Chapter Sixteen - Remembering.

Scraping up the last few noodles from the bottom of his City Wok takeaway box, Stan chomped down on the food as he stuffed it into his mouth. Once he had finished, he tossed the empty box and chopsticks onto the coffee table in front of him and leant back into the living room couch. Sighing to himself, Stan then picked up the remote and blankly began flicking through the television channels. He very much doubted that anything would particularly catch his interest – the million different thoughts in his mind were consuming enough without any more entertainment.

Finally settling on one of the sport networks, the teenager took a moment to stare up at the clock hanging on the wall. It was almost eight in the evening. Kyle had come over and hung out for a bit after the two had left the park earlier, but now he had gone home, and the second that he had, Stan instantly fell back into the depths of his own uncertain thoughts.

It had been a relief for Stan to hear that he still had Kyle's support. Even after confessing to him that he still had feelings for Wendy – still loved Wendy – Kyle had told Stan that he understood. That was going to take a lot of time to move on from and get over, he had said. But he knew that Stan would be able to eventually do it.

And Stan knew that, too. Hell, he had already started.

Just as he was beginning to think that he could actually relax and enjoy some T.V., Stan suddenly felt himself jump in surprise at a loud knock at the front door. Turning around to face it from where he sat on the couch, the dark haired boy waited silently for a moment.

Who could be coming around to see him at this hour? The only people who knew he was home alone all weekend were Kyle, Kenny and Cartman, along with his Uncle Jimbo in case there was any trouble. On that thought, Stan glanced over the phone for a second before the loud thudding echoed throughout the house for a second time. Feeling an annoyed frown collapse into his features, Stan groaned, as soon enough, he shrugged his shoulders and got up from the couch.

Apparently it was far too much to ask for just one quiet night alone to gather his scattered thoughts. But if Stan thought that he felt agitated now, he had no idea what he was in for once he opened the heavy wooden door.

The exact second that the latch clicked open, Stan flinched as a flash of a black ponytail dashed past him into his house.

"The fuck?"

Spinning around on the spot, Stan refocused his confused vision before it settled on the last figure he was ever expecting to see standing in his living room. For a split second, his heart skipped a beat, but before long, a familiar anger began to bubble in his stomach again at the unwelcome sight of Wendy.

Where the hell was he even supposed to begin?

"What part of 'I never want to speak to you ever again' didn't you understand?"

Without giving her the chance to answer, Stan slammed the door back into place as he immediately went on, "You really don't want to do this right now," he spat, thinking of a quick lie to get her to leave, "My parents are both home and – "

"They are not," Wendy fearlessly cut in, "They've gone away for the weekend, haven't they?"

Thrown into unexpected shock, Stan stubbornly gritted his teeth together as he fell to silence. He stared at Wendy for a moment or two as she stood tall with her arms firmly folded against her chest. Stan shook his head. He was in complete disbelief at her pure audacity, barely able to wrap his head around the fact that she actually had the guts to confront him at his own house. And as such, he was left pretty much speechless as he soon sighed in reluctant defeat.

"What do you want?"

Wendy took a deep breath. Whether he was totally aware of it or not, Stan had just given her the chance to actually speak. Something she hadn't necessarily gotten on Wednesday afternoon. There was only one question that stood – now that she had managed to convince herself to actually march herself over to his house, what the heck was she supposed to say?

"I'm not done with you from the other day."

Stan chuckled, "What? You mean 'fuck off, fucking asshole' wasn't enough for you?"

"I can keep going if you really want me to."

"Sorry, but I'm done with you."

Carelessly brushing past her, Stan started to make his way upstairs. This continual heated back and forth between them was the absolute last thing he felt dealing with, and he certainly wasn't going to stick around and get into another huge blow-up with Wendy. Quite frankly, he didn't think he could bare another fight.

"Get out of my house," he yelled back to her as he climbed upstairs.

Looking up after him, Wendy defiantly shook her head. Ever since earlier that afternoon when Bebe had revealed to her that her ex-boyfriend would be staying home alone that weekend, Wendy had more or less immediately concocted a plan to give her and Stan one more final chance. And she wasn't going to let that go to waste now.

"You're not done with me until I say so!" she shouted, quickly following him up the stairs.

"Piss off, Wendy!" Stan sniped, rapidly ducking into his bedroom and shoving the door shut behind him. Right at the very last second, though, Wendy was able to catch it as she daringly joined the teenage boy in his room.

"I'm not going anywhere until you sort out all this shit with me from the other afternoon!"

