Broken Bird

I didn't think much else about that creep after that afternoon in the Lima Bean. I'd actually managed to forget the whole thing in about a week. How was I supposed to know I was being stalked? I thought I had just been making something paranoid up in my head at the time, or at least that's what I wanted to believe.

He found me. It was after school, after a particularly monotonous session of Booty Camp, and I was running late. He was waiting for me, and I sort of wonder, with a sense of both curiosity and pure horror, how long he had been waiting.

He jumped me the moment I made it to my car. He seemed to come out of nowhere. Where the hell had he been hiding anyway? Underneath the vehicle? Maybe if I could have known somehow or had been paying more attention...

Truthfully, it took me a few minutes before I had any idea what was going on. I literally didn't know what hit me. I yelled at him to stop and get off almost reflexively. He just laughed.

He got me flat on my back down on the pavement. I tried to fight back, to get away, to do anything at all, but he was stronger than he looked. He held me down like his life depended on it, like it was the most important thing he'd ever done, so firmly that it hurt me.

He positioned himself on top of me and that freaked me out before he ever started punching. He stared at me for a second, and it was then I started to remember him. I almost realized what was happening when he started pummeling me.

He looked -just before he began the beating, and I guess, probably during it- well, he looked so...happy? No, worse than that. So much worse than that because those eyes, that gleam in them, terrified me more than anything he did to me. This violence, it was like sex to him. I don't know how much further he would have taken things if he could have; I try not to speculate.

I still tried to fight him off, get away from him, but he would just tighten his grip and hit me harder. Maybe he liked it when I fought back, and even though that thought made me sick I couldn't just give up fighting. I couldn't just give up and take it.

I think I managed to hurt him, if only just a bit, because he cursed and stopped hitting me. Then, he grabbed me tightly by my hair; it made me gasp, which I hated because I was trying hard not to give him the satisfaction of making me scream or cry. He growled something through his teeth, and then he slammed my head into the asphalt.

I think maybe I blacked out for a second. I know everything got blurry from that. Everything was spinning and confusing and so painful, but I knew somewhere underneath those clouds that I couldn't lose it. Still, it's hard to keep fighting when you can barely keep focus.

So now, he could afford to get off me. I wasn't going anywhere. My only hope was the voices I thought I heard coming across the parking lot.

He kicked me in the ribs as hard as he probably could with those heavy boots he was wearing. He hit me so hard that at first I felt the shock of it more than the pain. I doubled over reflexively, and it made me scream, which coupled with the mild concussion working in my head made me really sick.

It hurt to breathe. Oh my god, it hurt to breathe, and he wouldn't stop. He kicked the ribs he had cracked, and it made the blur in my head and all around me even fuzzier. It made what little focus I had left impossible. He kicked my arms as collateral damage as they tried to shield my screaming rib cage. I was already dizzily contemplating throwing up when his foot slammed into my stomach.

Then, it all stopped. I was afraid to assume it was over, afraid he wasn't really gone, and I knew I couldn't handle getting my hopes up and then dashed like that. But the obscenities he was screaming did sound a bit further away. All I could do was lay and shake and wait for whatever was next.

It's stupid the things that went through my head every other second when I was able to think. I was scared that I'd never be able to breathe without this wrong feeling, and, if I could never draw a full breath again- well, first of all that would feel awful, but secondly, and for some reason, most importantly- I'd never be able to sing again.

And I thought about Dad. Stress wasn't good for his heart, and he would be so worried when he found out about this. And, knowing my dad, he'd probably want to kill the guy that did this.

And I'd have to tell everyone what happened somehow. Maybe I would when I was able to breathe without feeling sick, wrong, and panicked. Blaine would want to know; he needed to know. Boyfriends were supposed to be like the first people to call in these types of situations, right?

I couldn't think straight, and I could barely think at all. Everything was running together. Mr. Schue was trying to talk to me, but his voice wasn't loud enough to break through the noise in my head. He kept saying things would be okay, but I couldn't go to sleep no matter how tempted I was. That just made me realize how tired I felt all of a sudden, that it would feel so good to just close my eyes and escape this whole mess.

Well, if Schue would have shut up and let me anyway. "Kurt!" He got my attention at the cost of making my brain scream. "Kurt, stay with me."

I didn't want to. Why would I want to stay there with all the pain, and the drama, and the insanity of it all? "Then, again," I remembered, almost coherently, "the alternative...is probably death...right?" I shuddered, but I don't know if it was at the possibility of death or at the horror that I would have to stay awake through this nightmare.

Somehow in the fog I had almost managed to forget about him (the creep, my stalker, I don't know what to call him.) The cops had been called, and at their arrival, he started to yell, curse, and laugh anew. His voice, that ugly reminder that he was still there, that he was real, made me stop breathing altogether and tremble more violently. I closed my eyes tightly and tried to disappear into the pavement.

I must have mumbled something dumb because Schue said, "It's okay, Kurt. They're taking him away." He placed a gentle hand on my shoulder, but it just made me flinch. I wondered if I would do that whenever anyone touched me now. He withdrew his hand, but he kept talking. He never stopped talking; maybe he was afraid to or maybe he just couldn't. He talked to me like you would to a frightened child or a skittish animal. Like a broken bird.

Maybe I sort of was one.