Felix
I sit in my car in the private back lot to the stadium, staring at the barbed wire fence separating it from a junkyard full of bent and twisted cars. Some of the staff are clearing out, though the lot is still crowded with the cars of the techs who will spend the next several hours packing up equipment.
I tighten my hands on the steering wheel. I stare at the fence, my eyes counting metal wire diamonds in groups of one, four, nine, twenty-five.
The muscles in my arms are tight, which is the only reason they’re not shaking. The tremor instead travels up to my shoulders, my neck, where all my muscles twitch. There’s a scream coming from somewhere in the back of my mind, so loud I can’t hear anything else.
I can’t get high holding onto the steering wheel. If I don’t let go, I can’t start the car. I can’t drive to my friend Izzy’s house in Anaheim for a hit. I got paid today, and I intended to use the money to buy Gabby’s couch and start paying my dad back, but I know exactly how much heroin that money would buy and it’s enough to get through the pay period—maybe more since I won’t need as high a dose.
Not that I’ll have a job next week if I shoot up. Walk the mile, I tell myself. Walk it through to the end.
But I can’t put two thoughts together that aren’t made out of fear and pain and desperation. This is ridiculous, and I know it. Jenna isn’t marrying Alec. Nothing has changed between us. But I’m pissed and scared and confused, and my body knows how to fix it, how to make it all instantly go away, and I’ve been clean long enough now that I know damn well how good it would feel. Maybe I could even get back to the magic of the first time, when all the weight I didn’t even know I’d been carrying lifted off me, like I’d suddenly discovered what should have been obvious before—human beings weren’t meant to be tethered to the ground. It became completely unfathomable how I’d forgotten I was meant to fly.
My fingers are aching, but I hold on tighter. I haven’t had a craving like this since the first weeks of rehab. My body is screaming at me just to find a damn hit already, and most of my brain agrees. There’s only one small part of me that stands between them, holding them back with what little strength I have.
But my body doesn’t get to decide what I do, and neither does most of my brain. And unless I’m unlucky enough for a dealer to come knock on my window in the backstage parking lot, it doesn’t matter how much most of me wants to get high.
I’m standing in its way.
I try to breathe—to my stomach, the way I was taught by my therapist.
I am not going to get high.
Even if a dealer did knock, I don’t have cash on me. I never carry cash on me. Forget the job, if I fail a drug test, I will break Jenna’s heart, and she’s been through enough pain and heartache. I think about Jenna and Ty, about Gabby, about my sister Dana and Ephraim and my parents and the band. I think about Katy, and people I don’t even know yet that I might hurt if I throw away fifty-six days of sobriety. The last few have been easier, but I earned most of those the hard way, fending off the wolves with nothing but a stick.
It doesn’t matter what Alec does, or even Jenna, for that matter. I make my own choices, and I choose not to get high.
I watch the dashboard clock. It takes another thirty minutes before I’m ready to pry my hands off the wheel.
When I get home, I can hear Jenna and Alec yelling before I even open the door. From the sound of it, they’ve circled through these arguments before and are back for round two, maybe three.
I’m not sure if my presence will help or hinder this conversation, but I open the door. Jenna looks over at me, a mix of anguish and relief on her face. I hate myself for making her sweat it so long. Alec doesn’t even glance at me as he continues.
“At least he had the decency to admit to my face that you guys had abandoned the plan,” Alec says. He points at me, but keeps his eyes fixed on Jenna.
Jenna takes a deep breath. “Felix,” she says.
Alec’s face clouds over. He’s not thrilled I’m here now, and that Jenna’s attention has shifted.
“That was a dick thing to do, Alec,” I tell him, trying to keep my voice even.
Alec turns to me, and he shakes his head like a disappointed parent, which must take some nerve. “Like I told Jenna, we need to escalate the story. You guys want out sooner, so we’ll get you out sooner.”
Jenna stares at him coldly, and I have to admit Alec has a point. Even if he is being a dick about it.
“You should have talked to us about it first,” Jenna says, I’m sure not for the first time.
Alec looks at me, like he’s expecting me to yell at him. And as much as I still want to punch him, I find I have nothing else to say. Alec must realize we’re not going to commend him for his fine tactical decision, because he storms up the stairs and leaves us alone.
I’m glad to see him go.
Jenna wilts against the wall. She’s taken off her boots, and she looks so small standing there, barefoot, curled in on herself. “Felix,” she says, and I see tears shining in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea. I understand if you don’t want to be caught up in—”
I cross the room and wrap my arms around her and kiss her before she can say any more. Her body tenses in my arms, and she kisses me back frantically, like she’s afraid I have one foot out the door.
I pull back, pushing her still-glittery hair back over her ear. “Does this change anything?”
She looks me in the eyes. “It doesn’t for me. Not even a little bit.”
I’m ashamed of how much relief I feel. I should have known that. I think I did, but it feels so good to hear her say it. “For me, either.”
