I’m

litterally

less than fifteen lines

from being done

So today’s been a long day. I guess I owe it to anyone who has been following my nebulous updates throughout the day (and night) if you were awake then to see the beginnings of my struggle day hah). I guess I’ll start from last night. (Warning: really fucking long post under cut)

I was already feeling faint and weak by 6:30pm or so yesterday. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, which is bad, I know because I’m supposed to sleep a little more than normal due to the concussion. I slept about 5 hours the precious night. I thought I’d probably crash soon since I didn’t think it was likely that I’d be able to stay awake much longer. But I wanted to get some work done too that night and I had to shower too. Took my shower – that woke me up a bit, thankfully. I worked for a few hours and finished up a document, which, although it wasn’t much work, at least I got something done for this other job so I wouldn’t feel as bad. Around 10pm I started fading again. I crashed at around 10:30pm finally, hoping to get a solid night of sleep so I’d have a productive day of work tomorrow morning. I had a lot of writing to get done.

Instead, I had…a nightmare? Of sorts? It started out as kind of a normal every day kind of dream. I was messaging a friend here on tumblr as we usually do, and they sent me a gif of them eating a pizza – cuz if I went to sleep, then they’d eat pizza. Or something. So I was glad to see them enjoying their pizza. I don’t hear from them again for 3 hours, and it turns out the pizza was weed infused, haha. So now they’re pretty high and having a good time. I’m really happy for them. It turns out they’re going to attend graduate school where I went to undergrad, which is awesome – I was very excited to have them share a school experience with me ahah. But then I don’t hear from them for a little while longer and then get this short dense message from them that’s hard to read, but it seems serious. It’s about 3 sentences long, but it has no punctuation or capitalisation so it’s really hard to focus and see what it says. I get the gist of the first part “this is really hard for me to say…” and then I think it goes into them talking about how they have come to the difficult decision of annulling our friendship. ….I can…hardly believe it. I try really hard to read exactly what the words are saying to better understand what I did wrong, but I can’t focus – I’m dizzy and the words keep blurring together. I can only gather that I’m too unpredictable and not forthcoming or something along those lines – but it’s so hard to read.

Then I wake up from the anxiety attack induced by this. It’s a little past midnight.

I needed to confirm that the dream wasn’t true, so bleary eyed (I had only slept about 1.5 hours, but my heart was thudding out of my chest from anxiety), I turn to my phone. No messages from them. Hm. There’s also a chance they aren’t awake but idk. So I message them about the dream hoping for confirmation that the dream wasn’t real. They are awake. But the confirmation I was hoping for – to be comforted that the dream was unfounded – I did not receive. Shit. So. Well then… even if the dream did not happen, it would not be unreasonable to believe that it ..could happen. At any point. Sometime soon? Did they not want to be friends anymore? At least since I was talking to the real deal now and not trying to read a message in a dream, they could verballing confirm for me what the reasons would be for wanting to annul out friendship. They could tell me what I’ve been doing wrong that was so intolerable. And I’d respect it. I’d respect their decision to stop talking to me.

I realise I was.. probably delirious. And just not in a good mental place. For a lot of reasons. The dream-induced anxiety, the lack of sleep, the concussion, etc. But I had it in my head that there were these set of reasons that my friend had come up with for why they decided that they could no longer continue our friendship. And I needed to wring this out of them. And they were being dodgy and evasive and using vague words like “it’s complicated” or “you have your flaws” – but those weren’t responding to exactly what those were – or the reason to annul our friendship. The combination of the words they were using in this real life scenario and my dream of them wanting to annul our friendship.. was.. just a very bad combination. Nothing about the way I was thinking was.. on track.

Eventually they end up telling me some of their concerns, which are…not at all the concerns I thought – or had imagined in my dream. And that cognitive dissonance was able to break me out of the dream-mental-reality I was in. idk. That delirious talk also raised some other questions, but.. they needed to sleep. I can’t even imagine what that conversation must have been like on their end, tbh. I can hardly conceptualise what it was on my end since so little of it was grounded in reality.

