Kurt was terrified. Kerovsky's bullying was worse than ever, he was getting pushed into the locker almost daily. Kurt couldn't concentrate during lessons with the thought of that kid leering at him and currently he was even trying to avoid lockers.
"Hey Kurt!" called Mercedes. He flinched and snapped out of his reverie. "Relax it's just me!" she laughed. "What have you got next?"
"Oh erm – English." he replied.
"Are you okay?" asked Mercedes noticing his furtive glances at the hallway.
"Mercedes can you do me a favour?"
"Sure."
"Can you please get my textbook from my locker?"
"Kurt it's your locker, I don't even know the combination."
"Please?" he pleaded.
"What are you afraid of?"
Kurt let out an irritated sigh.
"Let me demonstrate." he announced.
He braced himself and began the march to his locker. No sooner had he opened the door he could feel Kerovsky shoving him into the metal.
"If you tell anyone, about what we did, I'll kill you." the bully whispered before striding off.
Kurt paled and tried to supress a shudder of terror. Locker shoves were one thing, but death threats were something new.
Mercedes ran over to him.
"Next time I'll be fetching your textbook." she agreed firmly.
"Thanks."
Mercedes was concerned. Only a few days ago Rachel had given a pep talk that got the boys to stand up to Kerovsky but they'd returned bruised. Sam even got a black eye from the fight. For a while Kurt had seemed better after meeting Blaine but it was clear that this bullying was really getting him down.
Kurt managed to make it through the rest of the day without having another Kerovsky incident but he just didn't seem himself at Glee club.
"So what do you think guys?" asked Mr Schuester.
The cheering from the Glee members brought Kurt back down to earth and he tried to look happy even though he had no idea what the teacher had proposed.
"What do you think Kurt?" questioned Mercedes with a smile.
"Oh erm – great!"
This unenthusiastic response caught Mr Schu's attention.
"Kurt you'd normally be thrilled about doing a Lady Gaga song."
"I am." Kurt replied. "I'm just a little distracted."
Mr Schuester frowned but decided to leave it at that.
Kurt sighed. It was nearly the end of the day and quite frankly he was fed up. Kerovsky's bullying had been particularly brutal and Kurt was sick and tired of being punished for who he was. Mr Schuester words echoed in his head from the talk they'd had earlier. Kerovsky was getting to him but nobody could stand up to that bully without getting a few battle scars. Today was a rather good example, Mercedes couldn't stop staring at him as they ate lunch together.
"What?" he snapped.
"You've got a black eye."
"What!?" Kurt screeched.
He had his compact mirror out before Mercedes could say another word. He groaned internally, how could he explain this away? Kurt knew he was lucky not to have more than just a black eye.
"Since when do you get into fights?" Mercedes asked.
"I don't." he admitted. His eyes flickered over to the table where Kerovsky normally sat. Sure enough the bully was there leering at him. He pushed away his plate. "I'm not hungry."
He stood.
"Kurt you've got to eat something."
But he was already gone. Mercedes frowned and started to dial into her phone.
Dinner had just finished at the Hummel-Hudson residence when the bell rang.
"Kurt will you get that!" called Burt.
Kurt approached the door. This was his worst nightmare. He was afraid he'd open it to reveal the face of Karovsky. He squeezed his eyes shut and braced himself as the door opened.
"Hi."
Kurt opened one eye and was relieved to see Blaine standing on his doorstep.
"Blaine?" he said relaxing.
"That's me. Can I come in? It's tipping it out here!"
"Sure." Kurt replied stopping aside.
Blaine was wearing his school uniform and was utterly drenched. Carole eyed the boy from the kitchen. "Do you want a towel?" she asked.
Blaine was dripping.
"That would be great thanks."
Kurt led Blaine over to the sofa. For the moment they were alone.
"Not that I'm not glad to see you, but why are you here? Doesn't it take hours to get to my house from Westerville?"
"I'm here to talk to you, Kurt. Mercedes called me. She said you were acting strangely and she couldn't get through to you. What's wrong?"
"It's nothing."
Blaine looked at the younger boy. Kurt's face was haggard and there was a strange blue tinge to his eye that was barely visible due to an excessive layer of concealer.
"No it's not." Blaine insisted gently. Kurt looked down. It was getting harder and harder to bottle everything up. "She only wants to help and so do I." Blaine added. Kurt started to sob, he couldn't hold it in. The tears slowly washed away the makeup around his eye. "It's okay; just tell me what's wrong."
Blaine took Kurt's hand.
"Kerovsky's taken to beating me up inbetween lessons. Properly."
Blaine's grip on Kurt's hand tightened.