Step nine: Hold close
Chapter Twelve: Blue Fade
During those days, I didn't know if I was a good person or if I was a bad person. I felt a strange sense of righteousness when I didn't tell anyone of my suffering. But at the same time, when I hated people for not noticing my pain I loathed myself like no other, and that, gradually, became all the time.
When I was with Kenny, I felt like I was the worst person in the whole world and I hated myself for it. But strangely, when I was with him, I didn't care.
.
Deep down, I think I knew what emotions Kenny held for me, but I used the fact that he didn't tell me to pretend that they didn't exist.
Despite what I had said to him the previous night, when I woke up, it was to the smell of bacon and eggs and the gentle sun leaking through the gap of his plain curtains to cast a bright line of ray across my torso.
'Good morning sunshine!'
Kenny's bright voice called as he saw me leaning up from his bed.
'Dude, is that bacon?' I asked with slit eyes still blurry from sleep. I almost heard him drop his jaw to the ground at my words in realisation.
'Fuck! I forgot pigs were against your religion!'
It was so warm in his room. I don't know whether that was because of the whole whiteness and openness of the place, or whether it was because spring was around the corner- no scratch that, it was still February- but nevertheless, everything was so bright.
I got up onto my wobbly legs and pondered my way to the kitchen corner where Kenny was stressing about the bacon, and watched the bits of meat sizzling in his frying pan.
'It's okay. I'll eat it.' I muttered plainly, walking away from the chef.
'What!' His voice was shocked, totally and utterly confused.
'I said I'll eat it. It's fine.'
He came trotting to the bed I was sitting on a few seconds later with two plates filled with bread, egg and, wait for it, bacon. He handed one to me nervously, but I took it nonchalantly.
'Are you sure—'
But I had already put a small piece of pig into my mouth. My mom probably would have killed me, but strangely, a sin such like eating pig, if you even call it a sin, didn't even prickle the tiniest bit of guilt inside me. I mean, was God going to punish me now? I doubted it. I doubted everything. The last time I doubted my religion and the existence of God was when I was when I got a haemorrhoid and couldn't go to the toilet. So you could imagine how I felt now.
I could feel Kenny's shocked gaze on me, but what was more uncomfortable was having such a greasy bit of food being pressed down into my stomach. I had a little bite of everything, and then handed the plate to Kenny.
'Thanks. I'm full now.'
He took it still with blank eyes staring at me still. But then as if something flashed inside him, his eyes jolted back to consciousness.
'Dude, I've always wanted to tell you this but— you need to fucking eat more!' and he pressed the plate back into my hands with a fake glare burning his eyes. 'Why don't you eat?'
I took another bite of the bread and glanced at him.
'I'm eating.'
He huffed, and started eating his own food angrily like a wild dog feeding on scraps of food it found in a bin. But there was no way I was going to tell him why I always had no appetite.
I went to school in Kenny's clothes but no one noticed, even as they saw me jump out of Kenny's truck no one commented; no surprise there. No one noticed what I did, or noticed me in general anymore for that matter— except for Stan. He looked at us with jumpy eyes filled with pleasant surprise.
'So, you guys have sorted thing's out, huh?' He said with a wide grin, flinging his arm around my shoulder as the three of us walked to our lockers. 'Don't forget, you owe me an explanation for last night.' He murmured into my ear, his breath slightly ticklish.
'Yeah, I know.' Although I also knew that that explanation was going to be a lie.
'You know, when I heard you panting on the phone and asking me to lie to your parents about where you were, I suspected that you were with a girl.' Stan said to me later that day, leaning down into my ear so that no one else could hear his voice, especially his girlfriend that was standing next to him curiously.
My heart jolted as he whispered those words into my ear. Whether it was from the intimacy, or if it was from his words that were only a step away from the truth, I don't know. Probably both. Whatever it was, I froze wide-eyed as he chuckled and scrunched up my red curls.
