1.
Stan felt like he’d spent the whole summer in the dark of Kyle’s bedroom, watching TV and playing video games while Kyle recovered from his kidney transplant. Stan was also avoiding Cartman, fearing retribution for the trick that Stan had played on him. The first day that Kyle was well enough to come out and play was a bright day in late August, just a week before school would start again. Stan didn’t want to risk going to the park or the basketball court, worried that Cartman would be there and not sure how irrational it was to be afraid that Cartman would plunge a knife into Kyle’s side and reclaim his kidney. Stan suggested that they ride their bikes out to the foothills, though he wasn’t sure that Kyle would be strong enough to make the trip. Kyle insisted he was fine, said he was tired of being treated like a weakling by his mother and everyone else, and off they went.
They rode slow and talked about school. Stan was dreading it, especially the return of homework and stupid rules like begging for the hall pass to go to the bathroom, but Kyle was looking forward to it.
“I never thought it was possible to get sick of sitting around playing video games all day,” Kyle said. “But I totally am, dude. And I think we get to do chemistry experiments in our science unit this year.”
“Yeah,” Stan said, not sure why that was a good thing. “Cool. Maybe Butters will blow something up.”
“Clyde definitely will,” Kyle said, and they grinned at each other.
They threw their bikes down when they reached the woods at the foot of the mountain. Stan was the only one who really liked to come here; Kyle wasn’t as interested in looking for wildlife or being away from the others. Today he indulged Stan and walked alongside him without whining about being hot or hungry or bored. Stan suspected it was because Kyle felt indebted to him for keeping him company while he was bedridden, if not for the kidney itself. They hadn’t talked much about it.
“I feel weird,” Kyle said when they were sitting near a stream that Stan drank from every time they came. Kyle refused, claiming it was filthy, though it was fresh mountain water and Stan had never gotten ill from it. Stan stood and turned toward Kyle, alarmed.
“You’re sick?” Stan said, and Kyle shook his head.
“I don’t mean like that,” he said, a little sharply. He hated it when Stan acted like he was sickly, though that was often the case. “I mean, like. This thing, in me. It’s Cartman. Something that was part of that f*cker is – in me.”
“Dude.” Stan wrinkled his nose. “Don’t think of it like that.”
“Well, why shouldn’t I? It’s true.”
“I wish I could have given you mine,” Stan said, feeling panicked. He hadn’t meant to curse Kyle with a Cartman organ. It had just worked out that way.
“No – it’s okay.” Kyle groaned and leaned back onto the moss near the creek, putting his hands over his face. “See, this is why I didn’t want to say anything. It’s like I’m complaining to you for saving my life. But there’s no one else I can really talk to about this.”
“About what? It’s not that big a deal, Kyle.”
“I know!” Kyle sat up again and gave Stan an irritated look that quickly faded. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”
“Yeah,” Stan said, and he sat beside Kyle. “’Cause it’s not his anymore. It’s yours. You even have a contract. That kidney belongs to you. Legally!”
“That’s true,” Kyle said, staring at the creek, and Stan was proud of himself for framing it that way. Kyle liked it when rules were firmly in place, things set in writing. He did better with concepts like that than vagaries like the one that had been bothering him, apparently.
“So,” Stan said. “It’s really more like Cartman had something you needed, and you grabbed it from him and ate it. Then laughed at him. Don’t forget the laughing part. We all laughed!”
“Oh, but it wasn’t like that at all!”
“Yes, dude, it was, I was there—”
“No – I know, but I didn’t grab sh*t. You did the grabbing. I didn’t even do the, uh, eating. The doctors stuck it in me – I just laid there like a dead fish.”
Stan sat there trying to come up with something to say. He wasn’t sure how to comfort Kyle – he couldn’t deny that he had done the work, but only because Kyle had been in no position to help himself, and Sheila had been losing her mind over holistic medicine at the time, inconveniently.
“Hey,” Kyle said. He bumped his shoulder against Stan’s. “I’m sorry. Don’t feel bad.”
“I – don’t, I just don’t want you to feel bad. About having some part of Cartman in you, or whatever the f*ck. You don’t!”
“But I do, Stan.”
“It – yeah, but it only matters if you want to see it that way – f*ck, I don’t know. Now I feel like I ruined your life.”
“What!” Kyle laughed genuinely and threw an arm around Stan’s shoulders. “No way, dude, huh? It’s not that serious. I’m just whining.”
