Prompt: Terry - "We're at this place in our lives, we've come all this way, and I got nothing to show for it." - 'Men of a Certain Age'
I never thought there would come a time that I wouldn't be excited to leave school but here it was. As I pulled text books out of my locker, taking out papers, and then handing the books to my dad, I couldn't believe that I was leaving this way. Expelled because of a stupid choice of words and poor choice of actions. But that was what it came down to.
The only consolation was that my secret wasn't out. Hummel had at least kept his mouth shut about that. He probably still thought there was a chance that I would carry out my threat. The thing was I knew that, like so many other threats I had muttered to the kids I gave a hard time to, it was just idle words. It was a big jump from shoving someone into a locker and killing them and even I wouldn't be able to make it.
But apparently someone thought I could. Damn it! Why couldn't Hummel have just kept his mouth shut? Why did he have to go running to his Dad?
Why had I done the things I did?
I could answer the last question. I knew my actions stemmed from a fear of who I was. I was a lot like him. I liked guys and everything I had been taught told me that was wrong. Yet, everyday I saw someone like me who wasn't afraid to admit just that. He held his head up high and was proud of who he was despite what others said about him and all that did was increase the shame that I felt on the matter.
Clearing the last of my things from the locker, and dropping them in my back pack, I closed the door. The clang of the metal reminded me of all the times I had shoved Kurt into a locker. I guess I deserved the punishment I had received but that didn't make me feel any better about it - about myself.
I was seventeen years old, and granted there was still many years ahead of me, but the prospect of those years seemed bleak right now. After all, I had nothing to show for the past seventeen years except a reputation of a bully and hating myself. I wasn't even going to be graduating high school now. Seventeen years and I had nothing to show for it but failure.