Harmonious Hearts 2017 Read online

  Felix should probably be getting turned on by this, but the thought is distant, almost surreal. He can hardly hear, sounds drowned out by his own panicked thoughts.

  “Are we going to do this or not?” Now she conveys her impatience through her tone.

  Felix knows what he should do. He should nod and then reach forward to unclasp her bra.

  Instead he’s frozen.

  He should want this, after all. He does. He does.

  Except he doesn’t. He yearns to leave, to get away from the girl and her efforts to seduce him, to get away from this smothering party.

  Felix shakes his head slowly and walks to the door.

  By opening it, it seems a momentous decision has just been made. He can’t pinpoint exactly what it pertains to though, and he doesn’t wish to spend time dwelling.

  Felix walks down the stairs, and then he flees.

  LATER ON that night, when he is lying in bed and concocting complicated fantasies in a feeble attempt to lure himself into unconsciousness, he wonders if the reason he left is because the person trying to seduce him was a girl. He doesn’t even want to consider that option, but he is forced to admit that he has to.

  Felix is pretty sure he’s most likely gay. He doesn’t want to consider it, but it remains a fact, nonetheless. He shoves it to the back of his mind and goes on with his life, not exactly in strict opposition but also not mentally prepared to deal with the fallout admitting it would bring.

  He can’t help but think about what would happen if he ended up in an empty bedroom with a boy instead of a girl.

  CONCRETE DIGS deep into the skin exposed by his jeans. Bursts of chill air bite at his ankles and arms, and the texture of goose bumps lines his skin. The cold has gone to his head, frozen his ability to make decisions, or at least that is his reasoning for why he has not gotten up and gone home yet.

  Felix draws his knees up to his chin and wraps his arms around them, dropping all pretense of experience. He knows he looks every bit as young as he is, anyway, so there’s really no point in pretending.

  If he presses close enough to the wall, he can faintly hear noises from inside the bar. They are blurred together, meaningless, but the ghosts of conversation are audible. Felix closes his eyes, too far gone to berate himself for faulty decision-making and too cold to find the willpower to rise to his feet.

  A harsh kick connects with his kneecap. He jerks his eyes open, stares up at the man positioned in a menacing stance in front of him.

  Reality crashes down over him, and he suddenly realizes what he convinced himself he wanted is actually coming to fruition. He is dimly aware he’s begun to shake, mind no longer in control of his body.

  “Well?” The man’s voice is gruff, and Felix can detect a slight slur from the alcohol the man has no doubt indulged in.

  “Yeah.” Felix tries to stutter out a sentence; however, he finds he has no idea what to say. In lieu of talking, he pulls himself to his feet, albeit awkwardly, and stands in front of the man. The man’s eyes rake over his body, appraising him. Felix straightens up to appear as tall as he can summon himself to be and resolutely keeps his eyes trained anywhere but the man’s face.

  He is terrified the stranger won’t deem him good enough, and he’s frozen in terror at the thought of what could happen if he does.

  The man finally cuts his eyes away from Felix’s form and turns around. “Let’s go,” he declares stiffly and walks in the supposed direction of his car without even checking to see if Felix is following him.

  As if an invisible collar and chain connects him to the strange man, Felix hurries to follow him.

  When they reach the car, the stranger yanks open the door to the back seat and shoves Felix toward it.

  “No whore gets to sit in the front seat,” he comments as Felix climbs into the back, pushing away half-empty beer bottles and piles of unwashed clothes.

  He thinks I’m a prostitute.

  The realization washes over Felix at the man’s words, and he is shocked into complete silence. He has an overwhelming urge to leave, to run, run as far away from this man as he possibly can.

  “I… I’m sorry,” he stutters, eyes immediately darting to the handle of the door closest to him. “I can’t. I can’t, I’m sorry.”

  He fears the stranger’s disapproval, fears what he must think of Felix’s inability to handle the situation. His eyes blur as he fumbles for the door handle, fingers clammy and slick as they unlatch the door.

