I bet y'all forgot all about me, right? Or you surely believed I was lying very, very still in a ditch somewhere. See, what'd I tell you about updates? No set time here, but I'm seriously not abandoning this. I am sorry, though. It was totally my bad to let… what, five or six months pass? Anyways, onto other matters.

So I changed the summary of the story. Wasn't a fan of the old one, but I'm not a fan of the new one either. Still, a slight improvement I think. Oh, and we have our first present Kenny bit since the prologue.

ONE LAST NOTE: If you want to know the immediate status of a chapter, or want to know if it's close to ever seeing the light of day, I'll be posting on my profile. Just a small update on it every now and then. Or should I say - every then and now? *is shot*

00

Now

00

"Kenny? Kenny."

I hear a voice far away, and I groan and turn on my side, towards the voice.

"Kenny, sweetie, wake up. I'll be late for work," it said. A nice, soothing female voice. It makes me want to never get up from bed. I dig my face into my pillow and mumble something that I'm sure aren't actual words. I try to open my eyes, but as soon as I do they burn and I close them again. Whoever's the chick that was speaking starts to shake me, and I finally open my eyes a bit, squinting through the burning from sleep-deprivation to find out where the fuck I am. It sure as hell doesn't smell like my house. I look up to see brown hair framing a familiar face above me, as well as a familiar set of tits.

"Tammy? Mm, what are you doing here?"

"I live here.

I finally open my eyes all the way and rub them lethargically. The couch isn't missing any legs, and the blankets I'm wrapped up in are actually nice. I've still got all my clothes on, and I'm on the couch, so I obviously didn't sleep with anyone. Oh. Oh. Oh, fuck.

"Please tell me the reason I'm here is because I slept with you."

She rolls her eyes. "You wish, hun'. You showed up last night, naked and crying your heart out about Santa Fe."

I cringe, both at the information and the mild headache that I'm starting to get. "I was in my underwear, don't exaggerate," I say, sitting up on the couch and stretching my arms above me. Her eyes seem to roam over me and she frowns. I raise an eyebrow. "You sure we didn't sleep together?"

"Yes," she says harshly, her eyes narrowing.

I smirk at her expression, obvious that she's beginning to get irritated. "Want to?"

"God, Kenny! The only reason I let you stay the night is because Richard's visiting his sister in Chicago. Seriously, I have to get to work. Get up and get the fuck out of my house."

I pout, standing and leaving the warm comfort of the blankets I was cocooned in. "You're no fun."

"I'm not in high school anymore. Real life tends to do that to a person." She hands me some jeans and a sweater. "Come on, put these on. You can't keep them, though. I'll drop you off and you can get changed into your own clothes."

I take the clothes and nod, watching her ass as she walks out. She leaves the door open, probably as a silent way of telling me to hurry the hell up. As I start to slip on the jeans, a few sizes too big, the highlights of last night start to come back to me. Shit, I'm never drinking again. All of this happened because I went to Craig's stupid party. If I had just gone somewhere else for the night, I wouldn't have kept seeing him everywhere through my stupid alcoholic haze, and I wouldn't have wandered over to his house.

These must be Richard's clothes, since they're all big as hell. Obviously, Tammy would want them back. I throw the sweater over my head, pulling up the sleeves so that I can actually see my hands. I glare when I catch a glimpse of a white line. I always wonder whether people actually notice. It could just be that I know they're there, so it automatically seems like other people know as well. I roll up the sleeve a bit more, glancing at the ugly marks and swollen circles adorning it. I pick angrily at a scab near the crook of my arm. Tammy's probably grossed out as hell. God, it's all so stupid. I'm such a fucking pussy. It all seems so childish when you're looking at the leftovers. It's always a heat of the -

"AAH!"

Oh, car horn. Tammy, work, right. I really shouldn't be this easily startled, I don't think. I break into a run and slam the door behind me with a satisfyingly loud bang.

00

"It doesn't get better, really. That's just what they'll have you believe."

He takes a hit, I follow his lead. He holds it for a while before he exhales and continues his little speech in his not-so-thick accent. Nothing I've never heard before.

