Chapter Track: All Over You – Live
Hi, this is the chapter with an abortion in it! It is not depicted, but it does happen.
This is also mainly a Kenny and Bebe chapter. Mainly.
Bebe doesn't think that Kenny knows when he traces circles on her thigh, or when he pushes his hand up her skirt. He does it out of habit, and probably affection, even though his hand should most definitely not be up her skirt during school. It's a sort of tic, his fingertips pushing past the denim and brushing against the lace edge of her panties, fiddling with the fabric, but doing little else. It drives her crazy, mostly because she spends the rest of the day wanting more and usually settling for a quickie in the backseat of her car while they wait to see if Craig needs a lift home or to Tweak Bros.
Kenny is dangerously close to doing that now. He's thumbing patterns right next to the hem of her skirt, one that she made herself out of leopard print fabric and black lace. He isn't focused on her, though. He's focused on the pair of people across from them.
It's their lunch period, and they're sitting out in the snow, smoking. Kenny is freezing his ass off, and so Bebe leans in close, pressing their sides together. Tweek and Craig are sort of doing the same thing – except that Craig is out like a light and flopped across Tweek's legs. Tweek takes the opportunity to pull off Craig's hat (something that Bebe just about never sees), and pulls his long, bony fingers through Craig's dark hair, which shockingly looks to have been washed within a day or so.
"This is weird," he says under his breath. Tweek stares at them like he knows they're discussing him and Craig, but a moment later, pulls his electronic cigarette out of the front pocket of his dingy trench coat and smokes.
Bebe half-smiles and replies, "I think it's sweet." She doesn't understand Craig – Kenny does, a little. But nobody gets Craig like Tweek gets Craig, or so it seems from where she's standing. Craig is cold and angry and doesn't like being touched, and for whatever reason, Tweek is his exception. Bebe is Craig's opposite, she thinks. She's happy, and she's affectionate. She would say that her cuddly nature is a product of being an only child and craving company, but Kenny's just as bad as she is. Sometimes, they fall asleep on opposite sides of her mattress, and she wakes up with Kenny wrapped around her, his legs hooked around her at the ankles, and his skinny arms clamped around her breasts.
"It's like how he used to be with Clyde," Kenny mutters, "only not. Like. Craig would let Clyde fall asleep on him, remember? But I don't think he ever would have passed out on Clyde. I'm just saying, I think Tweek and him have a thing going on."
"A thing," echoes Bebe. Staring at the two of them, she thinks that Kenny is right. Tweek and Craig are both angry, angrier than she can ever imagine being, but now they're getting along like a couple of tired infants.
"Yeah. They've definitely been fooling around," Kenny confirms.
Bebe agrees, "I don't think they've fucked, though."
"Nah, I think it takes a lot of booze or a lot of trust to get Craig comfortable with that shit," Kenny says, "But they've had their cocks out for sure."
"Would you stop talking about me?" Tweek calls, voice raised, "I know you're talking about me."
Kenny lights another cigarette – it's his third this lunch period. Bebe feels like maybe she should say something to comfort him, but she doesn't know what. Instead, she leans her head on his shoulder and pats his knee awkwardly. It seems to the trick, though. He glances down and grins at her with his cigarette still poised between his teeth, exhaling only when she smiles back.
"Where do you wanna meet after school?" he asks.
"About that," Bebe says sheepishly, "Do you think you could skip eighth?"
"Anything for you," Kenny replies cheekily, throwing in a wink. He smokes a little more, though, and Bebe knows that he's stressed out. Kenny won't say anything, of course. He doesn't like being worried about.
"It'll be okay," Bebe insists. They're driving to the clinic today – it's a little more than forty five minutes away, and Bebe doesn't want to have to go alone. She doesn't think that Kenny would have let her, anyway.
She spoke to her mom quietly about the situation. If Bebe had had another option, she wouldn't have told her parents at all, but she's a couple months shy of eighteen and she needs parental consent to get the pregnancy terminated. Thank God her mom's a reasonable person – although she immediately said, "It's Kenny's, isn't it?" and somehow, that made Bebe feel worse about everything. Her mom likes Kenny. She's said as much to Bebe herself. "He's a good kid," is her favorite idiom, one that she says when she's thinking of bruises and the burns, or how Kenny sometimes shows up with his sister in the dead of night on a weekday.
