Although he could see his calculus classroom from where he stood at the end of the hallway, Dave had already determined he was not going to go. He had made a split second decision a few moments prior that he was just too emotional and stressed out to making going to class worth his while. Watching as the throng of students in the hallway thinned, in anticipation of the late-bell, Dave abruptly turned on his heel and bolted back downstairs the way he had come. He had decided he was going to wait out the 50-minute class period in the privacy his car…where he could cry this out to his heart's content.

Trying desperately not to think about what Kurt had said to him as he made his way out of the school's main entrance and towards the parking lot, Dave could feel the pace of his walk increasing almost involuntarily. He could sense that the inevitable emotional breakdown was upon him and now his only hope was to out-run it. Feeling the chunk start to rise in his throat, Dave thrust his hand almost violently into his pocket and retrieved his car keys. Jamming the key into the driver's side lock, Dave opened the door and threw himself unceremoniously into his vehicle.

Something about the sound of the car door slamming shut undid him and his sobs exploded with a violence that surprised even him. It felt to Dave as if there was a desperate, caged animal inside his person, fighting manically to break free. A perfect catch-22: he was terrified of what the beast might do if he let it loose, but keeping it locked in was also gradually killing him. The creature was gnawing at him slowly from the inside out and other people were starting to see it, namely Kurt.

Dave had been caught completely off guard by Kurt's indescribably sweet words of encouragement. Indeed, in many ways it felt as if they had been almost completely in-apropos, given the timing and the situation. It kind of felt to Dave as if Kurt had long been planning to say them and, in his impatience, had jumped the gun in finding the right forum and opportunity.

Not that he begrudged the forgiveness Kurt had espoused. It meant the world to Dave that, in spite of everything, Kurt still wanted to help him and support him. In fact it meant not just the world, but the sun, the moon and the stars too. Dave honestly could not imagine going through this without Kurt's guidance, encouragement and absolution. Or maybe he just really did not want to. But precisely because of that, Kurt now had the power to draw out not his anger or fear, but his sadness.

That little scene in the hallway, not fifteen minutes ago, brought home to Dave why exactly he had been so awful to Kurt for so long. Being mean and hostile to Kurt had prevented Dave from becoming an object of pity in the other boy's eyes. While Dave had been shoving the boy against lockers and issuing him death threats, Kurt had regarded him primarily with fear, wariness and avoidance, all emotions which bespoke Dave's power, his domination of the situation. But once Dave had capitulated to the combined force of Santana's blackmail and his own unresolved guilt, Kurt had stopped looking at him through eyes of apprehension and started looking at him through eyes of pity.

And it was this, Dave realized, that he had been so abjectly terrified of all along. He had known for quite some time that his hostilities toward Kurt were primarily the product of fear, but he had long believed that it was simply the fear of being outted. He now understood, however, that this was not entirely the case. To be sure, it had partially been about that. But it had also to a large degree been about simply avoiding Kurt's very predictable sympathy.

Dave had been afraid of facing up to his own pain, a pain which he knew would be hyperbolically reflected in the other boy's eyes the moment he became at all a sympathetic figure to him. Which was precisely what had happened. Dave had been trying desperately avoid that consciousness of his own inner turmoil; seeing it there, present and magnified in the looking-glass of Kurt's doe-eyed earnest face had felt like having a knife thrust in his gut. Having someone else see your pain, recognize it and reflect it back to you with such intense compassion – it undoes something primal in you.

Dave was completely undone by Kurt, in so many different ways. It used to be he could shore it all up, keep it all in, maintain his own boundaries. But from the moment he had kissed the other boy, that consolidation, that certitude, had fallen irrevocably away. Dave had begun to unravel the moment he had revealed the truth to Kurt, and Kurt had subsequently started the work of slowly picking up the pieces.

Dave's image had been completely shattered during that fateful moment in the locker room, as if he was a mirror that had exploded into a thousand jagged shards. And every shove, every insult, every moment of terror he had inflicted on Kurt was like one sharp, loose piece of himself being used to cut Kurt up. Dave had never wanted to own his pain, he had wanted to deflect it onto somebody else. But that somebody had patiently collected all those shards, those bits of himself, and glued them back together enough to hold the mirror up once more. And it had forced Dave to confront quite clearly the image of his own agony.

Being pitied was bad enough, being that pitiful was actually unbearable. All those bloody broken up bits of himself, it was an image Dave never wanted to face ever again. But it was not as if he could just avoid Kurt or start being mean to him once more. He was going to have to start learning how to face up to the realities of his situation without becoming completely paralyzed by his own pain. After all, it wasn't as if he had the option of simply ditching class every single time Kurt spoke a kind word to him.

The question was, would he ever be able to look at Kurt again without seeing all the terrible things he had done to the other boy, all the pain he had caused, to the other and to himself? At this point, the answer was profoundly unclear; Dave could only hope. Because if not, his only alternatives were to stop looking entirely, or spend the rest of his high school days in tears. And really, Kurt was just too beautiful a sight to have to give up.