PLEASE READ AUTHOR'S NOTE.
(A/N): I decided that before offically declaring my hiatus, I would supply you all with one more story. It's a common theme amongst High School seniors, and many of my real life friends are currently stressing themselves out about colleges. This particular emotion I decided to capture is one quite personal to me because I base my Stan's and Kyle's off of myself and my best friend. This particular best friend goes to college some 9 hours away and I see her every 4 months or so, compared to every day over the course of 8 years. The body language, the intense staring, the "knowing what you're thinking", all of this is based off of my relationship with her. Including the snuggling. So be forewarned if you are not one of my regular readers. This particular story actually isn't intended to be seen as more than an extremely close friendship because that is just how our relationship is; we are incredibly intimate without the sexual feelings for each other. We've declared ourselves soul mates, and every day that passes without us speaking, my soul dies marginally.
So, Until I redeclare my status, this will be my parting gift to you all. May I take the time to thank my faithful reviewers and apologize to my dearest friend Lacey for seemingly falling off the face of the earth. School has taken up most of my time, and what little time I did have is now occupied with my newly acquired job. Time management has never been my strong-suit.
And now I present to you my latest work:
The month of May just began, and thus marks the last month of high school. "Congratulations on being accepted to four more years of schooling" and "We regret to inform you that you have not been accepted" letters have been flowing into the little town of South Park for several months, triggering the end of yet another school year. Seniors of South Park High have been going into spontaneous bouts of hysterics whenever a letter is received or not received and at the very moment, Stan was ranting on about how Wendy received her letter of acceptance to Colorado State University and that he should be expecting his soon, too, right?
A hastily crumpled piece of paper whizzes past Kyle's head and his eyes struggle to refocus on Stan's face.
"Sorry, I was thinking," Kyle mutters, dropping his gaze to the carpeted floor beneath him. Stan takes a moment to stare at him closely before leaning back in the desk chair, casually folding his arms across his chest. He continues to watch Kyle until the redheaded boy finally looks back up.
"Stan, I don't know what to do. I can't think straight. I have a pile of letters from various Universities I've yet to open, but I'm so terrified of what they'll say, that I won't even look at them anymore. What if I'm not accepted into any college and I'm stuck in this hellhole for the rest of my life? I don't want to be stuck here forever, Stan. I'm so stupid; I should have applied to more schools, given myself more opportunities to consider, more chances to get out, more-"
"Kyle, shut up." Stan's blue eyes are a mix of mirth and seriousness as he impedes Kyle's near-hysterical ranting.
"But-" Stan shuts him up with a mere look and after knowing Kyle won't interrupt him, he speaks in a low voice.
"You are far too smart to not go anywhere, Kyle. You will get out of this town, and the best thing about that fact is that you will never be sucked back in. We'll leave South Park and never come back; live our lives out somewhere else, somewhere that is not redundant in its stupidity. You'll become this incredible doctor or pharmacist or whatever your career choice is this week, and I'll be right there with you, earning what we have fought for since our freshman year of high school: freedom."
Green eyes stare into blue for several moments, allowing the sincerity of spoken and unspoken words to sink in. Stan twitches one of his eyebrows upwards and Kyle rolls his eyes. One of the best things about being with someone for an extended amount of time is having the capability of communicating without actually speaking. Simple facial expressions and faint gestures will suffice.
"They're in my desk drawer, far left corner," Kyle states, nodding his head towards the desk Stan is sitting at.
Over the course of the next twenty minutes, Stan opens and reads aloud every single letter that has accumulated in Kyle's desk drawer, sorting them into "rejected" and "accepted" piles. The "accepted" pile is noticeably larger than the feeble, one rejection letter from a school in Florida. With seven acceptance letters spread open over the top of his desk, Kyle stands to look at them over Stan's shoulder.
