Stan's phone chirped with a text. Come on up, he texted back.
He never thought he would be this excited to show off his new room on the farm, but thanks to the pot he had sampled and good music playing on his stereo, he was feeling pretty mellow.
"Hey," he greeted when Kyle came into view. He pushed himself off the bed and wrapped himself around his super best friend. Kyle stiffened at the touch at first, but Stan knew that the fact that Kyle was tolerating this hug was affectionate enough. He only allowed hugs from Stan or Ike anymore. Other than that, Kyle seemed almost back to normal after his breakdown a few months ago.
Kyle had still been in the hospital when Randy moved Stan and the rest of his family to Tegridy Farms. It sucked that Stan had to rely on his parents to see his friends outside of school now.
"I can't believe this is your first time here," Stan exclaimed. "Wanna tour?"
"I'm fine with staying here," Kyle said. Kyle still looked uneasy. When he sat down on the end of the bed, his leg started bouncing. "Was there a fire here?"
"It's a pot farm," Stan answered. He must have smelled the trace remains of Stan's pot, and that was what was making him uncomfortable. That was what Kyle was asking about, right? He was supposed to be over this, Stan thought with the usual pang of guilt that it had taken him so long to notice Kyle's sudden weight loss and his random tangents about death and accidents that nobody else seemed to understand. "My dad and Towelie smoke here all the time."
"They aren't here now."
"Right." Stan's playlist interrupted him by starting a recognizable guitar intro. "I really should delete that," he told himself as he collapsed on the bed next to Kyle.
"Why?"
"It's Ted Nugent."
Kyle glanced at the stereo speakers impassively. "You don't have to. It's not like you paid for the song." Stan had told him earlier how he had downloaded a "fuck ton" of great stuff from his dad's CD collection.
"I already deleted Marilyn Manson. Why can't people just not do shitty things? Is that so much to ask?" Stan had deleted Marilyn Manson for Wendy's sake. He did not want her to think that he was some kind of misogynist. Wendy liked Stan because he was supposed to be better than the other guys in their class. More sensitive or something. That he had really sucked at it lately was beside the point.
"You're still just friends, aren't you?" Kyle asked.
"Yeah, dude. I still want her to like me, though. As a person." Stan decided it was time to broach a subject he knew Kyle would not want to hear. "Wendy pointed out that friends spend time with each other.
"Stan." Kyle's tone turned wary. "What did you do?"
"Well, we were thinking of getting together as a group at the skating rink, and we were thinking you and Bebe-"
"No, Stan. Not doing it," Kyle answered. "You know we don't have anything in common."
"But it's not a date. We're just going as friends. There's no pressure for you or Bebe to do anything you don't want to."
"I don't want to go to this at all. Ask Kenny. He'll be glad to go."
"He might have to work." Stan frowned. "Why don't you want to go?"
"Because it'll be crowded with sixth graders and other assholes, and it's absurdly expensive considering we can skate at Stark's Pond for free."
"Are you gay?" Stan couldn't figure out how to ask more delicately.
"No." Kyle sat up. "Wait, would that get me out of this 'just friends' thing?"
"No. I just thought it would explain some things." Like why Kyle was so uncharacteristically quiet around him lately. Other kids at school had wondered, though they never asked Kyle, or Stan, to his face. A lot of the reasons they gave were kind of stupid, particularly when they centered on Kyle's eating disorder, but there was also the fact that Kyle had not shown any interest in girls since Nichole Daniels.
"What things?"
Stan could get into how Kyle seemed to be hiding something big from him, but that would sound like he was accusing his friend of something. "I just mean that if you are gay, I'd still be your super best friend, right?"
"Okay Same here. You're still my super best friend even if you and Pete get together."
An ice ball seemed to form in Stan's stomach. "Who told you that?"
Kyle looked at him. He wore a shocked and regretful expression. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."
Stan leaned towards him and grabbed him by the arm. "Who told you?" He almost shouted. "We're aren't getting together. It was just a couple of times."
"Look, Stan, you don't owe me an explanation."
Stan could not take in Kyle's attempts to soothe him. Tears stung his eyes. "He promised he wouldn't tell anyone! He promised!" He rose to a shaky stand. "I'll kill him."
"Stan." Kyle said sharply. "He didn't tell me. Why the fuck would Pete tell me anything?"
Stan had to concede to that logic. Kyle and Pete rarely crossed paths. "Then who was it?" Mike? Firkle? Or did Kenny or Cartman see it? Who else would have known?
"Nobody. I guessed. That's all," Kyle told him vehemently.
"You guessed?" Guesses shouldn't be so exact, Stan wanted to argue.
"I just tossed out a name at random. It was dumb of me to do that," Kyle said. There was an inexplicably persuasive edge to his voice, like he needed Stan to believe this version of events. But that was the right version of events. (Right?) "I'm sorry, Stan."
Stan pinched at his nose, willing himself to feel calmer. "You can't tell anyone. Especially not my parents. Do you have any idea what my dad would do?" Stan did not even want to venture a guess. He just knew he would never survive the humiliation. And Shelley would make his life miserable. He was not even sure his mom would approve. And Wendy. Suppose Wendy found out. He loved Wendy.
"I won't."
"You've got to promise."
A loud pounding interrupted Stan's plea. "Are you boys okay in there?" Sharon asked. Somehow Stan summoned the voice to chorus yes with Kyle.
"I promise," Kyle said in a much lower voice. After they heard Sharon's footsteps retreat downstairs, Kyle asked, "Are you okay?"
Stan hiccuped. "I guess."
"Did you have fun with Stan?" Kyle's mother asked when she picked him up late in the afternoon.
