Some days are harder than others, writing about this. Most of the time, I stay in my room, light a candle, then scribble away on graphing paper. My therapist has given me ballpoint pens because pencils are slow and I can't write fast enough to catch up with my thoughts. Half the writing is in small cursive, the other half is large, taking up several boxes with shaking lines.
Other times I need to be sitting out in the kitchen (right now I'm watching Cartman make pudding) because I'll get too far up in my own head and need someone to ground me.
When I'm done, I can do what I want with this story.
Burning it was a suggestion. That way I've put my experience out in the universe, can forget it all and start over, watching the words ash away, smoke into the cosmos forever.
Must I burn it all away? Do I have to condemn good with bad? There are quiet moments I want so much to squirrel away for myself: in the bloom of the afternoon when our hearts were at their fullest and our hands were always finding ways to touch and all I wanted to do was kiss his throat, he drifted down the side of my face like a beautiful ghost, whispering, "I want to hold you so badly right now."
I want to steal the memory and replay it until I die, live inside it like a snowglobe that never breaks and nothing else has ever happened.
Another option is to bury it. My qualm is this: say someone else found it, sealed airtight, 50 years from now? It won't be like finding the cave paintings in France or the letters of David Foster Wallace. I'm not important. All they will read is a rambling account of two people who fit so right yet got everything so wrong and wonder where this now old man named Kyle is. If I make it that long.
Do I burn or bury? Burn or bury…
I feel like I may cry now and I'll be damned if I let anyone see dried tear stains and feathered ink.
…
The night I held Bebe for the last time, I cried into her back. She couldn't see me, couldn't hear me, but felt tears on her shoulder blade and the tip of my nose grow warm. When I saw her face again, I could see she'd been crying too.
Normally, she would have spent the night, but we decided it was best if she went home and so we wouldn't have to wake up next to each other and cry more.
I carried her on my back, outside to her car, hugged her, watched red tail lights shrink down the street and out of sight around the corner. We didn't see each other for two months after that.
That first Saturday off in months, I slept in until noon and woke up from dreams about Bebe telling me she actually hated me, wanted to kill me, wanted to reach in through my mouth, and tear out my veins.
Someone was mowing their lawn. Sunshine slanted across my desk. The creaking ceiling fan spun slowly, and I shook myself from the hazy after-dream, pulled the blankets taut just under my eyes. With a weak hand, I reached over for the phone.
A text from Tweek: "Some guy walked in first thing this morning, stopped to look at me, and said 'you're not Kyle'."
Me: "They'll get used to you, don't worry. They did the same thing to me when I switched to mornings."
Then, a text from Wendy: "I have today off. Do you wanna go do something? Lol I need to not do housework."
It was from several hours ago.
I responded: "Sorry, I just woke up. Give me like 20 minutes but yeah sure."
Wendy: "I came with Stan to the shop so I'm downstairs. Damn, how late did you stay up?"
"I didn't! I OVERSLEPT."
The nightmare about Bebe made me sweat a lot, and it was still raging heat outside, so I took another shower before I got down there. I was starving, too. The only thing Bebe and I ate was that ice cream, and though my stomach ached from the lactose at first, those pains faded then twisted into voracious growls. But appetite coming back is a sign of receding DARK THOUGHTS.
I love hanging out with Wendy. We're almost the same person even though she's way more stable than I am. She's always been sisterly to me, so much so that if I had had a real sister, I wouldn't want her. Cartman likes to make jokes that we'll run away together but that could never happen. She loves Stan too much. Our family dynamic is like this:
Nonexistent Parents
Stan & Wendy Kyle & Cartman
Kenny
Cartman can gab all he wants but both of know that the real fake marriage is between me and him:
"Did you throw away my bananas, Kahl?"
"They were all brown and gross."
"They were ripe for banana bread!"
"That's basically a war crime, Cartman."
"Don't throw away my shit."
"Don't buy disgusting excuses for a fruit."
And it usually goes on like that until Kenny pipes up and tells us, "Please don't split up, I don't actually want two Christmases."
"You wouldn't get two Christmases, Kenny, you'd get Christmas and Hanukkah because Kahl's a Jew."
"I don't even celebrate Hanukkah anymore."
Bebe said she felt like an outsider, wasn't too close with Cartman and Kenny but they were pleasant enough when she visited (except for Kenny's wanting to pierce her nipples, but he exists on an extraterrestrial platform that regular social standards can't be compared to).