'Aww— cute little Kylie has finally lost his virginity— I thought.' He laughed as my faced burned from unexplainable reasons, and he scrunched up my hair again. 'I'm just kidding Kyle! I know you're too innocent for that! I'll wait until you get married for celebrations!'
A toneless laugh escaped my throat. It frizzled up on my lips and died in the air.
The good thing was, was that Kenny was used to acting like nothing had happened. He wasn't clingy, or extra friendly or anything. If anything, he was almost too dry. But the venom I had towards him had drained away over the night. It doesn't mean that I was friendly to him, I just didn't ignore him and flinch away from his physical contact anymore. Not many people noticed this either— they didn't notice anything.
Except for one, apart from Stan.
'You seem more friendly with Kenny now… What happened?' Eric murmured to me quietly with a sharp, thin voice that threatened to cut me with his tongue that was sliding down my neck.
I didn't answer, too busy shutting everything out of my brain in order to cut off Eric's sensations crawling through my body. But the consequence to that was a thick hand squeezing my stomach, fingers digging into bruises. The pain made me flinch, and bring my mind back to full consciousness.
'I only accepted that— that was three years ago…' The pain was evident in my voice and the grinding of my teeth in between words. 'I just- I need to move on—'
His eyes narrowed at my words, dangerously, almost with hatred. More than fear, those eyes sent confusion into me, because he didn't say anything; I didn't know why. Instead he gave me a punch in my gut and a kick in my back when I hit the ground. That was it, so I should have considered myself lucky.
Eric didn't like my befriending with Kenny; that much was obvious. But I didn't know why. Eric didn't necessarily have a sense of schadenfreude, well, he did compared to the average person, but he was more of a sadist. Much more, of a sadist. He liked other's pains, more specifically my pain, to be inflicted by himself. So I didn't know why Eric hated watching me open up to someone, even though it was the slightest amount, to Kenny McCormick.
To be honest, by that time I wasn't the most popular person to hang out with. I tried to hide my misery, as desperately as possible, but quietness and sensitivity, almost bad temper had slowly crept onto my personality. I smiled, I laughed, but my mind was always somewhere far away that I'd miss out on some places I was meant to comment on or laugh at. Don't get me wrong, no one kicked me out of the group or be the slightest mean to me. It's just—it was like I turned into this burden of the group. It was the worst feeling, but I didn't have the courage to break myself away and be alone.
Ha, that would have given Eric all the time in the world wouldn't it?
But I did break apart eventually, not to my choice. It was as if my friendship group was these people on a floating piece of ice stranded at sea. While everyone talked cheerfully on one side, I was on the other side, on the edge, distracted by my pathetic reflection in the water. And as I had my back on everyone, someone crashed their angry foot on the ice, right between me and my friends. A large crack appeared, and the ice split in two, with me on one piece and my friends on the other. And I slowly drifted away from them, all alone.
Just to tell you, it wasn't Eric that broke me apart from everyone. It was someone else, someone I would never have suspected.
'She told me that I have straight eyelashes,' Stan told me. I remember the conversation as clear as the lyrics to my favourite song. 'Long, but straight, like a plank,' he said.
I merely made some noise of acknowledgement in the bottom of my throat as I continued to flow my pen through my notebook. It was just me and Stan that Monday night, and I used that time to feel Stan's presence, his true innocence and kindness, which refreshed me with every second we were alone. If I sounded disinterested in the conversation he was making, it was only because I was using all my energy to focus on his voice.
It had been about a month since I had slept with Kenny, and I had noticed that my feelings for Stan hadn't changed one blink. In fact, it was really as if that night with Kenny had never happened. It was merely a fact in my mind that I never thought about.
'Kyle, are you even listening to me?'
'Mm-hmm…'
I was a millions miles away from registering his words, but I thought I felt Stan's stare on the side of my face.
'What?' I finally asked when his stare was becoming unbearable, making my heart feel like it had moved up to my head and was pumping blood straight into my face.
Stan was chuckling softly, content with himself as if he had just found a piece of the puzzle.
