For Nicki
Four
When Kurt Hummel first met Quinn Fabray, they were four years old.
Miss Daisy's Little Scholars was the only preschool in Lima that was ridiculously overpriced—why not give your child the best? And if the best happens to cost more than a brand-new car every three months, well, that was just too bad.
Only the elite of Lima could go there, and so there was six kids in the four year old age group—Jackson, Leslie, Michael, David, Kurt, and Quinny. Jackson's mother was the one who invented Krazy Glue. Leslie's father worked for the stock market. David and Michael were the twin sons of Mick Jagger's daughter.
And then there was Kurt and Quinny. Kids whose parents occasionally struggled to make the monthly payments, kids who barely made the cut to get into the school in the first place. And the differences showed.
The rest of the children would chat amicably at the designated Tea Time about world events ("Did you hear that Princess Diana died?" "Oh, what a shame." "My teddy bear and I are sending our condolences via e-mail this evening after Barney.") Kurt and Quinny would never participate.
"Kurtieeee!" she would stomp her foot, arms crossed at her chest, rumpling her pink, ruffled dress. "I want my dolly back!"
"You don't know how to dress her right!" he would insist, his little bow tie askew from the struggle. "Her dress is pink and her hair bow is red! Does your mother let you leave the house looking like this?"
Almost every day, the same notes were sent out.
Dear Mrs. Fabray,
Little Quinny was unruly today and was made to sit in the corner during Recreational Development. Please see to it that she is aware that sitting on her classmates while pulling their hair is unacceptable behavior for a young lady.
She is expected to bring a handwritten apology to Mr. Kurt Hummel tomorrow morning. Please remember that continued undisciplined behavior will result in expulsion.
Regards,
Miss Daisy
Dear Mrs. Hummel,
Little Kurt was unruly today and was made to sit in the corner during Recreational Development. Please see to it that he is aware that stealing his classmate's dolls and telling his classmate that she is a "tacky trollop" is unacceptable behavior for a young gentleman.
He is expected to bring a handwritten apology to Miss Quinn Fabray tomorrow morning. Please remember that continued undisciplined behavior will result in expulsion.
Regards,
Miss Daisy
They were both expelled after one year of attendance.
Six
"Quinny, you can't just climb up there by yourself! You're going to tear your dress!" Little Kurt's face was chubby and angelic, permanently plastered with an impish smirk, but his eyes often betrayed him, and he was worried.
"Go away, Kurt! Nobody likes you!" Quinn was halfway up the big oak tree in the playground, her dress occasionally flying up to reveal her pink-and-white polka dotted panties. She didn't care much, as Kurt didn't make fun of her when he could see her underwear like the other boys did, but that didn't mean she liked him. In fact, quite the opposite. He was the cautious to her fearless, and the only thing they seemed to have in common was their penchant for snide remarks. She wanted to climb the big tree, and he told her repeatedly that she couldn't, only making her want to do it even more to prove him wrong.
Kurt looked unaffected by her remark. "Quinny, what if you fall?"
"I'm not going to fall! You worry too much!" Her white Mary Janes were becoming irreversibly scuffed by the rough tree branches. She looked down briefly to stick her tongue out at Kurt and realized how high up she was. She began to shriek loudly.
Dear Mrs. Fabray,
Quinn fell out of the oak tree today and ripped her dress in the process. She isn't hurt, but we have had a talk with her to make her understand that she cannot be climbing trees. We hope you reinforce this idea.
She is also sitting out of recess for the next week for pulling her classmate's hair.
Lucille McCavenaugh
Principal of Herbert Hoover Elementary School
Eight
Kurt sat on the wet grass, holding his knees to his chest in his brand new suit that his Gramma Hummel bought him. He wanted to run over to his dad and hold his hand, but his dad was crying and there were lots of people around him, so he decided perhaps staying put was the best option. Also, his dad was sitting next to his mother's open casket, and Kurt wasn't yet ready to go look at her. The last time he saw his mother, she was laughing and smiling at the nice cards she had received when she was in the hospital, and now he was pretty sure she wasn't smiling anymore.
He squirmed a bit uncomfortably as his pants became soaked through. It had just stopped raining. He leaned back against the church that they barely attended in the first place and rested his cheek against his knees and closed his eyes, trying to remember what the last words his mother said to him. He thought it might have been, "Be good, sweetheart", or "Love you, Monkey." He smiled briefly. His mother's pet name for him was "Monkey", since he always asked for peanut butter and banana sandwiches in his lunch box.
"Your mom is dead."
He looked up. Little Quinny Fabray—Quinn, he reminded himself. Second grade made her decide she was too grown up for a nickname. And she didn't talk to him much anymore except to tell him his hair looked dumb or that his clothes were too pretty for them to be boy clothes. But there she stood in front of him, pounding him with a look that wasn't pitying as much as just sad. She was wearing a black linen dress with little white ruffles showing from underneath the skirt and her hands were clasped behind her back.
