Every day, Kurt dreams of when he’ll finally graduate high school and leave this miserable town.

It all seems so far away, or impossible; like it won’t ever really happen, or couldn’t happen. Because he doesn’t know anywhere but here. But still, he dreams.

Kurt likes to get up on a chair and look out the choir room window during those few, brief minutes before glee club starts. He lets his mind float away from all the noise and nonsense behind him: the incessant chattering between friends and boyfriends and girlfriends about homework, or terrible teachers, or weekend plans, or other topics insignificant in the grand scheme of their lives. He gets lost in a quiet reverie, pondering everything that lies beyond the warm, suffocating cocoon of high school.

Most people don’t notice him up there. He’s used to that. It’s one reason why he’d turned to the window in the first place. Inside these walls, it’s all about popularity contests and fights over solos and ignorant comments from friends and Neanderthal football players alike. He’d rather wonder about everything happening in the world at this very moment, outside their little choir room: past the homely school grounds and far away from their sad little town.

He gazes out the window, to the left and to the right. Students mill about, laughing and gossiping while they wait for parents and school buses to bring them home. Teachers hover over the teenagers, surveilling them like prison guards. Kurt wonders if they’re all satisfied here; if they ever dream of leaving like he does.

He sees the songbirds, hopping over the ground before quickly ascending; their fluttering wings taking them higher, higher, and away. What would it be like to be a bird? Kurt muses. To be able to fly away at any sign of danger, or on a whim.

If he cranes his neck enough, he can see the parking lot; its spaces quickly emptying as cars vacate the pool of asphalt for the road beyond. He speculates about where all those people are going: today, tomorrow, in a year. He doesn’t know them, but a part of him wants what they have: love, companionship. The other part revolts at the thought of being anyone else but Kurt Hummel.

He looks up, up at the sky – sometimes blue, sometimes gray – and imagines all the other places the sun is shining on at that very moment. Is there anybody else out there looking up at the sky, just as he is right now? Reflecting on their own hopes and plotting grand plans of escape? He’d like to meet them someday.

Occasionally, his thoughts overwhelm him. Surely, he’s inconsequential in the immeasurable scope of the world; nothing more than a sad, pale face staring out through a long, slim pane of glass. Other times he’s anxious; desperate to speed up time and break though those walls, leaving everyone else behind to look after him longingly through this very same window.

Someday, he’ll be outside that window: away from the petty drama, the hurtful words. He’ll soon escape into the big, wide world to grasp his dreams firmly in his hands, molding them into a reality far sweeter than he could ever imagine. He doesn’t know how just yet, but all that matters is that he’ll be out there, trying.

It all feels so much more tangible, beautiful, possible, the day another boy joins him up on his chair to look out the window. It’s strange and wonderful to have someone else with him at his normally solitary post.

“Whatcha looking at?” Blaine asks, grinning and raising himself up on his toes to meet Kurt’s height.

“Don’t you see it?” Kurt murmurs, a puzzling response that has Blaine looking at him curiously. “All of our dreams are out there, waiting for us.”

Blaine’s always in awe over the way his boyfriend can spin rapturous fantasies, even from something so simple as a nondescript scene of bricks and grass.

“Yeah.” Blaine smiles, thinking about the hopes and desires they’ve started building, together, for their futures. “But it’s good in here right now, too, though. Right?”

The back of Blaine’s arm lightly grazes Kurt’s bicep. Their skin is hidden under too many layers, but Kurt can still feel heat there. It’s just as warm as all of his other fancy dreams; except this one is real, and it’s here, standing by his side. Kurt smiles back, his happy gaze the only answer Blaine needs.

“Why do you always stare out the window, anyway?” Quinn interrupts, climbing up on a neighboring chair to curiously peer through the glass. Kurt watches as her eyes scan the view in quiet contemplation.

“Just daydreaming,” he replies, just as Mr. Schuester drags them all back to the world inside.

This time when he steps back to reality – Blaine helping him down from the chair, their hands tightly linked together – Kurt doesn’t breathe out a sad, defeated sigh. All the thoughts and plans and fantasies aren’t so far away anymore. Right now, it’s time to enjoy what’s here, in this room, for the short, blessed time he has left.

And then, panes of glass won’t be able to hold him back from all the dreams that lay outside the window.