“Okay,” Stan said, unconvinced.
“Really.” Kyle squeezed Stan’s shoulder and stared at him until Stan looked back. “I mean, I’ve just – I’ve been kind of embarrassed, okay?”
“About what?”
“You saved my life! What am I supposed to do now? It’s like – we’re not equal anymore.”
“What? Yes, we are! Kyle, what the hell?”
“I’m in your debt!” Kyle let go of him and stood. He went down to the creek bed, picked up a heavy rock and hefted it into the creek with a grunt. Stan stayed on the moss, confused and hurt.
“What do you think I’m going to do?” he asked when Kyle turned to look at him. “Make you be my slave? All I want is for you to not die. That’s your half of the bargain, dude.”
“That makes me sound so lame,” Kyle says, muttering.
“Okay. You could look at it like that, or like, that – that you’re so great of a friend that I’ll dissect whoever’s around and yank what you need out of their f*cking chest, and—” Stan made himself stop talking, because his face was getting red and he felt like an idiot. Kyle was smiling, which made him angry, but only a little.
“Yeah,” Kyle said. “I could look at that way.”
“You’re kind of an asshole,” Stan said, and Kyle’s smile widened. Stan got up, walked to the creek and cupped some water into his hands. Kyle was already ducking down to splash him by the time Stan whipped the water at him. Stan picked up Kyle’s strategy after that, squatting down to whack great handfuls of water in his direction, Kyle doing the same until they were both soaked and laughing hard, milk dribbling steadily out of Kyle’s nose.
2.
After what became nationally known as the ‘Pee Incident’ at the water park, Kyle wouldn’t speak to Stan for three days. Stan failed to see how any of it had been his fault, and Kyle refused to explain. When Kyle finally showed up at Stan’s house it was a couple of hours before dinnertime, the sunlight just starting to fade. Stan answered the door to find Kyle giving him a hateful look.
“What’s your problem?” Stan asked.
“I’m really mad at you!” Kyle said, and Stan was going to bark at him, but before he could he realized that Kyle was on the verge of tears.
“How come?” Stan asked. “What’d I do?”
“You told me to drink that – stuff! You weren’t on my side!”
“Huh? Kyle, we thought you had to! What the f*ck! It wasn’t my idea – you told us you could hold your breath!”
“That was the worst day of my life!” Kyle said, shouting, and Stan stepped out onto the front steps, shutting the door behind him. He didn’t want his parents involved in this, whatever it was. “And for you guys, for everyone else – just another day in South Park! Oh well!”
“Kyle.” Stan grabbed Kyle’s shoulders hard, not sure if he was feeling sorry for Kyle or restraining himself from slapping some sense into him. “Do you want me to drink pee? Huh? You want to pee in a cup and watch me drink it? Would that make you feel better?”
“God!” Kyle recoiled, wrinkling his nose. “No! That’s disgusting! You’re missing the point, Stan.”
“What is the point, Kyle?”
“I feel – compromised! Okay? Like everyone is laughing at me!”
“Dude, what? No one even remembers. You know how it is. That’s like saying that, uh, everyone is still laughing at me because I wore a Raggedy Andy costume to school once, or because my dad was drunk and half naked at our little league games.”
“It’s not the same, Stan, and you know it!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s – it’s lasting, this kind of thing! Bodily harm was done to me!”
“Huh? Did you get sick? ‘Cause of the pee?”
“Don’t say the word, please!” Kyle pinched his eyes shut and moaned as if he’d been wounded. “And no, not physically. But I’m – I have bad dreams, okay? Flashbacks.”
“Dude.” Stan sighed and pulled Kyle into a hug, patting his back. “I’m sorry. That sucks. But I really will drink pee if you want me to, uh. So you don’t have to feel like, alone.”
“No,” Kyle said, his voice muffled against Stan’s shoulder. He held onto him tightly for a few moments, then let go and sighed. “I think I just wanted to yell at you a little.”
“Kay. You feel better?”
“Sort of.” Kyle kicked a pebble off the front stairs and watched it sail into the bushes. He seemed embarrassed. Stan figured that was what it was all about, and why Kyle had avoided him. He was humiliated, even though what happened wasn’t his fault.
“Want to eat with us?” Stan asked. “My dad’s making burgers.”
“I can smell them,” Kyle said. They were on the grill in the backyard, filling the whole street with the scent of grilled meat. Kyle shrugged. “Am I allowed?” he asked, mumbling.
