Stan's POV:

I rolled over to the other side of my bed and Wendy breathed out heavily saying, "Holy shit. We need to do this more often."

She traced a circle around my back as I lit a cigarette. I didn't respond to her because there was nothing to say. It's not like I really like her or even have that many emotions for her anymore after she had cheated on me. "Stan", she groaned. "Do you really need to do that every second of the day?"

"Yeah, I actually do."

"I'm not going to kiss you with your breath smelling like that shit."

"You know what? Bill Hicks once said 'I smoke. If this bothers anyone, I suggest you look around at the world in which we live and shut your fucking mouth."

Her reaction was pretty obvious. She pulled my shoulder so I could face her and asked, "The hell does that mean?"

"It means", I retorted. "That you need to shut your fucking mouth."

She slammed her hand against my face and I had every attention of just hitting her back, but I wasn't a violent man. Although, I do play football and gave a kid a broken arm once. I got out of my bed, pulled my boxers up, and then went to the restroom. My phone was ringing and I sat on the toilet to answer it.

I answered to the phone, "I'm about to take a gigantic dump, so please call me later."

"WAIT STAN! It's important."

It was Kyle. Must have been somewhat important if he was going to interrupt me at a time like this. I took a drag off my cigarette and said, "What's going on?"

"Cartman is in the hospital. He tried to kill himself."

"Fucking what?"

I pulled up the toilet lid, tossed the fag in, and flushed. "He's at Hells Pass hospital right? I can be there in fifteen minutes."

"He's not awake yet", he stuttered. "He lost allot of blood and my parents are recommending him to go into impatient treatment at a mental health facility when he wakes up."

"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

"I wouldn't be kidding with this shit. Just get over here."

I hung up the phone, rushed out of the bathroom, and grabbed my pants. Wendy got up and asked, "Is something wrong?"

"Yeah. I can't talk about it with you, but it's important. My dad can give you a ride home I'm sure."

"Wait. I'm your girlfriend. We don't keep secrets."

"Listen to me", I grunted out of anger. "This is personal. I need you to shut the fuck up. Kay'?"

She was shocked and silent. I tossed on a baseball shirt, then my brown jacket, and ran down the stairs. The car keys were still in my pocket luckily. There was times that she would take them from me so anytime I was about to leave I would have to come back to her for sex in order to get them back. And that was just for school in the mornings.

I rushed out to the garage and tried to make sure my dumbass sister or aggravating parents wouldn't ask me questions. When I got in my car my mom opened the door and started screaming some nonsense. I didn't know what she was saying, but I'm sure it went something along the lines of "Where the fuck are you going".

The traffic couldn't be any slower than it was today. It's fucking night time and traffic is going on? And in a place like South Park where you can go ten minutes without seeing a car? Eventually, I did get to Hell's Pass hospital. Then there was this bitchy nurse that I went up to and I asked, "I'm looking for my friend Eric Cartman. He was admitted here not too long ago."

"I'm busy, hun", she said ignoring me. I laughed to myself for a second and then yelled, "You're not fucking busy! You better fucking help me right now before I smash you're fucking head into the wall!"

I got her attention at that point. She took a few seconds to look his name up and told me his room. It was a couple floors up. Of course the fucking elevators were down so I had to walk up there and I ended up getting lost not knowing where the fuck to go. I stopped near a bathroom and decided to just take a break.

This morning at lunch I remember talking to Kyle. He wasn't eating at all and when I asked him what was wrong, he said that Eric said something to him that scared him. In his words, "Eric whispered to me that he killed someone."

Of course I brushed the thought off and Kyle didn't seem convinced of it, but I didn't feel surprised or in disbelief at all. Hell, he's been through so much that I'd probably kill someone to. The question is who? And why?

My first guess is one of the men who must have raped him. That and maybe someone who could have been hurting his mother at the time. I don't know though. The more I wondered about it the more I wanted to know. Maybe Kenny would know something? But I doubt he'd tell me. Fuck. All I want to do right now is find every man that ever hurt him and kill them all. These were people in South Park – where I fucking live – that were hurting him at some point. It could be the random guy at the grocery store or some crack head that I see pass by me on the way to school. It could be anybody.

All I could do was close my eyes and scream fuck as loud as I could and for as long as I could.

That's when someone came out of one of the stalls. It was Kyle and he blushed immediately when he saw me. "Uhm…hey", he mumbled. "You want to visit Cartman?"

