𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐚𝐦 / 𝐬𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐲

"how did you do that again?" wendy laughs, gesturing to my bandage wrapped hand. it's hard to grasp the stick correctly as most of my hand-movement is restricted. "i fell." i respond shortly. i already told everyone else at dinner yesterday, and then again this morning. well except bebe. she was absent both times.

"right." she nods her head, removing her marshmallow-topped spear from the fire. her face is illuminated from the soft glow of the low flame. we had a hard time starting it considering none of us brought a lighter or a match, and none of us were girl scouts.

"shit." bebe grumbles. her marshmallow is enveloped in a blue flame. she doesn't have any sense of urgency in putting it out, instead staring at it awkwardly and leaning away from it. "put it out!" butters shouts muffled with a mouthful of his own s'more. wendy and heidi laugh at her unenthusiastic approach to extinguishing the fire, which has now completely swallowed her marshmallow. it drips sadly, hissing as it crystallizes under the intense heat of the fire.

she puts it out with one large puff, revealing the charred top of her stick and the blackened remnants of the unrecognizeable sweet. "stop staring at me." she huffs, resting her stick against the side of her fold-out chair. we all have the same one since we borrowed the five from the secret shed. the black frame of the blue and white webstrap seat reflects the weak fire, making it appear purple under the night. "what are your guys' plans after highschool?" i say, redirecting everyone's attention from the irritated bebe. she pours herself another drink.

"college then law school." wendy states obviously. i think the entire town knows her plans for the future at this point and if they don't they know from just one look at the girl. she's very serious and carries an air of success and independence. she doesn't falter when conversating with strangers either- she's actually very charming despite her argumentative nature. perfect qualities for an aspiring lawyer.

"i think i'll just try the best i can." bebe replies vaguely. i don't really know what she's talking about, but i don't give off that impression. just simply nodding at her addition. "at what?" heidi asks, saying what everyone else was thinking. "i don't know yet. maybe everything." she answers after a lengthy pause.

whenever one of us isn't speaking the only sounds heard are the ambience of the area around us. fire crackling, crickets singing, waves crashing, leaves rustling. it seems that it's just us out enjoying the night. sole figures stranded on an island. but we're surrounded by mansions so we aren't that desolate. or stranded. but it's the principle of it- how it feels.

"that's a good mindset. once i get my bachelors i can start as a conservation scientist, so that's my goal." heidi evades eye contact, working instead on constructing her s'more. she's always been conscious of the world around her, which is apparent through her veganism of course. she's always off volunteering somewhere or aiding in some protest with wendy. she has a strong moral compass. i think she's always been like that honestly. kind; even to the unfeeling organisms of the world. like her trashy ex-boyfriends.

"butters?" i tilt my head towards him. he hasn't spoken a lot today. he hums in acknowledgement. "i think i'll probably go to college. not sure what i'll major in though. maybe i'll be a doctor." he would make a nice doctor. although i can't see butters going through medical school.

"what about you, y/n?" butters asks in return. maybe i should have picked another topic because honestly, i'm not sure. whenever someone asks i say "i think i'll be a teacher."; a trick i use right now. "you'll make a fine teacher." he assures. i need to sort out what i'm going to do- my parents are right. the future seems so far away to me, but it has a looming presence of dread. like a storm cloud rolling in from the distance. lightning strikes the ground but i count the seconds inbetween, checking its distance from me instead of going inside.

"speaking of teachers, where's nichole?" bebe rejoins the conversation. "how is nichole related to teachers?" i ask. i don't get the connection. "irrelevant." she waves me off and looks at the rest of the group. "she and tolkien are hanging out again." wendy responds. she's the one who had the campfire idea, while i had the materials so me and her called everyone invited. nichole's phone went straight to voicemail, then we got a message a couple minutes later saying she's 'busy with tolkien'. is she busy or are they getting busy? we'll never know. until we ask. probably tomorrow.

