing in the parking lot, dude. That didn’t seem like nothing.”
Shut up, shut up. You don’t know anything. “And I’m fine now. I don’t know why everyone is making such a big deal about this.”
“Because you had a freakout. Like, a major one. And then you disappeared for a few days. Seriously, what’s going on with you?”
Kurt really didn’t want to talk about this. Not right now. Not to these kids. They wouldn’t understand. He sipped at his water, the bubbles running smoothly over his tongue. Their eyes hadn’t left him. “What do you want me to say?”
“We just want to know what happened, Kurt.” It was Mercedes. Her voice was soft and saturated with concern. He looked over the gathered group once more, at their worried, eager faces.
“Look, I-” He swallowed and lowered his gaze to the table. This was stupid. Telling them wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t make the nightmares and never-ending paranoia leave him. “It’s my mom,” he whispered, half hoping that no one would hear.
“Your mom?”
“Yeah, my mom.” Now leave me the hell alone.
“But wait, isn’t your mom dead? I thought she died like, years ago.”
“Yes, thank you for your startling insight, Artie. I wasn’t aware of this fact before.”
“You didn’t know your mom was dead?”
“No, Brittany, that was called sarcasm. Of course I know my mom is dead.”
“So, then, did something happen with her grave? Or, um, I don’t know, your dad started dating again?”
He shot a quick glare Mercedes’s way. “My dad is fine. I’m fine. We’re fine. Nothing’s wrong. I don’t know why you guys are so adamant about this.”
“Because you were curled up crying on the sidewalk after school on Tuesday until your dad came and got you. Then you show up today and act like nothing happened. You keep telling us nothing’s wrong. What’s really going on, Kurt?”
“I told you already, I’ve been having problems with my mom.”
“We know that’s not true, Kurt.”
“Your mom’s dead, dude.”
Kurt shot up in his seat, releasing the can of sparkling water in his hands and slamming his palms down on the table with a resounding smack. “Don’t you think I know that?! She’s dead, I get it. Car accident, pure and simple. Eight years ago. She’s dead, and I had problems with her death, okay? When I was little, I would have panic attacks and things, all right?”
“But what does that have to do with you now?”
“They never really stopped,” he quietly admitted as he slid back down into his seat. His heart was racing in his chest, his head and fingers tingling with adrenaline. His medication. He needed his damn medication already, and it had only been one day. One goddamn day and already he couldn’t calm himself down without chemicals. Fan-fucking-tastic.
“What?”
“They never really stopped. I get-I don’t know, flashbacks and stuff.”
“Flashbacks? Kurt, were you with her when she died?”
“No.”
“But then why-?”
“Does it really matter? I have problems with her death, all right? I don’t know why I haven’t been able to get over it…I just can’t.”
The group was silent for a moment. Kurt’s hands had moved back to his water. He couldn’t bear to look at them anymore.
Puck was the first to speak. “Dude, that’s…kind of pathetic.”
His head shot up. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What did you say?”
“What do you mean?”
“What did you just say?” His voice was hard and deadly quiet.
“I mean, I get that you’re sad and all because I mean, it’s your mom, but it’s been eight years. You should be over it by now.”
“Yeah, Kurt. Aren’t you being kind of dramatic about this?”
“What? No, I-”
“And it’s not like anything really bad is happening to you, right? I mean, no one’s hitting you or anything.”
“You don’t have any real problems, dude. You should just, you know, get over it.”
Kurt went still. His friends’ words flew over his head, and everything blurred as though they were moving in fast-forward while he was stuck on pause.
Get over it.
Get over it.
Get over it.
So many people had been telling him to get the hell over his mother’s death because it happened all those years ago, and really, shouldn’t he be better by now? But it wasn’t that fucking easy. He couldn’t just turn his problems on and off like a switch. The brain, well, his brain anyway, just didn’t work that way. No, because then things would be far too easy, wouldn’t they?
He reached out and began stuffing his uneaten food back into the little plastic containers he’d brought them in, not caring about how neat or clean or healthy anything was. It didn’t matter anyway.
“And this,” he hissed as he finished his frantic packing, “this is why I don’t talk about anything to you guys. I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
Mercedes reached out to him, trying to calm him down. “But Kurt-”
“No!” The table went silent. Kurt was shaking with emotion, his hands and shoulders trembling. “You don’t understand. Don’t pretend to. Yes, she’s dead. Yes, it’s been eight long years. No, I’m not over it.” His eyes ghosted over the stunned faces before him one last time. “But honestly? Honestly, I’d rather be abused. You don’t know how many times over the years I’ve wished that someone was beating the hell out of me so that I’d have some real problems to worry about.”
