Chapter 2: What You Want

“Sam doesn’t really know what he wants.  He only knows what his parents want for him!  And what they want is a law student, someone serious with a serious future.  What if that’s me?” Kurt was alternating between yelling in excitement and whispering in reverence as the words spilled out.

Tina and Mercedes looked at each other, silently wondering where Kurt was going with this.  Brittany was staring Kurt down, but he took no notice.

Kurt’s face was stuck in a frantic, almost scary smile and he looked over at his friends impatiently.

“Don’t you see?!  It’s so easy!  He’s going to Harvard, right?  So I’ll get in there, too!  He’ll see that I’m just as smart as he is; that I’m serious, and with the right accessories I look fabulous in black.  He’ll fall right back in love with me!”  Kurt was already typing away at his laptop as he prattled, pulling up the weather in Massachusetts and surfing fashion sites for peacoats and scarves.

Tina exchanged another look with Mercedes.  “Kurt,” Mercedes began tentatively, then sighed with resignation.  She knew better than to try and change Kurt’s mind when he was set on an idea.  “Honey, if this is what you want, we support you all the way.  You know we’ll do anything for you that we can.”

Kurt looked up from his laptop with a huge grin, waiting for Tina to react.  She nodded and smiled, tilting her head in amusement.  He slammed his computer closed and bounded off the bed, wrapping Tina and Mercedes into a tight hug. 

After a moment he turned around.  “Britt?  Don’t you want in on this?” he laughed, waving her over.

Brittany was sitting up straight on the edge of the bed, hands in her lap.

“No, Kurt, because although I love you and your overabundance of hair and skin products, you need to face the reality of this situation,” she calmly replied, giving Kurt a blank look.

Tina felt her mouth fall open.  Kurt’s eyes got impossibly wide and he stuttered out a “W-what?”

Britt sighed.  “Seriously, Kurt, Harvard is an Ivy League school.  If you’re going to get into Harvard Law you are going to need more than your 4.0 GPA.  You need an LSAT score of 174 or higher if you even want them to look at your application, and then you better write the best damn essay you’ve ever written.  If you want your fashion merchandising degree and sorority sweetheart credentials to be taken seriously, if you want you to be taken seriously, it’s time to get to work.”  Brittany hadn’t budged from her calm position on the edge of the bed, but Kurt had broken away from Mercedes and Tina and had one fist pressed to his mouth.

Tina moved to touch his shoulder lightly.  “You can do this, Kurt.  If this is what you really want.  You’re the strongest, most compassionate and motivated person I know.  You can do this.”

“And we’ll help!” Mercedes added, brushing her hand over his back.

Brittany still had not moved, eyeing Kurt with her lips pursed, waiting.  Tina watched Kurt carefully.

Kurt finally dropped his hand and closed his eyes, taking in a deep, shuddering breath.  “Yes.  I have to do this.”

Tina winced at the pain in his voice.  She curled her fingers around his shoulder.

“I can’t just walk away from someone that I feel this strongly towards,” Kurt continued.  “I can’t give up on something that never really had a chance.  I have to try.”  He spoke directly to Brittany, who narrowed her eyes for a second, then nodded.  She slid off the bed and moved to Kurt with a huge smile, tugging him into a hug.  After a second she extended her hands and dragged Tina and Mercedes into it, too.

“Good!” Britt said when they finally broke apart, grin still stretched across her face.  “You better be a hundred and ten percent committed, because we have a lot of work to do.”

Tina looked at Kurt in confusion as Mercedes did the same thing.

“We?” Kurt mouthed hopelessly as Britt tugged him into the bathroom, flipping on the shower and unceremoniously throwing him inside.

She rounded on Mercedes and Tina with sponges and a broom, gesturing towards the mess that was Kurt’s room.  After a tiny hesitation, Tina caved and took the broom.  Anything to make Kurt just a tiny bit happier was something she was willing to do.

The girls worked in silence, restoring the dorm from the junkyard it had become into a living space once again.  Mercedes was just gathering all his dirty clothes (although Kurt would kill her if she tried to wash them, she could at least encourage him to do so) when she froze outside the bathroom door.

“Listen!” she hissed at Tina and Britt, who paused in their argument over who had to vacuum the huge area rug.

A soft melody was barely audible over the pounding of water on tile, and Tina had to hold her breath to hear it, but it was there.

“Who told you you’re allowed to rain on my parade?”

