"Flowers are words, which even a babe may understand." - Bishop Arthur Cleveland Coxe

Before my grandma died, she told me "for every awful person in this world, there are at least two more good people around the corner." Working in customer service has proven this sentiment to be false. Sorry, grandma.

I've tried to be one of those good folk hanging around the corner, but after being verbally eviscerated for not having soy milk, for the blender being too loud, because we don't have Smucker's jelly packets for the bagels, because we don't have tuna for the bagels, the fireplace not being real, the whipped cream melting into their hot drink after 40 minutes (sorry we don't have space-age indestructible whipped cream?), the ceiling tiles should be WHITE instead of BLACK, "wHy DoN'T YoU GUyS hAvE A DRivE-tHRu?" I have found my patience for the public is as reliable as American government.

So you can imagine how heavenly I felt, walking into South Perk to let them know they'd be without a manager for the summer. The day-time shift leader, Tweek, would have to take over.

J-months (January, June, July) are usually quiet for restaurants and cafes here because it's either right after a holiday, teachers and students are gone, people go on vacation/camping, etc. I've had people quit because they couldn't cope with the reduced summer hours. But labor wages are a hard, unmoving budget and I don't want to fuck anyone over or be unfair, so I always reduce my hours too. I figured with me being gone for a few months, the other baristas would get some more hours and be happy skirting along until pumpkin spice season.

Tweek freaked out.

"How the hell am I supposed to do this without people getting mad at me?" he asked, scratching out a shift he assigned himself for the 10th time. I was having him practice making a schedule. I had already shown him how to order food, supplies, and make bank deposits. This was the thing that was really hooking him by the mouth.

"No one will get mad at you. Just follow the availability chart and you'll be okay."

"Do you still want to work on weekends?"

The owner, Mohammed, asked me that earlier as well. It was a strong no.

"No, I think after 8 to 5 every weekday, I'll be too tired to be here."

"Oh, okay. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry. You only asked." I thought about it for a moment. "If someone is sick or there's an emergency, I'll come in."

I glanced at the clock above our fake fireplace. Only an hour left of this shift, and I'd be gone for almost four months.

Our door chime went off, and Bebe walked in wearing a short, floral dress, her blonde curls tied into a high ponytail. A couple of guys sipping cappuccinos in a dark corner of the lobby stopped talking to look up at her. She always drew tons of looks when we were out in public together. When I would put my arm around her, their looks switched to me as if to say why is such a beautiful girl with that tall, gawky ginger dude with a huge scar across his cheek?

At least, that's what I imagine they think.

"Hey, Beyblade," I walked around the counter and hugged her tight. We hadn't spoken in two weeks since our last fight and I missed her. I broke the silence the night before by calling and announcing the new job.

"How's it going?" she asked, not just to me, but to Tweek as well, who was still hovering over a spreadsheet.

"It's going well," I raised my voice a little. "Tweek is going to do a great job."

He frowned at me. "I don't think so."

"You will." I turned back to Bebe. "You want a macaron?"

"Sure."

I went into the display case and pulled out a raspberry one (her favorite) and gave it to her. She sat in one of the cushioned chairs and nibbled until I wrapped up my shift and we could leave together.

Most people who know Bebe Stevens (aka "babevakarian") don't know about me. It's almost a rule that if you're a female Twitch streamer, your audience can't know about your boyfriend/husband/partner. I'm all in favor of absolute transparency, so the fact that she abided this rule hurt me. I told her "You're really good at video games, though. People will support you no matter what." She told me that most of her audience places too much value in her being single. It frustrated me but I understood where she was coming from. It's not like those virtual coin-tossers were a threat to me anyway.

My favor in said transparency got me in trouble with her. Well, not in trouble, per se, but something that left our relationship on shaking ground.

One night, after seeing a movie and having dinner at The Boulder Cork, we sat in her car talking outside my house. Not talking how we used to, though. Intimacy was drained, our conversations centered around general observations and long gaps of silence. She knew. I could feel her knowing, so I blurted: "I think I'm bisexual. Or pansexual. I'm not sure what the difference is yet."

Now, I couldn't exactly blame her for being a bit agitated - I could see her face and know her brain was doing the pop, pop, pop. It can't be easy to have a boyfriend for three years and then have him basically say, hey, I like being with you, but I've also wondered what it would be like to have a dick in my mouth.

She couldn't look at me. Her hands slid down the steering wheel. "I don't think I'm okay with that."

"You're not okay with my existence?"

"Well, I don't think sexuality really defines existence, Kyle."

"Well, I think that's debatable, Bebe."

