Felix isn’t wearing his glasses. It creeps me out when they’re not on, that vague staring out into the ether look, his eyes filmy grey. He lifts his head slightly. ‘You’re not twelve anymore—you can use the front door.’
‘Just shove over.’ I push him aside and scramble in his bedroom window. He is sweet enough to turn a lamp on for me.
His room is as ordered as a library catalogue. It has to be, I suppose. He climbs onto his bed and pats the spot next to him. ‘I haven’t seen you in a while.’
‘Seen me? Ha.’ He gives me his usual you’re so not funny face. ‘Well, you’ve been so busy with Wally, you have no time for me.’
‘You mean Wallace.’
‘What a name!’
‘Shut up, she’s nice.’
‘Yeah, they’re all nice.’ I roll my eyes, but the truth is they all have been. Felix has a talent for attracting these real sweethearts. He’s studying psychology and all these lovely students think he’s brilliant. And sure. He is. But it nettles me. He’s blind for heaven’s sake. Cute too, I grudgingly admit. The years have cut contours into his boyish face, the guy has grown man muscles, and one day he cut off his geeky ponytail and pop—he was cute. But come on—he is blind. That’s got to put some girls off.
Okay, I’m being mean, but I’ve known Felix forever and I was kind of hoping we’d be a loveless old bachelor and dame, together forever.
I grab his sunglasses and push them on his face.
He frowns at me. ‘Really?’
‘Come on, you look so cool.’
‘Put some music on,’ he orders.
So I start sifting through his collection. ‘Ray Charles? Stevie Wonder?’
He ignores the joke. ‘So why are you really here?’ he says, settling back into the pillows.
I groan. ‘Argh, it’s awkward. Especially after you’ve had a hard-on for me for so long.’
‘Hilarious.’
I’m feeling on edge so I choose a playlist of old-school Beastie Boys and jump onto the bed with him. He opens his arms and I lie against him. For the first time I wonder if this is okay. Would Tom consider this cheating? It’s not like that between Felix and me. He uses touch to know someone and touch is one thing I can do. It’s not like we’ve ever kissed or anything.
‘Is there another man?’ Felix jokes.
I fiddle with his shirt, my throat is all rough and my voice is stuck. God.
‘There is? Hallelujah!’
‘There was,’ I manage. ‘Like a week ago.’
‘What happened?’
‘I was my usual stupid self.’
He strokes my forehead. ‘Come on.’
‘I was!’
‘I don’t believe he could have been anything but captivated by you.’
I make a choking sound as if I’m going to be sick. ‘So this is why you’re a winner with the ladies.’
Again he ignores me. ‘Did you tell him your crazy stuff?’
‘I didn’t need to. He can see me.’
‘Oh so he can see you.’
There’s the tone; that condescending, infuriating warp to his words. I hate going over this with him. Felix has never believed that I’m invisible, even though he’s always going on about how open-minded he is. But I’m not going to go there with him today. I don’t have the energy.
‘Yeah, he can. So finally, I know what I look like.’
He bites his lip as if he’s trying to stop himself from saying something.
‘What?’ I say.
‘I know what you look like.’ He moves his hand to touch my face, but I push it away.
‘Oh yeah? What colour is my hair? I bet you don’t know that.’ He looks down at his lap. ‘I’m black Irish, Felix. I’ve never known. My hair is black, my eyes are blue. Like bright blue.’
‘Whatever blue is,’ Felix half mutters, half laughs.
I’m not going to fall for his pity shit. I push him away and sit up. ‘You cac. You think this is all a big joke, don’t you?’
He releases a breath. ‘It’s just not plausible. It doesn’t make sense.’
‘I know it doesn’t make sense, you idiot. But that’s the way it is! My mum was invisible, I’m invisible and if you could open your stupid blind eyes you would know it. I’m cursed!’
Felix groans. ‘Please, please don’t start with the gypsy bunkum again.’ The idea of magic puts Felix in a tailspin. He’s unswervingly scientific about the world. He doesn’t even remotely entertain the possibility that there could be a god.
‘Bunkum!’ I get up off his bed. ‘You’re blind in more than one sense of the word.’
Insulting the gypsy story is like cutting out my heart. It’s my truth, or as close to my truth as I’m ever going to get.
The gypsy’s magic made my Ma invisible to everyone but her true love. And by the luck of the Irish, I was born the same way. Tom being able to see me is a huge deal that Felix would never understand because he can’t see anyone.
‘Then why don’t you prove it to me?’ He crosses his arms across his chest. ‘I’ll call Mum in here and you just stand there. If she doesn’t say anything to you—I’ll believe you.’
‘I shouldn’t need to prove it. I’m your friend.’
He shakes his head like I’m an obstreperous two-year-old. ‘Nothing is that simple, Olive.’
‘I guess not.’ I’m hiking up his window again. I don’t need this. ‘Thanks for your support, Freud. Some therapist you’re going to be!’ I say, dropping to the ground below.
He is standing at the window yelling. ‘Yeah, well why don’t you go and see that real friend of yours then—Jordan, isn’t it?’
‘Screw you, blind man!’ I scream back at him.
I’m scuffing my feet along the dark wet street; the puddles are shiny like oil stains. How had I expected him to understand about Tom? He was never going to be pleased for me. Rose was excited for me. She was thrilled to hear, finally, what I looked like. But she’s scared too. She’s worried about what it will do to Tom. It screwed up my dad well and truly. It screwed up all of us.
But Tom and I are not there yet. I’m not going to get stressed out about what could happen when we might not even see each other again. Hell, he still hasn’t called.
I pull out my phone to check if Tom has texted. Or maybe Felix has called to apologise. It’s rare for us to fight.
Felix and I met at a bus stop. He was thirteen, I was eleven. His mother had just started letting him ride the bus alone. It was obvious he was blind so I sat on the far end of the bench, being less careful than I usually am. Still—I was pretty damn quiet. It didn’t fool Felix though. His ears pricked up like some hunting dog.
‘Excuse me, can you tell me when the next bus comes? Mine hasn’t shown up.’
He was all polite and sweet; I felt sorry for him and quite a bit intimidated because he looked older than me—and okay, yeah, he was a boy—so I glanced around and checked that nobody was near then read out the timetable to him.
‘You smell good,’ he said when I sat back down. It was perfume I had nicked from Rose; ghastly rose-reeking stuff, during the period she was taking her name quite literally. I told him he had bad taste and he laughed. We started talking and let two buses pass us by, we were that engrossed.
He called me ‘funny’ and ‘interesting’. The attraction was simpler for me—he was the only person I’d ever spoken to apart from my family and Jordan.
We’ve been best mates ever since. It’s not complicated. I love him but not like that. I love Tom like that. Tom is the one. He can see me. How can it not be him?
There’s no message from either of them. I bash my forehead with my fist, angry with myself for stuffing everything up. There’s only one way to make myself feel better: late-night shopping.