Page 54 of Hurt

When he was finished, he pushed Kurt out into the alley. With blood and God knows what else running down his thighs, he curled up into a ball and cried. Ezra had watched him.

“Keep seducing me like that, and I’ll have to take you home.”

Kurt learned not to cry.

It was a small defiance. A way he could deny Ezra. The only thing that made it bearable some days was knowing Ezra wanted him to cry, but he wouldn’t.

After all of that, how could he sleep with anyone else? Sex was pain. Pain was sex.

Kurt was a used toy. Battered and abused until it broke. Then he would be discarded. Because there was always something newer.

If there was a faint flicker of desire, a small piece of his heart that had managed to be shielded, he didn’t feel it anymore. And if he did, he quickly tried to douse it with alcohol and bitterness. Because if there was anything worse than resignation, it was hope. Thinking you deserved better, that there was something besides pain and misery, made the abuse intolerable.

So, he knew this was what he deserved. He was born a failure and would spend his life trying to pay for it.

Without realizing it, he had been tugging at the leather bracelets on his wrists. They were soft from years of wear. He never took them off. What they covered was too painful. A reminder that he had almost taken the coward's way out—left Willow and Noah to take responsibility for his mistakes.

That night had been too much. Ezra had been particularly cruel, and Kurt just…couldn’t anymore. The thought of seeing his sneering face thrusting over him, to feel the hatred that burned in his heart, or to see that face staring back at him. The one that taunted him endlessly. It disgusted him.

His reflection.

He had punched the mirror. Shattering it into thousands of pieces. Breaking a mirror was seven years of bad luck, right? But Kurt was so polluted that even the bad luck steered clear. Looking down at those shards of glass, he wondered just how hard it would be. Just how much pressure he would have to apply to finally be free of all of it.

When he picked up the pointed piece of broken mirror, he could see those eyes looking back at him. They weren’t crying. Even with all the pain reflecting back at him, he couldn’t cry anymore.

Kurt didn’t remember slicing his wrists open. But he did remember the feeling of euphoria as he began to get lightheaded. Warm blood soaked through his clothes, and he wondered if a suicide would affect the sale of his childhood home. If the poor real estate agent the bank had assigned to sell the home would come in tomorrow morning and find a dead body with a smile on his face.

Turning his head, he watched as the blood reached the wall where his mom and dad had recorded their heights. Before everything went to shit before Kurt was a failure. His mom had smiled and commented on how they were growing. Those pencil marks stopped somewhere around his tenth birthday when his parents realized he would never be the son they paid so dearly for.

Then there was a pair of gray eyes staring down at him. Willow was crying, but Kurt didn’t know why. He was finally free, so why was his sister screaming and begging him not to go? Didn’t she know that this was what he wanted?

Willow had saved him. And when he woke up in the hospital to bills he couldn’t pay, he realized that he was trapped. Ezra had come then. He pressed down on the sutures until Kurt cried out, then promised him that he would pay his hospital bills.

But if he ever tried to run away again, he would take it out on Willow.

Sometimes, Kurt wondered if he had died that night. And this was hell. Rather than lakes of fire, he was forced to live through everything he had been trying to escape.

Recently, there had been brief moments of happiness, though. As much as he knew he shouldn’t, he liked having Noah here. Seeing the kid embody the sincerity of Hazel with the stubborn pride of his father was like a blast from the past. He was everything Kurt had hoped he would be—strong, but with a softness that Kurt had lost long ago. He smiled easily, the smile of someone who could love.

Seeing his family safe and happy was enough. He couldn’t ask for more.

A few nights ago, he might have seen a light in the dark. Might have had the audacity to ask for more. Grant’s easy smile and intelligent eyes had lured him in—like a fish following bait. He had let expectations bloom only to have them dashed to pieces. Grant had looked at him with something like disgust, and Kurt had been reminded just who he was.

Broken toys don’t get to ask for more.

“Hey, are you okay?” Sid asked softly.

Kurt inhaled sharply and swallowed. Releasing his grip on the leather wristband, he looked over at Sid.

“Sure.”

Sid didn’t look like he believed him. “Okay. I’ve got to go check the ice machine outside. If you need me, holler.”

Kurt waved him off and tried to look around the bar to find something to do. It was still early. Customers would trickle in, and really, he could sit back and relax for a while, but he didn’t want to fall into the trap of his feelings again.

Crouching down, he began organizing the shelves that he had organized two days ago when he took inventory. Since Jamie had been coming in, their supply of Maraschino Cherries had dwindled considerably. He would also need to get some salt out of storage.

The front door opened, and he called out a greeting. Replacing the container of sugar, he wiped his hands off on his jeans and stood up.