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It was March, cold as a witch’s tit, and the city of Cambridge had no idea how to handle the fucking snow. Kyle’s mother was five steps ahead of him, bitching loud enough to draw attention to herself, of course, because she had to embarrass him before they’d even checked in to a hotel.
It’s an Ivy, he reminded himself. His mother wanted him to go to Yale, or maybe Colombia, but he’d stubbornly insisted on Harvard of all fucking universities in the fucking United States of America.
He wasn’t going to get in, anyway. This was an exercise in futility that he was allowing to happen because he had literally no other choice. She’d booked the tickets, the hotel, planned the campus tour–like Kyle needed a campus tour of Harvard to convince him to go–and informed him last week Tuesday that we’re spending the weekend in Cambridge, bubbe, so you can see your future school! as if an acceptance package had already come, or something.
It hadn’t. It wasn’t. Kyle fully intended to pack his things into the back seat of his Focus in August and take off to Fort Collins or Denver. The practical, safe route. This was just another moment of weakness in his long, misguided attempts to one-up Wendy fucking Testaburger and please his mother at the same time.
She was going to Smith, or maybe Wellesley.
I’m thinking about Harvard, he said like a moron during student government, so he actually had to think about Harvard, which was the beginning of a series of unfortunate events that led to him standing outside a three hundred dollar a night hotel while his mother carried on about how godawful the snow removal was–which was inexcusable, really, because it was March in New England. It wasn’t like it was a surprise. This happened regularly. The sidewalks were haphazardly shoveled, though shoveled was being maybe too charitable. The roads were barely clear. Kyle thought he was going to die at least twelve separate times on the cab ride from Logan.
this is ass, he texted to Stan while his mom, at least quietly this time, bitched to the poor concierge about her reservation.
it’s gonna be fine, Stan promised. Kyle rolled his eyes and tucked the phone away. That was easy for Stan to say, because frankly he wasn’t locked in a tiny hotel room with Sheila Broflovski for at least fifty hours, barring the like ten hours he was going to spend out seeing the sights.
By the time they finally got in the hotel room and Kyle fell face first onto the closest bed, he was ready to call it a night and pass out. It was only six, but he figured the more he slept, the less he’d have to deal with his mother.
***
They went down to the breakfast nook off the lobby in the morning for the complimentary buffet, which passed his mom’s muster just barely–the eggs were pretty good, which they should’ve been, for three bills a night. He checked his phone while Sheila went back for toast and more juice. Kyle nursed his coffee while he scrolled through emails, mostly Butters sending him notes from their shared AP classes and some demonic possession chain letters from Cartman that he deleted without reading.
A text chirped while he was squinting at the PDF Butters made out of his calculus notes.
look out the window, assface.
He looked up and stared slack-jawed at Stan, who was waving like a moron from the other side of the window, giant grin on his face, like somehow this was possible. Kyle pinched himself, discreetly, because Stan was in South Park like he should’ve been, spending Saturday morning eating cereal and playing Civ4, like always.
how are you there, he texted back. you are supposed to be in Colorado.
Stan rolled his eyes from the other side of the glass.
obviously not. im touring bu.
Kyle blinked down at his phone, then looked up and blinked at actual Stan some more. His mother was deciding between two different apples at the buffet, which was enough of a distraction for him to make a break for it and escape out of the little breakfast nook, out into the freezing cold in his pajamas and sneakers.
He started shivering as soon as the cold air hit him. “Stan!”
Stan turned towards the door, stupid grin still plastered across his face, and rushed over to Kyle. “Where’s your coat?”
Kyle waved up at the building, vaguely in the direction his room was. “There, somewhere. But. What.”
Stan shrugged off his coat and tossed it around Kyle’s shoulders. “I’m touring BU,” he said.
“Why?” Kyle asked finally, managing to find the word he’d been looking for since he saw Stan waving at him four minutes ago. The whole thing was something like an elaborate prank, maybe some weird kind of dream where Kyle could feel pain–was that even true, about dreams?
Stan rolled his eyes again, the mirth on his face fading down into that serious look that Kyle could drown in; seriously, he got lost staring at Stan’s stupidly handsome face all the time, it was an actual problem in his life. Maybe not life-threatening, but distracting at the very least.
“Well, if you’re going to Harvard, I’m not going to CSU.” Stan snuck his freezing fingers under the hem of Kyle’s shirt, holding him loosely around the hips, maybe to warm up. Probably not.
“I’m not actually going to Harvard,” Kyle said, leaning in to rest his forehead against Stan’s shoulder in a blatantly public display of affection he normally wouldn’t approve of. Not that he’d ever come back here, or that anyone was out in the snow-covered hell that was Cambridge, Massachusetts to even bear witness. “This is not actually a thing that’s happening.”
“Okay,” Stan agreed too easily, like he did sometimes. “But I think it probably is, so I applied to BU just in case.”
“And then lied to me about this weekend,” Kyle added. Petulantly, he admitted to himself.
“I did no such thing.”
“What happened to dragging out the gamecube and kicking Kenny’s ass in Mario Kart?”
“Did that after school yesterday,” he said. “I had a red-eye out of Denver. Kenny drove me.”
Kyle pulled away and prodded him in the chest with one finger. “You are still a liar. And you wasted fifty dollars on an application. And God knows how much on a flight and a hotel.” A thought occurred to him suddenly, one of those horrifying thoughts he had about Stan often, because he was unquestionably Kyle’s favorite person in the world but also sort of an impulsive moron sometimes. “You have a hotel, right?”
“Yes, dear,” Stan said around a laugh. “I did manage to remember that.”
“Come inside.” Kyle pulled him by the sweater towards the front door. “You can eat my toast if you’re hungry. When’s your tour?”
“Four.”
Stan let Kyle pull him into the lobby of the hotel and he wondered how he was going to explain this to his mother. Look, Mom, Stan’s here! just didn’t seem right, but he supposed that was the truth of it. She should’ve been used to it by now, anyway.
Stan pulled him back from the doorway to the breakfast nook and kissed him soundly in the middle of the hotel lobby. “I missed you,” he said, like they hadn’t seen each other twenty-four hours ago. It made Kyle feel all warm and possibly a little gooey, the way Stan looked at him like he was something entirely precious. He even forgave what had to be the world’s most indiscreet kiss. He couldn’t be mad when Stan looked at him like that.
“I missed you, too,” he admitted, because it was true. They wouldn’t last four years apart. Maybe that was part of the reason why Kyle just thought all this was a pipe dream. It was easier to picture life here if Stan was a mile away rather than two thousand, which was unbearable to even think about.
“Do you like it here?” Stan asked him as they separated again.
Kyle reached out and linked their hands. “They don’t know how to handle winter. It’s cold and the traffic is awful.” He paused and turned again, taking in the weird, patchy stubble on Stan’s chin and the way his eyebrows and his nose scrunched up in concern.
“I like it better now,” he said, then immediately wished he could take it back because it was probably the sappiest thing he’d ever said in his short life.
His mother shouted in surprise when he turned the corner with Stan a half-step behind him.
Maybe Cambridge would be okay.