Chapter 9

"Tweek?" I called out as I got out of the car. But as I approached, I realized this person was too tall to be Tweek - but too short to be Kenny.

"Craig?" said a mild, meek tone. I finally made out Butters when I was four or five feet from where he stood in the blinding light from my car. "Where were you going?"

I could tell he'd chosen his words carefully. "I - uh - "

"You weren't going to Kenny's, were you?"

"No, I was - wait, why?" I asked as my drunken mind caught up with my mouth.

He didn't answer. "Where were you going, then?"

"McDonald's," I lied.

Butters stepped out of the headlights and got in the driver's seat of the car, pointing to indicate that I should get in the passenger side. He didn't have a licence, but we didn't go far, just back to where I'd been parked.

"Where were you going?" he asked me for a third time, a slight shift in his tone telling me this was the last time he would ask. He turned the car off.

"To the airport."

He raised his eyebrows. "To go to Boston? To see Tweek?"

I nodded.

"Even after he rejected you again?"

I almost felt like saying very sarcastically that yes, even after he rejected me again, but I stopped myself. "Yeah. I - I just want to prove to him that I can change, that I'm different, y'know…?"

He let out a nervous Butters-laugh. "Well, I mean, how long has it been, a few days? Have you really changed since then?"

It was a simple thing to say, but it really hit me. He was right. I wasn't different, I was the same as I was when he left.

"Maybe him leaving is really the best thing for now," he continued, not seeming to take silence for an answer. "Give both of you time to… y'know, get your heads on straight."

He was absolutely right. "I'm not good enough for him," I said quietly, not looking at my friend.

"C'mon, of course you are, Craig!" Butters said, but quickly realized this wasn't the right response. "Look, you guys have been together since what, tenth grade? Maybe you just need a little time apart to get better, y'know, figure yourself out or whatever."

Figure myself out. As if I could do that without him.

The look on Butters' face made me realize that I'd just said that thought aloud. Courtesy of Pabst Blue Ribbon. But he responsed eagerly, "That's what I'm talking about. You can't know who you are if you're that codependent on someone."

"Codependent?"

"Obsessed, dependent on another person for happiness, meaning, security. You have to find all those things in yourself if you want to really be happy."

I was speechless for a few moments, connecting the dots in my head and realizing he was right. "You're really smart," I said finally.

He smiled. "I know my relationship stuff, I spent long enough being led on and pushed around by Kenny not to."

I raised my eyebrows. He was full of surprises, it seemed. "That's why you didn't want me to see him?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, of course. What did you think?"

"I - I don't know. I thought maybe you were jealous."

"Jealous? God, no. I knew you guys were foolin' around from the get-go. I was there, in the kitchen, when Tweek just got back from rehab, I saw you guys kiss. That was the last straw, kinda. I dumped him as soon as we left."

"You did? He never said anything. I thought you were still dating."

"Probably to manipulate you in some way. Don't tell me he hasn't tried to 'logic' his way into your bed. Or worse, your heart."

I sighed. "He has. Just like I've done to Tweek."

I noticed for the first time that I was considerably less drunk than when I'd first entered the car, so much so that I was quickly feeling colder and colder. Also, one thing was becoming more and more clear in my mind: I wasn't going to be with Kenny, but I couldn't be with Tweek either. At least not now.

"I'm sure you didn't do it on purpose, just to control someone. That's what Kenny would do. But even if you did it out of love, it just goes to show that, for now, you're both best being apart."

I took a deep breath and nodded. "Thanks, Butters."

The blonde seemed to switch personalities back, reverting to the mother-hen-friend and taking me upstairs, getting me some aspirin and making sure I didn't trip over anything in my still-inebriated state.

As soon as I heard the door shut behind him as he left, I was out like a light.

When I woke up, dehydrated and sore on the couch, I immediately remembered the conversation I'd had with Butters. I felt somewhat numb and empty, but eerily hopeful, almost renewed.

I got up and hunted for my phone, eventually finding it in the pocket of my coat, draped carelessly over an armchair. There were two texts, one each from Butters and Kenny, and four missed calls from an unknown number. Against my better judgment, I opened Kenny's text first.

