Got this idea when I was re-watching the Prom episode and realized the passive followers made up most of the vote...what were they thinking? Here's my take on it.
You cast your ballot, but you don't return to the floor to mingle with your friends and the nice guy you brought as your date. You stare at the box. The words "Prom Court!" in obnoxious glitter letters sparkle under the dim lighting; some Prom committee girl in a beautiful dress with stars in her eyes wrote it. You think about your slip, one among a thousand, how you stared at it, your neat writing seeming slanted and how the name you wrote tore at you before you rushed your hand and shoved it into the slot. But it didn't take that feeling with it. That feeling that you didn't anticipate, that you wish you could slip out of as easily as you slipped out of your wrap before you went to dance. You shake your head, no doubt shaking loose your carefully crafted and pinned curls. It's gone and it's time you were too.
When they call the name you freeze.
You remember what you wrote.
Kurt Hummel.
The hockey team whispered insidiously, Write in Kurt as Prom queen. It'll show that fag, showing up here in that goddamn skirt.
For some reason, you laughed with your friends when they said it and swore to. You got your slip and wrote, K. You paused. You started to erase it. Then you scolded yourself for being a coward and finished the first word. Kurt…
You hear a laugh and freeze. He's right next to you at the punch bowl. He's jabbering with that sexy guy who doesn't go to this school and they way they lean together tells you immediately, gay. Always the hot ones. You get indignant enough to write an H from that thought. Then it hits you if he moved a bit to the right, he could read your paper. You automatically lean to cover your writing, God, you can't let him see. You shift over and he beams at you. "Having fun?" He asks.
"Yeah," you manage. "Glee's doing great up there." He smiles and prances off with the guy. You exhale and curve a u. Then an m. The seconds it takes to finish the name take years.
The spotlight finds Kurt and at his horrified face a wave of memory crashes against you and you flail helplessly under its weight. Kurt is in your French class—you were partners in that improv skit in Theatre last year—he loaned you a pencil that you never actually returned—when you cut your hair he was the first to notice—he told you he liked your oxfords once—
He is a person and you just tried to break him.
You all tried to break him.
You're too afraid to be different, but not him, and you should admire him—you do. He's never changed and you have nowhere near strength like that. Treat others like you would want to be treated, your mother's voice whispers. You've done nothing of the sort.
When he come back and dances, the true force of his character hits you.
The shame really sets in.
Treat others like you'd want be treated.
Next time, I promise.
You promise, please, you promise.