Something about the way that there was yet to be a big snowfall in Ohio, even though it was already December made Kurt feel extremely gloomy despite the holiday season. He sat by his window examining the somber atmosphere outside the Hummel-Hudson home. Without the blanket of snow, Kurt had trouble retaining that the holidays were near, and the landscape looked simply bereft of life without the typical snow blanket canopying the hard ground.

Kurt sighed out of his bath robe and walked fruitlessly away from the windowseat to his closet. He selected skinnies, a tee, and a hoody, with his plain black converse, and examined himself in his three-way mirror. Something about his dreary mood made him feel drab and dismal, so he went back to his closet and chose something more spirited, hoping it would brighten his mood. Yellow skinnies with a sweater-dress and his favorite boots looked far more Kurt-ly, but no matter what he wore he simply didn't feel like himself.

Maybe a sassy hat was what he needed to cheer him up, or perhaps one of the hair styles he'd been itching to test. While styling and re-styling his hair, his phone buzzed on the counter beside him. He checked the name and was surprised to see a picture message from Sebastian. He opened his phone to a picture of Blaine and Sebastian, dancing together at Scandlels from the night they all went out to the gay bar together. Kurt closed the message and went back to his tresses, but something about the photo seemed uneasy. He opened the message again and studied it closely.

Indeed it was Blaine and Sebastian, but Blaine was not wearing the same ensemble that Kurt remembered, and Sebastian's Dalton Academy tie was around Blaine's neck, and they were much, much closer than Kurt remembered. He dropped his bedazzled phone to the hard tile floor and sank to the ground.

"Slow down, Kurt, don't jump to conclusions," he thought as he reached for his phone to interrogate Blaine, but the fall had fractured it beyond repair, so he reached for his iPod which was sitting under his mirror blasting music in his small bathroom. He went to facebook, but centered in his newsfeed was the same photo he had seen on his phone. He had a message from Blaine too.

"Kurt… I know you've seen the photos, but I swear, I was sooooo drunk. I would never hurt you like this sober... I love you."

Kurt responded back quickly and painfully, "So why were you with him in the first place? Please just give me some time to think about things," and with that, his iPod died, and he didn't care to return it to the charger.

Something inside the already fragile Kurt was swiftly breaking. He sank back to the floor and cried silently into his shaggy rug. Nothing in his life was really so bad. Kurt felt deep down that Blaine really did care; he had fabulous friends; he was a tremendous student and quite possibly on his way to college in New York, but he felt like his life was going to hell. He opened his eyes and stared into the porcelain of his toilet. On the floor in front of him was broken barrette, with the sharp metal piece on the floor separated from the bejeweled plastic decorative piece. He picked it up and studied it in his hands.

The idea that ran through his head was absurd. He knew it was pathetic, dangerous, and a cry for attention, but still, something was beckoning him to do it. He pulled back his left sleeve and studied his wrists. The bluish silhouette of his veins were visible all the way from the soft crease of his elbow to his bony wrist. Something inside him possessed Kurt to run the sharp metal piece across his wrist, and he let it take him over. The skin didn't break, all that was left was a very faint white scratch that would disappear within a few hours.

Harder

The inside-thing took control, and he closed his eyes and slashed again, this time slightly harder and faster. He opened his eyes. A similar, but slightly darker, white scratch parallel to the one before shown, but this time tiny beads of blood oozed out. Leaving his trance, Kurt searched his mind for answers.

Why was this sting supposed to help? Maybe he wasn't doing this right… Was he a cutter now? Maybe a "scratcher?" Was he emo? Did this mean he had to wear black all the time, because that would really put a damper on his summer wardrobe…

He became slowly more aware of the pain. It was a tolerable stinging, and he assumed he was doing something wrong. He didn't feel better, but he somehow didn't feel any worse, and maybe that was the reward. He looked at the two cuts on his wrist again. The first was nearly completely faded, and the second was nothing, and the pain had already stopped. He put two more parallel cuts with the same force as the first one, pulled down his sleeve and left the room.

Weeks went on which developed into months, where Kurt kept up his ritual. The same feeling of numbness was something he desperately sought, never feeling better, but never feeling worse. He kept up the same four scratches. Whenever one faded, he added another, but there were always four, and they were always parallel. This system made sure Kurt was always in control. It assured he never cut to deep or too much. The underside of his lower arm was always sore, and he always held his sleeves far below his wrists, wrapping his hands as well as his secret in sweaters and jackets. Six months passed by where Kurt was able to protect his shameful secret from his friends and family.