'It's nothing, it's just—' he began, 'You don't notice it normally because your eyelashes are red and hard to see, but— they are insane. So full and long. And they curl a lot, unlike mine.' He pushed my fringe out of my eyes to look at them more carefully for a second, unconsciously drawing his face closer, not noticing or ignoring the burning colour of my face.
He chuckled softly, breath warm and caressing my lips, 'is that a bit gay?'
And that was when Stan's bedroom door opened to let in his girlfriend.
I drew back from Stan's touch as quickly as possible, hoping that his girlfriend wouldn't notice my burning face caused by my intimacy with Stan, and the fact that we were so close that I could practically feel the heat of his lips brush against mine.
But Wendy didn't comment on anything, so I guessed she didn't notice.
'Hey boys, sorry I'm late, I got caught by a junior asking me La Crosse tips,' she said, sitting down beside Stan even closer to him than I was, if that was even possible.
Guilt was crawling into my chest. I don't know why, but it was when I was close to Stan, letting my emotions take over my thoughts about him, that I felt most guilty. Probably because Wendy was one of the kindest people I knew, and the best girlfriend Stan could have, and I knew the strong love that existed between them.
I couldn't take five minutes of it before I got up and said that I had to leave.
As I walked home, my heart was aching for the thought of next Monday. Stan said that he was busy that day and that we wouldn't be able to do our study session. I was fine with that, although I felt a little pity for it, until Wendy said that we should do a study session anyway, just her and me.
Wendy was a nice girl, interesting, funny and intelligent and it was a pleasure talking to her. But that next Monday, I didn't know if it was because we were so into our studying, but thing's between us were a little quiet.
Me? I was quiet because I always was around Wendy, and pretty much everyone else nowadays. When I was around her, all I could think of was Stan and my feelings for him. I would have this silently simmering guilt inside me, no matter how little it was, it was always there. Sometimes I didn't know how I was coping with it, it hurt, after all.
And that is why, I guess, I finally chose to talk to her.
'Hey, Kyle? How are things?' She asked me gently without taking her eyes off her textbook. But I could still feel her observing me.
'What things?'
'You know, life. I hope my best friend hasn't done anything bad to you again. She can be a bitch sometimes.' She whispered with a cheeky grin and a wink, which naturally made me smile.
'Yeah, thing's are okay,' I answered, remembering the time she said that she trusted me and not her friend. Morals always came straight with her, and didn't let friendships blind her from the truth. I liked her for that. I really did.
'Are you sure?' But sometimes her observational eye could be inconvenient, like now when she could look past my words and see the misery lurking inside me. That was an ability her boyfriend didn't really have.
The sincere worry in her voice and her sad frown made my insides squeeze horribly. From guilt, yes, and from the excruciating need to tell someone about my pain. I didn't know that I had such an urge, but apparently, as I felt Wendy's warm chocolate eyes embrace me, I knew that I did.
So I decided to tell her one tiny little fragment of my misery.
'Wendy, I'm gay.'
'Oh?'
'Since before I went out with Bebe last year.'
'Oh…'
No, that wasn't it. That was just an introduction.
'Look, I don't want you to think deeply of this because I know all too well that you are together and I don't want to interfere with you guys because you two are the best people I know but—' I gulped, 'I like Stan.'
Her lips froze and silence came. The quietness became unbearable, but I waited like a defendant waiting to be judged.
'I'm sorry,' I said pathetically.
'No it's okay!' She gasped, quick to comfort me with shocked eyes. 'Sorry, I was just, a little surprised for a second. But it's okay.'
'It is?'
'Well, sure. I mean, you just said that you don't want to interfere with my relationship with Stan and I believe that. And besides…' a small, gentle smile rested on her lips, 'I know how much it hurts to have unrequited feelings. You are the one who is suffering the most.'
Her kindness was unbelievable, and I couldn't have been more grateful for it. I felt the guilt slowly leak out of me, and instead I had this sense of mild salvation inside me. And it was all thanks to Wendy.
