Author's Note: Been a while since I posted anything. I'm quite confident that most anyone who reads on these boards hasn't seen my other two stories (and probably isn't interested in them—I'll let you figure out why yourself) but I'm excited to introduce myself to the South Park boards. I've recently taken an enormous liking to the Kyle/Kenny pairing, mostly thanks to the fantastic story Ink by dragonwire (READ IT!)—Kenny is by far my favorite character in the show. Please review to let me know what you think. Hopefully I'll become a fairly regular fixture on the South Park boards. For the record, I'm not sure if the metaphor I was trying to use got across too clearly in this one, so if you could give me some feedback, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks!
Title: Day
Summary: Yesterday, the sun rising slowly over our heads, you threw your arm around my shoulders and my heart skipped a beat. Now it's today, but there's no sun. Today is dark and gray, and it will never change.
Rated for: Character death, angst, some language,
Pairing: Kyle/Kenny
Disclaimer: Pretty sure I still don't own South Park… (checks) Yep, still a "no." Damn.
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Only yesterday you and I were walking down this same street, laughing with each other about mindless things. We were pressing our faces to the windows of all the fanciest stores, as if taunting the owners that they would never have our business. Not that we could afford to give it to them.
Yes, only yesterday we were thirteen, the sun rising slowly over our heads. We were wandering through town in the cold of winter, and you threw your arm around my shoulders. I could feel the heat radiating from your skin through that tattered orange hoodie, and my heart skipped a beat. You turned and smiled at me, and it skipped two. I knew I was in trouble but I didn't care.
An hour later, as the sun touched eternity at its highest point, we were fourteen and you pounded on my door, a fresh shiner tainting your beautiful face. Tears filled your eyes and threatened to roll down your cheeks if you so much as blinked, and you stared at the floor as you asked me if you could come inside. Overcome with emotion, I pulled you into a tight embrace and you couldn't hold the misery in any longer. You literally cried on my shoulder as you explained the drunken beatings and frozen nights without so much as a sheet to protect you from the harsh Colorado winds. And then you told me that I was your best friend in the world; that I was the only one you could ever trust with this knowledge, these secrets. You said you loved me—but not like that.
No, not like that. Not the way I so desperately wanted you to say you did.
Soon the sun began its descent, and we turned fifteen. The bruises and scars were becoming more substantial and more numerous, and they were destroying you, inside and out. And it was because of them that I almost told you.
Almost.
I wish I had, because it could have changed something. Everything could have been just the way I always wanted it to be, but even when you put the truth right there in front of me, I couldn't work up the courage. I was too afraid of what you'd think.
So when you buried your head in your hands in my bedroom and said it—"I think I might kill myself"—the words pulsed in my heart, my throat, and my head. My mouth hung open in shock and I wanted to scream it—"You can't do that! I love you! You can't die!"
But I didn't.
Not even when you looked at me, your deep, blue eyes darkened by pain, and said, "I mean, I just wish there was something—anything—for me here. Anything at all that could make my life tolerable." I could have looked you straight in the eye and told you that I loved you, that I loved everything about you and that I would never let anything hurt you again.
But I didn't.
You came to me for answers, for reassurance, and all I did was stare at you in shock.
And only a week later, yesterday's sun finally set. My dad came into my room without knocking, an indescribable expression pasted on his face and a phone in his hand, and I knew what he would say.
At midnight I attended your funeral, and I couldn't even say it then. Not even when I looked at your face—your beautiful face, always so expressive and excited, until it was marred by hate and alcohol and death—and knew that you couldn't hear me. The words still froze on their way to my tongue. My tears fell on your face, and it looked like you were the one crying.
Soon after I returned home, I realized something was strange in my room. My judgment clouded with grief, I found it difficult to track down what was out of place—but, aha! There was something on my desk, mostly hidden under a stack of books.
It was white. When I got a good look at it, I deduced that it was a photograph turned upside down. Although it was under the books, I could make out the letters "ything. – 2/2/08"
February second. That was the day you were here. It was the day you begged me to help you and I froze up. I swallowed hard at the thought, and my heavy heart plummeted to my stomach.
Slowly and carefully, as if afraid I might tear it if I pulled too fast, I slid the photo out from beneath the books. My eyes were immediately drawn to the words scrawled on the back.
Kyle, I don't know how it happened, but I love you. I love you so fucking much, and it kills me because I know you'll never feel the same for me. But you mean so much to me no matter what. And I promise I love you more than anything. Anything. – 2/2/08
The walls around me came crashing down. My entire world shattered like hammered glass, and I was left alone, just me and a blank background. Nothing existed except me and this photograph, and my heart and mind were at an absolute loss as I slowly turned it around.
It was a picture of you. A picture I had taken. You were walking down the street with your hands buried in the pockets of your hoodie, but the hood was down for once. Your head was angled slightly down, not exactly toward the camera, but your eyes found the lens and you were grinning. Your face expressed so many things at once; you looked carefree and excited, embarrassed and loving the feeling. Your messy blond hair was caught in a breeze, and it flowed easily behind your head. And one look at this image brought me to tears.
I realized what I had done wrong in keeping my mouth shut. I had been afraid of what you would think of me when, in truth, you wanted it as much as I did. And I knew that, had I found that picture—that fucking picture—even a day before you pulled the trigger on yourself, then we'd both be alive and happy together, living what turned out to be both of our dreams.
Now it's today, but there's no sun. Today is dark and gray, and it will never change. Today I walk past those fancy stores and remember peering through the window with you beside me. Today I wander through town and remember you throwing your arm over my shoulder, smiling at me with your shining blue eyes, and I feel those same old butterflies with a sharp stab of painful regret; sorrow.
And, today and every day, I reach into my pocket and pull out that picture. I look into those carefree blue eyes and that blond hair flowing in the breeze, that beautiful smile bringing dimples to your tanned face—you grew up in a hick Colorado town and managed to look Californian. And, although the sorrow is still there, seeing your face makes me happy, as hollow as it may be.
And I always turn the picture over and read the words. Those words that must have been so hard for you to write, the words you so desperately wanted a response to. The words I always wanted to hear you say but didn't until it really was too late.
When I see the words it makes the sorrow hurt worse than ever. I have to turn it over and look at your face again, because I suddenly miss that hollow happiness. And I kiss you in the picture and return you to my pocket, so that in some way I know you'll always be with me. I look to the sky—always dark and depressingly gray—and say what I had always been too afraid to say.
"I love you, Kenny. I'm sorry."
My tears fell on your face, and it looked like you were the one crying...
Now I know that you probably were.
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- nol