It’s another hour or so before I fall asleep. I sleep at maybe 3am. Wake up promptly at 7am without an alarm (7:02 was sunrise; I remember I checked my phone at 7:04am). It takes me way too long to get ready for work. I was planning on walking to work, not biking (it’s about a 40 minute walk), but by the time I am ready to leave, it’s already 8:55am. I don’t know where the time went. So I stagger over to get my bike because if I’m going to be late, at least I won’t be…ridiculously late.

I’m at work by 9:30am. I can’t get any work done. I can’t focus. I make some edits to the document based on suggestions my supervisor had left, but I’m unable to generate complete sentences. I’m distracted and just can’t focus on anything at all. But I… check my e-mail and see I got a free haircut because of my blood donation at this hypermasculine place called SportClips? I check locations, and the nearest one is some 4 miles away. I don’t know if I want to make that trek – but I am due for a haircut I guess. I’ve been looking shaggy and haggardly lately I guess. My friend strongly urges me to get my hair cut – I guess on account of the recent attack. I guess I can pass as female (like a short haired androgynous female), so they do urge me to get my hair cut. Buzzed. Okay. I’ll have to find some time to allocate to get to this SportClips then. My friend and I laugh about how ridiculously hypermasculine this place is marketed. “Sports on TV” “Guy Smart Stylists” “It’s good to be a guy!” “You’re always welcome for a mini Man Break.” *images of attractive women cutting men’s hair and men watching Sports™ together* Tbh it’s a little nauseating. 

My supervisor checks in on me and tells me I should go home. I haven’t even been at work for 2 hours and she is sending me off because – I guess – I’m in terrible shape. She tells me I can make up the hours tomorrow and Friday. I only worked 3.5 hours yesterday too. I’ve just been… not doing great. But I know I can’t get anything done at work, so I take her advice and leave. It’s 11:30am – not even noon, and I’m already off work.

Huh. I figure I can get that haircut then. Since I unexpectedly have some time.

Have to figure out how to get there. There’s a …tube… it looks like only cars go there? I quickly look up that tube on the internet to see if it’s amenable to foot/bike traffic. The one site I checked confirms it is – says it’s a narrow pass, so only one bike can fit at a time - if there are two bikers, they have to dismount to pass. Fair enough. Makes sense. So I turn into the tunnel.

It…… hhmmmmm. I am only on the road for a few meters before I realise I am the only bike on a very high speed highway like road with no shoulder. Off the the side behind a fence is a small narrow sidewalk. But why didn’t I go in there? I passed the entrance?? I don’t think so. I don’t remember an entrance. So I dismount. On the fuckin freeway. I have to walk back against traffic. There is no shoulder. I’m fuckin. Terrified. But. I can’t keep going forward into the tunnel with this traffic. I would die. So less chance of dying is walking back to try to find how to get on the other side of this fence thing. It takes a while to walk back just a couple dozen meters or so because. It’s a blind curve. With trucks and cars going at 50-60mph. And I’m walking. With a bike. It’s just a terrible situation. I finally get back to where the fence starts. And it’s???? Fuckin??? NARROW??? The opening of the fence is just barely big enough for me to fit through sideways. Now look – I’m a decently slim person. When I looked at that entrance, just eyeballing it, I would have told you I wouldn’t be able to get in there. But. Idk I’m in too deep now. How to get my bike through, though. I dismantle the front wheel of my bike so that I can turn the handlebars sideways and…flip the bike through. It is too narrow for even the pedals to fit through. I guess that gives you an idea of how narrow this is. With enough finagling, I’m able to squeeze the bike through. Then the front wheel. Then my backpack. Then myself. On the other side of the fence now, I put my bike back together.

Now I guess if I were in my right mind I would not have done that. I probably would have called it a day. But clearly I guess I wasn’t thinking. My head is definitely not set on right from a combination of shit – the lack of sleep, the concussion, the combination thereof, the anxiety dream from the night before…? Any number of factors idk. But clearly the fact that I did all that shit without questioning anything means I wasn’t thinking rationally.

