Chapter 70
Istalk through the woods, using my phone as a flashlight. An owl hoots and insects sing along as I dodge ant hills and piles of leaves that snakes might be hiding under. I'm already paying off a bill for one animal bite and can't afford another.
When I hear the trilling of frogs, I know I'm near Ruby's Lake. I pass through a pair of trees and stumble across a lit-up tent. Based on experience, I can only guess it's going to be the Grabadook, so I step back slowly. One of my feet cracks a twig.
The tent flap opens, and the person inside jumps out.
“Who's there?” It's Felix. Now I wish it was the Grabadook.
I give myself up and shine my phone light on my face. “It's me.”
“Did you follow me here?” he asks.
“Clint's after me and I need to hide somewhere. I didn't realize you'd be here. Sorry.” I start to turn around.
“No,” he says. “Don't leave.”
We sit quietly for the next twenty minutes on a log in front of the lake. Ruby is somewhere underneath there. I wonder if she's sleeping.
“It's so freaky, the darkness. Like a black hole that will swallow you up,” I say.
“It's like looking into my future,” Felix says.
“I don't know why you'd say that. You have a brighter future ahead than anybody else I know,” I say. “I'm several hundred thousand dollars in debt and working at Bueno Bueno Bueno.”
“I'm running away,” he says. He got into a huge blowup with his dad after college orientation, he explains. “He has my whole life picked out for me. Computer science major, corporate job, corporate life. Like I'm a piece of code he can write.”
“I thought you were okay with doing computer science now.”
“Wade, I went and met all the people who are also in my major and… they make me miss you so much. They're not like you. They're boring. They don't have personalities or a sense of humor. I don't want to be like them.”
“You don't have to be,” I say. “Where are you going, then?”
He laughs, but it sounds hollow. “California.”
I laugh, too.
By now, a swarm of mosquitoes is devouring our heads, so Felix invites me inside his tent. He's got a lamp inside next to a sleeping bag and his notebook, which he's been scribbling in.
He lies down on his sleeping bag. “I am over these loud-ass frogs,” he says, and plays a song on his phone. It's “Memories” by the Midnight. He always listens to the Midnight when he's in a reflective mood. I lie down next to him and straighten my legs out.
“Do you want to come with me? I'm serious,” he says, resting his head on his knuckle. “We can still make content and be homeless on the beach, or whatever.”
The old Wade would have said yes immediately, would have jumped at the chance to run away with Felix. Then I think about Roland in his wheelchair, about Byron giving me a second chance, about all the damage I've caused trying to avoid my problems.
“I deleted our channel. I think that stuff is behind us, and I'm okay with that,” I say softly.
“We can still go,” he says with a yawn.
I turn and look at the ceiling of the tent. “Trust me, I'm basically an expert at running away from things. All it does is make everything worse. Then there's Roland…”
Felix pulls his knees to his chest. “He won't ever talk to me again.”
“He loved you…” My throat tightens. “…and probably still does.”
Felix closes his eyes.
“I've known you for a long time. I've never seen you any better than when you were with him.” I manage a small laugh. “Anyway, I'm sort of going out with Byron now. For real, this time.”
“Even after he told everybody about what we did?” Felix asks.
“To be fair, I puked all over him on the most important night of his life and ruined his chances of getting an agent,” I say. “Don't run away. Maybe you should talk to Roland again.”
“He told me something once. That his brother killed himself because he got rejected from college. But that wasn't the full story…”
I stick my head up. “What?”
“When his brother found out Roland was gay and told their parents, Roland wanted to get back at him. His brother had an old online journal that was accessible to anybody.
“He wrote a ton of posts with anti-gay slurs. Roland sent a link to the university after they accepted Mick, then they rescinded his admission. He became depressed and killed himself.”
That's why Roland's parents are so cruel to him. They blame him for Mick's death.
“He can't forgive himself for it,” Felix says.
I sit up and think. What if we go talk to him? If we can get him to forgive us, maybe he can learn to forgive himself.
“We should go see him,” I say.
“He would never,” Felix says, rolling over on his side. But it's too late. I've made up my mind.
I wrap myself around him from behind and squeeze him, the same way he did to me that time I was having the storm freak-out.
“What are you doing?” he asks.
“Being your thunder jacket,” I say. We both laugh.
The song ends. The frogs outside continue to trill. Felix squeezes my hand, not like a boyfriend but like the best friend he's always been. It feels so good to know Felix Alfaro. I'm grateful for the opportunity to love him, even if it wasn't the way I originally wanted.
“Wade?”
“Yes?”
“I'm about to asphyxiate in this tent.”
“Me too. Let's get out of here.”