He could barely hold onto the sad remnants of his lunch, the plastic bag he’d brought everything in rustled as his fingers shook. “You all have no idea…” His eyes were stinging with tears. He really needed his medication. “You have no idea what I would do to get the most important person in my life back.”
---
Part one
Kurt hated registration. There were too many people, too may parents talking about asinine things, and the photographers always took the most unflattering shots for their identification cards. He frowned at the terrible picture on his new plastic ID before hastily shoving it into his wallet where he wouldn’t see it unless he needed to attend a sporting event or grab lunch from the cafeteria. It was terrible. Maybe even worse than his driver’s license. Thankfully, they always took the photos for the yearbook later on in the year when he had more time to prepare. At least that one wouldn’t be an embarrassment to hang on the walls at home or send to relatives he’d never see.
“Hey, Kurt.”
He moved through the jumble of parents and students while shuffling the stack of papers in his hands into some semblance of order as he tried to get to one of the walls near the entrance so he could wait for Mercedes. It would be quieter there, at the very least.
“Kurt!”
Kurt startled at the sound of his name and nearly dropped the messy papers in his hand as Mercedes ran to catch up to him. He smiled as she swept up to his side, panting a bit from her sprint.
“Hey, Mercedes.”
“Hey, yourself. I called you, like, five times.”
“Sorry. My mind was wandering. I wondered where you’d run off to, though. I lost you for a while back there.”
She straightened and scowled, jabbing her thumb toward a table near the front where a line of students and parents had gathered. “Yeah, well, some idiot put me down as needing bus service when they know damn well that I don’t. Never have. My dad always picks me up and takes me to school, and he will until I can get myself a car.” She shot him a sly look. “Unless, of course, you can convince your dad to let you have the Navigator back. Then you could take me.”
“I’ve been trying to get him to give me back my baby for the entire summer, ‘Cedes. It doesn’t really have anything to do with my tiara collection anymore; now it’s a worry about my safety on the road.” He rolled his eyes. Kurt was a perfectly safe driver, thank you very much, and if anything happened to the car, he’d at least have some idea of how to fix it. His dad was just being overprotective, and it was making him irrational. “I’m sure that after a few weeks of school, he’ll get tired of transporting me everywhere and let me drive again, since he refuses to let me ride the bus after that incident freshman year.”
She didn’t look overly convinced. “Mmhmm. So anyway, I had to get that mess sorted out, and I swear, they wouldn’t let me leave. Wanted me to pay for the whole thing, and wouldn’t listen because my dad’s not with me. Ridiculous.”
Kurt chuckled a little at that. “Yes, well, we’ve always guessed that Mr. Grissom has had it in for you.”
Her face darkened and she shot a glare at the offending teacher as he talked to the parent of another student in line for bus schedules.
“So what’s your schedule like?” he asked, trying to distract her.
“Huh? Oh, do you want to sit outside and compare or something? It’s a nice day, and my dad won’t be here for a while yet; this actually went a lot faster than I thought it would.”
Kurt shrugged. She was his ride home that morning, since his dad couldn’t afford to take any time off today to drive him, and the keys to the Navigator were still hidden somewhere he couldn’t find them. It was only registration today, and Kurt already had the necessary checks and things for student fees. They had time. “If you want, but before we head outside, do you want to check out where our lockers are? I really don’t want a repeat of my freshman year and have it end up somewhere stupidly inconvenient or, god forbid, outside the locker rooms.”
She leaned over and tried to catch a glimpse at his schedule and locker assignment. “Yeah, that would probably be a good thing to do. Hey, I think we’re in the same English class.”
He looped his arm through hers and rolled his eyes with a smile. “Walk and talk, Mercedes. Then we can get this done faster and get to the real important things, like how awful the new fall colors are for this year and what kind of animal Rachel will have on her sweater for the first day of school.”
---
Unfortunately, their lockers were nowhere near each other this year. Mercedes’s locker was upstairs in one of the main halls, conveniently close to their shared English class, but fairly far from her math classroom, while Kurt’s was downstairs, close to the bathrooms.
Kurt leaned against the smooth wall of lockers, his attention focused on the schedules in his hand, as Mercedes twisted in her combination for the second time, making absolutely sure that it worked. “You know, Mercedes, you’re going to have to take a science class sooner or later. They won’t let you graduate without one.”
“Oh, but I am.” She tugged at the lock, but the thing wouldn’t budge. No luck. Scowling, she once again inspected the combination scribbled on the little slip of paper she’d been given. Maybe she’d just put it in wrong.
Kurt raised an eyebrow at the soft curses escaping her lips and looked back down at her schedule in his hand. “I don’t know that this physics class counts.”
“It’s a science class; it’s got labs and stuff. And it’s more math than anything else. I’m way better at math than any of that nonsense they want us to know for chemistry or biology. Doesn’t mean I like it or anything, but still,” she shot him a pointed look and raised her voice a little higher so that she sounded almost exactly like her mother, “we have college to think about.”
