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“What I like to do?” Felix seemed a little surprised by her question.
“Yeah. For fun.”
The look on Felix’s face told Tabitha everything she needed to know.
“Seriously? You don’t know what you like to do?”
“No one’s ever asked me before.”
“That’s messed up. What kind of crazy childhood did you have?”
She knew instantly that it was the wrong thing to say, because Felix’s face fell. Okay, so the dude hadn’t had the best upbringing. She wouldn’t ask him about it anymore. Not everyone was lucky enough to have parents who loved them or even parents at all. She understood that.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” he said. “I just don’t like to talk about it. I’m...well, I guess I’m kind of an orphan.” He pressed his lips together tightly, but she was caught up on what he’d just said.
“How is someone kind of an orphan?”
In her mind, either you were or you were not an orphan.
She didn’t really understand how someone was “kind of” anything like that. Were his parents alive, or were they dead? Had he been abandoned?
“I don’t know where my real family is,” he said.
There was so much sadness in those words that Tabitha’s heart felt pained. How did he not know what had happened to his family? How did he not know where they were? Damn. This guy’s backstory just seemed more and more tragic. There she was, thinking she was the one with the painful and mysterious past.
“Why don’t you know?”
“I was separated from them when I was very young,” he said. “I don’t even know how I’d begin to find them.”
“You could start with their names?”
“I can’t remember their names,” he said, and he whispered this. His words were so quiet that Tabitha almost couldn’t hear, but she could. She could hear.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It still sucks,” she said. “My family’s dead, but at least I know where they are.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” Felix looked at her sharply, but Tabitha just shrugged. She’d come to terms with what had happened. Her parents were gone, and they weren’t coming back, but knowing they were dead was very different from not knowing where they were at all.
“It’s the truth, Felix.”
“You must miss them every day,” he sighed. He wiggled his toes in the water, and Tabitha did the same. It was such a carefree sort of moment. It didn’t seem to match what they were talking about at all.
When she looked around, all she could see was beautiful. She could see the trees and the lovely sky. The clouds were rolling by fast and bright and wonderful, but there they were: talking about their lost families.
“Every day,” she agreed.
“I miss my family, too. I can’t even remember them, but I miss them. Isn’t that stupid?”
“No.”
“How is it not stupid?”
“It’s not stupid to miss your family, Felix. You still know they exist. You can feel it in your heart, can’t you?”