"After high school, it's all just peaches and college and oh-so-different." I exhale when I feel myself grow lightheaded, coughing twice afterwards. "You just become a slave, though. A machine. To the corporate world, the myth of education and how there's so much more left to learn. It's all codswallop. Now this - this is downright wonderful. Lovely." He takes a hit for emphasis. I follow his lead again. Like a machine. How ironic.

I try to hold it as long as I can again before exhaling. He watches me the whole time, as usual. His eyes are the same shape as Kyle's, deep-set and searching. "But… isn't there more left to learn, Pip?"

He cocks an eyebrow, ignores the joint held between his fingers while he looks at me as if he's never seen me before in his life. "I'm afraid you're going to have to be clearer than that."

I lick my lips, raise the joint to my lips, hesitate, then leave it dangling from my limp fingers instead. "Well, high school - it's just our chance to make all these mistakes. To fuck up as many times as we possibly can. We fall, and fall, and see if we can't get up. I mean, we've got to learn how to break the cycle, right? Just kind of get, I don't know, some sort of stability. Maybe." I blink into the silence, then take a hit that leaves me absolutely breathless. I exhale with a sick pleasure.

Pip looks at me, then laughs. And laughs. Giggling like a fucking schoolgirl. He slides over towards me and claps me on the shoulder, still laughing. "K-Kenny. Stability? Shit, have you got a broad who's tied you down already?" He takes a deep breath, choking on his own tongue which just keeps on going, talking too much, filling up what otherwise would be wonderful silence tinged with a swimming panorama. "Lighten up, Kenny, old chap! Else I'll have to take that away from you." He points to the joint in my hand. "You don't want to end up like a pig working for the state, right? With your white-picket fence? No, Kenny. I know you. You're no pig." I keep on scowling. He knows me?

He wraps his arm around me in a chummy manner. I feel like shit. "You see, Ken, when you've got a choice, always pick ganja," he says with this smile on his face as he keeps laughing. It makes me want to fucking sock him in the jaw.

I laugh along with him, instead.

00

I hear smashing the second I cross the train tracks, clearly coming from the decrepit shack I live in. I push the lockless door open a crack, checking to see if the coast is clear. It's coming from Kevin's room, along with a steady string of curses. Damn, he's really thrashing his room in there. Fuck him and his temperamental breakdowns, his tantrums. Fuck this house, as a matter of fact.

I storm into my room as quickly as I can, collapsing against the wall and sliding down until I'm sitting on the moldy carpet. I don't even feel high anymore, I just - I really need something. I look around and eye the cigarettes on my bed, but I don't move towards them.

The glass smashing down the hall is giving me one hell of a headache.

I hate Pip. I hate his fucking weed and how he's so keen to give it to someone, anyone, as long as they hear his stoner ramblings. Anarchy? He doesn't know what he's fucking talking about. He just wants an excuse to keep avoiding responsibilities and keep cutting classes and keep getting high. Shit, you'd think the kid would've turned out different, the way he used to dress and act, but the only thing that's stayed the same about him is the fact that he doesn't have any real friends. Fucking dead-beat.

Still, you can't turn down free Mary Jane. And in all honesty, I'm no better. What responsibilities do I take on, right?

Something heavy breaks against Kevin's wall, as if to emphasize my last thought.

Last night, though… I remember it more clearly than I'd like to. Fuck, I actually went to his house. I was doing so well, yet somehow…

Yeah, right. Doing so very well, as he reminded me. I push my sleeve up. I glare.

He kissed me. I kissed him, and he actually kissed me back. He didn't even kick me out! Well, he did, but he didn't slam the door in my face when I showed up. You would think, right? I can't say I haven't fantasized about seeing him again. About kissing him, touching him, breathing him in. I wonder if - no. I don't want to think about him. I don't want to think at all.

"Fuck!" a hoarse, raspy voice screams and then, finally, silence in the house. I wonder what Kevin would do, what anybody would do, if I just screamed. At the top of my lungs, screamed like I never do.

