I apologize for such a long wait. I went through a bad breakup and it really messed me up for a while, but I'm feeling much better now and I'm super excited to come out with a new chapter of this story. I really, really hope you enjoy! (:

"Is he even breathing?" A whisper disturbs me from my 2 P.M nap.

"Well, I-I don't know why you're askin' me. How would I-I know?" Great. They're both here.

"Well, go over there and poke him. C'mon Leo, do you want Kyle's death to be on your hands?"

"W-well, no of course I don't! It's just t-that-" I decide to put an end to their bickering.

"You know that I can hear you assholes, right?" Although my eyes remain shut, I can almost see their heads abruptly turn towards me. I hope that they sense the impatience in my voice and just leave. Instead I feel someone plop onto the bed, forcing my eyes open.

"Oh good, you're awake. We came over to ask if you wanna go with us," He gives me his famous smirk that got about half of the school to sleep with him during freshman year. Luckily, I've known him long enough to become immune to it.

"Go where exactly?" In response to his smirk, I give him my famous death glare, but he doesn't seem to back down.

"Just around town. Me and Butters wanted to get out of the house for once," He turns to Butters, who is standing at the foot of my bed, and winks at him seductively, making Butters visibly blush, "And we just thought you might wanna come?" They do this almost every weekend. They invite me somewhere, I refuse, they tell me I'm missing out, go somewhere without me, and I feel like an asshole for the rest of the day. The repetition is getting to me.

"Thanks, but I'll pass," I pull the covers over me and begin listening for the sound of them leaving. However, the sound doesn't come. About 15 seconds pass before the blanket is snatched from me, "Kenny!"

"Kyle!" He mockingly matches the tone of my voice, "You can't just lie in bed all day. You're gonna have to experience the outside world at some point."

"I don't lie in bed all day. I go to school," I try to keep a composed voice.

"So you go from being trapped inside a room all day to being trapped inside a building all day? Doesn't seem like much of an upgrade to me."

"Kenny, please just-" I see his face transition from tranquil to pissed in record time.

"Just what Kyle?! It's been over three weeks since you and Stan broke up! Listen dude, I get it, it sucks. But you can't just pretend that time stopped moving three weeks ago," He walks over to the curtains and yanks them open, forcing my eyes to adjust to the brightness, "The world is still spinning Kyle, you can't let it leave you behind."

"K-Ken, don't you think that's a little harsh?" We sit in silence, no one willing to respond. I take a deep breath, knowing I'm about to regret my words.

"He's right Butters. I can't just keep sitting here feeling sorry for myself," Kenny's smirk returns to his face. Yep, definitely regretting them.

"So then I'm gonna ask again. Do you wanna go with us?" I pick myself up completely and rub my eyes, now aware I won't be getting back to sleep anytime soon.

"Let me get dressed," He walks from the curtain to me, placing his face only an inch or two from mine.

"Glad we could come to an agreement." He grabs Butters' hand and leads him out the room. I reluctantly throw on a pair of jeans and an old Star Wars shirt. I begin searching in the hamper beside my closet for a sweater. I pull out an unfamiliar grey pullover, and once I get a closer look at it my stomach begins to hurt. It's the South Park Cows sweater that I borrowed that night almost a month ago. I guess that I forgot to return it. After staring at it for an overly extended period of time, I throw it to the side and instead settle on a jacket that Kenny got me last Christmas.

()

"Where exactly are we going?" I ask impatiently as we make our way down the sidewalk of our street.

"Can't you just enjoy the journey without worrying about the destination?" Kenny turns around with a lively smile on his face. However, he must be able to see the disdain on my face because his grin quickly disappears and he sighs in frustration, "We're going to Bijou Theater. Butters wants to see Moana." I'm tempted to respond, but I decide to stay quiet. I don't want to come off asungrateful, because I know what these two are doing. They're trying to cheer me up, and I truly do appreciate what they're attempting to do.

Without me realizing it, we arrive to the theater. I hand over my money to pay for the tickets and am reminded of how often Stan and I used to come here. He would always pay for my ticket, no matter how much I protested against it. We would walk up to the snack line and I would tell Stan I didn't want anything, but he always bought me my favorite snacks anyways. The money never impressed me, but the thoughtfulness did.

"Kyle?" I look up at Kenny and realize that I have completely zoned out. A line has formed behind me, so I grab my ticket and make my way into the theater. We push our way through the crowds of people towards the back of the theater where our auditorium is located. Most of the seats are already taken, but we are able to find some near the back row.

