1. “Different” - May 11, 1996

Kurt couldn’t sleep. Normally he was out like a light after his mother read to him, but she got him all riled up at dinner talking about his birthday party. Sure, it was still a few weeks away, but he was looking forward to seeing his grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and all of his friends from daycare. Just the excitement of the day coming up made him restless.

He figured since he couldn’t sleep, his parents might let him stay up a little longer and watch Beauty and the Beast. Kurt jumped out of his bed and ran out of his room as fast as his two-year-old (almost three, he thought) legs could take him. As he got closer to the living room, he could hear his parents talking about him.

“No, Elizabeth, we’re not going to do it.”

“Why not? He asked for them.”

“Because he’s a boy, for one. He should be wanting a baseball glove or a fire truck. Not…”

“Not heels? Burt, he’s only going to be three. What’s the harm in letting him dress up?”

“He’s a boy. Boys don’t play dress-up. They play cops and robbers. They play kickball. They do anything that won’t make them different growing up.”

“Face it, Burt. Kurt is going to be different.”

Kurt froze against the wall. He knew what different meant. Most of the time when they went shopping Burt tried to get him into “something different” from the spiffed up outfits he liked. Different to him was bad. He wanted to be just like the other boys he knew. He thought he was like them. He asked for sensible heels for his birthday because those were Elizabeth’s favorite shoes. Why would they make him different?

Suddenly, Kurt wasn’t keen on staying up. He headed back to his bedroom, dejected, and went right to sleep.

2. “Cancer” – September 25, 2000

When Kurt got off the school bus, he was surprised to see both of his parents’ vehicles in the driveway. It was normal for Elizabeth to be home by 2:30 so she could take care of her son, but Burt was never home before dinnertime. He wondered what was going on as he entered the house.

“Mom? Dad? Is everything okay?” he called out as he took his bookbag and shoes off.

“Come in here, kid. We need to talk to you,” his father said. As Kurt entered the kitchen where they were both seated, he noticed they were both in tears.

“What’s wrong?”

Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Honey, you know how I haven’t been feeling well since you started school?” Kurt nodded. “Well, last week I went to the doctor and he ran a bunch of tests to see if he could find the problem. He called me this morning with the results…” Before she could continue, she began sobbing.

“Kurt, your mother has cancer,” Burt finished, slightly more together than Elizabeth was.

Puzzled, Kurt looked back and forth between them. “Is that bad? What is it?”

“Yes, honey, it’s bad. I have something growing here,” Elizabeth took Kurt’s hand and placed it on top of her right breast, “that shouldn’t be, and it’s attacking my entire body.”

“But the doctor gave you medicine, right? Medicine makes you better.”

“No, he didn’t. The medicine I need to take has to be done at the hospital, and it will make me sicker and weaker. I’m probably going to lose my hair and a lot of weight before I’m done taking it, and there’s a good chance I might not even make it through all the medicine.”

Kurt shook his head. “You have to, Mommy. You’re going to get better.”

Burt sighed and pulled Kurt into his lap. “Kurt, cancer is a terrible sickness. I’ve seen it take away some of the best people I knew. My grandpa, Grandpa Hummel’s dad, he died from cancer. So did a good friend’s sister when I was around your age.”

That was when Kurt lost it. “But Mommy can’t die!” he cried. “She has to be here to take care of me! The medicine will make her better. It has to.”

“But it might not. And I’m not saying she’s going to die, but just in case, you and I are going to have to take care of ourselves.”

Kurt couldn’t take it anymore. He jumped out of his dad’s lap and ran up to his room, sobbing. Nothing could be bad enough to take his mother away. He needed her. She was going to be okay, he thought. In a few weeks she was going to be back to normal and not sick anymore.

Kurt kept telling himself that every day for the next ten months until Elizabeth had to move to a new home. He then realized she really was going to die. The morning Burt took him to say goodbye, he cried all the way there and back, then again when the call came that she was gone. Cancer was the worst word he had ever heard, and he never wanted to think about it again.

3. “Gay” – January 4, 2005

“Hey, Kurt!” Noah said at lunch. “Did you see that shirt Santana Lopez has on today? Damn is she smokin’!”

Kurt looked up from his salad. “It’s Abercrombie. I wouldn’t bother with it.”

“Yeah, but she got it for Christmas from the ACTUAL store, not the kids’ one! Just look at her boobs. They’re fantastic in it.”

He looked over at the table where Santana, Brittany, and their pee wee cheerleader friends were eating. “They look like boobs,” he said after a minute. He didn’t know what got into Noah Puckerman most of the time.

“Dude, no! Those are mountains. Can you imagine getting to feel those as you’re making out with her?” Noah asked.

“Why would I want to make out with her?”