In utter disbelief, Stan snapped around and glared absolute daggers at his ex-girlfriend, "Really, Wendy? You think out of the two of us, you're the one who's owed an explanation? You? Really?"

Wanting to scream, Wendy took in another breath, "You can't just leave in the middle of a discussion like that!"

Stan raised a sarcastic eyebrow. Wendy definitely had an interesting way of wording things, "Oh, that's what you want to call it?" The cynicism in his throat was fuelling all other kinds of emotions as another malicious thought crossed his mind, "And besides, you seemed to just leave in the middle of our relationship pretty easily."

The vicious and sudden turn in conversation left Wendy's heart stinging as her mouth hung open, "Easily?"

"You seemed pretty happy from where I was standing."

"Do you seriously not remember anything about that day?!"

The very moment that the sentence left Wendy's lips, a fire lit up behind Stan's eyes. Out of everything he had heard and seen over the past three weeks, nothing had projected so much of an insult onto him than what the girl opposite him had just said.

"I remember everything from that day!"

Wendy impulsively flinched at the extreme volume of Stan's voice. His body was nearly visibly trembling. She could yell at him, she could swear at him, she could even kiss him – but Stan was never going to let Wendy doubt or question or dictate the pure emotion of everything he had felt over the past two years. Especially not from the day when they were fifteen and she had broken his heart and left him out in the cold.

"I remember waiting up in my room and being so excited to see you after four days, how scared I was when you wouldn't even look me in the eye let alone hold my hand, standing in the cold outside your house completely frozen by the thought that I was never going to see you again!"

Stan's breathing was heavy as he stopped for a second, feeling a lump forming in the back of his throat. It was like all the peril and turmoil from the past number of weeks and months was ready to explode from within him.

"Every day after that waking up and hoping that it was just a horrible nightmare, thinking about all the plans we made together that you had just left behind, tying to forget about all the little things like getting to kiss you every day and the way it felt to fall asleep next to you every other weekend. I tried to forget it all. But I never could. I remember everything."

Wendy's eyes were wide with devastated shock. The immense guilt that immediately took over her made it impossible to continuing holding eye contact with Stan, but as her vision began to dart about where she was standing, it soon began to truly dawn on her where she was.

Standing right in the middle of Stan's bedroom felt so incredibly surreal. It was the small space where she probably held the happiest memories from across her entire life. She never thought she would be privileged enough to return here ever again, but as she continued to look around and examine every inch of every wall, she only wished that it could have been under better circumstances.

As she held onto this thought, Wendy slowly gazed back at Stan. She replayed everything he had just said to her over and over again in her head. A shiver ran up her spine as it suddenly reignited one major concern from the other afternoon.

Tentatively, she gulped, "Is that why you had to go to counselling?"

With their eyes now locked with each other's again, Stan remained firm faced. The utter quiet that filled the room seemed to stretch on for a lifetime until all of a sudden, without any word of warning, Stan aggressively pulled up the left sleeve of his jacket and held his forearm out to Wendy.

And the teenage girl felt her heart completely stop.

"Kyle found out what I was doing and made me get some help before it got any worse," he explained coldly.

The most genuinely sad tears began to form in Wendy's eyes at the sight of the burns blazed across Stan's skin, "Did I really hurt you that badly?"

Reading the absolute desolation in her face, Stan felt the anger in his chest soften. He may have wanted to hurt her before, but taking something so serious and putting such a careless twist on it was not something that anyone deserved. Pushing his reckless spite to the side, he groaned to himself.

Shit.

"No. No, Wendy, it wasn't you. Not really. I thought it was at first, but you never made me do any of the things I ever did," he spoke, rolling his sleeve back down. The confusing sound of his own explanation made the dark haired boy sigh as he knocked down a bit more of his highly built wall, "I did all that to myself because I was hurting from things that had happened. It just hurt to know that you were okay and had moved on."

"But I wasn't okay! I was never happy, Stan, I never wanted to move away from South Park, I never wanted to leave you!" Wendy argued, "I was terrified from day one. I begged my parents with everything I could think of – use the place in Malibu as a holiday house for the summer, let other people in our family live there, rent it out instead and make money out of it! I tried everything. And when none of it worked all I could think about was trying to be with you when we were hundreds of miles apart. I was too scared, Stan. I didn't want to leave you but in the end I just thought it would be best to rip off the band aid and let it all go. But I was wrong, I was so wrong."

