Chapter Text
The morning air was cool enough to taste, slipping through the open balcony door like a whispered secret. It carried the scent of cut grass and distant rain, the kind of summer morning that feels like a promise before the world remembered to burn.
At 5:30 in the morning Felix and I sat out on the balcony before the heat rose. We sat and chatted for half an hour, telling stupid stories and laughing at old photos and videos of each other when we were younger.
We sat, lent against the wall, shoulders nearly touching, knees drawn up to our chest. The wooden planks beneath us were warm but not yet scorching, the kind of warmth that sleeps slowly, like sunlight through closed eyelids. A half-empty bottle of lemonade sweated condensation onto the ground beside Felix, condensation that would soon evaporate into nothing, just like the way time had a habit of slipping through our fingers when they weren't looking.
"Remember, last summer, when we used to come out here just before the heat got bad?" I asked, my voice was soft but not sad. Just... remembering.
Felix nodded, tilting his head back to rest on the wall and letting the sun kiss his face. "Yeah. Y'know, before everything got... loud?"
I nodded back reassuringly. A pause. The kind of pause that isn't empty, but full of all the things we didn't need to say. The way the world used to be simpler. The way we used to be simpler. We left the circus, what? Almost a year and a quarter ago? We still didn't know quite everything about each other.
Somewhere in the distance, a bird called out, sharp and clear against the hum of the morning. The screen door creaked beside us, though no one came out. It was just us, the balcony, and the quiet before the day had a chance to decide what it wanted to be.
"Hey," Felix called out to me resting his chin on his shoulder gazing at me with soft eyes. "Not to be... A creep or anything, but, what happened before you ended up in the circus?" I flinched at the words he spat out at me, i felt my face loose colour as I turned to look at him. He looked guilty. Like he had said the wrong thing. "I'm sorry. You don't have to tell me if you want to."
"No, no. I can tell you. It's a really messy story you're asking for though." I huffed a nervous laugh, that wasn't really a laugh it was just so I could reassure him that he hadn't said anything wrong. I sighed slowly and turned to look at the warm, wooden floor as I started to fidget with my fingers. Felix turned so that his side was lent against the wall to properly look and watch my every movement. "Around 3 and a half years ago now, I went out. It was Easter morning and I was going to meet my sister's kids, my niece's. It was a really cold morning and I wanted to grab them some Easter Eggs, they loved them. I only went to a small shop around the corner from their house. After I bought them, I bumped into my ex-boyfriend from high school. He stank of cigarettes and alcohol. He turned to take a glance at me and tapped my shoulder. He startled me a little and lazily let out a drunk laugh and half shouted "Heyyyy, Christine, that you?! God it's been a while since I've seen ya!" I waved and let out a small "Yeah. Good to see you" as I turned to look at him. He was an absolute mess, cuts and bruises all over his face and neck. He was wearing a black t-shirt with ripped cuffs and black baggy jeans. A long, raised scar down his right arm and a few hashtag tattoos down his left. I started to walk off, but he followed me. I knew he was drunk, I could smell the alcohol in his breath when he talked to me, I thought that he would eventually stop following me but, no, he didn't. I took a turn down an alley, it was the only route to my sisters house that I knew of. It was a coincidence that I was on the alley he lived on. He shouted out to me "Hey! Chris!" I turned to look at him. "Why don't you come in for a little while, have a coffee?" I waved him off and shouted back to him standing by his back gate, "No thanks, I have somewhere to be." He didn't give one shit. He ran up to me and grabbed my wrist."
I took a deep breath, fighting tears back as if I was in the war. "He took me to the living room, pushed me down onto a half broken blue couch and he sat close next to me. "We should play a game. A game of guessing. If you guess it right, you get a reward." He called out proudly and had a long, ugly grin on his beaten face. "Pick a number from 1-10" He said huffing a breathless laugh at the end. I chose 8. Worst decision of my life." I paused for a few moments.
"Why...?" Felix let out after a few seconds, he looked worried but tried to play it off.
"I don't wanna go into too much detail, I'm not ready for that yet. But, he raped me." My face lost its colour and my voice was shaky, clearly trying my hardest to hold back tears. Felix's eyes grew wide as i turned to look at him, I could tell he noticed my glossy eyes and my pale face. He held out an arm offering a hug. I stared for a few seconds. Then pushed myself into him putting the palm of my hands in my face. I was so embarrassed to speak out loud about it.
"I'm so sorry Chris." He let out a small sigh of relief as if he was waiting for that hug his whole life.
"Afterwards, I walked out crying. Wiping my stupid tears as I walked down the street as he waved me off with a big smile across his face. I ended up going home instead of going to my sisters. I felt like it was all my fault. Like I encouraged him into doing it." I felt a tear run down my cheek, I wiped it away hoping that Felix didn't notice. "A few weeks after all that, I got stuck in the headset."
"Hey, it was not your fault. Don't ever think that. If you ever see him again, call me, text me, shout to me, anything." He wiped away some tears on my face, pulled me in closer as my face met his cheek. "I'm here for you Christine. I'm not just here because I need it. But because I couldn't imagine a life without you in it." I buried my face deep into his chest and sobbed. His words felt so reassuring, it made my heart melt.