I immediately assume my position of being a third wheel, but it's not like I didn't expect as much. Butters has his head rested on Kenny's lap, and Kenny is lightly caressing Butters' golden hair. I decide to just try and pay attention to the movie. It seems happy and colorful and vibrant, but I feel anything but that. Instead of cheering me up, the movie seems to be making things worse. I look around and everyone appears to be enjoying it. There is a mother holding her laughing son, and a grandfather with his smiling daughter upon his lap. Something about it is suffocating, and I can't take another second of it.

I quickly jump from my seat and make my way down the aisle. When I exit the auditorium I rush to the nearest restroom. I lock the door behind me and drop to the floor. I'm hyperventilating, so I try my best to slow down my breathing. After a couple of minutes, I've calmed down enough to pull myself up from the floor and make my way to the bathroom mirror. I don't even recognize the person I see, a sad, pale, pathetic shell of a boy. I don't understand why I can't sit through one movie to make my friends happy. I don't understand why I see him in every little thing. I don't understand why I let a boy destroy me like this.

"Kyle, are you in there?" I hear Kenny's voice call from the opposite side of the door.

"Yeah, I'm here," I take a deep breath before opening the door, "I'm so sorry I stormed out like that, I don't know what the hell came over me."

"You d-don't have to apologize Kyle," Butters chimes in, "Well, see its kinda our fault. We shouldn't've made you come here cuz well we saw how sad you were but see we were just tryin' to cheer you up," he keeps his eyes on the ground, apparently too ashamed to look at me, "We can go somewhere else if that's what you want."

"No Butters, I don't want to ruin the movie, I know you want to see it."

"Well Kyle, I can see this gosh darn movie any day of the week. But today is your day. We wanna do what you wanna do."

"Thanks Butters," He finally looks up to see the reaction on my face. I simply give him what can barely be considered a smile.

"Well, w-where do you wanna go?" He looks at me with his deep blue eyes.

"Stark's Pond?" A smile appears on both of their faces in response to my suggestion.

"Sounds great," Kenny softly replies.

()

Unfortunately, Stark's Pond is one of the furthest places to walk to from the theatre. As we finally approach it, something in my peripheral vision catches my eyes. The community center is being decorated with winter themed decorations, which is highly unusual. Our town usually just uses the community center for town meetings and as shelter during environmental disasters.

"What the hell is going on here?" I gesture to the community center. Kenny and Butters both hesitantly stop, and after they see what I'm motioning too they give me a very confused look.

"Are you serious?" Kenny asks. The tone in his voice makes me immediately feel like an idiot, as if I should know the answer already. But I don't.

"…Yeah?"

"Kyle, tomorrow is the Winter Ball. The one that our town hosts every year, and that everyone has been talking about for weeks. Is this not ringing any bells?"

"Oh yeah. I guess I must have forgotten," I'm actually surprised at myself. I was actually excited about the Winter Ball for a long time because I knew I would be able to go with Stan, but after everything happened it must have just slipped my mind.

"You're going, right?" Kenny cautiously asks. I give him a small chuckle, assuming he must be joking.

"Nah, I think I'm gunna pass," I once again begin walking towards Stark's Pond.

"Aww C'mon Kyle, you should come," Butters' composed voice forces me to stop. I can't ignore him when he is so polite.

"Butters, I just really don't think it would be the best idea."

"Well, why not?"

"Because Stan is going to be there!" I accidentally raise my voice, and I can tell Butters is taken aback.

"Well, you know what Kyle, I've about had it up to here with his whole Stan nonsense! You are lettin' him control your life and well, well I just don't think that's fair at all! You were happy before you and him dated and gosh darn it you can be happy afterwards! So you can either decide to not go and be sad and let your whole future be decide by this one thing, or we can go to the mall right now and we can buy you a tux and you can go tomorrow and we can have a nice time! So w-which is it gunna be?" Both me and Kenny stand in a stunned silence. I can tell the look on Kenny's face is one of pride, while mine is just one of contemplation.

I look over to Stark's Pond. I begin to wonder why I wanted to go there so much, especially in the middle of December. I didn't think much of it when I suggested it, but maybe it meant something. I think deep down, I thought going there would make me feel closer to Stan. Maybe I thought that for some reason he would be waiting for me on our bench, and he would say he's made a huge mistake and everything would go back to the way it was. But now that I'm here, I see how pathetic I'm acting, and I see how selfish I'm being towards my friends. And I see the bench, and it's empty.

"You're right Butters. You're absolutely right," I turn my back to Stark's Pond to face them, "Let's go tux shopping."

()

We arrive to the mall at around 7, so we still have a couple hours until it closes. I haven't shopped for tuxes in a long time, so I let the two love birds lead the way. They settle on this little shop towards the back of the mall. It looks expensive, but Kenny says their prices aren't too bad, especially for the quality you get. I'm not sure what size I am, so Butters guides me all around the store searching for something that fits.

