And then, suddenly, he wasn’t. His NYADA rejection – though hardly the end of the road, as his father pointed out – swept him out to sea and left him struggling to keep his head above the water. Having not applied to back-up schools, he was suddenly a high school graduate with no plans and nowhere to go. But Kurt Hummel was not one to give up without a fight.

After giving himself suitable time to mope, he picked himself up by his bootstraps and applied for Spring Semester admission to a generous handful of schools. Performing Arts, Musical Theatre – they were still his dream, so schools like Pace and Juilliard and NYU still took the forefront, but at the last minute, he sent off an application to Parsons, not thinking anything would come from it.

But one day around Halloween, the letter came telling him he had been accepted, full scholarship – his portfolio having been rather impressive. Sketching and designing had always been things he did just for fun, not anything he’d seriously considered trying to make a career out of.

And yet – he found himself drawn to the school. So, in a great shock to everyone he knew, he accepted, his Broadway dreams taking the back burner to these new, exciting, fresh dreams. Dreams of Bryant Park and runways and fashion week.

His first year had been hard, and there was definitely more than one late night in the studio where he called his father crying, completely certain that he would never finish this project, this sketch, this design in time. But he did. He always did. And so he quickly skyrocketed to the top of his class, despite his late entry into the program.

A year later, he was accepting an internship at the salon with the world’s largest selection of wedding dresses, figuring it to be amazing experience.

He didn’t think he’d never leave. But three years post-graduation, he was still there, and still loving his job. He was good at what he did – one of their best consultants – and he thoroughly enjoyed helping people make their dreams come true.

He was only a little bitter.

Growing up a gay male in Ohio, he was pretty much completely alone. If there were other gay men there, none of them were out like he was. New York really hadn’t improved his love life much either. Sure, he’d gone on dates – even had a kind of serious boyfriend once – but his schooling, his work, always ended up overpowering everything else.

So that was how he ended up where he was now: a 24-year-old single male, sometimes having to force a smile as he watched engaged couple after engaged couple walk away to begin their new lives while he sits here – his life unchanging.

With a sigh, he pulls the door open to the salon and heads inside, going back to check out his book for the day. Four appointments. At an hour and a half each in an eight hour day, that gave him a mere two hours of wiggle room (plus time to squeeze in some lunch, if possible).

This is going to be a long day, he thinks.