Numb. His whole body is numb, his mind whirring in denial. This couldn’t be happening – the man on the hospital bed isn’t Burt Hummel. It isn’t his dad. It can’t be.

D-Dad?

They’d only spoken that morning and he’d been fine, he’d been fine. So this couldn’t be happening, it had to be a mistake. In a minute one of the nurses will come in and press a button and take the tubes out from under his skin and his dad will jump up and scold him for not waking him sooner.

C-Can you hear me?

Of course he could hear him, there wasn’t anything wrong, he’s fine. Kurt berates himself for even asking the question, berates the tears clouding his vision and the shakiness of his hand as he reaches for his dad’s, lying still and limp on the covers. It’s only when it lies unresponsive in his own that Kurt can’t deny it anymore, not when it usually grasps his tight in response.

When he feels his dad’s hand unmoving in his grasp, Kurt’s walls shatter and he almost buckles under the guilt and fear he’d refused to fully acknowledge because he’d convinced himself it was fine, that everything was fine.

He can’t pretend anymore.

“Come on, dad, just squeeze my hand,” he says.

You can’t leave me, dad, please don’t leave me, he pleads.

Days pass in a blur, buzzing by in a montage of empty houses, the pointless prayers of his peers, sterile hospital walls and the monotonous beeping of machines. And all the while the only thing Kurt can focus on is the last moment he’d shared with his dad.

I gotta tell you Kurt, I’m real disappointed in you.

He tries not to think it but it runs around his mind like a record that’s skipping, repeating the same phrase over and over until the guilt and regret feels like it’s splitting his heart in two.

He tries not to think that those could be the last words his dad ever says to him, but he’s unable to keep his guilty conscience from invading his mind and his dreams become nightmares that reduce his sleeping pattern to naps that last no more than a few hours.

Most nights, he climbs into his dad’s bed and rubs his tear stained cheeks dry before just lying there feeling wide awake and incredibly tired at the same time.

After a few days, the emptiness of his house isn’t such a shock, the trips to the hospital are routine and the constant emotional baseline of hopelessness is the norm.

He hates it, hates himself for thinking that any of this is remotely normal. Normal is catching his dad trying to sneak a snack before dinner, normal is visiting the garage after school because he’d been asked to help out, normal is shouting goodbye as he leaves for school in the morning.

Normal isn’t this-this parody of a life. There isn’t another way to describe it – he feels like he’s living the plotline of a teen drama: losing the one source of support he has just when he needs it the most, making him question the life he knew.

He’d never thought of his father as vulnerable before. Burt is and has always been a solid, strong presence. The idea that underneath all of that his heart was weakening makes Kurt wonder how he can ever trust the appearance of health again. And then his friends are asking him to trust in a figure that he can’t see and how can he do that when he can’t trust what he is seeing?

All he has is a tenuous hold on hope, and a belief in the strongest person he knows.

I don’t believe in God, dad, but I believe in you. And I believe in us: you and me. That’s what’s sacred to me. And I am-I’m so sorry that I never got to tell you that.

When the hand in his moves very slightly, he thinks he’s imagining it.

Dad?

That evening, when his dad finally opens his eyes and weakly calls out Kurt’s name, it’s the first time he’s smiled since Mr Schuester interrupted his French class.

Dad I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere.