Shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo Sugar Town'

Kurt groaned from under his covers. His limbs were thrown askew under his comforter which was twisted around his body like a cocoon. "Nnnghh..." Kurt moaned, sticking his head out from underneath his comforter. He immediately hissed at the light spilling into his room from the window. He wrestled his hand from his bindings and slapped it down onto his radio alarm clock, ridding him of the voice of Nancy Sinatra.

"Kurt, sweetie, it's time to get up!" Carole yelled down the stairs.

Kurt rolled his eyes and flopped himself back down onto his bed. His comforter folded itself onto his face. I'll get up in a second, Kurt thought pathetically, just five more minutes.

A Couple Hours Later:

"Kurt!"

Kurt screamed as his comforter was ripped from his body making him fold into himself at the sudden cold.

He groaned in agitation. "What the fu-" he stopped dead in his words when he met the stern eyes of his step-mother.

Carole raised an eyebrow at Kurt's use of language. "Did you forget you had to be somewhere today?"

Kurt paused before answering, wary of Carole's mood. "Is this a trick question?"

Kurt ducked away before Carole started yelling at him for sleeping. He found refuge in his en suite bathroom. He slumped against the wall and huffed, making his bags furl against his forehead. He had checked the time before running away from Carole, he'd make it just in time for his last two periods. "Might as well get ready."

He had almost finished his entire moisturizing routine before he realized Nancy Sinatra's voice was booming from his radio, playing the same song he had set for his alarm.

'If I had a million dollars or ten,

I'd give to ya, world, and then,

You'd go away and let me spend,

My life in shoo-shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo-shoo,

Shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo Sugar Town,

la-la-la-la to end'

"Whoa, what happened to you, Lady-face?" Santana giggled, raising an eyebrow at Kurt's appearance.

The counter-tenor obviously did not enjoy being made fun of. "Shut up, San."

"You look like hell!" Santana continued, ignoring Kurt's warning. She surveyed the boys appearance. In fact, he did look horrible. His clothes weren't ironed and he was slouching - something Kurt Hummel never did. And he was wearing huge sunglasses indoors. From what bare skin the sunglasses left bare, his skin looked sallow.

"I woke up late okay!" Kurt hissed, slamming his locker door closed. He hadn't had much time to fix himself 'cause he could feel Carole giving him the evil eye through he door.

"I can see that," Santana quipped, giggling more until Kurt gave her the evil eye. "Sorry. Why did you even bother coming? There's only one class left."

"My mom's scary," Kurt replied, smirking. Santana giggled again. "What did I miss this morning anyway?"

Santana bit her lip, choosing her words carefully. "Nothing much. Just a bunch of stupid jocks holding up everyone from getting to their classes."

Kurt gave her a confused look, one that said she needed to tell him everything. Santana sighed and continued. "Two idiots were fighting in the halls."

"Who?"

"Anderson and Karofsky," Santana replied.

"Who the hell is Karofsky?" Kurt asked but before he could get an answer out of Santana, he was pushed roughly against his locker. "Fuck!"

Kurt felt the ridges of his locker press into his back, leaving scratches deep enough for blood probably. He slid to the ground, cursing whoever it was.

"Watch where you're going, fag," someone spat at him. Kurt was still flinching from the pain in his back to look up in time. When he did though, all he saw was the back of a guy in a red sports jacket.

"That is Karofsky."

"You will be required to do a project on a book of your choosing. The project can be anything, a book report, you can do a skit, a short movie. Whatever, as long as it fits the criteria," Mr. Syme was passing out papers with the requirements for a project the whole class was required to do.

"Damn, is he serious?" Kurt heard a voice hiss behind him. Blaine Anderson stomped his foot hard against the ground, clearly not enjoying the concept of doing a project.

'He probably thought he could sit back and not do any shit during his senior yeah,' Kurt thought. 'Well, too bad.'

Kurt rolled his eyes and ignored his whines. He other things on his mind. Like what Karofsky had called him.

Fag.

He was sure that nobody knew he was gay, so why the hell would Karofsky call him that? He though back to what Santana had told him.

"Karofsky calls everyone fag," Santana said, waving her hand as if it were an everyday thing. "Probably because he's gay and it makes him feel better by putting other people down for it."

THUD!

Kurt lurched in his seat, flying up a couple inches. His desk tilted itself, about to fall until Kurt grabbed it and set it back to it's original place. The entire class was staring at him now, he felt himself heat under their gaze. To ward off the attention he turned back to Blaine and stared at him accusingly. Blaine lifted his hands in apology. 'Yeah, right,' Kurt thought with a sneer.

"Mr. Anderson and Mr. Hummel, is there a problem?" Mr. Syme raised his eyebrows, not happy about being interrupted.

"No, not at all, Mr Syme," Kurt replied, playing up the charm.