Kyle never screamed back. I remember screaming at him, maybe twice, yet he never screamed back. I almost always screamed back when he'd break down. It would make him calm down, snap him back into reality and he'd lean into me and I'd catch him.

My eyes sting. I clutch my blond hair as hard as I can.

God, it hurts. I miss him so fucking much. It's not - I don't - I've been... God, I just - I need him. My chest hurts the way it always does but that I never acknowledge. Right now, though, with my eyes closed, it hurts so much more. I can feel him with me. His too-thin shoulder blades against my own bony hands, his thick red curls, his chapped lips, the taste and the smell of toothpaste and coffee that hits me as soon as we pull each other in.

And I had it all last night, and forgetting about it isn't fucking possible anymore. I kissed him and goddamnit, he kissed me back.

I never should have believed him.

I don't anymore. I don't care anymore, about his psychotic parents or his fucked up attitude. He is mine and no one else's, and I'm doing something about this. I have a promise to re-instate. Ganja be damned.

00

"Another D, McCormick." The teacher slams the paper on my desk, red ink glaring at me and mocking my time spent on the dumb thing. "I asked for the significance of the quotes, not for a rant on Hamlet's martyrdom. I have a feeling you were well aware of the instructions." I shrug and grab the test, stuffing it unceremoniously into my backpack when I see her walk away. See, she'd have given me - should've given me - an F. Except that she likes what I write. She won't admit it though. I'm not exactly sure why I didn't answer her stupid questions anyways, other than they weren't what I had in my mind at the time.

"Jesus, Kenny. Suicidal, much? This is sick," says a certain obnoxious voice next to me. I practically fly out of my desk and slam into the edge of his own desk, snatching the paper back before he catches his own breath. Luckily, his fat cushioned the impact. For me, at least.

"Yeah, says the one who has to see a head doctor once a week," I snap back venomously and ignore his murderous look.

"Hey, let me see that." I look at Stan, hesitate a bit, then hand him my paper. His dark blue eyes move left and right as he speed-reads through the page.

"Ay! How come you let the hippeh read -"

"This is good," Stan says and hands the test back to me, which I quickly stuff into my backpack again. "It reminds me of Wendy's essay. She wrote it about the same thing, and won second place for some scholarship. She asked me to read through it for her."

We both choose to ignore Cartman in the background, and I clutch my backpack protectively to my chest. Wendy? Haven't seen her in a while. "You still talk to Wendy, dude?"

"Yeah, dude, she's my girlfriend! We're actually getting along great, somehow, even though she's going to Middle Park."

Probably because they're not suffocating each other with clingy affection through the day anymore, but I won't say that out loud.

"I'm actually going there after-school. She's doing a violin thing and wants me to come," he says, with a look on his face that clearly says he'd rather do anything than go to some gay little orchestra concerto. The bell rings at that moment, and the class scrambles towards the door like they're in any actual hurry. I follow.

"Oomph! Cartman, you fucker!" I rub my ribs from the impact against the doorframe as Cartman runs off cackling like a maniac. Psycho, I swear.

Middle Park High School? I didn't know Wendy went there. Probably because they've got more classes, and the teachers aren't such rednecks there. I stop walking and run a hand through my hair, watching Stan take some things out of his locker. Middle Park High School. I think - no, I'm sure that Kyle goes there. Kyle goes there…

"Stan! Stan, wait up!" The words are out of my mouth before I can even finish my thoughts, before I can give them permission to be voiced. I run to the end of the hall to catch up with him as he turns around.

"What's up?"

"Can I come with you? To Middle Park?" I ask, wincing inwardly at how desperate I sounded when I said it. Stan looks at me curiously.

"Why?"

I open my mouth and struggle to come up with a response. I probably look like a retarded fish, opening and closing my mouth like this. But I obviously can't tell him -

He holds up a hand. "Never mind." A look of comprehension on his face, then of resignation. "We're - we're gonna be late. Just… don't do anything stupid, okay?" I nod frantically and follow him to the parking lot.