“Of course, dude. C’mon.”
Kyle had dinner with the Marshes that night, in the backyard, seated next to Stan on the bench at the picnic table. Every time Kyle sipped from his can of co*ke, Stan thought of watching him drink pee and wanted to tell him that it hadn’t been easy to stand there and watch him choke it down, though he supposed saying so would belittle Kyle’s greater trauma, and also didn’t really want to bring it up again.
“Are you still mad at me?” Stan asked when he walked with Kyle to the end of the driveway after dinner.
“I was never really mad at you,” Kyle said. “I was mad at the whole town, or something. I just knew you were the only one who would listen to me. Sorry.”
“It’s alright. Just don’t wait three days to yell at me next time.”
“I won’t yell at you at all next time!” Kyle said, and Stan didn’t believe that, but he didn’t really care.
That night in the shower he needed to pee but waited until he got out, though he knew it was stupid, that Kyle was fussy and weird and overly fixated on all kinds of nonsense. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it in the shower, as if doing so would have hurt Kyle’s feelings.
3.
Stan didn’t realize until Kyle got home from the last of his surgeries that some part of him had been waiting to be congratulated by Kyle for saving him again. It had been more complicated this time, with Kyle having signed his life away to a powerful corporation, but in the end Stan felt that he had prevailed against Apple, personally, for being pure of heart or something gay like that. Stan knew it was basically Gerald who had worked out how to free Kyle, or maybe even the Geniuses at the store, but he felt like there was something in him that was essentially responsible, and always would be, for getting Kyle out of whatever sh*tty situation he found himself in. He was the one who had known Kyle’s username, at least.
He’d bought a get well present on the way to Kyle’s house after hearing from his mom that Kyle was finally home from the hospital in Denver. The present was dumb, but it was all Stan could afford: a shark balloon. It was pretty cool, at least, in balloon terms, big and shark-shaped with a snarling red mouth and sharp white teeth. Stan figured Kyle would appreciate something like this as opposed to anything soft, which might make him feel weak or pitied.
Sheila seemed surprised to see him at the door, and Stan felt stupid for having the balloon.
“Well,” Sheila said, turning to look toward the stairs. The whole house was dark, except for a light that came from the kitchen in the back. Sheila looked very tired, probably because of the drive home from the city in rush hour traffic after a morning of hospital paperwork. “I – I suppose you could go up. He was having a nap, but—”
“I could come back later,” Stan said, suddenly wanting to run. “You could just give him this balloon.”
“No, no, come in. It would do him good to see his friend.”
Sheila took the balloon, which Stan found strange, but he headed up the stairs without it. The second floor of the house was dark, too, and Ike’s bedroom door was shut. Kyle’s was open just a crack, and Stan pushed it open a bit more, his heart slamming. He’d been a little afraid about what Kyle’s mouth might look like in the aftermath, but not until now had he truly allowed himself to imagine the potential horrors of reconstructive surgery.
Kyle was in bed but not napping. He was lying there staring at the ceiling, the blankets pulled up to his nose. He flicked his eyes toward Stan, otherwise staying motionless.
“Hey, dude,” Stan said, his heart beating so hard that his voice was shaking a little, as if there was a miniature earthquake rumbling in his chest, upsetting everything. “Um. How’s – how are you?”
“Shut the door,” Kyle said, his mouth still covered, voice muffled by the blankets. Stan turned to do so, though he didn’t want to. His eyes stung when he realized that he was afraid of Kyle, a little.
“I brought you a balloon,” Stan said, and his eyes filled up when he heard his voice crack, more from humiliation than anything else. He was embarrassed to be in this room with Kyle and not understand what he’d been through. “But, um. Your mom took it.”
“Come here,” Kyle said. Part of Stan really wanted him to pull the blankets down, and another, bigger part of him was dreading it, never wanting to see. He walked toward the bed, pulling his hat off as he went and twisting it between his hands.
“Do you feel okay?” Stan asked.
“Mmph.” Kyle stared at Stan for a while, unblinking. He looked very pale in the dim light that leaked in from behind his drawn shades. “Tell me,” he said, the blankets moving over his covered mouth, “Honest – honestly, tell me – is this – do I still look like me?”
He pulled the blankets down then, slowly, and for a second Stan couldn’t see, his vision spotted with dread. When he forced himself to focus on Kyle’s mouth, he let out his breath with relief and nodded rapidly. Kyle’s lips were raw and swollen, but they were the same shape as before, or close enough. The scars around his mouth were small and precise, and Stan had to believe those were the kind that healed and went away.