The way Bebe sees it, the smartest option is to abort.
Bebe still wants to go to school, and Kenny can't take care of a baby. He's already taking care of his sister, and paying some of the bills for his folks. His dad is scary. Bebe doesn't like him. Stuart always smells like booze and body odor, and he's rough with Kenny. Kenny can hold his own, she knows, but that doesn't stop her from feeling vicious hatred for Stuart and Kevin.
She just can't afford it.
And who knows what'll happen to Kenny and Bebe once they've graduated? As much as she adores him, she doesn't think they'll last forever. What kind of life is that for a kid? Never seeing its parents, living off of government checks and being passed from day care to day care. Bebe can't do that, and neither can Kenny.
They just can't.
Her mother is picking them up at two thirty. They're driving to Buena Vista. They're taking care of it. Her mom will drop her off at her car. Bebe will probably drive home after that, and she'll sleep and eat dinner like nothing has happened.
Across from them, Craig shifts awake. He stares at Kenny and Bebe as if daring them to say something about the fact that he fell asleep in somebody's lap, and pats his head, glancing around for his hat.
"Morning, baby," she says, even though she knows it'll piss him off.
Craig flips her off and snatches his hat out of Tweek's hand, glaring as he sits.
Kenny rolls his eyes and crushes his cigarette butt underneath his boots. He stands and stretches, offering Bebe a hand up. He's frowning still, a wrinkle between his brows. If nicotine isn't working to calm him down, he needs something more – something like sex. Except lunch is almost over, and they don't have time to retreat to her car to take care of business.
"C'mere," she says, an idea striking her.
Bebe leads Kenny to the upstairs bathrooms. In their sophomore year, Wendy fought tooth and nail to have a gender neutral bathroom installed. She won, and though it's only a single toilet bathroom, Bebe's proud of her best friend. For the most part it seems to be a place where the students mess around, although Bebe has seen Butters use it from time to time.
She locks the door behind them and turns back to Kenny with a smile, a real one.
"What are we doing?" Kenny drawls. He knows the answer.
"You need to calm the fuck down, honey," Bebe responds. She pushes him back against the wall, right beside the hand dryer that doesn't do shit to dry anybody's hands, but was a nice, green thought.
He stares as she unbuttons his tattered jeans, one of her nails catching against the zipper. One side of his mouth quirks up and he protests, "Bebe, you don't have to – I'm just – fuck. I'm worried about you. It's not a big de –"
Bebe puts two fingers against his lips, effectively shushing him. She replies, "Baby, the fact that you're arguing with me about getting a blowjob is a sure fucking sign that you need one."
He cocks a brow as she pulls his jeans and boxers down to his knees and asks, "What if I say no?"
"Then I'll stop," answers Bebe, "You're being facetious, dear." She takes his cock in hand and rubs gently.
Kenny purses his lips. The expression on his face makes her pause her movement, and when she does, he tucks a stray curl behind her ear and smiles at her wearily. Kenny leans down and kisses her and says, "Sorry. I'm being stupid."
"If you want me to stop, I will," she says, though she strokes him again, working a slow rhythm.
Kenny bucks his hips into her hand and pants, "Just let me reciprocate, okay?" He lets out a tiny moan when she flicks her wrist just right and clutches at her hair, pulling just a little.
"We'll be late for class if you do," Bebe says pointedly. She sinks onto her knees, the tile cold against her legs, even with her favorite purple leggings on.
"Do you care – oh, shit," Kenny asks, cursing when she runs the flat of her tongue from base to tip.
"Not really," she answers, "Do you?"
"No, baby, that's why I offered," Kenny replies, his words disappearing into another deep groan when she pulls him into her mouth. They're in a hurry, and so Bebe doesn't bother teasing and drawing it out like she tends to enjoy doing. Kenny comes within minutes, after which he promptly heaves her up and deposits her on the bathroom sink.