"How does this look?" I step out of the dressing room. The jacket feels like it fits, and it actually doesn't look bad in the mirror, but I need a second opinion. A huge grin appears on Butters' face.

"Wow Kyle, you look r-really handsome in that," I can't help but laugh at his gawky attempt at flattery.

"So, do you think this is the one?"

"Yeah," He nods, examining the tux once again, this time more thoroughly, "This is the one."

As I make my way back towards the dressing room, I spot something out of the corner of my eye. There's a small black music box sitting on one of the shelves. There's a picture of a constellation of stars on the top that I find really pretty. I open it and inside there are two people skating over a frozen lake while the most peaceful music imaginable plays.

"What do you have over there, Kyle?" I turn to see Butters peaking over my shoulders.

"Oh it's nothing," I lightly close the music box, "I just saw it and thought it was really pretty."

"Oh, well are you r-ready to go?" I nod at him.

We pay for the tux and make our way out of the shop. The mall is nearly empty since it's almost closing time, so we don't have to force our way through crowds of people. When we exit the mall, we all inhale sharply. The temperature seems to have dropped about 10 degrees since we first entered the mall. However, after a couple of seconds we adjust to it as best as we can and make our way into the darkness of the night.

The night is calm, and the streets are silent. I don't even hear the sound of any traffic. Kenny wraps his arms around his boyfriend when he notices how bad he's shivering. Butters isn't as used to this weather as me and Kenny since his parents never really let him leave the house.

For the first time in a long time, I take time to admire the scenery around me. I usually yearn for the big nightlife of the city, but tonight I am perfectly content with the humble beauty of this small town. Each house along the street is decorated with Christmas lights. They are the only things illuminating the road back home, and something about that is extremely calming.

"They sure are pretty, aren't they?" Butters seems to notice how much they lights are encaptivating me.

"Yeah," I feel a smile come over my face, "They're beautiful."

()

"So I'll pick you up at 6?" I'm sitting on Wendy's bed, trying my best to convince her to come to the Winter Ball later on today.

"I don't know Kyle, do you really think it's a good idea?" She's pacing around the room, trying her best to maintain a conversation with me while also tidying up her room.

"What do you mean? Why wouldn't it be?" I answer a little too defensively.

"Well, of course I don't mean it in that way. I'm just saying that Stan is going to be there. Are you sure you're ready for that?" She stops pacing for a second and looks at me, awaiting my response.

"Well honestly, I don't know if I'm ever going to be ready. But I am sure that I want to have night where I surround myself with the people I care about and have a good time. That's why I want you there." Wendy isn't someone who is easily susceptible to flattery, but I notice a slight smile form in the corner of her mouth.

"Fine, I'll meet you at your house at 6. We can carpool together," I triumphantly smile.

"Perfect," She briefly gives me a look of annoyance, but it quickly transforms into one of panic.

"What am I going to wear?! What am I going to do with my hair? I need to shower, and then I need to start on my makeup, then I need to-" She is interrupted by me grasping onto her shoulders.

"Wendy, you need to calm down. Whatever you wear will be fine. You still have hours before the dance. Just take your time and show up to my house whenever you're ready, no rush. Okay?" She nods at me.

"No rush," She repeats back to me.

()

Wendy shows up to my house exactly at 6. She looks absolutely stunning. She's wearing a black sleeveless dress, and she curled her hair, which looks great on her. My mom can't help but take pictures of us before we leave because of how "precious" we look. It feels nice that for once I don't have to be barraged with questions about a girl since she knows I'm gay.

When we get to the dance not too many people have arrived since it only started about 20 minutes ago. I almost immediately spot Kenny, so we make our way towards him.

He sees us walking to him and he smiles at us, "Hey guys, you both look great," He pulls me into an embrace, and then awkwardly hugs Wendy.

"Hey Kenny, is Butters not here yet?" I look around, unable to spot his golden hair anywhere.

"He's not feeling good, so he's in the restroom resting for a bit. I should actually go and check on him if you don't mind."

"No not at all, tell him we hope he feels better," Wendy warmly replies. Kenny nods and heads towards the restroom.

"Hey, do you want something to drink!?" I yell at Wendy, trying to not be drowned out by the excessively loud music.

