Rescued
Oh God I hate this. God knows how I hate this. I can feel her next to me, and so I glace at her. There she lay naked and shivering; Her mid length blonde hair disheveled, her chest moving rhythmically, and her eyelids shut hiding her golden eyes. I can remember the way she looked at me earlier with those golden eyes when she lay next to me just barely conscious. It was a loving look filled with compassion and joy. I couldn't look at her. It made me feel disgusting inside. And now as I'm remembering it I've got this urgency to leave. I've just got to get out of here. I wasn't planning on being there in the morning anyway. I never am.
I grab my clothes off the floor and I hastily throw them on because I feel like I'm suffocating in this room. I feel this death grip around my neck that I can't shake. So I run. I run for the door and I run down the stairs and I run out the front door until I'm out and there's only a small feeling of suffocation left.
The night air is crisp and clean and I am gasping at it because I need to replenish whatever air I lost while I was suffocating. That girl. I can't help thinking about that girl, Ashley, because she seemed pretty great. There's no way I could have stayed through the night though. It's just not my style. What a horrible person I am. It's not my fault though. It's not like I choose to be the way I am. It's that I can't help it. It's his fault for being so goddamn irresistible. He's my unattainable wonder. It's just too much for me. That's what I need the girls for. It's my own sort of ventilation system, because I can't live seeing him everyday and knowing that he's not mine and that he's never gonna be mine. It's just not fair. Why do I have to love him? Is it because he cared about me when no one else seemed to notice me? Is it because he's the most beautiful person on the face of the earth? I don't know why I love him. I really truly can't say why I love him. I wish I wouldn't though. Everyday I hope that it's the day I feel nothing for that boy, but it never is. The feelings will never fucking cease.
Sometimes I contemplate telling him the way I feel for him, the way I long for him, the way I need him, but nothing ever comes from my abstractions. It's because I'm chicken shit. I can't tell him. When I try, oh the many times I've tried, my lips stop working and my legs turn to rubber and my tongue slips down my throat and nothing ever comes out. It's a useless attempt every single time because the fear of rejection holds me back. What if he doesn't like me like that? What if he thinks I'm a loon? What if he never speaks to me again? I wouldn't know what to do with myself if he said he didn't love me back; if he said he couldn't even be my friend anymore. So for this reason my lips stay chained shut. My body's aching aching to tell him, but I never do because it's an impossible risk I don't want to take.
My ventilation system kicks in about when I realize I'm never gonna be able to tell him and I drag my sorry ass around until I spot a pretty chick who's low on self esteem. It's not really hard to guess what happens next. I pounce. Like a puma. I'm not proud of being a puma, but I need someone to please me. A boy's got needs , and I need someone I can kiss and pretend is him.
My feet have been carrying me all this time I've been thinking about him and what he's driven me to and when I look up I realize where I am. My palms being to sweat and I begin to grow a little dizzy. What am I doing here? I shouldn't be here. I'm starting to feel those hands back on my neck and I know that I've gotta get out of here, but my feet don't seem to want to listen to me. They're taking me exactly the opposite of where I want to go. I'm trying to get away yet they're taking me closer.
I know this has got to be it. All this time my body's been aching to tell him but I keep denying it and now it's just too much. It can't take all the pretend anymore. It needs something real. So this is it. My brain's not working anymore. It's like it's completely shut down and turned everything over to my body to handle. That was a bad idea. I can't stop it anymore and I just want to keel over and die right now so I won't be able to do this. I'm scared as fuck and my teeth are chattering, but my body feels confident. My body feels victorious. My hands found a rock and my eyes have found his window and in the back of my mind I'm thinking exactly how cliche this is and how much I hate cliche, but despite that I launch the rock and it hits his window and I stop.
Did I really just do that? Am I really going to do this? I'm hoping to god he didn't hear that and at the same time I'm hoping he did so I can finally get this off my chest and not have to live this way anymore. Time seems like its standing still and while I'm standing there it feels like an eternity and forever have passed me by. I'm about ready to see if I can coax my body home when the curtains move. A little bit daring if you ask me, for all he knows I could be an axe murderer or some shit like that. He sees me standing in his yard and I'm frozen with fear. I don't know what I'm gonna say and all my anxieties about what his response might be are starting to resurface.
The window opens and I think this is my last chance to dash away and maybe later I'll be able to convince him he dreamt the whole incident up, but my feet are stuck to the ground like the time I super glued a quarter to the floor in the drama room at school. His head pops out the window and he looks kinda funny like a floating head or something, but then he speaks to me and I cease to think anything's funny.
"Ken? Is that you?"
"Uhh, yeah, it is. Hey."
He sticks half his body out the window to hear me better because I'm talking pretty low and oh fuck he's got no shirt on. "What the fuck are you doing here?"
"I um, kinda need to tell you something." Im shaking so hard I'm surprised I haven't crashed to the ground yet.
"What is it Ken? Are you ok?" He doesn't sound annoyed with me that I woke him up in the middle of the night it's so cute how he seems so worried about me right now and I remember one of the reasons I love him.
"Yes I'm fine it's just that, well you see..." I'm not sure what I'm doing and I'm feeling like I need to sit for a while and maybe vomit a few times. "Look Stan, I love you. Yes that's right Kenny McCormick loves you Stan. I'm sorry I can't help it and I just couldn't keep it in any longer and I feel really sick right now and I'm not exactly sure what I'm thinking anymore. I'll probably regret this forever and It's just I love you, ok." Everything just spills out of me so fast I'd be amazed if he caught half of what I said and now my rattling legs finally give way and I fall on my ass in Stan's yard.
That eternity before Stan peeked out the window seems like so little compared to the agonizing forever plus one I'm enduring right now waiting for any kind of reaction from him. Then he starts to laugh. He's fucking laughing. Does he think this is a joke. I just showed him my soul almost and he's laughing at it. I'm about to breakdown into a spiraling mess when he starts to speak to me.
"Kenny, I want to ask you something. Do you know how long I've waited to hear that? I'm gonna be honest probably not as long as you've been waiting to say that, but I've been waiting a pretty long time and now here you are making dreams come true. Kenny you're like a fucking fairy or something."
I sit still on the lawn for a moment while his words are sinking in and I'm just blinking up at him. "I'm a fucking fairy?" Stan starts laughing and I start to smile but pretty soon I break into hysterics too. And now I'm sitting on the lawn and Stan's leaning out his window and it's like a prince come to rescue the princess from the tower that's kinda the distance between us except suddenly Stan disappears and I stop laughing and he doesn't come back and I'm still sitting in the yard looking up at the window when something lands in the grass next to me and it's Stan. I smile this crazy smile a clown would be jealous of and I snatch up his hand in mine and fall backwards in the grass and stare up at the sky because everything right now is right. Everything is perfect.
My body's still aching though. It still needs that something real. I lean over him except it's not that smooth so I kinda fall on him, but it's ok because he smiles at me and I smile at him and our lips meet. We're both tentative and a little scared, but it's the most amazing kiss. It's like the best high I've ever experienced and then some. I'm amazed for a moment that one person can make me feel like this, but then I stop because this one person is Stan, my attainable wonder.