"Kiss up," he heard Blaine whisper behind him. Kurt's foot traveled against the floor until it found Blaine's right leg against his chair legs and promptly kicked him in the ankle. "Shi-"

Blaine shut himself up just in time because Mr. Syme was still staring at them. He bit his lip, willing the pain from the kick to go away. 'Fuck you, Hummel.'

Mr. Syme finally turned away from them, resuming whatever it was he was doing. Blaine glared at the back of Kurt's head, cursing him over and over in his head.

"I'm going to pair you up into partners for this assignment. It is due at the end of the year, since I know you probably won't start reading let alone actually start working on this project right away. Better to give you all as much time as I can."

Mr. Syme began calling out names, pairing up students for the project.

"Kurt and Brittany."

Kurt looked up as his name was called. He didn't know many people yet so he wondered who this Brittany was.

"Psst," Blaine lamely tried getting Kurt's attention, but if Kurt heard him, he gave no indication.

Blaine huffed and scooted up in his chair, getting right behind Kurt's head. He cleared his throat and - "YO HUMMEL!"

Kurt lurched in his seat, squealing a little. His desk didn't fall over though, but he was tempted to throw over someone's desk. He spun around in his seat, glaring viciously at the boy behind him, this time ignoring the stares his classmates were giving them. "What the fuck is your problem?"

Blaine shrugged, putting on a mock innocent face. "Just letting you know your partner's trying to get your attention."

Blaine pointed his thumb in the direction of the tall blonde sitting next to him. "Hi, Kurt. I'm Brittany!" Kurt smiled at the seemingly-nice girl and returned the greeting. "Hey, do you wanna go over to my house tomorrow and start on the project? I'm not very smart so if we want a good grade, we should get started soon."

"I don't believe that, but sure," Kurt replied while Brittany scribbled her phone number and address down, Kurt did the same.

Brittany turned to Blaine. "Who did you get paired up with?"

"Puck," Blaine smiled. He and Puck were best friends, so it was safe to say that not much progress would be made on the project and they would surely fail.

Brittany smacked the curly-haired boy on the shoulder. "Don't goof around, Blaine. You don't want to fail English during your senior year, do you?"

"Don't worry, Britt," Blaine reassured, glancing at Kurt. "Beside, you're probably gonna too busy with Hummel to remember to be worrying about me."

"I'll never be too busy," Brittany replied, a smirk on her face.

Kurt raised an eyebrow at the flirtatious behavior. He could've guessed Blaine was straight, but something hadn't seem right about it. Well, he had seen him maul a blonde girl in the car park yesterday, but still.

'Why do I even care? If he's straight, he's straight, If he's gay, the he's' - Kurt sneaked a peek at Blaine. Brittany and Blaine were sitting closer now and the girl's cleavage was practically in the boy's face. 'Yeah, he's straight.'

Kurt popped a fry into his mouth. "So, what exactly happened this morning when I wasn't at school?"

"Nothing much," Santana replied from her perch at her vanity. "Karofsky made some remark about Anderson's sister and Anderson just blew up in his face."

"Who's Anderson's sister?" Kurt asked, playing with the frayed edge of Santana's blanket. He looked up when she didn't answer. "Santana?"

Santana was holding apiece of paper with a little smile on her face.

"Ooohhh, Santana's got a love letter," Kurt teased in a sing-song voice, sidling up to the Latina. Before he could look at the slip of paper though, Santana stuffed it under her butt, sitting on it.

Kurt cocked an eyebrow at the child-like behavior. "Santana...what are you doing?"

"Nothing," she replied quickly. Too quickly. "It's nothing."

"Mmmhhhmmm," Kurt smirked, but decided to let it go.

"Britt told me that you're her partner for an English assignment," Santana said, trying to change the subject. She grabbed her hairbrush to smooth-en out tangles while hoping she sounded nonchalant.

"Huh?" Kurt mumbled, walking back to the bed, falling face-first into the clean sheets. "Oh yeah. We talked to other for a bit until Anderson interrupted."

Santana let out a fake chuckle. "Yeah, they're kinda inseparable."

Kurt raised his head from the bed. "What?"

"They're dating," Santana said, her voice full of disgust, tossing her hairbrush back to where it was.

"They are?" Kurt said, somewhat surprised.

'Well, guess I was right,' Kurt thought back to how flirtatious they were during class and wondered why he hadn't put two-and-two together.

"You don't seem too happy about them dating," he said. He saw how her face turned up into a snarl when she told him, she obviously wasn't happy about it.

"He's not good enough for her," she replied, as if that explained it all.

Kurt chose his next words carefully. "Why isn't he good enough for her?"