"No. I just came here to stop by and check out some of the nurses. Yes, I want to see him."

He knew I was joking around with him, but it probably wasn't the right time for it. Hell, it wasn't the right time for me to be joking about anything period. We went out of the rest room and he showed me the door where he was, which I had passed by already. I opened the door to see Cartman lying down on a hospital bed and a Nurse standing over him.

"I have to stay in here", she said. "Sense he's on suicide watch right now I have to make sure he doesn't do anything. You can talk to him though."

The nurse pulled up a chair to him and let me sit down. Kyle stood up and he seemed pretty nervous. Cartman's face was almost pale and he looked like a zombie. My guess is that they had put him on several medications and other shit. There were stitches down his right arm and wires everywhere. It was sick to see him there, but I guess now I know how my parents felt when I was in that same position.

I turned my head up towards my friend and said, "Hey Kyle, you know if I could talk to him one on one?"

"Sure."

He went out of the room slowly and I didn't start talking until he had left the room. He turned his head to me and tears were running down his cheeks. "Stan", he uttered. "I'm sorry. I know you don't get it, but this is my only way out."

"No it's not", I replied back to him. "I've been where you are right now. You remember when the rumors that I was dead went around last year for a month? Well, they were on the right page. I tried to kill myself, Eric. I chugged down bottles of Tylenol and my parent's heavy alcohol. When I woke up there were doctors forcing me to drink Chalk. I was vomiting all over the place and I remember feeling like my stomach was going to explode. My parents had me go do impatient at a hospital for two weeks. It helped me out and maybe it could do something for you. I mean, of course there are ups and downs in life, but they can help."

"Nobody can help me. I'm already dead."

"You sure about that? I'm looking at you right now and you seem very much alive to me. Hell, the fact that you can feel emotion makes you more alive than almost every person at our school. "

"Why would you want to kill yourself in the first place? You got one of the hottest girls in school, you're one of the best football players in our school, you have a family, and everyone thinks you're a God."

I looked over to the Nurse, not knowing if I wanted to really say it front of her. He was still crying and I explained, "I've been confused about who I am for a long time. Last year on my birthday Kyle had kissed me. It was something I didn't know if I liked or not. He told me how he felt for me and I didn't know what to do. A couple days later he came over to my house and I was having sex with him. My parents came in the room while we were both naked on my bed fucking. They didn't tell Kyle's parents, but mine hated me after that. They wouldn't speak a single word to me. My mom forced me to see Father Maxi at the church almost every day. I got so sick of all of it that I decided to just try and kill myself. I failed of course."

He seemed surprised. I don't know if it was because I was actually doing that with Kyle or because I actually wanted to die.

"What happened next?"

"Well, my parents tossed me into the loony bin. At first it was bed, but once I started talking about my shit, things got better. I apologized to my parents and they did the same. They would have to deal with the fact that I was bisexual. Of course, Wendy was still always there in front of me. She is the problem I haven't gotten the chance to stop yet, but life is better than it used to be thanks to that crazy fucking place I went to."

He laughed for a couple seconds. It disturbed me to see him just laughing in this situation he was in. I think he was right. He was farther down the spiral then anyone I had ever seen. He bit down on his lip and said, "Tell the nurse to give me back my necklace or I'll rip these stitches out."

I looked over to her and she pulled it out of one her pockets. She walked over to him, put it in his hand and said, "You can have it for now, but you're not allowed to take it with you when you leave to the psychiatric unit."

He gripped onto the Iron Cross necklace and put it against his heart. I know he used to wear it allot in middle school and he told me about the significance of it to me a long time ago. "I'll keep it safe for you", I told him. "You don't want that jew losing it for you."

He giggled, which was good for him. It depressed me to look over at his arm though, because I knew that this wasn't something that would take two weeks to fix. Cartman handed the necklace and I put it in my pocket. The nurse said, "You'll have to go now. He's going to be moved to the institution in about ten minutes, so we have to remove IV's and fill out paper work with his current guardians."

I got up, smiled to him, and walked out. The smile disappeared when I closed the door though, which lead to me crawling up in a ball on the floor and bawling my eyes out. Kyle walked over, sat down, and put his arms around me. It was nothing but tears for about five minutes while his parents went into Eric's room to finish the papers.

I stayed at Kyle's house for the rest of the weekend. We invited Kenny, but apparently he was too busy. He was probably just getting high nonstop like usual. Monday after school I was in his room at his house again and we spent the time watching Terrance and Phillip.