Anyhow once I got past that narrow entrance I felt relatively safe from the cars. I was elevated and behind a fence. Once in the tunnel, I was clearly the only non vehicular traffic. It was narrow enough for just me and my bike (for the handlebars of the bike to be straight across), but nothing else. Idk what that website was on about because there is no way two bikers could fit, even dismounted. Also – this is a highway???????? There is only one way traffic.

The tunnel ended after a mile. I did not feel 100% safe even behind the fence but that was…a lot safer than I felt outside the tunnel. No more fence, and the ledge narrowed to a staggering foot and a half wide. Which might have been fine – maybe – if not for the big arrow signs off the walls directing the car traffic. Why? I don’t know. It’s a fucking highway it’s not like there are multiple ways you can go. It’s those arrows that tell you the road is turning/curving, I guess so you don’t ram into a wall since you’re going 60-70 mph. Anyhow. 

I… was convinced I was going to die. If I stuck ad arm out at any point, I would have lost it. I tried hard to keep my body as close to the wall as possible, but those giant metal arrow signs meant that I occasionally had to step off into the actual road. I was gonna die here. And nobody would know where I was except the one friend. And for what. For a haircut. A haircut that would maybe prevent me from being assaulted another time? Idk.

This was.. the worst stretch of road. Honestly. Probably the first time I started thinking rationally all day. Why the fuck was I here? There was no way out of this. I’d shake every time a car or truck passed because of the speeds and they were close enough to almost clip me. It would have been so easy for me to die. 

But. I didn’t. Eventually the wall ended and it opened up to another highway. An open two way highway that was slower – I guess mostly local traffic. (Slower as in fewer cars, not slower speeds). I hopped the short divider fence and pulled my bike over, waited for the second highway to clear up, and traversed the four lanes. To. A …strip mall? Honestly idk at this point I felt unreal. Like if you’ve ever spent 3-4 days with no sleep and you feel ethereal and timeless and like you don’t actually have a corporeal form. That’s how I felt. It was a little past noon by this point. Of course the strip mall is relatively dead. Who goes to a strip mall at noon on a Wednesday? Liminal space. 

I wander around kind of delirious and find the SportClips. I fuckin almost died for this stupid SportClips. My body was covered in soot from the tunnel I guess, but the lady at the reception was kind enough not to say anything about that or my vacant stare and hollow tone of voice. 

But then idk what proceeded was…? One of the most pleasant experiences of my life? Idk if it was cuz I was so delirious but. Hm. So I usually cut my own hair, so I don’t know much about getting hair professionally cut. I didn’t have a picture or a goal in mind. Just.. short. Buzzed. She offered some suggestions and tbh I said “yeah sure okay” to them all. “You’re so picky – what am I gonna do with you?” she joked. She asked me how I normally wear my hair. ???? idk I just.. I just wake up and it’s on my head idk. I don’t use any product I guess. And she cut it…so it looked really nice?? Huhhh…..

And then since it was my first time there, she asked if I wanted a warm shampoo and head massage??? Um???? Okay???? She brought me around to the back and sat me down in a chair that reclined. And put a hot towel on my face. And massaged my temples of my forehead and my cheekbones ???? through the hot towel??? And then washed my hair with shampoo and massaged my head???? While doing it?????? It was the single most pleasant experience I had ever had in my entire life I think. Also?? The chair…was vibrating the whole time?????????? God… 

That didn’t last that long hah, but then she brings me out and sits me down in another chair. I guess it’s to dry off. She wiped my face off with the hot towel and I… just felt… really taken care of??? Idk I felt safe? Hah. Then she says dryly with a smile “but wait there’s more” and pulls out a thing – I don’t even know what it is but tbh I’m too afraid to ask. It almost looks like an…air horn…? But hold up, it’s not plugged in. I think maybe it’s a blow drier? And it’s. A fucking. Massage thing. She gives me a fucking neck and shoulder massage. I’m. Fucking. Dead. This is the most amazing thing I have never asked for, and I did not expect any of this. 

Then she tousles my hair with some product although tbh it looks pretty damn amazing even without product. I ask if I can give her kudos or anything on the website or anywhere. Turns out it’s her last day, so it’s not like it’ll do anything. But I can do it anyway so they know what they’re missing. Okay, I say. I’ll do that. Because of my blood donation, it was free. A $20 haircut and an unexpected massage for free. Wow.