Kenny tugs her panties aside, dipping his head underneath her skirt to tongue and suck inside her, melting Bebe into a puddle of herself until her orgasm rushes over her in waves.
They rearrange themselves and kiss a little more before exiting, heading off in opposite directions toward their respective classes.
The day wears on. Bebe is less tense initially, but as she makes it through the last few classes of the day, her nervousness returns with a vengeance. Will it hurt? Will she be okay? What if something goes wrong? She wonders if Kenny is thinking the same thing, but realizes that he's probably just worried about spending almost an hour in a car with Bebe's mom – Kenny likes her mom, usually. Bebe thinks he's embarrassed that he fucked up and got her pregnant. He tends to be cautious as fuck when it comes to sex, maybe because his parents were teenagers when they had Kevin and barely twenty when they had him. If there's anything Kenny doesn't want to be, it's like his parents.
When Bebe leaves seventh period, gathers her belongings, and tromps outside, Kenny is already standing by the door. He reeks of Stan's cologne, probably because he doesn't want Bebe's mom to smell the cigarette smoke on his clothes and in his hair.
Kenny kisses the top of her head and mumbles something about how nice her shampoo smells, when Bebe's mother pulls up. He maintains his distance, then, though Bebe doesn't know why. Her mom already knows that they've fucked, and leaving room between them isn't going to change anything now.
"How are you feeling, honey?" asks Bebe's mom, as Bebe slips into the passenger's seat and Kenny loads into the back. She turns back to look at Kenny and says, "Hello, Kenny."
"I'm fine," answers Bebe.
"Hey, Mrs. Stevens," Kenny mumbles.
This is going to be a terrible car ride.
o.o.o.o
Kenny drifts off on the ride to Buena Vista to the sound of Bebe and her mother talking quietly over cheesy eighties songs. He knows logically that Mrs. Stevens isn't angry at him, even if this whole situation is entirely his fault. If he'd just fucking told Bebe about the condom – but he can't think like that. He didn't tell her, and now he's facing the music. He doesn't like feeling this way, like an irresponsible fuck-up, like the person that all of South Park expects him to be. Like his parents.
The motion of the car jerks Kenny awake on a turn. He blinks. In front of him, he can see Bebe slumped over against the window glass, probably twice as tired as he is. He fiddles with his phone, texting Kyle absently about his whereabouts as they turn into a parking lot. Kenny has only told Kyle about the situation between him and Bebe, and that's only because Kyle happened to show up at his doorstep with a sandwich while Kenny was high. Kyle does that sometimes – bring him leftovers from the Broflovski family dinner. At first Kenny objected to being brought food like a kept dog, but he stopped complaining when he realized that Gerald and Sheila are both masterful cooks, and Kyle was just trying to be a good friend.
"Honey, we're here," Mrs. Stevens says, poking Bebe's shoulder.
Bebe jolts out of sleep and smiles, sliding out of the car.
Inside, there's a mountain of paperwork to be done. Sometimes Kenny has to look things over, though he isn't certain why. He scans and signs and places them in a pile, like a paperwork assembly line. When all is said and done, they wait for a few long minutes in silence, nothing but the waiting room music to fill it. Bebe slips her fingers into Kenny's, squeezing his hand like he's the one that needs to be comforted. Maybe he is. He doesn't know why. He's losing sleep over it, and he thinks it's because he's worried about Bebe.
Which is stupid. He doesn't need to worry about Bebe. She has a beautiful, warm house. A big bed. Understanding parents. She's gorgeous and she knows it. She's smart and she knows it. She has everything.
Kenny knows better to think that she can't be broken, though. Maybe he thinks that if she has one little thing go wrong in her perfect life that she'll shatter. That's stupid of him to think, perhaps. But he still doesn't ever want it to happen.
"Bebe Stevens?"
All three of them turn sharply to look at the door, where a cheerful-looking nurse in floral scrubs is standing with a clipboard. Bebe and her mother stand, though at the door, Kenny hears the nurse explain that there are certain parts of the clinic that are limited. He stands at that, too, following them into the back.
They draw Bebe's blood and check her blood pressure, going through a laundry list of standard procedures before taking Bebe to a room. It's there that Kenny and Mrs. Stevens are turned away, and told that it will be a couple of hours before Bebe is released.