Trying to hold her tears within her, she glimpsed at each of the features of Stan's face. She could see the mixture of desperation and relief in his eyes to finally be hearing some kind of justification for her long absence, but she knew that so far she had only touched the very tip of the iceberg.

Sniffling miserably to herself, Wendy wiped away a solitary tear, "I went through hell without you."

"What are you talking about?"

"What I've been trying to tell you this whole time."

Stan sensed a nervous knot in his stomach. Whatever it was that Wendy had been trying to get off her chest, it had made her cry at home, it made her cry at school, and it was definitely making her cry now. Was Stan prepared enough for this? Was it even going to be something he wanted to hear?

Slowly, he blew out a heavy breath. There was only one way to find out.

"So tell me now."

Prolonging her timid silence, Wendy kept a breath held in as she stared at Stan.

For the first time since Wednesday, they weren't yelling at each other anymore. Wendy didn't even feel particularly angry anymore, so she knew that this was a good a time as ever to finally divulge to Stan what had been suffocating her for so long. Her only fear was that it would spark his frustrations all over again.

Because she was certain that he was going to be so, beyond disappointed in her.

Letting out her unsteady breath, Wendy felt her hands start to shake, "In January, this year… I stated dating this guy."

A painful ache shot throughout Stan's body, "You… had a boyfriend?"

"Griffin. Never have I ever kissed a random at a party?" Wendy confirmed, reminding Stan of their conversation at the Homecoming after party with a solemn nod of her head, "He became a little more than just 'a random'. He was a year older than me, but he was so sweet. We had so much fun together, he actually made me feel better about not being here."

As her story moved onward, Wendy sensed a sick feeling building in her guts.

"After about four months of being together, we were in his room, home alone," she went on, trying to glaze over the specifics for Stan's sake, "We were just, like, kissing, or whatever. But then he asked me if he could... take a photo me..."

Fearfully, Wendy looked away from Stan, "… a topless photo."

And in that instant, Stan felt his world stop spinning.

"… and I let him."

The ache that had moments ago overcome his body felt like nothing compared to the excruciating pain of his heart crashing into the depths of his stomach. Stuttering out a distraught gasp, Stan brought his hands to his head, "Oh my God…"

"Look, I trusted him, okay?" Wendy retorted, "I thought everything would be fine, but then about a week later I was at his place again and he wanted to..."

Trailing off yet again, Wendy stopped, hardly believing what she was just about to admit.

"… he wanted to have sex," she confessed, choking on a sob at the last word she had spoken, "He pulled me down onto his bed and even when I said no he tried to, like, hold me down. I tried to push him off me and ended up just slapping him right across his face. I ran out and went home. I was too scared to ever see him again so I texted him and told him that we were through."

Summoning the courage to gaze back at him, Wendy almost shied away from the rage she could see in Stan's face. He was still yet to say anything, so she could only hope that he wasn't completely furious at her. But still – after everything she had already said – still, she was yet to reveal the very thing that had tipped her over the edge.

"When I got to school the next day, he had sent that photo of me to absolutely everyone," the painful memory was all too fresh to Wendy as the pooling tears fell a little more from her eyes, "My friends tried to help me deal with it. I couldn't stand the thought of my parents knowing so I forced myself to hold on for the rest of tenth grade. But then even after the summer break when I came back to school and the taunting and bullying still hadn't gone away, I just couldn't take it anymore. I told Mum and Dad everything that I did and everything that happened and that I needed to come back to South Park."

"That's why you moved back?" Stan asked, his face red from the heat at which his blood must have been boiling by now, "Why didn't you go to the police?"

"I didn't want to go through all that, Stan. I didn't want to deal with an investigation and a possible trial on top of all the ridicule. I just wanted to come home and forget about it all."

Shaking his head, Stan tried to reconfigure all his emotions. This was the last thing he had ever been expecting to hear from Wendy, "What kind of an asshole would do something like that…"

Chuckling at her own secret irony, Wendy shrugged her shoulders, "That wasn't even the worst part."

She could see the confusion in his face as he frowned at her in disbelief, "What could be worse than all of that?"

Wendy's answer was instant, "Thinking about the amazing guy that I left behind in South Park," she murmured softly, "My amazing guy, a guy who I knew would never hurt me on purpose and would always love me no matter what."

Stan could sense his heart starting to slowly flutter. The only factor preventing it from absolutely soaring out of his chest was Wendy's mention of him never, ever hurting her on purpose. That forced an overwhelming wave of guilt to wash over him.