“You look like you,” Stan promised.
“My ass hurts,” Kyle said, and Stan had to hold in a wildly inappropriate laugh, a kind of hysterical expression of grief that he wouldn’t have been able to explain properly. He swallowed it down, his eyes overflowing from the pressure of holding it in.
“Sorry, dude,” Stan said, his voice only working as a whisper. “Ah – didn’t they give you, like. Painkillers?”
“Yes. They’re wearing off. My mom will give me more. You have to take them with food. Stop crying, Stan.”
“Okay.” But that was when he started blubbering, his chest aching when he tried to do so soundlessly.
“Goddammit,” Kyle said. “Sit down. Quit looking at me like I’m some monster that wants to eat you.”
“Kyle.” Stan fell onto the bed and grabbed Kyle before he could think better of it, yanking him up by the shoulders. He crushed his face to Kyle’s neck and cried, feeling bad for the snot that was mixing in with his tears.
“Jesus,” Kyle said. He sighed and looped his arms around Stan’s waist. “I know, I look horrible. I’ll never be the same.”
“What?” Stan pulled back and sucked in his breath. “No, you – that’s not why I’m crying.”
“Bullsh*t. It’s okay. I’ve accepted it. I’ll probably do home school from now on.”
“Kyle! No, I’m serious! Haven’t you looked in the mirror? You look fine, just like a bee stung your lip or something.”
“Okay. Sure, fine. Then why did one look at my disfigured face make you weep?”
“It’s not disfigured!” Stan put his hands on Kyle’s cheeks as if he could prove this through touch, tucking his thumbs under Kyle’s jaw. Kyle winced, and Stan took his hands away. “Sorry,” he said.
“I’m still sore.” Kyle’s voice was small, his eyes sinking down to the hollow of Stan’s throat. “I still can’t eat. They fed me intravenously at the hospital. I puke if, if – they said I’ll have to go back to inpatient care if I can’t learn to eat on my own. I don’t know if I can do it, Stan, but – I really didn’t want to stay there.”
“I know,” Stan said, though he somehow hadn’t anticipated this at all. Of course Kyle couldn’t eat; Stan’s own stomach lurched if he let himself think about what Kyle had endured too vividly. “You can, you can do it. I’ll help you.”
“How?” Kyle’s eyes flashed, but his expression quickly softened. “I mean. It’s not like I don’t want to eat. Well, that’s not true. I don’t, actually, ever again. But I also don’t want to live in a mental hospital for the rest of my life, so.”
“You won’t,” Stan said. He wanted to grab Kyle again, to squeeze him, but he just fidgeted with his hat and sniffled, tasting salty, snotty tears at the corners of his mouth.
“I think I should have died,” Kyle said, whispering this like it was a secret. “I think that was God’s plan for me, to go out like that, with my mouth on an ass.”
“Shut up,” Stan said, wincing to hold in more tears. “No, that wasn’t it. God’s plans are the ones that actually happen. So, so – you’re supposed to be alive, and you look fine, dude, I promise.”
“Well, f*ck God,” Kyle said, and Stan winced again, waiting for a lightening bolt to shatter through the roof and fry Kyle like it had Cartman. “You know?”
“I know,” Stan mumbled, still frightened about the consequences of saying so. “Kyle, you. Listen. You’re the toughest guy I know.”
“Right. I sure fought my way out of that one myself.”
“No, but – you’re sitting here, not insane. You’re a fighter.”
“Well, I don’t want to be one. I want to be a non-fighter. I don’t want anymore fights.”
Stan wasn’t sure what to say to that. He saw Kyle’s hat on the bedpost, hanging there sadly. He took it and pulled it onto Kyle’s head, over his matted curls, tucking in the stray ones.
“There,” Stan said. “Now you look the same as always.”
“The doctors said the scars would go away,” Kyle said, his voice quieted by hope. Stan nodded fiercely, as if he could keep that promise himself.
“You can barely see them,” he said. Kyle rolled his eyes.
“You mentioned a balloon?” he said.
“Yeah, it’s a shark balloon, it’s pretty cool.”
“Stan, stop crying.”
“Okay. But, I mean, I can’t—”
“You’re making me feel bad!” Kyle said, and then Stan was able to force himself to quit crying. He wiped his face with his hat, smearing slug-trails of snot onto it.