“You’re kidding, Hummel. You wouldn’t?”

Kurt shook his head. “Nope.”

Noah suddenly looked disgusted. “What are you, gay? I should have known better.” He then picked up his lunch tray and went to eat with Finn. Kurt was confused. Gay? What did that mean? Was it because he didn’t want to feel Santana up, or any girl for that matter?

Kurt wondered about the word during the rest of the school day. When he got home, he quickly did his homework so he could get on the computer to look it up. Burt’s stipulations were as long as he was finished with his assignments and didn’t talk to anyone online, Kurt could spend time on there. Once he opened the browser, he went to Google and typed in ‘gay’. The first result he clicked on was blocked by the parental controls. The second was from dictionary.com, so he opened that and read what it said.

‘gay adjective, –er, –est , noun, adverb
1. homosexual
2. of, indicating, or supporting homosexual interests or issues
3. having or showing a merry, lively mood
4. bright or showy’

He dismissed the latter two definitions because he was definitely not in a merry mood or bright and showy. He then clicked on the link for homosexual to get a better idea on if that’s what Noah meant.

‘homosexual adjective
1. of, pertaining to, or exhibiting homosexuality’

‘homosexuality noun
sexual desire or behavior directed towards a person or persons of one’s own sex’

Kurt stared at the definition for a long time. Could he be? He didn’t find any of the girls in his class attractive, but there was one person he did. Tyler Lannan. Kurt liked that he got his clothes at Macys instead of any of the other stores at the mall , and he was tall and cute. It definitely wasn’t sexual since Kurt was only 11, but did it still fit? Was he gay? Noah said the word like it was bad to be gay.

He then continued searching. A lot of the links he was able to go to talked about how being gay was wrong and immoral. There were a few that talked about it positively, but they were rare. Kurt began to worry. If he really was gay, it was terrible. Nobody would like him.

“Kurt, I’m home!” He didn’t realize what time it was when Burt walked in the door. He quickly closed out the browser and got up to greet his father. There was no way they were going to talk about this discovery. Not now, not ever.

4. “Faggy” – May 21, 2010

Once Finn went upstairs, Kurt sat down in his bed in disbelief. He didn’t know what he had done wrong to deserve the outlashing he received. He was thankful Burt stormed in to stop it when he did because he wasn’t sure he’d be able to recover afterwards. All he wanted was a nice, aesthetically pleasing area for two teenage boys to live in. However, that did not seem to be what Finn wanted. That was fine; he could stick to his football posters and piles of dirty clothes, as long as they remained on his side of the partition so that Kurt didn’t have to view them.

After a while, Burt came back downstairs to check on his son. “You okay?”

“No,” Kurt choked out. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong. If anything, Carole did.”

Kurt looked up. “Why are you blaming Carole? She didn’t say it.”

“I know, son,” Burt said as he sat down on the bed. “But I’m wondering if the way she raised Finn contributed to this.”

“Dad, if I had any doubts in the way she brought him up, I wouldn’t have set the two of you up now, right?”

Burt chuckled. “You’re right. But how else could he have picked up language like that?”

“It’s all over school,” Kurt sighed. “Karofsky, Azimio, and their minions always have a few choice words for me.”

“Wait, what? Do they now?” Burt sat up straighter.

“It’s nothing new. I could try to stop it, but all it would get me is more slushies and dumpster tosses. Just be glad Finn doesn’t partake in that anymore.”

“He doesn’t what?” It was rare that Burt raised his voice, but after doing it already tonight, nothing was going to hold him back.

Kurt said, “Before glee club began, Finn and Puck were among the bullies who tortured me daily. They’ve changed though, Dad. They actually care about me now.”

“But they still use words like…that one?”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard Finn say it. Puck is too wrapped up in the drama with Quinn and the baby, but I don’t think he’d say anything like that now. Believe it or not, people do change.”

“I know, son. I used to be like that too.”

“What?” Kurt asked, wondering if his dad was referring to what he thought he was.

“When I was in high school, I used to use words like that,” Burt began. “I didn’t think of the consequences, just blindly said it because I didn’t care for something. Then when I started realizing you were gay, I realized I needed to grow up. They weren’t just hurting random people, they were going to hurt you. I’m sorry I did it, Kurt, believe me. But I know now that it can destroy everything.”

Kurt nodded. “It does, Dad. Thank you for telling me.” He hugged Burt until he felt him shift, then let go. Once Burt went back upstairs, Kurt collapsed on the bed. Sure, Finn wasn’t meaning to use it in a bad way, but it made Kurt rethink his stance on the crush.

