Page 85 of Hurt

“I don’t know!”

Noah stared at the limp foot and his fists clenched. “It happened again.”

“What?” Willow asked, jerking her attention back to him. “Again?”

He ignored her, taking off out of the bar to race across the parking lot. Sid lived in a camper parked out behind the bar. It was an old Air Stream. The glossy chrome finish had long since faded, but he was proud of his little house. There was a small garden surrounding the camper that Sid tended to fastidiously.

Molly lived in town. She claimed she needed space from the bar and the ‘reek of emotionally disabled men’ and refused to give out her personal number to anyone besides Sid. To get Molly, Noah would need to first alarm Sid.

Willow turned back to Kurt, shaking hands and gently stroking his cool face. Her fingers carefully began picking the glass from his cheeks. She winced every time a large piece clinked to the wood floor.

Again.

What did Noah mean? Kurt had never been assaulted before. He had been in bar brawls, occasionally drunken tumbles, but he had never…all those bruises he had tried to hide had been because he was embarrassed about getting into a fight with a customer. It had been an attempt to save face and hide his indiscretions from Molly.

Kurt wouldn’t outrightlieto her about something like that.

But then, Kurt had never told her he wanted to die. Or told her he wanted to send Noah away…

Willow stared down at Kurt, consciously watching the rise and fall of his chest to make sure he was still breathing.

She realized he was looking at a stranger. Kurt had intentionally lied to her over and over again. All the times he curled around a bottle and got blackout drunk, where he wouldn’t look at Willow for days at a time or flinched every time she tried to touch him, suddenly hit her with a dizzying clarity.

Guilt, anger, hurt, and horror all choked her. She didn’t know which one was stronger. Choking back a sob, she felt the hot tears track down her cheeks and her hands fisted in Kurt’s bloody shirt.

She wanted to demand why. Shake him until he spilled out every dirty secret he had kept from her.

Kurt grunted and opened his eyes. He looked at Willow with unfocused pupils and a frown.

“Kurt.” She cradled his head and tried to help him sit up. “Can you talk?”

“Go away,” he rasped.

It felt like he had slapped her. Pain radiated from her chest, and she couldn’t breathe. He had said the same thing back in that gory bathroom. Lifeless with his blood pouring between Willow’s fingers, he had told her to go away. To leave him to die.

She gritted her teeth. “How can you…how can you say that to me? To me?”

Eyes fluttering, Kurt winced as he breathed in. “Leave.”

“Fuck you!” she screamed, spittle flying. “How fucking dare you! You’ve been lying to me for years, and you expect me to just…no. No. You don’t get to tell me that. You don’t get to tell me anything! Why do I have to keep finding you like this? Why…”

Pain choked her, and she dropped her head. Tears dripped off her chin and landed on Kurt’s face, sticking to the dried blood.

“Why do you want to leave me so badly?” Willow croaked. “I told you we were the Beckett Prides.”

Kurt was watching her with lifeless eyes. Willow thought they were dead before—two hollow holes in a mask staring at her. But this was worse. And some part of her knew it wasn’t the head injury.

“…can’t lose you.”

It was so faint Willow almost couldn’t hear it. Her chance to ask was dashed by the reappearance of Noah, with Sid following.

Wearing boxers with little ghosts on them, Sid crouched beside Kurt and touched the pulse at his neck. “I called my sister. She’ll be here soon.”

With ease, he scooped Kurt into his arms and carried him into the back room. Laying him out on the futon, he got to pulling off his boots.

“What are you doing?” Noah asked, his finger in his mouth as he worriedly chewed at a cuticle.

“Needs to be examined,” Sid said with a frown. He looked like he might cry at seeing Kurt like that. Despite his strength, he was a softie at heart. He couldn’t take seeing someone hurt.