I'm more than what you made of me
I followed the voice you think you gave to me
(Listen - Beyoncé, Dreamgirls)
Staring at the keys in her hand, Penny took a deep breath.
"This is it," she gulped, looking nervously out of her window. She rolled it down to try get some fresh air and calm her anxiety.
She had thought moving out of her parents home in Nebraska and moving in to a new apartment with Kurt all the way in California had made her grown up, but this was completely different. She was on her own now; these were her keys and nobody else's.
It hadn't been that bad in Nebraska; at eighteen having had the same boyfriend for a year had made her feel like that was it and Kurt was 'the one'. Back then she had thought her whole life was sorted out, that she'd paved her way and set her future perfectly. She wanted to be an actress and she'd slept with only Kurt for a whole year, which in her eyes meant that she was ready to commit and take the next step. She let out a tiny laugh at her naive eighteen-year-old self. Her parents had been right; you don't know what you want at eighteen and even if you do, you don't know how to get it.
Things were no longer handed to her on a plate like they were as a kid. She couldn't just go up to her parents and ask for acting lessons because she wanted to be an actress, that was all on her the moment she left - finding them, paying for them, attending them. When she was upset because Kurt had gone off to another party without her, she couldn't sit with her mother for comfort and distraction. Her Dad wasn't going to tell Kurt to "take care of my little girl" anymore whenever he came over to take her out.
But she had loved Kurt, so at the time all of that didn't matter. He was her boyfriend and he took her to movies and told her she was pretty. He drove her around Omaha and they'd go on adventures she wasn't allowed to tell her parents about. He had muscles; manly muscles. And he was older than her, which obviously meant that he was wiser than her and knew how to navigate this new portion of their lives. She had been excited that she would get to take things into her own hands with Kurt beside her to cheer her on. They were going to California; "I'm going to be famous, Daddy! It's where all the famous people live!" she'd explained excitedly. She could pay someone to do what she couldn't - housework would never be her issue.
But the reality was she worked as a waitress and drove a questionable car and ate cheap takeout and did her best to iron her work uniform while Kurt began to mysteriously spend less and less time with her. At first she was fine with it, and then she was convincing herself that she was fine with. He was allowed to have a life and not spend all his time with her, after all. And then they argued, they argued a lot, and he started spending more time with her after she threw her hair straightener at him and poured his protein shake powder down the toilet. They both apologised and somehow she took some of the blame, but at the time she figured whatever worked, because she loved him. He did apologise, after all.
That lasted for a while but then he was being too nice and she knew something was definitely wrong - not just maybe wrong like she sometimes thought, but definitely wrong because Kurt was being incredibly un-Kurt. Truthfully, she kind of liked it. He was nicer, more loving, he spent evenings on the couch with her watching trashy television. She stopped caring that this was unlike him because she liked it so much.
But then it got worse, and very quickly. He was less careful. She'd see girls exiting the apartment building when she was coming in and once she was upstairs she found him making the bed, even though she'd already made it that morning. So she stopped making the bed because it was easier to pretend not to notice. When they were out together he'd make sure she was drunk enough first before going off with other girls. That was her thing! She'd even gotten her ex-boyfriend drunk before sleeping with his brother, and then vice versa. But still, it was easier to be drunk and forget about Kurt for a while.
And then she found him in bed with someone else and she had her evidence, and it hurt a lot more than she had expected.
Breaking up with someone after being together for five years hurt. Even if she hated his lying, cheating guts. She'd loved him. Everything she thought she knew had been erased from the board and now she had to start anew.
Kurt had told her she'd be terrible living on her own and that she should just stay. Kurt had told her she wasn't smart enough or good enough for anything beyond waitressing, and that it was a miracle they kept her on because she wasn't even good at that. Kurt had told her she had a pretty face and a great body but that was probably the only thing she had going for her. Penny wished he had been drunk when he'd told her all of those things, and she wished that they'd been having an argument and it was just him being desperate.
Undoing her seatbelt and opening her car door, Penny stepped out and took a breath of fresh air, smiling at the '2311' on the building she was moving into. She could do this. Nobody was going to tell her what she could or couldn't do - not Kurt, not her parents, not anybody. She could do this alone. She didn't need anybody to help her. Penny was so much more than that.
