K2: Save Me From Myself Chapter 8
I barely made it home. As soon as I got into my car, my eyes blurred with tears. I drove so I was out of sight, then pulled over and sobbed uncontrollably. I don't know how long I sat there, but afterward my head hurt and my whole face was glowing red. Why does this hurt so badly? I had no idea how much Kenny meant to me. The loss of his friendship feels like drowning. My lungs and mouth filling with water, as my chest burns from the lack of oxygen. Reaching out and trying to find something to save me from this horrible end. But there's nothing in sight for me to hold on to.
After I've gotten control of myself I drive home. I hurry into my room before anyone can see me and collapse on my bed, sobbing into my pillow. All I think of his him. Blonde, spiky hair. Twisted smile. Bright blue eyes, always projecting sadness and concern. Kenny...Kenny...Kenny... I don't know what to do. I try to choke back my sobs, but it hurts. I hurt from crying so much. I manage to stifle them so that no one hears. My mother calls that dinner is ready, but I turn the lights off and pretend to be sleeping. I quietly blow my nose on a tissue with my back to the door. I muffle my cries in my pillow. I want desperately to just let go, cry until I can't cry anymore, but I have to hide. If they knew, I don't know what would happen. And I can't deal with that.
Eventually I do fall asleep. I wake up the next morning and remember clearly everything that happened last night. But at the moment I can't cry. I'm too numb for that. With no one else to turn to, I call Stan. He answers right away.
"Can you hang out today?" I ask. He pauses and I hear strange sounds in the background. Something like muffled screams and things breaking. "...Are you okay?"
"Umm...I'll call you back in a little bit, okay?" he says before hanging up. I'm utterly confused. What was all that? I sit in bed and read until my phone starts buzzing about twenty minutes later. "Yeah, I can do something. I'll come by your place."
"Okay." He hangs up, and I go back to my book. Soon the doorbell rings and I go to answer it. The sight I see shocks me. "What happened to you?!"
"Umm...can we just go to your room first please?" Stan has a gash on his cheek that is bleeding steadily, his eyes are bloodshot, and he appears to have a bruise forming on his hand. I lead him upstairs and close the door behind him. He collapses in my desk chair. "Things aren't going so good, Kyle."
"No kidding! You look like hell dude. Did...nothing happened with your dad or...?"
"No, no, nothing like that. Umm...it was...uh...Wendy..." He casts his eyes to the ground in shame. I just stare at him. Wendy...?
"What do you mean? Wendy hit you? What happened? I don't understand." Stan sighs.
"Let me start from the beginning. So Wendy's been kinda weird lately. She gets irrationally angry at me for no reason and I don't know what I'm doing to cause it. Then a few days ago it was her birthday and...well, I forgot. So she comes over this morning, completely livid. She starts screaming at me, calling me every name in the book, and before I know it she's throwing things. That's about the time when you called. After I hung up I tried calming her down. She just got even angrier and she threw a vase at me. That's what this is from." He gestures at the cut on his face before continuing. "Then I got mad and...well...I didn't think about it I just...hit her..." At this point his eyes were wet with tears. "I wasn't thinking, it was just a reaction. I mean, if you get hit in the face, you kinda feel like hitting back, right? So I hit her but I didn't mean it and I apologized over and over and she was crying and I was crying and it...it was awful dude. Eventually she calmed down and forgave me. But I...I don't think I can ever forgive myself..."
"Oh my God..." I go over and hug him. "I'm so sorry...but it's not your fault. You didn't mean it..." I'm at a loss for words. How am I supposed to ease the guilt of something like this?
"Kyle...I'm so awful..." He buries his face in my chest and sobs into my jacket. I rub his back and shush him.
"You're not awful...It's not true," I assure him. I just sit there with him and let him cry. I don't know how long it takes or when he pulls away from me, but eventually he does. He looks at me with the saddest eyes I've ever seen.
"I don't know what's wrong with me..." I don't know what to say to him. I'm conflicted. I want nothing more than for him to dump her and come to me. For this embrace to mean more than just friendly comfort for him. Stan...
