Kurt Hummel was used to the teasing. He was used to people pushing him around, people stepping on him to get to the top, people making fun of him because he was gay. However, Kurt Hummel was not used to Dave Karofsky.
Karofsky was Kurt's main tormentor and had originally started out as a cardboard cutout, straight-from-a-terrible-after-school-special bully. However, as Karofsky's tormenting continued, Kurt began to become more an more confused by Karofsky's behavior.
It all started when Kurt had chased Karofsky into the boys' locker room after being shoved into the lockers once again. Kurt and Karofsky had had a heated argument, and Kurt had yelled, "You are nothing but a scared little boy who can't handle how extraordinarily ordinary you are!"
After that, things changed.
Karofsky grabbed Kurt and kissed him. It was a sickening experience, leaving Kurt feeling queasy for hours after it had happened. Karofsky had bullied him to the point where he felt uncomfortable at McKinley and he expected him to be okay with him kissing him.
How wrong Dave Karofsky was.
Kurt had gone home and laid on the cool floor of his bathroom, waiting for himself to throw up. He stayed there for hours, refusing to eat or drink, and making Burt think he was sick. Thankfully, his father had let him stay home the next day. Kurt Hummel was not a coward, just confused.
Over the next few weeks, Kurt managed to put the Karofsky incident into the back of his mind, but it was always there, nagging at him and making him think that Karofsky was just a scared little boy, picking on his crush the way boys picked on girls in elementary school.
The day started out like any other, nothing extraordinary happening. In fact, the most exciting thing that happened was Mercedes' retelling a lame joke she heard from Brittany.
"What did the ghost say to the wall?" she said. An eye roll from Kurt was the response. "Hey, just passing through."
"Ha ha. Oh, that was hilarious. Let me catch my breath," Kurt said, emotionless. He was too busy arguing with Mercedes over whether lame jokes were actually funny when he ran into Karofsky.
"Watch it, fag," Karofsky hissed in Kurt's direction, and suddenly the kiss was brought to the front of Kurt's mind. Why did Karofsky have to be such a jerk?
"What the hell did you just say to me?" Kurt snapped.
"I told you to watch it, fag!"
Karofsky's hands were on Kurt's chest and he pushed the smaller boy with such force that Kurt was sure his feet left the floor. He fell backwards, books flying out of his hands, and smacked his head on the lockers with a sickening sound.
Kurt shut his eyes, his head pounding. It wasn't bleeding, but damn, it hurt. Kurt shakily stood up, ready to snap back at Karofsky, even punch him if he had to, but Mercedes intervened.
"Karofsky, you better get moving before I open a can of whoop-ass on you," Mercedes said. Karofsky scowled and sulked away, the hallway finally returning to an almost normal state. Mercedes picked up Kurt's books and handed them to him.
"You alright, babe?" she asked. Kurt nodded, and his books slipped through his hands, crashing to the floor for a second time.
"Could you carry my books please?" he asked, rubbing his temples. Mercedes answered, "Alright," and helped him to his class.
The rest of the day went by uneventfully, except for the splitting headache he had and the nose bleed in the middle of 4th period. His vision was blurred and progressively getting worse, something he thought was just a side effect of the head ache.
Despite his better judgement, Mercedes convinced him to stay for glee club. He had wanted to go home, take twice the prescribed dose of pain medicine (his headache was that bad), and take a nap. However, Mercedes was afraid of an overdose and confiscated his keys, forcing him to stay at McKinley.
Kurt was barely getting by in practice. He didn't dance, and didn't sing out. Hell, he even opted out on singing his solo. Halfway through yet another one of Rachel's solos, Kurt's headache got to the point where the room was spinning.
"Mr. Schu, I have to go to the bathroom," he said, his eyes squeezed shut in pain. This headache had turned into a migraine, and with every blink, his vision became more and more distorted.
"Are you alright, Kurt?" Mr. Schuster said, and Kurt nodded.
"Just a headache."
"Well, okay then," he said and Kurt stumbled out of the room, blindly making his way down the hallway to the boy's bathroom. His hand trailed on the wall to keep him steady as he walked to the sink. He splashed cold water on his face, closed his eyes, and, like he had done so many times before, he looked up into the mirror to fix his hair.
But, unlike all the other times, Kurt couldn't see himself. In fact, he couldn't see anything. He splashed more water on his face, rubbed his eyes, pinched himself...he tried everything he could to make sure that he wasn't dreaming. But he wasn't. This was the scary reality.
He stumbled out of the boy's bathroom, and once he was in the hallway (or at least that's where he thought he was) he yelled, "Help!" No response. "Help!" Again, no answer. Did they think he was joking?
"I NEED HELP!" he screamed, and again, he heard no reply. He sunk to the ground, terrified and crying, and he curled up into a ball. What was going on? Why was no one coming? Where were they?
Kurt lay on the floor for what felt like years before he finally heard something. "Kurt?" Mr. Schu's voice was accompanied by footsteps. It was a miracle. "Kurt, what-oh my God." Mr. Schu's footsteps became louder, and Kurt guessed that his teacher was running towards him.
"Kurt, what happened?" Mr. Schu said. His voice was close.
"I was in the bathroom and I put water on my face and now I can't see!" Kurt was crying now, and he was pretty sure that half of what he just said was incomprehensible to Mr. Schu.
"You can't see?" Kurt nodded, and Mr. Schu called, "Finn! Mercedes! I need you here, now!"
More footsteps came from down the hall, and Kurt could practically see Mercedes pushing Finn down to the ground in an attempt to get to Kurt as fast as possible.
"Baby, what happened?" she said. She pulled him into a sitting position, and hugged him close to her.
"I can't see," he kept repeating over and over, "I can't see."
"Mercedes, stay here with Kurt. Finn, go outside and call 911. I'm going to go tell everyone what's going on and then I'll meet you outside." Kurt heard Mr. Schu and his stepbrother leaving, and Mercedes squeezed him gently.
"Don't leave," he whispered, his crying finally subsiding enough for him to talk.
"Don't worry, baby," she said and she pushed a stray lock of his hair out of his face. "You'll never be alone."