"Ay! What are you fags doing out here?"

I'm interrupted before I can finish my sentence. To my relief, I see Cartman standing at his front door, a look of annoyance on his face, his arms folded together. I assume he heard Stan and me yelling a moment ago.

"Oh hey, Cartman," I respond dumbly. Stan just glares at Cartman.

Cartman glares right back. "I'll repeat the question. What are you fags doing out here?"

"Kyle came over here to hang out with you, I'm guessing," Stan replies icily, his eyes narrowing as he continues to stare down Cartman, "but I needed to talk to him first. And we're not done. So give us a minute."

At this, Cartman's eyes narrow in competition with Stan's. But then he glances at me, and the malice in his expression completely disappears for a split second, replaced by a look of worry. It's oddly comforting, but there's nothing he can do at the moment. He senses this and simply disappears back into his house, closing the door behind him.

"So what were you about to say before fatass interrupted us?" I turn back to Stan, who looks impatient.

I'm so glad Cartman interrupted when he did. Now that I've had time to stall, I'm feeling a little more confident.

"I was going to say," I start, "Cartman and I are…friends, dude."

Technically, this is what we are, so I'm not exactly lying. We like hanging out together. We do things friends would do. We do other stuff too, but I don't know what label that would bring, so it doesn't matter.

"What? You guys are already friends. You have been since preschool."

I scoff. "Well, yeah, but…now we're, like, actual friends. You know what I mean?"

Stan's face contorts in confusion. "So all this time you've been spending time with Cartman because you wanted to?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"Why?"

That simple question stops me in my tracks. Why was I doing all of this in the first place? "I don't know," I answer honestly.

Stan furrows his brow at me. "How can you not know?"

"I just don't!" I gather my thoughts and try to explain things the best I can. "What I mean is…is that I've been getting to know Cartman a little better lately, and…he's not so bad sometimes."

Stan stares at me and draws out a sigh, his expression giving way to concern. "Okay," he replied, his tone sounding almost defeated, "Just do me a favor, will you, dude? Be careful around him."

I resist the urge to flip him off. I know what I'm doing, God dammit. "Got it."

With that, I turn around to start walking toward Cartman's house. I'm relieved when I hear Stan's footsteps moving in the other direction.

The door opens before I can knock. Cartman must've been standing there the whole time, trying to eavesdrop on our conversation. "What did you tell him, Jew?" he questions, obviously on edge.

I guess he didn't actually hear anything. "I told him we're friends. That I'd been getting to know you better lately and you're not so bad."

Cartman looks panicked. "You told him THAT?"

"What? It's sort of the truth."

"No, it's not! Dammit, that asshole probably has everything figured out by now!" Cartman slumps down to the couch beside him, burying his face in his hands. I say nothing and sit next to him.

After a long silence, Cartman speaks up again. "I appreciate what you said at school earlier," he draws out slowly, "but it's fucking obvious. We can't do this anymore. Really. I'm seriously."

I frown at him, not liking where this is heading. "Look, Cartman," I try, "we can do this, I know it. We just have to figure out a way to convince—"

"No!" he practically barks at me. "It's not gonna work! Besides…I promised you no one would ever find out, didn't I? This is the only way I can keep that promise."

My stomach drops. He's right. There's no way we can keep doing this without getting caught at some point. I simply nod, not wanting to say anything. His eyes acknowledge my nod before dropping to the floor, defeated.

"I guess you'll want to get going, then," he mumbles, still not wanting to look at me.

"I guess so…" I mumble back. I think about standing up to leave, but I can't bring myself to do it. To be honest, I don't feel good about this at all. I wasn't prepared to end things this soon. Suddenly, I get an idea. "Do you think maybe…that you might want to go on one more of our…" I pause briefly, trying to find a suitable word, "hangouts before we call it quits? That way we can at least have some kind of, you know, closure on the whole thing."

He twitches a bit at my last sentence. I scoot closer to him and crane my neck so that our eyes are forced to meet again, but his stay unfocused, not wanting to address me. He doesn't look happy.

"Please?" I try.

