Well, hopefully in this chapter we'll have less moping and more stuff actually happening. We're going to skip forward a bit to see how everyone's getting on without each other. And we'll see more what Kyle's like now that he doesn't have to deal with Cartman's shit.

I apologize that I've been taking so long to update my stories. I've been writing a lot of them at the same time, and I have a job and other issues to deal with. So, I'm sorry if I don't update these as much as I want.

Chapter Four – Don't Wanna Think About You

"You know, I've been thinking since the three of us are all single now, we should do something epic," Kenny said as he walked with Stan and Kyle down the street. His two friends turned to look at him in confusion.

"What do you mean?" Stan wondered.

"Well, it's almost the end of the school year, and we've barely gotten to spend time together for a long time now," Kenny pointed out. "And this year's been so full of drama, I think we all need a break for once."

"We're not going to a spa, Ken," Kyle replied, nudging him in the side.

"I wasn't suggesting that," Kenny replied, glaring slightly at him.

"Then what are you suggesting?"

"I don't know, that's why I said 'something epic' instead of specifying," Kenny exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.

"Relax, Ken," Kyle soothed. "I think it's a great idea."

Stan opened his mouth to agree, but he was drowned out by someone calling out to them. He and Kenny flinched and turned to see Cartman running up to them, looking slightly out of breath and kind of annoyed. He glared at Kenny and Stan when he finally caught up to them.

"What the fuck?" he growled. "You two decide to walk home with that traitor and not with me? You couldn't have even waited for me, is that it?"

"I didn't know we were supposed to wait for you," Stan answered honestly. "Besides, I thought you always hang out with Heidi now, so you'd walk home with her or something."

"Who cares about that bitch?" Cartman snapped. Before either of them could reply, he shoved past his friends to stand in front of Kyle, who didn't look at him. "So, you dirty Jew, you making our friends take sides now, is that it?"

Kyle silently rolled his eyes and stepped around him, still refusing to look at him. Kenny and Stan quickly fell into step next to him, leaving Cartman to hurry after them once more. He glared angrily at Kyle, jabbing him in the arm with a finger.

"Come on, Kyle," Cartman snarled. "It's been over two weeks! You can't stay mad at me forever, you know!"

Kyle stopped in his tracks, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath as Cartman continued to poke him in the side while their two friends watched nervously. His eyes held no anger when he opened them and they rested on Cartman for the first time in two weeks.

"I'm not mad at you," he told him calmly. "I'm done with you. I told you, I'm done dealing with you and your bullshit all the time. I don't care what you do anymore. I'm better off without you in my life."

"You can't ignore me forever, Kyle," Cartman snapped at him.

"If you say so," Kyle replied, with a casual shrug. Cartman glared at him as he turned back to Stan and Kenny, completely ignoring Cartman's prodding finger. "If we start saving money now, we could probably all go to-"

"I can't believe you two are picking that traitor over me," Cartman interrupted, glaring over at Stan and Kenny. Kenny glared back at him.

"No one's picking sides, dumbass," he snapped at him. "We can hang out with whoever we want, you know." Cartman ignored him, turning his angry gaze back at Kyle.

"You're turning them against me, you filthy traitorous Jew!" he snarled.

"Kenny and Stan can hang out with you if they want to," Kyle told him, his voice still completely even, without a hint of bitterness to it. "I don't care."

"This is just a stunt for Heidi, isn't it?" the fatter kid said as if he hadn't heard him. "Well, you can have her! I broke up with that bitch." Kyle shrugged, his face remaining unchanged.

"I couldn't care less," he stated in a deadpan tone. Kenny couldn't help but give a smirk of satisfaction at the look of pure outrage on Cartman's face as Kyle turned and continued down the street.

"So," Stan said when the three of them finally reached his house. "You really don't care if Heidi is single or not? You're not just doing this to try and get her?"

Kyle rolled his eyes at him. "Heidi can do whatever the fuck she wants," he stated. "Just as long as it doesn't involve me. I honestly couldn't give a crap."

Kenny grinned at him as they sat down on the couch. "Wow, Kyle," he said. "I've rarely seen Cartman look that pissed off, and you didn't even have to do anything! If only we could somehow weaponize your inability to give a damn, then I don't think any country would touch us ever again."