Hm okay. Now I have to figure out how to get home. It’s about 12:30. There is a tube for the Northward direction but god idk there is nothing I wanted less at that moment than to relive that underground highway tunnel experience. I’m not sure I would survive a second attempt and I’d …really rather not. My heart had still not settled by that point. And just the thought of needing to do that again was anxiety inducing.

There’s a bus in the area and also a ferry. The bus is nearby but I don’t know if they will allow a bike on. The ferry is another 4 miles out of the way and will take me pretty far out, but I guess I can bike home eventually… before my tutoring. God, I still have to tutor tonight. As I’m looking for the bus station, I feel my legs buckle underneath me. I realise I haven’t eaten yet. It’s about 1:30pm. I think I last ate yesterday around…5pm? Hm. Anyhow if this bus thing doesn’t work out, I’ll look for the ferry and figure out how that works when I get there. Hopefully the bus works.

But I realise. I don’t have fuckin cash on me. Last week, a woman approached me and said she was homeless and needed money for food. I’m.. not in the best financial situation right now, as you guys probably know, but also I’ve been there – where you don’t know when or where you can get your next meal. She said please. I dug out my wallet and gave her the only bill I had – a $10. That would buy her lunch. Idk I didn’t feel as great as I should have because honestly I’m.. really not doing well myself. But. No one should have to go hungry. So. That’s why I have no cash on me. And the bus comes. The fare is $2.25. They don’t take card. And it’s exact change only. I’m kind of.. panicking as I’m digging through my backpack. My pockets are empty and every pocket in my backpack seems em…pty…? I see something shiny. A fuckin. Coin? I have… I miraculously have $2.25 in my backpack. I don’t know what sort of deity is pulling for me tbh – clearly some god somewhere is working overtime, cuz I somehow have exact fucking change for a bus fare. Lord in heaven. And the bus even has a rack for my bike.

The bus somehow crosses the channel without my noticing. Damn that was fast…? I’m so close to home. Also my hair smells ridiculously good. Even when I was in my “how to get home” panicked state, I kept on randomly smelling how ridiculously good my hair was. It was.. the strangest experience. Couldn’t focus on getting home because I was just distracted by the smell of my hair. Soot on my body and disheveled clothes, I probably looked like a hobo with a really fuckin sharp haircut. Idk. 

I get off about 8 blocks from my house and it’s a strange walk back. It’s about 3pm maybe and I’m just feeling delirious. Everything about it feels unreal but I just know I’m really close to home. I make it home, safe, and I can’t support myself upright anymore. Crash on my bed. I send a tremendously short e-mail to my tutoring client “I don’t think I can be there for our lesson tonight.” Probably conjugated a verb wrong, but I couldn’t think enough to write anything more. I finally crashed. I slept for about.. half an hour to an hour? About 40 minutes, I think. And spend another half hour lying there, trying to get up.

It’s now about 7pm. And I need to cook something.

Things to be Happy About

Pairing: None really, it is a friendship fic...Kurt, Elliot and Dani

Author’s note: So..last year I decided to do a journal prompt challenge.  Or, rather, I thought about it.  I wrote down all the prompts in a notebook...and it sat and sat and sat.  The ridiculous thing of course being it was a 30 days of lists, about as easy a journal challenge as you get...but I was not feeling it at all.  So June of last year come around with the stupid notebook still sitting there mocking me and with me at an impass on the long fic that is still in progress, but not at the same point which is good....and I thought, I need something else to write on but I want to still be playing with the character’s I’m am writing so that stall Harry Potter fic isn’t an option...wait a minute! And thus this series of fics was born.  The titles will be kinda...bah,  However, each title is the journal prompt.  So maybe someone out there might want to write the prompt for their own 30 days (plus one) of Lists.

