A/N: Hello friends, I just wanted to pop in and apologize for not updating. I really wanted to be able to upload this next cluster of chapters together because of the content. Also, I fucked up my wrist at one of my jobs and have to wear a brace now and then, as it can be painful to write and type.

Take care and stay safe,

-Kyle, Your Local Garbage Gay

...

After Craig, I was stuck between "give yourself time to heal" and "you need to fuck someone and get over this." I opted for the latter.

Dating apps were never a service I thought I'd succumb to, but I don't have acquaintances I can randomly fuck, but I needed someone. Anyone. Didn't care who.

Every person I talked to was around my age and wanted a relationship. They wanted marriage, family. I almost hated them. Me, being a temporary psychopath, played along. I asked things like: "What's your favorite pizza topping?" "Do you like Marvel?" "How do you feel about global warming?" (how do you feel about dudes with dents in their brains?)

All of them got fed up with 20 questions. All of them ghosted me. But that's okay. I wouldn't reply to me either.

A week went by and I gave up that route.

I was still hungry.

There's a truck stop not far from me. I went late at night and waited close to the bathrooms. I had just downloaded a new app for orchestrating local hookups.

Lights in the Pepsi machine flickered. Chilly September air slunk around my bare arms and up my pant legs. Semi-trucks with drivers asleep in the front lined the parking lot. I typed up a post:

In need of an aggressive top within the next 20 minutes. No talking. Don't even say hello. If you speak at all, I will leave. Do what you want to and be done. I'm sitting by the bathrooms in Love's Travel Stop in dark jeans and a Blink-182 shirt. NO TALKING.

Ten minutes later, a man with some silver in his beard, clad in a red hoodie, walked up to me. I saw, just before he put his hand up to my throat, the green marks around his finger where a wedding ring was.

It's out of character for me, I know.

The whole time I thought about how I told Craig I wasn't about the casual lifestyle, and how I didn't want to randomly sleep with that girl at the party with the frozen burritos and my puke on the floor.

But… I didn't feel bad after the truck stop encounter. I was only tired. My mind shut off. All I went with was what my body wanted, and I kept doing what my body wanted until it was woefully bruised, tendered, cadaverous.

Wendy was sitting in the lobby, watching T.V. on the wall when I got home. She clutched Stan's shop keys close to her stomach, slouched in the reception chair, still in pale blue scrubs.

"Cartman heard you leave," she said as soon as I walked in. "He called me, asking if you were at my house. I tried texting you but you didn't answer."

"Sorry."

"Where the hell did you go?"

"Errands."

"At midnight?"

"Sure."

I tried to walk past her, but her gaze made me stop. I don't have it in my heart to be a dick to Wendy.

"You need to be careful, Kyle. You could get AIDS."

"Do you really have to come for me like that? I know this already."

"You could end up in a body bag."

"Sounds cozy."

Wendy suddenly rose, and I could see from what little moonlight shone in the windows that her eyes were wet. The animal eyes were wet. Mine were dry.

"Don't you ever say shit like that to me again. Do you know how fucked up it would be if something happened to you?"

"Relax. Nothing is going to happen to me. Ever."

She stood on her tiptoes and grabbed my shoulders. "I know you're hurting right now, but please. Be careful. If not for your own sake, then do it for us. You have no idea how much we would miss you."

I stared down at her.

"Ugh, don't look at me like you don't believe me! Trust me." She then looked under my chin, tilted my face toward to the light with her small, manicured hands. "Your neck…"