Page 42 of Total Dreamboat

Hope

“Hey,” I say sharply to Felix, putting my arms firmly around his waist and pulling him away from the guardrail. I know he isn’t trying to jump or anything, but he looks like he can’t breathe. I can feel his heartbeat through his back, thumping urgently.

“Hey,” I say again. “What’s wrong?”

He shakes his head, like he can’t find the words, and then lets out a deep, heaving sob.

“Oh, Felix,” I exclaim. I move around so I’m standing in front of him. He’s hunched forward, his knuckles balled up to his eyes. He looks so anguished I’m worried someone has died.

“Hey, what is it?” I ask, gathering him in my arms. His body is sweaty and he smells like musk and cigarettes and he’s braced so tight it’s like hugging a punching bag.

But then he relaxes and rests his head on my shoulder and cries so hard that his tears roll down my neck.

I don’t know what to do. Things are so weird between us that this seems like a violation of his privacy. But I can’t let him stand here weeping and not comfort him.

So I wrap my arms around his back and just let him cry.

We stand like that until he stops shaking.

He lifts up his head and the tear stains on his cheeks look like the bioluminescence off the ocean. I’ve never noticed how long his eyelashes are—wet, they’re dark and beautiful, like his eyes are lined with kohl.

“God. Sorry,” he croaks, breaking away from me. He lowers his head and shakes it. “You don’t need to do this. I’m sorry.”

“Felix?” I say.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t apologize. It’s okay.”

He takes a deep breath, lets it out. “Shit. Fuck. I need water.”

“Sit down,” I say, gesturing at a patio table and chairs in the corner. “Breathe. I’ll get you some.”

I grab him a bottle of water from the room, and then notice a kettle on the dresser. I check to see if there are any tea bags, and there are—mint and Earl Grey, so I pour some of the water into the machine to boil.

I make him a cup of mint tea and bring it out to the balcony.

“Tea,” I say. “Not precisely eighty-five degrees I’m afraid, but it’s the best I can do.”

He smiles at me weakly and accepts the mug. “Thanks.”

I sit down in the chair next to him and lean back. I feel strangely unbound, like his cry was cathartic for me. Like a door has been opened in a cold room and a blast of warm, balmy air has burst through.

I hope it was also cathartic for him.

“Do you want to talk about why you’re so sad?” I ask.

“I don’t want to unload on you.”

“I’m here. I’m asking.”

He looks up at the sky.

“It all just hit me at once, you know?” he says. “The insanity of being here, the stress and anxiety of trying to wrangle everything, shit happening at home, at work, our fight. Hurting you.”

His voice breaks on those last words, and something inside me releases. It’s not anger—I let that go earlier. It’s something deeper, something tender that was more bruised than I’ve been acknowledging to myself.

“It’s okay,” I say. “We can talk about it more later, when you’re feeling better, if you want.”

“I just feel like I’m falling apart,” he says.

“And it’s so important to me not to be that person anymore.

But it’s been building and building and then tonight, I don’t know, I almost cracked.

I really wanted to drink. And I didn’t, but it puts the fear of God into me, how tenuous this all is.

My stability, my sobriety—this whole rickety life I’ve built. ”

I guiltily recall the martini I had at dinner—how he ran off right after I ordered it.

“Oh, God,” I say. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t be drinking in front of you. It’s so insensitive. I wasn’t thinking—”

“No,” he says forcefully. “It’s not your fault, it’s not about that. I just let myself get overwhelmed, and I know better. I’m good at home, I’m good alone, I’m good in my routine. I shouldn’t have come on this trip. I knew better.”

He looks like he hates himself.

I can’t bear to see it.

“Felix,” I say. “I’m so glad you came on this trip. Because if you hadn’t, I wouldn’t have met you. And no matter what happened between us, meeting you was one of the nicest things that’s happened to me in a long time.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t have to say that.”

“I know. I’m choosing to. Because it’s true.

I needed to get out of my head, to have an adventure, to feel awake again—and you did that for me.

Okay? And yes, things went south, and yes, that sucked, but I don’t regret it.

And you know what? You might get caught up in fear or temptation, you might break down, you might struggle.

I don’t know much about recovery and won’t presume to tell you everything is fine if it’s not.

But I do know this: you got through it. Everything is wildly out of control, but you’re here, breathing, sober, with a cup of tea. You got through it.”

I look into his eyes as I say this, and he doesn’t break the gaze.

“Thank you,” he says. “For being so kind to me even after, well. You’re a nice person.”

“Is there anything that would make you feel better?” I ask. “Get your mind off things?”

“Well, I’m going to find an AA meeting tomorrow. Call my sponsor.”

“That’s great. Anything else? Like maybe something food related that would be a fun distraction?”

“Actually, you know what?” he says. “I really did want to take you to swim with those pigs.”

I laugh, hard. “Um, okay. I admit I was excited about that, but are you sure that’s what you need.”

“I want to do something that makes you happy. Before we leave. Will you go with me? Tomorrow?”

“Sure,” I say.

I think it might be a nice, unloaded way for us to part as friends.

“Done,” he says. “I’ll set it up in the morning.”

“Sounds perfect,” I say.

He pulls away from me. “I’m going to shower now. I might have been smoking.”

“I might have noticed.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me. Apologize to your lungs.”

While he showers, I change into my BAHAMAS PAJAMAS!!! and turn on the television. When he comes out of the bathroom he looks (and smells) much better.

“Are you tired?” I ask.

“No. I have emotional meltdown endorphins.”

“Want to watch an overpriced pay-per-view movie?”

“I wouldn’t mind something chill.”

“Not Paul Blart ,” I say. “Sorry.”

“Fine. We can compromise.”

I pat the bed beside me. We’re clothed and he keeps a few inches of distance, but it feels nice to be near him. Companionable. It occurs to me that watching a movie is probably the most normal thing either of us has done in eight days.

We settle on Inside Out , the Pixar movie about personified emotions. When it makes me tear up—all Pixar movies do—he pats my hand like a granny.

“Your turn for an emotional meltdown?” he asks.

“Don’t make fun of me. This movie’s so sweet.”

“You’re so sweet,” he murmurs.

His eyes are still on the screen, but the words make me seize up.

I don’t know how much to read into his affection.

But my brain drifts back to his confession to me last night: “I was falling for you.”

I wonder how much of that lingers.

Not just in him.

In me.

I consider snuggling up against him. Seeing how it feels to be close. But I think better of it. We’ve made peace. We should end it there.

At some point I must have drifted off, because when I wake up it’s ten a.m., Felix’s bed has been slept in, and he’s gone.

He left me a note.

WENT TO A MEETING—BACK BY NOON.

I BOOKED US A PIG EXCURSION LEAVING AT 1 PM.

THANKS FOR LAST NIGHT.

XX

And it’s dumb, but at the sight of those two xx’s, I wonder if I made the wrong choice last night.