April 12th

Monday rolled around quicker than Stan could even manage a groan at its approach. The weekend was spent making a gradual and miraculous fake-recovery for his parents, but still with the lingering feigned sickness which allowed him to stay in his own room without question from anyone but his sister, who had come home from college that weekend for the summer, and to see her little 'turd' brother graduate, at the request of their parents. She seemed keen to interrupt Stan on his seldom trips to and from his room, saying nothing but a grimace and a growl, half the time sharply raising a fist as she'd pretend to punch him, cackling away with laughter after he flinched every time.

"How's your boyfriend, turd?" she snarled at him over breakfast that morning. Stan's head shot up like a lightning bolt to glare a terrified set of daggers at Shelley, both warning and pleading with her not to reveal anything about him and Kyle, and still questioning how the hell, after not having been home for a year, she seemed to just… know. His shock and confusion made him feel like he was going to cry into his eggs. He bucked up and shot her a warning glare. He glanced around the room, glad to see his father was nowhere in earshot and his mother was too busy on the stove to notice.

"Shut up, Shelley," he growled, pushing forward his breakfast plate and slumping into his chair to stare out the window. It was a beautiful day out. He watched a ray of sunlight glint through the frosted corners of his kitchen window, right through the bouquet of red carnations his mother had bought to honor Shelley's return home, making the top of the kitchen counter glow with a warm, orange and red light – exactly the color of Kyle's hair. Stan marveled at it for what seemed too long and too short a time, imagining his fingers running through the light of Kyle's locks, outside in the sun where all of South Park High could see – he was lost… Lost in a memory he longed to make but dared not dream of … until his sister sent her soft-boiled egg flying through the air via spoon at his face.

"WHA—THE FUCK!"

Shelley was positively bent over with laughter.

"Shelley Marsh!" their mother shrieked, running over to the sink to fetch a dishtowel. "If you hadn't just come home, I would –"

"What the fuck, Shelley!'" Stan protested, snatching the towel out of his mother's hand and wiping the raw egg off his face. "She just egged me! Ground her! Do something!" He looked down at his shirt, covered in yolk and undercooked egg-white, groaning. Great… his favorite shirt. Kyle gave him this shirt. Or, rather, Stan had borrowed it and refused to return it on the grounds that it 'looked better on him,' a joke of an excuse until Kyle had agreed… "Now I have to change again!"

"Oh, poor girly turd has to get a new dress for the day," Shelley chuckled, flinging some potatoes his way.

"Fuck you!" Stan spat, tossing back the potatoes. Randy, who had been reading the funnies up until this point, tried to hide his giggles behind his newspaper.

"Eggs are the most nutritious breakfast, turd!"

"Grow up, Shelley," Stan grumbled, getting up to change right as another soft, warm sphere collided with his ear and burst all over the side of his face and neck.

He didn't even bother looking down at his shirt. His fists clenched around his napkin, putting it down on the surface of the table as he dripped egg all over his plate.

"You…" he walked to the fridge, "little," he picked up an egg, "BITCH!" he screamed, flinging an egg her way as hard as he could, but missed in his anger and shot the thing right through his father's newspaper. Randy shot up from his seat, groaning, moaning and wiping crushed egg-bits from his chest.

"STANLEY!" Sharon bellowed, silencing all human voices in the kitchen. Shelley pulled her napkins over her mouth to cover up the insane amount of laughter that was spilling from her person.

"What!" Stan screamed back, unable to control his boldness. "She throws eggs in my face and I'm the one that gets yelled at? I'm gonna go change, I'm gonna be late for school—""

"Oh no, turd! Did I ruin your boyfriend's shirt?" his sister chuckled. Stan turned as red as the hair he had not so long ago been imagining burying his face into.

"Boyfriend?" Randy started, stopping in the middle of cleaning off the misthrown egg and looking at his son.

"Yeah, Dad, didn't you know?" Shelley grinned, looking straight at her brother. "Stan's in love—"

"Shelley!"

"—with his best—"

"FUCK YOU!" Stan screamed desperately over the final word 'friend' spoken by his sister. The silence that followed deafened even the sounds of the Colorado 'spring' breeze. Randy looked like he'd just been shot in the gut, instead of just hit with an egg.

