Chapter Nineteen. Riding a Bike （Except There Are Knives on Your Feet and You Also Aren’t on a Bike） #2
I keep myself and Ginger out of the way but keep track of Felix as the crowd swells.
I study him as he interacts with fans. It’s as if someone flipped a switch, and the Felix that mere moments ago was making my heart tumble in my rib cage, the boy so brilliant and bewitching that it can be disorienting, has vanished.
Replaced with a sensationalized clone, his tone considerate even when asked invasive questions.
Someone not unfathomably different, but not the boy I’ve come to know.
“Hiya,” Felix breathes as I open my hotel room door at midnight. He brandishes a pastry box. “Are you too tired for doughnuts?”
“Never.” I widen the door and let him in, surprised to see him here. When we got back, he said he was exhausted and asked to take a rain check on ASL. (Honestly, I was relieved. I felt like I could sleep for three days straight.)
Ginger wags her tail from where she’s sitting by the door.
He acknowledges her with a nod and crosses the room.
As he sits cross-legged on my bed, his exhaustion is clear in the slump of his shoulders, but his face softens as he gestures to the fuzzy pink Felix-branded blanket he draped over me in LA.
“I didn’t peg you for a thief,” he says, a joking lilt in his voice despite the weariness.
“What? I’m not! I borrowed it. You can have it back!” I rush, mortified.
He chuckles. “Yeah, nah. Keep it. It’s just not a décor choice I would expect from you.”
“It got cold earlier,” I defend.
Comfortable silence envelops the room. I lean against the large, cushy headboard, and he sets the pastries between us. I grab a jelly-filled doughnut, and Felix picks chocolate-frosted.
“Team Peeta or Team Gale?” He motions to my well-loved copy of MOCKINGJAY on the bedside table.
“You’ve read THE HUNGER GAMES?”
“You do know they were made into films, yeah?”
I roll my eyes, and he laughs. “Peeta. Gale is a war criminal.”
He goes quiet.
“Please tell me you aren’t Team Gale,” I groan.
“Nah, yeah, I am,” he admits. “I reckon it’s his unrequited love thing—liking a girl who feels impossible to make yours.
It’s a meaningful kinda romance.” His intense, unwavering eye contact doesn’t match the calmness of his expression, like the two halves of his face don’t belong to the same person.
I squirm, feeling like a starstruck fan from earlier meeting him for the first time.
I could argue that Peeta had an unrequited crush on Katniss before Gale did but … it doesn’t feel like the right moment.
“Um … so … why are you here?” I change the subject. “You said you were too tired for a lesson tonight.”
“I wanted to see you,” he replies.
“What? Why? We were together all day.”
“Not really.” He sighs. “You’ve been with DAYDREAM’s Felix. Not … me.”
My eyes slowly drag up and down, taking in his current state. Icy blond hair in a messy ponytail, strands poking out in all directions, his skin speckled with small stress acne spots and dark undereye circles.
It’s a stark contrast to the Felix who was interviewed by TIME this morning, and greeted fans for hours at a meet and greet, and Rockefeller Center this afternoon.
“Why can’t those two co-exist?” I muse.
“Because nobody would like the real me.” He gulps and licks chocolate off his lips. “This”—he motions to his entire being—“is real. What the public sees is mostly fake. My clothes, my image, my songs are chosen for me. DAYDREAM fans wouldn’t like Renegade Wizard’s Felix, but that’s the real me.”
His lips tug downward, and his brows crease, a storm of emotions swirling in his eyes.
“People like the real you,” I assure him.
“You’re smart, like a true poetic genius with some of the lyrics and ideas you come up with; you’re kind and thoughtful, and you genuinely care about others; you’re probably the most annoying person on earth, but with you, I laugh more than I have in years. People like you, Felix. I like you.”
I thought I’d uncovered unknown layers and depth to the Felix I knew from a year ago.
But now I’m realizing that I, like so many others, had preconceived notions from the beginning, didn’t I?
Has he ever been a self-absorbed Rich Boy who prioritized fame over family, or did my assumptions make it impossible for me to see the starry-eyed boy who’s been in front of me all along?
I scoot closer to him. Before I can stop myself, I take his hand, and his fingers curl around mine. Our hands fit together like they were made to be intertwined. His thumb traces circles on my skin.
“You make me feel human, y’know? Around you, I don’t have to act like someone I’m not. I can be ‘Felix from Seattle’ or your pain in the ass but also incredibly attractive student.” He theatrically winks at me.
Annoying joke aside, I’m tempted to push the doughnut box out of the way and hug him, like in Philadelphia. I start to lean in, but he jerks his hand away from mine and scoots away.
“Sorry,” he murmurs. “You’re not here to be my friend or my therapist; you’re here to teach me.
I forgot.” His eyes are duller, but he straightens his posture and cracks his knuckles.
His mask is back on, a saccharine fake smile overthrowing any trace of vulnerability.
“Did I tell you about how I accidentally almost joined a cult?”
I blink. I was the one who put up this boundary and pushed him away … So why is there a heavy feeling settling over me? Why does the space between us feel like a gut punch, like … regret?
I bite the inside of my cheek and snap myself out of it. “Um. No,” I say, sitting back and watching him tell his story with a lump in my throat.