"Thank you... I never realised how much I needed you," He pulled back to look at me, our eyes locked. His soft, amber eyes, they held so much emotion in them. "really. I mean it Fee." Felix lifted his hand to my cheek moving a hair behind my ear and slowly brushed his hand down to my neck and pulled me into a kiss. His lips were cold, but not the bad type of cold, like the refreshing kind of cold. I let my eyes close and I melted into the kiss, smiling against his mouth. The sun was just about peeking out behind two buildings that both met at the height of our apartment. Shining a bright warm light between us. I pulled back and looked him deep in his eyes, as I quickly fell into him and wrapped my arms around his neck, he flinched. After a moment he wrapped him around me as if he was protecting me from anything bad in this world. We sat there and cuddled for a little in the cold, breezy air.
After a while, we decided to go back into the living room and Felix went to make us something to eat. The smell of sizzling bacon and buttery eggs drifted into the living room, wrapping around me like a warm, comforting blanket. As I exhaled, I relaxed my shoulders and curled up deeper into the couch. The TV's glow flickered across the room, casting soft shadows on the walls, but my attention wasn't on the screen. It was on Felix, humming to himself in the kitchen, the click of pans and the occasional rustle of the spatula punctuating the quiet morning.
I loved this part of our 'routine'. The way he moved with effortless confidence, flipping the eggs just as I liked them. Runny yolks would burst with the first cut of the fork. The bacon, crispy at the edges but still tender enough to melt in my mouth. It was stupid, maybe, how such a simple thing could feel like a hug for my soul.
I felt a smile tug at my lips as I heard Felix whistling under his breath, the tune just barely audible over the clatter. I wondered if he actually knew how much this small act of care meant to me. How it made my chest tighten with something I couldn't quite name, gratitude, maybe, or affection. Or both. Who knows?
The TV droned on, some reality show I wasn't really watching, but I didn't care. At all. I was exactly where I wanted to be. Right here, in this moment, with Felix cooking for me everyday we spent together.
The first golden rays of sunrise spilled through the balcony door, painting stripes of light across the floor. I barely noticed. My eyes, glued onto the TV, though I wasn't really watching. The smell of bacon and eggs still lingered in the air, mingling with the faintest hint of coffee from before we sat out on the balcony.
Then, the floor boards creaked with slow footsteps.
Felix stepped into the living room, balancing two plates in this hands. His dark brown hair was the intentional kind of messy style he liked. The warm, orange sun light caught the edges of the plates, making the food look even more delicious.
"Breakfast is served," he announced, grinning as he crossed the room his voice was rough from sleep, but warm, like the sun just beginning to peek over the rooftops outside.
My breath hitched. I hadn't heard him plating the food, let alone walking in. One look at the plates told me he'd remembered everything, my eggs with the yolk still runny, hid own slightly firmer, the bacon arranged in neat piles beside buttery toast. A sprinkle of salt and pepper on the side, just how I liked it.
I sat up straighter, my heart doing that stupid little flip it always did when he did things like this. Small things. Thoughtful things.
Felix plopped down beside me, handing me a plate. "Thought we could eat together," he said, nudging my shoulder with his "before the world wakes up. Y'know, since you're always up at like 8 in the morning."
"That's because I go to work at 9 and leave at 5. It's not fun reading words and putting files into other files for 9 hours a day." I nudged him back.
I took the plate from his hand, my fingers brushing against his for a split second. The food smelled incredible, but I couldn't look away from him. From the way the sunlight caught the stubble on his jaw, or how his eyes crinkled at the corners whenever he smiled.
"Thanks," I murmured, suddenly aware of how quiet it was. How perfect.
The morning sun filtered through the window, slowly baking the small living room as the savory smell of bacon and eggs began to turn heavy and suffocating in the rising heat. I was sitting cross-legged on the couch beside Felix, the empty plates between them felt like a minefield I had barely managed to cross.
I had given him pieces of my past, just enough to satisfy his questions, enough to make him smile, but the heaviest truth remained lodged like glass in my throat. I couldn't bring myself to confess that before we shared trauma in the circus together, I had intentionally hurt myself simply because I believed I deserved the pain.
I caught myself staring at his profile in the bright, unforgiving daylight, a cold terror gripped my chest. I knew that if I let that final, broken piece of my identity slip out, the warmth in his eyes would vanish, he would see me as entirely unfix-able, and he would pack his bags and leave me behind all over again. That thought terrified me.
I swallowed hard, my throat tight against the sudden spike of heat in the room. I shifted on the curtains, intentionally closing the small physical gap between us until my shoulder brushed his, anchoring myself to his solid, familiar presence. I took a slow, deliberate breath, letting my hands rest flat on my knees to stop them from shaking, while mentally replaying the words I had rehearsed a thousand times in the dark. Staring at my own intertwined fingers, I cleared the nervous gravel from my throat and prepared to shatter the fragile peace of our morning.
Felix's amber eyes narrowed slightly as he caught the sudden stiffness in my posture, turning his full attention to me. "Are you alright?" he asked, his voice soft but perceptive.
I forced a fragile nod and whispered, "Yes," the lie tasted like ash in my mouth before I quickly hurried past it, desperate to speak before my courage failed. "I was thinking about Easter day." I started, my voice sounding detached, as if I were narrating someone else's life.
I told him about "The drive home in my car, was long and suffocating. My tears blurring the windshield after my ex-boyfriend raped me, and how heavy silence of the driveway offered no comfort. And no one understood how I sat in my room that night, entirely convinced that I had provoked him, and decided right then that I deserved to feel pain. That was when I first started to self-harm, when I hid the box cutter and the multiple sharpener blades in my bathroom drawer."
The sudden silence in the room was deafening, but Felix didn't pull away. