Breathe Me

Chapter Ten: This Is Gonna Bring Me To My Knees

By: Jondy Macmillan

A/N: Ahem. Hi. It's been a while. I know guys; I kind of ran out of steam there. I fail at life. Part of it springs from the fact that I love k squared, but I find style infinitely more interesting, especially since there's such a large amount of Kyle/Kenny being posted now. Thank you for all your lovely reviews; they're endless inspiration, and the kick in the butt that I needed to get posting!

If they gave out awards for the world's biggest coward, I'm pretty sure I'd take the title. Sure, I'm being dramatic; I doubt I'm the first boy who ever ran away after a kiss. I don't exactly know how many boys kissed-and-ran from other boys, but hey, again, I doubt I'm the first intrepid explorer in the field.

I'm sitting in my living room, which smells vaguely of pinewood construction dust and stale beer. It's better than the old eau de dog shit, at any rate. My mom started watching Martha Stewart on the tiny TV at her job a while back, and ever since she's been on a cleanliness kick. We can't afford much, mind you, but she springs for a bottle of Febreeze here and there. Plus she's been trying to entice my dad into some DIY projects, which accounts for the pinewood; it's all scrap he filched from other people's dumpsters.

Anyway, I'm watching TV with Kevin. He spends entirely too much time at home, and I hope when I go to college I don't decide that bonding with the 'rents is a fun and interesting way to pass the day. The TV's black and white; we bought it for ten cents at a garage sale back when I was young and it still hadn't achieved antique status. I've been researching how much we could hock it for on Ebay. Sadly, it's not enough to get a Plasma.

I could probably afford to buy one with what I've saved up, but I'm not risking my college fund just so I can watch Oprah. Maybe if we had HBO or Showtime, I'd get to thinkin' 'bout it. At least those shows have nudity.

Kevin's eyes are trained on the ol' boob tube, but I'm lost in my own little world.

I kissed Kyle. I don't know why I did that.

I mean, I guess I do. Even I didn't buy my girls-suck-ass excuse after the first year or so. Maybe that's why Kyle's pressuring me to figure out my sexuality burned me down to the core.

Good job, Broflovski; I congratulate him in my head. Now he's forced me to figure out how I feel.

And I feel…something. I'm not sure what it is, is all.

Do I like guys? Really? How could I have missed it for so long? Girls fail at life, okay, but I still find them attractive. They're just…annoying. And, I suppose I could have tried a little harder to get laid; just because girls don't take too well to my home doesn't mean we couldn't go to theirs. It's not an ideal situation, but I could have made it work. There are cars and parks and really, an infinite amount of places to bone someone if you've got the willpower and that someone is slutty enough.

Problem is, I never thought about that alternative. I never thought about any alternative other than givin' up on chicks.

It's not like I was eyeing guys in the showers after gym class or anything.

I feel Kevin's body shift a moment before the throbbing pain in the back of my head appears. Turning to him while clutching my head, I ask in an incredulous voice, "What was that for, asshole?"

"You was bein' stupid," he shrugs, "Now you're not. Problem solved."

"How was I bein' stupid?" I demand.

"You was thinkin'," Kevin replies, like anyone who thinks anything, ever, who should be shot.

"Maybe you should try it sometime," I retort gruffly. Kevin just crosses his arms and returns to staring at his show.

Whatever. He might be right. I'm thinking too much about it. Obviously, I don't like guys. This thing with Kyle was a one off. Now I just have to figure out a way to apologize for it and forget it ever happened.

I just don't know if there's any way to do that without sounding like an asshole.

People grow up. They grow out of phases we all thought would last forever, and they grow into them too. The goth kids aren't goth anymore; well, most of them. The cheerleaders aren't all still cheerleaders. Tweek Tweak can hold a conversation without twitching. Butters Stotch grew some balls. Patty Nelson got kind of fat. And Kyle isn't that awkward little kid anymore.

On the other hand, some people never grow out of phases. Like how Cartman's still an asshole, and I'm still the poorest kid in town. Those aren't even phases, I guess. They're more like stigmas, character flaws we're stuck with for the rest of our life. Okay, so maybe I could eventually maybe not be poor. But I doubt Cartman's never going to not be a total d-bag, so there.

Point I'm trying to make is that I spend most of the night trying to predict Kyle's reaction the next morning. I don't have much to go on; it's not like he tried to call me. He couldn't even if he tried; the last cell phone I tried to pay for ended up accidentally falling in dad's bathtub distillery, the only DIY project that he's actually enthusiastic about. And we haven't had a house phone since that time mom tried to through it at Kevin's head. So yeah, unless he wanted to walk on the bad side of the tracks, Kyle didn't have many options there. Still, assuming he had wanted to find me, he would have discovered a way. He's a smart kid.