Tina’s hand flew to her mouth, tears stinging her eyes.  Britt jumped up and down silently, her hands clasped in front of her heart and ponytail bouncing wildly.  Mercedes looked in danger of fainting.

“He’s back!” Britt said joyously, grabbing the broom and launching into a full-out tap routine.

He’s going to be okay.  Tina sent up a tiny prayer of thanks and got back to work.

Kurt was in way over his head, and he knew it.  He had spent every waking moment of the last month in class or surrounded by stacks of LSAT prep books.  He watched his friends go on dates, take day trips to the beach, watch movies and go out to eat.  But he had LSAT problems to do, essay ideas to scrap, and three letters of recommendation to weasel out of the deans and professors from his last four years.  All this was before adding in the incredible stress of graduation, the impending cross-country move, and his fatherly duties to one tiny, helpless fur baby.

Kurt adopted Thatcher, a dark short-haired Chihuahua, from a shelter after his first bad breakup in sophomore year.  He was immediately drawn to how small and scared he was, how dirty his coat was and how bleary his eyes were.  Kurt saw the potential behind the scrawny, malnourished dog, and promptly signed the papers.  One look at big chocolate brown eyes and Kurt was in love.  Thatcher lived with Kurt at his dad’s house, but as Kurt had started almost exclusively living undercover in the Delta Nu house, he was sorely missing his dog.

Kurt was at the crossroads of very big decisions in his life.  He often felt like he was caught in a huge storm of indecision and uncertainty, clinging to a bit of driftwood to keep from drowning.  He had glimpsed the very distant shore, though, and it was Harvard Law School with Samuel Evans III blowing him kisses from land.  At times it seemed like all he could do was hope the current would take him in the right direction.

Tina and Mercedes were true to their word, reading Kurt’s essay drafts and debating the merits of recommendations from every professor, but it was Brittany who took Kurt’s potential entrance to Harvard Law as a personal crusade.

“Britt, we’ve been going at this for hours, can we stop now?” Kurt groaned as he threw his pencil in frustration.  He and Brittany were in the Delta Nu study room like they had been every weeknight and now every night for weeks, books and papers strewn from one end of the room to the other.  He would be taking the LSAT, the one with the score that would be sent off to Harvard Law School, the school that Sam is going to be attending, in one week.  It was the crunchiest of crunch time, and Kurt knew it. 

This night his rays of hope were particularly weak and scarce, as he and Britt were missing Delta Nu’s annual formal, the Tickled Pink Ball.  Had it been any other circumstances, Kurt would have been with all his friends, halfway to drunk and dancing the night away with each Delta Nu sister in turn, clad in a smart suit and bow tie.

Brittany had unselfishly declined going to the formal in favor of helping Kurt, but Kurt knew it wasn’t entirely selfless; Britt was on probation after she was involved in the great Delta Nu Orgy Scandal with the Kappa Phi brothers.  The sisters insisted that it was just a case of Facebook status gone horribly wrong, and several sisters had been shamed into quitting because of it.  Even so, Kurt didn’t doubt for a second that Britt would partake in an orgy.  Not that he would look a gift horse in the mouth and tell her that.

To make up for missing his last Delta Nu formal, Tina had let him sneak Thatcher in the house to keep him and Britt company on the last weekend all-nighter before the LSAT.  Kurt stroked the ears of the sleeping puppy in his lap as he yawned so widely his jaw cracked.

Kurt took the distraction of Brittany grading his LSAT practice test to sneakily press the button on his phone to check the time.  11:23 pm. 

Brittany snatched the iPhone out of his reach, muttering about distractions.  She slapped his hand halfheartedly and turned back to her calculator, scribbling down numbers.

Kurt rubbed at his eyes as the page of logic reasoning sample problems blurred in front of him.  The long hours and stress were starting to seriously damage his sanity and his skin condition, not to mention his fashion.  Kurt plucked distastefully at the sweat pants he was wearing and the old high school tee shirt that was now too short and tight and riding up no matter how often he tugged at the hem, soft and shrunken from too many washings.

