There's nothing that I can do to go back and make it right. I can't undo all the times that we bullied him and I can't undo the fact that we were making jokes about him right where he could hear us. He was in front with the Cheerios.

I hope he didn't think that any of us would have joined them in kicking him to death. But then if maybe one of us had started it, would the rest of us joined in? Would I?

I can't believe I thought I was being the good guy by holding his bag when we dumpstered him. I can't believe that he got a crush on me because I did less to hurt him than the other guys did.

At the wake, my mom started talking to his dad. They had something in common because she's a widow and he's a he-widow or whatever they call them. He couldn't say much, just the thank you for coming, that sort of thing, and then he looked at her and just said, ″I lost my universe now.″

Mom said afterward that there's nothing worse for a parent than to bury their child. If you lose a husband or wife, you lose every day that you could have had with them, but if you lose a child, you lose every day that they would have had and that their kids would have had. She invited him to come for dinner the first night after the relatives are gone, so at least he wouldn't be going to an empty home right away. He did, but he was just going through the motions.

What really made me feel bad is that he thought I was some kind of friend of Kurt's. We'd gotten to know one another better and I was even starting to like him a bit, no matter how annoying he was, but we weren't friends. I couldn't say that to him, of course, but I wonder if it would have made a difference if we were.

At least maybe I'd have stood up for him on the bus. Maybe he wouldn't have been so ready to head off with that guy from the other team if he felt like he was really one of us. They say one in every ten kids is lesbian or gay or bi. Santana and Brittany are both bi, or at least they have sex together, so that's twenty kids, and then there would be a lot of other lesbians or bi chicks at school, but then there would be at least a few more gay guys at school. Maybe if they were out, he wouldn't have felt so desperate for somebody to like him that he'd have gone off with that other guy. Or he'd have done what my mom used to do before she thought it would scare guys off, make sure that the guy she was dating knew that she'd told somebody who he was with and where. If Kurt had made the guy give him a name and number and had a call-in time, he might have backed off, if he knew that Kurt had all of us behind him. I made my mom promise me to do that again.

I liked watching Animal Planet but now I keep thinking of those scenes where like a wolf or a lion is scanning a herd to find any animal that's easy to separate from the herd or one that's littler than the rest.

Kurt was such a little guy, too. Not just compared to me, he was just plain little. No wonder they thought he was like the animal they could all bring down. On one of those shows, this baby moose screamed when the wolves dragged it down.

I just wish that we all knew then what we know now. I even saw Karofsky crying his eyes out in the locker room once. I kind of wanted to hit him because he'd been one of the worst for picking on Kurt, but then, it's not like I had a right to. Another time, he stopped in the hall and he was just staring at Kurt's locker for almost a minute before Azimio pushed him and asked what was his problem.

Mr. Schue is trying to help. He and Ms. Pillsbury helped to organize a PFLAG chapter at the school and me and Puck and a few of the other guys joined. Mike designed some posters. It makes me feel good but also really sad that people are talking about them.

Somebody said that people from that really crazy church where everybody's related to one another were going to come picket the funeral. I almost wish they had, if it wouldn't have upset everybody even more. That way, I'd have had somebody I could hit. Puck got so mad when he heard that. He hit the walls so hard when he heard that Kurt was dead that he broke both his hands punching a wall. I guess he just needed to punch something because he couldn't really punch me or the rest of the guys since he'd done what we had, and you can't really punch yourself. I mean you can, but not hard enough.

Mr. Schue sat me down and told me that I could make one of three choices. I could do what a lot of kids are doing and start to shrug it off, I could be angry and bitter and guilty, or I could do the hardest thing and become a real leader after this. That I could make the changes that would help keep things like this from happening, or, if they happen after all, that I'd be standing with the people who fought, not the people who watched and did nothing.

My dad joined the military because he wanted to be one of the people who fought for freedom and America and all that. Mr. Schue said on the one hand, what I'd be doing as a leader would be a lot harder, because I'd have to make all the decisions about what to do every time something needs to happen to stop bullying and homophobia and all that. In the Army, you have somebody who tells you what to do, almost all the time. On the other hand, it'd be easier, because it's not like people would be shooting at me or planting bombs or anything. It might feel like it because people would sometimes say bad things directly at me, or about me, but it's not like I'd actually die. Not like Kurt died.

So I guess that's what I've got to do.