"Yeah." Kurt said, sighing. "She's dead...life goes on." He couldn't bring himself to cry. He stayed strong for his dad. He hadn't cried once since the doctor came to tell them the news, and he was proud of himself.
Quinn fidgeted a bit before bringing a doll from behind her back and tossing it in the grass in front of him. It was the same doll she dragged around everywhere she went—a pink dress with a red bow in her hair. The doll was a little worse for the wear and Quinn had taken to keeping her in her backpack so that only a few would know that she still kept the doll around. "My mommy got me a new doll and she said I needed to be nice to you because you don't have a mommy anymore."
Kurt stared at the fashionably inept doll and plucked it from the wet grass and pulled it into his lap. "Thank you."
"It's not a big deal. My new doll is better." Quinn didn't even believe it as it came out of her mouth.
"I'll let you brush her hair sometimes." Kurt offered.
"I told you, I don't need her." Quinn turned and ran off to find her mother. Kurt hugged the doll against his chest and went to his dad's side, holding his hand with one hand and holding the doll with the other.
Thirteen
"Quinn, would you please join the writing club?"
"I don't even like to read, let alone write. And why are you talking to me?"
"Because I need 10 members for the club to make, and…I don't know…"
"Kurt, nobody likes you. You dress like a girl and you're pushing this dorky writing club so hard, none of us can stand it."
Kurt adjusted his thick glasses on the bridge of his nose, looking hurt. "You just have to sign the paper, Quinn. You don't have to have your name in the yearbook or anything…nobody would have to know…"
Quinn glanced to her left and write, pulled a pen out of her binder, and signed her name on the paper, making herself the tenth member. "If anyone finds out about this, I'll have Puck give you a wedgie so hard that your balls will fall off."
"Thanks, Quinn." He smiled.
"This doesn't mean we're friends, Kurt." She leaned forward. "And I know that boy clothes are too big for you because you're so thin, but you're better off being swallowed by your clothes than wearing girl jeans." She whispered. She took his glasses off of his face and dropped them, stomping them on the concrete floor. "And get contacts. Those thick black glasses do nothing for your petite features."
Kurt watched her as she walked down the hallway. She blurred as she got farther away. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed his dad. He was going to need to get those contacts that afternoon if he was going to be able to do any of his work at school the next day.
Sixteen
"What would I do without you, Kurt?"
Kurt grinned at Quinn as she pranced around his room wearing the new dress he had bought for her. It was incredibly difficult to find a designer maternity dress, but Kurt was nothing if not resourceful, and while he and Quinn had kind of given up on each other as friends after middle school, her pregnancy and subsequent loneliness had sort of forced them back together. "I guess you'd look like a glowing, beautiful pregnant girl wearing frumpy clothes from Target." They giggled together.
"Kurt? Why are you being so nice to me? I've been horrible to you…our entire lives! I mean, really…" Her voice trailed off, remembering their long past that virtually nobody knew about.
"Come here."
He took her by the hand and led her to a closet in the corner of his room. He opened it up and dug around for a while, until he finally pulled out a shoebox.
"You can't distract me with shoes, I'm not Mercedes!" she laughed.
Kurt opened the box. Inside was a doll with a ragged and stained pink dress with a red bow that was just barely still attached to her matted blonde hair. Next to her was a mangled pair of black, thick-rimmed glasses with the lenses out and a crack in the side. "You've always had a strange way of looking out for me, Quinn…"
"I've been so mean to you." She said, tears forming in her eyes.
He put a hand to her cheek. "You never pitied me. You always told it like it was and helped when you could…and I know you always watched me from afar, making sure I wasn't making an ass of myself."
She smiled at him. "Let's go see a movie. I've gotta show off my new dress and my sexy best friend."
Twenty-Three
"Quinn? It's time."
Kurt straightened the lapels of his tux and smoothed his jacket down for the millionth time. He looked at her.
Her dress was strapless and off-white (pure white would have been tacky since everyone knew she'd had a baby, Kurt insisted) with a delicate veil over her face. The train of her dress was long and lacy and Kurt had to keep himself from crying at how gorgeous she looked. He held out his elbow for her to take and took a deep breath.
"How do I look?"
"Beautiful. Nobody has ever looked more beautiful than you do right now." He smiled. A tear ran down his cheek and she wiped it away.
"Stop that, you'll get me started." She chastised. "You ready?"
"Shouldn't I be asking you that?"
"Kurt, you've been here since we were toddlers. You know how this works—you're the worrier, I'm the daredevil. I'm fine. Breathe."
"Love you."
"Love you too, Kurtie."
The double doors opened, and Kurt walked Quinn down the aisle. When the preacher asked who gave her away, he answered, "Her mother and I," and kissed her gently on the cheek. He went to his seat next to Mrs. Fabray and dabbed his eyes. She'd come a long way from that girl stamping her foot and yelling at him in the playground.
Life goes on, indeed.