He looked up at the wall in front of him, an action that was now reflex, that particular spot a place his eyes had settled on more times than he wanted to count over the last weeks.  The painted cement block at his eye level used to be like every other pale blue rectangle that made up the walls of the room.  After the fiftieth time Kurt studied the imagined patterns in the pits of that block, he was inspired.  Over the past two months, Kurt had added pictures, stickers, pieces of hope and reasons to keep going on this insane drive to achieve the impossible.  In the center was his favorite picture of Sam and himself, taken at night on Huntington Beach.  Kurt’s hair was considerably mussed and Sam’s mouth was half open, but they were so at ease, relaxing into each other with an air of intimacy and possessiveness.  It was Kurt’s biggest reminder that Sam loved him, and he could love him again.  Around the picture were scraps of paper with inspirational quotes to tell him that he was not alone, a tiny British flag and a scrap of lace to give him the grace of royalty, a picture of him receiving the Anchor Man award for the third year in a row surrounded by all the sisters of Delta Nu with Brittany, Mercedes, and Tina all kissing his face, to show him that he can do anything with the help of friends.  Kurt’s own doodles of boots, jackets, and bow ties completed the montage of all the things that brought him joy.  They were all the things that made the struggle worthwhile.

Each time he stayed in the study room past one AM, every time Brittany slapped down another LSAT score that wasn’t good enough (142, 157, 165), the moments that Kurt felt the words forming in his throat to throw in the towel, he looked at the wall.  And he knew that all of this was going to be worth it.

Brittany was silent, and Kurt realized as if from a dream that she had been silent for a while.  He looked at her in alarm, but she was frozen still.  The calculator was in her hand and she was staring at it like it could disintegrate at any moment.

“Britt?” Kurt said softly, reaching for her hand.  She mumbled something in response, but it was just gibberish.

“Honey?” he tried again, patting her fingers gently.

“174,” she said, this time clear as a bell, and Kurt froze too.

“Oh, my god,” he breathed, yanking the pages from her hands to see for himself.  His eyes widened impossibly and he looked at Brittany as something like hope bubbled in his chest.  Kurt grabbed her into a fierce hug as he let out a long, loud laugh of relief, pride, and outright joy.

“You can do this,” Britt said with a smile as he pulled back.  Kurt gripped her hands tightly, for the first time believing that he could.

“Oh, my god,” he said again, this time to the picture on the wall.  “I am going to do this.”

Kurt was dressed in a simple black suit, a pink striped tie at his throat and a dress shirt so pale pink it was nearly white.  On the back of the tie was stitched in blue, “To our Anchor, good luck on the East Coast!  We’ll miss you! Love, Your sisters in w10;N.”  Kurt smiled as he thumbed the threads that made up the words, shifting his gaze from the full-length mirror to the framed picture on the wall.

Kurt was blurry in the photo, jumping up and down and clutching an envelope with big letters “LSAT” visible in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other.  It wasn’t planned and it certainly wasn’t posed, but Riley had taken the snapshot with her phone and Kurt loved it. 

He decided to do it in the chapter room of the Delta Nu house because he couldn’t open the envelope without the girls that had made it possible.  As soon as they gathered around, he tore open the packet, holding the paper to his chest without looking at it.

“One…” said Tina, smiling.

“Two.”  Mercedes was trembling with excitement.

“Three,” Brittany said right in Kurt’s ear from where she had his bicep in a vice grip.

Before he could overthink he looked at the page.  In the instant it took for written word to become coherent thought, Kurt felt like he was floating.  And then, his feet slammed into the ground.

His mouth formed the words without any sound.  He cleared his throat and tried again.

“175.”

And when the room exploded around him with screams, Kurt joined in.

Next to the picture was a framed letter than had arrived April 27th, just two weeks before his graduation from UCLA.  This one he did not open with such fanfare, because it was not just an envelope.  It was a packet, weighty with forms to fill out and return and materials to read and knowledge to store.  Rejection letters don’t come in packets. 

Kurt convinced his dad and his dearest friends to let him cook them dinner that Friday night.  It was almost like he was in high school again, when his dad would give the cook the night off and Kurt would help him make something that came out of a box and they would pretend that in their big, industrial kitchen in their big Malibu house they were just like any other family.

He insisted that it wait until after they ate homemade tacos, though Burt and Mercedes nagged him all through dinner to just tell them. They needed to know.  Kurt kept his lips shut and curved into a smile.  As he brought out a tray with five bowls of raspberry sorbet and five silver spoons, he told them.  He thumped the tray onto the table, pulled the cover letter from the packet out of his pocket, and simply said, “I got in.”  Dessert was forgotten as Burt wrapped Kurt in a huge bear hug, the rest of his family close behind.

Kurt ran his fingers over the picture frame.