She left after that, with a smile and some words of comfort. She was like light to me, a person to truly admire.
Maybe that was why it had always hurt so much.
The air was flowing in and out of my lungs a little easier and lighter than usual. I could breathe comfortably. And I thought that I could go to sleep that night, easily for what felt like in a long, long time. And I would have, if it weren't for that text message I received at one o'clock at night.
"Hey Kyle, are you awake?"
It was from Wendy, which made the grumpiness from fatigue flash out of me like a snap in the head. And so I answered, "Yeah."
"I was wondering if I could ask you a huge favour…"
I didn't know why she didn't just tell me everything in one text.
"Sure, what is it?"
It took her a moment to send me the favour. I imagined her trying to phase her words, deleting and retyping and deleting again. It was, somewhat of a cute image, I guess.
"I was wondering if you could come out to talk for a minute…"
My heart dropped. I haven't had been out in the middle of the night since that incident in the city, and I didn't really want to pick up that habit again. My fingers moved along the buttons of my phone to punch in "can't now. Can you wait 'till tomorrow", until they stopped mid-word when Wendy sent another text.
"It's about Stan…"
I was out the door two minutes later.
"Where are you?" I typed in as my legs moved swiftly through the midnight air without a direction.
"I'm at the park, near the bus stop."
You aren't meant to hear people's voices through their text messages, but strangely, I heard this sniffing, desperate voice when I received Wendy's texts. In the pits of my gut, I imagined that something had gone horribly wrong. Something horribly wrong between Wendy and Stan.
'Wendy!' I called as my white breaths shot into the frozen darkness of the night. She was standing all alone in the middle of the park, face dug into her scarf and her raven hair fallen atop of her eyes. But when she lifted her face in response to my call, I realised that those chocolate orbs were melted with tears.
'Kyle…' She said with the voice of an insect. At that second I reached her, and rested my hands gently on her shoulders as she looked at me with glistening eyes. 'You really came…' she said with surprise in her sorrowful voice.
'Of course I did! Now, what's wrong?'
She tried to settle her shaking voice through one deep breath, the white clouds glowing yellow under the flickering park lamppost.
'Do you mind… if we do this somewhere slightly more private?'
'Yeah. Of course— Anywhere.'
She smiled softly and told me to follow her.
'This is my family's storehouse. But we don't really use it since it's not right next to our house.'
What she had led me to was this small shed built at the side of town, near Stark's Pond. I sometimes noticed it when I walked by, but always thought that it was a public bathroom or something.
I was right behind her as we entered the storehouse almost like her shadow, so I didn't see what was inside until the door closed behind me.
'Hey, Wendy!'
We were welcomed into the storehouse by a bright, high-pitched voice— a familiar voice. I thought she said that we were going to someplace private?
'Did you bring him?'
'Of course I did.'
My heart thumped in an instinct of fear. The shakiness in Wendy's voice had completely disappeared in an instant, and was replaced by a dark seducing voice that came out of a cold smile.
Wendy moved to the side, her arms in a knot in front of her chest. And I was revealed to not one, but three people.
'Hey Kyle,' the high-pitched voice said, this time with soft seduction and a smile that showed her white teeth that glimmered with delight.
'Hi Bebe,' I gritted my teeth.
I moved my glaring eyes from my ex-girlfriend to the two people behind her, both taller than her by at least an extra head. Just over a year ago, those two guys punched me as a rapist to impress girls, and this time, I knew their names. David Corner with the short brown hair that stood up like spikes, and Jim Johnson with the greasy blond hair that you wouldn't want to touch.
'Wendy,' I called, voice firm as I kept my eyes on the three in front of me, 'I thought this was going to be private.'
'Oh well,' she moved behind me, in between me and the door. I turned my eyes to her as she sandwiched me between herself and the others, 'private enough,' she shrugged. Her brown eyes were not chocolate anymore, but sharp splinters that dug right through me.
I think that was the first time I saw her true colours.
