Hello, Friends! This story is going to be rather different from my last, obviously. It is Glee, not Harry Potter and especially not Twilight!
***Please be aware that there will be some subtle references to attempted suicide that occurred in the past throughout this story. If you are familiar with Dave Karofsky's storyline on Glee, it will all be canon up until the end of season 3***
I do not own anything recognizable. I am in no way affiliated with Ryan Murphy or any other creators of Glee.
I'm hoping to make this fic a summer project- something that won't take me 4 years to finish. I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to leave a review!
Wednesday, July 17th.
David stood silently against the wall near the entrance to the kitchen. He listened to the hiss of running water from the faucet and the methodical scraping of a scrub brush on the bottom of a pot. He fiddled anxiously with the cuff of his sweatshirt sleeve before tucking both his hands up inside the elasticated fabric. He cleared his throat and stepped into the kitchen. "Hey, Dad? Can I talk to you?"
Immediately the pot was settled back into the sink and the faucet was shut. Paul Karofsky grabbed a cloth from where it hung on the handle of the oven and began to dry his hands. "Of course, of course you can. Sure, let's have a seat."
The excessive attention to a conversation that had not yet even begun had David slipping his hands from his sleeves and fidgeting with front pocket instead. Finally looping his thumbs low in the pocket of the sweatshirt he sat down and said carefully, "It's about this, actually," he began, gesturing toward his father, the table between them and the general area.
Paul twisted the cloth between his now dry hands and nodded encouragingly. David decided to bite the bullet. "Dad I know you're really trying here, to show that you're supporting me and stuff but it's like I can't breath for five seconds anymore!"
Paul stifled a sharp intake of breath and David winced at his word choice, apologizing softly. He removed his hands from his pocket and placed them on the table. He picked awkwardly at a spot on the wood where the grain was a slightly darker color. It was from when he was nine. He had been painting model airplanes and had forgone laying down newspaper first because his mother had been out of town for the weekend. When she returned home he had had to fess up to the spilled paint that never quite washed off. He rubbed the pad of his thumb over the smudge.
He sighed. "I feel, really… smothered right now. It's like every time I sleep late you come knocking to see if I'm okay or more depressed or something, and if I go out somewhere you're texting me so often that I might as well have just stayed home, and I appreciate that you have my back, Dad. You have no idea what that means to me. But I really feel like I need time to just focus on me, okay? I'm okay. I'm going to be, okay."
Paul breathed in deeply through his nose and let the air whoosh out again through puffed cheeks. He stood with a swipe of the cloth across the table and returned to the sink. He flipped up the handle of the faucet and began washing again. "So what would you like to have happen?" He asked.
"Well, I was talking to Dr. Bevotti."
"I should hope so, I've been driving you there every Thursday," Paul said humorously.
"Dad I want to dorm at Bowling Green."
There was a noticeable pause in the scraping of the scrub brush. After a pregnant pause, Paul spoke. "I don't know, David…"
"Dad, please. I've been doing all kinds of research and people keep saying that commuting students don't get the same college experience that dorm kids do. I mean they get the education, yeah but there's like a whole other side to college when you're in the dorms. The social stuff and being on campus more and meeting people, and- and, relationships." The teenager grasped for excuses, gesturing minutely with his hands.
"Relationships?" Paul raised an eyebrow.
David ducked his head, his hands moved back to his pocket. "Not like that. Well maybe not right away." he clarified. "But Dad how am I supposed to even make friends if all I do is drive an hour to campus, sit through lectures and then come home every night? And group projects would be a pain in the ass if I had to drive all the way back just to meet up when I could have just been on campus anyway. And if I make a team then what I just drive back and forth for practice all the time? I'm just… feeling stuck here."
Paul plucked a plate from the suds in the sink and wiped it clean, not saying anything. David began to feel guilty before recalling the session he had been at the previous Thursday.
"Dad, I'm not going to feel bad about wanting this for myself. I'm eighteen and I should want to get out and experience college and being on my own and stuff. And if I'm not here for part of the year, then-" he stopped talking abruptly, not even aware that his brain was taking the conversation there.
"Then what?" Paul prompted his son with a sigh.
"Then maybe Mom would come home in the months I'm at school, and I dunno maybe things would be easier between us all if I'm just here for short breaks, or she could go back to Aunt Tina's when I do come home." David mumbled. He twirled a loose thread from the inside of his sweatshirt firmly around his index finger and felt it snag on the corner of his thumb. He picked it with a nail until it broke, unwinding from his finger. He put his hands back on the table.
"Is that why you want this?" Paul asked.
"No!" David was quick to say. "I mean, it might work out as a favorable option for you two. Maybe without me here, I mean without me at home, you guys could come to a sort of understanding or whatever. I really do want to dorm, Dad. I've been talking to Dr. B about it practically all summer and he says if I want I can change appointments with him til Saturdays and drive home for it or maybe even just stop the sessions and I can just call him or whatever if I want. I just want to be normal again, Dad. Everything that happened… if just follows me here. If I go to the store, or the gym, or if I see any of the guys when I stop for a coffee or whatever. It's… I don't like it. Dr. B told us to aim for things that are going to make me happy, and I feel like I've got a good shot at that if I live at Bowling Green."
Paul rinsed the last glass, dumping it upside down to get any leftover suds out and then set it aside on the counter. He flipped the faucet off again and shook his hands over the sink instead of drying them. He looked carefully at his son who was still seated at the kitchen table. The young man's form was big, but solid. He had muscles in his arms and torso and still a bit of chub to his neck and face, but he looked healthy overall. He'd been running mostly in the past few months; Early in the morning before the summer sun reached its peak and then at dusk when the streets began to cool again. The color had returned to his complexion, and Paul knew that his son wasn't in the same dark place he had been almost a year prior.
"You're sure?" He asked finally.
"Yeah," David answered.
"If it's not working out, David, I won't want you there trying to stick it out. You'd call me?" Paul asked firmly.
"Yeah, I swear. And I told Bevotti I think I'd like to keep in contact, just through phone calls or whatever. Talking to him helps. And I would call home, Dad. I wouldn't just… leave you."
Paul nodded. He placed both his hands on the railing of the back of one of the kitchen chairs and leaned against it. "When are the housing applications due?"
A smile, a real, honestly happy one, broke across David's face. "I've got the information on my laptop. Lemme go get it." He jumped up from the table and took off out of the kitchen toward his bedroom. Paul nodded again, trying to convince himself that this was a good decision. He smiled as Dave called "Thanks Dad!" from upstairs, and knew that it was.
Note: Okay obviously an intro chapter. Basically I want this story to take place after Dave graduates high school. The show never gave us information on what he does about schooling after his attempt so I'm going to just sort of gloss over that. Basically, high school is behind him and he's ready to get the ball rolling on college. Hope you guys can get into this! I've always been sad that Dave's plot got dropped so abruptly. I'd like to know what's going on with him!
Also, Bowling Green State University is real, and is located approximately an hour away from Lima, Ohio. You can visit their website online.
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darkestAngel13