Since he didn't attempt a foray into the ghetto, I'm assuming he doesn't much want to see me. That, or he's trying to give me time. Both are very Kyle-like reactions. He doesn't take well to change; having been his friend for over seventeen years, I know this well.

He also tries really hard to be considerate, even though he's got a selfish personality. It's fun to watch, usually; his inner good, polite Jew trying to overcome his inner Crusader. What I mean by that is that Kyle likes morals; he likes letting everyone have their own beliefs. If anything challenges those beliefs, he'll stomp right over the person in question and everything they stand for in an attempt to defend 'em to the death. It doesn't matter how many casualties there are. He's a lot like his mom that way. He might kill me if I ever said that out loud, too.

Anyway, being nice or being freaked out would be Kyle's reactions for sure…if we were still nine years old. It occurs to me over the course of the longest night ever that I don't actually know that much about the seventeen year old version of my friend. I mean, I know the basics; his favorite color, the music he likes to listen to in the car, and the fact that he wants to be an architect. But even though he's a close friend, I'm not his super best butt buddy like Stan. He doesn't tell me everything. I can't guess his next move; I can only make assumptions based off what I know, and most of what I know seems to be established form a long, long time ago. He hasn't really told me anything new about himself in years, it feels like. I hate to admit it, but most of our conversations have been about me. My dreams, my desires, and my complaints. He's helped me study for school, and kept me company at work, and convinced me to go to college, but I haven't really returned the favor. The only thing I've done to date is listen to him go on about Stan's masturbation adventure.

In an ideal world, I could go talk to Stan about this. He's a cool guy, he'd understand. Except…when the subject matter is Kyle, I'm not entirely sure that's true. Stan tends to lose his head when it comes to a certain redhead, if the aforementioned masturbation disaster is any indication. I don't know if that was a one off or if there really is something brewing in his thick skull, but I'm sure as hell not going to ask.

That's when it hits me for certain that there's the slightest possibility Stan's drunken rub and tug might spring from a deeper emotion. God, imagine if Stan was competition.

Wait, I didn't mean that. There wouldn't be a competition even if Stan was interested for real in Kyle, which he's not, because that's gay, but either way, I'm not even in the running. He can have Kyle, for all I care. The two of them can ass fuck all night if Kyle decides to switch teams.

Thinking is driving me insane. Life was so much easier back when I just didn't give a damn.

Like, I don't know, a week ago.

Outside my grubby window, birds start chirping. I want to take a bazooka and shoot them all out of their trees, but that won't work. We don't have any bloody trees outside my house. They're living in the rafters and driving me mad.

I need to get this whole thing sorted. But there's nothing to even sort. I just have to talk to Kyle because…for the first time, I let myself say the words that have been floating in my mind. They've been drifting, like viscous oil on top of water, those three little words.

So I say them out loud, "I'm not gay."

They ricochet dully off my walls, and even after the echo's gone, I can still hear them, a steady chant in my mind.

"Kyle!" I scream down the hall, having spotted his brilliant red hair after third period, "Kyle!"

He throws a furtive glance my way and then disappears into the sea of students.

"That bastard."

After all the deliberation I put into thinking about him last night, and more so, NOT thinking about him, he has the nerve to just disappear? Yeah, not happening.

I get about five steps before I'm tackled into a locker by my least favorite person in the world, "Po'Boy!"

Okay, it's prob'ly not fair to call him my 'least favorite person'. That title gets spread pretty thin in my mind, where teachers, cheerleaders, and my boss all fall into the category of 'incarnations of Satan'. Hell, that's not even fair to Satan. He's a pretty nice guy. Throws a weak party, but hey. He's cool.

Let's put it this way. Cartman's like a puppy, if a puppy weighed five gazillion pounds. I'm serious. Think about it; he spends all his time sleepin', eatin', and barkin'. There's the little matter of how puppies like to play fetch and Cartman won't even get up to answer the door, but otherwise, it's a spot on comparison.

"What?" I ask warily, because puppy or not, Cartman's a user. For the most part, he likes to snap at people and ask like a general manipulative douche, but on rare occasion, he can be sort of dangerous.

"Kenneh," his tone softens, turns wheedling, "You're smart and stuff, right?"

"Um. No."

"Don't lie to me if you value your nuts," he warns.

"Do you need to copy my homework?"

"Kenneh. Why would I need to copy your homework? I am a genius. You are poor. Does that sound logical to you?" Cartman asks.

"You want to copy my homework," I state again.

He blinks, "Don't tell anyone. It will ruin my reputation."

"Yeah. Right," I roll my eyes. Eric Cartman is quite possibly one of the smartest kids at our school; animal comparisons aside. He's jut…well, incredibly lazy. More so than me, in fact.