He blinks, finally looking at me directly. "Okay, fine. Sunday."

"Sunday," I repeat, taken aback at the intensity present in Cartman's eyes. He must feel as shitty about this as I do. I wish it didn't have to be like this, but really, it's our only option at this point. It sucks, but being found out would be worse.

Way, way worse.

I wasn't planning on spying on Kyle after we finished talking, but that's what ended up happening. I have to find out more about what's going on. I want to trust Kyle, but his story doesn't make sense to me. Cartman's not so bad? Kyle would never say something like that under normal circumstances. Sure, he and Cartman have had periods where they got along before, but those times never lasted very long, maybe a week or so at most—usually Cartman would have some sort of ulterior motive for being nice to Kyle, Kyle would find out, and there'd be a big shouting match between them, most often in the cafeteria at school. And then things would go back to normal.

But that's not the case now. I'm not sure exactly how long this has been going on, but it seems like Cartman and Kyle have been getting along for a while. I have no idea what started it—Kyle won't give me a straight answer. I don't know why—it's a simple question. And if it weren't a big deal, he wouldn't be trying so hard to hide it.

That's how I know something more is going on. I wish I could figure out what it is. Is Cartman blackmailing Kyle? That would explain why Kyle's intent on spending so much time with him. But what would he be blackmailing Kyle about?

I don't fucking know. I'm just here to help.

A few seconds later, I hear Cartman's front door open. I duck behind some nearby trashcans and see Kyle walking out. He was in there less time than I was expecting. His head and shoulders hang low, his posture slack; he looks dejected.

I can't let that asshole keep doing this to him. Kyle looks fucking miserable right now.

I sneak away before he notices me and pull out my cell phone. I dial a number on my speed dial and wait for the recipient to pick up. Finally he does.

"Dude, Kenny! Can I come over and talk to you, like, right now?"

"Sure, everything all right?"

"I don't know."

Soon I find myself at Kenny's house. I knock on the front door and hear footsteps approaching a few seconds later. He takes a look at me, worried. "Hey, dude."

"Hey," I reply simply.

He moves to the side so I can enter the house as well. His dad's in the living room drinking a beer on the couch, so we go to Kenny's room instead. He shuts the door behind him.

I pace around the room. Kenny sits on his bed, eyeing me curiously.

"So what's going on?" he asks.

"Something's wrong with Kyle, I just know it," I start, still pacing. "I tried talking to him today about it, but he wouldn't tell me anything."

"Well, what did he say?"

"He just said…that he and Cartman were 'friends' now," I put my fingers in air quotes to emphasize my point, "that he's been 'getting to know him better lately' and that he's 'not so bad'."

"As in, Cartman's not so bad?"

"Yeah. That's what Kyle said."

I turn to Kenny to get a look at his reaction to all this. I thought he'd be just as worried as I am, but that fucker is grinning. How can he possibly be so calm about all this?

He lets his smile fall a bit-he must've noticed the incredulous expression I'm giving him. "Sorry, dude, but did you ever consider…that maybe Kyle's telling the truth? Maybe they really are getting along now. It could happen."

I pinch the bridge of my nose in frustration, finally sitting down on the bed with Kenny. "I know it's possible. And I want to trust Kyle. I just…have a bad feeling about this. Like there's a huge part of this we're missing. I mean, since when is Cartman 'not so bad' of a person?"

Kenny looks away, mulling this over a bit. Maybe he has a bad feeling too, but he doesn't want to admit it. "Well, Jesus, Stan, what do you want to do, follow them around and spy on them?" he asks, scoffing.

I think Kenny was half-joking, but I don't care. "If that's what we have to do."

"Dammit…okay."

Kenny and I have been spying on Cartman and Kyle for a few days now, and unfortunately, we haven't really gotten anywhere with it. Kyle hasn't gone over to Cartman's house after school again since the day I caught up with him. And even at school, the two haven't really talked to each other much.

Cartman must know I'm on to his game, and he's keeping quiet and forcing Kyle to do so too. But I'm not giving up that easily.

