"I can't."

The second he said those words, I understood. I turned and watched him go, and then I looked out at the crowd, my expression a lost one.

"I can't" are the same words I said to Mercedes last year when I wasn't ready to come out yet. It's almost scary how similar we were during those two separate times. I... I see, now, that I was pressuring him too much. I keep thinking that he'll be relieved, feel happier, if he just stopped fighting himself and accepted what I fully accepted about myself quite some time ago.

But I forget that Dave isn't like me, doesn't have the friends I have, or the invisibility (in a matter of speaking), or the support. I'm sure his father would support him - he seemed nice enough the two times I met him in the principal's office - but beyond that, he is in no where near the same boat as I am.

I think I know his pain because I lived it last year, but it was short-lived. David's pain... it goes so much deeper, with so many more layers that coming out wouldn't mend, and might only make worse. It would be like tearing off someone's skin; in this case, his built identity, the one he uses around others.

Who am I to keep trying to take that away from him?

And yet... I think what I really wanted was some sort of... resolve. Something to... complete whatever it is we were sharing this week when he was walking me to nearly every class he could, and when we were talking, and when he broke down right in front of me and apologized in a way I never thought he would. Generally, he surprised me that day by just doing everything he did in that short moment.

And now, again, in that short moment - "I can't," - he told me with just his face and tone alone far more than I ever expected to know.

It's weird, because when it comes to Dave, I have to use every last skill and intuition I possess in order to read him, his mask is that firmly set in place, that masterfully crafted. And it's even weirder that I want to continue figuring him out.

Because my former bully or not, Dave Karofsky is a human being, and he's suffering, and I have a damned tender heart that feels the need to help whomever I can, be it my dad finding love, Sam needing clothes, or anything else for anyone else.