"Yes."
His mother waited for more details but Kyle did not offer any. Her worry rose but he could not do anything to fix that. Kyle had learned he had to be careful with the words he released. Everything he said should be weighed with consideration of if this was what a normal person would say or if that is what a normal person would know.
His earlier slip-up with Stan proved how necessary it was to think over everything before he said it.
Kyle regretted ever coming to the farm.
"Did you like the farm?" Sheila prodded.
"It was creepy and dirty."
"You miss his old house," Sheila acknowledged. "It's certainly an adjustment. Luckily, it's only twenty minutes away."
Of all the things wrong with the farm, Kyle objected the least to the distance. At the moment, he was perfectly fine with Stan being far away from him. Stan wasn't the same. Even though he didn't write in his journal anymore, Kyle itched to construct an entire list of it, but his mother would gripe if he pulled out his phone and he didn't have any paper or pencil with him so he had to settle for writing it in his head.
1. Every time Kyle saw Stan, Stan was drunk or high.
2. Kyle didn't think Stan and Wendy would work out as "just friends."
3. Kyle did not want to be pushed into some half-assed date as "just friends" with Bebe.
4. He did not want a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. That would just be another person he had to keep secrets from.
5. And fuck Stan for acting like it was for Kyle's own good.
6. Stan continually made decisions over Kyle's head ever since his hospitalization, as if Kyle's own thoughts or opinions were always wrong.
7. It would be so much easier if Kyle could just tell Stan the truth, but Stan wasn't letting that happen. Because Stan didn't believe in psychics.
Only a handful of people knew that Kyle had psychic powers: Kenny and his family, and Ren, another psychic who ran a forum for psychics online. Kyle went browsing one day, and he had flicked through several pages of sites that were mainly scams or people pretending for fun until he happened upon this one.
Kyle had used his real first name, figuring it was common enough not to matter (and because he couldn't think of a good alternate name at the time.). He didn't mention any of the usual things that other people connected to him: nothing about being Jewish, being a redhead, having an adopted little brother, or anything about his parents beyond that he had them. He told Ren that he had two best friends: one of them who knew about him and one who didn't. He didn't mention either of them by name. He referred to Stan as Skeptical Friend or SF.
Kyle ran upstairs once they got home and sent a private message to Ren. He wrote how he almost exposed a secret that Stan had never told him. That had to be ethically wrong. Kyle could not see it as anything less than an unforgivable breach of trust that he should never let happen, but it was getting too hard to compartmentalize who knew what and what each person would allow to be addressed, even if no one else were around. If anyone could give a proper perspective to it, it was Ren.
He typed up his question in a half an hour, because he deleted more words than he wrote, because he was trying not to ramble or sound like his old preachy self. Even if Ren did not mind the preachiness, it would be another clue to his true identity. He had whittled it down to a reasonable sounding message, when Ike toddled in, and Kyle had to hide the window from his brother's sight.
"Whatcha doing?" Ike asked.
"School stuff."
Ike recognized it as a lie.
"Dad's staying late at work again," Ike said out loud.
Kyle swiveled away from the computer. "I know. Mom told me."
"Because of the stupid trial."
Kyle sensed that Ike would not welcome any of his own views about Tweek's upcoming trial against his parents. Gerald had convinced himself that he was the only one would take it pro bono, but that was not true: plenty of lawyers would take on a notorious child abuse case for the prestige. Gerald's involvement only caused more unnecessary complications. Tweek could not even go to school anymore because his being in the same class as Kyle might be seen as a conflict of interest.
Not to mention the much bigger conflict of interest of Kyle witnessing Mr. Tweak's cruel prank that prompted the lawsuit. The one Kyle had to agree not to share with anyone, not even his therapist. Kyle agreed because he had his own reasons for keeping quiet about what he saw and because he wanted Tweek to win. However, Sheila and Ike were both disappointed in Kyle for giving in to Gerald about this, and suspicious about why. Like Stan, they had taken to seeing Kyle as particularly helpless lately.
"They're going to fight again," Ike complained as he climbed up on Kyle's bed.
"It's hard to tune out, right?" Kyle agreed.
"Yeah." Ike sighed in a way that sounded far too old for him. "I hate it when people change."
"Dad hasn't really changed. He's gotten obsessed with things like this before. This time, we're not moving halfway across the country."
Ike peered at him silently. He didn't just mean Dad.
"When are you going to change back to normal?"
"Some things aren't going to go back to normal. Like Stan moving out to Tegridy Farms. He's not going to move back."
"It's not a real farm. Real farms have cows and pigs and chickens."
"Not anymore. They do everything by machines now." Or that's what Kyle gleaned from the news, anyway.
"Jonesy's farm has pigs and chickens. And pumpkins."
"Because they aren't a real farm. They're a tourist trap."
"Maybe that's what's wrong with you," Ike concluded. "You're becoming one of them."
"What's them?" Kyle humored.
"A boring, stupid adult. The kind that doesn't play anymore. The kind that lives on a farm that doesn't have anything fun."
"You're probably right."
"And you're just going to sit back and let it happen." Ike bounced back up. "Well, screw you. I've got LEGOS to set up. You can join me if you're done being like them."
"Maybe later."
Once Ike left the room, Kyle juggled the windows on his screen so that the paranormal forum popped up. Ren had answered.
Remember what I told you during our first chat? You're still human. You're going to make mistakes. If you slip up once in a while, it's not the end of the world. Obviously, don't be an asshole about it, but I doubt that's what you're doing. Let everyone else handle their own secrets. Besides, most people aren't as good about keeping secrets as they think they are. The only reason they manage is because most people don't care as much as they do.