"Well, I'm not in the mood to debate right now. You just dropped a huge bomb on me."

Another gap of silence. I couldn't take it.

"So what now?" I asked. "What do you want to do?"

"More like what do you want to do?"

"Ball is in your court."

"Not really."

"Are we over?"

"I don't know."

I explained to her that I didn't want to leave her, this shouldn't change anything, I just didn't want to keep any parts of myself away from her. It was like my words were hitting glass and sliding down onto the floor.

I left her car, unlocked the door to Marsh Tattoo, walked past the dark rooms filled with sculptures, art prints, taxidermied animals, treaded upstairs to the apartment where Cartman, Kenny, and I live, curled into bed and cried into my pillow until I fell asleep.

Now it was two weeks later, and we were in her car in the South Perk parking lot, the same tense silence like a wall between us. I wondered if Tweek could see us through the window.

"I think I'm getting in the way of you being who you want to be," she said.

I knew she was referring to our other problems - not just me being bi.

She was never a fan of my tattoos. Sounds petty, but she really believes that when someone has a lot of them, it looks tacky. When we first started dating, I had a few of them already, including a full-color sleeve that Cartman did for a convention. Taking up my whole left arm, he created an outer space scene with beautiful planets and stars, and near the top of my shoulder, two orcas, a large one and a smaller one in the distance, swimming toward the moon. I told her it won an award at the Motor City Tattoo Expo and she said: "Congrats on being a prize donkey."

She knew I wanted to get more, yet she fought me before every appointment. One evening, she exploded and said, fully intending to hit me where it hurt: "You just get all that shit put on you to distract from the ugly scar on your face."

She knew exactly why my face is the way it is. She knew how traumatic it was for me. She has seen me try to grow a beard over it, but hair doesn't grow through scar tissue. I lost it. "Maybe you should get something done to distract from your ugly personality."

We've tried, but no amount of frivolous dates or make-up sex could heal the horrible things we've said to each other. I've been seeing more and more just how much hurt people, hurt people.

"You're not keeping me from being who I want to be," I finally said. "I just wish you would accept the person I am now."

"I don't think I can keep circling around like this with you anymore. We need a break."

"Oh, come on, Bebe…"

"I meant it. I care about you, but I think we should separate for a while."

"For how long exactly?"

"I'm not sure."

"...well, this sucks. Is that all you came here to tell me?"

She folded her hands in her lap, then gave me a sad smile. "I am really proud of you for getting this job. You've been working so hard."

"Thank you."

Gently, she reached out and stroked one of my curls. "Do you want me to take you home?"

"It's a nice day. I think I'll just walk."

I didn't understand - if I wasn't the kind of man she wanted to settle down with now, then how could I ever be? Why did she want me in the first place?

I used to be a good kid.

You'd think my parents would feature me on their resumes, I was so respectful and obedient. I made straight A's and was never afraid to stick up for others and raise my voice against injustice.

As I crawled into my teenager suit, something shifted. I could feel my skin tingling as I tossed and turned at night. The blankets were too warm so I ripped them off, then I got too cold so I put them back over my legs and wrapped my arms around my chest (I've slept like this ever since, a mummy, always embracing myself), and rolled around until I was dizzy enough to fall asleep. Sometimes I would hold the pillow over my face so hard that I'd pass out.

I constantly scratched at my face, the incoming hairs of my beard, my scalp, muttering about how it felt like there was something pushing at my skin from the inside and making me itch. My mother would scold me about touching my face and then slap my hand away. I'd glare at her for touching me. I hated being touched. Even when a well-meaning relative gently patted my back, I jumped three feet. I stayed in my room most of the time and stopped talking to my family. I couldn't stand them anymore. My clothes always felt like they were digging into my skin and my chest burned. I was convinced I was an alien, stuck in what seemed like a human body, and my parents just happened to pull me out of a crashed UFO in their backyard. In the crowded halls at school, it looked like everyone was staring at me as if they knew something I didn't. I hated it. I couldn't breathe.

My grades dropped. Hard. Queen Sheila and King Gerald came down on me more than they ever had before, verbally beating their scepters over my head like a disobedient serf. I was fucking miserable.

A few months before I turned 16, they hired a private tutor to meet me in the library after school. His name was Adam. He was 19 and about to transfer to Michigan State University from Park County Community College. It was around the time Anchorman came out and Adam always wore Ron Burgundy shirts. Sometimes I would quote the movie to make him smile. He would reciprocate but always push me back to the assignment, keeping on me until I was done. I found myself trying harder because I didn't want to disappoint him.