He huffed out a breathy laugh. “That’s true, I suppose.”
“The advisor said it counted, so I’m taking his word for it.” The locker finally snapped open and Mercedes gave a whoop of victory. She turned to Kurt and jutted her hip out to the side. “Okay, white boy, how about we go try yours?”
“Sure thing.” He transferred all of the papers to one arm and extended the other, empty one out for her to take. His smile was light as they traipsed through the halls toward the stairs. He glanced at the sheets tucked into his elbow, and a sudden thought occurred to him. “So, how do you think Finn is going to do in Spanish this year?”
“Is he still taking that?”
“Probably. Mr. Schue is his favorite teacher, and I don’t think he’s been able to move past Spanish two, so he wouldn’t have to worry about getting a new teacher.”
“Not surprising. That sounds like Finn. He can’t pick up languages like you or Rachel.” They reached the tall concrete stairs and started up the steps. Another student, a sophomore by the look of him, passed them by with his mother, pointing out to her on his schedule where each of his classrooms were located.
He smiled down at her. He’d grown a couple inches over the summer and their height difference was pretty apparent now. “I think that’s one of the reasons Mr. Schue has stayed away from songs with lyrics in anything but straight American English.”
That got a laugh out of her as they rounded the corner to hall where Kurt’s locker was. Mercedes pointed at the top row of blue lockers spread out before them. “That’s yours, babe. 152.”
“How on earth did you know that?”
“I caught a glimpse at your papers. And I’m good with numbers, remember?”
“Whatever. Here.” He slid out his locker assignment and passed his armful of papers to her. Mercedes sighed and began to flip through them, glancing over the honor code and pages describing various school policies. She didn’t notice the change in Kurt’s breath or the way he started shaking like a leaf when he finally got a good look at the paper in his hand.
“Mercedes.”
“Hmm?” She didn’t look up form the papers, still rifling through them to see if there was anything worthwhile.
“Mercedes.” His voice was more insistent this time, and she caught a hint of a tremor there in his light tenor. She looked up with a confused frown.
“Yeah, Kurt?” His eyes were wide and she could hear the paper in his hand fluttering as he shook. He was breathing kind of funny too. “Hey, are you okay?”
“I-no. No, I’m not”
That scared her. Kurt never admitted to weakness.
“I-Mercedes, can we switch lockers?”
“Why? You haven’t even tried your combination yet, and yours is closer to most of your classes, isn’t it?”
“Can we trade?” It was like he hadn’t even heard her. His pupils had constricted into tiny dots, and she could have sworn he was starting to hyperventilate.
“Okay. Yeah, sure. Do you, do you need some water or something? I can try out the combination here while you do that. I mean, the bathrooms are like, right there.”
“Yeah. Yeah, water would be good.” He passed the paper in his hand to her and walked stiffly down the hall. Mercedes watched him go, worry etched into her brow. Kurt had never acted like that before and it scared her. She’d have to ask him about it later, maybe over ice cream or something. She inspected the locker assignment in her hand and set to memorizing the new combination.
4-17-0. Shouldn’t be too hard.
---
Kurt splashed the cold water spraying from the sink over his face, not caring if it got his hair wet. That could be fixed later. Right now he needed to get his head on straight.
It was stupid. He was bring stupid. Those numbers didn’t mean anything anymore, shouldn’t mean anything anymore. It was just his stupid locker number from the third grade, not a death sentence. But seeing them all together like that had caused his chest to tighten and his hands to go numb.
He looked up at his reflection, his bloodshot eyes and pale face. God, he was a mess. He leaned forward and tried to inspect the thin veins discoloring his eyes. But as he got closer, his face morphed into someone else entirely. The curve of his jaw became softer, his eyes bluer, his hair longer with a soft curl at the bottom. He placed his hand on the smooth glass of the mirror, not really believing what he was seeing.
“Mom.” His whispered voice echoed throughout the empty bathroom, like a prayer lost in the confines of the cool tiles, trying desperately to escape.
The image disappeared as fast as it had appeared and Kurt realized that there were hot tracks of tears coursing down his cheeks. He touched his hand to his face and tried to banish the image of his mother from his head.
She was dead. Had been for a long time now. There was no need to keep doing this to himself. She was dead.
He shoved his hand back under the cool rush of water and scrubbed it over his face. He needed to get himself together. Mercedes was waiting.
---
Kurt could have sworn he was over this by now. The darkness of his room, usually so calming and comforting, now felt suffocating, like it had crept into his lungs and was now consuming him from the inside out. He desperately wanted to climb up the stairs, escape the plain white walls of his room and check on his dad. Or just do something. Anything but sit here alone in the dark.
