Felix Ever After

by Kacen Callender

What does it feel like, to love someone so much that you’re willing to publicly bare your heart and soul with a black Sharpie? What is it like to even love someone at all?

“I want to be in love. I’ve never, you know—felt the kind of passion great artists talk about. I want that. I want to feel that level of intensity. Not everyone wants love. I get that, you know? But me—I want to fall in love and be broken up with and get pissed and grieve and fall in love all over again. I’ve never felt any of that. I’ve just been doing the same shit. Nothing new. Nothing exciting.”

When someone hurts me, I either obsess over how to convince them I’m worthy of their love or obsess over how to destroy them.

“I just want to prove that I’m good enough, too. That I deserve it. It’s kind of like proving that—I don’t know, proves I deserve respect and love, too, even if no one else agrees with me. Even if no one else believes it.”

But I really think you do. I feel like I know you. I hope you tell me who you are. Because this is what’s weirdest of all. Sorry in advance. But I think I might be falling for you.

My heart—I can’t help it, I really can’t—starts to beat harder the second I see Declan.

mean, I WANT to be in love. That’s something I’ve always wanted to feel. What’s it like, to be in love and have that other person love you, too? Is it another level of friendship? Another level of trust, vulnerability, always telling that person your thoughts and feelings, sharing every little thing with them so that you’re so in sync that it’s like you’re one person? Is it like every time you see them, your heart goes wild, and you can’t think because you’re so effing happy? Is it like whenever they’re away, you feel like you’re missing a piece of yourself? Does knowing someone loves you fill you with confidence, because you know you’re the type of person who deserves love? And what’s it like to break up with someone you love? What’s it like to decide to try again, and let yourself fall in love with someone else? To decide to take that chance you might get hurt, but still want to try? I don’t know. But I want to.

Ezra whispers. “Can I kiss you?” My gaze snaps up to his. “What?”

He stops and turns back around to me. “You’re always talking about how you want to be in love. How you think it’s impossible for anyone to love you. Here I am. Telling you I fucking love you.” He raises his hands up, lets them fall to his sides again as he lets out a breath. “I love you, Felix. But—what, am I the only person in the world you don’t want loving you?”

I want to kiss him, the same way I kissed Ezra. The feeling grows in me until it feels like there’s a thunderstorm raging inside me. I can’t think of anything else.

I love Ezra. I love him so much, it scares me.

I love Ezra. I know that I do. It’s been a slower realization, since Ezra told me he has feelings for me—a realization that just as long as Ezra’s been in love with me, I’ve probably been in love with him. The sort of love I have for Ez—it’s the kind of love that fills me so much that I can’t stop thinking about him. It’s the sort of love that makes me wish that I could touch him, hug him, kiss him again. It’s the kind of love where it almost feels like I’m not just Felix, and he’s not just Ezra, but we’re connected in a way that I’ve never been connected with anyone else before, like our spirits have somehow mingled together to create one, and . . . Shit, that kind of love is downright terrifying.

It’s almost like I was looking for the pain and the hurt, because it was easier to live with the idea that, even though I want love, I’m not the kind of person who deserves to be loved.

He looks like a glitter bomb exploded on him.

He pulls me in for a hug, holding me close, his chin nestled on the top of my head. He holds me so close I can feel his heart through his chest, and I know that he can feel mine, too—pumping hard and fast at first, but becoming steadier the longer we stand there together. Before, when Ezra would hug me, I never thought much about it—but now, there’s a pinch of nervousness overshadowed by excitement. Pure joy. Amazement, that I could’ve been with Ezra like this the entire time, if I hadn’t been so oblivious—to both his feelings, and my own. If I hadn’t been so afraid of letting myself feel a real love like this.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks. “God, yeah.” He laughs and leans in, kissing me softly. It feels like we’ve got all of the rest of time to kiss like this, to be together, to love one another.

But he isn’t you, Ez.”

I realized I loved you when I thought I’d lost you.”

He sits up, resting his forehead against mine. “You deserve to be loved,” he tells me, then kisses me. “You deserve all of my love.”

mean, what’s actually embarrassing about kissing? Is it because it’s an act of loving someone so much that there aren’t even any words, so the only thing you can do to express that love is to kiss instead?

Being trans brings me love. It brings me happiness. It gives me power.”

“You’re so fucking cool,” he says, laughing a little. And I’m honestly not sure things could ever get any better than this.

He takes my hand, fingers brushing together, like he never wants to let go, and I don’t want him to, either.