A/N School is over! Updates are expected to be more regular. I'm going to crank out this chapter like a freaking machine. This chapter has been bugging me for quite a while. I kept changing it and changing it and changing it...

Swim 'Til You Drown

The day went by quickly. The classes seemed to end early. Time within classes was but a second long. Lunch was a moment forgotten.

The day was short lived.

The looks, however, were not.

Kurt felt as if students eyes were on him wherever he went. The looks lasted more than what would have been acceptable. Kurt knew that the school must have heard the rumour by Dave or Jacob, from all the stares he had gotten throughout the entire day.

Most were neutral, just curious looks. Some were full of disgust, and even a few were pitiful.

Kurt didn't care.

He needed to focus, be calm, and ignore his fellow peers. Because in all honesty, he knew that this whole thing would blow over, or that the students would find something newer and more scandalous to consume their interest with.

Glee club was a strange experience for him, though. Honestly, Kurt just expected it to be the same, the absolute normal, but then after a past consideration, he really didn't know where he had come up with that idea. Because seriously, this was his group of gossipy singer friends who would, without a doubt, pester him about near anything, and possibly find a song to sing to him about his troubles.

At least the latter didn't happen.

Kurt strode into the choir room, his saddle bag jumping at his sides. His arms were crossed across his chest and he wore an angry, yet fearful, look. Most of the Glee clubbers were already there, pardon Santana and a few others, and Kurt didn't spare a glance at any of them as he took a free seat in the back corner.

Kurt remained silent, his mind counting down slowly from three until, yes, right on time, his friends began to question him.

There were many exclaims of his name, a few loud inquiries and even one or more crude comments from Puck before Kurt told them to be quiet, in a manner he hoped was gentle. "Really, everyone, do you really believe the rumours? We are the Glee club. More than just these rumours have been passed around about us, and you choose now to believe them?"

The club became silent at that, their mouths shutting slowly, as the missing members of Glee entered the room. Santana, Brittany and Artie turned to face the club, their laughter sliding off their lips as they took in the atmosphere of the room. They cocked their heads, or in Artie's case, adjusted his glasses in confusion, as the rest of the Glee club's heads slowly turned back to stare at Kurt.

Santana spoke, "It's like I've walked into some funeral. Who died?"

Kurt closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He didn't want to answer, and he hoped someone else would before more questions were directed back at him. He wanted his friends to know the truth, but a growing headache was beginning to form between his temples, and the day had been difficult enough without their added pestering.

"Haven't you heard the rumours, Santana?" Quinn asked, her eyebrow raised.

"'Course I have. I choose to ignore them, you know, in case they're about me or something. I got suspended once for beating someone up, I don't want to do it again." Santana said, dropping herself down in the chair next to Kurt and crossing her legs.

The other two had already gone to their spots, conversing quietly to Rachel and Finn, behind Brittany's hand, a precaution by said girl in case of wandering eavesdroppers. Kurt wondered what they were talking about.

Santana craned her neck and looked at Kurt. "What rumours?" she asked, honest curiosity spilling from her words.

Kurt sighed. "I received the first from Jacob," he said, Santana's nose crinkling at the name. "He told me that there was spreading information that I had gone all the way with Blaine."

Santana nodded absently, her mind seemingly elsewhere. "Blaine...the Warbler at Dalton, right?"

Kurt nodded. "At lunch, I heard students saying that I cheated on someone else with Blaine." he continued. "And on the way here, people were talking about my mission to convert every boy I like to, what did they call it, gay-ism?"

Rachel swished her hair back to look at them from the row in front of Kurt and Santana. "Gay-ism? That is the most derogatory term I have ever heard."

Kurt raised his eyebrows in a mock realization, and he leaned his head back on the wall. Everyone's attention was back on him, and Kurt never thought he would wish for the day where he wanted Mr. Schue to be ranting about emotional singers like Ron Pope. Even that would be better than this cruel attention.

"Kurt," Artie said, "if we don't know how these rumours started, then how in Hell's name are we going to help you?"

Kurt's arms tightened their hold on itself as he struggled for words. "It's fine. I'm sure it'll be forgotten by tomorrow."

"I don't know, man," Puck said, shaking his head, "things like that aren't really forgotten all that easily here."

Kurt closed his eyes again, envisioning a brutal Dave Karofsky and the abuse he, himself, had to endure for a false sense of love. He never wanted that feeling to return. He needed to tell his friends, the most important parts at least. He owed it to them. There were just road blocks, the huge bumps in the road where the cruel information lay hidden. He didn't want to share some things.

So he tried to explain it all, leaving out his relationship with Dave and the abuse he had gotten. No one knew of the bruises and scratches except for him, Dave and Blaine, and he wasn't so sure Dave even knew the expanse of what he had done.

So he told the story, little by little. Mr. Schuester had long since entered the room, ready to begin his lesson, but had saw his students in a deep conversation, and had left to his office to finish some paperwork for Regionals.

"I realized that I really didn't like him the way I thought I did, and that I was only looking for some adoration from someone. And to make things even more complicated, Blaine came back into the picture and..."