He’d been okay for so long now, and he couldn’t believe that something so stupid as a set of numbers at registration would set him back so far. He’d been fine. No nightmares. No flashbacks. Nothing. And now, weeks later, he couldn’t stand to spend time alone in his room without getting so anxious that he wanted to tear off his skin. The thought of actually falling asleep terrified him to no end, so he sat there, perched on the edge of his bed in his pajamas, waiting for time to speed the hell up.
The insomnia was really starting to do hell on his grades, and the bags under his eyes were becoming prominent enough that people were starting to notice. Even Mr. Schuester, the king of obliviousness, had pulled him aside yesterday to ask if he was all right. Kurt ran a hand through the messy ends of his hair. This whole thing was getting out of hand again, and Kurt really didn’t know what to do. He glanced at the stairs, his ears straining to hear any kind of movement from upstairs. There was nothing. He should go check on his dad. See if he was okay. Kurt couldn’t stop seeing him crunched up and broken in the driver’s seat of his truck, and it was only making the restlessness grow, even if he knew for certain that his dad was simply upstairs, asleep in his bed.
He should go check on him. Just to be sure. But he couldn’t get his feet to move.
For the first time in months, Kurt was glad that his dad still had the keys to the Navigator. His dad had left it unlocked the other day, and Kurt had climbed inside on a whim, trying to see if he remembered the feel of being behind the wheel, of sitting in the driver’s seat.
He still hadn’t quite gotten over the twist of shame that curled in his gut at the thought of his dad finding him bundled up in the car, his face red and swollen from tears. He’d apparently been crying there in the cab for hours, but Kurt had lost all that time. He didn’t remember anything past getting into the car. It was like waking from a nightmare he could only half remember to his dad’s worried face hovering above him. He dreaded to think what might have happened if he’d actually tried to drive.
He looked at the clock again and then back at the walls. The shadows thrown across the room from the lamp on his bedside table were making him even more nervous. He gripped the fabric of his sheets tight enough to bleach his fingers white. This was far more difficult than he’d expected, and he wasn’t sure how much longer her could hold out just sitting here waiting for dawn. What if something was happening right now, and he was too cowardly to go upstairs and do something about it? The silence was only making things worse.
He should talk to his dad. Tell him about the anxiety and the return of the flashbacks. The last thing he wanted to do was worry the man, but this was starting to get out of hand. He needed to talk to someone again.
Kurt released his grip on his blankets and forced himself to his feet. He’d just go upstairs for a little while. Maybe check on his dad, see if he was okay. Maybe do some cleaning or something. That always seemed to calm him down. He headed for the stairs, his bare feet barely making a sound on the soft white carpet.
---
The large brown warehouse that was McKinley High rose up before them, and Kurt shrank a bit into his seat, clutching at his seatbelt hard enough for the edges of the strap to cut faint red lines on his palms.
His dad pulled up to the drop off point and shifted the car into park. He didn’t make any move to unlock the doors, silently staring at the dashboard for a moment before turning to his son. “You sure you’re going to be okay, Kurt? I know you-”
“No, dad.” He quickly unbuckled himself from his seat and reached down to grab the satchel at his feet. His dad had been walking on eggshells around him since he’d admitted that he wasn’t coping again, that he should probably go back to see Dr. Robinson for the first time in months. He pulled his bag into his lap and shot his dad a quick, shaky smile. “No, I’ll be okay.”
“Are you sure? Because-”
Kurt silenced him with a hand over his dad’s calloused fingers. “I’ll be fine. I promise.”
“Okay.” He seemed hesitant, but didn’t push the issue. “But you call me if anything’s wrong.”
“I’ll do that.”
“I’ve got my cell phone on me, but you can always call the garage.”
“I know that. I’ll be fine, dad.”
“I know, but I worry, Kurt. You haven’t had anything like this for a while now, and…” He trailed off, but Kurt knew what he meant by it. They hadn’t had to deal with this for a year or so and now it was back full force with very little explanation as to why. Things would get better; they just had to give it time.
“I know,” he whispered, his hand tight around the door handle.
“Well, have a good day. Give me a call when you need me to pick you up.”
“Okay.” Kurt stepped out of the car, giving his dad one last quick smile before walking away into the building. “I’ll see you after school.”
---
He wasn’t really sure what the glee club was all abuzz about, but Kurt was more than a little irritated that he seemed to be one of the last to know about this gossip. He leaned down to tap Mercedes on the shoulder and get her attention.