"Princeton University, Columbia University, Colorado College, Boston University, University of Delaware, Colorado School of Mines, and the University of Colorado. Jesus Christ, Kyle. How many others did you apply to?" Stan inquires, picking at the edge of the University of Colorado letter. Kyle turns his head slightly to look at Stan, eyes focusing on his nervous picking, noting his lack of eye contact. Red eyebrows furrow slightly in confusion but the voice that speaks betrays nothing.
"Just one more. Colorado State. Apparently, they enjoy torturing us by waiting far too long to send out all of their letters."
Heavy silence settles in once more around the two tense boys. Minutes pass in complete silence, Kyle retaking his seat upon the floor while Stan continues to stare unseeingly at the acceptance letters strewn across Kyle's once meticulously organized desk.
"No matter where we go, Stan, we'll always have each other. You know that, right?" Kyle's smooth voice breaks through the air. His keen eyes spot the evidence of a suppressed sigh as Stan's shoulders slump forward.
"Turn around and look at me." When he gets no response, Kyle kicks his leg out from under him and connects his foot with the back of the chair. "Look at me." He waits until his best friend fully turns around, deep blue eyes brimming with ill-disguised hope and fear.
"Talk to me, Stan. You know damn well that you cannot hide things from me, especially what you're thinking. Now, spill."
Kyle patiently waits for Stan to gather his thoughts, tracing anxious facial features with concerned eyes. His trained eyes observe the almost imperceptible crease between two well-defined eyebrows, the slightly narrowed eyes, the tightly clenched jaw, the stretched-thin lips, body language screaming anxiety and stress, held precariously taut. Kyle is preparing himself for Stan to break – wondering whether his outburst will be physical or verbal and calculating the casualties of both – when Stan speaks in an unexpectedly soft voice. As words pour out of his mouth, Stan's body visibly drains of tension.
"The most terrifying thing about college isn't whether I'm going to be accepted or what school I'll be accepted into or if I'll even graduate high school, for that matter. The most terrifying thought is being away from you. We have spent every single day since I can even remember together and I do not want college to change that. You are my family, my best friend, my other half. Without you… Without you, I cannot be whole. I need you to tell me that you will always be there for me, that you will always be my best friend, that you will never replace me with another person. I need you to tell me that college will change nothing despite distance or workload. I need you to tell me that this friendship is the type that cannot be destroyed by distance, or stress, or months upon months apart."
By the end of Stan's speech, there are tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes and the frustration of not being able to quell them is evident. Kyle has a pained expression on his face when Stan finally gathers the courage to glance down at him. Unsure of what to make of his best friend's expression, Stan swivels his chair to face the redhead's desk in defeat. Without any hesitation, Kyle's warm fingers encircle Stan's lower calf in a loose grip and he pulls the fellow senior, chair and all, across the carpet. After persistent tugging on his pant leg, the older boy slides out of the leather chair and comfortably situates himself by his best friend's side and leans back against the bed.
Kyle wraps thin fingers around the other boy's wrist and throws the heavy arm across his own shoulders, burying his face into his mate's neck. Had this been any other person, Stan would have immediately pushed him away, but he instead curls his arm around narrow shoulders and rests his cheek against curly red hair. Rarely this intimate with the other, Stan disregards the breath tickling the skin on his neck, the arms that loosely circle his waist, and the leg that is casually thrown across his thigh as "best friend behavior" that he often associates with Kyle. Sitting in comfortable silence for an unknown amount of time, Kyle finally speaks.
"I don't know what it's going to be like when we finally leave for college and I can't accurately declare how our lives will change accordingly," his soft voice floats around the room in a calm tenor melody, "But I can definitively promise you that I am one phone call away, that you will always come first, and that I will always love you and be the best friend you so obviously deserve."
Finishing off his sentence with a soft press of his lips against Stan's neck, Kyle gently extricates himself from Stan and rolls onto his mattress, motioning for his brown-haired friend to join him. Lying side by side, staring up at the dimpled ceiling, Stan and Kyle know that although they may be several hundred of miles apart, nothing will completely decimate the strength of their bond. Not distance. Not girls. Not sports and not school. With their souls interdependent, only death could do them part.