One day, when the chilly spring days were unfurling into what would be a long, dry summer, the summer I would be arrested, Adam came by our house to see me one last time before final exams. I can close my eyes now and suddenly be back there, opening the front door and seeing him there in a white-tee shirt and jeans. The bottom of a small tribal tattoo peeked out from under his sleeve. His blonde hair was spiked.

When he greeted me, I couldn't speak, but my mind was on fire with oh no, oh no, oh no. I turned pink and looked down at my feet. I think I knew right then a couple of things that were different with me.

In the middle of him talking about Avogadro's number in our quiet, empty dining room, I got distracted and started staring at a silver, Celtic cross hanging around his neck. Without thinking, I reached out and grabbed, studying it in my palm.

"Are you Christian?" I asked.

"My parents are."

"We're Jewish."

"I've noticed."

I sat still for a moment, letting the weighty pendant sit cushioned in my hand. Then I let it fall back, my hand turning into his chest, feeling the cloth of his shirt, his heart beating as I spread my fingers apart.

He peeled off my hand as if it were a stinking, dead fish.

"Nope, nope, nope." He got up, sat in another chair farther from me. "You can't touch me like that, Kyle."

I blinked hard. What was I doing? I had no clue. Before I knew it, I felt the hot tears roll down my cheeks. He got up, came back, and handed me a tissue.

"It's okay, Kyle. It's okay."

"I am so sorry," I kept repeating between sniffles.

"It's okay, you don't… I understand what you're going through."

"I doubt that."

"I do. I really do. But you have to be careful, Kyle. There are people out there who won't be as nice as I was just now."

We wrapped up our tutoring session at a distance. I never saw him again after that. I wish I could take it back. When I turned 19, I thought about what I would have done, had I been in his shoes and I know I wouldn't have been able to be as nice.

After I turned 16, things got more serious. My parents and little brother knew something happened, something had permanently changed in me, but no one had the balls to bring it up. My anxiety was much worse, and to cope with the noise and the people, I would stare off into the distance during class, letting my brain numb itself so I wouldn't need to feel. I could pretend my body wasn't there.

Cartman has a garden too, but it's in his closet with a UV light and has a distinct smell when smoked (if you know, you know). The shop is closed on Sundays and Mondays. Sunday evenings are usually reserved for circle sessions in Stan and Wendy's living room with their six cats.

I walked into the empty shop to see Cartman spread out over the lobby couch, staring at the ceiling. Kenny was on the other side, tipping back a container of cottage cheese to his mouth and slurping the curds.

Cartman mumbled, "What's new Scooby-Doo, comin' after you…"

Kenny stopped slurping to look at me somberly. "He's already fucking baked."

"Seems like you are too."

"What gave it away?"

Kenny started out as more of a friend of the shop, like me. He told us about being the head waiter of the iHop night shift but wanted to have a comic book career or be a tattooer. He was also working on being a licensed piercer. For this last tattoo appointment, Cartman put on the final touches of Kenny's Kingdom Hearts back piece ("make it look like Ariel is about to swim into my butt"), while Stan flipped through Kenny's sketchbook. He was hired as an apprentice, piercer, lives with us, and still works at iHop some nights. Sometimes when we're roasting him, he'll say "Excuse me, but I am iHop royalty and you cannot speak to me this way."

"iHop discontinued red velvet pancakes, so they can fuck right off," Cartman always said. He still hasn't let it go after all these years.

"Oh, Kyle, I finally figured out what Eric is." Kenny set down the cottage cheese and pulled out his phone. "He is what one would call a 'trash boy'."

Cartman groaned.

"What's a trash boy?" I started fiddling with some pens on the counter.

"Like a fuck boy, but dirty," Kenny read. "Trash boys usually have dad bods, stretched earlobes, hand tattoos, and stylish but unwashed hair. The trash boy probably plays in a metal band and does tattoos, and smokes a lot of weed. Trash boys are good for sex but are incapable of love*."

I looked at Kenny's stretched earlobes, his hand tattoos, felt my own small gauges and looked down at the phases of the moon tattooed on my fingers.

"Uh, by that assessment, aren't all of us kind of trash boys?"

"Damn straight."

"Except Kahl," Cartman coughed.

I had to hold on to each of their arms as we walked a block over to Stan and Wendy's house so they wouldn't wander into the street.

Wendy skateboarded down the driveway, drinking a Capri Sun.

"What the fuck?" she pointed at Cartman. "Did they pre-bake?"

"Yep."

"Assholes."

"I know."

She flipped her board up, looked closer at my face. "Are you okay? You look like you've been crying."

I bit my lip. I was hoping she would think I was high too.