“What’s up, Kurt?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what’s everyone flocking to Puck for? Did he manage to piss off the mayor by sleeping with his daughter or something? I wouldn’t put it past him. That vasectomy story he was throwing around was as implausible as his insistence that flexing his muscles is all it takes to get him everything he’ll ever need in life.” He picked at a loose thread on the cuff of his sleeve. It really was a shame that not everything in his extensive wardrobe could be designer quality, but no amount of saving and scouring the shelves during sales could allow him a full closet of nothing but well-labeled clothing.
She giggled a little, rolling her eyes. “No, though I like your theory better than the reality. It was his birthday this weekend, and his aunt in Cleveland went out and helped him get a car.”
Kurt looked up from his sleeve and drug his eyes over to the cluster of kids on the other side of the room. Finn looked to be unreasonably excited about the whole prospect of his ex-best friend getting a car, but Kurt supposed that after a summer of dragging Puck’s sorry butt around town in an effort to rekindle their friendship, any reprieve would be a welcome one.
“What model did he get?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t see him come in this morning. Something used, I suppose, but I would kill to have a car of my own to drive.”
“Hmm.” Kurt had one, though it sat unused in the dark safety of their garage.
“Speaking of which, has your dad let up on you yet?”
“No.” He hadn’t told her that even if his dad had given him back the keys to the Navigator, he wouldn’t have been able to drive it. Not right now.
She sighed and sunk down into her seat, her arms crossed indignantly in front of her chest. “I don’t understand why he’s being such a hard ass about this. You dad’s usually such a cool guy.”
Kurt raised his hand to inspect his nails. He really didn’t want to be having this conversation right now. “He has his reasons.”
She didn’t sound convinced. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Hey, Kurt?”
“Yes?”
“Do you think we could maybe hang out after school? I feel like we haven’t done anything together outside of glee club in forever.”
He bit his lip for just a split second before he realized that it might give him away. “I can’t today, Mercedes.”
“Why not? You’ve kind of been avoiding me for a while now. Is everything okay?”
“Yeah. I just, my dad has needed some extra help at the garage lately-we’re kind of short-staffed since one of the guys quit-but I should be free Wednesday after glee.”
She raised an eyebrow at that. “Why not tomorrow? You busy then too?”
“Yes.” She didn’t need to know that he had his first therapy appointment in months tomorrow, and that it was freaking him out so badly that the very thought of seeing his therapist’s face made his stomach turn. Dr. Robinson was a nice woman, really, and very good at her job. Kurt just hated to admit that he needed her help again after he’d finally gotten all of this under control.
He smiled down at her, trying to change the topic. “But I have a better question for you. Just how long do you think it’ll be before we end up seeing Puck’s car at the shop?”
Mercedes grinned back at him, even though she knew he was deflecting. “Probably a week.”
Kurt glanced over at the group once more. Puck was posturing, grandly boasting about drag racing and all of the other asinine adolescent mischief he could get up to now that he finally had his own car. Kurt let out an amused snort and shook his head. “Darling, I think you’re give him too much credit. This is Puck we’re talking about. Three days at best.”
“You wanna make a bet of it?”
“What kind of stakes are we talking here?”
“I win, I pick your outfit for a day. You win, you pick mine for a day.”
“I think I could live with that. You’re on.”
---
Kurt stepped outside the building toward the student parking lot, his phone out and ready to call up his dad. His day had hardly been noteworthy, but he was glad for once that they didn’t have glee rehearsal after school. His nerves were starting to get the best of him again, and by the end of math class, he’d been itching to see his dad again and make sure that he was safe. He hated the nagging feeling that something had happened and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
He looked up as he punched in the last number, and he spotted a small gaggle of students gathered around one of the cars still left in the parking lot. He recognized Brittany, Santana and a few of the other cheerleaders. And Puck was there, looking prouder than ever. This was probably his new car. Kurt huffed out an amused breath as he hit ‘send’ and pressed the phone to his ear. He craned his neck to the side, trying to get a better look at the car through the forest of bodies surrounding it. The thing was probably nothing special, but since it belonged to one of the biggest badasses in school, it was big news. Whatever.
“Kurt? Is that you, bud?”
“Yeah, dad. It’s me.” He chuckled lightly. “Did you even look at the caller ID?”
“No. I never really bother with that thing. You’re pretty much the only one who calls my cell phone anyway. You need me to come pick you up?”
“Yeah, I-” he stopped short as s group of girls moved over to the side, and his eyes caught a flash of crimson metal. Oh god.
“Kurt? You okay?”
He didn’t answer. It was taking almost everything he had just to keep the phone in his hand. That was his mom’s car. Puck’s car was exactly the fucking same. His breath came in heavy and fast, and a sudden rush of static filled his ears.
“Kurt?” His dad’s voice was getting louder and more worried. “Kurt, I need you to talk to me.”
“Dad, I-” he swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump that had formed in his throat. He could see it, the crushed metal, the shattered glass. His mother’s bloody, broken body lying mangled in the front seat. “I need you to come get me.”