Often I wondered how Craig would have fit in. If he truly believed in us like he said he did, would he have moved in with me, me with him? We decided one night we would move out together wherever our lives took us, whether it be the mountains, the hills of New Mexico, maybe a villa in Berlin? Craig is really fluent in German. We dreamed big.
Air conditioning blasted me when I walked downstairs. Buzzing was already happening, with some early 2000s alt-rock station playing. I wanted to ask Kenny about Craig, if he remembered him as a customer, what he was like in the outside world, but Kenny was busy giving a mother and daughter matching nose piercings. I kissed two fingers then lightly pressed them into the nose of a buck.
"We didn't see you last night." Cartman sat in the corner of the waiting room, sketching on a tablet.
"I had Bebe over," I said. No point in lying.
"Waste of time, dude."
"No, it wasn't. I care about her."
"I don't think she cares about you though."
Before I could open my mouth to say "maybe all it takes is for one of us to care," Wendy came out of the bathroom, drying her hands on a paper towel. I'm glad I couldn't say it. It made no sense. I've been trying to make it make sense for years. It wasn't so much that only one of us cared - we both did. We just never cared at the same time; always finding new ways to shoot each other down, never quite knowing how to build the other one back up.
What a mess.
It wouldn't matter now. She was gone, off to enjoy her summer without having to worry about our stalemate.
"Let's roll, trash boy," said Wendy. Oh good, she knows about our squad name.
"Have fun with MY wife!" we heard Stan yell from one of the cubicles.
Just as we were about to open the door, Cartman said to me: "FYI - the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else."
"It's true," Wendy said, passing under the OPEN sign.
"I'd happily let myself be crushed by a steam roller," I said.
"In a sexual way?"
"Bye, Cartman."
…
First, Wendy took us through a drive-thru so I could get something hot in my stomach, then we ended up walking around the mall for a while. Both of us are fast walkers; we had to remind ourselves to slow down and enjoy the scenery of fake plants, blue fluorescent lights, teams of teenagers in huddles outside the representative store of whatever clique they belonged to.
Wendy asked me about work while we walked around the rug section of a furniture outlet.
"I like it a lot so far," I said, lifting the corner of a 6" x 6" that had pools of yellow with purple confetti inside them. It looked like vomit. I could have left it at that, but she would know I'm hiding something. "Had a bad introduction with the other student, but Dr. Vince told him to lay off, so now he's faking being nice to me."
She scrunched her nose the same way Stan does sometimes. I don't remember who rubbed off on who. "What does he do?"
"He'll ask me random questions, like 'do you ever go home and just eat Nutella straight from the jar'?"
"Do you?" she ran her hand over a blanket, not looking at me.
"Never. Oh, and yesterday he asked me if I've ever fried an egg on the sidewalk."
She pressed her lips together in a tight smile. "He does this a lot?"
"All the time."
"It sounds like he's flirting with you."
"Don't you dare say that."
"It's not that far-fetched," she said, passing by a vanity set.
I saw myself in the mirror. "I think it is. No one has ever just started randomly flirting with me.
"Don't be so sure he's not yet. Have you ever caught him staring at you?"
"Not really. I try to keep my head down and focus on the work."
"Has he ever," she bent her fingers into air quotes, "'accidentally' touched you?"
"I mean, he touched my back when I showed him my sunburn, but I don't think it meant anything."
"Dude, he's flirting. There's no way anyone tries that hard to be fake nice."
"I don't know. Still seems up in the air."
"Do you like him?"
"I have Bebe."
Sighing, Wendy waltzed into the model kitchens. She opened and closed cabinets until I spoke again.
"I feel bad," I lowered my voice, "I do kind of like him. I don't know why. He was so cold to me at first."
Dark oak doors wide open, she turned her head over her shoulder. "Maybe it turned you on."
"Oh god, don't."
"I'm kidding. No, you should totally be with someone who's nice to you, of course."
"He did seem a little upset when I told him I have a girlfriend."
"Why would you tell him that?"
"I had to! She was about to pick me up and he was acting like he wanted to drive me home and-"
"-KYLE. That was totally an opening."
"He's driven me home before and nothing happened."
"Would you have wanted something to happen?"
"Like what?" I flipped open a washing machine and leaned in, watching my floating, distorted reflection peer around. "Am I supposed to just reach over and grab his junk?"
"Yes."
