Kenny Learns About Zoey's Problems

Kenny worked on getting a good fire going, using the twigs and branches inside the cave to get it going before heading over and grabbing a large broken piece of tree. He didn't think that a log this size blew in here so that left on two options, either someone else dragged it in here, unlikely, or an animal did. Kenny looked back towards the entrance of the cave, nothing seemed to be living in her when he found it, but during a storm, he hoped nothing would come here looking for sanctuary. With this in mind, he grunted and picked up the log, carefully laying it down on the fire, knowing that this would warm Zoey and him up quickly while hopefully scaring off anything that might come in.

"Kenny..." Zoey's angelic voice said from right behind him,

"Huh?" Kenny grunted while standing up and spinning around, seeing Zoey only a foot away from him, "Oh, what's up? Cold?"

"Yeah, but," Zoey sighed while shaking her head, "Do you need help? I should be pitching in here,"

Kenny gave the girl a small reassuring smile and placed a hand on her shoulder, "It's fine, Zoey, I got it," He attempted to step past the girl who quickly put a hand on his chest, halting him, "What?"

"Please," Zoey nearly begged, "I need to do something right now, I-I can't just sit and think, please Kenny,"

Kenny's eyes grew in sympathy, Zoey wasn't just scared she was clearly hurt by something. Kenny immediately remembered their conversation this morning, she was sad then but now she looked even worse. "Okay, Zoey, sure," He softly agreed while looking around the cave, "We should gather up the wood and put it in a pile, that way we don't have to go looking every time we need to tend the fire,"

Zoey gave a quick nod and turned around, moving to a nearby branch and picking it up, moving to the next one quickly, completely burying herself into the task. Kenny wandered to some twigs and branches, doing the same but he continued to glance over at the girl, he couldn't help but worry about her. "Zoey?"

"Yeah?" She chirped back while looking over at the teen,

"Why were you out here alone? Where was Eric?" Kenny asked as he walked towards her, "What's going on with you?"

Zoey began to suck in her lower lip, pursing them after a moment while her brow furrowed. Kenny's eyes slightly grew as he was sure she was about to start shouting, but to his shock, the girl burst back into tears. She dropped everything in her hands and stumbled forward, slamming her body against Kenny's, squeezing him tight. "E-Eric loves Anna!" She cried out into his shoulder,

"What? Hey, what are you talking about, how do you know that?" Kenny asked while placing a hand on her back, awkwardly rubbing it comfortingly, "M-Maybe you're just, like, thinking about this too much,"

"No!" Zoey wailed, "I heard him, he said it! He told Anna that he loved her and she said it too. T-They just kept saying things about wanting to be together but they couldn't because of me! Like I'm a problem!"

Kenny's brow raised and his jaw slightly dropped, he could scarcely believe what his friends were doing. Anna never struck him as someone who would press in on someone else's boyfriend. Even stranger was Eric's actions, Kenny always saw him as an extremely loyal guy who would never cheat on his partner. Even if Eric and Anna weren't having sex, merely professing their love still counted as cheating to Kenny and he couldn't even imagine how Zoey was taking the news. "I, um, I'm really sorry, Zoey. That's awful; they shouldn't be doing that." He mumbled out as she continued to hold onto Kenny,

"What I do wrong?!" Zoey asked through broken breaths, "H-He told me he was moving on, I just wanted to help him! I wanted him to get closure, not to rekindle the fucking flame!"

"I'm sure you did," Kenny agreed, "And Eric should have done that, let Anna go, move on, be a good boyfriend to you. Anna...Anna shouldn't have done what she did either, regardless of her feelings, she should have stayed away," Kenny continued, attempting to help Zoey calm down, hoping that if he said these things she'd at least remove the feelings of fault from herself.

"Why did I trust him?" Zoey wept as her wet eyes came in contact with Kenny's neck, her whole body shaking as she was now nuzzling into him, "I-I thought that I...that we were...oh god, Kenny, why did this fucking happen to me?"

Kenny slowly brought his other hand up, and rested it on the back of Zoey's head, pulling her in a little closer as he let out a sigh. "I don't know, Zoey," Kenny replied with a small shake of his head, "I don't know how some people can...pretend to care, only to turn around and kick you." He said, growing angry as he started to think about Nicole once again, "Just act like you're important then kick you to the side," He seethed causing Zoey to look up in concern,

"Are you okay?" She softly asked, her eyes still puffy and red,

Kenny shut his eyes and took a slow calming breath, "I'm just...upset that people think that they can act horribly with no problem. I-I didn't do anything wrong, and neither did you, but here we are, fucked over,"

"Are you talking about Nicole?" Zoey deduced,

"Yeah," Kenny admitted while rolling his jaw, "She tells me we're messing around, then gets me drunk, I accidentally hook up without knowing it, and she thinks that she needs to even the score." Kenny mumbled out as his hand gripped the back of Zoey's coat in irritation, "Nicole fucks Brian then has the gall to think that makes it even and fair between us! And I can't even talk to her when I tried to, she flipped out, jumping to all these conclusions before straight up saying I meant nothing to her!"

"Oh Kenny...that's terrible," Zoey said with a small whine, "What the fuck is happening this week? Why are people being so cruel?"

"I don't know...I just really don't," Kenny mumbled back before going quiet, a silence hanging between them both for minutes as they continued to hold on another. It was only after Kenny noticed Zoey's shivering that he pulled away, "Shit, you're freezing, aren't you?" He asked causing the girl to hug her jacket and nod, "Here, we need to take these jacket's off, they're soaked." Kenny said as he unzipped his, "I'll grab a few more branches and see if we have any more big logs, you go warm up. See if you can get your jacket dry too,"

"Okay," Zoey whispered back as her eyes followed Kenny's every move, "You want me to help?"

"No, I want you to warm up," Kenny smiled back, "I'll only be a minute anyway," Kenny assured her while bending over and grabbing a couple of branches. Zoey rolled her lips in and bit on them before turning and doing as Kenny suggested. She slipped off her pink jacket and laid it next to the fire before sitting down in front of it, hugging her body as the heat tried to fight off her constant chills.