---
Red. Everywhere he looked was red. Everything, every single surface was stained that same terrifying shade of scarlet that had haunted his nightmares for the past several years-red like the roses that used to grow in his grandmother’s garden, red like the color of his mother’s old red sedan, red like blood-and suddenly Kurt couldn’t breathe.
He knew that he must have fallen to the ground because his feet had somehow pressed themselves up tight beneath his thighs and tiny bits of rock found their way to the hard curve of his knees, digging and gouging into the skin there like tiny knives through the fabric of his pants. He didn’t know how exactly it happened that he ended up on the ground nor does he particularly care. Just so long as the static filling his head went away in a reasonable amount of time.
His fingers and palms felt oddly wet and sticky against what had to be pavement against his skin, like sweat had worked its way over the appendages and dried, leaving behind a terrible residue to be washed away when the sensation finally became unbearable. He lifted up his hand to inspect it, to reassure himself that what he was feeling was just an overreaction, but as he held his hands up to his eyes to inspect them, to make absolutely certain that he wasn‘t losing his mind, his heart sank. The skin there was a dark, dark crimson-almost black to his eyes. Just as though he’d dipped them in blood (maybe he had, and his mind was just blurring everything for the sake of what little sanity he had left).
Kurt flexed his fingers, and the blood moved with them. He couldn’t hold in the tears now. This was real, too real, and his hands were coated with his innocent mother’s blood, and oh god, this was all his fault, wasn’t it?
His breath came in hitching little gasps, catching in his throat and causing a terrible stabbing tightness in his chest, making him choke. Tears were stinging his eyes, and his cheeks were hot and burning. This was too much, far too much, but he couldn’t make himself stop. Someone was screaming above the static in the background, but he couldn’t make out any words, he couldn’t figure out who it was or where the sound was coming from. He wondered absently if his mom had been screaming too when she died. Maybe she was the one screaming now. It was too much. It was too hard, and Kurt was lost. He really didn’t know what to do.
“Kurt? Kurt, are you okay?”
“Wha?” There was a warm hand on his back, and he looked up, trying to focus his gaze on the hazy face before him. The darkness around the edges of his vision was fading, the red bleeding away to allow for faint hints of color to seep through, though a great deal of red still remained. It was brighter than before, and edged with white. And pale yellow. Like yellow hair. Blonde. He knew the person in front of him very well; his brain was just having trouble placing a name to the face. “Brittany?”
The tall blonde smiled down at him, her hand never leaving where it had firmly planted itself on his back. Her smile quickly fell only to be replaced with confusion. “Why are you on the ground?”
Kurt ignored her, searching the pavement around him in fumbling, awkward gropes. “Where is it?” he mumbled, more to himself than to anyone else. There were vague murmurs floating around above him, coming from multiple different sources. Brittany wasn’t alone. Fantastic. He was breaking down in the middle of…wherever the hell he was, and he had an audience. Fan-freaking-tastic. He searched a little faster, his movements oddly frantic.
“Where is what, Kurt?”
“My phone,” he murmured back. He wasn’t really sure who had asked the question in the first place. It had sounded far too masculine for Brittany, but he couldn’t be sure. Nothing made sense anymore. “I can’t find my phone.”
His fingers brushed over the rough pavement until they hit smooth plastic. His palms were most assuredly scraped, the broken skin burning, but his heart rate slowed. He had his phone. He still had his phone, and everything was going to be okay. That meant his dad was nearby, and he was safe. His cell phone meant he was safe because his dad could find him.
“Kurt, are you okay?”
“Hey guys, what’s going on?”
“It that the gay kid?”
Oh god, it was getting worse. There were still people surrounding him, still people hovering over him and looking at him like he was some sort of animal at the zoo, and more were coming, judging by the growing number of voices and unfamiliar shoes clustered together in his line of sight.
“Go away.”
“What?” Brittany’s voice was close and overly loud in his ear. Kurt could feel the soft press of her breasts against his shoulder. Her breath smelled sweet, like she had been sucking on some sort of hard candy. She was too close.
“Go away. Please. Just go away.”
No one was listening to him. No one was leaving him alone, and the pressure was becoming unbearable. His vision was back in full and the attack had passed, but the embarrassment was overwhelming. Everyone saw. Everyone knew. And there was nothing that he could do about it.
He curled himself over his knees and brought his phone up in front of his eyes. The time. He needed to know what time it was. It was too late already. Far too late, but his dad was on his way, and it would only be a few minutes before he made it to school grounds. Then everything would be okay, and everyone would leave him alone. Just a few more minutes and everything would be okay.
