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“For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”
(Psalms 30:5)
Felix is shaking. It is not because the restaurant opens in less than two weeks. It is not because the divorce is finally being finalized. It is not because of any trivial, everyday thing that can be moved past from.
It is because it has been two nights since there last was blood on his hands, and the phone is ringing. It reverberates in his ears like it wasn’t any normal Friday night but rather a growing Friday morning after a car crash. What little solace can be found, he finds in the fact that it cannot be him.
It doesn’t help. It could be Rosemary. It could be the police. It could be young Sophie, reaching out to ask if Felix has heard from her father yet. None of these options will undo what he did.
Such a beautiful, serene, warm June night, spent hiding from a telephone, from his own shame and dignity like he was nothing more than a scared little mutt.
Before the phone has the chance to stop ringing, Felix grabs it with shaky hands that have been washed hundreds of times since, yet they still remain dirty, and presses it to his ear.
“Hello?”
He holds his breath like he held the body that night. He doesn’t let go until all that remains of what little love he is capable of is ripped straight from his arms.
The person on the other side asks, “Felix, hey, what are you up to tonight?”
It doesn’t quite process at first. How could it? However, Felix has known that voice since his university days, and he’s nearing forty these days. He has heard it say so many things, ranging from “Want to go play some pool tonight?” to “God, you’re a lifesaver!” to “It just won’t work out, Felix. I’m sorry.” He has heard it shatter his whole world only to build it back up with glue and gentle hands and the kind of smile that is able to feed entire villages.
“I was just wondering if you’d like to head out to the bar tonight? It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”
That is why it cannot be, because no matter how deep his voice is ingrained into his mind, Felix buried Jack Walten two nights ago. Whoever is on the other side of that phone line, it is not Jack Walten.
“...Felix? Are you there?” he still asks, and Felix can see that worried crease between his best friend’s brows. The crease he has managed to separate from the wrinkles of rage, of loss, of grief. Worry is something entirely different. “Felix?”
“...Jack?” he asks with a shaky voice.
“There you are,” he chuckles with relief, probably with that wide grin that shows off his pearly whites. As if he was delighted to hear Felix. As if everything was okay again and Felix hadn’t ruined everything like he always does, every time, without a doubt, like disappointment was in his blood. “So, what d'ya say? Want to head to the bar?”
Felix must be dreaming. There is no other choice. He spent all night scrubbing that backroom clean from blood. He kept going back to check that he had missed no spots. He drove home, smashing his head against the steering wheel in an effort to quiet the noise, while the body began to grow used to its shallow grave.
He sounds exactly like Jack Walten. Felix is dreaming.
“Yes— Okay, sure. Who’s driving?”
“I’ll pick you up in about… twenty, yeah?”
“...Yeah.”
The phone call ends and Felix sits down on the couch, stoic and frozen. What he wouldn’t give to see his dearest friend once more, but if his latest nightmares are anything to go by, this one, too, will end with Jack grabbing his lapels and screaming. “Were my children not enough for you, Felix?”
It’s a sick joke, this life of his.
-
A car parks by the front of the house and a part of Felix is certain someone is playing a prank on him. It’s Jack’s car: a brand new Buick Apollo that Felix even had the chance of being a passenger of, back when the man first bought it. They spent the night chain smoking cigarettes until the new car smell disappeared, even though Felix usually doesn’t smoke that much.
And now it’s here, shining like it was the day it was bought, in the darkening mid-June night. Felix swallows down the lump in his throat, or at least he tries, as the driver’s side door opens from the side of the street and a tall figure steps out.
For some reason he feels like he’s at the altar on a beautiful, white wedding day, only the person approaching from the end of it is not whoever it is supposed to be. Jack smiles at him as he circles around the car and comes up to the door Felix is standing by. Instead of his usual strict suit, like the one he was buried in, he’s wearing a maroon sweater with a white collar and black slacks.
“It feels like it’s been forever,” Jack says with a grin, but it hasn’t. It has only been two nights. Just a bit over a month since Jack first started hating him. Just a bit over a month since the crash.
Felix looks him up and down to make sure it’s somehow real. He’s still taller than him, his dark hair in kempt curls, that grin stretching across his tan face. The smell of his signature cologne lingers in the air.
This has to be a dream, right?
Yet Jack is so close that Felix could touch him if he only reached out his hand. If he only placed his trembling fingers on his steady chest to feel his heartbeat and know that it’s real.
“You look like shit, Felix,” Jack says once Felix has curled his hands into fists to prevent himself from making yet another mistake — the mistake of reaching out. “Rough night?”
“...It’s been a rough couple of weeks, yeah,” he mutters. “Since the…”
Jack’s smile falters like the way a coat of paint cracks. “I know,” he whispers. “Let’s just… get in the car, okay?”
