Page 187 of Hurt

Noah looked out to the driveway. He stared at the spot like he could see it all playing out.

“She eventually took mercy on him, and the rest is history.” Willow leaned back against the wall, her lips still twitching in a smile. “He was an ass, but he loved her.”

Kurt nodded. “And you.”

Noah shook himself and looked at Kurt. “I…don’t remember him very well.”

They never talked about Michael. It wasn’t out of spite. It was just that Hazel was the one they remembered best. The one they kept close to their hearts.

“The day you were born, he came to me.” He remembered being horrified to see that a grown man was crying. There were tears in Michael’s eyes, and he didn’t even have it in his heart to make fun of him for it.

“He knelt down in front of me, extended his hand, and shook mine. Told me how excited he was to have you. And…he asked me to keep him in line.”

It was a memory Kurt didn’t like to recall. It brought up a myriad of strange emotions in him, things he couldn’t quite identify. Things he didn’t want to identify.

‘I know I messed up before,’he had said to Kurt.‘But I’m trying to be a better husband and father. You’ve never been afraid to call me out when I needed it, so will you do it again? Help me be the best dad I can?’

“You can question a lot of things,” Kurt said to Noah. “But never wonder if they loved you.”

Willow wrapped a stunned-looking Noah in a bear hug, dragging him to her chest and peppering the top of his head in noisy kisses. “And we love you too!”

Noah elbowed Willow, which led to them half wrestling, half hugging on the front porch of their childhood home.

Kurt watched them. He was smiling.

Kurt leaned against the piling and watched the water ripple. It was late. The crickets had stopped chirping, and the frogs had found a lily pad to settle down on for the night. Behind him, the house was dark. Each couple finding a corner to curl up into as the lingering warmth from the summer sun left on their skin lulled them to sleep.

Legs crossed and head resting on the heavy wood support, he took a final look out over the lake.

He wouldn’t come back here. When the final nail was hammered in, Kurt had let go. Let go of the lake house and all the ghosts that lived there. They had followed him around for far too long. Their voices were so loud his own was lost and their presence so vast that he couldn’t find himself.

Amongst the reeds and the willows brushing up against the bank and the empty rooms, he would let the ghosts rest. Even Hazel. Her ghost would stay here along with the memories that danced in the house like dust motes in a sunbeam. The good and the bad, they were all intrinsically connected in ways he couldn’t untangle. There was no room for them in his new life. Not to be forgotten. They would remain in his recollections, like a sweater in the back of a closet. Out of sight, but never gone. Ready to be pulled off the hanger when needed. A perfect fit every time.

If he leaned forward, he could see his reflection. Distorted in the water, he looked younger. A Kurt, before the world had crashed around him, stared back at him.

He would leave them behind, too. The ghosts of his former selves. From the bewildered kid who wondered why he wasn’t good enough to the bitter teenager who had given up on trying to win anyone’s approval.

Staring down at his reflection, he could see the faint scars over his face. The ugly, faded lines that he was trying to hate less. The ones he tried to see not as wounds but as battle scars. Proof that he could heal. That he could survive. That he could fall apart and put himself back together again.

He reached down and touched the water. His fingertip just breaking the surface.

When the ripples stilled, he took a deep breath.

“I’m sorry,” he said to his reflection.

Sorry for not being strong enough to ask for help. For not being kinder to himself. For everything that he did to those he loved in a desperate attempt to isolate himself. Sorry for putting the blade to his wrist and the gun to his head. Sorry for not recognizing what he had and for only seeing what he didn’t.

Sorry for almost missing out on this peace. This acceptance.

It was probably the beer talking, but he could have sworn his reflection whispered back, ‘I forgive you.’

Thick tears rolled down his cheeks. He didn’t stop them. Letting them drip into the lake, he silently mourned the ghosts he was leaving behind. Then he cried for himself. Without anyone to see, he let himself cry for all the pain he had experienced. For the man he could have been and the man that he was.

Hooking his finger under the leather bands on his wrists, he unsnapped them. The leather was warm from his skin and worn smooth. Permanent fixtures for the last ten years, they were something he thought he needed. Shields to hide from his past. To hide from who he really was.

Kurt stood up, inhaled, then tossed the leather bands into the lake.

They bobbed on the surface for a moment before the leather became waterlogged and dropped into the darkness. A sacrifice on the altar of who he used to be. He didn’t want to hide behind them anymore. There was nothing to hide. Not anymore.

With a final look at the lake, he turned and headed back inside. Back to the people he loved. To the people who had helped him rebuild himself.

To his very own Empire.