“You think?”
“I know. I told Benji I was going to see you and he asked me to make sure you were coming tomorrow. And to tell you he’s been practicing really hard all week. Which is true.”
“And you’re just telling me now?” Felix asked, hand fluttering to his chest in mock scandal. “When that sweet little boy asked you to?”
“I know you know,” I said. “You told him to, and you know he’d do anything you told him to. Up to and including jumping off a cliff.”
Felix looked away from me again. Slower, this time, staring off into the middle distance between the couch and the coffee table, still pushed out of the way.
I got up and pulled it back to where it had been, not wanting to leave him to do it.
“You should get home to him,” Felix spoke up just as I was about to sit down again. “Minimize the stress before tomorrow.”
Oh.
“Oh,” I said aloud. “Umm. I guess? If that’s what you…”
Felix didn’t want me here anymore. I didn’t want to force him to say it directly. I could take a hint.
“Tell him… tell him whatever happens tomorrow, I know he’s done everything I asked of him. He’s a good kid, Coop,” Felix added, looking at me again.
“I’m lucky to have him.” I shrugged. It was true. I’d never really thought about kids—I’d been happy with the idea of being the uncle who turned up now and again with a cool birthday present,who let him sneak his first sip of beer without telling his mom, who he could come to when he was fifteen and confused about whatever and needed someone he could trust.
I wouldn’t have traded him for anything now. He was a good kid, and it was an honor and a privilege to know him. To raise him. If I’d ever wanted anything else out of life, I couldn’t remember why now.
“Goes both ways,” Felix said. “Go tuck him in. Tell him he’s gonna kill it tomorrow. Be there when he gets up.”
I nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
Felix’s smile made something in the pit of my stomach twist. I didn’t like it atall.
He was being clear, though. He didn’t want me here right now. So I’d just have to let him be.
“Night, Coop,” he said. “Sorry for not letting you out.”
“I know the way,” I said, heading for the top of the stairs with my heart sinking to somewhere around my knees. “Night, Felix.”
19
FELIX
I’d hadmy first ever panic attack ten weeks after I’d broken my leg, the first time I’d been walking outside in the street. I’d come to an intersection I had to cross, seen a vision of a car failing to stop, and the next thing I knew a total stranger was making me take small sips of water and offering to call someone for me. I still remembered her Barbie pink stiletto nails and matching lipstick.
This morning, I was on the verge of my fourth ever panic attack.
The bus hadn’t come. It was twenty minutes late. The competition started in two and a half hours, and we were two hours’ drive away. I’d checked half a dozen times already, willing the timing to change.
It hadn’t.
If we were late to the competition, they wouldn’t let us register. All this would’ve been for nothing. Amelia would go out of business, my kids wouldn’t even get thechanceat an early opportunity to make their careers, and I?—
“Felix.”
A familiar hand landed on my shoulder. Cooper squeezed, just hard enough for me to feel. In the cool breeze of the overcast morning, the warmth of it came as enough of a shock to interrupt my spiraling.
Deep breaths. Name five things I can see.
The empty space where the bus should have been. A dozen assorted parents looking to me to solve this problem.