It's becoming harder and harder for me to contain myself. I want to go to Kenny so much. I'm shaking because of how desperately I want it. I had no idea how much I depended on him. But hey, I was the one who decided to break it off. This is my own fault. I need to be able to deal with this. But...I just wish I could see him...know that he's okay...I could tell when I saw him that he'd been drinking recently. Probably last night. I promised him I wouldn't let him hurt himself anymore...and I'm the one responsible for his new pain. That thought alone fills me with enough guilt to want to run back to him or find a sharp object. I flinch at the thought. Even though I did it, cutting still scares me a bit when I think too hard about it.
My day progresses normally. I go to classes, eat dinner with my family, and go to bed. But all during that time, all I can think of is Kenny. Just Kenny. I hear a song and it reminds me of Kenny. I see a girl wearing a bright blue top and it reminds me of his eyes. I see a couple kiss and it reminds me of his lips brushing mine in that tender way he kissed me. Why...why is he all that's on my mind?
Oh God...I don't love him, do I? After everything, after what he said, I decide to develop feelings NOW? And...I love Stan...has that suddenly become irrelevant? No, I still feel the same way for Stan. I guess...I'm interested in both? I don't fucking know. I don't know what's going on in my own head, in my own heart. What the hell is wrong with me?
Stan's POV
ONE WEEK LATER
"I CAN'T FUCKING BELIEVE YOU!" I scream at her. She sits on my bed, shoulders shaking, hands covering her face as tears pour from her eyes. "HOW COULD YOU FUCKING DO THIS AGAIN?!"
"I'M SORRY!" she screams back at me, her hands coming away from her face. Her eyes look so crazy; it actually sends chills down my neck. Then she blinks and becomes humble again, sinking into the bed. "I'm sorry..." she whispers.
"Then why...?" I ask. She hiccups and blows her nose on a tissue. She sits there, staring at the ground, silent. The silence stretches and fills the whole room, almost tangible.
"Because of your...condition...I haven't been sure what to expect from you...performance wise..." she stammers. It takes me a moment to understand what she means, but when I get it I'm filled with rage.
"Are you fucking kidding me? Because I'm CRIPPLED you decide to whore yourself off to Token? What kind of person DOES something like-"
"That wasn't the only reason!" she screams. "You've been...different...since you came back. You used to be so...so carefree and happy...and now...I don't know..." I gape at her. Is she really so insensitive? Does she really only think of herself? I m so filled with rage, I want to I don t even know what I want to do, but I feel like I desperately need to hurt something. Or someone.
"Well I'm sorry I'm not all rainbows and sunshine after coming back from a FUCKING WAR! If you really cared, you'd try to help me, instead of getting mad at me over shit I don't understand and then fucking CHEATING ON ME!"
"Well I don't know what I'm supposed to do! I don't know what you want me to do! You won't talk to me, you just sit in silence all the time, and I don't know what you're thinking or what that intense look on your face is, but it scares me! You...you scare me sometimes Stan..." Those words cut into me deeply. I scare her? Me? How can how can I cause fear in someone? The thought makes me grow cold all over.
"You...you know what? Don't worry about it. Don't worry about what you're 'supposed to do' or any of that shit. We're done. There. Now you've got nothing to be scared of anymore." I open the door. "Get out of my room."
"Stan...please..." She comes toward me, but I hold up a hand to stop her. She stops and looks at me like I've struck her. She looks away and rushes out the door. I slam it behind her. I hear her sobs echo down the hall. I sigh and collapse on my bed. God...how did everything get so screwed up?
Kyle's POV
Stan calls and says he has to see me. He asks that I meet him at Stark's Pond. I rush out to see what's going on. He sounded...bad, to say the least.
He is waiting for me when I get there. His head is down and cupped in his hands. When he hears me approach, he looks up. His face is tear-streaked. I sit next to him. He leans into me. His weight is comforting somehow. He sighs.