  He can barely register the man’s outraged screams in the background as he flees, a soundtrack to this tumultuous scene.

  Felix runs until he can’t anymore, until his shoes slip on the slick sidewalk and he falls to his knees, rocks digging deep into the sensitive skin of his palm when he attempts to catch himself. He wants nothing more than to just remain prone on the ground until he can catch his breath and collect his thoughts. He’s too afraid of the demons that lurk in the night, however, and instead painstakingly pulls himself to his feet.

  When he creeps through the basement door, it hits him that his mother never questioned where he had gone.

  EVENTUALLY FELIX’S desire for knowledge of who he is overpowers his extreme aversion to leaving his house. He has to know why he keeps running at the hint of sex. Even the last time, when he allowed himself to admit that perhaps he would rather have a boy than a girl, he still ended up fleeing.

  He needs to know whether it was because of the circumstances, or because sex is truly something he doesn’t want. The mere thought of that being the conclusion boggles his mind as if his brain were manufactured wrong before it was placed inside his body.

  His curiosity is a curse, and three weeks after the previous bar incident, he finds himself standing outside another bar. He made sure to find one all the way across town so there was no reasonable chance he would run into the man he had fled from. He’s riding high on a strange burst of confidence that is currently at battle with the nervous thoughts proliferating in his mind.

  In a carbon copy of the last time, Felix finds himself slumped against the outer wall of the bar, head tucked between his legs to drown out the noise.

  On this particular occasion, however, a presence kneels beside him. A sudden flash of terror shoots through his body, triggering a never-ending chant of it’s too late now it’s too late now. The man could have a gun, a knife…. Felix tries not to think of the possibilities.

  “Hey.”

  The voice belongs to the person beside him, but it isn’t harsh and angry like the other man’s. No, it’s quiet and questioning.

  “Hey, man, are you okay? What are you doing back here?”

  Felix peeks up over his knees to see a boy who can’t be much over eighteen staring back at him. His side-swept bangs fall lightly into his line of eyesight, but Felix can still tell that his eyes are brown and inquisitive.

  “I’m trying to get laid.”

  He figures to just lay it out there, an open invitation for anything to happen.

  “Oh. Um.” The boy glances up quickly, perhaps to snare a moment to think. “I was just headed home. Do you want to come with me? Or….” His face colors and he looks at the ground. “You probably mean ‘laid’ as in with a girl. My bad. I’ll leave you to it.”

  Felix doesn’t hesitate even a moment before shaking his head. “No, I’ll come with you. I… I meant it in the guy sense.”

  “Oh. Really? That’s cool. Um, my car is this way.” The boy motions and Felix pulls himself up to follow the boy.

  “Oh. I forgot to ask—what’s your name?”

  Felix startles at the question, and when he answers, his voice is wary. “Felix.”

  “I’m William,” the boy offers.

  Felix acknowledges him with a nod and follows him to his car.

  FELIX FIDGETS, sitting nervously on the edge of William’s bed. William told him he would return in a moment, that he just needed to check on the oven. His brain is a whirlwind, opinions tugging at one another until he doesn
’t know what to believe. He can go through with this, he can. He’s normal. He repeats these words angrily to himself, muttering occasionally out loud in further assurance that he can do this. In a fit of confidence, Felix allows himself to fall onto his back, head on the pillow.

  He remains in that position, tense and nervous, until he hears the soft thump of William’s footsteps advancing into the room.

  “Felix?”

  Shit. Felix knew lying down was a bad idea, knew William wouldn’t like it. He shoots up to a sitting position and finds himself eye level with William’s chest.

  “Yeah? A-are you ready?”

  His exterior begins to crack. He hopes William doesn’t notice his hands shaking or the blood quickly rushing to his cheeks.

  William smiles, and he climbs into the bed until he’s less than a foot away from Felix.

  Felix bites his lips, thinks fuck it, and kisses him.