"I really am sorry."

I didn't let myself feel anything as I moved on to Butters' text.

"Craig, come to Hell's Pass as soon as you can."

What? Connecting the dots between the first text and the second, I was numb. Did I kill Kenny? Either in the haze of our fight or the mental aftermath?

Finally I called the unknown number.

"Craig? Oh, thank God! Steven, it's Craig!" Tweek's mom.

"What's the matter?" I asked, realizing in slow-motion that it wasn't Kenny in the hospital.

She was crying. "Tweek, he had an overdose. He's at Hell's Pass here in South Park. You're the only one he wanted to see."

"South Park? I thought he was in Boston?"

I knew before she started talking. "Why would he be in Boston?"

"I thought - he told me he'd gotten early acceptance at Harvard," I replied, getting my shoes and coat while pressing my phone to my ear with my shoulder.

"Harvard! There's no way - he failed every class this semester. He was kicked out last week and came home!"

I could hardly process so much misinformation at once. "Okay, I'll be there in an hour," I said, hanging up and rushing out the door.

Just as I fired up the Shitbox, I got an incoming call from Kenny. "Don't be mad," he said immediately. "I heard about Tweek, let me come with you. Please."

I stared at my phone for about a second before I hung up. I couldn't get the thought of Tweek having lied to me out of my head as I got on the freeway. All the writing he did at his signature white desk, stained yellow with cigarette smoke, was it all a lie?

Kenny called me twice more, I hung up on the first ring each time. I think he got the message. The messsage being, "fuck you, I fucking hate you."

When, after what felt like years, I pulled into the visitors' lot at Hell's Pass, I immediately recognized Stan's, Kyle's and Butters' cars. The only reason I was last was because my drunkeness the previous night had led me to sleep in till noon.

At the third floor nurse's station, I met my friends and Tweek's parents. The nurse asked me what relation I had to the patient. I said "boyfriend" despite my better judgement.

But nobody corrected me as they led me into his room. He was awake but clearly in pain. I greeted him. He grunted a response I barely understood to be a "hello".

The rest of the posse had the good graces to stay outside while I spoke to him for the first time in a week. "I thought you were in Boston," was all I could think to say.

"I… wanted to be." He took a deep breath that looked unbearably painful. "I needed a way out."

This hit me so hard my chest hurt to hear it. "Because of what I did." It wasn't a question.

"No. Because I flunked out."

I stared at him, the only man I'd ever truly loved, dressed in hospital blues and a weary look. I'd seen him pre- and post-rehab more than once, but never in the hospital. Suddenly, it dawned on me to ask…

"You overdosed. On purpose." Another non-question.

He nodded.

"And me and Kenny… it was the last straw."

This time he shook his head. "The phone call, last night. That was the last straw."

After a second of thought, I approached him and took out my phone. I showed him the records of all the calls Kenny had left me and how I'd hung up on him less than a second after seeing his name. I showed him the texts I'd ignored. I told him with earnest, "I don't love him."

Tweek was silent. I filled the silence with word vomit: "Butters said we shouldn't be together, at least for a while. While we figure ourselves out. He said we're 'codependent' on one another; We need each other too much. But I think he's wrong. You said in your letter that you couldn't be sober around me, but here you are." I took a moment to think. "I don't know much about philosophy but there must be something in your classes that say something about the point of a relationship. With Kenny, the only point was sex. With you… with you, the only point is to keep each other honest. We did that for nearly eight years, Tweek. The only things that sabatoged that were your drug habit and my one night stand with a manipulative cunt who, if you've noticed, isn't here. Ask Butters, he knows. Kenny played me, he hit all my buttons." The blonde wouldn't look me in the eye.

"But you never did. The fact that you flunked out of school was your own failure, and you tried to remedy it with… with speed. But you didn't have to keep that from me. In fact, if I'd known you were struggling, y'know, academically, maybe I would've understood why you kept relapsing. All this time... I thought it was me. I thought I was toxic for you, like you said in your letter. I thought we were codependent. But we aren't." I finally took a breath. "We're just another couple that keeps hiding from each other. And if we didn't do that, we'd make it. We'd be okay."

