The Bet

Day 24, Part 2

Craig's mind shut down as he went inside his house. He didn't want to think or feel, just exist. So that was what he did, or at least tried to do.

Then Butters appeared in front of him, scared. "Is it true?"

Craig had a pretty good idea what Butters was talking about but he attempted to play dumb anyway. "Did I do what?"

Then Butters relaxed and said, "okay, good, because Kenny just texted me saying it's not safe for me to live here because of this crazy thing. I'm glad that he was just lying."

Craig has done so much wrong he couldn't just lie to someone as trusting as Butters about something like this. "Kenny was telling the truth, I really did do that."

The fear came back but then as if it was never really there it disappeared again. "Well, you might have made a really bad mistake but it's not fair to judge a person by there worst actions on their worst day."

Craig mustered a small smile at the naive innocence of Butters' statement. If only the world really worked like that. "You shouldn't be on my side, I'm a monster."

Butters sat down next to Craig, "I kind of already knew that."

Craig snorted, "good, I guess."

Butters hesitated before saying, "I told Kenny that if it was true I would bring Karen some medical supplies since they can't afford to go to the hospital."

Craig wanted to say that Kenny was still a bad person and he shouldn't just take him back, but he refrained. Instead, he just replied, "okay."

Then with that, the boy left. Craig didn't care what happened to him too much anyway. Craig leaned back in the chair and decided to just take a nap.

Craig was shaken awake and he was at first confused but then calmed when he saw his mom. He didn't know what happened by he could see that her eyes were red due to crying.

Before he could say something she spoke, "the McCormicks told me what happened."

Craig felt the shame flood himself again but he could only say, "oh."

She sat next to him in a similar fashion to Butters earlier. "I just want you to know that, yes, I am disappointed. However, I'm your mom and I'll love you no matter what. I'm not going anywhere."

Craig leaned his head on her shoulder, "really?"

"really."

They laid there for a while, neither saying anything. Craig wished that time would stop and he could stay here not facing the outside world forever, but unfortunately, that's not how it works.

After a while, his mom continued talking, "I need you to go and apologize." Then as a side note, she added, "and talk to my future son-in-law."

Craig sighed, "I will just let me have a day to wallow in self-loathing."

He could see the disapproval in her eyes, "just one day," he pleaded.

She just rolled her eyes, "okay, but you better go to sleep now because you're going to need your energy to talk to so many people tomorrow."

Craig's response was immediately going upstairs to sleep because he didn't need to be told twice. He knew he couldn't fix what he'd done, but everyone owes an apology from him.