"Stan…" his father whispered, the disbelief in his voice masked unsteadily with nervous laughter. "She's joking—"

"It's not a—" Shelley started.

"Of course it's a joke, Dad," Stan jumped in, ripping of his prized, soft gray cotton Kyle-tee and walking to the kitchen door. "Shelley's just being a bitch."

"Stanley!" his mother cried. "Watch your language!"

He took the stairs to his room two at a time and shut the door so loudly it should have served as proof that what had almost been revealed to his father was, indeed, true. But neither Stan nor his father would accept it. He tossed the shirt with difficulty into his laundry basket and searched his drawers for something else to wear. Through his rummaging, he failed to hear the door creak open as his sister sneaked into his room. The shutting of the door, however, went unmissed. Stan whirled around.

"What do you want." It was not a question – it was a command: get the fuck out.

"Didn't think you'd turn out gay, little turd," Shelley smirked at him. Stan waved her off impatiently.

"I have a girlfriend. Her name is Wendy Testaburger, in case you—"

"Hmm… that's not the name I've heard coming out of your room for the past weekend while you were sleeping."

His face went blank.

"I must have been dreaming of something weird," he muttered, "now get out of my room."

"Pretty weird to have the same weird dream every night—"

"Shit happens."

"—and to spend every night screaming about it—"

"What are you—"

"Kyle!," she imitated him, "Kyle! Kyle, I'm sorry!"

"We had a fight!" he covered himself, "Friends fight! It's nothing more than—"

"Kyle, Kyle, come here…"

"Shelley, stop—"

"Kyle, don't leave me!"

He felt dizzy. His head was spinning with images from the million and a half dreams he'd had which could have very easily provoked him to say all those things. "When did I—"

"Kyle, I love you!"

Stan dropped his clothes and whirled around to face his sister.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, SHELLEY! You go abroad for a year and all of a sudden you're back and you think you know everything that's going on, well, YOU DON'T. NOW GET. THE FUCK. OUT—OF—MY—ROOM!"

"Stanley!" he heard his mother crying from downstairs, and soon the sound of hurried footsteps followed her voice. "What is going ON in here?"

"Tell her to get out of my room!"

"You're both old enough to deal with this yourselves!" She cried, opening the door to her son's room. "Shelley, come help me downstairs. Stan, your father is waiting to take you to school in the car—"

"I'd rather walk—"

"NOW, STANLEY."

Stan grunted, tossing a few shirts on the floor and grabbing one blindly from his hanging closet, pulling it over his head and making sure to bump roughly past his sister on his way out. He pulled on his backpack and walked out the door, and suddenly a feeling of deep dread came over him. Reluctantly, he sat down in the passengers seat.

"I can walk, Dad, really—"

"Stanley, are you gay?"

"No," he responded immediately, feeling that a lie detector may have gone berserk under his pulse as he said it and looking anywhere but the direction of his father. He could hear the fear in both their voices, though he struggled hard to make his silent.

"I thought you were dating Wendy—"

"I am," he replied, the resoluteness in his voice hanging in the air until it put an end to the conversation. Randy made a satisfied little 'hmph' in the back of his throat and relaxed visibly into his chair. He started the car. Stan wanted to throw up.

"Good. She's a nice girl."

By the time they reached the school, Stan was ready to storm flying into the bathroom stall and spend his whole first period puking his guts up. He vaguely heard Randy call after him as he jumped out of the car, but he didn't acknowledge it. He shut the door and sped away as fast as he could, pausing just before he reached the doors to take a breath. The week for ignoring his friend was over. He couldn't keep being a fucking asshole like this and expect to live with himself.

He went inside.

Whirling shapes of vague and blurred student bodies sped to and fro as he made his way down the hall. An excited twist began to toss and turn in the pit of his stomach as he thought back to the light on the kitchen counter that reminded him of Kyle's hair, and he looked everywhere for a sign of that color or the bright green that typically covered it up, but saw none. Kyle was usually one of the first people here… so, where was he?