As I was distracted by the discovery of Wendy Testaburger, completely forgetting about the three behind me, my arms were hurled and twisted back mercilessly, then I was pushed into the floor with a heavy body straddling me on my back to secure me on the floor.
'What the fuck!' I hurled under the body, 'Get off of me!'
'Stop moving you faggot!'
A fierce hand gripped my hair and squeezed my face against the freezing floor. So I chose to shut my mouth and watch as a long pair of legs stood before me, and slowly crouched down so that we were looking each other in the eye.
'I asked you to come here to talk, and kindly enough you did come. And so, I guess we should start talking, huh?'
'Do you mind me taking a slightly more comfortable position as I listen to you?'
'Oh don't worry Kyle. I only have a little I want to say.'
Contrasting greatly from her soft voice, her fierce hand gripped onto my hair and yanked my head up, forcing me to stare at her, eye-level, in threat to pull my hair out of my scalp. My glaring weakened with the pain, but hers only intensified.
'Don't fuck with me,' she said slowly and clearly.
'What do you mean—'
She tugged on my hair.
'I've known you liked Stan for a while Kyle, before you told me today. In fact, I've had a hunch for at least a year now, no, since we were in fucking junior high! The way you fucking flirt with him all the fucking time is only too obvious it makes me sick!' Her words were fast, like flashes of lightning shooting out of her mouth, 'I was always waiting for you to come out to me. I knew that you'd come out to me one day, if I acted nicely to you for long enough. And when you did? I knew that I'd have to crush you before you stole my man away from me.'
'What are you talking about Wendy, I told you… I don't want to steal Stan off you— I don't want to interfere with you two!'
'Yeah, that's what you said earlier, wasn't it? But if that's true, then why are you flirting with him all the fucking time? Why have you manipulated him to like you more than me? You were even going to kiss him last week if I hadn't arrived in time!'
'What the fuck are you talking about! I haven't done anything! And he doesn't like me more than you!' I hissed my words in pain as she tugged on my hair aggressively again.
'Oh yeah? Then why does he look at you the way he does? And chooses you over me? All the fucking time, you fucking liar!'
She let go of my hair and kicked me in the shoulder in fury. She was crazy, and delusional from anger. Stan never looked at me like anything, and it was only in emergency situations when he chose me over her.
'You know Kyle? There was only really one main thing I wanted to tell you tonight,' she began as I held my breath in pain and tried to curl myself up as much as possible under the guy's weight, 'Don't you ever even think of stealing Stan away from me again.'
She took a step away from me, as if she was done and satisfied. But in reality, she was so far away from satisfaction.
'So, what now?' Bebe asked curiously.
Wendy's smile widened.
'We threat him a little, and teach him a lesson. Boys?' She called at Corner and Johnson who looked at her stupidly, 'Mess him up a bit.'
It was the second time those guys bashed me, but this time was nothing like the first. Not just a friendly punch in the gut. This time when they finished, I was like a dying caterpillar curled up on the ground.
'Good,' Wendy said, nudging my head with her foot. And then she said the most horrifying words that you'd never imagine to come out of her mouth, 'Now rape him.'
My exhausted eyes shot wide as the two guys gaped at her in shock.
'What!' They sounded more shocked than me. Well, I guess that was understandable since it was such a foreign concept to them. But Wendy's words were still cold and emotionless.
'I told you. Rape this fucker.'
'Wendy, we're not raping him! That's just— that's just so fucking wrong!'
'Oh, are you guys saying that you don't have a dick that can come in useful?'
'Wendy, we already bashed his head in. Isn't that enough?'
Wendy scoffed at them, then clicked her tongue as she looked down at me and muttered, 'You're lucky these guys are boneless wimps that don't have a cock.'
She then turned back to the guys and gave them a new order.
'Strip him.'
'Huh?'
'If you guys don't have the guts to rape him then I'll just have to humiliate him another way, now strip him!'
They were quick enough to take my clothes off. Probably scared that the wrath of Wendy would fall upon them. She was a girl, but she was one fucking scary girl, I tell you.