I thought I had Kyle in a trap yesterday. We were gonna hang out like we always do on the weekend, but he blew off our plans because he had 'homework' to do. I went to his house to see what he was really doing—but he was actually doing homework! What the fuck?

I decide to try again today, though. I'm having more luck—I saw Kyle leaving his house a few minutes ago. I know where he's headed, so I give Kenny a call to meet me at Cartman's house.

"Do you really think this is gonna work?" he whispers to me. We're both hiding behind Cartman's mom's huge station wagon that's sitting in the driveway.

"I have no idea," I admit. We sit in silence for a couple of minutes, trying as best as we can to listen to whatever conversation Kyle and Cartman are having inside the house, but it's difficult. If only the curtains weren't closed. Suddenly, a string of obscenities seasons the air. Kyle and Cartman are having an argument.

It's hard to make out what they're saying, but I do catch the words "Jewrat", "pigfucker", and "asshole". I sigh a bit in relief—at least one thing is still relatively normal. I hear a crash of some sort and a thump from what I assume is one or both of them landing on the floor. Then there's silence.

I turn to Kenny, concerned. He shrugs and we try to go back to listening in, but there's no use at this point. Unless they're yelling, we can't hear a goddamn thing.

Five minutes later, we finally hear the sound of the front door opening. Kyle appears from behind it, a grin on his face. Man, I've never seen him so chipper after an argument with Cartman. He's missing his hat again—what the fuck is up with that?

He's chuckling, assumably at whatever he and Cartman were talking about before he opened the door. "…whatever, Cartman. You know you like it," he finishes. I'm instantly curious about what he means by that. "You ready to go?"

"Yeah, whatever." I hear Cartman call out. "You forgot something, though!"

"Yeah, what?" Kyle asks, that grin still spread across his face as he turns back to Cartman.

"Your hat, Jew!"

Kyle touches the top of his head as if to confirm this. "Oh shit, you're right. Where is it?"

"Over here."

Kyle glances inside again before going back in the house. I take this as our cue to figure out what to do next.

"Shit, dude, it looks like they're about to go somewhere. Should we follow them?"

Kenny looks at me, intrigued by this as well. "I guess so. Where do you think they're going?"

"No fucking clue. But we should probably find another hiding spot!" I reply, my panic starting to rise at the thought of them coming out here and catching us, which is an extremely likely possibility at this point if we don't fucking move.

"It looks like the doors are unlocked in Cartman's mom's car. We can hide in the backseat until they leave, then we can get out and follow them."

"Good idea, Kenny."

We manage to make it into the backseat before we hear Cartman and Kyle step out of the house. I was expecting them to head out down the street, but instead they walk closer to the car.

"Shit! I think they're coming in here!" I whisper. Frantically, Kenny and I squeeze into the floor and I pull a blanket over us just as the driver and passenger doors open.

Under the blanket, it's hard to tell what's going on, but I do manage to hear the sound of the car starting. The radio starts blaring and now I can't make out anything Cartman and Kyle are saying to each other. God dammit.

Kenny and I sit crushed together like this for what seems like forever, trying unsuccessfully to listen in on our two friends sitting in front of us. Where are they going? And when the fuck did Cartman start driving? I know he's not old enough to have his license already. I can't imagine Kyle being okay with that.

Just before my right leg completely falls asleep, the car stops and turns off, and then I hear two doors open and close. Thank Christ—I don't know how much more of this I could take. It feels like we've been in here at least an hour, but that might just be my discomfort talking. I move my head up slowly, making damn sure they've left before Kenny and I get up. The front seat is empty, so we're in the clear.

Cautiously, we crawl out of the car and take a look at our surroundings. The words on a nearby building catch my attention. I look at Kenny, and he looks just as confused as me.

"North Park? Why the hell would they come here?"

"Yeah, that's…weird." Kenny replies, his face scrunched in confusion.

"You see where they went?"

"I think they went in there." He gestures to a building behind me, and I see that it's the North Park mall.

What? Now I'm really confused.

"Well, uh…let's go find them, I guess."