Prompt: Ted Mosby - "I stopped believing. Not in some depressed I'm-gonna-cry way, not in a way I even noticed until tonight. It's just… every day, I think I believe a little less and a little less and a little less, and that… sucks." - 'How I Met Your Mother'
As I watched the members of New Directions take to the stage in spite of there audience of hecklers it dawned on me that I wouldn't be able to do it. It was one thing to have a few members of the audience not into your performance, but to have the majority of them against you would be too much.
"You mean the Glee club here is kinda cool?"
Kurt had asked that question the first time we met. I didn't get it then. The acceptance of the Warblers by the Dalton students had become natural to me. When we went to the show choir competitions the audience was made up of our competitions and their friends and families. It was sheltered and safe. It was comfortable.
Just like Dalton Academy.
Kurt and his friends didn't have the idealistic environment I lived in to protect them. They had to face the harsh reality of high school that I had run from. They lived in it and they made the best of it. They held on to their enjoyment of performing even when their peers told them it was wrong or mocked them. They continued to take the stage because they believed in their love of the music and in some cases, like Kurt, their dreams of being a star someday.
I no longer believed in that way. I sang because it gave me an identity at Dalton. Being a Warbler had made me popular at school. If the Warblers were treated the way McKinley treated the New Directions, not only wouldn't I be a part of the group but I probably wouldn't hang out with any of the guys in the group. I no longer believed in following my dreams at any cost after the Sadie Hawkins dance. Music had been a passion of mine for as long as I could remember, and somewhere along the way I had lost focus of that and let it become only a means of being popular.
"Are you okay?"
Kurt's question brought me out of my thoughts. I looked over at him and saw the passion and love for the music that I had seen in his performance of Blackbird once again. Despite everything he'd had to face because of being a part of Glee Club, despite the struggles he'd had trying to fit that passion into the rigid traditions of the Warblers, that passion was as strong as ever. With any luck, Kurt might help to rekindle that passion in me once again.
"Yeah, I'm fine," I told him. "Thanks for bringing me here tonight," I told him, reaching out to take his hand in the dark auditorium.