Most everyone was nodding along, believing him and Kurt was grateful. He was not a good liar, and he wondered how he was pulling it off now. "So we broke up. I assume now that he was the one to start and set up all these rumours to get back at me or something."

The story finally drew to a close, and Kurt gave himself a mental pat on the back for his expert lying. Some faces surrounding him were angry, like they wanted to beat the living daylight out of Kurt's ex, while others simply looked astonished.

"Kurt, wait," Brittany said from her seat chairs away, "are you sure you broke up with him because you didn't like him anymore? Or did you really break up with him because he spilled grape juice on you...?"

Kurt looked over to her in confusion. "Wha-"

"No, see, look." Brittany said, getting up and curling her legs under her as she sat down next to Kurt's chair. She lifted his left wrist and pulled down the sleeve. Kurt pulled in a breath and tried to yank his sleeve back down, but to no avail. Brittany's firm grasp held.

"See? Kurt's ex boyfriend must have spilled juice on his skin. It's purple, and yellow in some places too. It stained, didn't it?"

The skin on Kurt's wrist was varying in frightening colors, from purple to red, and even green. It was where Dave had locked Kurt's hands above his head during the...attempted rape. Kurt hated the words. Even though he had woken up from a brutally realistic dream two nights ago, Kurt was simply calling it assault. The bruises were small, in the shape of fingers.

Blaine had sat with him all weekend, rubbing smooth patterns into Kurt's skin as if he could erase the bruises.

Had the whole thing only happened on the previous school day? Only three days ago? Kurt felt a wave of sickness wash over him.

All eyes turned to him in shock as the gears in everyone's mind began to turn. It was painfully silent for but a moment.

"Abusive rela-?" Quinn stuttered, sucking in a breath.

She didn't even get to finish her sentence before Kurt was rushing out the room, pulling his sleeve down as he curved out of the doorway, Glee club completely forgotten.

XxXxXxXxXx

The halls were empty. Kurt didn't know what to expect. His cheeks were tinged with anger, and his hands were balled in perfect fists, though they were resting at his sides rather than someone's face.

He turned a sharp turn, his brown saddle shoes clicking against the floor. If there was a moment where he wished his designer shoes were instead a pair of quiet slippers, it was now.

He knew where he was going. He knew Dave would still be here. The thought scared him.

Another turn passed, the hallway was clear empty. Kurt cleared his throat silently, unable to produce a sound. He looked down to his shoes, trying to calm himself with the rhythmic

snap of his footsteps.

Looking up, Kurt's eyes caught sight of the one person he needed to talk to.

Dave was staring straight at him, straight through him, the football player's eyes clear and unwavering. When Dave seemed to snap out of his trance, he crossed his arms and glared Kurt down, walking away.

Kurt seethed. "Dave!" he yelled, his frustration seeping out of his words. Kurt picked up his pace, nearly running after the boy in his pure anger. "You can't do this!"

Dave stopped and turned around. "Yeah? Sorry, looks like I already am."

"You have no right," Kurt said, "to ruin me like that. What did I ever do to make you do this? We broke up, that's all."

Dave shrugged mockingly and took a step forward. He put his hands in his jeans pockets. "Oh, just that you broke up with me for no reason. We were doing fine, but then you had to ruin it!"

"How the hell did I ruin this?"

"Everything was ok until you started to get picky about everything. It was your own fault that I had to hurt you. God, seriously," Dave said, backing up and shaking his head, "why didn't you listen to me when I said no one was ever going to love you, besides me?"

"You didn't even love me," Kurt muttered threateningly, Dave's words umbraging him. "You just said that so I wouldn't run off to tell someone about how you were abusing me."

"It was for your own good. And anyway, you didn't break up with me because you thought I was hurting you. It was that stupid prep school boy, Blaine. You dumped me for him, and so now you have to face the consequences."

"That's not the reason, Da-Karofsky," Kurt murmured with a new-found rage, "and you know it."

"You know, that Blaine kid isn't going to love you. No one is ever going to love you, again. I was telling the truth when I said that the first time."

Kurt involuntarily backed away a step. He shut his eyes with a vengeance, seeing a mesh of colors in his lidded eyes before opening them again. "Stop spreading these lies, Karofsky."

"Stop spreading your legs for that Blaine kid," Dave smirked, "I heard that you and him made it all the way."

Dave walked away, a sadistic smile upon his lips. Kurt's mouth parted in an angry, silent shock before he turned on his heel and left the school doors wide open.

He didn't care that it was the middle of the school day. His friends knew the whole story, and then through a series of events that were sure to happen, Mr. Schue would know too. And eventually the true accusation would get back to his father and Carole. Dave was simply starting his spiel of lies, and they would undoubtedly turn sinister in more ways than one. His life was falling quickly to ruins, and before it did, Kurt needed something.

He needed reassurance.

Kurt unlocked his car door and stepped into the vehicle, the key in the engine almost instantly. He let the brutal silence act as music as he drove paces above the speed limit.

He needed reassurance from Blaine.

XxXxXxXxX