KURT

August 31

They really shouldn't affect him so much, all those little things that made today so annoying.

The morning fight with Rachel about money. Spilt milk at the coffee shop that he slid on, dropping the cup of hot mocha he'd just made. The homeless man who called him a faggot and spat on him when Kurt reached out to help him pick up his dropped crutch.

These were all just stupid little incidents. He should shrug them off. They shouldn't matter.

And yet he's sitting on the subway on his way home slumped and miserable, feeling like there's no more fight in him.

It's just one of those days.

They don't happen often. Normally, he operates on the sheer force of momentum and determination, head held high and any hardships accepted as part of the deal. He can't afford doubts. And he doesn't really have many.

He's never regretted not dying that night on the bridge over a year ago. Or finally coming to New York. He appreciates being alive, being here and having a place to live and jobs and enough money to feed himself and Rachel on most days. He can see how far they've come, how much they've achieved and how very lucky they are. He really can.

It's just, sometimes it's hard. He feels different, alienated by what they've been through, experiences he can't talk about to anyone. Sometimes he raises his head in the daily grind and realizes that he's lonely and exhausted and so far away from anything that feels safe and familiar. Sometimes, like today, little things are enough to make it all feel like too much.

He just wants to catch a break.

He came here following both a dream and his heart. There had always been one face featured prominently in his dreams when he thought of New York. But here, everyday life is nothing like a dream. It's hard work and too little time for sleep, let alone anything else. It's not enough energy or courage to do what he'd promised himself to do as soon as he had a chance.

Sometimes those dreams feel so unrealistic, just something shiny and perfect to escape into, untainted by disappointment or rejection, unmarred by reality.

And life is not a dream.

----------------------------------------------------

Kurt's theme song – Wonderful World by James Morrison

Creators: anxioussquirrel (text) & headbandxbowties (art)