"Kyle...Wendy cheated on me..." I wrap my arms around him and squeeze. "She cheated on me with Token. Again. You were right Kyle; I never should've gotten back together with her."
"I'm sorry..." I'm not sure what else to say. I've never been in a situation like his before. So I say the cliche crap that you always hear people say. "She doesn't deserve you."
"You should've heard some of the stuff she said. She blamed me for it, saying she didn't know how I'd 'perform,' and that 'I'd changed' and 'I scared her sometimes.' She's such a fucking bitch..."
"I'm so sorry..." I guess there isn't really any right thing to say in this situation. He just needs someone to listen to him. "I'm here for you, dude." He sniffs and looks at me. A small smile appears on his face.
"Thanks Kyle. You're a really great guy, you know that?" Those words, although meant as a compliment, only sting me. His brow furrows. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, nothing." He raises an eyebrow at me. "I...I'm undeserving of such sentiments..." I mumble. He waits for me to continue. "I...I didn't say anything before but...I've sort of been seeing Kenny..."
"Really? Wow. I had no idea. Well congra..." He stops once he looks at me. "What happened? Did he hurt you? I swear to God-"
"No, no, I'm the one who hurt him!" I scream, waving my hands back and forth. "He...he loves me...but I was just using him...none of what we did meant anything to me...I just..." I gulped. "Before we were together, he had been drinking and I had been...cutting...and we were sort of trying to save each other I guess. But he ended up becoming my new source of pain, and I was his infatuation. No matter how guilty I felt about what I was doing to him I couldn't stop myself. But I ended it a while ago. He didn't take it well and he ended up drinking after not having done so for at least a month. When I went to see him he told me that he didn't want to be friends anymore..." I start crying a bit.
"Wow...I don't know what to say...I was so absorbed in my own shit I didn't even think that you might have some of your own to deal with. I'm sorry dude." I wipe my eyes and sniffle.
"Thanks." He looks at me and smiles, his blue eyes sparkling. I sense something lurking behind those eyes, some hidden intentions. He wipes away a stray tear. I smile and take hold of his hand for comfort. Suddenly his face is inching towards mine. "Wh...what are you doing?" I whisper. He tilts his head, his lips mere centimeters from mine. My eyelids begin to flutter shut.
"I'm seeing what this feels like," he whispers. I feel his breath on my lips. Suddenly he's kissing me. I kiss back instantly. He cups my face in his hands, and his tongue enters my mouth roughly, licking my own. This is everything I've been dreaming about. But...something doesn't feel quite right. This isn't at all what kissing Kenny felt like. Stan shoves himself on top of me, kissing me roughly, fast, hungry. But it's not what I want. My eyes snap open as he starts to undo my shirt. This is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong.
"Stan...stop it...please..." I try to pull away, but he's much stronger than I am. I push against him, but that only excites him further. "Stan...Stan GET OFF ME!" I scream, kicking him in his sensitive spot as hard as I can. He grunts and falls off the bench, landing in the snow. I pull my shirt closed to keep out the cold and I look down at him. He's curled up in a ball of pain. I'm not sure what to do. "I-I have to go." I bolt down the sidewalk, not checking to see if he ever got up.
Soon I'm home, in my bed. What was that? I've waited SO long for him to kiss me, for him to do exactly what he was doing...but I didn't want it anymore. When I think of him, I shudder. He was so...animalistic. He's not the same as the boy I fell in love with. And that's not his fault, and it's not my fault, it's just the truth. With Kenny, I always knew that if I'd wanted to I could have told him to stop, and he would have.
Kenny...he's always put my interests above his own. He saw my scars, which no one else had ever noticed, and helped me give up my sick habits. He didn't take advantage of me any time when he easily could have. He loved me...despite everything that's wrong with me.
So that's the ridiculous story of my life. I had Kenny, the boy I now love, when I loved the boy I had just moments ago, whom I no longer desire. Now Kenny wants nothing to do with me, and Stan...I don't even know. I need to sleep. Maybe forever.