The ride takes about a half hour; a long time for the townies in Park County. The whole time, I'm wondering why Stan would indulge me in this if he suspects the reason I'm coming here. I know for a fact that he still talks to Kyle all the time.

As soon as we step foot inside the vacant halls of the school, Wendy runs up to Stan with this huge freaking smile and practically superglues herself to Stan's chest and mouth. To say the least, it takes an awkward while until Wendy notices me staring at the not-so-intricate floor tiles like I'm not watching my best friend and his girlfriend sucking all kinds of face. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for voyeurism. There's just something about watching a scene as cavity-inducing as Wendy and Stan that makes it feel like inappropriate intrusion.

"Kenny! What are you doing here?"

"What, I don't get a kiss?" I joke, watching her debate between outrage and amusement. She decides on the latter, and gives me a hug like girls do when they see you on the first day of school after summer break. "I haven't seen you in forever! What are you doing here?"

I glance quickly at Stan, and act as nonchalant as I can. "Stan told me about your concert tonight, and I'm always up for a little Boticelli."

She raises an eyebrow and giggles, and I quickly crane my neck towards the main hallway, searching. "Boticelli was a painter, Kenny."

I force myself to laugh along. "Painter, musician, he was still Italian wasn't he?"

She laughs again and smiles with her stunningly white, slightly crooked teeth. She opens her mouth to say something but Stan clears his throat. I blink. I forgot he was still here. He taps his watch and Wendy does this little "oh!" motion which is pretty hot, in that innocent schoolgirl way.

"Sorry, Kenny! I really have to go. The auditorium's to the left, there's a big sign pointing to it. I'll talk to you later!" she says, speaking quickly. She gives me a one-armed hug, grabs Stan's wrist, and drags him off up a set of stairs. I suppose boyfriends get backstage passes, then.

Instead of heading left, I head right and continue down a hall full of classrooms. The chances of it, seriously, are practically nil. Not only is it after-school, but I have no idea where I'm going. I don't know why I'm bothering. I mean, I do know: I have a resolve, something I need to do. I need to find him and talk to him like I never had a chance to do. I just don't know why I came after school ended when he's most likely at home already. Oh, there's a classroom with its lights on at the end of the hall.

…and it just flew open. And God must love me.

A group of people file out of the room, two of them running full-speed towards the stairs Wendy took a bit ago. Most of them heading to the main hall and to the entrance. The rest laughing at something and amongst them a flash of red hair. It's Kyle. I flatten myself against the wall as my breath hitches.

I can't do much but stare at him while they wrap up their conversation. A blonde claps him on the shoulder, and I feel my blood boil, my lungs tighten, my face grow dark. I take a step forward, then stop.

His friends, or whatever they are, disperse. He's alone, somehow. We're both alone in the same room for the second time in two years. My heart is practically beating out of my chest. Fuck, it hurts to look at him and stay crushed against this wall trying to propel me towards him. He leans against the wall on his side of the room and closes his eyes, his lips slightly parted, his chest moving up and down under his sweater. He's as fucking amazing as ever. He's incredible.

I don't notice I've stepped away from the wall and towards him until his eyes snap open. I freeze like Kyle's some predator that'll pounce as soon as I make a noise. Right, because Kyle's the one who chased me down at school on a post-epiphany whim, right? He's staring right at me with those green-brown eyes. Then he bolts towards the entrance. Fuck, I need to do something. He can't. He can't.

I grab his arm and it sends shocks to my brain, more so than last night when I was wasted enough for my thinking to be a bit clouded. All in a second, he thrashes against me and nearly sends me straight down to the floor.

"Don't you fucking touch me, you son of a -"

"Iwantyouback," the words spill out of my mouth and merge with each other. I let out a breath I hadn't realized I've been holding.

He stands there, looking limp and tired, he shakes his head, swears and kicks the concrete wall, just barely biting his lip when his foot makes obviously painful contact. Going from cold to hot, from one extreme to another. I'm comfortable because it's familiar.

"Are you okay?" I ask hesitantly.

"Fucking fine!"