"oh my god. they just can't get enough of eachother!" she throws her hands up in the air jokingly. wendy agrees, laughing along with heidi and i. butters is preoccupied with eating another s'more. the bag of marshmallows is almost empty at this point and the rest of our supplies (graham crackers, chocolate, bacardi) are almost gone too.

the nights grown progressively darker and colder as the sun lowers beneath the western horizon. our tiny fire does not ease this transtion at all. the short flames illuminate the small bundle of sticks that fuel it, but it barely reaches past that. we are all huddled closely around the "bonfire" in an attempt to take advantage of the output of our collected brainstorming.

we didn't go to the usual spot- the bonfire pit- but rather held our event in between wavecrest and hawthorne. the area does not aid our excursion as there's no firewood, provided seating, or fire pit. we settled on a particularly sandy part of the rocky beach far away from the tide. with our lack of fire starting equipment, it took rubbing sticks together before we realized we could borrow a lighter from kenny a couple yards over.

now the full moon shines brightly over our heads, far surpassing the illumination the fire provides, and the night air is bitter. bebe wraps herself tightly with her fuzzy pink blanket, and butters drapes his own over his back. they are being a little dramatic though, it's not like we can see our breath. it's better than the 50 degrees fahrenheit summers in colorado.

"we should go back home." bebe says. i don't think i'm ready just yet, it's nice out here. peaceful. wendy and bebe seem to have reached a state of normalcy too, worn out from their constant fighting. a war of attrition. "i'm ready." butters stands up, paying close attention to the hem of his blanket as to not let it drag across the ground. "i can bring the stuff back if you guys are done?" heidi looks at me and wendy expectantly.

"yeah that's fine." i confirm, gauging wendy's expression as she looks to me. bebe, butters, and heidi walk side by side back home, all of them carrying something like the three wisemen. "i can help put the chairs back if you need me to." she offers happily. she looks kind of tired, and she shouldn't need to put them back when i'm the one who brought them out, so i decline. "it's okay- i've got it." i tell her, and she walks back home too.

it takes little effort to put out the fire. i take a generous handful of sand and throw it on top of the fire, and then it's gone. small trails of smoke swim up from the remains, but they quickly dissipate in the dark of the night. it's harder to fold up all the chairs. it's going to take multiple trips back to the shed to return them all. maybe i should have accepted wendy's assistance.

"do you need some help?" a voice chuckles from a short distance away. the unexpected interruption makes me drop the chair i was messing with, creating a loud clattering noise. "shit. kyle?" i call out, surprised to see him. i guess we are close to his house so it shouldn't be such a shock. "yeah. my bad, i didn't mean to scare you." he holds his hands in the air jokingly as he approaches me.

i return to folding the chairs back up, stacking them in a pile. kyle joins in silently, folding the ones on the opposite side i was working on. i let him. it's already late and i don't want to walk around all night; might as well have him help me. "where did these come from?" he asks, holding one. "the secret shed." i respond.

"the one near tolkiens house?" i continue, seeing the confused look on his face. "yeah. i remember it now." he grabs another one, tucking them both underneath his arm. i grab two aswell, stealing his strategy. "should i get the other one?" he points with his free hand at the one left on the ground. "no, i'll just get it tomorrow morning." he narrows his eyes at me and opens his mouth to speak, but then closes it. "okay." he states simply, breathing out his words in disagreement.

"what?" i laugh, it's obvious he wants to say something. i begin walking towards the shed on the other side of the island. "i could just take it back now." he says while trailing behind me, walking at a faster pace for a couple seconds to catch up with me. "yeah- but you don't need to." i tell him. we walk beside eachother now. "it's convenient to." he retorts.

