Kurt Hummel gazed down in awe at the shiny brochure that the guidance councillor, Miss Pillsbury had just given him.

Across the glossy picture of a mansion like stone building in large curly black letters was the name: ‘Dalton Academy of preforming arts.'

Kurt gently ran his hand across the shiny surface softly, not listening to a word that Mss Pillsbury was saying. He only looked up when he heard a pause in her speech.

‘Sorry, I didn't quite catch that?' Kurt said as he folded the brochure under his hands nervously and looked up at her.

‘I was saying that the tuition at Dalton is very steep and that scholarships are very, very rare there, I think they only have about one a year. 

Kurt's heart sank as he heard her words. He gulped audibly and looked back down at the brochure, watching all his dreams flood away. He could never afford to go to a place like that, his father did not earn too much at his shop.

He sighed heavily and stood up; swinging his backpack across his shoulder and startled Miss Pillsbury who had started to talk again.

‘Thank you Miss Pillsbury' he interrupted emotionlessly.

‘Kurt – are you alright?' she asked timidly as she slowly stood up from behind her desk, running her hands nervously down the front her skirt.

‘I-I'm fine' Kurt muttered, avoiding looking at her bush baby eyes.

She gazed cautiously at Kurt, silently willing him to open up for once but right then the bell rang, shrill and loud all throughout the school.

Instantly there was the sound of a stampede of students pouring out of classes, chatting happily about anything but the lesson they just had.    

Kurt slipped out of the room without saying another word and closed the wooden door behind him quietly.

He walked down the short panelled corridor and opened a set of double glass doors that separated the teacher's quarters from the rest of the school grounds.

He emerged into a pale corridor with a linoleum floor and walls lined with lockers. Already there were students milling around their lockers, grabbing books for their next classes and hurrying off.

Kurt squared his shoulders and started to join the throng of students.

As he walked along the hallway he had his head down, thinking deeply about Dalton.

God I wish I could go there, it sounds so amazing, and let's face it, anything sounds better than this hell. Miss Pillsbury said that there was a scholarship that they give out…maybe I could apply for –

But Kurt was cut off by a large shove that sent him flying into the lockers next to him. He whacked painfully against the cool metal and slid down onto the floor, feeling his shoulder ache. He heard the bark of laughter from the usual jocks that tormented him as they strolled past wearing letterman jackets and looking so smug and up-themselves.  

Kurt scowled after them; they were always doing this to him in the hallways, which were in fact the gentlest thing they did to him, that was the problem of being the only open gay kid in this school, the constant harassment.

Kurt stumbled back to his feet and re arranged his clothes fussily before he walked back along the corridor, heading towards his own locker.

He reached it and opened it, hastily shoving the brochure in it; he did not want the people at this school to know that they were driving him out; he did not want to see the smug satisfaction that would spread across their faces knowing that they won.

He slammed the door closed and hurried off to his next class.

The end of the day finally came around and Kurt hurried out of the school building as soon as the bell rang, desperately wanting to get back home and finish what little homework he didn't manage to finish in study that morning.

Also he really didn't want to run into –.

His heart sank, there they all were, the jocks and cheerleaders, the royalty of the school, the people who picked on Kurt the most, hanging out beside the dumpster, as usual, smoking and chatting, obviously having just ditched the last class of the day.

Not wanting to attract attention to himself, Kurt bowed his head and hurried down the front stairs of the school, allowing the flow of students to shove past him, hoping that he could mingle within the masses and not to be seen by any of them.

But when he looked up to check, he saw that they were all staring at him, a few were smiling evilly. One of the blonde cheerleaders flicked her cigarette butt over her shoulder and waved sarcastically at him. And Kurt saw the big giant jock who always teased him stroll casually forward, parting through the crowd as easily as a hot knife through butter.

Kurt froze and watched as Finn Hudson walked casually up to him and leered down, towering over Kurt.

‘Hey Hummel, where you going?' he asked, casually flicking a piece of dirt out from under one of his nails.

Kurt shrugged and started forward again, but he felt Finn's hand clench down on his shoulder and wheel him around to face the rest for the jock and cheerleaders.

‘I believe you were just coming to visit us' he said in that same casual voice that he adopted whenever he tormented someone.

 Kurt allowed Finn to steer him towards them, he was so used to this that he didn't even bother fighting against his grip, anyway it was pointless, they would always, always catch him.

When they reached the jocks and cheerleaders, they all started to cheer happily.

‘Oh fuck yeah, I thought I might have had to wait until next week to see the fag again' a skinny blonde guy said happily, rubbing his palms together in glee and stared down at Kurt as if he were his prey.

Kurt tried to ignore him, but there was the usual swooping of hot anger in his stomach.

He said nothing, though, but stood there awkwardly, holding his books close to his chest and not making eye contact with anyone.

‘Look at him' screeched a frizzy hair girl with wicked green eyes. ‘He's shaking' she cackled nastily, a few other chortled awkwardly.

That was not true, but they always made up things like that, apparently the other week Kurt had grabbed Finn's cock, like he would ever want to touch that jerk.

Kurt stood there, stock still as the insults began to be hurled at him.

He raised his inner shields, willing himself not to feel anything, not to let the harsh words penetrate his soul.

But try as he might, they always, always hit home hard. But as he stood there, he made sure that he did not show any emotion, which always made them happier and thus more violent.