"Is it bad that I want to read Cartman's notebooks", he said. "I mean, they're just stacked up on my bookshelf and there's about twenty of them. Maybe I could understand him better if I did."

I was sitting on the floor reading the plot to some of the films that Eric had took over here. Most of them were about serial killers and sick snuff films. My friend went over to the shelf and grabbed one of the notebooks.

"Stop. That's invading his privacy. Would you want someone doing that to you?"

"He doesn't have to know. We could just read a page or two and put it back."

I climbed up on the bed, pulled out a cigarette, and lit it. He came over and sat next to me.

"Dude", he shrieked. "My mom will kill me if she smells that smoke."

"It's not a big deal. You can read his notebooks all you want, but I'm ok without knowing."

He grinned at me with and I felt like he was going to give me some type of piss faced attitude, but instead he just turned his head back and ignored me. I left the room and went outside in the front yard to finish my cigarette so he would stop bitching about me making the house smell like shit. His parents pulled up a few minutes later and asked me if Kyle and I wanted to visit Eric. My obvious response was, "I'm ready. When are we leaving?"

Sheila looked at her husband and said, "How about right now?"

"Sounds good to me. I'll get Kyle."

I ran back inside to his room and get him, but he wasn't in there. Maybe he was taking a leak in the restroom. I knocked on the bathroom door and he didn't answer, but I could hear him crying. The doorknob slowly opened and he pushed pass me and wept, "He wasn't lying, Stan. He really did kill someone."

"What the fuck are you talking about", I retorted back at him. "We have to go. Your parents said we can go visit Cartman."

"He didn't say who he killed, but he went into description. Holy fucking shit, he's fucking insane. What if he can't be fixed? What if he really is that fucked up in the head that he can't-"

I grabbed onto his shoulder and interrupted him saying, "Shut up. We need to go. He needs us more than ever. I don't give a shit that he's killed, he's not a fucked up person. Not everyone who's got blood on their hands turns out to be absolutely insane. Stop second guessing shit and assuming all these things. He's our friend and no matter what he's done we need to be there for him."

That shut him up pretty well. We got out of the house and spent the drive to the hospital in complete silence. It seems like silence was something that happened more often now after things about Eric were revealed. I don't know if it's all been a shock or we don't know what to say now. Maybe both.

We parked out next to the hospital. The psych ward that he's in turns out to be the same one that I went to. When we got inside they had to check us to make sure we didn't have any weapons or sharp objects. Then all of us would be directed through a door that needed a card to have it opened. It all brought back old memories.

Eric's Therapist greeted us and led us to a small room where Eric was. Kyle's parents left us alone with him. All that was inside this room was three chairs, a table, and white walls. Cartman was in the typical clothes they give to impatient people who haven't gotten clothes sent in yet.

"Has everything been ok", Kyle asked. "You don't seem as sick."

Cartman said nothing but just laid his head down against the table drooling. His hands were shaking and you could hear his heavy breath. I realized that this place probably wasn't that good for him. Finally, he spoke, "They've put me on medications. I can't stop shaking and I feel like a fucking zombie. I'm the lowest level at this place and got in two fights during group meetings. I've already lost ten pounds because the only thing I've ate is fucking crackers. They won't give me any food that I like. It's all shit. The therapist is forcing me to say every little detail about my life. Yesterday they did a CAT scan on me and some other shit. They said I have Schizophrenia, and I've probably had it sense I was a kid. The hallucinations and voices won't stop even with all the medications. Nobody can relate to me. I fucking hate this place."

Kyle looked shocked, but I wasn't. It made sense to me what they were doing at this place and I hated it because I told him how good it would all be. Does that make me a liar?

We spent about ten minutes talking about childhood memories until a Nurse came in and told us we needed to go. Before I left, I got down on the floor and said, "I got to tie my shoes real quick."

Everyone left the room and I pulled out the iron cross necklace from my sock. I grabbed Eric's stitched up arm and put it in his hand. He looked up to me with this genuine smile and I gave one back.

"Remember the people that love you", I told him. "You still have your friends who care about you more than anything. Once you get out of this place we'll be closer than ever as friends. Just don't lose hope. We need you with us more than you think."

And with that, I left.

Sorry for the long wait. Hope this shows you that there is hope for Eric. There is still a part of the story that needs to be told, so don't think the tension is gone yet.