1Wendy wasn't normally a fast eater, but she made sure to wolf down today's lunch at a rapid pace. She planned to use the majority of her free period to locate and talk to Henrietta. She didn't care how her faster consumption of food looked to others, until Bebe made a remark that slowed her down.

"God Wendy, you're really inhaling that food. Are you pregnant or something?"

"No!" Wendy said back with an angry glare on her face. "I'm just in a hurry."

"For what?"

Wendy sighed. If she was going to tell anyone the situation, it might as well be her best friend.

"Cartman asked out Henrietta. She hasn't said yes yet, but she might. I want to meet with her and at least figure out what's going on."

Bebe frowned. "That sucks."

"I know."

"Well you aren't alone. The guy I want to go to the dance with hasn't asked me yet either."

"Which guy is that?"

"Kenny."

Wendy swallowed another bite of food. "That reminds me, he's looking for you. You might get your wish."

Bebe smiled. "Really?! Cool! I hope so. Ever since that night at your house, I feel like we have a real connection going."

Wendy knew that the 'connection' the blondes shared existed mostly on a superficial level, but she decided not to say so out loud. Instead she shrugged her shoulders and continued to eat as quickly as she could. She finished and stood up from the table.

"So what are you gonna do when you see Henrietta?" Bebe asked.

Wendy sighed. "Honestly? I don't know. I want to at least know why Cartman chose to ask her out in the first place. Why she's wanted, and I'm apparently not."

"Good luck" was all Bebe managed to say before Wendy walked away from their table.

Once her friend was gone, Bebe checked her watch. There was only a few minutes of lunch period left. If she was going to run into Kenny outside of class, she needed to be quick about it.

Like Wendy, Bebe began shoveling food into her mouth.

The locating part was easy. Everybody knew that the goth kids preferred to hang out behind the school building rather than inside of it. This was true even during class time. Wendy spotted the tall goth kid first. He was sitting on the ground along with another goth who wouldn't stop flipping his hair. The two appeared to be working on a poem together.

"Dude, what word rhymes with death?" the tall one asked.

"Meth?" said the other.

"Yah, that'll work."

"Have you guys seen Henrietta?" Wendy asked.

"Over there." The goth with the red streak pointed his finger in the general direction.

Wendy walked a bit further. The youngest goth male was taking a nap on a blanket. A black blanket. Finally, Wendy spotted Henrietta.

She was standing alone against the school's brick wall with a lit cigarette dangling from her mouth. Wendy was glad the confrontation would take place in semi-private.

"Excuse me?"

Henrietta exhaled her cigarette's smoke. "Yah?"

"I want to talk to you about Eric Cartman."

"What about him?"

"Are you going to the dance with him?" Wendy hesitantly asked.

"I don't know."

"Well you shouldn't!" Wendy blurted out suddenly. It looked like she had made her decision about what to say.

"Why not?" Henrietta questioned.

Wendy took a deep breath. "He's manipulative, evil, rude, selfish, stupid, a bigot..."

Henrietta lit up another smoke as she listened to Wendy continue on her knowledgeable rant about Cartman. She was calling him every name in the book. The goth girl fully expected to be here a while.

Wendy finally concluded her anti-Cartman tirade with "And besides, I want to date him!".

She took another deep breath to regain some oxygen. Unfortunately, she coughed it back out. Some of Henrietta's smoke was now filling that air.

"Can you put that out please?"

"A cigarette is the closest thing I'll ever experience to joy. I'm not surprised you want to cause me pain like all the other conformists by telling me to put it out."

Wendy stared at the other girl, not having a clue what she was talking about. What was wrong with not wanting to get cancer?

"Just please don't date Cartman."

"If he's so bad, how come you wanna date him?"

"I wasn't going to at first. I had every intention of turning him down if he asked me. But he never did, and that bothers me for some reason. I can't explain it really. It's just...something about him."

Henrietta blew more smoke toward Wendy. "My life is already filled with pain. If he has a hold over your heart, maybe he'd have it over mine too. If he does and I turn him down, my life will become even more miserable."

Wendy coughed again. "Please put that out! You aren't supposed to be smoking on school grounds anyway."

"You aren't supposed to smoke anywhere. The conformists are trying to-"

Wendy cut her off with another question. She still had another question that needed to be figured out, and besides, that talk about everyone being a conformist was getting pretty annoying.

"Why did he ask you out? Was it only to win a bet?"

"A bet?"

Wendy nodded. "I know he's got a bet going that he can get a date to the big dance before someone else, but I don't know why he's asking out the people he is. Did he tell you he liked you? Did he tell you why it was you he wants to go with and not me? Am I really just that undesirable?!"

Henrietta shrugged. "I think you're hot."

Wendy's eyes widened. "What?"

"All goths are bi," Henrietta explained.

Wendy ignored the remark. "So what did Cartman say to you when he asked you out?"

"He just told me how alone in the world he is. Just like me."

"Well what about those three goth friends of yours?"

"Yah, they're all alone too."

Wendy stood in silence as numerous thoughts simultaneously entered her brain. She thought about what she might have just jeopardized for Cartman and whether or not it was right to do. She thought about the kind of person Henrietta seemed to be. She tried once again to figure out the method to Cartman's madness, and came up short. Most importantly, she thought about how she was on the verge of losing the only man she had eyes for. She didn't even know why she liked him. It was an unexplainable, indescribable something that drew her to the bastard. It must have been love, because Cartman certainly wasn't doing anything to keep her heart hostage like that. How could she give up on love, even if it was unrequited?

Answer: She couldn't.

Henrietta removed the last two cigarettes from her case and tossed the empty container in a nearby garbage can. She placed one stick between her lips.

"May I have that other one?" Wendy asked politely.