"I saw Bebe today."

"Oh. What did she say?" She opened the screen door for us and I pushed Cartman and Kenny inside.

"She wants to not see each other for a while."

"Ah."

Wendy and I stepped on the landing of their kitchen. Kelso, the orange cat, trotted up to me, demanding to be picked up. I had been his favorite since he was a kitten. Probably because we're both orange.

Stan was at the kitchen sink finishing some dishes. He stopped to fist bump me.

"Hey man, how was the last day of work?"

"Eh, you know. Slow," I shifted Kelso to my other arm. "Mostly spent it training someone else."

Wendy moved out from behind me and made her way to the family room to open some windows for ventilation. Cartman and Kenny were playing with Jackie, the black cat, on the floor.

"Kyle and Bebe broke up," she announced.

"Called it," said Stan.

"No, no, no. She said she just wants a break."

"That's fucking bullshit," he was drying his hands on a towel now. Donna, the gray one, waltzed in between his ankles. "You may as well have broken up. I'm sorry dude, but if she really can't handle you for who you are now, she never will. You're wasting your time."

"I guess."

"Do you ever see yourself marrying this chick?"

"Stan, really?" Wendy called over, "He just got here. Can you let him breathe for a sec before you start burrowing in on him?"

"It's okay," I said.

Stan opened the fridge and pulled out a grape soda for me, careful not to close on the door on Hyde's scraggly paw. His favorite spot was on top of the fridge, looking down on us peasants.

I sucked the fizzle from the can while Kelso swatted, and said, "I mean, I've thought about it. We've been together for almost four years now."

"Exactly. But realistically, can you see it happening? Waking up to her every morning? Going home to her every night?"

Everyone was staring at me now. Even Eric and Fez lounging in the cat condo. I said nothing. That was probably an answer enough for Stan already.

When Bebe and I first got together, I just appreciated our time doing fun couple things together, not thinking of any endgame. Last year, I did think about proposing, since it seemed our relationship was thinning down to wire and I believed no one better would ever want me anyway.

I wanted the attention off me. "What about you?"

"What?"

"When did you know you wanted to marry Wendy?"

He spared a long, sweet look in her direction. "The first time she sucked the life out of me."

"You make me sick, Stan. Just get me high already."

7:45 am.

Monday.

I stood outside room 334, staring at the wall art. A large, watercolor painting featuring a landscape of beakers and flasks filled with rainbow liquid reeled me in.

"Gay chemistry?" I whispered to myself. Of course, not all rainbows are intended to represent, but I can't help getting excited when I see one.

Summer is a strange time on campus. There are still some classes, but mostly everyone is gone - the food court is closed, the benches and bathrooms are empty, hallway lights flip off when someone hasn't walked by in ten minutes. Everything is quiet. The buildings feel forbidden as if you're disturbing the ghosts of students past as soon as you step in from the hissing sun and into that first glass vestibule.

I must have looked like a statue, standing so still, staring at the wall in the golden rays of the early morning sun.

Dr. Vince came down the hall, lugging a bag and a laptop case, lab coat billowing out behind her. I realized we were dressed the same: tennis shoes, khakis, and purple button-down tops.

"Kyle!"

"Hi, good morning!" I reached out to shake her hand, but she hugged me instead, which felt awkward because she's so short.

"This is for you," she handed me a lab coat. "Make sure you wash it at least once a week."

After she unlocked the door and settled her belongings, she showed me where all supplies were, where to clock in and out. I looked around the place, breathing deeply, finally feeling like I belonged somewhere.

She was pulling out paperwork from her bag when he walked in.

It was like when a saloon back in the wild, wild west, suddenly goes quiet as the suspicious character comes in - the air is still, you can only hear a floor creak, and everyone is nervous.

He stared me down, hands in his pockets.

"Hi, Craig! This is Kyle. He's going to be helping us this summer."

I smiled a bit defensively at him. Craig did not smile back.

"Hello." I walked around the table and held out my hand. It hung out for a moment before he took it with a cool hand, shook it once, then pushed it away. His eyes went to my scar, but I'm used to that. It always happens when I meet new people. But he really kept searching my face, so I said, "I'm really excited to work with you, Craig."

His eyes went wide for a moment, hearing his own name come out of my mouth, then went back to their half-lidded state. Then that look: concerned, looking down at me. I turned away.

Dr. Vince is excellent at reading a room. "Kyle is very smart. Very smart and very capable. He was my first choice."

Only one word from Craig, monotone yet nasally, pregnant with disdain: "Great…"

It was a long fucking first day.

*"Trash Boy" definition according to the Urban Dictionary.

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