He reaches into his pocket, puts something in his mouth, then begins to pace in front of me. He's not moving towards the entrance anymore. I guess that's a good sign, in retrospect. Considering he almost tore my arm out of its socket when I tried to stop him just now, it's a lucky thing he's staying put.

"What the hell are you doing here? How did you know where to find me? How'd you know I would be here?"

Fuck, this is hard. The way he moves, the way his curls bounce as he paces, the way he looks at me with those eyes which although vicious have a familiar fire in them. It's misplaced passion, and I have to fight myself to stay calm. I lick my suddenly dry lips. "I came here with Stan. He's here for Wendy's concert. I… didn't think I had any chance of finding you, actually. Lady Luck, right?" I try to smile but it feels more like a grimace.

He stops pacing, and looks at me, his eyes searching me up and down,. He's trying to figure something out in that head of his, I'm sure of it. I reach my hand out. If I could just -

"I told you not to touch me," he whispers dangerously, pinning me against the wall. My breathing is strained, my heart still racing and skipping every other beat as his hot breath reaches my face, my neck. Mints. I fucking knew it.

"And I told you I want you back, but you didn't say shit to that, did you?" He squeezes my wrists against the cold concrete and I suck in a breath through my teeth. The way his nails are starting to dig into my skin hurts, but at the same time I don't want him to ever let go. "Just fucking talk to me, would you?"

"WHY CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?" His breathing erratic, his eyes on the brink.

"BECAUSE YOU LEFT ME ALONE! I DON'T TO BE ALONE, KYLE!" I scream back. He grip loosens, his breath settles. This is eerily familiar. I've been here before. It makes me feel even worse. I close my eyes tightly. When I open then again, we're in exactly the same position. I don't know whether I'm relieved or scared as shit.

"I'm going to ask you not to come see me again, Kenny. I'm going to ask you to stay the hell away from me and to go back to your life so we can each have our own like before," he says, and it hurts to hear that restraint in his voice, keeping himself from sceaming. That restraint for me. Fuck it, he hasn't changed a bit. I shake my head frantically, looking him in the eye.

"I don't want to." My voice cracks. My eyes feel dry enough, but I'm sure they betray something right about now. His mouth is parted slightly, and he looks at a loss for what to do, his teeth grinding together in rage but his eyes crinkled in sadness.

It worked last night, and by this point, I've got nothing left to lose. And no, my dignity doesn't count. I lean forward, seizing the opportunity, and capture his lips in mine tenderly. I feel him stop breathing, but I'm not paying attention. I'm willing myself to just focus on him alone, this moment in itself. I feel his grip on my wrists tighten, and he drags me higher up the wall, the backs of my hands scraping against the rough, painted-over stone.

He's moving his lips against mine, he's biting my bottom lip. I let out a low moan in the back of my throat and his breath hitches as he presses himself against me. I'm aching, my pants suddenly tight and my breath coming out in spurts. I'm aching to hold onto him, to tangle my hands in his hair but he won't let go of my wrists even as I twist and turn in his grip. In desperation, I raise my hips to meet his and feel his own hardness press against me. He moans into my mouth as my tongue battles for some sort of control over the situation. My lips are pulsating, bruising, and I can't let go of him. I can't let go of this or this moment. I need to stay like this, I need him, I want -

I fall to the floor with a resounding thud, ending up on the other side of the narrow hall. I can't catch my breath, his taste is still in my mouth.

"Stay away from me. Got it?"

I watch Kyle as he makes his way to the door. No, I can't let him go. I need him. I run up behind him, wrap my arms around him, breathe him in. Then I'm holding my nose with my eyes shut tight in pain, groaning as I feel blood trickle down my face. I look at him, glaring with eyes that feel too moist. He looks at me, then somewhere behind me, and finally runs out the door, makes a sharp left, and he's gone.

I stare at the place where he stood for a while, letting the blood run down my chin and stain my shirt. It's on, Kyle. You've now given me every reason not to give up on you and, God help me, I'll take full advantage of that.

Someone clears their throat behind me, but the concert can't be over yet, right? I turn around, trying in vain to cover the damage done. It's Stan, and the look on his face says it all.