When Kenny and Mrs. Stevens return to the waiting room, Mrs. Stevens is frowning, looking worried. Maybe Kenny looks the same, because she places a hand on his shoulder and asks, "Do you want to get some ice cream, honey?" finishing her sentence with a fragile smile.
"Um," Kenny manages, because he doesn't know what he's supposed to say. He shakes his head and says, "I'd rather just stay here."
"Yes, yes. That's probably a better idea," Mrs. Stevens agrees. She pats Kenny's arm and plops back into one of the waiting room chairs.
Kenny follows suit. He waits a beat, and then decides it's time for him to sneak in what he's been meaning to do – he pulls his wallet out of his back pocket (a duct tape thing that Ike made him for his birthday last year), tugs out the wrinkled bills where he'd tucked them safely away, and sticks them out in front of Bebe's mom with a muttered, "Here. For the, um, abortion. I know it's not a lot, but it's all I could pull together."
Two hundred dollars. He'd been saving for a car, but this is more important. God, he's an idiot.
"Kenny," Mrs. Stevens says, staring at the money but not taking it, "I can't take your money, dear."
Kenny presses it in her hand and says, "Please, Mrs. Stevens. This is – it's um. It's my fault. It's my responsibility. I'd pay for the whole thing but I – I can't afford it, so –"
"Honey," Mrs. Stevens protests again, pushing the cash back toward him.
"Please take it," Kenny says, hearing the desperation in his own voice. He sounds so ridiculous. So fucking foolish. He hates being here. He hates that he let this happen. He just wants to curl up and die – and that's saying a lot. He hates dying. But anything would feel better than this amount of worry, and this amount of shame. At least nobody has to know that he's a self-fulfilling McCormick prophecy.
Kenny closes Mrs. Stevens fingers over the cash, touching her fake pink nails to her palm. He smiles a little, realizing that this must be where Bebe got her taste in nails. After a long silence, Mrs. Stevens exhales out of her nostrils and retrieves her pink, faux-crocodile skin wallet from her knock-off purse, sliding the money inside.
They don't talk after that, for which Kenny is grateful. He can ponder his own dumbassery in quiet, thinking about how he needs to get a job and how Karen needs to go to the dentist, and how he needs to do too many things that cost too much money with not enough time.
He texts Kyle and Stan, and then Wendy when she asks how Bebe's doing. Kenny supposes that he and Bebe had a silent pact that they could tell one friend each – he doesn't know why he told Kyle. Kenny doesn't really have a best friend, not the way that Bebe and Wendy are, anyway. Or how Stan and Kyle are. He has lots of people but nobody really close. Typically he likes it that way. Now, it's exhausting and a little lonely.
He falls asleep again. He doesn't mean to, but he does, slumping into the waiting room chair. When he wakes up, Bebe's mom is reading a romance novel with a buff guy on the cover, his shirt half unbuttoned and his dark hair billowing back behind him in the breeze. Kenny wishes that he'd thought to bring a book, but bringing a book isn't the kind of thing that a McCormick thinks of.
A little more than an hour later, Bebe appears, holding a bundle of paperwork to her chest, and looking exhausted. They sign her out at the front desk and pay (Kenny refuses to look at the bill. Instead, he hangs back and pretends to be texting when he's really reading the same text from Kyle over and over just so he doesn't have to see how much he's cost the Stevens).
Mrs. Stevens doesn't say anything when Bebe slips into the backseat with Kenny. They drive with the eighties station up on high volume. Kenny feels dazed, like he knows what just happened but as though he can't really grasp it. He's glad it happened, though. He can admit – only to himself – that he was scared shitless. He is the last person on earth that has the means to be a father. His family uses their fists or empty beer bottle to solve their problems. There's still a meth lab in the back yard. His brother puts out his fucking cigarettes on Kenny, for fuck's sake. He doesn't even want to fucking know what Kevin would do with an infant around.
He's relieved, he realizes. He doesn't have to worry about that anymore. He can continue to concentrate on getting through school and taking care of his mom and Karen.