Kurt slid the door to the loft open as he finally reached home after his long day. He was really tempted to shoot whoever was in charge of scheduling for year three at NYADA and he half suspected that Rachel quit simply because she’d heard all about what her next year would have had in store for her.  First semester was the work-study project, the screen and play writing class, one of the playwrights in depth classes, and the “from script to concept’ class.  The latter three could be taken as on-line courses if one’s work project was out of the city as long as one also attended a summer workshop in each the next year to get the ‘physical’ parts completed, but if one’s work study was near-by each class took time on campus. The second semester was what was lovingly called the practical semester.  Of course, Kurt was also half certain somehow Rachel would have convinced everyone that SHE didn’t need to take stage craft (which at NYADA consisted of everything not included in the other classes, pretty much), or makeup arts, or costume design, or sound and lighting and that her spot in Funny Girl should negate a work-study project. Nor did she need to read or write anything, it was all about the acting…or rather the singing.  Somehow she would have just ended up with the voice workshops and dance class. She somehow managed it her freshman year, after all. Anyways…Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays Kurt spent from 9 to noon working with make-up and costuming and from 1 to 4pm working stagecraft and with the sound and lighting, about half and half.  He understood it, really.  He agreed, too.  Simply knowing what all went into a production was fine and dandy, if one even got that far. He didn’t think Rachel ever did, nor did Blaine.  They saw “sing” “act” “dance” as all they needed to even contemplate. However getting down and dirty with the rest of it was a whole other ballgame.  Doing the behind the scenes work made him respect the whole process even more.  He could already tell it made a difference in the few auditions he’d managed after starting this semester.  Tuesday and Thursdays were spent at dance class and the music workshops.  He had Madame Tibideaux’s voice workshop in the round from 9 to 11 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, followed by dance from 1 to 3 and the whole aptly named ‘How to be a proper part of the Chorus” workshop from 3:30 to 5pm. And Monday through Friday his had his voice and speech practicum from 8am to 8:55.  He seriously wasn’t sure which days were longer.  

From school he headed to one of his jobs.  He’d worked at Vogue.com, which was a part time paid job now.  He enjoyed it, even though he wasn’t Isabelle’s personal assistant anymore.  He worked with wardrobe right now, until he had more time to be the type of assistant Isabelle needed.  He rather loved it.  A lot was done in the evening and night, after those working the more normal hours had made the decisions and then gone home.  It also tended to be a bunch of work at once time but then light hours day to day.  Only once had he ever had to choose between work and class, and a once in a long while work emergency had not been a problem.  Besides, it was like doing make-overs all the time.  It was a good job for now.  He also had the diner job.  He’d nearly given it up, but after Rachel had quit and Santana had quit and he’d given the owner time to calm down while showing up for work on time and doing all he was expected without pushing for more,  it had ended up a much more pleasant experience.   On top of those, he’d picked up a few mechanic jobs over the past few months since Blaine had left.  He’d been looking desperately to pick up something extra that he could do when he needed just that little bit more cash for rent or bills or to eat.

It was a Wednesday. Stage craft had involved creating the backdrops.  It involved hammers, bruises…caused by himself and others, a first coat of paint which needed much better ventilation than was to be had, and a headache. Lighting and sound had involved creating thunder and lightning in many different forms.  Costume design was working with sewing machines, all 20 going at once, to finish a commission the costume design teacher had taken on and not followed through well with and thus was overdue on. Make-up design was ‘gore’ this week.  Work had been from 4:30 to 11:30 at the diner and he had to be at Vogue by 6am to get the last minute items set for a photoshoot the next day.  He’d had an hour of sleep the night before, covering his shift at the diner till 11:30pm and then opening for a sick co-worker starting at 5am, plus getting the last minute work done for his costuming class (steampunk Westside Story…he’d been in charge of two Jets costumes) and redoing a series of props for stage craft that he’d missed half the assignment instructions on.  The night before that hadn’t been much better.  Kurt was dragging. It was nearly half past midnight when Kurt got home. He wasn’t even certain if he ought to eat and shower, or just fall into bed for his four hours of sleep.

His apartment wasn’t empty. Dani and Elliot were there, kicked back on his couch watching TV and chatting.

“Oh Please don’t tell me I missed a rehearsal that I scheduled?”  Kurt asked.

