LINDY HUSTLED INTO her apartment, walking ahead of Kurt who seemed to follow limply behind, watching his feet drag step by step in his beaten up Converse.
She waited for him to be entirely in the living room before she shut and locked the door, twisting the lock a little more firmly than necessary into the bolt. When she looked away , she faced Kurt with a look of deep regret.
A part of her was contrite over having cried in the lot of the convenience store. Deep inside, she wished that she had approached the situation calmly with less of a frenzy. Losing her mind in front of Kurt would never further the help that she so wanted to give him. On the contrary, he seemed entirely too wigged out to even speak to her.
Lindy brushed by him, caressing his shoulder before she retired to her bedroom. There was a universe of words all straining to jump from her throat and into existence, but she couldn't say them. There was nothing that she actually wanted to say in the moment. She only tried to do her best to remain passive, to show him love even when she herself felt void of it.
How could there be love in the world when the most wonderful person in her life was suffering?
Not even God could be that cruel.
She undressed, sniffling and blinking away at the residual tears still making her head feel heavy. She had gotten down to her underwear when she heard Kurt come into the room.
"I wish I could make you understand."
He sounded so pained and desperate that Lindy believed him when he said this. She could only imagine how frantic Kurt felt, almost enough to where he would have torn his heart out of his chest and given it to her just so she may have comprehended a sliver of what he was going through.
"The weird thing is, I feel like I do," she replied.
She turned and looked at him head on. He seemed so small, wispy enough to blow away like a feather standing in the doorframe in his ratty flannel that he never took off. He looked sorry and tired, tired and sorry, ready to go to sleep and never wake up.
Kurt approached Lindy, gulping back air and attempting to level the shaking of his arms and shoulders. Once he was close enough, Lindy took his hands and hauled him forward into a hug, wondering how he managed to maintain such a stone cold look when inside, he was dying.
"I'm not giving up on you," she said fiercely into his ear. Her hands clutched against his shirt, securing him right where he belonged, in her arms. If it had been physically possible, she wouldn't have let him go.
She felt Kurt's hands slide around her neck gently. They were freezing cold, absent of the heat that should have naturally flowed throughout his body.
"Can you do something for me?" Kurt mumbled.
"Anything," Lindy agreed. She lifted a hand, feeling for Kurt's face and making contact with the familiar stubble of his days worth's of a beard.
"Promise me," Kurt said, his voice a wobbling stammer, "that if something happens to me, you'll find a way to look out for Frances Bean. I don't care how you do it. Just make sure she is happy."
This was the final straw, the last wielding slash of Kurt's invisible knife that he plunged straight into Lindy's heart. She gasped like he really had carved a hole in her chest and stepped backward, experiencing a twisting pain beneath her rib cage.
"Why are you talking like that," Lindy demanded, ogling at Kurt with disbelief. "Stop talking like you're going to leave."
"I want to make sure —,"