Being brought up with the idea that he's the 'most special little boy in the world' hasn't done him any favors.

His mom's like the worst enabler, ever.

Anyway, by the time Cartman's done finagling my homework from my hands, there's only minutes left til class. Kyle's long gone.

I sigh. Somehow, I'd imagined this going better.

I sit through the rest of my classes and lunch, where Stan's moping because everybody's favorite Jew has vanished into thin air, and Cartman's gloating because he reigns victorious as teacher's pet, despite stealing my answers. I'm hanging on a moment, a thread, a breath, just waiting to see if Kyle will man up and let me know how this all is going to go down. I don't know if any other guy has been more firmly entrenched in my thoughts.

"Kenny," Stan says, his depression radiating across the table towards me, "Do you think Kyle's going to show up to lunch at all?"

"God, fag. Think you can live for one second without your gay-ass Siamese twin?" Cartman interjects. I don't even get the chance to open my mouth, "Kenneh's not your jewrat's fucking secretary. If there's any justice in this world, Kahl's gone to hang himself in the library."

"Don't you dare say that!" Stan hisses, "Fucking fatass!"

"Did you need him for something?" I ask. It's a stupid question, because Stan and Kyle need each other to fucking breathe, but as the resident hick I'm supposed to sound like an idiot. I'm okay with it. Somebody's got to make all the other kids feel smarter.

Stan groans, burying his face in his arms so that all I can see is his eyes, staring straight at the vending machine in the corner of the cafeteria.

"He's been acting so weird. I wanted to tell him something, but he's barely spoken to me since yesterday. I don't know what's going on," his gaze falls on me, "Did something happen with Heidi?"

"Um," I can tell I'm blushing, "No. Not really. She's still in the running for becoming America's Biggest Bitch, if that's what you're asking."

No way am I telling him about my little mistake, or the fact that now I have to hunt Kyle down and actually talk about it. I hate talking about things. All that touchy feely emotional shit is chick territory.

Plus, how do you even talk about a kiss and run thing? It's like a hit and run, with less carnage. Or possibly more, depending on how you look at it. I'm beginning to think my plan is seriously flawed.

"Oh," Stan's dejected, and there's not much I can do 'bout it.

Except maybe dig at his pain.

"So does this thing you want to tell him have anything to do with a certain bathroom incident at a party?"

Stan turns a color never before seen in nature, and I'm not sure if it's because he's embarrassed or because he's choking on his Sloppy Joe. Cartman starts hitting him hard on the back, and chunks of food fly out of his mouth, hitting Butters Stotch in the head.

"Hey fellas! Stop throwin' food!" he snaps before returning to his complicated world of apples and butterflies and whatever the hell else goes on in that little blond head of his.

"I thought we agreed never to talk about that!" Stan squeaks, finally recovering oxygen.

"What's the bathroom incident, guys?" Cartman queries.

"We did, but you know, I just wanted to know if it was pertinent."

"Kenny- don't. Just don't."

"Loosen up, Stan."

"Guys," Cartman whines, "What's the bathroom incident."

"Stan puked," I supply a lie with ease.

"So? Stan always pukes," Cartman counters, "How much do you value your nuts, Kenneh?"

"Shut up."

"Not very much I see."

"Cartman, I'm serious," I glare at him, "Why don't you go find Wendy? I heard the slut hasn't talked to you since the party."

His face darkens, "Whatever. She's a ho."

"Right," I glance at Stan, but he's locked up so tight it would take the jaws of life to get him to tell me what's on his mind.

The root of the problem's Kyle. Isn't it always? More and more I'm thinking I wasn't off base when I said Stan might be competition.

Were there a competition to be had.

Which there isn't.

Fuck. I'm ending this, now.

I stand up, impervious to Stan and Cartman's stares. I've got a Jew to track down.

A/N: Sigh. This is so not turning out right...On a different note-Kay, so I have a question. I was at the fair tonight (I almost died on the frickin' Ring of Fire, and my uncle and my cousin thought it was hilarious. So did the cute operator, who stopped us upside down like, a thousand times just to hear me scream bloody murder and then afterwards told me it was just for me. I'm scared of heights.) and I saw this kid. He was probably six, if not younger. HE HAD A KENNY HAT. It was all orange, and then on the very front was the little opening of a hood drawn on with Kenny's eyes. Best hat ever. I wanted this baseball cap like no other. Unfortunately, I couldn't persuade my eleven year old cousin to go ask the kid where he got it, and I felt kind of awkward, being twenty three going up to ask the kid where he got it. In retrospect, I should have manned up and asked, because OMGTHEHAT! So, my question is- has anyone seen one of these hats anywhere? Stores, online, whatever? I did a google search and got nothing. I MUST HAVE IT!!!