“I’m so glad you’re home,” he said.
“I wasn’t,” Kyle said. “But now I am.” He collapsed forward, hiding his face against Stan’s chest, and Stan held onto him until they heard Sheila’s heavy footsteps on the stairs.
That night, Stan had trouble eating his own dinner at home, worried that Kyle wouldn’t be able to stomach his. He prayed for Kyle after dinner, old school style, on his knees with his elbows on the bed, hands clasped. When he was done he logged on to his computer, grinning hugely when he saw he had an email from Kyle’s new username under his family account. It was the one Gerald had picked out for him, not as clever as 69ingchipmunks, but good enough: kylebrof8.
Thanks for the shark balloon. Ike likes it, too. I ate half a plain bagel without throwing up. Plain bagels might be the only thing I can eat for a while. I pretended I was a shark and ate it viciously, as if I was killing it, which helped.
Another, shorter message followed:
Don’t EVER tell anyone that I pretended I was a shark, please.
Stan never did.
4.
On the evening after the Pissed Off and Angry Party was disbanded and Randy returned home with a bucket of KFC as if none of it had happened, Stan left in disgust, too embarrassed and annoyed with his dad to consent to getting over it in exchange for a bucket of fried chicken. He got to Kyle’s house just as the government vans were pulling away.
No one answered when he knocked, but he could hear Sheila’s voice inside, and she sounded upset. Stan tried the knob and peeked into the foyer. Sheila was back in the kitchen, telling Gerald that she would not calm down, that she wouldn’t be terrorized in her own home and just get over it. Stan crept up the stairs to Kyle’s room to ask him what the hell was going on.
“Dude?” he said when he walked into the room. At first he thought Kyle wasn’t there, but then the bundle of blankets on Kyle’s bed stirred, and Stan realized he was hiding under them. “Kyle?” He walked to the bed. The mound of blankets was visibly shaking. “Hey,” Stan said, putting his hand on what he guessed to be Kyle’s shoulder. Kyle jerked under his touch. “Dude!” Stan said again. “What the hell’s going on? I thought my family was the f*cked up one tonight.”
“I don’t know,” Kyle said, still beneath the blankets. “My mom is really upset. There were these guys here, these – and, uh. I don’t know.”
“Will you come out?” Stan asked. “Or should I get under there with you?”
Kyle was quiet for a moment, still trembling under Stan’s hand.
“Under here,” Kyle said, and Stan sighed as quietly as he could, too exhausted by Randy’s antics to deal with this, whatever it was. He took off his shoes and climbed under the blankets. The air underneath them was kind of damp, and Kyle felt sweaty when Stan’s hand brushed over his side, up to his shoulder. Kyle’s breath was coming hard, and Stan could feel it on his cheek, humid and hot.
“What’s wrong?” Stan asked, keeping his voice low. He left his hand on Kyle’s shoulder, giving him a reassuring squeeze. “What’s going on with your mom?”
“Sh-she. Were you watching the news when your dad and Cartman and those guys were making demands?”
“Ugh. No, I couldn’t take it. f*ck my dad, seriously.”
“That’s just it,” Kyle said, and suddenly his hand was gripping the front of Stan’s t-shirt, curling into a fist around it. “That’s what Cartman was saying about me, on the news. That was his, like, negotiating point. ‘f*ck Kyle.’”
“Wow, how original. That’s what made your mom so mad? Like he hasn’t said that a million times before?”
“Yeah. Right, I know. But, she – she made me stay upstairs, but those guys came here. Government people, and she was saying – I could hear her, ‘cause she was shouting, she was saying ‘you’re not touching him,’ over and over. So. I mean. You don’t think, like—”
“What?” Stan said when Kyle trailed off.
“These three guys, they. You don’t think they were going to f*ck me, right?”
“f*ck you?” Stan was still confused, and he almost guffawed when he realized what Kyle was saying. “Oh, dude, no! No way.” He reached up and ran his hand through Kyle’s hair, which was alarmingly sweaty. “That’s not – no way.”
“No? Then why is my mom so upset? Why did government people come here at all?”
“I don’t know! Ask your mom.”
“I did! She just started crying and told me that everything’s fine, that it’s ‘all over.’ What’s all over, Stan? What were they going to do to me?” Kyle’s voice diminished toward the end of that question, and Stan hugged him tight, wanting him to stop shaking so hard.
