"Good morning Kurt."

"Good morning David and how are you today?"

"Fine thank you, and you?"

"Fine."

There, he'd said all the things that he was supposed to say and he'd even said them politely. Not a trace of sarcasm or anger. He wants polite…well I'd say he got it! After a moment or two of awkward silence he chanced a peek in his direction. Damn. Kurt was looking at him with that mildly, no…tolerantly amused look on his face. He is so smug sometimes.

"Really?" Kurt looked dubious.

He sighed. "No not really, but how are we supposed to get this right if you question it? Every time I do it right you screw it up by questioning my answers!" He exhaled slowly, counted to 10, and looked at him. Big mistake. He always looks like he actually wants to know how I feel. "I'm tired, I don't feel well, I'd rather be at home…I'm not fine, but that is what people say when they're trying to be polite and that is what you asked for…right?" He went on knowing that Kurt was capable of being utterly relentless when he felt you were holding something back. "I'm supposed to sing one of the specials tomorrow at church and it's making me nervous so I'm not really good company right now. I'm completely freaked out; I don't think I can do it!"

The object of his affection laughed softly, "Then why do you keep doing this to yourself? Why not just say no, why agonize?"

He turned to face his coworker (and hopefully friend) for the first time that morning. "I have to do it, if I don't do these things to myself…if I don't make myself bigger, more visible every once in a while…"

His voice trailed off. "I'm scared I'll just, just shrink down to nothing. I'll just blink right out of existence. No one can see me if I don't make them…so I have to make them."

Kurt looked amazed. "You don't actually believe that, do you?"

The man could try the patience of a saint! "Of course I do…I've worked too long and too hard at being invisible. Now it just happens whether I'm trying to or not, so…every once in a while…I have to do something to make people see me." He just wished, just once, that the proud boy in front of him could understand.

"You couldn't be invisible if you tried David; your friends, your family, your customers…they all see you, I promise."

He put out his hand before he could stop himself but he did manage to avoid touching Kurt. "Look maybe you think people see me but they don't, no one does. I'm David. I'm that guy at the counter, you know the funny one that tells those hilarious stories all the time…but I don't exist outside of this place. The minute they walk out the door? Poof! I disappear. It's that simple."

Kurt shook his head. "They wouldn't agree. They love you, you're the reason they come back. We wouldn't have half the customers that we do if you weren't here!"

"They don't love me; they love the idea of me. They own me and this place. When they come here, I'm here to entertain them. When they leave they forget me until the next time they need me." Dave just wanted to make him see. "Look, it's just like you and all the bloodletting you do on your days off…"

He questioned that, laughing. "So you're saying you're an adrenaline junkie?"

"No! I'm saying that I'm doing what I have to do to prove to myself that I exist. I don't do it for the fear; I do it to be seen. If I don't do it…I have no proof." He finished his sentence weakly, hoping the other boy wouldn't notice his eyes filling.

"David, I know you exist. I see you, the real you, you don't have to torture yourself."

Damn him. He did notice. He's quite possibly the only observant guy in whole stinking world. "You have never seen me, believe me."

"Are you kidding, I've known you for years…I think I've seen you!" The smaller boy was openly scoffing now.

How can he sound so bewildered? "You haven't got a clue! You don't care what I look like and honestly, you don't care to see me anymore than any of those people! You've got some sort of image of me in your tiny little brain but since I know that's not the real me…I know you haven't seen me, not really!" He hoped he was throwing Kurt off the scent, at least a little.

"You think I wear this fat suit by accident, that I have some sort of portion control issue or that I just eat because I'm unhappy. No matter what I did people wouldn't stop looking at me, they kept seeing me for what I really was. Big, ugly, gay Karofsky. So? I got fat. No one likes to look at fat people, it's uncomfortable. Remember your 'chubby boy' comment? I'm living proof. Their eyes just slide right off of me and move on to something prettier, it took me a long time to figure that out and even longer to figure out how fat I had to be before everyone would just stop looking at me!" He paused and drew a breath. "Now nobody sees me, nobody cares; it's a lot easier this way. All I have to do is occasionally break out and be visible for a little while…just a little bit and then I'm good again. No fuss, no muss."

"You know I only called you chubby to hurt you the way you were hurting me, right? I know that you don't really like it this way and you know it, no one could be happy like that! I…"

The bell for the door chimed and one of the shop favorites walked through the door - David could've hugged the woman for her impeccable timing. "Hi, how can I help you today?"

She smiled, "Hi David, I have an appointment at 10:00 today"

David laughed slyly. "Oh really? Well, we'll just see about that!" Dave knew she was his 10am, he'd seen her name on the schedule that morning when he came in, this was just part of the game he played with his regulars. "Dang! Looks like you do have an appointment today, so…I already have your paperwork ready if you could just sign here and uh…if I could have the keys please?" He turned back to Kurt.

"So…you up?" The fashionable young mechanic narrowed his eyes. "Yeah I'm up. Here ma'am, I'll take those keys, you just make yourself comfortable in the lobby here and I'll get your car in and going." Kurt walked away with the keys and clipboard but turned and walked backwards through the door into the shop "Not over" he mouthed at him "Not!"

Dave turned back to the customer. "OK now where did we leave off last time you were here? Did I tell you about the time I fell down a hill? All the way down a hill. No? Well…"

Wouldn't it be nice if it really went like that, he mused pen still in his hand, ink still wet on the page.

If only the real story weren't so boring; nice guy, not-so-nice guy, so not gonna get together at all. He's not looking, I'm not good-looking...you know the story.

He's polite, he talks to me, but sometimes I feel like I have to browbeat him into it. I feel like if I didn't remind him that it isn't polite to only ignore me in a room full of people, he wouldn't even look at me. The weird thing is he seems to know I exist. He thinks of me when I'm not around, he tells me things that happened that he knows I'll think are funny. He spends an inordinate amount of time telling me that he's worried about my "health". Of course I can't help but use this against him. I tell him to stop calling me fat.

He worries that I'll never find someone though so maybe it's just self-preservation. Maybe he thinks that if I was dating someone I would stop loving him. But how can I move on when he listens to what I say? When months later he calls me on some esoteric piece of bullshit thing I said to him ONE time. He knows what color my eyes are (there are guys I've known my whole life that couldn't tell you that much about me…my best friend "Z"). He laughs at my jokes, tells me not to call myself names. He makes me smile just looking at him; he doesn't even have to look back.

It can't be true love though... otherwise I'd be willing to let it go. He has a boyfriend. He's not interested in someone like me. He wants some sweet 'wifey' who never calls him on his bullshit. He reads, writes, sings...and boy can he carry on a conversation. He can't go an hour without hair product though, which frankly should make me drop it... but I can't. I know I probably only like him because he'll never like me back. I get that if he suddenly said yes, I'd probably back-pedal like crazy.

It's just that whatever I do I'm hitting my head against a brick wall. If I let it go, I have nothing, not even hope. If I don't let it go... I'll end up bleeding, just like the last time I "fell in love" with him. Love isn't safe. It's not for cowards. Love is hard, jagged; it makes you ache with emptiness and that's when you have love. You don't want to hear about how it feels when you have none.

I have none.

I can't remember the last time I had any. I'm not sure that anyone has ever loved me, not best anyway. I know I didn't really love him last time, at least not at first. In my defense, love grows... if given the chance. I do always give it the chance; I can't seem to stop myself. I'm just too dumb to lie down and die I guess. I just don't know when to stop throwing good love after bad. I've loved Kurt Hummel so many times, but he's never loved me back.