Licking his lips to speak, Stan tried to carefully steer away from all of Wendy's adoration of him, "I'm sorry I kissed Darcy in front of you. I was just being a spiteful douchebag."

"You don't have to be sorry about anything. This is me apologising to you for everything. I'm sorry for the day I left, I'm sorry for how I left, I sorry for blocking you out, I'm sorry for everything that happened afterwards. And for the other day..." Wendy paused again, softly laughing to herself, "I've barely slept since the other day because I just stay up all night thinking about everything I've done to you. I'm so sorry."

Stan's heart was splintering at the pleading tone in Wendy's voice, "Wendy…"

"No, Stan, I miss you too much to be mad at you anymore," she confessed, sharply cutting him off, "I should've realised what I had when you were mine. I'd go back in time and change everything but I can't. I swear, Stan, if you let me back in I will never hurt you again. I never moved on from you, I still haven't, and I never will."

Each devoted word that left Wendy's lips and danced into the thin air of the small room was like another devilish temptation begging Stan to finally give in. He couldn't believe that only two days ago they had been screaming at each other, saying horrible things. Wendy had even put his hands on him, and he had sworn that she would forever be cut out of his life.

And now this. Now they had poured their hearts out to each other more than they ever had for their entire nine years of knowing one another. The slate was near perfectly clean, and more importantly than anything else, Wendy had finally apologised to Stan. And yet, he still couldn't will his legs to move towards her.

While it definitely sounded like Wendy had been to hell and back in the past two years, Stan was not prepared to forget about and undermine his own heartbreak, either. Even as he gazed at her up and down, desperate to reach out and take her by the hand, the teenage boy knew he had come way too far to look back now.

Slowly, but without complete certainty in himself, Stan took a first step towards Wendy. Almost instantly, her face lit up, filled with hope and blissful reprieve. But soon enough, the dark haired girl only felt her body go cold, as once again, Stan grazed past her shoulder and opened his bedroom door.

Regretfully, he gestured towards it for her, "I'm sorry Wendy. I'm not doing this to hurt you. I'm just being realistic and trying to protect both of our feelings. Even if we did get back together, we'd be perfectly happy and totally in love for, what, two years? But then we'd finish high school, apply to different colleges and go off our separate ways again. We just can't handle the distance."

The yearning expression on her face was not making Stan's words any easier as he shrugged his shoulders, at a complete loss, "I know how this all ends."

The anticipating, stunned silence still filled the room to the brink.

Wendy refused to look away from Stan. He may have thought that he had put his foot down, but Wendy was too smart for that. She could see right through him, because more than anything, she knew him like the back of her hand.

In the past ten or so minutes, Stan had gone from supposedly hating Wendy's guts, to speaking to her softly and sharing things with her that had probably only ever been heard by his closest friends. His mouth may have been asking her to leave, but his eyes, face, tone and body language were all saying something totally different.

And besides, just as she had said that afternoon – Wendy could see all too clearly what the both of them really wanted. And she was still going to get it.

"No you don't."

Before Stan knew what was about to happen to him, he jumped back in astounded surprise, feeling his back thump into the wall next to his bedroom door as Wendy lunged at him. Stretching her arms up to reach his neck on the top of his tall figure, she boldly plummeted her lips against his once more.

With his eyes wide open in pure astonishment, Stan waited for the incontrollable feelings of desire to take over him, just as they had on Wednesday. However, as much as it amazed even him, Stan's brain seemed to have won the battle over his heart this time around. With his arms stuck firmly by his sides, Stan gently tried to wriggle from Wendy's grasp.

There was no way this could work again with her, he told himself. Absolutely no way. They had been apart from each other for far too long. Things had changed – a lot of things had changed. And Stan knew this – no matter how much Wendy's kiss tasted just as sweet as it always had. No matter how soft the touch of skin was, no matter perfect her face looked so close to his, no matter how irresistible the smell of her perfume was… oh crap.

Who am I fucking kidding?

So guess what! This chapter actually turned out to be be about 8 and half thousand words, which I figured was far too much to give you guys all at once... so the very next bit is already all good and ready to go! So... leave me a nice review and it may get uploaded very, very soon ;)

But anywaaaaay, give me some speculation! Whats do you all think is about to happen next? And, also, is there finally some sympathy for Wendy now? I should hope so! ;)

Please leave me a review and let me know what you think! I truly do appreciate it :)

Till next time (verrrry soon) guys,

Reneyyyyyyyyyyyy x