“Dude,” Stan said. “They wouldn’t. They couldn’t—”
“Couldn’t they, Stan? That’s what I thought when I clicked ‘yes’ on those Apple Terms of Service things without reading them! Oh, how bad could it be, right? Right?”
“Well.” Stan swallowed down a sick feeling and shook his head. “No, but. But this is different—”
“Is it, really?”
“Kyle, well. Yeah, that’s really f*cking scary, but it’s over. You’re okay.” Stan realized that he was petting Kyle’s hair, subconsciously, and that he’d started shaking, too, though not as violently as Kyle. “You’re okay,” he said again.
“But think about it,” Kyle said. His voice was small, his breath still hot on Stan’s face. Stan thought about giving him a little peck on the cheek, but that would be stupid, gay, and probably upsetting to Kyle. “Think about it, Stan. If Cartman’s f*cking – fixation on me brought me that close to getting, getting – I mean, what if he really hurts me someday? Like, really? I don’t think he even meant to, this time, but that doesn’t matter. He’s reckless, and he hates me, and he – I think he could really hurt me, Stan.”
“No, he couldn’t. Cartman’s just an idiot kid.”
“Right,” Kyle said, angrily. “Yeah, he’s never ruined anyone’s life.”
“I wouldn’t let him,” Stan said.
“Ha, okay. You might not be able to do anything to stop it. Like today.”
Stan was hurt by that, and he sat up, pushing the blankets off of himself. Kyle looked up at him from the mattress, and Stan saw how truly terrified he was when their eyes met. He could hear Sheila coming up the stairs.
“She doesn’t know I’m in here,” Stan said.
“Just go,” Kyle said, and he rolled toward the wall. “You can’t help me with this, anyway.”
“With what, Kyle?”
Before Kyle could answer, Sheila knocked on the door, and Stan sprang out of the bed, not wanting to be caught there. He made small talk with Sheila, who seemed distracted and eager to get rid of him. Kyle was still in bed, facing the wall, the blankets pulled up to his ear.
“Kyle really needs some rest,” Sheila said, practically pushing Stan toward the door. “He can’t play right now. Go home, Stanley, and tell that father of yours—” She clammed up then, pressing her lips together tightly, and for a minute Stan thought she would hit him. “Just go, young man, please.”
“Later, dude,” Stan called, but Kyle didn’t answer.
5.
Stan fully planned to give Kyle a piece of his mind when he got back from Israel. If Kyle had just trusted him with the truth about Cartman’s stupid f*cking farts and the whole scheme, he never would have gotten himself pulled into the whole thing. Nothing had been the same between them since Stan’s tenth birthday, and Stan knew Kyle was still mad at him, bitter that Stan had gone through something that Kyle wasn’t mature enough to understand. He was really and truly angry by the time he got to Kyle’s house, planning on finally having it out with him.
“Kyle’s not feeling well,” Sheila said when she answered the door.
“I won’t stay long,” Stan said. He wanted to get this tirade off his chest before the feeling faded. “I just wanted to tell him that – that I’m glad he made it back safe.”
Sheila huffed and rubbed her fingers over her eyes. She sighed, stepping out of the doorway to allow Stan to enter.
“Go ahead,” she said, gesturing toward the stairs. “I suppose you deserve a chance to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?” Stan said, his foot on the first stair. He turned back. “What?”
“Never mind,” Sheila said, shooing Stan. “Kyle can tell you himself, if you can wake him. I gave him a sleeping pill a few hours ago.”
Stan’s feet seemed to have turned to cement as he climbed the stairs. A cold sweat gathered on the back of his neck, and he shivered when he reached the second floor. He didn’t feel angry anymore, just frightened, though he wasn’t sure what he was afraid of.
“Dude?” he said, knocking on Kyle’s door. There was no answer. Stan thought Kyle was probably asleep. He opened the door anyway, needing an explanation for what Sheila said about goodbye.
Kyle’s bed was empty, and so was his desk. Stan stepped inside and spotted Kyle in the front right corner of the room, leaning against the wall, his back to the door. The sight of his buzz cut was jarring, though Stan had seen it in person before. Kyle didn’t seem to register that Stan had entered. He was picking at the paint on the wall, as if he was trying to chip it off with his fingernail.
“Dude?” Stan said, not sure if he should take another step into the room.
“What.”
Kyle’s voice was flat and deeper than Stan remembered it, though he’d only been gone for a few weeks. Stan’s hadn’t changed yet, but it had deepened a little, or so his uncle Jimbo claimed. He walked in and shut the door behind him.