"I have to say, I'm proud of you, dude," Stan told him honestly. "How'd you manage to remain calm like that through the whole conversation, or these past two weeks?"

"By reminding myself how much better my life is without him in it," Kyle replied, grinning at them. "I just think of the things he's done to me, and how much of it could have been avoided if I had just ignored him or didn't go along with what he was doing."

"Well, you look like you're doing much better," Kenny stated.

"It's called 'inner peace,' dude," Kyle remarked.

"Do you think he'll really leave you alone?" Stan wondered.

"Of course, he won't," Kyle replied, rolling his eyes. "He's Cartman. But, as I said before, unless he tries to cause me physical pain, or do something I can't ignore, he's dead to me. I just have to remind myself not to fall for any more of his tricks, and I'll be fine."

Kenny felt himself smirk again as he casually pressed against the red head's side. "Now you just have to avoid him for the next seven or eight years until you go to college, and then you'll be home free," he noted. Kyle scoffed at the remark.

"Yeah right," he replied. "For now, I'm just hoping to last out a month like this."

"Fingers crossed," Stan commented casually.

Not only did Kyle manage to ignore both Heidi and Cartman for a month, he managed to keep his calm for years. By the end of the year, Heidi and Cartman had gotten back together twice more before splitting for good. Heidi had broken up with him this time, stating she was tired of all his shit, and him manipulating her. He tried to threaten to kill himself again, but this time, she wasn't having it. So, apart they stayed.

True to his word, Kyle remained strong against her when she tried to get back together with him. She forced Bebe to be the messenger for her, stating that she and Eric split for good. Bebe wasn't even sort of surprised when Kyle pointed out that he still couldn't care less. She still remembered what he had told her about Heidi not apologizing, and frankly, she found herself agreeing more with Kyle than with Heidi.

Kyle's health started to improve; he didn't get sick at all, and they were all pretty sure it was because of all the stress being lifted off of him. Before they entered high school, he and Bebe managed to get all of the boys and girls to stop fighting already, the whole Skankhunt thing being way too played out by now.

When they were sixteen, he, Stan and Kenny all managed to get their driver's license. Kenny found a job that was close to Stan and Kyle's houses, so they made sure to visit him a lot, and he would immediately go over to their houses when his shift was over. Stan and Wendy had managed to get back together again, with Kyle and Bebe's help, but unlike Cartman and Heidi, they were staying together for good.

By the time they were seventeen, Cartman was but a distant memory or background character to Kyle. Cartman's life, however, had taken the opposite direction. Besides breaking up with Heidi, his mom decided to make him start being more responsible. After he had gotten into a fight with someone in the sixth grade, he got suspended from school for a week, and that's when his mom finally decided to start punishing him for his actions. She gave him chores to do every day, and grounded him when he acted out. She wouldn't let him eat any of the junk food that he loved, and wouldn't immediately give into all his demands.

Butters ended up being his only remaining friend, but even he was getting tired of Cartman's bullshit. He certainly didn't let Cartman push him around anymore like he used to. Stan and Kenny, at first feeling bad for him, tried to remain friends with him, but eventually they just considered him a casual acquaintance.

Heidi did not take Kyle's refusal of her well. She tried to ignore him like he was ignoring her, but she complained about it to Bebe every chance she got. Bebe, for the most part, tried to be kind and understanding, but that was hard to do when her friend was just so clueless.

Things would stay this way until they were entering their senior year of high school.

"Welcome back, students," the teacher greeted as the teens slowly entered her classroom. "Today is going to be the first day of your senior year! You must all be excited!"

Butters certainly looked excited, but barely anyone else had really thought about what they were going to do after high school. That, or the fact that they were still all recovering from that sudden time jump that was right in the middle of the chapter. It was kind of hard to realize you were about to graduate high school when the story just skips from the end of fourth grade to the beginning of twelfth grade.

Kyle was pretty much the only one of them who had been applying for colleges, and with his grades, he was guaranteed to any school he wanted. Stan and Kenny both just applied to which ever schools Kyle applied to so they could all be together.

"You really should think more about your future than that," Kyle chastised when they told him. Stan blinked at him.

"So, you don't want us going to the same school as you?" he wondered.

"I mean, I do, but still," Kyle replied.