They grouped around him, efficiently trapping him in a circle of insults.

And he stood there, looking at nothing and focusing on his breathing, he knew what was coming, one of their worst punishments that they saved for him and him only.

A few seconds later, Kurt felt himself being picked up roughly from behind by one of the jocks as Finn took hold of his ankles, roughly and swooped him up into a lying position.

Kurt lay limp, still holding his books close to his chest as they swung him backwards and then threw him literally threw him over the side of the dumpster.

Kurt fell and with a small puff, he hit the contents of the dumpster.

Rotting apples, bananas peels, paper and what looked like a used condom all cascaded over Kurt's body, showering him in an awful stench of rot that filled his nostrils.

He held his breath, the many times he had been dumped in here had taught him not to breathe in too much while he was in here. It also taught him how to get out of a dumpster properly.

The first time he had been tossed inside, he had been half blinded by tears and fell painfully onto the concrete below him, grazing his hands and knees harshly.

But as he lay in the rotting trash, listening to the shrill laughter of the jocks cease as they walked away, he got up slowly, gathering his books from within the mess.

He stumbled to his feet and threw the books over the side of the dumpster first, then heaved himself over the side of the blue metal, the rubbish falling off of his clothes, and hopped out lightly.

 He landed with a soft thud onto the concrete and looked up. A few students were watching him, evil smiles playing on their lips, but worst of all, a teacher was walking brusquely down the stairs, looking anywhere but Kurt after obviously seeing the jocks throw him into the dumpster and doing nothing.

Kurt felt the humiliation settle in; this was honestly the worst part of being tossed into the garbage, the humiliation of everyone thinking and knowing that he was as worthless as garbage to the popular kids.

Kurt gathered his books and clutched them close to his chest again.

He looked down, not wanting to see the laughter on his fellow students' faces, and shuffled forward, all hope lost, all memory of Dalton wiped from his mind by the incident. He could never be happy here, not if that kept on happening. He was sure that he was going to die in this hell.  

Burt Hummel was worried about his son. Well that was an understatement.

As he stood there, in the shop watching a silent Kurt stroll in bringing a terrible stench of rotting fruit instead of his one hundred dollar de odorant, he felt a swoop of hopelessness was over himself. How, how could he let Kurt live like this all the time?

It all began three years ago when Kurt was fourteen. He had come home after football practise (yes football practise) and was doing his usual skin care crap when he had told Burt that he was in fact gay.

Burt, of course, knew already, he was his son after all.

But that had been a big bombshell for Kurt to drop and for that one day he was happier than Burt had seen him since his mother had died.

Kurt then came out to his only ‘friend' who had then blabbed to the whole school and then turned against Kurt. Kurt had been relentlessly bullied ever since. Though he did try to keep it from Burt, especially after what happened last year, but Burt knew, he could read it all over his son's face.   

Burt watched as a glum teenager walked up to him, the light that usually shone from his eyes gone.

‘Hey dad' he called out in an oddly dead voice, not at all his usual chirpy and sometimes annoying voice.

‘Hey son, how are you, how was school?' Burt asked as Kurt pushed past him to get into the staffroom.

‘The same' Kurt shrugged as he took off his designer coat that he had begged Burt to get him for the past Christmas.

‘I-is there anything you want to tell me Kurt?' Burt asked.

Kurt looked up at Burt with his dead eyes and shook his head.

‘No dad, everything's fine - ' Kurt stared at his father for a moment his eyes expressionless, before he put his hand into his jean pocket and drew out a small and rather wrinkled brochure and handed it to Burt.

‘What's this?' Burt asked as he took it from Kurt.

He looked down at the fancy scrawling letters of Dalton's brochure and felt his heart sink. He had heard of this place, they had a strict no bully policy that their principle enforced. And it catered to people like Kurt, theatre freaks and singers and musicians, all the outcasts that Lima High just ignored.

Burt sighed and looked at Kurt who now looked a little hopeful.

‘I had a meeting with Miss Pillsbury today and she gave me that.'

Miss Pillsbury the only teacher at that damn school who seemed to care about Kurt and treat him like an actual person.

‘Kurt I've heard of this place, it's known for its really high tuition –‘

‘Dad Miss Pillsbury said that they had a scholarship – once per year according to her' Kurt had a faint hint of excitement in his voice now.

Burt sighed again. ‘Kurt do you really think that you may get the scholarship?' he asked. He did not want to be mean but Kurt had to know they only gave out a scholarship to the best of the best at this place.

‘Dad, please at least let me try it out, please' Kurt begged, looking up at his father. Burt looked down at his son and saw a vague flicker of the boy he had raised, the boy who smiled at everything and anything.

Burt looked back down at eh brochure and this time smiled, he knew that Kurt wanted this more than anything and there on the bottom written in minuscule writing was the phone number. It couldn't hurt to ring and see if Kurt could at least get a try out.

‘Fine Kurt, I will ring up and see if you can go and see them' Burt said.

Kurt looked so joyful at that one moment that it almost made Burt want to pay the tuition in full. But his heart sunk, he hoped to god that Kurt was good enough to get in. He did not want his son to complete his senior year in that hell of a public school.

Burt folded up the brochure and placed it in his in tray and went back off to work with the promise that he would call the school the next day.