Elysian Fields (A Kyman Fanfiction)

Chapter 10: The Year Without a Summer

I watch the ice melt in my water, drips gathering and running down the sides of the glass. The chandelier's shattered light bounces off the magenta walls, tingeing my drink with a sick pepto bismol pink.

If he's not at school tomorrow, I'll worry. He hasn't been at school all week but it's not like that's strange. He skips sometimes, it just so happens this time I might have hit an artery and he could be bleeding out dying in his house. How easily the blade slipped into his skin, ripping the inside, and that pained face... It makes me sick.

He could have reported it to the police and there'll be a warrant out for my arrest. They'll come to school and announce for me to go to the principal's office, and they'll be waiting there. Cartman will stand there gloating, identifying me as the man that hurt him, and they'll cuff me and take me to jail.

"Bubbala you've hardly touched your kanishka's," I push around the glob of dough and smile at my mother. Age hasn't helped the dimpled disappointed tinging her face. Her life hasn't turned out the way she wanted but she tries to find happiness, at least that's what her therapist tells her to do.

As for my father, tall, sinoey and balding, my mom's would-be right hand man in keeping order in the house if not for his lack of spine. You can feel the love and pride he has for my brother and I. Where my mother only sees imperfection, he could not be bothered. It's nice having a cheerleader sometimes but his support has been waning of late.

"They're great, Mom, I just had a huge lunch," I reply, as stiff and rehearsed as a doll.

She shifts in her wooden chair and pushes my hair out of my face with one chubby nailed finger. "You really need a haircut, Bubbala, how are the girls gonna see your handsome face otherwise?"

"Yes Kyle, are there any girls you're thinking of asking?" My father asks, screeching his plate with a butter knife.

"To what now?" I hadn't been paying attention to the conversation. Ike snickers next to me. He lucked out in the family, his adoptive genes blessing him with the ability to easily gain muscle and be decent looking. He even put on a Canadian accent despite not growing up there. I know the girls at school liked him by the jabbering I sometimes caught walking through the halls. Oh that's his brother? They look nothing alike, oh he's adopted? Good, I'm glad he won't look like that then. For their information I could kick their ass up and down the pole all day.

"To the homecoming dance, it's soon isn't it?" My mother beams at me, creases puddling her makeup on either side of her caked lips and eyes. "We're going to the game to support your brother, if you wanted to-

"No thanks, I think I have plans that night," no. Fuck that. Pretending to enjoy the company of my peers outside of my small friend group is too asinine.

"Bubbala you really need to make an effort with this family." Her bossy tone is making my head ache. "I was asking, but now I'm telling, you're going to that dance. It would be good for you to get out, all you do is play with Stan and sometimes you need-"

"I'm not five, Mom," I stand. "May I be excused? I have a test tomorrow."

I leave the table as quickly as I can and run up the stairs, bounding into my room and closing the door quietly behind me. I sit at the door and hug my boney legs, catching bits of the conversation. Words like "inconsiderate" and "unhappy" float through the crack in the wood.

I'd be nicer if I felt I could. If I let anyone in, even a little, my carefully constructed lies could come crashing down. Ironically the person that knows the most about me is Cartman, and that's only because he's a nosy asshole that uses information to get what he wants, so he ends up amassing a lot of it.