Mrs. Stevens drops Bebe and Kenny at Bebe's car in the otherwise empty school parking lot with instructions for Bebe to take it easy and make sure that she's home by ten at the latest.
"Do you want me to drive?" asks Kenny.
"Yeah," Bebe answers tiredly, and she hands him the keys.
It's only when Kenny starts her car that he realizes that he doesn't know where they're going. He asks, "Um, are you hungry?"
"Just tired," she replies, "Could we – I mean, could I take a nap at your house, maybe?"
Kenny wasn't expecting that. Bebe's never been inside his house before. The only people that have are Stan, Kyle and Cartman, and he rarely lets them over if he can help it. He chews on his lip, prodding at his lip rings with his tongue. He almost says no, but it isn't a huge request. He can do that. If they're in his room, nobody will bother him. So Kenny nods, but warns, "My bed isn't as comfy as yours."
Still, he feels his shoulders creep up closer to his ears when they pull in front of his house, which is in bad need of a paint job and a new roof. They don't have insurance, though, and therefore they don't have the money to get the damage taken care of, even though most of it is from a brutal hail storm that happened two entire years ago.
At the door, Kenny swallows the lump in his throat and turns back to Bebe, who is curiously staring at the wreck of a car sitting in their front lawn. A "project" that Stuart brought home when he was still in middle school, and that never got finished. He mumbles, "Just stick behind me, okay?" He laces his fingers in hers, before pushing open the front door.
Kevin is on the couch, sacked out in front of the television wearing nothing but an old t-shirt and his underwear. He starts a little when the front door slams closed behind Kenny and Bebe, and stares at them through tweaked out, glazed eyes. He takes a pull off of the beer in his fist, but makes no indication that he sees Kenny and Bebe. Kenny's glad of that. His brother is notoriously creepy to innocent attractive women, and he doesn't want Bebe to be freaked out.
He tugs her upstairs before she can focus too hard on the stained carpets or the debris of bottles and cans and old wadded-up fast food bags, or the fact that the only decoration on their living room wall is a neon sign advertising beer.
Kenny's bedroom isn't much better. His dirty clothes are scattered on the floor, and his bed isn't as much of a bed as it is a mattress sitting on the floor. He pretends not to notice that Bebe is staring, and collapses into his covers, pulling them up and peeling them back in invitation. Bebe sits on the edge, slipping off her red patent leather shoes before she scoots in next to him.
Kenny pulls her in tight, her back pressed up against his chest. She smells nice, like some perfume that probably cost a month in their electric bills.
Kenny doesn't realize that he's crying until Bebe blurts, "Oh, sweetheart," and turns around in his arms, nosing at the wet tracks on his cheeks. She strokes her fingers through his hair and asks softly, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he says at first, because that's the answer that he always gives.
"You're crying, baby. Something's wrong," Bebe says. She presses her lips to the tip of Kenny's nose, and he can smell her strawberry lipgloss lingering when she pulls back a few inches.
"I'm relieved," he says, because that's part of it. Having Bebe in his house is scary as all hell. It's showing her a part of him that he never wanted her to see. She has to have known at least part of this. He knows that she's seen his house before, but he doesn't think that she's ever been inside, and inside is the worst of it. Bebe studies him, and so he continues, "and I – I hate my house. We can leave. If, you know, you're uncomfortable."
"I like it in your bed," Bebe tells him, sealing her words with a gentle kiss, "It smells like you."
Kenny makes a face, his brows lifting high, "Like cigarettes?"
Bebe laughs lightly and responds, "Sort of. But it just smells like you. I like it."
"You're a fucking weird-ass girl, then," Kenny responds. Bebe replies to this by smacking his arm.
They settle into each other after that. Bebe falls asleep first, her head nestled so close up against Kenny's collarbone that all he can see is the mass of blond curls populating her head. He dozes off after.
Kenny wakes a little more than an hour later. He extricates himself from Bebe's grip only to retrieve his ancient laptop, surfing through meme websites and chuckling to himself quietly.
Somebody knocks on his door, and doesn't wait for Kenny's okay to come in – which makes the intruder Kyle, naturally.
