By now, Felix was used to the morning chill, ignoring the discomfort of his throbbing, cold ears as well as the numb, redness of his cheeks. Instead, he paid more attention to the rising sun that gave a welcoming ambiance within Mather Memorial's football field, creating a hint of warmth and solitude to help mask his fear of facing his fellow students. Felix would try to cast it all away one last time -- all of his regrets, his embarrassment, his constant agony -- dissipating with the gentle mist of the air. It felt comfortable and familiar, as if he's come back to his home away from home. He would hold onto the feeling for as long as he could until it was stripped away by yet another familiarity -- a voice that pulled his heartstrings with an array of emotions.
"I knew I'd find you here."Felix whipped around as his heart skipped a beat and his stomach filled with butterflies. A blonde beauty stood before him with matching crystal blue eyes and charming features. Despite her relatively short stature, she was like a runway model with her tan skin and toned body, her face seeming to be sculpted carefully by the gods -- high cheekbones, sharp jawline, plump lips, and seductive eyes. Although Felix was familiar with her body and her charm like the back of his hand, he would always get the same butterflies like the day they first met. While his lips were already parted in this instance of awe, it took him awhile to finally form any words,
"Claire." The name pierced hard through Felix's heart like an arrow fired from Cupid himself, only to remind him of the love story that he let fall from his fingertips. Claire was his highschool sweetheart, and their relationship topped every other in the whole damn school district -- hell, he thought it topped the whole damn world at times. However, a relationship capable of being broken by lack of popularity and the presence of oppression doesn't make for a stable one.
They exchanged a moment of silence as they shared the same expression of sadness, although Claire's was much more pitiful and Felix's was full of guilt and shame. Claire sighed, hugging a stack of books close to her chest and shivering underneath her cheerleading uniform. She spoke softly,
"Every time something bad happens, you always get poetic and nostalgic. So I'm sure you're trying to remember back to when you weren't -- like this," she would move towards the railing of the bleachers to stand next to Felix before continuing,
"I remember cheering for you on this field." Claire seemed to be taken by the same nostalgia as Felix, stirring up a faint smile to form on her face,
"Out of all the people on the stadium, it was like it was just me and you -- the whole time."The words resurfaced his feelings that he was previously trying to discard, feeling worse as he's become a person that Claire can no longer seem to love. Felix had no more words on the subject than what was already expressed the night of their breakup, so he tried to change the subject. He took off his jacket to expose his thick, toned arms and his protruding chest from his tight shirt,
"And you never wear jackets. You're gonna catch a cold." He swung his leather jacket over her narrow shoulders, the jacket draping over her like a heavy dress that ran past her short, cheering skirt. Felix quivered for a moment as his hand accidentally touched the softness of her skin, trying not to react from the memory of her once-loving touch.
"Why aren't you at the assembly anyway?"He leaned over the railing, choosing not to look at Claire to save himself the sadness, but instead enjoying the presence of her for the short moment that they had. Claire spoke up shakily,
"It's not like I'm going to be here for long. There's just -- there's something I need to tell you." Felix could pick out the shaking in her voice, matching it with underlying sadness that he was all-too familiar with. Without reply, he simply turned over to look into her eyes that stared blankly at the horizon as she spoke again,
"I thought of you the other day. . . How I always put that weird cream on your chest and your forehead when you get sick. I swear my mother swears by that thing." She pauses with a light chuckle that died back down to her stern, pained expression,
"But for some reason, it didn't work on me this time. It was like I couldn't shake off this damn flu, puking almost every damn day sucks. So I thought -- 'maybe it only works if you add a little love to the process'."Felix interrupted in an attempt to get a little humor into the subject, a sly smirk forming on his lips,
"You want me to rub cream on you again?"Claire shook her head in disappointment, hoping he would catch on to what she was trying to express. Nevertheless, she spoke bluntly,
"I'm pregnant -- Felix."In this instance, his heart plummeted out of his chest and into the cold, icy ground of the football field where his grave already lies. It was hard to tell if it was beating really fast, or not at all, but regardless, it was like the words slit his throat resulting in a blood-filled death. Perhaps that's how he'd rather imagine the moment, a swift death to end all of his accumulated stress, but instead he stared with his eyes wide open at the girl he still longed for. Claire's tears fell heavily, crashing down like tsunamis onto his broken and bruised heart -- he couldn't bare to see her like this, but he struggled to find anything comforting to say as he was petrified by her statement.
"Claire, are you- are you sure?"Claire gathered herself to prevent herself from hyperventilating before speaking one last time,
"I got tested the other day. This isn't just some fake pregnancy bullshit." With that, she tore off the jacket and let it fall to the ground, storming off towards the school while wiping her leftover tears from her face.
The bell rang through the air harshly like fingernails scraping across a chalkboard. The reminder to get to class, except Felix was stuck in his tracks, unsure of what actions to take next. He formed a simple word in hopes to kick-start his movement to face the student body,
"Shit."
Tuesday, August 21st, 2018 - 010:00 am
Walking through the front doors of the school was like walking through the gates of hell, expecting to be lit up in flames by the wrath of the student body, each student holding such a greater power than Felix could ever have, backed by justifiable oppression towards his new identity. Each dreadful step through the halls began every walk of shame he would undergo through his days of attending this school, keeping his head down to avoid eye contact, and his headphones in to ignore any hate comments yelled across the halls. Felix reached the front office, in which he was lectured for being late on his first day before receiving his class schedule with the numbered classrooms.
It took a moment of deep breaths and small pep talks to gather a carefree confidence to bear through the school day. While it would ease any torment he would face, he was pleased to realize that Mather Memorial was kind enough to place him in classes in which his torment was minimal to none. His schedule went accordingly: Statistics, Biology, Lunch, History, Spanish. The schedule was easy and the workload was kept small since the classes weren't at advanced levels.
The day dragged, with his mind stuck on Claire and what she told him in the morning. His mind rushed from possible inaccuracies of the testing, or perhaps a different father, but everything added up perfectly to really place the cherry on top of a shitty milkshake. As the school day would reach it's end, he would do his final walk of shame to a class that hopefully possessed something remotely good in it. As he ascended the stairs with little hope, he walked slowly through the halls with his music blaring in his ears and his bag slung on one shoulder.
Opening the door to a rather grungy room that actually appealed to Felix, he carefully eyed the room as he took out his headphones. The room had a stuffy feeling to it, but it also held a faint comfort of privacy and safety. The couches were a nice touch to the class and would hopefully be more comfortable for sleeping than his other classes' desks. Soon after his examination of the room, he realized he was late to the class. Felix walked slowly into the room and found an empty seat without paying much attention to any of the fellow students besides the red-head that was standing up. Looking down with his usual remorse, he made himself comfortable before trying to discern what the class was doing.
Boreas,
Plank Sinatra
