His eyes began to water. “How did you know?” he asked quietly.
My head tilted a little. “Most of the world may not see that pain you bury within yourself, tucked away in the darkness, but I do. I see it, not because you told me, but because I canfeelit.” I placed his hand across my chest and positioned it over my heart. “My pain recognizes your pain. And I feel exactly how you feel. But know that you don’t have to hide from me. I see you, Felix.”
He pulled me close, hugging me tight with his hands around my waist. I stroked his hair and wrapped my arms around hisneck. “I’m sorry about your parents,” he mumbled. “You were so young when they died.”
I stared at the wall behind the couch. “I was.” I blinked. “How old were you when you lost your mom?”
Felix hesitated. “Seven…My father was back in Cuba for the family business while we stayed behind.” He sniffled. “I had no idea how deep the stain ran…how twisted the limbs of our rotten family roots had become…” He struggled to speak, fighting back tears. “One minute we were the happiest we could be, and the next…the next thing I remember is the sound of my mother screaming…crying out for me through gunshots.” He squeezed me tighter, trembling. “I hear those same shots every night, taunting me, replaying over and over again in my mind until I wake up screaming, crying out to save her! But no matter how many times I replay it in my sleep, I never get to wake up to her singing. She’s gone. She’s gone.” His voice dissolved into my body as I held him as tight as I could, trying to comfort him.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.” Felix sat there in my arms, letting go of what felt like years’ worth of trauma and pain, tucked away to be forgotten. Something I was all too familiar with myself. And as I held him close, I knew I needed to protect him.
As long as I live, no one else will make you suffer the way you have.
Felix eventually calmed down, wiping his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he apologized.
My hand brushed his hair back as I looked into his emerald eyes and smiled. “You have nothing to apologize for.” He pulled me gently towards him and kissed me with such a delicate touch.
“Areyouokay?” he asked. I nodded. “Are you sure?”
I pressed my forehead against his. “Yeah. I accepted my parents’ fate long ago…I grieved their loss, but acknowledged the truth of my situation.”
“Which was what?”
I leaned back, my eyes drawn back to the scar along his temple. “That in order to survive this fucked up world, you need to realize there’s little good in it. Everyone’s just out for themselves, using each other to get further in a life that only ends with all of us buried deep in the dirt. We’re taught to live each day to the fullest…but what if our best days are filled with lies and betrayal? Do we keep living, telling ourselves it can only get better? Or do we stop and face the demons who haunt us, forcing them to step into the light?”
Felix pondered for a moment. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard it described in such a way. I’m assuming your life hasn’t been the greatest?—”
“Oh, no! It’s been pretty decent…considering.” He looked at me, confused as I continued, “My childhood was pretty simple, just my parents and me in a little trailer in the middle of nowhere. I learned to hunt, fish, raise chickens, change a tire, shoot a gun—all the things a typical country bumpkin would know. My parents wanted me to have as much knowledge as possible to give me a real fighting chance in life. But my true passion came when I began ballet.”
He seemed shocked by that. “You danced?”
“Still do. Though, I do more than just ballet.” My eyes flicked towards the stripper pole. “But my mom noticed my knack for it when I was three or four…She put me in a local class where I thrived. I spent so much of my childhood dancing, pushing myself to perform at a higher level. Ballet was my favorite back then, so much so that my parents hired a private instructor to guide me through the bright future they saw for me.” My smile fell. “Little did they know that very choice would seal their fate.”
Old, ancient feelings of dread crept up my back.
“At first…” I struggled to speak. “I didn’t know things were wrong…he would adjust my posture or stance, placing his handsalong my body under the guise it was purely to instruct me. But then, over time, things amplified until it was almost ritualistic for my instructor to abuse me.” I paused, slumping forward until my head was resting along his chest. I spoke quietly, my breath hitting his skin as he listened. “I wanted to stop him…to end whatever sick, moldy thing had grown between us, but I didn’t want to disappoint my parents.” A tear rolled from my eye and landed on him. “My parents didn’t have much. My dad was a security guard at the local mall and my mother worked part-time at a little diner in town. We weren’t rich, but we were happy. They used everything they had saved throughout their marriage to afford dance classes and my private lessons. If I said I wanted to stop, then it would’ve meant I spent all that time wasting their money. Money they worked so hard to save. What kind of a daughter would I be if I let their sacrifices go to waste over something so twisted?”
The tears kept coming and I was unable to stop them. “So, I kept my mouth shut…for years. Hoping he’d stop and things could go back to the way they were…the way they were supposed to be. But they didn’t. Instead, they only got worse.” I lifted my chin, resting it on his hand. “One morning, when my parents had left for work, my instructor came over. Things started out as they usually did—him having me stretch and do a few small exercises to warm my muscles up—but within a second he went from being on one side of the room to standing behind me, his hands wrapped around me.” I tried to keep my composure. “And next thing I know, my dad’s shouting from the front door, screaming at this man as my mother tried to silence her cries. The two argued while she tried to reach me, but my instructor pushed them away, and in the heat of the moment, he snatched my daddy’s gun and shot them both…right in front of me.”
I sat there, silent as I felt the wave of that dark secret begin to pull me down toward the depths of my trauma. The twistedpain I felt in my gut…the ache my heart suffered at the simple memory…it was unbearable.
“No one should have to experience the unimaginable suffering of losing the ones you love most in front of you while you sit there useless and helpless. It’s too much…It nearly killed me.”
And I don’t know if I could ever survive such tragic heartbreak again.
Felix gently cupped my face, wiping my tears away with his thumbs. My eyes slowly raised as I looked back at him, knowing his pain was the same as mine.
“Come here.” He pulled me close and kissed the top of my head.
My fingers traced the tattoo along his chest, feeling the slightly raised ridges. “What does this symbol mean?” I asked softly.
Without even moving, Felix responded, “It’s from my unit.”
His unit?
“I used to be in the military. Spent many years overseas.”
That makes sense.