"Thought you didn't like them," Henrietta said.

"I don't, but I could really use one right now. Please?"

Henrietta passed over her last cigarette. Wendy accepted it with a "Thank you" and a smile. After lighting up for herself, the goth girl also tossed Wendy the necessary lighter. Wendy caught it successfully and lit the end of her cigarette.

"Stay away from my man!!!"

Wendy's cigarette was immediately ground out on Henrietta's cheek. The girl's lips parted wide open as she felt the stinging burn, causing her own smoke to fall out of her mouth onto the ground. Henrietta quickly moved away from Wendy until her back was touching the wall. She clutched her cheek and glared at the other girl.

"HEY! WHAT THE HELL BITCH!?" the goth exclaimed.

Wendy dropped her extinguished cancer stick next to Henrietta's in the dirt. She gladly stomped both of them out. Wendy glared right back at the girl, totally unafraid. She directed Henrietta's attention to the crushed smokes with her pointer finger.

"These are going to be your face the next time if I see you at that dance with Eric Cartman! I love him, and no one is going to screw that up for me if I can help it!"

"Okay! Christ!" Henrietta agreed.

"Good. I'm glad we understand each other."

Wendy stomped away in a huff, which soon evolved into a triumphant march. She felt very good that she had stopped Cartman from getting a date, but her happiness soon gave way to a physically sickening combination of both guilt and hopelessness.

Wendy knew that her efforts were going to prove futile. How much longer could she keep threatening girls at school? How much longer until Cartman succeeded in securing himself a date? He was a master at manipulation. He'd find a way to get what he wanted. Worse than that, what if Henrietta was what he wanted? That would mean Wendy had just screwed over the boy she claimed to love. Cartman certainly saw something in these girls that made him want to ask them out. Whatever it was he saw in them, he certainly didn't see the same thing in Wendy. Even if she told Cartman how she felt, which she just couldn't bring herself to do, she already knew thanks to Kenny's information that he wouldn't respond the way she wanted him to. No matter what she did, she couldn't hold on to him forever. Thanks to her actions though, right or wrong, she had gained at least another day. Another twenty-four hours to hope. Another day to fantasize about what could be. Another morning to love an unattached guy who she could, theoretically, have.

She'd be sure to make the most of the time.

The entire hallway was staring at Henrietta. Students speculated in quiet whispers about what she could possibly be doing inside the school for once, and how she got that mark on her face. Most believed it to be self-inflicted and moved on with their lives.

One person wh didn't believe the wound to be intentional was Cartman.

"The hell happened to you?" he asked as she approached him.

"Stay away from me you conformist asshole!" Henrietta exclaimed in a rare display of emotion.

Caught off-guard, Cartman only managed to ask "Huh?"

"You and your little girlfriend can have each other!"

"What girlfr-"

The interrupting slap stung a little, but it still wouldn't end up looking as bad as Henrietta's burn mark. Cartman sighed and rubbed his slightly bruised cheek as the goth girl stormed off. It was yet another rejection, but this time it was fishy. Cartman wondered to himself what non-existent girlfriend she was talking about. It made no sense.

Until Stan and Kyle entered the hallway.

"YOU!" Cartman accused with both fingers pointed. One aimed at Stan, one at Kyle.

"Hey Cartman" Stan said.

"Don't you 'Hey Cartman' me asshole! You're behind this aren't you! The both of you are!"

"Behind what?" Stan wondered.

"Oh, right, like you don't know. Very clever gentlemen. Lie to my almost date and tell her I have a girlfriend already. You wanna play rough? Well I can play rough too!"

"Bullshit Cartman! We didn't do anything!" Kyle defended.

"That's fine. I'm gonna go 'not' do something myself. It's on you sons of bitches! It is ON!"

Cartman stomped away, already plotting out a revenge in his head.

"Dude, what did you do to him?" Stan asked when the coast was clear.

"Nothing! I swear!"

"Me either" Stan agreed. "Weird."

Stan and Kyle continued to walk down the hall together. They stopped at the same locker and began pulling out the items they needed for class. A few quietly snickering students walked past them. Neither boy understood what was so wrong with sharing a school locker. They also still had no idea why people assumed they were gay.

"You guys!" Token excitedly called out from down the hallway.

Stan and Kyle's heads turned. "What?" they said together.

"She said yes! Katie said she'd go to dinner with me tonight!"

They frowned together. "Dinner?" Kyle questioned. "Not the dance?"

"No, but I'm sure after tonight she's gonna like me. And then we will go to the dance together!"

"Great" Stan said unenthusiastically. "Let us know when that happens."

Token nodded and ran off, presumably to get ready for his big date.

"You think he did something to Cartman?" Kyle speculated.

"Who cares? As long as he helps us take Cartman's money."

"H'yeah. What are you gonna buy with your half?"

Stan shrugged. "You?"

"I don't know."

Stan shut the locker. "So, have you talked to Kenny again yet?"

Kyle scoffed. 'Hell no. Have you?"

"No. I think we have to wait for him to come to us. He said he'd talk to us after he got his date, but we won't know when that is until he tells us.."

"I just hope it's soon dude. I'm getting sick of all this crap about dating and dancing."

"Yeah" Stan agreed. He paused, then asked in a concerned tone of voice "But, we're still gonna hang out together at the dance right?"

"Oh, yeah totally."

"Cool" Stan said with a smile.

Kyle returned the smile. Once again he was in perfect sync with Stan. Their mouths resembled two perfect triangles with teeth.

They continued to stand around smiling and looking at one another until the bell rang, then went their separate ways to class. As they walked away, they shared the same thought: How long until lunch period? They just couldn't wait to be together again and continue their talk about the totally lame dance they were going to together.

In a non-gay way.

To Be Continued