“Now,” his dad begins as soon as they’re both seated comfortably on the couch, “you said you were-”

“Wait,” Kurt interrupts quickly. “I need – I need to tell you everything. From the beginning. And you might…still want to ground me after I tell you. But you – you deserve the truth about everything.”

“…Okay,” Burt says simply, leaning back and crossing his arms.

“Right,” Kurt nods, more to himself than to his dad. “So – so I lied to you. About the tutoring thing.”

Eyebrows nearly hitting his hairline, Burt looks more surprised than angry. “So you weren’t tutoring some kid from your school?”

“No,” Kurt admits. “I wasn’t tutoring anyone. Someone was – was tutoring me. A couple weeks ago, my physics teacher told me I was going to fail the grading period if I didn’t pass the next test we have. Which is, um, tomorrow.”

“…I didn’t know your grades were so bad.”

“They’re not,” Kurt tries to explain. “It’s just physics. I didn’t – didn’t turn in three of the homework assignments and he said my other test grades were barely average.”

“Why didn’t you turn in your homework?”

“Because I didn’t…understand the material,” Kurt confesses, hanging his head in shame. “I just – I just didn’t. I wasn’t thinking.”

“…Okay,” Burt says slowly. “So you got tutoring.”

“Yeah.”

“So why lie to me and tell me you were the one tutoring someone?”

“I didn’t want anyone to know. I’ve never needed tutoring before and I didn’t want to seem stupid and I – I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

“Kid, I’m more disappointed about the fact that you lied to me. And there’s no shame in asking for help if you’re struggling. You know that.”

Kurt nods. It’s difficult, admitting all this, because he’s finally realizing how uninformed his dad really is in regards to his life now.

“So the friend you were talking about earlier, the one whose house you said you fell asleep at, I’m gonna guess this is the kid who was tutoring you?”

“Yeah,” Kurt says softly, images of Blaine’s face clouding his memory and tugging at his heart strings. “His name – his name’s Blaine. He transferred here at the beginning of the year. He’s in my physics class and he’s really, really smart. He re-taught me all seven chapters that we need to know for the test tomorrow. We’ve been…meeting up at this coffee shop just over the county line.”

“Why somewhere so far away?”

“Because I didn’t want anyone at school to know I was being tutored,” Kurt tells him. Bringing his voice down to a whisper, he adds, “And I didn’t want anyone to know I was hanging around him.”

“…Why?”

“Because,” Kurt sighs in frustration, “people like me aren’t supposed to talk to people like him.”

“What do you mean people like you?”

A rush of self-hatred turns to sludge in Kurt’s veins, causing him to stand and toss his arms up in a sense of defeat.

“Popular people, dad,” he says a bit too forcefully for even his own liking. “Popular people like me, Cheerios like me aren’t supposed to associate with social lepers like Blaine. He’s really quiet, really smart, and obvious prey for bullies at our school and we’re not supposed to hang around people like that because it ruins our reputations.”

His father stares back blankly, eyes unblinking, mouth pulled into a thin line. Kurt wants to burst into tears because he has never, ever seen his father look at him like that; like he’s trying to hide his disgust or his disdain by keeping his features neutral.

“Since when have you ever put stock in reputations or what other people think?” Burt asks levelly.

“Since I realized that having a good reputation is the only way I’m going to make it out of high school in one piece and still have some vague resemblance to a human being.”

“…If you keep living like that, Kurt, you won’t be a human being anymore. You’ll be a monster.”

Kurt wants to vomit. It’s never easy, hearing the truth, especially from someone you really care about.

Maybe that’s why Kurt took everything Blaine had to say about him to heart.

“Is this – is this why you don’t hang out with Mercedes outside of school anymore?”

“I don’t even talk to her while I’m at school,” Kurt admits. “I haven’t talked to her all year. She’s – she’s still in Glee club and we’re not allowed to talk to people in Glee club because they’re – they’re-”

“They’re what, Kurt?” Burt asks quietly.

“They’re losers.”

At this very moment, Kurt feels like one of the vilest creatures to ever walk the Earth. His father’s looking at him like he’s got two heads or something and in his mind, all he sees is Mercedes’ face whenever Kurt had told her he couldn’t hang out with her anymore.

“I never thought I would hear those words come out of your mouth, Kurt,” his dad says.

“I know,” Kurt says with a nod, body feeling hundreds of years old with the weight of all his shame on his shoulders. “I hate myself for it.”

His dad doesn’t say anything.

“But I’ve been hanging out with Blaine and he’s basically told me everything I’m doing wrong and that it’s stupid of me to be this way after all the stuff I went through before. He’s so honest and he’s kind, even though I’ve treated him like crap. I ignore him in the hallway and I’ve been really rude to him but we…I…we kissed.”

“You what?”

“We kissed,” Kurt says again. “In the back of his car. Last week. We were talking and I was having some kind of melt down thing and I told him to kiss me and he did because he’s gay and he’s actually really, really cute and really sweet and now I want to be with him but there’s this other guy that came to school who kind of jumped on me because I’m the obvious gay. He’s like, really hot and stuff but he doesn’t seem like he really wants a relationship or anything which kind of sucks because I do but then Blaine got jealous and really sad because we kissed before Sebastian showed up but I dropped Blaine because he wasn’t popular enough and god, dad, I feel like a total jerk because I like Blaine, I like him way more than Sebastian and I just don’t know what to do!”

“…So you were at Blaine’s house?” his dad asks.

“Yes!” Kurt says, doing his very best to not be annoyed at his father for caching up so slowly. “He kind of – he broke down and basically told me that I was being a selfish idiot because he’s right there and he likes me. I feel so bad for him, dad,” he says miserably. “He doesn’t have any friends at all. It’s not fair because he’s so freaking nice and he’s just – he’s good, you know? He’s everything good in the world and I feel like I broke him.”

“Wait,” his dad interrupts, sitting up straighter. “So, you like this Blaine kid…in a romantic way.”

“Yes.”

“And this other guy? Do you like him like that?”

“…No,” Kurt tells him. “No, I don’t.”

“So are you dating Blaine?”

“I don’t know,” Kurt sighs, slumping back down onto the sofa. “I think – I think I want to. But then there’s everything else.”

“You mean the reputation bullshit.”

“…Yeah. The reputation bullshit.”

“Screw the reputation crap, Kurt. You’re not that person. I don’t know when all this happened or when you thought you had to be that person to survive high school, but there are other ways to survive.”

“Like what?” Kurt asks, completely at a loss.

“For starters, stop pretending to be someone you’re not. I didn’t raise you to be an asshole. I didn’t raise you to be one of those cruel people.”

“I know.”

“Do not become one of those people you were scared of. Don’t.”

“I’m scared now,” Kurt says. “I’m scared because I feel like I’ve already become one of those people and I don’t know how to change back.”

“Kurt,” his father says gently, scooting closer to him on the couch and taking hold of his hands. “The fact that you’re worried about it, well, I think that means that you’re aware of that fact that you could become that person. I don’t think you’re really there yet.”

“I’ve been so awful to people,” Kurt laments, trying his very best not to cry. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You need to be yourself, kid,” his dad says soothingly. “Be you. Don’t be what everyone else wants, don’t be someone you think you should be. Just be you.”