"Are you okay?"
The first time I asked, he was crying. He told me everything that was bothering him (or, all of it as far as I knew anyway). When he was done, I wiped his tears, gave him a huge hug, and, shortly after, we both went off to bed. I still heard his quiet sniffles and, glancing down every so often, I would see him curled into himself; but I stopped asking.
I figured he would tell me about it when he felt like it.
I'm driving down the road. The lanes to my left and to my right are empty of cars, however there's about five or six cars in front of me and about the same amount trailing behind. We're going snail speed. Too slow for my liking. It's almost like a parade of black and suddenly that old Rolling Stones song pops into my head, 'Paint it Black.' I always preferred the Vanessa Carlton re-make of it better, but he enjoyed the originals more.
I look down at my hands, ghostly white—probably from the way I'm gripping the steering wheel with all my might. I imagine his hands. Somewhere at the beginning of High School, he decided it was 'cool' and 'unique' to wear leather, cut-off gloves. He would always lose them and get new ones and people would always comment about them.
They would ask, "Why do you wear those gloves?"
To which he would respond with a casual shrug, "I dunno. I just like them." He would tighten them, smile, and walk away without any better explanation. People usually left it at that and so did I, mostly because I knew that there was no other explanation.
I look up and screech to a sudden halt, breath catching in my throat. I sigh out in relief as I realize I just barely bumped into the sedan in front of me. Hopefully, they wouldn't notice. They probably wouldn't, considering.
I then realize why we stopped exactly. We're here. I don't make a move to get up or leave the safe confines of my car. Instead, I sit there, staring at my gloveless hands, tanner than his ever were. I suddenly start to wonder if there actually was some other reason to him wearing them. His mother always hated them. They hardly went with his clothing. Maybe they were an act of defiance or rebellion or—
"Hey, dude, time to go."
I look up, my thoughts being so rudely interrupted. I realize that I was glaring hard at my hands and force my expression to soften. Kenny is standing at my car door, a small smile on his face as he opens the door for me. I help myself out slowly, dusting myself off—anything to postpone the moment of walking across the field of grass laid out in front of me.
However, Kenny finally gets impatient with me and grabs my shoulder as gently as possible. The simple motion still causes me to flinch, but he squeezes it reassuringly and we walk.
"Are you okay?"
The second time I asked, he was staring off into space. He looked at me slowly and smiled, shaking his head. He told me he was okay and laughed into his hand. There seemed like there was something in his eyes, something longing and painful that screamed at me to say something, push the subject further; but I was oblivious. He walked away and I stopped asking.
I figured he was telling the truth.
Kenny leads me to where the others are. I stare down at the ground to where my feet are and smile slightly. I remember when we were younger and used to play footsy until we got older and realized that that was a couples' game and we didn't want to look, as my dad always put it, 'funny.' I guess being socially unacceptable was more important than having fun ignoring them and playing footsy whenever the hell we wanted to.
There's a shift and a new pair of feet join mine. I follow them up to meet the oddly solemn face of Eric Cartman. He turns to me, forces a smile (I really hate when people do that, and I remember that he did too), nods curtly, and then turns back to the scene in front of us.
I hear a bunch of murmurs in the crowd of people, but I generally ignore it. It's just static in the background. There's suddenly another voice, louder than the others, and the others silence to it as it continues. I catch vague words and phrases here and there, but otherwise, I'm too busy thinking back to what I could be doing right now instead. He and I could be playing video games right at this moment (except Guitar Hero, because, as we found out the hard way, that game is for fags and, no sir, we most certainly were not).
I realize that there's something annoying and sticky and dripping down my face and onto my nicely polished shoes and stop my thoughts to wipe at it; at the moment, I'm only capable at doing one thing at a time, you see. I wipe it away and study what came off my cheeks and onto my hands. I stare for a long time, unable to figure out what it is exactly or where it came from.
Kenny makes an obnoxious noise and I turn to him, frowning. The same stuff is creeping down his face—but, no, it's different. I know what that is. He's crying. I've seen it plenty of times before, not just on Kenny, but also on him. He hated crying. Whenever we would talk about stuff like that, he would turn and say to me with a hint of anxiousness, but mostly subtleness, "I don't cry, dude." And I would nod to show I believed him, even though I knew it was a lie. I always looked up to him; he was stronger than me.
I'm in the process of wondering why Kenny is crying when I hear more noises and look up to the crowd. Everyone else around me is crying, too. I squint at them. Why? Why are they doing this? I look down at my hands, now dry and sticky, and wipe at my face again. The wet stuff is still there. Does this mean I'm crying, too?
"Are you okay?"
The third time I asked, he was facing away from me. It was like I was looking at the back of a different person, a stranger, and I almost questioned myself on who I was speaking to. He didn't give me an answer this time. Instead, he took three steps forward, paused, and moved his head to face me. He was smiling. He said he was perfectly fine. I didn't believe him for a second, but whenever I pressed, he shot me down. Finally, we ended up parting ways and he headed home. I stood there in that spot for a countless amount of time wondering if I should go and try again; but I didn't bother, so I stopped asking.
I figured he was okay.
It's dark now and I'm still standing here, alone. The crickets make noise in the background and the snow chills me to the bone, but I ignore it all. My concentration is trained on another subject. As I stare, I wonder where I went wrong.
He was happy. He would smile and laugh and joke and pretend like nothing was ever wrong. Nothing ever seemed to bother him. Sure, he would freak out about this or that or get aggravated now and then or maybe every so often frown, but it was rare and these moments never lasted very long, as far as I knew, as far as any of us knew.
But something changed. I'm not sure if it was this specific night that triggered it or if it was something more, like a whole compilation of things that caused it, but something changed. He cried. Something upset him and he cried. None of us could figure out what it was. Whenever we tried to ask, he would just get anxious and jumpy and try to avoid it. Whenever we tried to comfort him, he would push us away and say he didn't deserve our pity because it was his fault. None of us understood.
It was after that that he changed. The spark in his normally joyful eyes seemed to die out and he never laughed as loudly or talked as often. We eventually stopped asking if he was alright and he seemed fine enough.
If that was the truth, I wouldn't be here right now, though, I guess. In reality, I blame myself. "It's all my fault," he would say. Now that's all I can think about. It's all my fault. I just don't understand! But it's too late for that.
The grave in front of me reads:
Kyle Broflovski
Friend, Brother, Son
He will be missed by all
I stand and walk away, tears in my eyes and freezing half-way down my face. I remind myself of the way he looked, the way he felt, the night everything changed. I ask myself a question before I leave the grave completely.
"Are you okay?" I ask.
There is no answer. I don't need to think. I hop inside of my car and, as I'm speeding to catch the ramp overtop of Stark's Pond, I rev the engine, and come up with an answer. I laugh and smile and shake my head, then finally say, his words over mine,
"No, I'm not."