"I can't stand this. All my friends are changing. I'm afraid I'm going to lose everyone. I can't keep up with their newcomer personalities. Stan's gaining more friends and forgetting about his old ones. Kenny's too busy with girls to even bother with me. Cartman has even stopped bitching at me for every little thing I do. I can't believe I'm admitting this… But I even miss him. "

Let's forget about all that for now. I've got to tell you what started all of this off in the first place. It all started off the summer before high-school…

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"Kyle!"

The familiar voice startled me as I looked up at him from the daze I was in. It was then that I realized that the last bell of Junior High school had rung and I wasn't even paying attention. I was too busy zoning off, thinking about little things here and there. What in the world was I going to do this summer?

"Oh...Hey Stan." I said with a more blank tone then I had expected to come out of me. That had earned me a frown from my best friend, which made me frown as well, leaving us in a minute of minor awkward silence. "Sorry…" I began. "Still coming out of my daydreaming, y'know?" The boy's smile quickly returned, although it was dimmer than before. He gave a small nod and offered a hand out to me after I had gathered up my stuff from the last class of the day, Secondary Mathematics. I smiled softly and took his hand, hoisting myself slowly up to my feet. Our hands seemed to stick together longer than usual, which made my facial expression fade into curiosity. That made Stan's eyes widen and pull his hand away quickly, his face seeming to flush a shade of light pink in embarrassment. I couldn't help but laugh, which only made his blush deepen.

We had both made it out of the hall, Stan avoiding the fact he had blushed earlier by bringing up the subject of his ex-girlfriend Wendy, and how much he hated her. The subject had always made a place in their talks, which irked Kyle to no end, but he still listened.
"… And then I passed her in the hallway and you would not believe the look she gave me, dude! Ha-ha!" He placed his hands over his stomach and laughed, although I could tell it was obviously forced. Stan seemed like he was always in pain when he saw Wendy, and she always made it worse with the glares she gave him whenever they saw each other. He pretended not to care and in fact he had even tried flirting with other girls, but every time he even made a small glance over at her while doing so, he apologized, stood up, and walked off. I always try talking to him, and sometimes he talks about it with me, but not very often as I'd like.

I smiled in return, which was also forced, but he seemed to fall for it. That was a problem with Stan. He believed things too easily and became attached to anything he truly cared for at first glance. The guy was the most emotional person I knew. Even compared to the girls. As he continued to rant on about how much he hated Wendy and how he felt sorry for any guy out there who ended up with her, my gaze seemed to trail off and I found myself staring at a boy across the hall, though I hadn't noticed. You know those awkward moments where you're staring off and you realize you're staring at someone? Yeah. And that certain someone ended up being the one and only Craig Tucker. I blinked my attention back to reality and met the boy's piercing, icy blue eyes staring into mine. My eyes widened for a mere second, which made his pierced lips curl up into an amused smirk, the fact that he knew I didn't notice I was staring at him for so long now coming to him in an instant. My small Adam's apple rose and sunk in a nervous swallow, looking away and looking up at Stan as he finished his 'story'. He looked at me with a smile and a sigh. I smiled in return. "She sure is a handful." I said, which usually was good enough for any of his rants that I wasn't paying attention to.

"That's an understatement." He said with a grin.

As we reached the doors at the front of the school, I saw Stan's dad's blue Civic pull up to the side of the curb. His dad was calling for him to hurry up and that he had to make it out of there before rush hour began. "See ya, Kyle!" Stan called before running off and quickly sliding into the passenger side seat of the car. I was left standing at the doors and gave a wave until I was out of his vision, my lips quickly pulling into a frown.

"Aw, are you depressed now that you're boyfriend's gone?"

I blinked and turned my head to the side, seeing the same icy blue eyes that were gazing at me in the hallway. My eyes instantly narrowed in response, my eyebrows pulling together in frustration. "Don't go there, Craig."

That made the cocky teenage boy laugh sarcastically and grin, his eyes narrowed in amusement. He seemed to find anyone amusing. As far as I knew. "Why not? Am I upsetting the poor little Jew?"

"God, you're worse than Cartman…"

The boy's eyes instantly narrowed into slits and his lips were pulled into a tight, quite frankly, pissed off frown. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me, Craig. You don't need a repeat."

In an instant, the green scarf around my neck was being gripped upon, tightening around my neck. Craig had grabbed hold of the front and lifted me onto my toes and almost off the ground. You'd think I had struck a nerve with that small comment, wouldn't you? His face got close to mine, his cold, white breath brushing against the freckles upon my nose. I shifted my gaze to look the other way, not letting my emotions slip.

"Look at me, Broflovski."

I didn't.

This then earned a balled up fist to slam into my right cheek, jerking my head to the left, a sharp gasp of pain leaving my lips. I winced and looked up at him with somewhat watering eyes. No, I wasn't crying. It was just an instinct of my body. I feel pain. I express pain. Right? Right. Damn, right. Before I knew it, I was brought even closer to the other's face, Tucker's lips curled up into a wicked, toothy grin.

"I've been wanting to do that to you the whole school year. You know that? Of course you don't. You're too fucking ignorant to know, even now. Talking back to me. Comparing me to that fat-ass? Heh… You're not very smart, are you kid?"

I growled and gathered some saliva in my mouth, spitting it out and onto his eye which made him croak in pain, letting go and placing both of his hands on his eye.

"Fuck you, Craig."

Before he could open his eyes, I was already making my way down the street, quickly on my way back home before anything else was going to start. Wonderful. The first day of summer and someone's already got me on their hit list. Let's just hope from here on, it gets better. Let's just hope.