Mr. Kurt Hummel, we are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into Harvard University’s School of Law…

The last part of his newest installment of pictures was posed.  He was surrounded by Delta Nus and clutching a plaque that featured his name on it four times in a row on four separate metal plates.  The previous year he had been the first person to be Anchor Man three consecutive times, and this year he was the first ever to hold the title for four years. 

The sisters had turned the ceremony into a surprise party because Kurt had missed the Tickled Pink Ball when they usually gave the award.  He had come dressed in a suit per Tina’s orders, but he hadn’t expected to find the whole chapter there in ball gowns and big hair, ready to recreate the special night he had missed.  The night was filled with a lot of tears on Kurt’s part but a lot of dancing and singing as well.  It was a perfect night with the girls that had become his sisters, one last night of fun to cling to when he inevitably had to leave them behind.

It certainly wasn’t the first picture he had taken with the girls, but at the time he knew it would be one of the last.  Every single sister had insisted on piling into the shot until each head on the 8x10 was no bigger than a fingernail, and in the center Kurt shone with happiness and pride and tears.

Kurt had to force his eyes away from the picture as a tear threatened to slip out at the memory.

Thanks to Britt’s cracking of the whip, strategic brown nosing, and a lot of sleepless nights, Kurt had kept his 4.0 to the very end.  Kurt slipped on his black robe and the summa cum laude sash, adding his ropes from honor societies, his medals from singing competitions, and his four gold Anchor Man pins.  The weight was uncomfortable at first, but touching each tiny symbol of his accomplishments made Kurt glow from the inside out.  He had done it. He had survived the hell of high school and thrived in college.  He had followed the major that he wanted to follow, auditioned for college show choir, and befriended a whole sorority because that’s what Kurt wanted.  He had designed three collections worth of clothes, and been featured in two fashion shows because of his own hard work.  And now he could celebrate his achievements with his friends, his family, and his peers.  It was a momentous day in the life of Kurt Hummel, a dream he was suddenly getting to live.

Kurt turned to leave when his eye caught the picture from Huntington Beach, the entire wall collage having been relocated from the Delta Nu study room to his hanging bulletin board.  With trembling fingers he plucked the picture from the wall, studying his face and the face of the man he was moving across the country to pursue.  It was a year ago, shy of just a few weeks, that the picture was taken. 

Kurt looked up to his bookcase where a timeline of photos was displayed, starting at birth, stretching through elementary school portraits to high school snapshots to university accomplishments and landing squarely back at his own reflection in the full length mirror.  He pinned the picture of Sam back onto the board.

You’ve come a long way, Kurt Elizabeth Hummel.  No turning back now.

His mortarboard was on the table by his bedroom door.  Kurt had spent weeks agonizing over what to decorate it with, what was going to truly represent his mark on the world.  He settled on first covering the surface with scraps of fabric from clothes that held a lot of meaning for him.  He was only a little sad as he cut squares from the button-down he was wearing the day he first met Mercedes, the messenger bag he carried to his first college class, the tie from his first Delta Nu formal, a pair of soft grey canvas Keds he wore the soles off of in sophomore year, a sweater he designed that was in his first fashion show.  Each one was a little reminder of four years of bliss that at age sixteen he would not have dared to dream about.  Unable to resist, Kurt autographed over the collage of fabric in thick black Sharpie like he signed all his sketches, showing his ownership in piecing together a brilliant design. 

The cap stayed like that for days but lingered in the back of his mind, nagging and unfinished, until Kurt figured out what was missing.  He added the Harvard logo over the fabric, small enough to add and not detract from the overall look but big enough for the effect to resound in Kurt.  He was really going to Harvard, he was going to Sam.  He was going to Massachusetts.  Kurt took the Sharpie and wrote inside of the hat, a way that he could know and feel the strength of the words but that they couldn’t be judged by anyone else.

“For a gallant spirit, there can never be defeat.” ~Wallis Simpson

Kurt picked up the mortarboard as his father knocked on his door softly.  Kurt opened it dramatically, immediately going into a rant on a schedule to keep and Los Angeles traffic.  Burt just shook his head in a tired sort of way, like he had heard this way too many times, and moved into the room to sit on the end of his precisely-made bed.  Kurt quirked an eyebrow curiously, but followed suit.

“Kurt, buddy,” Burt began, taking one of Kurt’s hands in both of his own, staring at them like they could disappear at any moment.

