"Bye, Dad, I'm going to Rachel's," Kurt called out to his father, who was watching TV in the other room. Kurt saw Mercedes pull up in front of his house—she was his ride to the holiday party for the glee club at Rachel's house.

"Alright, but be home by midnight, not a minute after. Have fun!" Kurt said "bye" again and adjusted his coat before leaving the house. A frigid gust of wind carrying a few snowflakes welcomed him as he walked up to Mercedes's car.

"Ugh, I hope I get a car this Christmas," Kurt commented as he got into the passenger seat.

"What, you don't like going with me? We've never even hung out before, Kurt," Mercedes said as she pulled away with a hint of mock-hurt in her voice. "I'm kidding, Kurt!" she laughed, and then cut him off before he could tell her that he already knew: "So, are you ready for all of the gossip that's going to go down about you and Blaine?"

Kurt sank into his chair, letting out an exasperated groan. "Why did Rachel have to go and tell everyone? It's stupid; there's nothing going on between us. We're just friends, and he didn't even know it was me when we met!"

"Wait, you two actually met?" Mercedes squealed.Oops. "Kurt, we have to get you two together. You have to win that contest! He's basically bringing whoever wins on adate. Knowing you, the ultimate over-achiever, I'll bet that you already started your entry."

"Actually, I haven't. I can't think of what to read, or what to write." He'd considered lying, just to keep her satisfied, but he wouldn't be able to fabricate a whole written summary about a book he didn't read, since she was bound to ask about it. He'd put a lot of thought into what he could do, but he just could not think of what book he could read, or re-read, and he didn't know what he wanted to write to Blaine—his writing style was bound to reveal his identity.

"You better think of something, or else I'm going to win, since I wouldn't mind going out with a boy likethat," Mercedes laughed again as they pulled up into Rachel's driveway.

Rachel had decided to throw an impromptu party on Thursday, after they finished performing the singing grams for that day. "It's a perfect opportunity for us to talk about glee stuff without Mr. Schuester breathing down our necks, and for us to just...talk!" she had said. Everyone agreed to go, as far as Kurt knew, much to his surprise.

The two of them got out of the car and walked up to the front door of the house. Kurt tried to calm himself down:they're not going to want to focus on me the whole time, right? That'd be stupid. I'm still new to the glee club, and some of them haven't even said two words to me.

"Hi, hi, hi! Come in; everyone's in the basement—you're just in time, because I'm going to sing!" Rachel bounced on the balls of her feet, clapping her hands together childishly. She turned around and led Mercedes and Kurt inside; Mercedes rolled her eyes at Rachel's back. Kurt could hardly suppress his laughter.

They walked down the stairs into Rachel's finished basement, which was actually really nice, and decorated with lots of paper snowflakes and holiday-related decorations in complete Rachel Berry-fashion. The rest of the glee club was sitting around the room, chatting with each other. There was a small stage in the front with a sole microphone. Mercedes walked up to Tina, who was sitting with Mike at the bar, leaving Kurt to awkwardly stand at the bottom of the staircase. Rachel bounded towards the microphone.

"Hey everyone, I'm so glad that you could come out! So first I'm going to sing, because I'm sure you all want to hear my beautiful voice, and then I'm going to bring down some food, and then we're going to play Twister-"

"I'm all down for Twister and food, but Rachel...you suck at parties." Puck called out. Everyone nodded their heads. "Let's just do whatever, okay? Put on some good music; I brought some booze," he flicked his head over to the cooler that Kurt was standing by.

"Oh yeah, and Kurt needs to tell us about that boy!" Tina piped up amidst all of the chatter that had exploded from the word "booze". Kurt felt his face flush. "How about we not do that," he muttered to himself.

Rachel seemed to give in; she turned to her iPod, which was plugged into a pair of speakers, and put on a song Kurt didn't recognize. She shook her head at Kurt as she walked past him and rushed up the stairs, obviously distressed at the immediate failure of her plans. Finn followed her up.

"Kurt! Get that cute butt over here and dance with me!" Mercedes called to him after a few minutes, while he awkwardly hung around on the outskirts of the group. Without a moment of hesitation, he obliged: after talking with her incessantly over the past few days (even though a majority of their conversations were about Blaine more recently), he had really taken a liking to her. Being a pretty awful dancer, he just swayed with the music and smiled as he took his place beside Mercedes and Tina.

"You guys want drinks?" Puck asked as he made his rounds, a pack of beers in either hand. Kurt shook his head, but Mercedes and Tina held out their hands. "You sure you don't want one, Kurt? It'd be nice to see you let loose for once, for you to get that large stick out from your-"

"NOAH!" Kurt heard Quinn shout. "Stop harassing him! God, you're such a jerk!" Puck's face softened at the blow; he handed Mercedes and Tina the cans and headed over in Quinn's direction. They ignored the incident and continued to dance, keeping the drinks in their hands.

Kurt looked around the room: Sam and Mike were busting some moves while Artie watched in the corner, Santana and Brittany were kissing on the couch, and Quinn and Puck were arguing at the bar. He watched as Rachel and Finn walked down the stairs, their arms full with bowls of chips and other snacks.

"So Kurt, you want to explain to us this little relationship you have going on?" Tina asked; Kurt snapped his head back to face her.I am going to murder Rachel Berry, he thought over and over again.

"First of all, we've never even met before. Well, we have, but...ugh, it's complicated." While he didn't want to talk about it, there was something urging him to go on. He never got to talk about these things with anyone;now it's my chance, a small voice encouraged him. "All right, all right, so I would go to the library after school today because I'm a nerd or whatever and I really like reading, okay? That's not really the point, well, it kind of is, but anyway...I found that book that he had with him one day and decided to write in it, and then he wrote back and it went on from there, obviously. We're just friends," he added quickly.

