Weeks passed slowly by in South Park. Stan carried on as normal, loving and supporting his best friend. He tried not to let anything change. Stan had his fall outs with Kyle over the dangers of making a promotional anti-bullying video and memes alongside their agreements about "Cash for Gold" being a scam and American security going too far. But nothing brought them closer than a traumatic Zip-lining experience. Stan would never forgive himself for running off to San Diego to Jack-Off while Kyle was in the hospital, but at the time it didn't seem like it could be helped. Besides at least they had both gotten a little more time off from school because of it.

Despite trying to let nothing change between Kyle and himself, the memory of the story kept niggling in the back of his mind. Every time he watched Kyle in class, out on the basketball court or on the football field the same thought came into his mind. He is gay. Stan had no problem with it, he had never been homophobic in the true sense of the world, and he had always been tolerant of gay people (something that had not changed despite a certain traumatic camp.) The thought just kept coming up. He decided that all he needed was time to adjust to the idea. But how long would it take? A month, three months, a year?

Things were not helped by Wendy's recent attitude. She seemed to be ignoring him most of the time and never wanted to sit next to him on the bus or at the lunch table. Stan didn't know what to do. Sometimes he felt that Kyle was the lucky one, surely it was easier to manage a relationship if it was two guys who didn't care about feelings or spending time with each other. He wished Kyle would just come out, at least to him, so he could tell him how easy his life was. Stan knew he couldn't do that. He had no right to tell Kyle he knew his secret and had no right to out him. When Kyle was ready to talk, he would talk.

Stan thought he had the situation under control. But anything can be changed by the smallest thing. Something as meaningless and everyday as a new girl moving to South Park.

To Butters it seemed to be a big deal but Stan didn't care personally. Of course when he saw her it was predictable that Cartman would do something stupid and racist but he had grown past caring or at least submitting to defeat over his bigoted ways. Although Eric's intentions were not clear to him at first he immediately realised there was little he could do to stop the strange, angry boy. But when he first saw Nicole, he didn't spend long staring at her or Eric. His eyes soon became drawn to Kyle who for some reason couldn't take his eyes of Nicole.

'Dude?' Stan asked him shaking his shoulder gently. 'What's up?' Kyle blinked hard and turned to him, forcing a smile.

'Oh nothing,' He replied before turning his gaze back onto the cheerleader. The bell rang signalling the beginning of class and the students immediately dispersed. Stan went to follow his friends but stopped when he heard a whiney voice he knew he should probably stay and listen to.

'Stan,' Wendy called to her boyfriend. 'Can I talk to you for a second?' Stan rolled his eyes and slowly turned round. This was typical, she hadn't spoken to him in weeks and now when he needed to get to class she wanted to talk.

'Sure,' Said Stan reluctantly. Despite her request to talk Wendy said nothing, she just looked at the ground, her eyes welling up with tears. 'Well what is it?' Stan asked growing more impatient than he already was.

'Oh Stan!' Suddenly the girl burst into tears, her words coming out in sobs. 'If you don't want to be with me anymore you could at least have the decency to tell me!'

'What!' Stan couldn't believe it, where was this coming from? He had been trying to talk to her but she was the one who kept ignoring him. At that moment he swore that he would never understand women. After a while Wendy looked up from her sobs and pulled a pen out of her pocket. A large, pink fluffy pen. Stan only had one thought: "Oh crap!"

'You left it in class months ago, before spring break,' Said Wendy. 'I picked it up when you ran out of the class room. I was annoyed but I was sure you'd try and find it. But you didn't! You never even confessed to me that you lost it! You didn't even seem to notice it was gone. All this time when you've been borrowing pens off Clyde you didn't think about where it might have gotten to?' Stan wasn't sure what to say to make things better. It was one of those moments when he knew he couldn't say what he wanted to, since whatever he would have said would be used against him. 'Please Stan,' Wendy continued. 'I thought I meant more to you than that!'

'You do...'

'Not enough for you to care about the things I give you!' Wendy stormed out the gym and into class.

Stan stared blankly at the door, pinching the bridge of his nose. These next few days were going to be hell.