Authors Note: Combination of a dream I had and... Well. Meh. Who cares? It reads the story. I need to write humor again, until then...
Disclaimer: I do not own South Park.
Chapter 1- Lemon Lime.
My dark bangs keep flying into my face and it's pissing me off. Though I normally hide my eyes from the world beneath my straight, Emo hair, today I'm trying to leave a space open so I have a little window to look at him.
I haven't seen him in nearly a year, and part of me doesn't even want to. Part of me thinks he's a coward; a lying, deceitful, selfish rat bastard with no heart. Not even a cold, black dead one. But the part of me that isn't justifiably angry with him knows better. That part of me knows him.
My butt hurts from sitting in this hard chair for so long, and my stomach has long been queasy simply knowing I was going to have to enter this place. It smells like alcohol and sterile bed sheets, which makes me think of blood-drawing needles and only furthers my nausea. I hate hospitals so much that just the sound of nurses rubber soled shoes squeaking against the waxed floor makes the back of my throat burn with rising bile. I swallow it back and make a face at the bitter flavor of my own stomach acids. I must have puked at least three times in the forty minutes I've been sitting here. I've got nothing left to forfeit except the rancid sickness accumulating in the pit of my belly.
I jump at the sound of a vending machine spewing out a soda and peek up through my hair at Wendy as she takes her place in the chair next to mine and holds a lemon-lime can out to me.
"For your stomach," She explains, nudging it at me and smiling when I accept. "Lemon helps it settle."
The can hisses at me as I pop open the silver top. I can see tiny bubbles bursting out of the new hole and sympathize with its rage as I tip it back to drink. I must be thirstier than I thought, because I down half of it in four large gulps. The cold liquid feels good against my hot insides and actually does make me feel slightly less weak.
The truth is, I'm more sick over the thought of being near him again than I am about the hospital or any of the disgusting things inside. I'm afraid of how it's going to feel to be that close to him again.
I hear the squeak, squeak, squeaking of a quick nurse approaching and swallow thickly when she stops in front of us.
"One of you can go in now," She informs sternly. "One."
Wendy, Kenny and I glance at each other, silently asking who's going to go first.
"Stan," Kenny mumbles behind his folds of brown and orange.
Wendy gives one curt nod. "Stan." She agrees.
"Follow me." The nurse commands.
I feel a cold shiver spear through me, which oddly enough makes me hot with more nausea. I don't know if I can do this, but even as I think that, I feel the coldness of my drink leave my hand and Kenny urging me to follow. My fingers feel numb as I curl them into my palms and dig the tips into my flesh, but I manage to get up and set myself in motion on one flash of courage.
I glance back at Kenny and Wendy. They're worried about me. Worried how I'll handle it; if I'll handle it. They both know how much he meant to me, what I went through after all was said and done. They saw how much I cried.
Wendy and I actually had a thing going for a while, but it ended because she liked Kenny better. I was her boyfriend, and yet she was much fonder, turned on and interested in Kenny. Maybe it was the distance I created between us, the fear of losing her how I lost him. All I know is that it ended with a lot of arguments and tears, and that we somehow managed to salvage the friendship.
Kenny, on the other hand, found it necessary to tell me exactly the kind of feelings he was beginning to develop toward me. The only problem with Kenny was the fact that he seemed to like someone new every few weeks. In fact, he had been on a few dates with someone quite recently. Kenny cared for me a whole lot, but like Wendy, he was only a friend. And unfortunately, friends can't always be there for you when you need them.
Him. He was the only one who ever was. Always there.
The nurse leads me to the door and instructs me not to mess with anything, and that I may be startled by his appearance, but just press the red button by the bed if I needed help.
I allow her to walk away, all the while standing just inside the door she had closed behind me and staring down at my shoes against the shiny, white tiles. There was a rather annoying noise coming from the opposite side of the room, and it took me several moments to recognize it as the beep of a heart monitor.
His heart monitor.
It sounds strong and stable, rhythmically assuring there was life inside his still body. Tears collect behind my eyes, making them sting and my vision blur. I try to swallow, but my throat is constricted so tightly with emotion that I nearly choke myself for even attempting such a feat.
I keep my eyes cast downward and squeeze them closed. My minds eye conjures up an image of him stored somewhere in my subconscious; so clear it was almost like I were actually there with him. And he was smiling.
With a deep sigh to instill composure, I look up and for the first time in a long time, straight at Kyle.
There's tubes everywhere, and several large machines recording different wave patterns of God knows what. His arm is bound in a cast and there's a swollen, oozing knot on his temple. I stare at him like a dumb ass, my mouth slightly ajar as my eyes rove over the clear tube pumping extra oxygen into his nose.
Now is the moment I feel any anger toward him completely leave me. Anything that was done, anything that was said, it doesn't matter anymore. It's finally sinking in, the reality of it all.
He could die.
My heart thumps three times for every one beat of his machine, and I can feel it increasing still. Dizziness waves over me, and I grip the handrail along the wall to sturdy myself. I use it for support and guidance as I dragged myself to the chair next to his bedside and all but fall into its sturdy frame. The world is spinning so fast all I can see are colors and I can feel beads of sweat forming along my hairline from the extreme hot and cold I'm feeling all at once.
There's a waste basket next to the chair. I lean over just as I feel my stomach start to convulse and spill mouthful after mouthful of burning acid onto the trash inside. I hiccup a dry sob when all is empty and rinse the taste out with water and one of the Dixie cups stacked near the sink in the adjoining bathroom.
When I settle back down in the chair, I find I'm able to gaze at him through stands of my dark hair without feeling sick. All I can feel now is an overwhelming sense of sadness and fear. I can't even see his breathtaking eyes.
With a shaking hand, I reach out and gingerly cover one of his, careful not to disturb the IV wedge into the back of it. The touch ignites a million familiar feelings in me, and all I can do is cry. For me, for him, for the lost year.
"Kyle," I choke out. "Kyle, you have to wake up." My voice sounds unfamiliar even to me. Lost, broken.
If we didn't have mutual friends, I may have never even knew he was in this situation, hanging on for dear life. It was so cliché. A car accident. Something I never gave much of a thought. One of those 'it only happens to other people' type of things. And now here it is, staring me in the face.
"If you don't wake up-" My words crack and another round of tears practically explode from my eye sockets. "How are we ever going to make things right if you don't wake up?"
All physical worries drowned, I throw my top half on top of him and cry into his stomach.
- BratChild3.