"No, Wendy. You've watched too much porn." I twisted myself out of the washer to see her staring down a stained-glass window of a green hill, sunshine, and cats lounging about. It was definitely about to come home with us. I've always loved how cat people will also decorate their homes with cat things as if they're building a shrine.
"Life is so short. Why cockblock yourself?"
"You know why."
"It's sweet that you're trying to be faithful even though you're not together. But you're not. You and Bebe are over and you both know it. I like her, and I like you, but you're no good together. You haven't even acted like a couple since last year."
It was then, staring at that cat glass, it finally sunk in. I used to snort lines of cocaine off of random girls' bellies and now here I am window shopping in a furniture outlet for fun, and single. Not that there's anything really wrong with that, it's just a stark contrast from being a walking bag of drugs and anger to someone who needs a whole day of recovery after two glasses of wine and dinosaur nuggets. And now I had no girlfriend, to top it off.
The break-up didn't feel like a gunshot, or even a cut like most break-ups do, but rather, an old scab that had finally fallen away, lost in bedsheets in the middle of the night.
"I'm just saying," Wendy continued, "there's no harm in flirting back."
…
"You didn't mention you had a girlfriend."
He had managed to rope me into going to lunch with him again. This time, we were sitting on one of the picnic tables outside under a square, black umbrella. The air-conditioning in the lab was semi-fixed, blowing semi-cool winds, but the temperature outside also cooled off so we didn't mind. We would crack open the windows too if we wanted (putting tape over what we now called the "bee hole", of course).
The last few days I had taken a liking to eat lunch alone in a designated spot in front of a compass of woods. I would sit on a broken log and watch the small stream that carried dead leaves into other spaces. Squirrels sometimes skittered up and snatched my dropped food. Deer, always two or three at a time, often bound through the trees, never noticing me sitting there, doing grazing of my own.
I needed alone time, now that I was getting comfortable in the lab. With Wendy's words sticking to my brain, I noticed what could be flirting. Still, when I looked in the mirror, I couldn't help but continue thinking it was only a façade, just the niceties of putting up with each other until summer's end. The beginning of week two is blurry, but I remember us talking so much that Susan (I feel so weird not calling her Dr. Vince) said, "okay boys, less chattering, more science."
I was prepared to take my lunch out to my spot again when he asked me to sit with him.
"I want to get to know you more," he said.
"There's not much else to know."
I must have looked offended because then he looked away and mumbled something along the lines of "you don't have to/shouldn't have asked."
Truthfully, I wanted to. I was just nervous. What if he asked something I wasn't ready to delve into? He seemed genuine, and I felt bad. So I conceded.
Of course, one of the first questions was about Bebe while I was sipping from my water bottle.
"Was I supposed to tell you?" I asked.
"People usually mention their partners in casual conversation. Unless they're hiding something."
"I have nothing to hide."
"You haven't mentioned her this week, either."
"So?"
"So, I'm just curious what the deal is."
"There is no deal," I said, pointing a baby carrot in his face. "We just don't talk about each other."
"Wow, sounds very loving. It's not a serious relationship then?"
"There is no relationship. It's complicated."
"What you just said makes no sense. Either you're together or you're not."
I waved the carrot again. "Why do you care?" I was half-laughing. I didn't want him to think I was actually angry.
"I don't. I'm just curious."
"I'm not a science experiment."
"I know, I was just," he was spreading Nutella over a slice of toast. I could smell the chocolate and hazelnut from where I sat. How did this guy's teeth not rot out of his head? "You know."
I put my accusatory carrot down. "Okay, look. There are a million little reasons why it's not working out, but the straw that broke the camel's back is when I told her I'm queer, and she's not cool with it. That's it."
"Are you serious? That's kind of fucked up."
"It is what it is. Everyone has a preference. I don't hold it against her." I bit into my sandwich, looking down, hating that he was watching me chew. Did he want me to cry into the bread? God damn.
"Desert island books," he said suddenly.
"Sorry?"
"If you were stuck on a desert island, what three books would you want with you?"
What a way to change the subject. "Uh, I'm not sure."
"I can go first. Maybe it'll give you some ideas."
"Okay, go for it."
"First, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."
How many times has he played this? Or thought of it? That answer came out fast.
"Second, Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep?"
He paused after this one. I nibbled and said, "A good choice."
He seemed happy with my approval, eyes dancing and cheeks turning pink. I couldn't help looking at him now and thinking about how he looked on the first day.
"Okay, third. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone."
