Warning: This chapter is pretty intense. It explains why David hates himself so much. There is no sexual abuse issues but the actual cause might be upsetting or unsettling. Read the Author's Note at the bottom of the page for more of an explanation if you are not sure whether to read this chapter or not.

Chapter Five

I miss David so much. I have come to know him so well and I love his company. Worse still is the fact that I seem to have lost any ground I gained during the last several weeks. If I chance to meet him in the hall, he either blanks me or scowls at me. There is no more goofing around on the sly. I try and approach him several times to make amends but he shrugs me off and keeps walking.

Wednesday and Thursday are long lonely days, topped by disappointing evenings. Dave doesn't drop by, and scrabble is too painful to play now that he's not there. I try and watch a stupid scifi movie by myself on Thursday knowing that Dave will be watching it at the same time across town. I turn off the movie twenty minutes in because I am too depressed to pay attention.

My dad keeps telling me not to worry. He figures that Dave will come to terms with his sexual preference on his own time. He points out that Dave and I have built a strong connection and that this little tiff will pass. But my dad doesn't know what I know. He does't know Dave's inner demons. I don't know them either but I do know the tragic outcome.

I am concerned about the upcoming months. I no longer know what will happen or how to reach him. I have changed the past so significantly that I no longer know what will happen in this future. I'm still at McKinley rather than at Dalton, there won't be any Bullywhips and since I've made a pack with the jocks, there's no need for me to be protected. Who knows if Dave will go to Scandals? The future is so completely different now.

The one thing I worry about is that although many of the events are different, Dave's underlying issue with being gay has not changed. Events may no longer arrange themselves in the previous pattern that had him commit suicide, but his character is still susceptible to killing himself. And now, I don't have any more idea than I had the first time what will drive him to suicide. I can only hope that he contacts me if things get too rough and this time I won't neglect his calls. Still it gives me little comfort knowing that he is a bomb wanting to go off at any time.

By Friday I am feeling pretty depressed and defeated. I spy David by his locker and I notice that he looks even worse than I feel. A small part of me is elated that he obviously misses me. I walk up to the locker to talk to him but he spots me and walks off. I am at a loss as to how to reach him.

In the evening at dinner I push the food that Carol has so lovingly prepared, around my plate wishing I had some sort of appetite. I excuse myself after it's obvious I can't keep up the pretense of eating and head to my new bedroom located up stairs.

Just as I enter the hall there is a knock at the door. I open the door and just gape at David standing there, nervously shuffling his feet.

"Can we talk?" he whispers.

"Of course! Come upstairs!"

When we get to my bedroom I can see that he is a bundle of nerves. His face is pale and clammy and I fear he's gonna be sick.

"Can I get you anything?" I ask after an uncomfortable stretch of time.

"Naw. I'm okay." He replies looking all over my bedroom, pointedly not looking at me.

"I miss our time together." I state, hoping this will open him up.

"Yeah." He says and sits down at the edge of my bed, hunching over staring at his own feet.

I gingerly sit down beside him. More silence. I open my mouth a couple of times and snap it shut. I have no idea what to say. The silence lengthens and it is takes all my strength not to fill it with words.

David suddenly speaks, "When I was a kid, Richard was my absolute hero. I worshipped the guy. There was at least six years difference in our ages but it didn't matter, he always treated me with kindness and let me hang around with him.

"Even though he was only 12, you could see what a natural leader he was. I was such a little kid compared to him yet he let me go on all the adventures that he and his friends would think up. I'm sure a lot of the boys resented having a six year old tagging along but they never said anything because they respected Richard too much.

"This one time, when we were wondering along the top of the ravine, we saw something that looked very suspicious down the very steep hill. All you could see was a white sweater partially showing from behind a bush. Richard decided that it was a dead body and that our gang would become famous if we called the police and told them. Everyone was really excited and pumped. Richard said he would scale down the steep hill and check out the sweater to make sure there was a dead body attached to it."

"It sounds vaguely like Stand By Me." I interrupt.

"Yeah, it was sort of, but is a true story and way better than the movie, at least to me." Dave chuckles looking at me smiling. His eyes were bright and lively looking. I realize again how much I have missed him. I smile back at him, looking forward to the story Dave is about to tell.