“Uh,” Stan said when Kyle went on scratching at the wall. He was wearing a t-shirt and boxer shorts, a pair that Stan recognized from a long ago sleepover, with a blue and white checker pattern. “What are you doing?” Stan asked.
“Nothing.”
“Are you okay?”
“What do you think?” Kyle half-turned, sneering in Stan’s general direction. His face fell back into an expression of tired resignation, and he looked at the wall again. “Look, thanks for coming, but I don’t want to do this all over again.”
“Do what all over again?”
“You telling me everything’s okay. I know it’s okay. Everything’s fine. Whatever. I’m tired from the flight.”
“Okay. So that’s why you’re scratching at the wall like a mental patient?”
“Yep.”
Kyle stopped scratching but didn’t move, sitting with his knees hugged to his chest and his shoulders hunched. He looked skinny and ragged, like he hadn’t eaten in days.
“Listen.” Stan took a deep breath, not wanting to mess this up. “I know you probably feel stupid, but your heart was in the right place. Next time, just don’t shut me out, okay? I really wanted to help, and you wouldn’t let me.”
“I’m beyond help,” Kyle said. “So don’t bother.”
“Beyond – dude, I know it sucks, but don’t feel bad.”
“Don’t tell me how to feel!” Kyle sprang up suddenly, and Stan stumbled backward, feeling as if he was about to get attacked by Gollum. “I let that piece of sh*t defile me for no reason! You don’t know what it was like! You don’t know what he did to me!”
“Dude, I know, it was f*cking awful, okay, I tried to – understand, or fix it, I know, but, like. Well, um. I mean, c’mon, you’re not defiled. Farts don’t have the ability to defile. You and I used to fart on each other all the time, remember? During sleep overs? We thought it was hilarious.”
“This was different,” Kyle said. He put both hands on Stan’s chest and shoved him weakly. “It wasn’t just farts. You want to know why I shaved my head? Because he peed on me. That’s right.” Kyle looked almost triumphant when he saw the horrified expression on Stan’s face. “He just pissed on my head one day, cracking up the whole time, then made me hang out at his house like that until I had to go home. It didn’t matter how many times I showered – I could still smell it all over me. But I told myself, you know, people would die if I didn’t put up with that. Ha, ha, ha.”
"Dude." Stan moved toward Kyle, but he stepped backward so abruptly that Stan halted.
"Don’t touch me," Kyle said. "I’m dirty. Diseased."
"What disease do you have?" Stan asked, sincerely wondering if farts could communicate something.
"Moral decay," Kyle said. "Decay of the soul. I’m ruined, inside and out."
"Stop, alright? Why – why does this have to be the end of the world? Why did your mom tell me I should tell you goodbye?"
"I’m going to New York to live with my aunt."
"What? Huh? And that cousin you f*cking hate?"
"Yes, and him. Sharing a bed with him is better than staying here. I’m not safe here. You know it and I know it. I’m no match for South Park."
Stan snorted. “What does that even mean?”
"It means I want to tear my lips off and burn them! After that sh*t with Apple, all those awful surgeries, after the scars healed, I thought, well, at least I look normal again. At least I don’t look as filthy and disgusting as I feel. But it’s not enough, after this, okay? I’ll never stop feeling like this, like – like I want to claw my own face off to forget what it was like to have him sit on it.”
"Dude, no. I can’t accept this. You won’t be defeated by Cartman’s fat ass, of all things. I won’t let him do this to me."
"To you?”
"Yeah, to me! You’re gonna move to New York? f*ck that! You’re living in South Park and I already miss you!"
Kyle stared at Stan for a moment, and Stan took the opportunity to study his face. He looked gaunt and haunted, but something had changed in his eyes, just now.
"What do you mean," Kyle said, his voice still flat, though now it seemed a bit forced, "You miss me?"
"It’s not. Like it was, or something, I don’t know. And I thought I was ready to move on, but I’m not. Even if you’re lying down and eating Cartman’s farts, and singing about how much you love them, I’m not – I can’t accept that we’ve changed too much to be friends anymore. I wanted to fight it, to, like. Believe that I knew you better than that, no matter what you said."
"Well, congratulations. You were right. It doesn’t change the fact that I — I was wrong about everything, Stan. And I’m just too tired to fight it anymore. He won – his fat ass won, whatever. I can’t think about anything but how stupid I am and how gross I feel."