"'Cause he just isn't!" Santana spun around to face the countertenor, forgetting her cover. "He's a total jackass to everyone and I don't get how he ended up with someone as awesome and nice as Brittany! I mean, even you think he's a total douche-bag! Most of the school does, too."

"Yeah, you're right. I don't like him very much," Kurt said, sitting up. "But why don't you like him?"

"'Cause he's a total ass-wipe!" Santana said, throwing her arms out as if to say it was obvious. "All the jocks are! They think they rule the entire school just because they throw a ball around a field and tackle eachother. Big whoop!"

Kurt eyebrows were so far up his forehead they disappeared beneath his hair. "Are you sure that's all this is about? Blaine not being good enough for her?"

Santana crossed her arms, done with her tirade. "What else could it be about?"

"I -" Kurt didn't know who to phrase what he was trying to say. "Do you - I mean, I don't mean to be - Are you and Britt-"

"Kurt," Santana stopped the countertenor's ramblings. "Are you trying to ask me if I l-like Britt?"

Kurt was silent for a few moments before he nodded.

"I'm confused," she said. "Honestly. I mean, I love Britt and all. She's been my friend sine preschool. I live on the East side and she's on the West and you know you don't befriend someone on the East side if you wanna keep your reputation intact,' but she didn't care and she chose to sit next to me and she became my best friend and-" Santana stopped her own ramblings, gathering her thoughts and taking deep breaths.

"I know I like boys, but they tell you that when you're a teenager, it's the time of experimentation. But then they go and tell you that being homosexual is wrong and I'm just so confused," Santana's voice cracked at the end. She slumped back into her chair, dropping her face in her hands.

Kurt sat silently at his perch on his friend's - no, best friend (Mercedes will just have to deal with him having two) - bed. He ached for her. Society was so messed up everywhere. All of them - fucking hypocrites. Telling you you're beautiful one second and then telling you you need to lose weight in another second. Or saying that liking this or that is weird. Or liking someone on the same gender was unnatural but then saying that love had no boundaries.

Kurt learned not to pay attention to any of that bullshit, but not everyone was like that. Especially Santana. She was a teenage girl and image is everything when you're still a kid.

He slipped off the bed and crouched next to his friend. He hesitantly touched her knee, wanting to comfort her. "San?" She didn't reply. "Santana, there is nothing wrong with being gay. Or bisexual, even."

Santana tried to get up, not wanting to have this conversatino right now, but Kurt pushed her back down in her seat. "Santana, listen to me. Please. It's okay to be confused about who you are. You're a teenager, you're not supposed to have everythign figured out."

"Well maybe I do!" She exclaimed, pulling free of Kurt's arms. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do with all these - these feelings."

Kurt was quiet, letting Santana get out her feelings. When it appeared that she had nothign else to say, he sat her back down again. "I'm gonna give you a piece of advice that was given to me: It doesn't matter who you're attracted to, it ultimately matters who you fall in love with. It's all about love."

He removed the Latina's hands form her face where she was pouring her tears into and turned it up so she was looking at him. She had dark tear tracks on her face left by her mascaraand her eyes were puffy. "There's nothing wrong with liking Brittany. There's nothing wrong with being confused about who you are. There's nothing wrong with you."

"But what if people aren't okay with it? What if they say things?" Santana cried.

"Well, people will have to suck it up. If you're comfortable with who you are, then people can't do shit about it," Kurt said. When the extent of what he had just said came to him, he cursed under his breath. "God, I'm such a fucking hypocrite."

"What?" Santana said, touching Kurt's shoulder.

"God, I'm sorry, San," Kurt said, ducking his head. He felt a prickling at his eyes. "Here I am, telling you that you should be proud of who you are - of your sexuality when I can't even do that."

"Kurtie, what are you talking about?" Santana inquired, sitting up a little straighter.

"I'm gay," Kurt said quickly, looking back up at Santana. "I'm gay and I've probably know since I was an infant. I like guys. Boobs and vaginas just don't do it for me."

Santana simply stared at her friend who was fast approaching becoming her best friend. Wehn the latina didn't respond, Kurt repeated himself, "I'm gay, Santana."

"I-I know, I heard," she drew her knees up to her chest, resting her chin on her knees. "Why didn't you just tell me?"

"I haven't even told my parents," Kurt whispered, feeling suddenly ashamed of himself for telling his friend, Mercedes, and Santana before he told his family. "Guess I need to follow my own advice."

Santana put a hand on his shoulder, comforting him. "Hey, if I accept you, you're family will, too."

Kurt nodded, swallowing and tryingot hold back that little tears threatening to spill over. "Thanks, San."

"Hey, I should be thanking you," she replied. The latina wrapped her arms around him, giving him a tight hug. "I'm still not sure about anything, but at least I know you're here if I ever need to talk."

"I am," Kurt reassured her. He wrapped his own arms around his friend. "As long as you do the same for me."