He pressed one of the tiny buttons on the side of his phone, and the screen lit up like a beacon. The numbers burned themselves into his retinas as the device slipped from his fingers once more. It wasn’t fair. It really wasn’t fair.
The tears started up again in earnest, and everything faded away. It wasn’t fair. His mom was dead and his dad was missing, and it was all his fault. His palms were cut and bleeding from the shattered glass of the windshield, his head caught in a vice of mangled car frame, and he couldn’t breathe.
The screen of Kurt’s phone faded away as it switched over to sleep mode, taking the time with it. But it didn’t matter. He could still see the numbers-he could still feel them like a knife to the chest.
4:17 pm.
It was too late. It was always too late. His parents were dead and it would never stop being his fault.
---
Kurt didn’t come back until Friday, allowing the news of Kurt’s breakdown in the parking lot to take hold amongst the student body and spread like wildfire. There were eyes watching his every move from the second he stepped out of his dad’s car and whispers that haunted his footsteps as he navigated the halls.
He’d been expecting it-his therapist had even talked to him about how he should deal with the whole thing during their last session-but the reality was far harder to bear. Everyone knew. Everyone knew he was crazy. And there was nothing that he could do about it.
He held his head up high as he made his way toward the nurse’s office, doing his best to ignore the soft rattle of pills coming from his bag that he simply knew everyone could hear. He just needed to drop them and the permission slip off with the nurse and be done with it. Everyone already knew he was crazy, so what did it matter trying to hide anything?
He pushed open the heavy wooden door and faked a smile at the kindly old woman behind the desk. He’d only been in here once, maybe twice before, and it made him supremely uncomfortable. The office itself was small, and posters of various maladies and how to avoid them littered the walls. He dug into the main pocket of his bag until his fingers caught on the curved surface of the pill bottle buried at the bottom. The paper he wanted had been slid between the cover of his English notebook. He plucked them out and carefully laid them on the counter.
“My dad said I needed to give these to you.”
Her small wrinkled hands grabbed the paper and pill bottle, pulling them behind the desk so she could inspect them better. After looking over the items for a moment, she looked back up at Kurt, straightening her glasses to keep them firmly on the bridge of her nose. “Thank you, dear. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
“No, I’ll be fine. So, um, I’ll just come and get those from you later? Like, when I need them, right?”
“According to your form and prescription, yes, Mr. Hummel. If you feel like you need this, just come in and see me. Anytime.”
Kurt swallowed, straightening his back and gripping the strap of his bag so hard under his fingers that the skin began to pale with the pressure. “I will. Um, thank you. Mrs. Hartman. I’ll see you around.”
---
Kurt was restless. His foot tapped endlessly against the hard tile of the cafeteria floor, and his thumb flicked over the metal tab of the can of soda water he’d brought with him. The rest of his lunch sat before him, open but untouched. It was small and light, certainly healthy lest his dad get the wrong idea. But really, he didn’t know why he’d bothered packing the damn thing in the first place. He wasn’t hungry-hadn’t been for several days. He’d only eaten at his dad’s insistence anyway.
“Kurt?” Puck. Dear lord, he was probably the very last person Kurt wanted to talk to right now. The muscular boy sat down across from him, his tray of mushy, unappetizing cafeteria food clacking loudly against the table with him.
Kurt twisted the metal tab around, his eyes glued to the tiny red stain on the table in front of him. Probably from some sort of fruit drink. They all tasted the same anyway, and that color was a bitch to get out of most every surface imaginable. “What do you want, Puckerman?”
Puck reached over and grabbed one of the pretzels from the open bag containing Kurt’s lunch, popping it into his mouth. “What do you think?”
Kurt sighed and looked away, his glare shooting off toward the open doors leading out into the hallway. His body shifted with the added weight of more bodies joining the pair at the table. It was the glee club. Well, most of them. Those that hadn’t been there Tuesday afternoon had probably gotten all they needed to know from Brittany or Santana. Or Puck. Or whoever the heck else had been there that day.
He could see Artie wheeling up to them along the edge of the table out of the corner of his eye. Puck was crunching loudly on the pretzel, his eyes completely fixed on Kurt. Someone was touching his arm in a vain attempt at comfort.
“Seriously, Tinkles, what the hell was that the other day?”
He shot her a scathing look. “Really? That’s the best you can do?”
Santana didn’t say a word. No one did. Tina was seated beside him; her small hand was warm on his arm through the fabric of his sleeve. Kurt’s eyes swept over the group that had gathered around him, every eye was fixated on him.
“I’m fine, okay? Nothing happened.”
“You were sobbing in the parking lot, dude. That didn’t seem like nothing.”
Shut up, shut up. You don’t know anything. “And I’m fine now. I don’t know why everyone is making such a big deal about this.”