“You’re home!” Elliot exclaimed.

Dani rushed over to Kurt, removed his bag and sat him right in the middle of the couch.  Before he could even say anything a bowl of curry over rice was handed to him.  It was warm and smelled so good.

“Nope.” Dani said.  “It’s just we noticed your schedule on the wall at the rehearsal Sunday night and decided you needed some TLC.”

“We’ll be over Friday night for a movie night and some good old fashioned chilling.  I’m bringing the fruit and other snacks.” Elliot added. “I let Dani pick the movie and games.”

“Now eat up so your bath doesn’t get cold.  I added just the right oils for relaxation and sleep aid.  There is yogurt, granola and fruit for your breakfast. I will know if you didn’t eat.”

With that Dani and Elliot both kissed his forehead and headed out the door, closing it tight behind them.

As he finished his dinner and washed his bowl and fork, realizing all his other dishes he hadn’t been able to do were done and shopping was done and things were cleaned, he pondered his life’s turns.  

Even though school was full and wild and work was busy, Kurt was pretty happy.   He actually was enjoying his classes and learning tons. Even if he never made it to Broadway, what he was learning now was providing the information he would need to help start community theater groups when he was older.  He loved costuming, he liked props, and he had fun working sets and managing a stage.  It didn’t make him want to give up his dreams of starring in a show like Rachel had yelled over the phone that it would, but it gave him a greater appreciation for the whole theater experience. He had fun in dance (oddly enough Ms. July was decent now that Blaine and Rachel weren’t there and hadn’t that been a disturbing few days of contemplation) and he learned a lot in his vocal courses, enjoying those as well.  School was worth it.

His band was still together and they still performed, in fact they had a small following that would hound them for the next show date and would always show up.  They never played to a room smaller than 50 now. All three and the band were fine with this, because they were all just in it for fun and enjoyment.  They played with genre and costumes and did theme nights and it was fun.  They’d even done weddings and birthday parties.  

He had a lovely flat, which he had an extra room which he could rent out when he choose to but which working like he did he could cover on his own if he needed to.  He controlled his own food.  He didn’t have to worry about if Rachel was being a vegetarian that day or not, or about someone trying to fatten him up to relieve their own self-doubt.  He could sing when he wanted and dance when he wanted and watch his own TV.

He had friends and wasn’t that an eye-opener, having real friends.  He’d forever be grateful that Elliot got back from his retreat when he did.  Elliot missed the whole break-up and the next several weeks while they still had to share the loft until the end of school…during which Kurt went to school and went to class and took his tests and sang when he was supposed to and did his assignments and went to work so rent could be paid and picked up the loft and Blaine went out and partied it up, coming home drunk and skipped classes and blew off June (for whom he was already skipping classes to start off with) or lay on the couch bemoaning life and moaning about how everything and everyone hated him, eating junk food and take out and not doing anything except moan and then yell and throw things.  Elliot missed the spectacular melt down when Blaine was informed he flunked out.  He missed the movers coming in the next day and Kurt having to stay home from work after watching Blaine trying to pack stuff that wasn’t his for fifteen minutes.

Elliot was home, though, by the end of that move-out week.  He had popped over to discuss keeping the band going when the first of the angry texts came from Sam, and then from Brittany and Santana and Mercedes. The texts accusing Kurt of making Blaine flunk out, of making teachers give him bad grades.  The ones accusing him of throwing Blaine out the moment they broke-up (which he didn’t) and stealing Blaine’s money by taking rent when he wasn’t even living in the apartment anymore (Blaine hadn’t even paid rent for the last two months) and taking all Blaine’s stuff.   Elliot was there the day Kurt came home from his first psychologist visit (with the same guy that encouraged Rachel to see having an understudy as a plot against her and who told Blaine that it was healthy for him to be the alpha gay and Kurt to always be less than him, two confident people cannot work as a relationship, one must always be subservient and lying to each other only gave a relationship spice) and Elliot was there to point out that Kurt thought the guy was insane when Rachel and Blaine were seeing him, why would he think what the guy said to him to be less insane now?  Elliot called Dani, who gave Kurt the name of several other individuals, all of whom were more comfortable to talk to and within which he found a psychologist who really did help.