'What the hell?' Corner muttered as he raised my shirt. I could almost feel Johnson's face fall in confusion beside him.
Under my shirt, always hidden, were my deep and countless bruises and hickeys from that one person. But now, they were revealed for the first time.
Wendy's high-pitched, yet cold laughter echoed around the room.
'They're all hickeys! God Kyle! It looks like you've been getting it on with someone while trying to steal Stan away from me! Jesus, I never knew you were a fucking slut!'
She didn't comment on my bruises.
My shirt was quickly pulled off of my arms and over my head, swiftly followed by my shoes, pants and underwear. I thought I was going to freeze to death right then and there.
'What now?' One of the guys asked.
'Hey Kyle, say cheese!' Bebe crouched in front of me with a wide grin and took a photo of my dazed and exhausted face with her phone.
'What do we do now?' Wendy repeated in the distance, 'We're gonna do a little doodling—'
A sound of a thick cap being flicked off a marker entered my ears, and then I felt something thin flow against my back, threatening to tickle my painful skin.
'Fudgepacking whore?' Bebe laughed, apparently looking at the word that was written on my back. 'Here, let me have a go—'
She leaned beside my head, looking into my face again before she began to write.
'You know? I was actually relieved!' Bebe cheered merrily with her chuckling voice, 'I thought you didn't get it up for me because I wasn't good enough. That was a really depressing and confusing thought— But in reality, it was only because you were a cocklicking faggot! Ha!' There was no venom in her voice, just true, simple, amusement and delight, similar to that of a child.
She turned her smiling lips into a fake pout and pressed her finger playfully against my lips. 'It hurt me, nonetheless,' she batted her eyelashes sadly for a second, then her face returned to its previous cheerful and sunny state as she began writing on my back.
The similar sensation of a word being written on my skin returned, but my body was slowly drowning into numbness and my brain was turning soft and light in my skull.
That went on for a while, the pen being shared upon them to write stupid insults all over my body. They laughed and kicked me as they did. I was losing consciousness, and I think I did for some moments. I heard their voices above me, but nothing registered in my head. I was floating in a world far away, while my body was still lying and being tortured on the ground.
The writing finally stopped.
'Thanks for helping out tonight boys,' Wendy's voice said.
'Sure. Just remember, you owe us one for this.'
'Whatever. You enjoyed that!' Bebe chuckled. Their voices were fading away, and somewhere in my brain I understood that they were walking out the door.
But Wendy stayed a moment longer to tell me one last thing.
'I wouldn't stay close to Stan anymore if I were you. Feel lucky that I'm not locking you in here.'
Her heels hitting the ground echoed around me as she left, along with the heavy sound of the door closing behind her.
.
I don't know how long it was after when I scraped myself off that frozen floor. Maybe a few hours, maybe only a few minutes, I don't know. But when I dragged my heavy legs out into the night there was a breakage in the clouds and I could see a million stars in that small crack. It was strange how the world was so beautiful, even while it was filled with such misery and ugliness, namely me.
When I arrived back home and looked in the mirror, I didn't even bother to feel emotion. There was not so much damage on my face since I was facing the ground when they bashed me. Only one spot on the top of my right eye, where they kept hitting me onto the floor by my hair, was threatened to become a bruise.
I turned and tried to take a glimpse of my back. I could see black lines but I couldn't make out any words. I gave up and chose to take a shower. I was exhausted.
I wonder what I was thinking then. Probably nothing. I didn't think about what would happen the next day at school because, well, I thought it was all over after that and Wendy would be satisfied after that night.
She was crazy.
I had completely forgotten about it, but once when we were in elementary school she had caused the death of our beautiful substitute teacher Stan was taking a liking of. I had completely forgotten about it, but now, I guess that was her true colour, and it was something I shouldn't have forgotten about.
Nothing really changed the next day, nothing dramatic. I took my eye patch out and pretended that nothing was wrong, and no one asked me if anything was wrong. But that was no surprise. As I said before, no one really enjoyed talking to me anymore.