"Why should you feel gross?" Stan asked, his voice beginning to tremble. "They’re just farts. It’s just pee – it’s sick, he’s sick, but that’s him, not you. He can’t make it stick."
"Bullsh*t." Kyle mashed his lips together and closed his eyes, shaking his head. "It sticks. It’s not just him. It’s everything. I think about everything I’ve had to swallow here, Stan, and it’s just like – it’ll never wash off. I’ll always have it on me, unless I run away, and maybe even then."
"Fine," Stan said tightly, and Kyle opened his eyes. "Fine, but. Look."
Stan walked to Kyle, unwilling to think much about the plan that had suddenly come to him. Instead, he clung to the feeling that it was the right thing to do, the perfect demonstration, and grabbed Kyle by the ears. He pressed his lips to Kyle’s, no more sure how to do this than his pathetic attempts with Wendy, and left them there, puckering and relaxing, his heart thudding so hard that he was sure Kyle could hear it. Kyle was frozen, and when Stan pulled back, his eyes were wide.
"Why," Kyle said. "What—"
"You taste clean," Stan said. It was hard to hear himself talk over the sound of his heartbeat. "Just – warm and nice and clean. And if you’re not, I don’t care. Like I said, I’ll drink pee if you need me to. If you feel dirty, I’ll – I’ll be dirty with you. If you have some disease, I want to catch it."
"Why?" Kyle said again, his eyes getting even wider.
"I don’t know. I just always wanted us to be the same. I still want it. Don’t you?"
"Ah—" Kyle’s face was getting pink, the color coming back to his cheeks for the first time in weeks, since the fart-eating made him look like a sad ghost of himself. "Stan, you kissed me."
"Well." Stan shrugged. "I just. I like your, uh. Mouth." He pinched his eyes shut. He was just as bad as he was with Wendy, maybe worse.
"What about Wendy!"
"She’s – what about her? She hasn’t been my girlfriend in a while. We’re just friends who hold hands sometimes. I can have more than one of those."
Kyle raised his eyebrows. His mouth twitched, almost a smile.
"You want to hold my hand?"
"I don’t know. Sure. My feeling is, like. People are gonna tease you about being Fart Boy, okay, unless they have something better to tease you for. And if we hold hands and stuff, at school, they’ll tease us for that. Together. I just want to be part of whatever you’re dealing with. I even wanted to eat those f*cking farts, you know, at one point. Just so I could try to understand."
"I’m so confused right now," Kyle says, but he’s smiling faintly, still blushing.
"I think I am, too," Stan admitted. "I came over here to yell at you a little."
"Oh. You can, if you need to."
"Nah. Unless you still want to go to New York to live with Kyle Two."
"I’m Kyle Two, dude."
"No, you’re not." Stan kissed him again, quickly, on the lips. "You’re not, really."
"Okay," Kyle said, and he was smiling for real now, brightly.
Sheila was feeling so protective of Kyle in the aftermath of the Ginger Cow incident that she caved easily when he begged to have Stan spend the night. Stan slept on the floor in a sleeping bag, and Kyle rested his cheek on the edge of the mattress to peer down at him while they whispered to each other until they couldn’t keep their eyes open any longer. Like old times.
Stan fell asleep to vague thoughts about kicking Cartman’s ass in the morning, but when he woke up it just seemed dumb. Cartman was going to piss off the wrong person someday and get his ass handed to him; it was only a matter of time. Stan had better things to do with his Sunday afternoon. He went to see a dumb action movie with Kyle and held his hand through some of it, until it felt kind of insane, though also good. He made Kyle promise at least ten times that he wasn’t serious about moving to New York. He paid for Kyle’s frozen yogurt at Yopocalypse and spat an ice cold M&M at Craig when he called Kyle ‘Fart Boy’ in passing.
"You freak!" Craig shouted, swatting at his sweater as if the M&M was an insect that would crawl into his hair. "What the hell?"
"Don’t f*ck with Fart Boy," Kyle said as he and Stan pushed out of the yogurt place, and Stan snickered. He threw his arm around Kyle’s shoulders and imagined what Craig and his friends were saying as they walked off. It was sort of great, throwing his lot in with Kyle’s, as if balance had finally been restored to their universe. Stan supposed he had Cartman to thank for that, perversely enough, and decided he’d probably still kick Cartman’s ass later, but only if Kyle agreed to help.