5. “Sexy” – March 9, 2011

Kurt spent the entire ride back to Dalton trying to decipher the conversation he and Blaine had just had. What exactly were the faces he was making if they weren’t sexy enough? He didn’t think the Crawford girls minded; they were too infatuated with the other guys, specifically Blaine, to notice him.

It wasn’t that Kurt hadn’t thought about sex before. If one was to look through his phone, they would be drawn to number five on his bucket list. But he didn’t feel like he could be worth that to anyone. The guys he fell for ended up moving away in junior high (Tyler), drastically heterosexual (Finn and Sam), or drunkenly confused by the opposite sex while oblivious to someone who had admitted their feelings (oh, how he needed to get over Blaine soon). Kurt had already resigned himself to being painfully single, two months before he was to become an adult and a year and a half before he packed up for New York.

When the vans they rode to the warehouse in arrived back at the school, Kurt treaded inside to pick up his belongings and head home. He walked back out to his Navigator and unlocked the door. He heard the window of the car next to him roll down and he looked. Of course, it happened to be a certain green Volvo that he wanted nothing to do with the driver of.

“Lima Bean?” said driver asked.

“No, thanks, I’m just going to head home. I’ve got a lot of homework to do tonight.”

“Maybe I can come over and help you?”

Kurt scoffed. “You’re a sophomore, Blaine. If you can help me with derivatives, I’ll owe you medium drips for a week.”

Blaine shook his head. “I mean help you with your problem.”

Oh. Of course. “I can’t tonight. Maybe tomorrow after practice?”

“It’s a date,” Blaine said with his normal cheesy smile Kurt always fell for. With that, he started backing out and waved to Kurt. Kurt placed his bag in the back seat then got in to prepare for the drive home. If Blaine wanted to help him look sexy, maybe things between them weren’t so rough and the word could actually mean something to him in the near future.

1. “Beautiful” – January 12, 2012

Kurt blew his nose for what seemed like the millionth time. Of course he would catch bronchitis right before midterms and be bedridden. Carole drove him to the doctor that morning, who gave him several medications and an order to stay home the rest of the week. Once he got home, he sent a text to Finn to ask for his assignments that he would be missing with a promise to the teachers that they would be in first thing Tuesday. He tried to nap, but not being able to breathe kept him from staying comfortably asleep, so he watched a bit of television. Thankfully, he found Top Chef was running their season so far, so he was able to catch up on what he missed.

Just as Padma was about to announce who was eliminated, he heard a soft knock on his door before it opened. Blaine was standing there holding all of Kurt’s textbooks, a bag of cough drops, and a bouquet of daisies. “Hey, you up for some company?” he asked.

“Only if you can look over the fact that I’m contagious, therefore I cannot kiss you,” Kurt replied.

“As long as I’m spending time with you, I don’t mind at all.” Blaine entered the room, setting the daisies and cough drops on Kurt’s nightstand. “Finn had already made plans with Rachel after school, so he gave me everything from your teachers and the house key. I started some water when I came in if you want some tea.”

“Um, he let you come over with no parental knowledge?”

Blaine chuckled. “Oh, no, your dad knows. He said since it was pretty clear we wouldn’t be having our way with each other, he didn’t have a problem with it. You probably need the company now, right?”

“Severely,” Kurt said. “I need to figure out whom to hate more, Heather or Beverly.”

“Heather. She is so annoying.”

“They both are, but at least Heather can cook.”

Blaine laid down next to Kurt and started running his fingers through Kurt’s hair before the other boy flinched away. “Hey, come back, I was enjoying having the chance to do that.”

“I’m a mess, Blaine. Just look…my hair is undone, I’m in sweats, I didn’t even have the energy this morning to go through my skin routine. How can you stand to look at me like this?”

“Because you’re still beautiful,” Blaine answered.

Kurt swore his heart skipped a few beats. “Are you sure you aren’t sick?”

“Kurt, it doesn’t matter how your hair looks, what you’re wearing…which, those are my sweatpants, right?...or how much you moisturize. Every time I look at you, you are the most beautiful person I have ever laid eyes on.”

It didn’t take long for Kurt to blush. “I am not.”

“Are too,” Blaine whispered, pressing his lips to Kurt’s forehead. “I love you when you’re at your best, and I’m definitely going to love you when you’re like this.” They heard the kettle begin to whistle, so Blaine stood up. “Just a little bit of honey, right?”

Kurt nodded. “Thank you, Blaine. You didn’t have to come over to take care of me, but I’m glad you did.”

“Hey, if I’m going to do this for the rest of my life, I might as well start now,” Blaine said. He smiled as he left for the kitchen.

Kurt was astounded. Never before had anyone called him beautiful, but when he was ill and not in the mood to look his best, it was still the best for Blaine. One word had turned his entire day around and made him feel better. He had the best boyfriend around, no doubt.