Kurt waited for him to continue, but he seemed to be at a loss.  “Dad,” he said gently, “You know we’re going to be late and you won’t get a good seat—”

“Son,” Burt stopped Kurt in his tracks as he lifted his head to reveal eyes shiny and bright.  Kurt’s next words caught in his throat.  “Son, I just wanted to tell you how proud of you I am, how proud of you your mother would be.  You’ve worked so hard to get to this day and I can’t wait to see you cross that stage.  I know after the accident and the move you were so unsure.  I remember hearing you cry every night during junior high.”

Kurt blushed a bit at the memory, cursing the thin walls of their first Malibu home.  He really hadn’t cried himself to sleep every night, just the nights when the loneliness hit him the hardest.  By high school he had learned to deal with it through frosty haughtiness.  Burt laughed off Kurt’s embarrassment, adjusting his ever-present baseball cap that no amount of pleading or bargaining on Kurt’s part could banish.

“But none of that matters anymore, because look at you!  You’re graduating with honors, you’re going to Harvard Law School for Pete’s sake.  I don’t know what half of the damn things you’ve got on stand for, but I know what they mean.  Today, Kurt Hummel has won.”  Kurt beamed up at his dad, swiping away the tears that he couldn’t stop from falling.  It filled him with a special kind of warmth to know that he made his dad proud, a sensation that he couldn’t get any other way.  It pricked his eyes with tears and made him lightheaded and made Kurt proud of himself, too. 

He looked down at the mortarboard still clutched in his hand to break the intensity of the moment, and the delight he had been reveling in became soured by a deep twinge of guilt.  His father had not pressed him about his sudden, intense need to go to Harvard; he had only been perfectly supportive and happy when Kurt met his goals.  He deserved an explanation.

“Dad, about Harvard,” Kurt began, still staring at his cap.  Burt shifted, crossing his arms.  He didn’t say anything, so Kurt took that as a good sign.  “I’m not going there because of a sudden need to defend humanity or anything.  I’m not even sure if why I’m going makes sense or is socially acceptable, but you have to know, Dad, that it’s the only way.”  Kurt sought out Burt’s eyes, looking for signs of disapproval.  He found only open attentiveness.

“You probably already figured it out, anyways.”  Kurt gave a nervous laugh, one harsh syllable.  “When Sam broke up with me, he told me it was because his parents wanted him to be with someone serious, someone with a solid future.  He’s going to Harvard in the fall, and what was I going to do?  Sit back here in California, intern at a fashion house, doodle in my spare time and sing in the shower.  I don’t know what to do with myself, what to do with my life!  I just know that I can’t let Sam walk away from me without finding out what could have happened between us.  I know this is probably an expensive, insane way to do that, but there really is no other way.”

Burt had dropped his folded arms at Kurt’s speech, instead gripping his son’s shoulder tightly.  Some of the unease in Kurt’s stomach melted away at the look of understanding in his father’s eyes.

“Well, I can’t disagree that it’s expensive.  And it might be a little crazy,” Burt consented, his lips tugging up to show he was joking.  “But Kurt, if this is what you need to do, go do it.  The only way to move forward in life is to know where you’ve been, to know what you did wrong and how to learn from those mistakes.  If you have to go to Massachusetts to find the answers to all these what-ifs, then go.  I support you a hundred percent.”

Kurt could not believe what he was hearing.  He broke into a huge smile as he lunged forward, grabbing his father in a hug.

“And, since I’ve got all this stupid money sitting around, I’ll pay for it too,” Burt said carelessly, but Kurt held to the words like they were a lifeline.

“Seriously?” Kurt pulled back to look Burt in the face.

“Anything for you, Kurt.  You’re so special, buddy.  You’re really going places.”

Kurt was really crying now, and he grabbed tissues off the table to try and stop the flow before his face got blotchy and his eyes puffy and red.  “Thank you, so much,” he choked out with a shaky smile.

“Now, let’s go get you that diploma!” Burt clapped him on the shoulder once more and stood, headed for the door.

Kurt paused to take one last look at himself in the mirror.  A young man stood in a flimsy black robe, clutching a colorful flat hat.  His face was admittedly a bit blotchy, but his hair was impeccable.  That is, until I put on the cap.  More than anything, the man was happy, determined, confident. He glanced at the pictures of the people he loved once more.  I can do anything.  He walked out of the room, but left the door open, a silent invitation to escape in the safety of home.