Author's note: Okay I know I'm literally the worst and I take 5ever to update. I'm so sorry! But thank you so much to all the readers, reviewers, and followers. You guys help keep me motivated.
Chapter 3: Maybe Time Will Fuck Off
"Fuck!" I curse loudly and kick the side of the school building again. Craig's words are still dancing through my head – "faggot, loser, queer!" Rumors can be a dangerous thing, and ever since elementary school, Craig has been sensitive about them. And about homosexuality, which you might think would be a separate issue, though I'm not too sure it is.
It's not like Craig was really a target for bullying, and hell, it's not like I really am either, but still. I had heard from Kenny that the rumors were going around again: Craig's supposedly gay. The moment he told me I had felt my chest seize up in what I had convinced myself was only sympathy, not empathy. I swear, not empathy.
The words, "so what?" were nearly out of my mouth before I could stop them.
I stop kicking the side of the building long enough to see the pile of white chalky stucco forming at my feet. My chest is heaving with every breath I'm sucking in – it's like I just can't get enough air. My throat hurts, and thick tears start to well in my eyes, blurring everything around me into a shaded nothingness.
High school fucking sucks.
I could see it in my mind's eye still, like it was branded inside my eyelids. Craig's tense and broad shoulders, drawing even tighter as my gloved hand landed on his back. I had only wanted to…apologize, maybe, commiserate even. For a split second, Craig's face was soft, open, and vulnerable in all the ways I had been hoping he'd be.
"Faggots," Clyde snickered in passing. It only took one word.
Craig's face closed like a steel trap as he spit lowly at me, "Don't touch me, you fucking queer. Just because you're a fucking gay-ass loser doesn't make me one too."
And I just stood there and took it, all of my snarky wit just up and gone. I remembered all those times that I had yelled and crusaded and argued and yet, and yet.
Nothing came out.
I had only turned and walked away, feeling the eyes of all my classmates on my retreating form. I could even imagine Stan's face, confused, concerned, but not making a move to stop me. So I left, hiding like a coward behind the auditorium, waiting for the final bell to ring.
My breath is starting to slow and finally, my foot is starting to really fucking hurt. I feel like an idiot. I curse loudly again and run a cold hand over my face.
"I didn't think pussy little pacifists believed in cussing."
Black combat boots come around the corner, scuffed and slow and making my stomach drop. Every step is so careful, like he's stalking prey. That's certainly what it feels like.
"Cartman," I groan and let my heavy eyes slide shut, leaning on my forearms against the wall. I hear myself sigh, "just don't right now, okay?"
I hear a rustle of clothing and, unable to help myself, I peer over my shoulder at him, who's now standing behind me, several feet of space between me and him. Strangely, the distance is unsettling – usually Cartman loves to be up in my face. His face is unreadable. Those dark eyes are just staring, smoldering. Maybe with hate. I'm never sure.
"If I call you a kike, you lose your shit. But Craig calls you a fag, and you just pussy out?" Cartman chuckles bitterly. "If I'd known that would actually get your little Jew-panties in a knot, I would have been calling you that every day."
He trails off and shifts his weight from combat boot to combat boot, waiting for me to respond.
I wait a beat and then say slowly, "You have called me a fag, fatass. A lot."
He arches one dark brow at me.
"Then why the fuck does it matter now?" he asks.
Just to fill the silence, I say, "I don't know."
. . . . .
Morning comes too early – but when you're used to getting up everyday at least by 6:00 AM, it's a bit disorienting to wake up still sprawled on your couch, still wearing yesterday's suit which is now wrinkled beyond all hope, still tasting last night's cheap wine in your mouth and feeling it pounding behind your eyes.
Instead of instantly being greeted by my stucco ceiling, I find myself staring at my still open laptop, screen now darkened after having died. How long had I been on it?
Then I remember, in pieces at first, and then it all rushes back in.
Cartman.
We had been talking, chatting, via email. God, who even does that anymore? I can't remember the last time I sent an email for a personal reason – your work is your personal life, a small voice chimes in the back of my head. The voice sounds suspiciously like Cartman.
I groan and sit up, bracing myself for the somersaults my stomach decides to do, and all I can register behind my painful headache is that the entire bottle of wine is gone, and that my living room is an absolute mess. Despite feeling fragmented, disjointed, my mind churns over last night again and again, like what I usually do with my cases. I lean back into my plush couch with a sigh.
Of course, we didn't discuss anything of importance – I remember that much. I still know nothing about his life before now, where he went to college, where he's lived all this time, how he afforded it all. Not that Cartman isn't smart – in fact, I might bet that he paid most of his schooling with scholarships – but he has never struck me as the studious, or buckle-down type.
But.