Well, a few people asked me.
'Dude, what's with the eye patch? Another fashion statement?' Stan chuckled as he watched me put my stuff into my locker.
'No,' I answered, 'my brother poked my eye out and I have to wear an eye patch to cover the creepy black hole where my eye used to be.'
He laughed as I closed my locker, and I remembered as I listen to his bright, cheery voice what Wendy had told me the previous night. But I ignored it. Being bashed wasn't exactly a new experience and she couldn't threat me with that to make me stay away from Stan.
But the next day, I had to give that a second thought.
It was a cold yet refreshing morning with the clouds clear and sun out in attempt to warm the freezing winter (mostly spring) air of South Park. It was a weather that kept me in a good mood, or a better mood than usual, at least.
I opened my locker with my swift fingers, and when the door creaked open, a small avalanche of palm-sized cards came tumbling out of my usually clean locker. Confusedly, I looked at the small mountain on the floor with narrowed eyes, and slowly, picked one piece of the palm-sized card up.
It was a photograph.
My heart nearly stopped.
The corridor was hollow and empty with only me standing by my locker, staring at that one photo in my palm without the ability to breathe. I didn't notice someone walking up to me, and I didn't notice him take a photo from the pile on the ground, as I was lost in shock.
'What the fuck is this?'
The dark, heavy voice said, snapping me out of my blank, empty state to shoot my round eyes up in shock.
'Eric…'
'What the fuck is this?' He repeated again, flicking the photograph with his thumb and finger.
It was as if I had just noticed the photo in his hand when he said that.
'No!' I yelled, lounging at him in attempt to grab the photograph, but only catching air as he moved out of my path. 'Give that back Eric!' I shouted in fury and horror squeezing my lungs.
He glanced up at me, and then back to the photo.
'I will give it back if you tell me what happened,' he grinned.
My rage simmered down into a sense of despair at the suggestion. Me telling Eric my suffering just so that he could feed on it for his pleasure?
'No.'
'Then I guess I'm keeping this.'
He twirled around on his feet, flicking the photograph in the air provokingly as he walked away through the empty hallway.
I froze there and stared with a blank mind at the hallway Eric just walked through. I stared at it for a couple of minutes. After a while, my eyes fell back onto the pile of photos still on the ground.
I kneeled, and picked one up, and then another and another.
'Hey Kyle.'
I looked up, and saw a pearly smile with icy-blue eyes looking warmly down on me.
'Hi Kenny.'
'What'chu doing?'
'Ah— nothing,' I muttered, quickly picking up the rest of the photos as Kenny began to lean down to see what they were. I gave him a quick salute and walked away to my class.
I couldn't let him see them.
I couldn't let anyone see them.
Later that day I told Stan that we couldn't continue our study sessions anymore. He looked confused, regretful, and dare I say even saddened by it. He was never good at hiding his emotions, and the way he showed liking for our study sessions and the regret for losing them made my heart cringe.
He may not have liked me in the way Wendy had assumed, but we were close friends. There was no doubt about that.
Terminating our study sessions wasn't enough though, I knew that. Wendy didn't want me close to Stan at all, my one true friend left to me now, except for the occasional Kenny. So I changed my phone and walked away from my friendship group all in all, because Stan was in that group, and if I stayed there, I knew that I wouldn't be able to help but be close to him.
At lunch I would sit outside at the back of the school, leaning against the brick wall where the snow would just miss my feet. That is why I always rolled myself up in layers of warm clothing for school, now that I only stayed inside for class. It was nice though, beautiful. And best of all, no one came here, not even Eric— it was so excluded, in a good way.
I sat there on my first day alone and slowly and quietly looked through all the photographs. The writing that I couldn't read on my back the other night was now so clear for me. They weren't that original though. "Fudgepacking whore", "faggot", "cocksucker", "kike", "fuckward", "slut", "die", "worthless", "rot in Hell", "tearoom queen" that was one of my personal favourites, tearoom queen, along with the arrow pointing to my arse that said "fuck me please". I don't know why, but I didn't throw them away. I kept them in the bottom draw of my desk at home, even though I didn't know then, that they would later come in handy.