"Anyways, Matt this other boy who was six months older than Richard, pipes up and says. 'How come you get to go down there? Maybe I want to go down there and check it out, that way I get to be the hero when the cops come.' Well they argue for a bit and then someone suggests a flip of a coin. Both boys agree and Richard chooses heads. Well the coin turns up tails so Matt gets to go down first. You can tell Richard is furious and Matt doesn't help matters 'cause he starts swaggering around his chest puffed out with his own importance, ordering the other kids to stand back away from the edge telling them not to get too close because it's not safe." Dave's hands gesture to excentuate points as he continues the story. My eyes can't decide whether to follow his expressive hands or his animated face.

"Matt makes his way down the side of the hill which is really a kind of slopping cliff. Richard had the presence of mind to tell him to start down the hill quite a bit away from the corpse so that his foot falls wouldn't disturb the evidence. Everybody nodded sagely at the excellent advice and you could tell that Matt was fuming, wishing he had thought of it first. It takes him a long time to find footing and make his way down. It was an extremely slow process and all the rest of us could do was stand around and wait until he got to the body. Meanwhile, I realized I have to pee, but I didn't want to leave the side of the hill in case I miss something. Eventually, Matt finally makes it to the place where we could see the white sweater. He reached over and picked it up. It wasn't a white sweater at all, or even a dead body. It was a white plastic bag that got caught on a small seedling tree. We all groaned in disappointment. That was it. No cops needed to be called. No chance at being famous. Richard shouted down to Matt to tell him to climb up again. Matt nodded and started the long climb up. Meanwhile I really, really have to go pee. I have held onto it too long and really start to dance around holding my penis.

"Nobody noticed because they were too busy watching Matt's progress up the hill. 'Richard' I whine, I really have to pee.' 'Well then pee!' He says glancing at me than back over at Matt. 'Where should I go?' I ask. There were no toilets anywhere and I knew you were supposed to go in a toilet. "Just pull down your pants zipper, whip out your dick and pee!' He says exasperated. I look around and have no idea where to go. "But where?' I ask again even more whinny. ' I don't care! Pee anywhere! Pee on Matt!'

"So I do. I undo my zipper, pull out my dick and wiz right in Matt's face just as he comes up over the brow of the hill. Richard had that kind of effect on me. Whatever he said I would do automatically without even thinking. Richard and the guys burst out laughing, watching Matt sputter and spurt as my urine hit him square in the face. He charged over the hill and grabbed me and was probably going to kill me or at least severely beat me. Richard stopped laughing and was on him in a flash before he could get to me. The two of them started fighting and rolling around in dust, punching and kicking each other. There had always been tension between the two of them because Matt was always trying to take over the gang of boys. Nobody wanted him as leader but that didn't stop him challenging Richard whenever he could. Anyways, when the dust cleared, Richard had Matt face down in the dirt, twisting his arm. 'Say Uncle!' he yelled and eventually Matt gave in and said it. They got up and Matt stormed off and never hung around us again.

"I apologised to Richard all teary eyed and he patted me on the back and said it was a long time coming. He was glad to get rid of Matt. It became one of the gang's favourite stories and it was retold over and over about the day I peed in Matt's face. They ribbed me and joked about it a lot, but I didn't mind because I finally felt like one of the group. Man, I adored Richard for sticking up for me that day and I would do anything for him. I would gladly give my life for his.

"Was he your first crush?" I ask.

Dave looks at me surprised. "No! I loved him, but that was because he was my older brother."

"I didn't realise you had a brother."

"He was my brother and best friend. He was good at everything. He favoured my mother's side of the family. He was tall and lanky like Mom, whereas I take after the Karofsky side, you know, being kind of thick set and chunky. He was a natural athlete and could run down the field like a freakin' gazelle. I always have to work hard to be good at sports. And he was smart and good-looking. Everybody loved him – not just me." Dave stopped suddenly and glanced down at his shoes.

"Oh!" I hesitate. "Why do you refer to him in the past tense?" I have to ask, already fearing the answer.

Dave's face caves in for a moment. "We were in a car accident when I was ten and he died. If he had lived, he would have be celebrating his birthday today."

"I-I'm so sorry Dave." I stutter, not knowing what to say. All I can do is reach out and touch his hand. "Can you tell me what happened?"