  William tastes sweet and earnest. Felix ignores his feeling of unease and doggedly maintains the kiss, determined to go through with this.

  He has to.

  He’s nearly shaking with nervousness, but he does his best to block out the feeling and focus on the kiss. William presses against him, and Felix lets himself go pliant to allow it.

  William’s hand sneaks under the hem of Felix’s shirt, now resting on bare skin. Felix’s nervous thoughts begin to escalate into full-blown panic, and his brain seems as if it is short-circuiting.

  William tugs the hem of Felix’s shirt upward.

  Felix can’t breathe, can’t think enough to tell William to stop. He gasps in a feeble attempt to draw in air.

  William tugs Felix’s shirt over his head and tosses it onto the bed behind them.

  A tear leaks out of Felix’s left eye, soon followed by a cascade of sorrow flowing down his face. Dimly, he is aware that he’s shaking, still gasping for breath he can’t seem to obtain.

  William’s body weight is off him now and no longer does their skin touch. Felix seizes the opportunity to roll into a pitiful huddle, arms wrapped around his body in a primal attempt to protect himself.

  As if from far away, William’s words filter into his head. He cannot decipher them, but he can hear the dull throb of a voice and soon feels himself engulfed in something warm and soft.

  A blanket.

  Felix clutches the fabric, knowing that letting himself panic is unsafe considering his situation, but he can’t stop himself.

  Time flows, fluid, meaningless, until Felix slowly begins to surface from the terrifying blankness of his fear. The bed is indented slightly a few feet away from him, a sign that William is still there, but keeping a respectful distance so as not to cause Felix any more distress. Felix peeks from behind the blanket and lets out a shuddering breath.

  It feels wondrous to be able to breathe again.

  “Felix. Hey, Felix, can you hear me now? You were pretty out of it.” William turns to look at him, concern flicking in his eyes.

  Felix licks the inside of his mouth, testing to see if he will be able to speak.

  “I can hear you.” His voice is scratchy but most definitely audible.

  A relieved smile breaks out over William’s face, a smile that contains much more panic hidden inside than it originally lets on.

  “Good. Do you want some coffee? Or—the caffeine probably isn’t a great idea right now, huh? Maybe hot chocolate?” Before Felix can answer, William continues. “Do you want another blanket? You were sweating, but I figured that you would want to cover up….”

  He trails off, seemingly unsure what to say.

  “How old are you?”

  Felix asks the question completely out of the blue, but it’s been bothering him since he met William. He simply doesn’t seem like the brash eighteen-year-old Felix originally assumed him to be.

  William pauses momentarily. “Oh. Um, I’m seventeen.”

  Felix breathes an internal sigh of relief that he isn’t alone in a strange adult’s house. William is only one year older than him.

  “Okay,” he says, attempting to collect his thoughts. “I’ll take hot chocolate, sure. Just… don’t poison it.”

  William grins and promises to return with a poison-free cup of hot chocolate. He pauses at the doorway and looks back to lock eyes with Felix.

  “Be careful. I could have been anyone, Felix, although I’m sure you know that by now. Just—” He takes a shuddering breath and continues. “—just be more careful next time.”

  As soon as he turns into the hallway, Felix slumps back down into the bed. He simply doesn’t understand why he can’t seem to go through with sex even if he admits his obvious, overwhelming preference for the same sex. He lets out a frustrated growl and waits for William’s return.

  WILLIAM DOES indeed return with the promised drink, and he allows Felix to sit on his bed, huddled up in the blanket, for as long as he needs to. William insists on driving him home; however, Felix has him park down the street so that Felix’s mom doesn’t see her son getting out of a stranger’s car. Before Felix leaves, William presses a piece of paper with his number scrawled onto it into Felix’s palm.