I smiled to myself. "I think I'd take that one too."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. I mean, they're all good books to distract from a bad situation, but that one…" was I really about to tell him this next thing that I've never told anyone else? It slipped out of me before I could think too hard about it. "After my accident, I was in the hospital for a while. They had someone come in and read to me while I recovered. One of the books was Harry Potter and it really made me forget, for a moment, that I was hospitalized. Among other things."
Craig stared at me for a long time. Other students and faculty brushed by us in their summer casuals, laughing and gossiping together. I finished my sandwich in silence. A breeze, full with the scent of rosemary, wafted between us.
"What's your second one, then?" He was catching on to what I would and wouldn't discuss, I think.
"My second one… Alice in Wonderland."
"Of course you would."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm just not surprised you like that book."
Why, because I'm crazy? I wanted to ask. Also, you don't actually know jack shit about me. Instead, I said, "A lot of people like it. For good reason."
"That's fair. So… number three?"
"Hm… The Sound and the Fury."
Usually, people recoil when I tell them I like one of Faulkner's most tedious books. Craig's eyes went wide but if there was any real disgust, he did well with stowing it away so as not to hurt my feelings. It turns into a nasty thing when someone insinuates you have bad taste.
"I've always found it to be a bit facetious," he said slowly, watching my eyes that were watching him speak. "It's difficult to pull that book apart unless you're in a class with a professor explaining it to you."
I loved that he said 'pulling it apart' as if it were the supple, white meat in the leg of a crab. "Do you really think that?"
Wide eyes again. Somewhere, in the hazy nebulous of his ego, I hit something. How could he not be used to questioning his own line of thoughts? Was there never a dissenting opinion that came his way? Come on, defend your thesis, Craig.
"Well, I suppose if you bear through the first section, it gets easier to thread it back together as you go along. I had to spend many weeks on it, though."
"You say that as if it's a bad thing, to spend so much time on a book."
"Well, it takes away parts of your life. I'd rather just read a book through and be done with it."
"Do you ever read them again?"
"Why should I? What's been said has been said. I know what's coming already, no point in revisiting."
"Sometimes you find new things."
"Yeah, I guess that's true."
"Also, if you're stuck on an island, you'd be forced to reread anyway."
"Also true." He stared off into the distance for a moment. I couldn't tell anymore if he was silently criticizing me for opposing him, or if this is just what a conversation is like between two consenting adults with cast-iron opinions. Then he looked at me, soft, and asked, "Why do you like Sound and the Fury, then?"
"Well. I liked piecing it together like a puzzle. The shifting perspectives, the time-traveling, that complicated ass family dynamic. And I love how everyone is grossly human. Some people never change. I don't know. I admire that Faulkner just put his balls to the wall and tried something different."
Craig was still watching me with a small smile. "What was your favorite section?"
"Quentin's."
"Really? But he kills himself."
Not like I haven't thought of tying weights to my ankles and jumping in a river too. "Yes, but I relate to him in a lot of ways," I said nothing more, hoping he wouldn't press, hoping he'd just nod and say "we all do," seeing in my face that I didn't want to go deeper. He was getting good at registering my unease with certain topics, but this time, he ignored it.
"How do you relate?"
Heart palpitations. The first word I wanted to say was "closeted," but that would see all the way down an avenue of hurt I couldn't venture again, and a frame of mind I was pushing out of.
"He talks about time a lot. He breaks his watch so he doesn't have to know the time, but it keeps pulsing in his pocket. He goes out and the town clock is ticking. He knows that, in a sense, time isn't real, but he also knows the world will keep ticking along whether he's alive to see it or not."
"It sounds like it gives you anxiety, Kyle."
"It does… Time goes by so fast yet so slow. I wish I could smash the face of every alarm, rip the arms off of every clock in the world, and live timelessly. But it doesn't matter. Seasons will change, I'll get sunspots and wrinkles around my eyes. I'll still know."
Staring at me again. I stared back.
"Wouldn't you rather move forward than be still for an eternity?"
Was this an opening? What was he really asking me?
"Maybe for some things. But I like this moment. I could talk with you like this for a few eternities."
"I guess there's no one answer for everything." He reached for his Coke bottle. "But for what it's worth, I like this too. No one has ever spoken to me the way you speak to me."
"How?"
He took a swig then said, "With honesty. I like the way you say things."
Later on, Susan left at 4:30 to pick up her daughter and we had that last half-hour together. When he reached over for a pH strip, I let him "accidentally" brush my arm.
17