The first bell rang and they got up to go to their first class. The three of them were in most of their classes together, they had made sure of that when they were planning out their schedules. Bebe and Wendy also shared a lot of their classes with the boys, and the two of them were already running to catch up to them as they made their way towards their first class.

"Government and Economics first," Wendy stated when they caught up, glancing at her schedule. "I hear the teacher for it likes to drone on and on. It's too bad, because I want to go into politics when I go to college."

"Well, I can just get some extra sleep if that's true," Kenny mumbled, rubbing his eyes with a yawn.

"You're so lazy, Kenny," Stan sighed, rolling his eyes. Kenny grinned and put an arm around his shoulders.

"You say that like it's a bad thing," he commented.

"Come on, let's get to class so you can go back to sleep," Kyle replied, looping an arm through his and dragging him along. Kenny didn't protest and looked slightly embarrassed for some reason.

The class was just as boring as they predicted, if not more. The teacher had a low, droning sort of voice that made his class start to nod off during roll call. After explaining what the class was all about, he proceeded to pull out a large text book and just start reading from it, not even looking up at the class. Almost half the class was asleep by the time the next bell rang, and those who weren't just whispered among themselves. At some point, even the teacher had bored himself to sleep, drifting off with a mumble until the only sound that came out of him was a snore.

"Either our teacher is a lot older than he looks or he finds that class as boring as we do," Stan complained when they left.

"Maybe it will get better as the class goes on," Bebe said hopefully. "I mean, it was just the first day, after all." The others didn't look convinced, but they didn't say anything more about the subject. "So, what class do you have next?"

"Well, Wendy and I have math class," Stan groaned. "Advanced algebra, too. It's so unnatural." Kyle rolled his eyes at him.

"It's not that bad, Stan," he pointed out. "At least you can use algebra in life. I think. Anyway, Kenny and I have painting next."

"Me too," Bebe said happily as Stan grumbled angrily under his breath about how much algebra sucked. "I love the teacher for the art classes! He's super cool."

"I wish I had taken painting with you guys," Wendy sighed. "But with all of my other classes, I couldn't fit it in."

They split up and Kyle led the way towards the art room. Kyle and Kenny usually ended up being the only boys in the art classes, but this year they walked in to see that Butters and Tweek were also in their art class. Kenny let out a groan when he saw Heidi already at one table, but Kyle didn't react to her and instead took a seat near the front of the class with Butters and Tweek. Bebe started to follow them, but then caught Heidi's eye. She let out a defeated sigh at the look on Heidi's face and turned to the others.

"I'll be right back," she told Kyle and Kenny before making her way over to where Heidi was waiting for her. Heidi leaned back in her seat and glared at her.

"Well?" she asked. Bebe blinked in confusion.

"Well what?" she wondered.

"Did Kyle say anything about me?" Heidi said. "Have you been talking me up to him?" Bebe rolled her eyes and glared down at her.

"No," she replied. "He didn't say anything about you. He hasn't said anything for seven years, and he's not going to now. Why don't you just go talk to him yourself? Or just admit that he's never going to talk to you and move on?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Heidi said stubbornly. "But you're supposed to be helping me, remember? Isn't that why you've been hanging around him so much?"

"I've been hanging around Kyle because we're friends and I like him," Bebe pointed out. "It's called being nice and having things in common. You know, like normal people?" Heidi blinked at her, like she didn't know what she was talking about. Bebe let out a sigh. She didn't know why she bothered. "I've got to go, they're waiting for me over there," she hesitated before adding, "You know, you can join us if you want."

"No thanks," Heidi said, turning head away with a huff. "The only way I'm going over there is if Kyle begs me too."

"Which is never going to happen," Bebe muttered under her breath as she turned and quickly made her way over to the front of the room. She didn't know what Heidi was hoping would happen, she just hoped that whatever her friend was planning, she would do it soon. And that it would be legal.

I wasn't sure how to end this chapter, so I'm just going to stop right there. Also, I haven't posted anything for this for a while and I wanted to get something out. So now, we're going to get into the meat of the story. The main plot. We're going to see just how low Cartman and Heidi will sink to try and get Kyle's attention. Also, there's going to be a surprise later down the road, so look forward to that! And remember, if you're going to take your pet goldfish for a walk, leave them in the bowl.