“Because you had a freakout. Like, a major one. And then you disappeared for a few days. Seriously, what’s going on with you?”
Kurt really didn’t want to talk about this. Not right now. Not to these kids. They wouldn’t understand. He sipped at his water, the bubbles running smoothly over his tongue. Their eyes hadn’t left him. “What do you want me to say?”
“We just want to know what happened, Kurt.” It was Mercedes. Her voice was soft and saturated with concern. He looked over the gathered group once more, at their worried, eager faces.
“Look, I-” He swallowed and lowered his gaze to the table. This was stupid. Telling them wouldn’t change anything, wouldn’t make the nightmares and never-ending paranoia leave him. “It’s my mom,” he whispered, half hoping that no one would hear.
“Your mom?”
“Yeah, my mom.” Now leave me the hell alone.
“But wait, isn’t your mom dead? I thought she died like, years ago.”
“Yes, thank you for your startling insight, Artie. I wasn’t aware of this fact before.”
“You didn’t know your mom was dead?”
“No, Brittany, that was called sarcasm. Of course I know my mom is dead.”
“So, then, did something happen with her grave? Or, um, I don’t know, your dad started dating again?”
He shot a quick glare Mercedes’s way. “My dad is fine. I’m fine. We’re fine. Nothing’s wrong. I don’t know why you guys are so adamant about this.”
“Because you were curled up crying on the sidewalk after school on Tuesday until your dad came and got you. Then you show up today and act like nothing happened. You keep telling us nothing’s wrong. What’s really going on, Kurt?”
“I told you already, I’ve been having problems with my mom.”
“We know that’s not true, Kurt.”
“Your mom’s dead, dude.”
Kurt shot up in his seat, releasing the can of sparkling water in his hands and slamming his palms down on the table with a resounding smack. “Don’t you think I know that?! She’s dead, I get it. Car accident, pure and simple. Eight years ago. She’s dead, and I had problems with her death, okay? When I was little, I would have panic attacks and things, all right?”
“But what does that have to do with you now?”
“They never really stopped,” he quietly admitted as he slid back down into his seat. His heart was racing in his chest, his head and fingers tingling with adrenaline. His medication. He needed his damn medication already, and it had only been one day. One goddamn day and already he couldn’t calm himself down without chemicals. Fan-fucking-tastic.
“What?”
“They never really stopped. I get-I don’t know, flashbacks and stuff.”
“Flashbacks? Kurt, were you with her when she died?”
“No.”
“But then why-?”
“Does it really matter? I have problems with her death, all right? I don’t know why I haven’t been able to get over it…I just can’t.”
The group was silent for a moment. Kurt’s hands had moved back to his water. He couldn’t bear to look at them anymore.
Puck was the first to speak. “Dude, that’s…kind of pathetic.”
His head shot up. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “What did you say?”
“What do you mean?”
“What did you just say?” His voice was hard and deadly quiet.
“I mean, I get that you’re sad and all because I mean, it’s your mom, but it’s been eight years. You should be over it by now.”
“Yeah, Kurt. Aren’t you being kind of dramatic about this?”
“What? No, I-”
“And it’s not like anything really bad is happening to you, right? I mean, no one’s hitting you or anything.”
“You don’t have any real problems, dude. You should just, you know, get over it.”
Kurt went still. His friends’ words flew over his head, and everything blurred as though they were moving in fast-forward while he was stuck on pause.
Get over it.
Get over it.
Get over it.
So many people had been telling him to get the hell over his mother’s death because it happened all those years ago, and really, shouldn’t he be better by now? But it wasn’t that fucking easy. He couldn’t just turn his problems on and off like a switch. The brain, well, his brain anyway, just didn’t work that way. No, because then things would be far too easy, wouldn’t they?
He reached out and began stuffing his uneaten food back into the little plastic containers he’d brought them in, not caring about how neat or clean or healthy anything was. It didn’t matter anyway.
“And this,” he hissed as he finished his frantic packing, “this is why I don’t talk about anything to you guys. I knew you wouldn’t understand.”
Mercedes reached out to him, trying to calm him down. “But Kurt-”
“No!” The table went silent. Kurt was shaking with emotion, his hands and shoulders trembling. “You don’t understand. Don’t pretend to. Yes, she’s dead. Yes, it’s been eight long years. No, I’m not over it.” His eyes ghosted over the stunned faces before him one last time. “But honestly? Honestly, I’d rather be abused. You don’t know how many times over the years I’ve wished that someone was beating the hell out of me so that I’d have some real problems to worry about.”
He could barely hold onto the sad remnants of his lunch, the plastic bag he’d brought everything in rustled as his fingers shook. “You all have no idea…” His eyes were stinging with tears. He really needed his medication. “You have no idea what I would do to get the most important person in my life back.”
---
Part one