He glanced into the computer room as he passed it by. No Kyle. He kept on walking, taking a quick detour through the library, expecting to find his friend buried in books in one of the corners. Still no Kyle… Stan frowned, and turned back to head for the lockers. He bumped into Kenny on the way.

"Hey dude—"

"Where's Kyle?" Stan practically yelled, making Kenny jump backwards slightly.

"I don't know, he's not here yet, I guess—"

"He's always here by now!" He looked like a cartoon character, pulling at his hair in frustration.

"I haven't seen him yet, I'm sorry," Kenny said, stunned. Stan looked panicked, his eyes darting back and forth desperately. Just then, he caught in the corner of his eye the jet-black hair of his best friend's little brother. "Stan—"

But he had already sped off to Kyle's locker. Ike was rummaging through it, putting books into what Stan recognized as Kyle's backpack and taking others out to put them back.

"Ike, where's Kyle?"

He didn't answer. Stan watched him pull out Kyle's pencil case and stuff a few more things in it.

"Ike?"

He put the pencil case away, zipped up the bag and swung it over his shoulder.

"Ike, where's—"

"You're a smart kid, Stan," the preteen answered him, turning to look straight at him. Somehow, despite the fact that he was six years his junior, Ike seemed to stand tall before him, making Stan feel their places were changed. "I think you can figure it out from here, given that you've spent last week doing the same thing he's resigned himself to."

"What are you talking about? What have I been doing?"

"Hiding."

They stood there for a moment, Ike's gaze making Stan feel smaller by the second. For a minute or two, neither of them said a word, but Stan could feel the black-haired boy scrutinizing every twitch and quiver in his expression, slowly and silently giving away the missing pieces of the story he'd already managed to piece together without.

"Don't hold your breath this week, Stan," Ike sighed. "He won't be here. And if he does manage to come in, I beg you… don't … don't make him wish he hadn't."

"What do you mean—"

"Kyle never misses school—"

"I know that! Why is he—"

"Don't play the idiot!" Ike snapped, "It's not becoming of you, you know damn well why he's not here—"

"Ike, I—"

"Look, Stan," Ike stopped him, raising his hand in a soft halt. "I don't know what happened between you, he hasn't told me, but I can guess. Long time coming, if you ask me and pardon the pun," Stan blushed at his suggestion. "But whether you want it or not, Kyle is now very sure that you don't."

Stan furrowed his brow, instinct urging him to argue the contrary. He opened his mouth to do just so, but… couldn't. "I need to talk to him," Stan finally managed to croak out, fighting back tears which seemed to come from nowhere, but managing with great effort to keep them from rising.

"About what?"

Stan couldn't answer.

"That's what I thought," Ike said resolutely. "If you don't know, don't drag him into your own confusion. Whether you don't know, won't admit, or just plain aren't gay—" Stan whirled around 360 quickly in a panic to see if anyone had heard that. "—see? If you think you'll do him any good when you can't even stand the sound of the word, then you're no longer playing an idiot. You are one."

Stan couldn't hold his gaze any longer. He looked at the floor like a petulant child.

"Whether you want it or not," Ike continued, "make sure you figure it out soon. Either way, since your regret has been made clear—" Stan opened his mouth to protest. "—do me, no, do him the favor, and give him the space he needs to move on… Otherwise, you're setting you and him both for a lot of painful silences. You broke his heart."

At those words, Stan felt the floor disappear under his feet. He swayed, almost falling over as his knees barely kept from giving out from under him. He vaguely sensed that Ike had started to walk away, but he couldn't move. As if from somewhere in the great distance, he heard him speak again.

"If he does show up, let him be. Please."

If the shapes of all his classmates had been blurred before, he could no longer discern whether or not they were even people. Everything lost its shape. He heard the distant ring of the bell shattering his thoughts. You broke his heart.

He stumbled down the corridor, bumping into here and there, him and her, who, he didn't care.

You broke his heart.

He felt his own hand push the swinging door of the bathroom, dropping his things in the middle of the floor as he crashed into an empty stall and decorated the inside of the toilet bowl with his wretch. Ike's voice echoed in his ears.

You broke his heart.