Dani was home by the time he was ready to even consider starting to date, and before that Dani and Elliot dragged him out to other places and encouraged him to make friends at work and school.  Chase was the one who suggested speed dating and got him a spot, Dani was the one he complained to about the guy who said he wasn’t over his boyfriend and also the one to suggest maybe it wasn’t Blaine they were talking about.  Ellie, who he worked with at wardrobe, sat with him as he called the Apples he knew were still around, apologizing to them and asking for Adam’s contact information.  Elliot held his hand while he called Adam and apologized.  Elliot and Dani both insisted on meeting Adam, and they all talked as Kurt and Adam become friends again.  

Kurt was able to rejoin the Apples and work with them.  He reconnected to friends he’d started to make there.  He connected again with friends he’d made in his stage combat and mime classes, and joined other clubs again.

Dani and Elliot and all the Apples around at the time were waiting at the coffee house kitty corner to the spot where everyone was supposed to meet up in 6 months’ time, and stayed until Kurt gave up.  They took him out clubbing and reminded him why he was in New York.  Dani called Chase who called Isabelle, who invaded the loft the next night with a party on the go, just to cheer him up.  Elliot called Adam, who flew in over the weekend and they teamed up to drag Kurt sightseeing, to all those places Kurt had not taken the time to see since he was living there and not a tourist.

Kurt came back to New York after running to answer Rachel’s call, instead of staying in Lima. Instead of having the bad advice of that first psychologist and the old-flame speed dating guy in his head shouting and mixing with Rachel’s wish and desire to see them back together, Kurt had other voices.  Ones who showed him what he’d suspected all along and told him that yes, choosing each day to love someone and trust someone was a good way to deal after they continually hurt you…however, that didn’t make it the only answer ever.  The next day you can choose something else and it is not a failure.  He was able to watch Blaine and David together and cry in the bathroom at the loss of a relationship he’d invested so much in, but he was also able to say NO. No to Rachel, No to the relationship and No to trying to fix something that had been so broken for so long.  Furthermore, he realized he didn’t even have to start dating just yet.  There was nothing that said he had to have a boyfriend at all times to be enjoying life.

His bath was still warm and even the towels were heated.  Kurt laughed.  He knew Dani liked to toss them in the microwave to heat.  He relaxed and reached for the body wash Dani had set out. It was a favorite sleepy time mix that she’d found worked to combat insomnia.  

He’d come home to New York. He did his work-study at the same home where he’d done Peter Pan.  He helped them put on the musical Annie and the play Barefoot in the Park. He also picked up some extra hours helping a small children’s theater group just down the street from his loft put together a production of Alice In Wonderland after one of the aides at the old performers home found out he had done costumes when he was in high school.  It wasn’t working with Broadway babies, heck some of the kids couldn’t sing what they were supposed to and not many could dance at all, but it was fun and so fulfilling to help provide the chance for the kids to be able to get up on a stage and perform to the best ability they could.  He was able to take the classes he needed to take at the school and sing with the Apples again and perform with his band.    He auditioned.  He even managed to end up at two call-backs.  Sure, he hadn’t made it onto the stage yet, but a call-back wasn’t anything to be laughed at.  He’d played chorus parts in both NYADA musicals since the break-up.  He’d scored near the top on all showcase performances he’d done. He was holding his own and he was doing well.

And with him not back in Lima, his dad and Carole had had to come to New York.  His dad had had to take a vacation.  Carole had had to take a vacation.  His dad was able to meet Elliot and Dani and watch the band play on Elvis night.  Carole was able to go to work with him at Vogue, and meet Isabelle and watch a photoshoot he’d worked wardrobe on.  They went and watched a show.  They talked about Finn without despair, able to laugh about what he’d have thought. It was good.

Kurt got out of the tub. He dried off, drained the water, and headed to his bed.  He found the comfiest flannel PJs he owned on his bed, his blankets turned down, and Bruce in place.  Somehow, he thought he might just have the best life ever.