"not for you." why's he want to take the chair back so bad? "it makes the most sense to take it back now." he argues with a mostly calm tone. he kind of always sounds on edge, or maybe he just always is on edge. i am unsure. "it's not a problem for me to take it back in the morning." i feel like a penguin walking with one chair underneath my arm.

his curly red hair looks perfect underneath the pale moonlight; which reflects against the green within his hazel eyes, bringing me some form of strange warmth. i always feel so unsure about how i feel about him whenever we're apart, sometimes scared of my feelings, but whenever we are together everything feels so certain. there's nothing scary about the way his figure appears behind my eyelids at night. and the hole he carves with the absence of his presence isn't scary either. it's not scary when the weight of his hands linger on my body long after we've parted.

i think i'm just scared of love, which is all those complex things made so terrifyingly simple. there isn't words to define how i feel, and there shouldn't need to be. life is complex, why shrink it?

"i don't understand why you would want to take it back in the morning when there's an oppurtunity for me to return it right now; free of hassle." he continues on with the chair topic. it's kind of funny bantering. "well we're a third of the way there already." i say, acknowledging the distance we've made from the chair in question.

"fine." he relents. we walk in a comfortable silence for a while before he speaks again. "don't tell anybody but clyde and wendy are dating. clyde told me." he looks over to see my reaction. "when was this?" i say shocked. i can't believe wendy didn't bring it up, but it makes sense that they would keep it a secret (being as they cheated and all). why would clyde tell kyle then? weird.

"yesterday. he was acting like an idiot and kept trying to run this frozen margarita machine so i told him to stop fucking around. and then he said he needs to celebrate and goes on this long tangent about him asking wendy out." he says. it sounds exactly like something clyde would do to me. he's stupid. "i still can't believe they're actually going out together." i comment. wendy is too sensible to be with clyde. i truly don't understand why they like eachother, they have nothing in common. you don't have to be alike to have a connection though, you just have to feel. mutually.

"it's weird. i feel bad for stan." kyle adds. i wonder if stan knows about them dating. "yeah. i don't get why he would do that to stan, and especially bebe." cheating as an idea doesn't make sense though. literally why? you make a commitment, and it's not binding. why cause hurt to another person to fuel your selfish desires so unnecessarily?

"i think he's just doing all this to get back at stan. he's always been jealous of him." kyle responds. i guess i could see it- he would always get real protective of bebe around stan, and stan never even liked bebe. he was always trying to prove himself near him too, but he does that around everyone. all the time.

"why would he be jealous of stan?" that's the part that doesn't make sense to me. stan is troubled to say the least, i don't see why clyde would want to be like that. he does love attention though. "it's a long story." he answers plainly. "we have time." he takes a deep breath.

"when clyde was a kid he accidentally killed his mother. and then his dad became an alcoholic and hated clyde, cause you know- he killed his own mom." he continues, "this was around the same time when stan's dad was a raging addict and stan hated it. he made him go to an a.a meeting at some point- or maybe it was rehab? either way, things got better i guess. eventually he divorced stan's mom, got his job back, and stayed sober. mostly." i knew most of stan's past, but i didn't know anything about clyde's. he killed his own mom? it was an accident so that's terrible for him of course, but he killed his own mom!?

"clyde was already pissed at stan around when his mom died, but in middle school when stan's dad got his shit together; he hated him. and wanted to be him. he joined the football team, started hockey, one time he even dyed his hair black. it's all stupid." i am speechless.

"oh my god." i don't know what else to say to express my emotions and the depth of how crazy this is to me. "yeah." he agrees. why did stan and clyde still talk when clyde hated him? did stan know? if kyle knows then stan knows. this is the craziest thing i've ever heard. i am shocked to my core.

i look ahead to process what kyle's just told me. we're almost to the shed. i can see the tree that hides it within its overgrowth. the vines sway in the gentle breeze and the leaves whisper; creating a peaceful backdrop for the ridiculous story kyle's just told me. it feels weird to be somewhere so serene with the most insane, unsettling, unbelievable, backstory i've ever heard.

does wendy know all of that? probably not- she would never want to be with anyone who isn't serious about her. i'm sure clyde is, he's very emotional about everything, but wanting her cause stan dated her is terrible. and psycho.

love is insane.