Dave sighs and then launches into his story, speaking mechanically, like he has told this story hundreds of times.

"We were coming home in the evening after a day visiting my Mom's relatives in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We were almost home and Dad was stopped at the lights waiting for them to change. Suddenly we hear this roar of engines like a racing car. Dad told me later that in the time it took for him to look up in the rear view mirror, it was already too late. The speeding car plowed right into us.

"The cops said that there were no skid marks so the kid driving the speeding sports car didn't even try to brake. He probably froze at the wheel. The car hit us at close to 90 miles an hour. His low riding sports car crammed itself under our SUV and sent our car flying end over end into the intersection. We were fortunate that the lights had just turned green for us so there was no traffic crossing the intersection at the time.

The kid was decapitated and died pretty much instantly. Both my parents had severe whiplash and broken legs and arms. My Dad still suffers with back pains from that accident. Richard and I were in bucket seats in the back and when the car hit us, the impact sheared the bolts off holding our seats and we were jettisoned out the back, as our vehicle was shoved forward. I heard later, that our seatbelts were still in place even though our seats had been blown out. I landed about forty feet away from the car in a ditch still in my bucket seat that cradled me and saved me from any injury. The police said I was fortunate to be the exact size and weight to stay with the seat.

"My brother wasn't so lucky. As I said he was long and gangly. His seat went one way and he went the other. He landed on the road and tumbled along for quite a ways before he stopped. When the paramedics found him, there wasn't much they could do. He didn't have much of a face left to put a mask on to resuscitate him. They had to do tracheal intubation. He was pronounced dead on arrival to the hospital."

I just sat there stunned as he recounted the events. What could I possibly say after such a story. After a moment I stammered, "Oh my God! How Horrible!"

David just looked at me and continued. "If the accident didn't happen, Richard would be twenty-three today. He used to tell me that he wanted to work in films as a stuntman when he finished school. Today he would be finished university and probably looking for work in the movies. He was really handsome. I bet he would be back home visiting us with a beautiful celebrity or model on each arm. He would have done it too, if he'd lived."

"He sounds like he was an amazing person." I say haltingly. I feel lost not knowing the right thing to say.

" You wouldn't have liked each other. He didn't like gays. He told me so himself."

Dave looks at me daring to say anything bad about his brother. I bite down on my tongue, since it is not nice to speak ill of the dead, especially when you are sitting next to a big, burly, defensive teen who idlizes the dead person.

I finally say, "Oh. I'm sure we may have had some common ground. I mean we are both connected to you." Dave just grunts noncommittedly. Dave still looks very pensive and uptight and I feel that I'm standing on shifting sand. I know he wants something from me I don't know what. I decide to approach the problem from a different angle.

"So you said you landed in the car's bucket seat in the ditch unhurt? That is amazing!"

" Yeah, the first responders couldn't believe it. It was even the papers, ' behold the miraculous survival of a ten year old boy." David announces in a sarcastic dramatic way. "My mother told everyone that the only injury I had was a bruse the size of a nickel on my knee. I was too timid to admit that I had gotten that briuse earlier that day when I banged my leg on my aunt's coffee table. I didn't want my family thinking I got absolutely scot free while they all suffered."

"You did suffer Dave, you lost your brother and best friend." I respond gently.

"Not enough." Dave remarks darkly.

I don't how to reasure him. All I could think about was how sad I was when he had suicided. I grab his hand and speak imploringly. "Dave, I am so glad you lived through that terrible accident! Don't hate yourself for not dying! Your brother died a horrible death, don't wish that upon yourself!"

Dave yanked his hand away and stood up, towering over me. "Don't tell me what to do fag! You weren't there! You didn't see how my family was torn to shreds with grief!" Dave's face twisted and he laughed. "They said my survival was miraculous. My Mom says God saved me! What bullshit! It's not miraculous! It's a fucking tragedy that my brother died and I lived.

"My family could have had a talented, handsome, straight son; instead, they ended up with a fat loser son who's gay!" After spitting that out, Dave lets out an anguished choking sound and collaspses on the bed beside me. Grief just pours out of him and I start to cry just seeing his agony. I don't know what to do to help him; his self loathing and pain is overwhelming. All I can do is hold him and cry with him.

