Happy Holidays, everyone! The first sentence of this chapter kind of sums up my feelings on how long it took me to update. Two weeks? Are you serious? Midterms really, really suck. However, I am officially accepted to college now, so applications are no longer an excuse. And Winter Break began last week, so I should be updating faster. The key word there is should. I tend to fail at these things sometimes.
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This is ridiculous. Absolutely fucking ridiculous.
Kyle couldn't understand how someone he thought he hated for so many years could make him feel the conflicting emotions he was feeling now. Was there really any point in trying to resist it anymore? Kyle didn't think so. He had been fighting this losing battle for far too long now. All that was left to do was suffer in silence.
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Somehow, it was now Friday. Kenny wasn't exactly sure how the week could have flown by so quickly, but he wasn't going to question it. And he sure as hell wasn't going to complain about it either.
He was, however, going to complain about his friends. Two of them, to be exact.
Cartman is so goddamn stubborn! If he would just tell Kyle the truth, he may actually get what he wants. And I don't think Kyle has been telling the truth either. The way he sneaks glances at Cartman in the hall while still trying to avoid him… it just doesn't add up.
Kenny was starting to think that what had happened to Kyle in the hospital was more of a fantasy than a hallucination.
Immediately, a smirk made its way onto Kenny's hidden face.
Kyle, you little liar.
English class just got a lot more interesting.
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Kyle pretended to follow along with his English teacher in Catcher In The Rye, but this proved to be more difficult than it should have been. For one, his mind was on other things. Namely, Cartman.
Also, he found this part of the book to be especially frustrating. Holden was reflecting on Jane Gallagher, a girl he used to play chess with and had really liked. It had always disappointed Kyle that Holden never got up the nerve to reconnect with Jane at the end, but then Catcher in the Rye wasn't really that kind of book.
Nevertheless, he didn't feel like analyzing this particular passage at the moment, so he flipped through the pages absentmindedly until his heart nearly stopped as his eyes rested on a certain paragraph in Chapter Three.
"I'm the most terrific liar you ever saw in your life. It's awful. If I'm on my way to the store to buy a magazine, even, and somebody asks me where I'm going, I'm liable to say I'm going to the opera. It's terrible."
Why did everything have to relate back to Eric Cartman, First Class Liar Extraordinaire?
That was a question that Kyle still didn't have an answer to.
It suddenly dawned on Kyle that maybe this was the reason he had always hated those 'Choose Your Own Ending' books that everyone used to read: they had no set answers. Kyle had enough ambiguity in his life without subjecting himself to it in his free time. Besides, those books were totally unrealistic. If life were actually like that, Kyle would have 'chosen his own ending' a long time ago.
In Kyle's opinion, it didn't really make a difference what this ending would have been, seeing as it was never going to happen anyway.
Wishful thinking.
Those words had become all too familiar in the past three weeks.
"Kyle Broflovski!"
Kyle was forced to snap out of his musings, not that he could say he really minded.
"Yes, Ms. Williams?"
"Would you care to answer the question that I have so patiently asked you three times?"
"Oh uh yeah, sorry. Um… Holden was always fascinated with how Jane kept her kings in the back row every time they played chess."
"Very good, Kyle. I was under the impression that you weren't paying attention."
Kyle breathed a sigh of relief. For the first time in awhile, he was thankful that he had read this book so many times already. And of course that Ms. Williams' questions were always so predictable.
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"Stan, you can stop turning green now. The worst is over, you fucking pussy."
Stan and Cartman had finished dissecting the fetal pig in Biology earlier that week, so now all that was left was the lab write-up. However, just the thought of the whole procedure was enough to make Stan sick all over again.
"Dude, shut up. This is fucking disgusting and any normal person would agree with me."
"Well then I guess no one in this class is normal," Cartman responded as he gestured around the room where their other classmates were diligently checking measurements and writing their conclusion paragraphs. The lingering stench of dead pig didn't seem to bother anyone else in the slightest.
"Ugh, whatever. Let's just get this done."
Stan held his nose with his left hand and began organizing their data into a small chart with his right. This was going to be a long 45 minutes.
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Cartman peered over Stan's shoulder as Stan formulated some sort of data table. At least this way, it would appear as if Cartman were paying attention to his partner's work.
In actuality, Cartman didn't find this lab report to be the least bit interesting. Sure it was entertaining to watch Stan try to hold his nose while simultaneously filling out a chart, but with Cartman's short attention span, even another person's discomfort couldn't always keep him focused for long. Depending on the person, of course. The pain of certain people had the potential to keep Cartman entertained for hours. Because it wasn't always just about their pain, it was how they reacted to it, how they dealt with it.
Perhaps Cartman didn't find Stan to be very amusing because Stan was quite good at handling difficult situations. He could still be a total crybaby at times, but when it came down to it, he was pretty practical and in Cartman's opinion, this made his reactions all too predictable and boring overall.
Kyle, on the other hand, was a different story entirely. Although he was also practical, his temper sometimes led his actions to be rather unpredictable, and as of late, without clear motive.
But for Cartman, this was all part of Kyle's appeal. Kyle was probably one of the only people that never bored Cartman. He could argue back and forth with the redhead for hours and never get tired of it.
This was probably why Cartman didn't find Biology very interesting: it was one of the few periods that he didn't share with Kyle.
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By lunchtime, the boys had pretty much given up on trying to pay attention in their classes. Then again, no one really paid attention to anything on Fridays. Especially not in the afternoon when the weekend was just too close to think about anything else.
The four friends spent the first half of the lunch period eating in silence, either because they were all incredibly hungry, or because none of them could really think of anything to say.
The latter explanation seemed the most likely. Kyle didn't want to say anything that might provoke Cartman and cause another awkward fight, Cartman didn't want to say anything to Kyle that would make him suspicious, Stan didn't want to acknowledge the awkward silence at all, and Kenny didn't want to break the tension because he found it rather amusing. So no one made an attempt to even make small talk.
That is, until Cartman's foot accidently hit Kyle in the shin. The lunch tables really were quite small.
Kyle, assuming that Cartman had done this on purpose, completely forgot about his reasons for preventing any type of confrontation between the two of them.
"Dammit, Cartman! What the hell was that for?"
"What the fuck are you bitching about now, Jew?"
"You just kicked me, asshole!"
"Oh Jesus, chill the fuck out. It wasn't even on purpose."
"Like hell it wasn't!"
"Be serious, Kahl. Do you honestly think I'd voluntarily infect myself with your filthy Jew germs?"
I wish.
"Shut up! Just shut the fuck up! I am not dealing with this today!
By now, Stan was clutching the bridge of his nose in frustration while Kenny looked on as if he were watching an extremely exciting football game.
Here we go again. How long before someone snaps?
Kenny immediately got his answer. He watched in awe as Kyle threw a punch at Cartman's stomach and ran out the emergency exit at the back of the cafeteria. Cartman took a second to recover, but was soon right behind Kyle.
Kenny couldn't help but grin at the sight.
Oh, Kyle. Don't you know that you can't run away forever?