Because it must be a dream, because there can be no other way, Felix follows. He slips in the passenger seat of the car and buckles the seatbelt. He hasn’t driven much as of late. Jack starts the car and drives off, the sleeping suburbia passing by the windows. Felix’s hands stay on his thighs, nails digging into the fabric of his trousers.
“So, how have you been?” Jack asks, calmly making a right turn.
If this is a dream, if somehow Felix is having the dream of his life where he has yet to lose his best friend in a heated argument over what the truth of that fateful night in early May actually was, he better make the most of it.
“I’ve missed you,” he says.
Jack hums. “Likewise. We don’t get nights like these that often anymore, do we?”
“I wish we did. I wish I hadn’t—”
The man tilts his head. “Hadn’t what, Felix?”
He squeezes his nails into his palms. They’re not long enough to hurt. “...Nothing. Nevermind.”
Jack turns back to the road, both hands on the wheel, and off-handedly says, “You know I like you better when you speak your mind.”
His classes feel foggy. Everything is sepia. Jack is right there, he’s right there, but he shouldn’t be.
“...This can’t be real.”
“Oh, cheer up. I don’t blame you,” Jack says. He glances at Felix from the corner of his eye. “Not for everything, at least.”
“How can you not?”
“...We have a restaurant to open in two weeks. I can’t do it without you.”
“...Me neither. Not without you.”
“We both know that’s not true, Felix.”
The car parks in the empty parking lot of the usual bar and the two men climb out of it, one notably more hesitant than the other. Jack leads Felix inside, and like it was some scene from a twisted novel, they’re nearly alone save for the bartender.
“Hey, Henry. I’ll have the usual, please,” Jack tells the man behind the wooden counter, who just nods and turns to Felix as if he doesn’t frequent this place nearly three times a week. Felix hasn’t eaten properly in two days, or maybe a month. He doesn’t recall.
“Just a beer, thanks.”
They get their drinks and head out to a booth in this dark, stuffy bar that is quickly becoming Felix’s personal purgatory. They sit across from each other with Jack tapping at his glass of whiskey and smiling at him softly. A smile Felix does not deserve. A smile he would’ve done anything to see again just two hours prior.
“Why are you doing this, Jack?” Felix asks. He reaches for the beer but something makes his fingers twitch. Taking it slow, as foreign as the concept is to him, might be the right choice here.
“Am I not allowed to see my best friend anymore?” Jack chuckles.
Best friends don’t kill each other’s kids. Best friends don’t kill each other, no matter how much trouble they’re in. What was Felix thinking? Was he thinking, or was he just blinded by the idea of a perfect booming business where someone might come in and actually see him and appreciate him and worship him and love him for who he is?
Was he just distracting himself from the fact that Jack is the only one who does see him?
“I thought I… wouldn’t see you again.”
“You know I’ll always find my way back to you,” Jack says. “No matter what you do.”
“Is that supposed to comfort me?” Felix chuckles pitifully, cheeks heated as if he was already drunk.
Jack sips on his drink and smiles softly, perhaps somberly. “Imagine how much easier this would have been if I hadn’t said ‘no’ back then,” he says, and it lands like an atomic bomb. “Imagine everything that could have been avoided.”
Felix looks at the man through his lashes. His throat is growing tight. His hands are trembling. “...What are you saying?”
“Back when you first said it. Back when Rose and I hadn’t— If we just got into that car back then and drove off into the sunset. Everything would be different.” He rests his elbows on the table and laughs despite the tightness between his brows.
With a gulp, Felix curls his hands back into fists on top of the table, around his beer. Unpleasant memories flood his mind like a tidal wave. “You said it wouldn’t work. You— You said—”
“I was scared.”
Their eyes meet. Felix looks away because those dark brown eyes will be the death of both of them.
“You can understand what it’s like to be scared, I hope.”
“...Maybe a bit too well,” Felix mutters. “I wish things didn’t end up like this.”
“Like what, Felix?”
He parts his lips only to realize that if he had the chance to start his life from the beginning knowing what he does now, he’d hardly repeat any of his previous actions. He’d start fresh, if there even is such a thing as starting fresh for him. If he could ever escape, even if he tried.
There is only one thing he’d make sure to do the same. Back in university, back at that party where they were introduced, where he stood in that corner like an idiot until he came to talk to him… Felix wouldn’t change it for the world.
He scans Jack up and down. His face in the dim light. The way the collared sweater fits him perfectly. That small smile.
“I didn’t want you to die, Jack,” he whispers, looking down with a stifled sob.
Jack laughs earnestly to the point where Felix starts thinking maybe this isn’t a dream after all. Maybe what he did was a dream instead, and he’s been in a hallucinatory state for the past two days. Maybe this is real and Jack is actually here and things will somehow work out.