She lets out a relieved sigh, and I feel a bit better. I’m not the only one who was worried. “Are you sure?”
I wrap my arms around her, and she presses tight against me. “I’m sure. You think I’m going to walk away because of Alec?”
She laughs, but it sounds nervous. “I suppose when you put it that way.”
I kiss her again, and this time she relaxes in my arms. We’re okay, for the moment.
I wish I could make Alec stop harassing us, but I don’t know what else I can say to him. After a few minutes, Jenna takes my hand and leads me over to the couch and curls up in my arms. My craving for heroin all but fades away, and as much as I don’t want that to be about her, I know it is.
“I had no idea he was going to do that,” she says.
“Clearly. And I wish he hadn’t, but he did.”
She shakes her head. “The look on your face . . .”
I groan. “Did I give the whole thing away?”
“I doubt anyone will be scrutinizing your reaction, and if they do, they’ll just figure you have a crush on me.”
I smile. “And who doesn’t?”
“Leo,” Jenna says. “I hope.”
“Given the way he was dancing with Roxie, I’d say you’re in the clear.”
“But it bothered you,” Jenna says.
I hold her closer, the layers of tulle in her skirt rustling as she shifts. “What Alec did? Yeah, it bothered me.”
“But you know it wasn’t real, right? I reacted that way because I was playing the part. And maybe I shouldn’t have, but he caught me off guard, and I didn’t—”
“I know,” I say. “It wasn’t that at all.”
She looks up at me with concern. “What was it, then?”
“I didn’t like Alec doing that to you. I knew you weren’t okay with it.” But there’s more to it than that. And all at once I know what it is. “I was jealous. Not of you kissing him, not the performance. That actually wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Now that I’m allowed to kiss you, and be here with you, I don’t care if you have to act like you’re with him for your job.”
She rests her head on my shoulder. “But the proposal. That’s different.”
“Yeah,” I say. Jenna is quiet. Waiting for me to finish. And I can’t help but wonder if this is going to be the time I say too much, and she panics.
“I wanted to be the one doing that,” I say. “I want to be the one who marries you.”
Jenna looks up at me, her gray eyes wide. “Yeah?” she says, in this breathless way.
I pull her even closer, until she’s practically on my lap. “Yeah.”
“I want that, too,” she says softly, and then burrows into me, and I could just stay here like this forever, holding her. Knowing she loves me and wants a life with me, too. After a moment, Jenna sighs. “I wish we could get out now. I should have told him no on stage. Then we could be done and it would be his own damn fault.”
I don’t hate this idea. “But we also wouldn’t get to tour. And we’d both be out of a job . . .”
Jenna laughs. “There’s that.”
“What do you want to do when you’re done? Do you want to keep playing?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Sometimes I think I want to get out of the industry, but I do love performing, and writing music. I would like to change my sound a little. More indie, I guess. Less processed. And definitely more real. I don’t want to lie to the fans anymore.”
I smile. “I could see you falling somewhere between Ani DeFranco’s ‘Not a Pretty Girl’ and Kurt Cobain’s ‘Heart Shaped Box.’”
“I was thinking more like Ben Folds. Me and a piano, you know? Only with more love songs. And this time I can tell the real story.” She nudges me. “Our story.”
I melt until I’m pretty much a puddle. “Think you’ll have room for a cellist?”
She smiles. “I can probably find a place for you. But what about you? Do you like playing with a band, or would you rather go back to classical?”
The way she says the word sounds skeptical, and I put a hand over my heart. “Are you maligning my true love?”
“Now I’m jealous.”
I shake my head. “I’m going to make you fall in love with classical, yet.”
She looks even more skeptical.
“All right,” I say. “I’ll prove it to you. Let me play you a song.”
I don’t particularly want to move right now, but I know this’ll be worth it. So I get June out of the car and bring over a chair and position it beside where Jenna is sitting on the couch, her bare legs tucked underneath her skirt. “Okay,” I say. “Close your eyes.”
Jenna obliges, though I can tell she still has doubts.
“This is how much I love you,” I say. And I play “The Swan” by Saint-Saens. It’s technically supposed to be a sad song, but I’ve always loved the sweeping highs and lows, and the cadence has always felt to me like a love song.
And tonight it is.
I watch Jenna as I play, as the creases around her eyes ease, and her whole body sinks down into the cushions of the sofa. Before rehab I was never good at being honest about how I feel, but I’ve never had that problem with music. I used to say that music was my drug, and in a way it was true. All the things I couldn’t say or do or sometimes even think, I could play. I pour my whole heart into the song, hoping she’ll be able to feel what I feel for her, even though the words, easier to say to her than to anyone, could never fully suffice.
When I finish, she opens her eyes. Now she’s the one who’s turned into a puddle. “Okay,” she says, and her eyes gleam with unshed tears. “I love that song.”
I smile. “I’ll make you love more of them. Give me time.”
“Done,” she says.
And I hope with my whole heart that she will.