"What the hell is going on?"my dad asks, appearing at the open doorway.

I look to Dave and I see that he is in his own world of pain and won't notice if I leave him so I run to my dad and lead him out into the hall. I quickly tell him about the car accident and Dave's incredible guilt at being a surviving gay son. "Dad I have no idea what to do. I didn't know Dave's grief ran so deep. I'm at a loss as to what to do."

"This beyond our capabilities, Kurt. Dave might need hospitalization. We have to drive him home so his parents can take care of him." Dad responds.

I nod because it makes sense, if he needs medical intervention, then his parents would have to give their consent. We both move into the bedroom to try and talk to Dave. He lying on the bed lost in misery.

"David? David!" I find it hard to get his attention. "David! We want to drive you home. You have to tell your parents how you feel and why you feel that way."

"No! They can't know! I can't tell them I'm gay. They'll hate me! They'll know that the wrong son died." Dave managed to splutter out between sobs."

My dad got on the bed and hauled Dave up into a siiting position and held him. "Dave! I don't know how your mother will react but I think your dad already knows you're gay. I've had several discussions with him and we've talked about what's like to have a gay son."

This was news to me. "You have talked with Dave's dad and had discussions about us?" I ask.

"Of course! Paul is a very engaged father. He has phoned me after each of Dave's visits to see how he has been behaving. It turns out we have quite alot in common besides you two. We're becoming good friends."

"He knows Dave is gay?"

"I'm not sure Kurt, we talk about what it's like to have a gay son and he talks about it with some knowledge but I can't actually say that he has stated catagorically that he knows Dave is gay. I know without a doubt that he has no issues what so ever with gay people."

"It's easy to have no issues about gay people until you find out your son is one." Dave mumbled. He still sounded upset but he sits up straighter and is engaged in our discussion. It looks like he is recovering from his initial breakdown.

"David, I am positive your dad loves you and will go on loving you after you tell him you're gay. You have to tell him because you can't continue to live like this. Just remember you have devoted friends in your corner with me and Kurt. We will support you no matter what. You can come back here and stay if I'm wrong, but I am not wrong; everything will turn out alright, you'll see. Look, you get cleaned up, wipe your face and I'll warm up the car and we'll get you home." Dave just nodded. That's the one thing about my dad, when he takes the lead it's almost impossible not to follow. I beam with pride and appreciation. My father is not only great dad but he is a wonderful human being.

unfortunately, we run into Finn in the hallway as we go out to Dad's waiting car. "What happened to you dude? You look terrible!" Finn asks blocking our escape.

I look at Dave, his face is all blotchy and and his eyes are still red from crying but he looks a damn sight better than he did. I turn and glare at Finn wanting to protect my friend. "It's none of your business Finn! Get out of our way."

Finn looks at me suspiciously and turns to Dave. "Is this Kurt's doing? Look, I know he can say some really mean things sometimes but try not to take it personal. Just let the barbs roll off you when he gets like that."

"Finn! I wasn't mean to him. How dare you suggest such a thing!" I demand, affronted at the allegations.

"I'm gay!" Dave sort of splutters out. He looks surprised at himself and scared.

"Oh? Oooohh! It's okay bro." Finn says softly and pulls Dave into a hug. "Be strong! You can do this, no problem." Finn slaps him on the back kindly as he releases David and smiles reassuringly.

I just well up with pride at my idiot savant brother who has the uncanny knack to do or say the perfect thing when someone most needs it. "Finn? Do you mind keeping it to yourself until David is ready for every body to know?"

"Of course!" Finn says simply and I know without a doubt that I can rely on him.

"Let's go Dave," I say gently as I usher him out the front door.

The drive to Dave's house is mostly silent and tense with dad or Dave breaking the silence to discuss directions to Dave's house.

A/N: I have been in a serious car accident so I know how terrible survivor's guilt can be and how a sibling's death or serious injury can affect a person. Some people might not want to read such things, hence the warning at the top of the page. Incidentally, this was not a description of my car accident, but it was one that happened in our area. The good thing about it was that there was no older sibling who died in such a terrible manner. A young boy did miraculously escape injury when he and the bucket seat was expelled from the back of the van. They found him cradled safely in the seat in a ditch several feet from the crash.