The taller man’s hand lands atop Felix’s, patting it softly before squeezing. His hand doesn’t go through him. He’s not a ghost. He’s real. Jack looks straight into his eyes, his own so kind, so warm, and asks, “Then why’d you do it?”
-
He didn’t drink that much. Not enough to be throwing up in the dumpster behind the bar, anyway. Yet here he is, vomiting his guts out while Jack, who cannot be real but whose presence he can feel like a warm fireplace in a dark cabin, pats him on the back.
“It’s fine, Felix. Get it all out,” he murmurs softly, now rubbing soothing circles through Felix’s sweater. “It’ll all be over soon.”
Felix wipes his mouth with the back of his palm, tears pricking at his eyes like pins, and finally stands back up. He takes his glasses off and cleans the lenses with the hem of his shirt. Jack is still there when he slips them back on. Somehow, he’s always there.
“Come on, I’ll give you a ride home,” Jack says, nodding towards the parking lot.
“Didn’t you—”
“It was just one drink. I wouldn’t get behind the wheel if I knew I couldn’t,” he reassures him, but all it does is make Felix’s stomach spin again.
He follows Jack to the car like a puppy and gets in the front seat. The sky has gone dark blue and something has shifted.
“Can I crash at yours tonight?” Jack asks as he drives out of the parking lot.
“What about—” Felix starts, only to be interrupted again. Jack used to do it sometimes,
interrupt,
when things would get heated over business, or family, or…
“Rose and Sophie are fine. I let them know in advance that I wouldn’t be back for a while.”
Felix swallows. “...Okay then. I’ll take the couch.”
Jack nods, but the other man still can’t make sense of things, of anything.
“Jack.”
“Yes, Felix?”
“Is this hell?”
Jack looks at him and smiles. “Would your life be any different if it was?”
Felix stares straight into the distance. The white line in the middle of the road leads somewhere. Where it’ll take him, he’s not sure. Maybe it leads to a forgotten grave similar to Jack’s. That is answer enough, he supposes.
“I just don’t understand, I— What are you?”
“Let’s not dwell on the little details. After all, I’m here now. And you’ve missed me.”
“A lot.”
“I know.”
“Can I— Will you stay? For good?” Felix asks. “Am I still a… murderer?”
“You wouldn’t be far from that even if I magically came back to life,” Jack chuckles and turns to the road Felix lives on. His home. His dusty, empty home, littered with bottles. “Felix, tell me… Do you think you’ll ever get rid of me?”
Felix takes a moment to think about it. The answer comes quicker than what he should be proud of.
“I hope I won’t.”
Jack snorts. “That’s rich coming from the person who killed me.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t have done the same if you found out the truth? A— About Edd and Molly?” Their names bring a metallic taste to his mouth, even if he keeps hearing them on the news nearly daily.
“What I’m saying is, I wouldn’t hurt a friend even if they deeply, irreversibly hurt me. Well, maybe some friends. Most friends, if they went as far as you did. But not you, Felix.” Jack parks the car in front of the house with a sigh. “Sadly, not you.”
Felix makes no effort to get out. He chuckles in pain, eyes filling with tears once more. “I wish you hadn’t been scared. I wish I had been more brave. Maybe we could’ve… driven off into the sunset after all. Before all of this.”
Jack taps the wheel in thought. “It’s never too late, Felix.”
“You’re dead.”
“It’s never too late.”
Felix looks towards the never-ending road. It’s not a sunset, but the sun must rise in just a few hours. It’s June, after all. He chews his way through his thoughts: the restaurant, the divorce, Rosemary and Sophie…
“Where would we go?” he asks.
“Wherever we want. Get the hell out of Michigan, drive south.”
“And you don’t— You don’t want to say goodbye to your family?”
“I think… they know that I tried my best,” Jack says after a moment of contemplation. “This is about you and me, Felix. Not them. Just you, me, and the sunrise.”
Felix chuckles in disbelief. “I don’t deserve this.”
Jack pats him on the shoulder with a light-hearted huff. “Not all of us get what we deserve. Shall we go?”
The sky is starting to turn brighter, like a slow wave crashing over it. There is not much left for him here. The restaurant is nothing more than a consolation prize. If there is a happy ending left for Felix somewhere, it is in this car with Jack.
“Yeah. Yeah,” he says. “Let’s go.”
Jack smiles at him before grabbing the gear stick to speed off. Felix fiddles with his fingers over his lap as the sun makes its first appearance behind the houses and trees. Some might say the sight is beautiful.
“...I’m sorry, Jack,” Felix whispers. “I really did love you.”
“I think I did, too,” Jack replies, eyes on the road yet a comforting hand on Felix’s thigh. “But we don’t have to worry about all that now.”
Shyly, Felix grabs Jack’s hand and interlaces their fingers. It brings some comfort, some warmth. Being together like nothing had ever gone wrong.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Let’s just drive into the sun for now.”