"Um, am I intruding?" he asks, indicating to Bebe, whose mouth is open just a little as she's still dead to the world.
Kenny shakes his head, "Nah. What's up?" Kyle tends to text ahead of time to let people know that he's dropping in – and sure enough, when Kenny checks his phone, there are three unread texts from Kyle, the latter two impatient and brusque about his impending visit to Kenny's house.
"I was just bringing the homework from eighth," shrugs Kyle, passing Kenny a packet and the reading material, "How, um, how did everything go?"
"Okay, I guess," Kenny answers, "I mean. I didn't do anything. You'd have to ask her."
Kyle frowns at that a little, using the same frown he uses when he's working on a particularly challenging calculus problem. He tilts his head a little, chewing his lower lip before he says pensively, "You're lucky, you know." And Kyle points vaguely to Bebe, who curls in at that exact moment closer to Kenny. She's awake, he realizes, and he glances up sharply to warn Kyle to stop talking.
But Kyle doesn't stop. He goes on, "She's like…perfect, dude. She's funny, and smart, and she's fucking beautiful as hell. I've wanted her – or at least someone like her – since like the seventh grade."
"What? Why didn't you tell me, dude?"
"I dunno. You guys are like, really happy," Kyle shrugs, "It pisses me off sometimes, how happy you guys are. You guys and Stan and Wendy, and Cartman and himself."
Kenny snorts at that. There's just barely a beat of time, which Bebe takes to announce that she's awake. Kenny wonders if she's uncomfortable after hearing Kyle's confession, but she's doesn't indicate that when she stretches like a cat and noses at Kenny's thigh. She glances over and like a true actress asks, "What's Kyle doing here?"
"Oh, um, I'm just going," Kyle says. Red stains his cheeks, rapidly moving to his ears and neck. He scratches a hand through his hair and says, "See you, Kenny. Uh, bye, Bebe."
"Wait," Bebe says, "I'm hungry. You wanna come with us to Denny's? It's on me."
Kyle stops, shuffling a little, clearly flustered. He swallows and agrees, "Um, sure, I guess."
Bebe rolls over, tugging Kenny's blankets off of her. She pushes her red shoes onto her feet, swaying a little when she stands. Kenny catches her and mumbles, "Whoa, you okay?"
"I'm a little sore," Bebe admits, pink flushing across her cheeks.
Kenny rubs a hand through her hair and says, "I'll drive, then, sweetheart."
The way to Denny's, like everything is in South Park, is short. Kenny parks in a nice spot in the front, right next to Henrietta's car – marked only by the fact that the back is splattered in stickers of bands that he's never heard of and isn't sure he wants to hear of.
On the way to their table Henrietta sticks her tongue through her thick fingers at Bebe, the fluorescent light glinting off of her stubby nails, which are painted black. Bebe throws in a wink back, instantly sending Kenny into a fantasy of two curvy girls doing very dirty things. When he slides into the booth, Bebe is whispering something in Kyle's ear, something that's turned Kyle red all over again.
"Excuse me," he says, jolting up when Kenny slings his arm around Bebe, and Kyle darts off in the direction of the restrooms.
Kenny cocks a single brows and inquires, "Do I want to know what you just told him?"
"Only the truth," responds Bebe.
"The truth?" repeats Kenny, brow lifting ever higher.
"Jenny likes him," shrugs Bebe, "I thought he'd be interested to hear it. She's a little melodramatic, but she's just as smart as he is."
Kenny finds himself laughing before he can help it. He'd almost – almost – been jealous. He pulls Bebe and kisses her loudly on the cheek, loudly enough that Henrietta can hear and know that Bebe is taken. He nips at her earlobe and sings under his breath, "Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match…"
Bebe chuckles and shoves him away.
And like that, the stress lifts off of his shoulders. Kenny doesn't know what it is about this girl that he loves so fucking much. Maybe it's her wild hair or her fantastic rack, but other girls have those things – it's more that there's nobody else is quite like Bebe, and nobody ever will be.