"Let's get real here, Kurt," Mercedes said, still dancing to the music, "I glanced at you a couple of times during his speech and you had this look on your face other than the usual 'get-me-out-of-here' thing you always have going on. You two need to meet up again!"

"Who wants to play truth or dare?" Santana shouted out of nowhere; she had broken away from Brittany and was standing on the couch. Everyone seemed eager to play; they all flocked towards her in the corner. Kurt rolled his eyes, since it was such a dumb, stereotypical game, but walked over to join them.

"Are you sure that you want to play this game? We could do something more fun; I have a Broadway trivia-"

"Rachel, can you do us all a favor, please?" Santana implored with a look of desperation on her face. "Shut up." Everyone laughed except for Finn, who took Rachel in his arms and comforted her as they circled up. "Okay, I know this is a stupid game, but it's one of those things you have to do at every party. Brittany, you can go first."

"Okay, um...Santana, I dare you to kiss me."

"That's not really how it works, but sure, even though that's all we've been doing since this thing started," Santana performed the dare, and then turned back to the group.

"Next...Quinn, truth or dare," Santana smirked at her. Quinn answered truth, and Santana responded right afterwards. "Who's the hottest guy in the room right now?"

"Oh come on, Santana, you really want me to cause problems?" Quinn sighed. "I can't believe I agreed to go to this thing," Kurt heard her add under her breath. She took a few minutes before answering the question. "In order to avoid as much conflict as possible, I'm going to say Kurt, who I'm going to move on to. Kurt, truth or dare?"

No one challenged Quinn's answer. Kurt, however, was stunned by her response. He wasn't sure if she meant it in a good or bad way, but accepted it regardless of its intention.

"Um, I'm kind of afraid of what you'll ask me to do regardless of whether it's a truth or dare, but I guess I'll go with truth," Kurt answered after he recovered. There were a few laughs.

"So I guess everyone would ask this if they were in my position, but ...what happened with you and Karfosky?"

Kurt's mouth fell open. That was the last question he was expecting. He was sure that they would ask about Blaine; there was no reason to ask about anything else. "E-excuse me?" he stuttered.They can't know, how do they know?

"A little birdie told me that something happened, something related to why you weren't here last Friday," she said innocently. Everyone leaned in. "We were told not to talk about it in front of you. Now that Mr. Schue isn't here, we can ask whatever we want, so tell us. We won't tell anyone," everyone nodded. Kurt felt his face heat up. He wasn't too thrilled to divulge the information, but decided that he might as well. They were his friends, and they had a right to know.

"It was that curriculum day that we had, the half-day...I was at my locker and he went up to me and...he ki—he beat me up and threw me in the dumpster. It screwed up my arm, so that's why I had to wear that bandage and stuff." It wasn't the whole truth, but the truth nonetheless.

"You were saying something before, but then you changed it. What happened!?" Rachel interjected.

"He doesn't have to tell us if he doesn't want to," Tina cut in.

"I can't tell you. It's something Karfosky has to say. Now can we move on? Truth or dare, Rachel."I'm going to let him come out; I may hate his guts, but he has a right to this secret.

"Well that was an interesting night," Mercedes commented as she and Kurt left Rachel's house a few hours later. "It looked like Puck was having alittletoo much fun with you in Twister," Kurt slapped her arm.

"He was drunk, Mercedes, it's no big deal. Did you even have a sip of that drink he gave you?"

"Nope, it was rebellious enough for me to just hold it, you know?" They got back into her car. "I'm so glad that you came, Kurt. I'm so glad that we're friends. You deserve this, you know? You're so great to be around. I feel so badly that everyone is so mean to you, and I'm sorry that I never reached out to you prior to when you joined the glee club." Mercedes leaned back into her seat, sighing a little. She still hadn't started the car. "You know when you witness something, when you see something happening, but you feel like you can only stand on the sidelines and watch, because you have no idea what to do?"

Something started to stir within Kurt. "Yeah," he said softly. He was slowly beginning to recognize that feeling.

"There's an opportunity to make a difference right in front of you, an opportunity to bring good not just to yourself, but to other people as well—but you don't know how to get there. There's someone waiting for you, but you don't know what to say to them."

"Yeah, I know," Kurt replied, a strange taste in his mouth. These words were so familiar to him.

"That's how I felt when I saw you getting shoved around all the time." Kurt was then pulled out of his reverie. "I saw you being put down again and again, but I didn't know how I could help you, because you'd still be back every day with that same look on your face, as if you were satisfied with your life. I knew how wrong it was, but it felt weird to interfere with someone's life that I knew nothing about except for one thing, one defining thing that made you so different than everyone else. Now, if anyone were to do anything to you, you know that I'd bust a cap on their ass, right?" Kurt let out a small laugh.

"Thanks, Mercedes, but really, it's not a big deal. I don't blame you. I needed to stand up for myself, too. It's okay now, since I know that a few people other than my dad have my back." He paused. "I don't want you getting in trouble for me, though, please promise me that!"

"All right, I promise," she grinned at him and turned on the car.

For the rest of the ride to Kurt's house, they sang along with the radio and discussed the song choices for regionals, but a nagging voice at the back of Kurt's mind continued to pester him, repeating Mercedes's words over and over again.

Once Kurt got home (a few minutes before midnight; Burt was satisfied with his return), he rushed up into his room and opened up a Word document on his laptop and began to type, keeping the most recent book that he'd read at his side.