I stood frozen, unable to process what was happening. My heart beat quickly, I started breathing fast and heard. Was I dreaming? Was he going to turn around, faceless and bloody, blurry and jagged, like in so many nightmares since he disappeared? Would I wake up in a cold sweat, with the ghosts of the images haunting me?
But no, this was real. I was awake. I was sure of it. This wasn't a dream. I found myself wishing that it was.
Questions raced through my mind. What was he doing here? Does Kenny know he's back? Where had he been? Why had he left? Why did he come back?
Why did he leave? Why did he abandon me, why did he abandon all of us? Sheila and Ike needed him. I needed him. He didn't even tell me why. He didn't even tell me that he was going. My best friend in the whole world, who knew everything about me, and he just fucking left. He didn't even care enough to warn me. And right when Cartman died, how could he?
And why did he have to come back? We were all better now. We'd had enough time. We had recovered, we had moved on. Sheila had moved on; she was smiling again. Ike was doing better. Kenny was doing better. Hell, I was even okay now. Why the hell did he come back? To rub it in? To make sure we would never really recover? What was his plan? To come back, let everyone know he was still alive, and then leave without a trace again? He could've died out there, and none of us ever would have known. He left us all wondering. I thought he had died. I was sure that if he had still been alive, he wouldn't be gone for so long with no contact. I thought that if he was still alive he would've called, sent a letter, a text, a fucking smoke signal, something. Who the hell did he think he was, sauntering back to town as though he hadn't done anything wrong?
Anger quickly replaced the panic and the hurt. He left with no explanation. Didn't even tell me why or where he was going. And now he was back, with no warning. If I hadn't come to the graveyard today, would I even have known that he'd come back? How long was he planning to stay anyway? Not long, no doubt. Maybe he'd done this before, in and out of town before anyone even saw him.
I wanted to confront him, to walk right up to him and tell him to get the hell out of town. Tell him that no one wanted him here. But I still couldn't move.
My hands were shaking so hard. It took me a moment to realize it wasn't just my hands. The rest of my body was shaking, with panic or anger, I could barely tell.
Kyle still stood by the grave, staring at it, his hands in his pockets. He seemed lost in thought, reading and reading the headstone. I was over here, shaking and hyperventilating, and there he was, as still as a statue. As cool and collected as always, while I'm the one having a fucking meltdown.
What gave him the right to stand by Cartman's grave, as though he was his friend? What gave him the right to visit, to mourn, if that was even what he was doing? Did he even know Cartman had died, or had he just abandoned Cartman like he had the rest of us? How dare he act like he cared that Cartman was dead. He'd never visited the grave before, didn't even go to the funeral.
But then again, neither had I.
I pushed the thought as far away as I could. No, this wasn't about me. Of course I cared that Cartman had died, of course I was his friend. I mourned, his death affected me so much. I never abandoned him.
But didn't you, when he was alive? Never called him, texted him, asked how he was doing. Kenny saw him the day before he died, but when was the last time you had seen him? And whose fault was that?
I pushed that thought away, too. At least I never abandoned Kenny, right? Or my parents?
You tried your hardest to never visit.
But I always came back! I always came back, and they always knew where I was! And I would never have abandoned Kyle like he did to me!
How can you be sure?
I was about to turn and run away, about to go back to my car and not look back, about to escape. I could've, I really could've. I was about to leave South Park anyway. I could have turned away, left the town, never looked back, forgotten all about this, dismissed it as a hallucination or a very realistic dream. It would've been so easy, and I would have done it, too.
But then he turned around.
His face was more or less the same, just older. I had almost expected him to be different, as drastically different as I felt he had to be to do what he did. But, no, he was just the same. The same freckles, though faded. The same green eyes, just less bright, less innocent. His curly hair fell across his forehead messily. It was almost insulting and infuriating that his guilt and his mistakes were not plastered across his face. He locked eye contact with me and I couldn't move again.
He walked over to me hesitantly, slowly, his eyes cautious. He stopped in front of me, examining my face. I guess I didn't give much away in my expression, because he looked confused.
"Hey," he said, his voice quiet and heavy.
I can't explain what I did next.
I punched him in the face.