Kenny likes it that way.
o.o.o.o
Every Friday after school, Tweek's mom drives him to Bailey to his PO box, where he collects the ever-growing pile of letters that people send to Are You Mental? in hopes of getting some advice. Most of the time, Tweek knows how to answer them. He answers them like one of his therapists would answer, only maybe with a little more swearing than advisable. Most of the questions are kind of obvious or silly, but that's the root of the problem – public schools don't teach the answers to the obvious and silly questions about life and sex and drugs and anything that a teenager might be curious about. Instead, they stick their fingers in their ears and have a "No! Bad! Don't do it!" policy. They don't teach their students how to be safe.
It's a fucking farce.
Tweek complains about this the most on his blog. Lots of people agree with him, and they like his art, too. Of course, he keeps himself anonymous. He doesn't ever want to get caught in the game. They're always trying to catch him.
But they won't, not this time. Tweek is helping people. He's helping them learn useful ways to be safe while having the fun that they'd be having dangerously. He's helping them with sex and coping and general teenage bullshit.
"Pumpkin, we're here," says his mother, placing her hand on his shoulder. Tweek flips off his music and lets his headphones hang around his neck, following his mother into the post office. She's wearing a pretty dress today, a red one. Tweek wonders if this is a shade of red that Craig can see, or if it's one of the shades that he mixes up with green. He's glad he isn't colorblind like Craig is. Being colorblind would be hard.
Tweek's mom has to keep track of the key to his box. He knows that he would lose it. He loses things all the time. She keeps it on her keyring, with the emergency numbers for Tweek's special doctors and the bunny rabbit keychain that his dad brought back for her when he went to a coffee convention in San Francisco.
Tweek opens up the box. Inside, he counts four new letters to his zine. He takes them out one by one, handing them to his mom. None of them have return addresses, not that he ever expects that they will. So many people are embarrassed about normal-ass shit, like being horny or gay or having a weird period. It seems strange to him that people worry about those little things. At least most people don't have his problems. Most kids don't have voices in their heads telling them that everybody they love is going to die.
He frowns.
"When we get home, I was thinking that I would make those muffins that you like. You know, the ones with the blueberries and lemon rind?" his mom runs a hand over his hair. She does that a lot – petting his hair. She does it when she's thinks that he's upset, which is why he thought it might comfort Craig, too. Craig has nice hair. It's nothing like Tweek's. It's shiny and smooth and black.
"Sounds good, mommy," he says cheerfully. He does like those muffins. She's been baking more for him since she took his regular cigarettes away and made him smoke the dumb-looking electronic one. It's probably to keep him from pitching a fit, he knows, but he only pitches fits when entirely necessary, and as long as he's getting his nicotine fix he doesn't care enough to throw a tantrum.
Tweek slides his thumbnail under the flap of the first of the envelopes. It's one of his previous writers thanking him for his advice, which makes him smile. He'll tape it to his bedroom wall.
The second one is in neat handwriting describing borderline pathetic and unrequited love, something that Tweek can save for later.
Tweek thinks he might recognize the handwriting on the third letter. It's on college-ruled notebook paper in awful, sloppy chicken scratch.
Dear Mental:
I have a lot of problems with my dad. It's been that way since I was little. When he gets angry, he beats me up, sometimes. I can't get out of my house. I have pets. What do I do?
Sincerely, All Alone.
Tweek's heart doesn't feel right. It feel sore, like it's been punched by Craig's mean left hook. He reads it again, just to make sure that he didn't misread, because maybe the author meant something else. He reads it a third time, and again after that.
Tweek flips the page over, thinking that maybe there's something else. That no, one of his classmates isn't getting hurt by his dad.
Instead, in lightly drawn pencil, Tweek finds a doodle of a bicycle.
o.o.o.o
Thank you to my fabulous, fucking fantastic reviewers: MariePierre, prettyoddrydonfan, w0rmsign, Kuutamolla, lucy sinclair, lilykinz200, myspoonistoobig, mallorymichael, Reverse Psychology, WizerdBeards, FalloutAngel, Crazy88inator, KirstenTheDestroyer, Melissamelon, KeiMaxwell, and SavannahJan3yo.
If you are curious about why I wrote Bebe having an abortion, feel free to message me. Just know that I am adamantly pro-choice and I'm not interested in arguing.