It has almost been a decade, I remind myself. And he lost all of that weight. Boy, did he. The image of Cartman turning to face me for the first time again flashes like a light bulb in my mind. His well-muscled back under his fitted suit jacket, his defined jaw, those sharp amber eyes, and perfectly styled, yet softly mousy hair. If anything, though, his good looks only make me more anxious – there's no way that this is a perfect coincidence.
Nothing with Cartman is ever a coincidence.
I finally drag myself off the couch and off to my room to face the day. A pure black suit seems like the only appropriate choice for this awful Tuesday – black jacket, trim black pants, and even a black button up. I finally settle on my favorite deep green tie. Justin always tells me that it makes my eyes look fantastic.
Overall looking pretty good, I can't help but admire myself in the full-length mirror in my room. Cartman's not the only one who grew up. I've stayed in good shape too, and even dare I say, have embraced my 'gayness' as Justin calls it. The best part of the black suit is that at least my boss will like it.
. . . .
"Look alive today, kid," are the first words out of Gabel's mouth. I'm bending partially over the desk in my office, rearranging my papers, when his voice startles me. Papers go flying across the floor.
"With all due respect sir, I'm getting you a bell," I squint at Mr. Gabel, who surprisingly almost smiles at me. Almost. He hovers in what I would call uncertainty but I don't think the legendary Trent Gabel has ever hesitated to say anything in his whole life.
"This won't be a problem, will it?" he asks as I start to snag the fallen papers.
I pause, and glance back up at him. Now Gabel is really frowning at me and it makes my stomach lurch in response. It's the same look my mom used to give me, disappointed and apprehensive of my answer.
There's no point in asking him what he's referring to. Gabel, if nothing else, is easily readable. Obviously his concern is me and whatever my relation to Cartman is. It certainly didn't look good, me pretending to not know Cartman while the fucker straight up outted me. Gabel isn't stupid; he definitely knows I'm gay. So what, my mind churns unhelpfully, he assumes Cartman is a rival or ex-lover maybe? That'd be something.
"No sir," I say in a clipped tone, pretending to be absorbed in re-rearranging my paperwork.
"Good," Gabel grunts back. I'm still waiting for him to leave so I can keep working on my cases. So when after a few moments of awkward silence, I'm somehow not surprised to look up and see his intense stare still lingering on me.
"Mr. Gabel, I –," he cuts my off with a brisk wave of his hand.
"I don't pry into my colleagues personal lives," the elder man says slowly, deliberately, "but I also cannot stress the importance of this case."
I swallow thickly, unable to look away from his piercing gaze.
"Julio Salazar cannot walk," Gabel continues fiercely. "Our jobs are difficult, and it's no question that people demand the impossible from us. But we do good work day in and day out to help protect this city from scum like Salazar."
"I know, sir," I sigh, resting my palms against the cool wood of my desk.
His pause is as loud as thunder.
"Sometimes this job asks things of us that we may not find suitable, but it is a means to the proper end," Gabel says in that slow voce again, enunciating every word. He holds our eye contact for only a breath longer and then looks away. I jolt, the spell broken.
The older man's demeanor does a complete one-eighty, all that tension gone from his lithe body. That near-smile is back again, as if it had never left his face as he walks casually toward the open door.
"Why don't you ask that friend of yours to go get some coffee? It would do you some good," Gabel shrugs on his way out. He partially turns, and says softly as if almost to himself, "Sharp suit, kid."
The frosted glass door closes with a barely audible click.
. . . . .
I'm back in the park outside of my work, sitting on the same bench that I always sit at for lunch, only this time I actually not eating. My cell phone makes an audible creak under the pressure of my grip as it rings. It feels like each ring is a lifetime apart.
"Kyle!" Kenny picks up the phone, bright and cheery as usual. "You're about three months and twenty-nine days early for our next phone call. To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Cut the crap," I snap impatiently. "You knew that Cartman was coming here didn't you?"
Kenny's end of the line goes silent and for a horrible second, I'm sure that he's hung up on me.
It began dawning on me, as I had slumped down heavily in my chair after Gabel left. I had racked my brain for what exactly he was getting at – I mean, I'm not stupid, but it somehow didn't seem right to try and cozy up to Cartman to get case details out from under him. There's no doubt that's what Gabel was implying. But then I had remembered that impulse from earlier in the morning, my unease about Cartman's very sudden presence in my life. No, this couldn't be a coincidence. And in hindsight, Kenny had seemed not nearly surprised enough that Cartman had somehow run into me. Not even Kenny knows what I do or where I live.
"He went to law school, Kyle," Kenny finally deadpans. "He grew up and became a lawyer. And he ran into you, who is also a lawyer. Pretty much makes sense to me."
A twang of guilt echoes in my chest.
"I'm not accusing you of anything, Ken," I say quickly, "but if you know why Cartman is here –"
"And where exactly is 'here', Kyle?" My name sounds like a curse when he says it.
The call ends without a word, and I'm actually not sure who hung up first, him or me.