Anyway, back at lunch, I would sit behind the school and munch on my apple, or whatever minimal amount of food that I ate, and listen to my music. Classical music matched perfectly with the white scenery with the snow covering the forest ahead. The beautifully delicate sound of piano filled with pathos, composed by Frederic Francois Chopin was my favourite. It still is.
Stan tried talking to me at the beginning, but my responses to his attempts at conversations were empty, quick and distant, because I tried to keep them that way. That was actually one of the most painful times though, when I subtly rejected his friendship.
I'm sorry Stan, I really am. I'm sorry I had to ruin our wonderful relationship with my pathetic feelings for you that I couldn't keep secret. I really am.
But even after such an event, my feelings for Stan didn't change. They were like my tattoo, I'll forget its existence, but it will always be there.
I didn't mind being alone. It felt better being myself while I was alone, than pretending to be something else while I was around other people. I wasn't always alone though, if you must know. And no, I'm not talking about Eric, although he did keep me company sometimes during lunch, but not enough to make people suspicious that he was with me.
No, I'm talking about someone else. If I follow my earlier metaphor, when I began to drift away on my broken ice all alone, someone from the other piece jumped over, from the other piece of ice onto mine to keep me company. He chose to stay with me and become my only friend.
I'm talking about Kenny.
He tried to pretend that he wasn't there because he felt sorry for me, but that was why I thought he was there. Every lunch he would go around to the back of the school and sometimes, when I wasn't anywhere else hiding from him, he would find me there. He itched to ask me questions and sometimes he did, like, why aren't you sitting with everyone and why are you always alone, and stuff like that.
I always kept quiet though.
But being alone came with one downside, my vulnerability. I was an outcast, almost, and that attracts some people. They were nothing compared to Eric, but they were annoying. Two or three of them, their names aren't important because they weren't important people. They were familiar faces though, I talked to you about them before.
Bullying, yeah, I guess you could call it that. No one really knew, though. But every school has their bullying, right? What? You didn't have bullying at your school? Well, you should have taken a better look. Somewhere where you weren't looking, there was always someone suffering from it. It was just that you didn't know.
But they didn't matter much, after all, they were not Eric. But they did help my school life worsen. I remember when they locked me in a toilet cubicle and splashed freezing water from above, drenching me and leaving me in there for an hour or so before I somehow climbed up the top. I don't know how they locked me inside a cubicle with an inside lock. I forgot.
It kinda hurt that my parents didn't notice my suffering, although I should have been completely past that. I silently, secretly wished that they would at least suspect something when I didn't smile as much as I did, or when I stopped going to the synagogue, stopped asking for lunch money, didn't do anything but study and be quiet and convinced them to not take me to Canada with them for the summer. I wonder if I was just a little too subtle.
So I spent the rest of the year by myself, and when I felt like it, the occasional company of Kenny, and my secret meetings with Eric.
My meetings with Kenny weren't subtle though. When we were together, I noticed that I was always a little too close to him, too close, that we were always touching. When we were together, I always felt his warmth, whether it was through our shoulders that were brushing against each other, or when I held onto him tightly when everything became too much to handle, although that was only occasional. I would sit in his lap, wrap my arms around him and squeeze as tight as I could with my face buried in his neck. He would fall into deep confusion when I did, but he would always accept my actions, and rest his warm hand on my back in response.
But the way I stayed so close to him when we were together almost proved how much I longed for human warmth. How much I longed for someone, although I wasn't aware of it.
Not many people noticed my closeness with Kenny though. Maybe it was because we were always at the back of the school where no one came. Only one person knew, one person who always watched me. I don't think I even need to say his name to you. But he didn't like it, although he hid it under his thin smile.
He showed it to me though, how much he didn't like it, on the first week of the summer holidays.
A.N- Again, thank you so much for reading and reviewing guys. Your support means so much.