"Yeah, please and thank you," she smiles at me gratefully. I walk over to the punchbowl and begin serving me and Wendy some punch. Then I look up and my heart nearly stops. I see Stan. He's with a couple of other football guys, just joking and laughing. He doesn't see me, and I want to keep it that way. He looks good. Really good. He didn't put any effort into his hair, but in my opinion that's when it looks best. I realize how long it's been since I've seen him. The real him. I have seen him at school, and occasionally I spot him when he goes out to check the mail, or to take out the trash. But I haven't seen him like this. Smiling. Having fun. Truly living. I know it sounds selfish, but it feels like absolute shit to see him happy. Of course I want what is best for him, but I guess some part of me thought that he would be just as much of a mess as me. I thought maybe I wasn't the only one who missed how things were.

I decide to stop torturing myself like this and I turn back towards Kenny and Wendy with two cups of punch in my hand, "Hey, how is Butters feeling?" This brings both of their attention to me.

"Oh, he's okay. I keep telling him we can leave if he wants, but he just says he doesn't want to ruin my night. You know how sweet he can be," He pretends to be annoyed by it, but I know he loves it, "If in a few minutes he still doesn't feel better we are probably gunna head out."

"Yeah, we understand."

"So, you guys will never guess what happened to me earlier," Kenny quickly tries to divert the conversation, unwilling to ever talk about anything even mildly serious, "So I was just walking around town, desperately trying to avoid my drug addict parents, and I wandered into that cultural district, CtPaTown or whatever it's called, and…"

I zone out of Kenny's story, because I want to savor this moment. I look at both Kenny and Wendy and I notice that they both have huge smiles on their faces. But then I also notice something else. I'm smiling too. I realize that since the breakup, this is the first time I have felt like I am truly living. Today I have been laughing and joking, and I have been taking the time to notice things that make me happy. Maybe Stan isn't the only one who gets to move on. I don't think there will ever be a time when I don't love Stan, but if I have to, I think that soon I can learn to live with not being with him. And maybe I can learn to be happy with that,

"… And then Officer Barbrady said 'You don't see a princess doing that every day, that's for sure,'" I only catch the last sentence of Kenny's story, but Wendy immediately begins cracking up, so I'm sure it was a good one. I laugh along so they don't realize I zoned out, and I even throw in a "you're fucking crazy dude" for good measure.

"Ken?" We all hear someone faintly calling Kenny's name so we all turn around. It's Butters. He looks extremely pale, and he is clumsily walking over to us, "Ken, I don't feel so-" Before I can even process it, he collapses and hits the floor. The music becomes muted in my head. Almost as quickly as it happened, Kenny is on the floor next to Butters, shaking his unconscious body. Wendy joins him, and I soon follow. We all are trying to do everything we can to wake him up. Without even noticing, a huge crowd has formed around us. I grab Butters' wrist to check for a pulse. It's still there.

"He's still breathing," I say, trying to reassure the others, but mostly trying to reassure myself.

"We have to get him to a hospital, now," Kenny says. I'm not sure how he is able to been so calm during all of this. I'm shaking and I can barely form a coherent thought.

"I'll take him, help me bring him to my truck," We hear a voice say from behind us. I recognize that voice well enough to know that it's Stan's.

"Thank you so much Stan," Kenny says with a sigh of relief. Stan picks up his legs and the rest of us grab his torso and we make our way to the exit. We essentially run through the parking lot until we make it to Stan's pickup. We lay Butters down in the back seat, and we all try our best to pile into the truck. None of us are willing to stay behind. We all want to stay by his side.

Stan starts the truck and begin speeding towards Hells Pass Hospital. I am able to compose my thoughts, but I am still in denial that this is happening. Butters is going to be okay. He has to be okay. I feel so helpless. Everything seems to be falling apart, and I just have to watch as it happens. There's absolutely nothing I can do to help. All I can do is stare at the road as it appears before us and wait for us to reach our destination.

Thank you so much for reading guys! Once again I apologize for the wait. I am really invested I this story so you don't ever have to worry about me just abandoning you guys. I also really apologize if this one was once again dark in tone, things will begin to look up starting with the next chapter I swear. Hope you enjoyed!

Reviewer Responses:

NerdyFreakinArt: Thank you so much! And I'm so sorry I broke your heart, I hope this one isn't too depressing.

KWriter in Training: Thanks for the review, and I'm sorry the past couple of chapters have put Kyle in such emotional turmoil. The upcoming chapters will definitely resolve everything, I promise (:

Twotailedfox: Thanks so much!

Mekabella21: Wow, thanks again so much for your reviews (: I imagine this chapter is also a really depressing one to read, but I swear the next couple of chapters will be much easier to read, and once again the focus will return to Style.

sirius1696: it's alright, mostly everyone thought Wendy was pregnant after the first chapter lol, but I hope you're liking the story (:

PuppeteerOllie: Thanks so much! It was really fun to write