Silence hung in the hospital room for nearly a full five minutes. Tweek strained himself to reply.

"Ever since I left rehab I haven't been the same," he replied. "I thought that would be it for us, if I had to go again. You were so sure I could make it, that I could finish my degree, I wanted… I wanted you to believe I could. I wanted you to believe in me."

"I always believed in you, Tweek," I said automatically. "I still do. I don't care that you failed a semester. Look at me, I'm a fucking pizza delivery guy. I'd love you if you were a garbage man. I'd love you if you were a dog-sitter. I love you no matter what you are. You're not just a philosopher. You're more than the sum of your parts. You're the love of my life, and that depends on no job title."

After a few tense seconds, I saw a tear stream down his cheek, then another and another. I leaned in to hug him, but he drew me in for a kiss; one I'd thought might be lost forever. A rush of happiness blew me away as I grabbed his head and pulled him closer. "I love you," he murmured against my face. I returned the sentiment and kissed him again.

"Will you give me another chance?" I asked with desperation.

"If you'll give me one," he replied with an uncharacteristic smirk. I grinned and kissed him again.

The others poured into the room; I knew subconsciously that they'd overheard everything we'd said, but I didn't care.

Butters was the first to speak after several seconds of comfortable silence. "He's right, Tweek. I was wrong. You're not codependent. You just... rely on each other. Like anybody would."

Kyle was next: "You really belong together."

Stan, true to form, didn't seem to know what to say. Tweek's mother was the final speaker. "I love you, Tweek. I think Craig does too. I think you should be there for each other." It was the first time either of Tweek's parents had shown any indication that they approved of me, and it nearly made me cry. It did make Tweek cry even harder.

"Tweek," I began boldly, "I am a different man than a was a week ago. I love you. Even as you are, right now, in the hospital. Please take me back."

There was a hanging, notably awkward silence this time. Everyone looked at me despite the fact that the answer hung on Tweek. As if nobody expected me to be so forthright. Not that I blamed them. I didn't expect it myself. But I did believe it.

The silence was broken by neither of us but by the arrival of one Kenny McKormick. Glares from the entire room met his shy, awkward face as he entered the room.

"What are you doing here?" I asked.

"Apologizing."

I waited.

"I… I didn't realize. What I was doing - to both of you. To all of you," he added with a quick, guilty glance towards Butters. We all stood stiff. Before long, I realized everyone was once again looking to me.

I looked at Butters, who seemed to be squirming in his very skin.

"Kenny," he finally said, "Now's not the -"

"Of course it is," he interrupted, staring at me instead of him. "Craig, I'm sorry. I know you love him. I can get over it. You'll never get over him. You shouldn't."

I almost scoffed, as if he was giving me his profane blessing to be with the man I loved. But I saw it in his flushed face, the one that'd driven a hundred miles back to our hometown just to say so after I'd hung up on him countless times.

Oddly enough, it was Tweek who forgave him in my stead: "It's okay, Kenny."

We all looked at him in surprise. He continued: "Your mistake was thinking I was strong enough to take it; Craig's was thinking I was weak enough to take it."

Everyone else seemed confused at this sentiment, but I wasn't. I'd read everything he'd ever written, so I had no problem quoting him: "'I can only regard the thoughts I had held to be true, the thoughts commanding me to give up, to be nonsensical folly in the face of love.' The folly isn't in letting go," I told him and only him, "It's in giving up."

His pallid, blank expression slowly turned to one of sheer joy. "And if you give up, you let me go."

We ignored the confused looks of the other half-dozen people in the room, for we both knew what I meant. I kissed him hard, he kissed me back, and as I pulled away, he whispered, "Thank you for not letting go."

I told him that I never would.

I'm so incredibly sorry for the delay. I've been through hell and back the past few years. I hope those of you who've waited it out are content with this final chapter. It's taken me a year to pull it together. I'm glad that I finally did, however unsatisfying it may be. It was planned to be so from the start, for nothing is ever black-and-white.

Don't let go of love when you find it.