  The reality of what he has just done doesn’t hit Felix until he closes the basement door behind him. He crawls into his bed and burrows his face into his pillow, and even though he was sure he had run out of tears for the day, more appear. As opposed to his earlier tears of fear, however, these are tears of shame. Shame for sitting behind a bar, waiting for some strange man to pick him up and use him as his teenage fucktoy. Shame for going home with William. Shame for having a panic attack in his bed, even though William is essentially a stranger to him. Thinking about it now, Felix cannot even begin to fathom how and why he came up with his harebrained scheme and how he was able to go through with it. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries his hardest not to compare himself to a naïve kid who took candy from a stranger in a white van.

  Thoughts race through his mind, some ending before they are even truly begun. It’s overwhelming.

  He cries until he physically can’t anymore and then lies huddled into his pillow until he drifts unconscious, snot staining his nose and cheeks and dried tear tracks accenting his flushed pink skin.

  FELIX SPENDS the next three days doing his best to avoid conversation, and although it garners more than a few worried stares from his mother, he manages to escape the time relatively unscathed. He also avoids looking at his shelf, where he stashed the little piece of paper William had handed him. He wants to contact him, he truly does. However, every time he sits down and picks up his phone, he can’t manage to silence his brain long enough to allow him to send a simple text.

  Because of that, he doesn’t actually manage to contact William until three days later, when he has smuggled a bottle of vodka into his room and already consumed several shots.

  It takes him four tries to enter the number correctly. When William answers, his voice is groggy.

  “Who is this? Fuck, it’s, like, three in the morning.”

  “It’s Felix.”

  He hears a shuffle over the receiver. “Hey, Felix. Are you okay? It’s… early.”

  Felix searches for the answer and comes up with a blank “No.”

  “Oh.” A pause. “What’s wrong?”

  Felix sighs. “A lot.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m so confused, William. I don’t know what to do. I’m supposed to want it, right? Isn’t everyone?”

  Felix pauses to take another sip out of the bottle.

  “What’s ‘it’?”

  Felix bites his lip in frustration. “It’s sex. I don’t want it. I never have, I guess?”

  Another swig. He hears nothing from William, so he continues. “I’ve never really looked at anyone and had any desire for sex with them, not really. It’s not normal—it can’t be.”

  William audibly sighs. “You could be asexual, Felix. Do you know what that means?”

  Felix coughs, knowing he sounds pathetic, yet for once h
e doesn’t particularly care.

  “No.” He opens his mouth to continue, but instead he finds himself drinking.

  “Asexual is when you don’t experience sexual attraction.”

  Felix hums, mouth still latched on to the bottle. William sighs on the other end of the phone.

  “You could just not want sex, Felix, and that’s fine. It doesn’t mean that you’re fucked up or anything.”

  “But it does!” Felix knows he sounds like a petulant child, but at the same time, he can’t bring himself to care, not with the alcohol pulsing through his veins.

  “No, it doesn’t. Look, you like guys, right?”

  Felix gives grudging confirmation, and William proceeds. “Well, not everyone likes guys. Does that make them wrong?”

  Well. Felix is forced to concede William has a point. But—

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t matter what gender you like. That’s… everyone can like whoever they want. But everyone likes sex. I’m fucked up!”

  “Felix, not everyone is the same. There is no one thing in the world everyone likes except, like, fuck, water. And there are even some people who don’t like that. You’re not fucked up.”

  His voice holds a nearly accusing edge, and even though Felix logically knows William most likely isn’t mad at him, he can’t help but think he is. He whimpers, phone pressed tightly to his ear until he can feel spikes of pain from the bent skin.

  “I’m sorry.” His voice is a whisper and it shakes with impending tears. It’s not logical. Felix hates that he is aware of that. He hasn’t known William for nearly long enough to be concerned about his opinion. He can’t help it, though.

  “No, Felix, hey.” William sounds concerned and substantially more awake than when the conversation began. “I’ll come over and hang out, help you calm down. Okay?”

  Felix gapes at his phone, and suddenly he can’t anymore. Can’t deal with seeing William, can’t deal with the fact that William is willing to come help him, and can’t shut off his thoughts.