A/N: I know Kurt's feelings were more than apparent in Grilled Chesus, but still needed to write something for him. This is probably my favorite that I've written so far, just nudging out Artie. This chapter almost takes the story from T to M. Let me know if you think I should change it. I'll ask you to review now, because the italics in the rest of the story are not from me… All grammatical mistakes in the italicized section are intentional. The underlined portions were originally crossed out... stupid FF.
Kurt Hummel: Memorable Journals
The eighth grade Language Arts teacher at Millard Fillmore Middle School, Ms. Riley, requires all her students to keep journals. She only reads the entries which students invite her to skim by placing them in the "READ" box at the end of the week (as opposed to the DO NOT READ box), and never grades them. She simply makes a check on the sign-in sheet pasted to the front cover of each journal that the requisite three entries have been made for the week.
Ms. Riley doesn't care what her students write about, although she encourages them to use the journal as a self discovery experience. As a result, she has a series of prompts that she recycles year after year. She asks to students to write about their families, friends, hopes, fears, dreams and memories. But, the most interesting, and most feared, prompt comes in the midst of the February doldrums. The snow in Lima has most likely receded into gray-black snow banks, leaving dead grass. Her students are similarly feeling dead, caught in the let down between their Christmas break and the advent of true spring.
Observing the bleakness of nature, Ms. Riley prompts her students to write their weekly journal about the person they dislike most. It can be anyone, but she encourages them to provide justification. She usually gets fewer journals in her READ box that answer the prompt, most students who write an answer are afraid of judgment. The people who do answer usually give mundane responses. Bullies are common targets, both in the school yard and at home. Younger siblings often come up more often that Ms. Riley, who is the youngest daughter of three, would like to imagine. Parents are also cited.
The most memorable answer to that prompt, though, came for a journal Ms. Riley was never expecting to read. When she taught Kurt Hummel, he was a fragile, pale, quiet boy with impeccable manners. He did well in school, and his only real flaw was his spotty attendance. That was easily explained by his family situation; his mother had been in the hospital with terminal cancer. She died the second to last week in January, and Kurt disappeared for a two week stretch. He returned to school on the day she asked her class to write about their least favorite people.
She watched Kurt scribble obediently in his notebook during the allotted twenty minutes at the end of class on Tuesday. She watched him stand at the turn-in box on Friday, debating whether or not to place his purple paisley book in the READ or the DO NOT READ box. She was surprised when he carefully placed the book in the former, and turned on his stylish heel to leave. Loud, confident Mercedes Jones dumped her Lisa Frank book in the DO NOT READ pile, and then slipped her arm around her friend's shoulders.
Ms. Riley could not help herself. Even though she normally waited until she sitting at her kitchen table with a large mug of tea to grade the journals, she slipped the auberguine one from the pile, and opened to the page neatly marked with a removable sticky tag, and began reading the neatly written paragraph.
The person I hate the most is
The person who makes me the most angry is
The most annoying person is
I would hate God, if he existed. I realize that I am not actually answering the prompt, but this is my answer. There are lots of people out there I SHOULD hate... the guys at the insurance company who made my dad broke to take care of my mom… the nurses at the place the hospice who refused to give her morphine pain medicine while she lie dying, or the man who started the whole mess in the first place by giving Mom HPV in college. But, I can't bring myself to do it, because really, all this stuff just goes back to a God, if there is one.
I can't accept the existence of God, though.
If there was a God, I can't imagine that he would have let my mom die. She was too young. She was only 32. She was too special. She understood me so well, and she made the whole world full of sunlight. I would get home from school on Fridays, and she'd say, "Let's have a mini vacation!" and we'd get into the car and just drive until we got to where she wanted to go. Or, she'd take me to the store to feel the colors of the fabric. I know that sounds stupid, but it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. Or, she would hug me and tell me it would be okay, and that I was okay… She didn't deserve what happened to her, she was a good person. She made one stupid mistake and she got a virus. One mistake shouldn't cost you your entire life…
I don't think he would let my dad suffer this much, either. Everyday, my dad sat in the hospital, then the hospice with mom. Now she's gone, and its like she took him with her. Dad doesn't get out of bed, he just lies there with the shades drawn and all the lights turned off.
If there was a God, and God was good like everyone says, then he wouldn't let his representatives say that it was wrong to be gay. They say that God doesn't make mistakes, and then they say that being gay is a choice. If it were a choice,
If there was a God, the churches wouldn't be run by assholes.
So, if there were a God, whether or not he or she gave a flying fuck about us, that would be the thing I hate most.
On Monday, Ms. Riley handed back the student's journals, mostly unmarked. Kurt Hummels' had a few tear drops on the page.