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I filed away the image of a small Felix cooking dinner for his whole family.
“Spaghetti with hot dogs? That sounds horrible.”
“Yeah.” He shuddered. “It was something they served for lunch at school, so I just copied it. It was disgusting, honestly. I still can’t eat hot dogs.”
“Took care of your siblings a lot, then?”
He nodded.
“Yeah, I’m the oldest, and my mom worked all the hours she could get since it was just her, so I made dinner and cleaned up and checked homework. Sofia helped when she got a little older.”
When he said her name he smiled, then furrowed his brow.
“How’s she doing?” I asked.
Felix put his fork down.
“She’s…good. She…yeah, she’s great. They’re rehearsing and planning stuff for the tour. It’s really something.”
His tone was almost too upbeat, and he was looking anywhere but at me.
“She’s great, really,” he said to the table. “This is her dream come true. She’s over the moon. She…”
He sighed.
“She’s great,” I repeated. “But you’re not?”
“I haven’t gotten to see her that much lately.” His voice was small and tender. “Riven’s trying to get her up to speed because their concert dates are set, so she’s been super busy. I feel like an asshole because she’s gotten this amazing opportunity, and I’m really happy for her—I am. But…it’s always been the two of us, you know? We’ve always figured stuff out together, planned stuff together.”
His voice broke and he pushed back from the table.
“And now that she’s so busy, I…I’ve just never not had her around. God, I’m making a super-attractive first impression, huh? Third impression.”
He drew his knees up to his chin and wrapped his arms around his legs.
“Not pathetic to need people. To miss them. You tell your sister how you feel?”
He shook his head. “She’s just busy; she hasn’t done anything wrong. I don’t want to make her feel bad. Not when she’s so happy.”
“You can’t make people feel things. You can just tell them how you feel. Being honest is important.”
Felix looked at me evenly. “Maybe you can’t force people to feel certain ways, but if you know something’s gonna make them feel guilty when they didn’t do anything wrong, isn’t that…I don’t know. Unkind?”
“?‘Guilt starts as a feeling of failure.’?”
“It…does?”
“It’s a quote,” I explained. “Frank Herbert, Children of Dune.”
“So, people feel guilty if they feel like they’ve failed at something?”
“Yes. If people don’t think they’ve failed, they won’t feel guilty. So if your sister feels guilty for you missing her, chances are she feels like she’s failed to be there for you. That’s about her, not you.”
I clenched my jaw, realizing I was speaking to him the way I spoke to my sponsees.
“Maybe,” he said.
“Maybe you feel guilty because you think you shouldn’t need her,” I suggested evenly.
His eyes flew to mine. He bit his lip and nodded.
“Yeah, maybe I do.”
“Everyone needs help sometimes. Support.”
Felix’s expression was vulnerable. Everything about him was so hypnotically open.
“Even you?” he asked.
I pressed my palm flat to my stomach, imagining I could feel the words inked there.
“I’ve needed a lot of help.” I swallowed hard. “And now I try my best to help other people. I’m a sponsor. In NA. Narcotics Anonymous,” I clarified.
He bit his lip.
“Can I ask you something?”
I nodded. I knew what was coming. I’d mentioned NA, and this was the part where I would have to make my disclosure.
“Do you cook dinner for a lot of people?”
I snorted.
“Ah, no.”
“You don’t cook dinner for a lot of people, specifically, or you don’t go on a lot of dates?” he asked, voice faux casual.
“Either. Both. I don’t date.”
I cleared my throat, and the itch between my shoulder blades that made me want to do push-ups crept down my neck.
I grabbed the salad plates off the table and replaced them with the main dishes.
“Roast chicken with fennel and couscous with cauliflower.”
“Thanks, wow.”
We ate in silence for a few minutes.
“?’S good, thanks,” Felix said. Then, “Can I ask you another question?”
A bone-deep exhaustion attended Felix’s slow chipping away at me. I wished he’d ask whatever he needed to know and not draw it out.
“You can ask me as many questions as you want,” I told him.
“Why don’t you date? And, but this is a date. So you do. Date. Me. I mean, you’re on a date with me. Right? It doesn’t have to be, but when I asked before, you said…”
He shoved a forkful of cauliflower in his mouth to stop the words.
I kept my hands flat on my thighs.
“When I was using drugs, I was…sexually active,” I said carefully. “But I didn’t date. When I was trying to stop using, and for a couple years after, it took everything I had to take care of myself. Had no room for any of that. For anyone else, really.”
I squeezed my fists, trying to ward off the memory of being driven throughout the day by the desire for something I’d decided I would never have again. I still had nightmares sometimes. I would wake up and think I was back there, when my life had been ruled by something outside of me.
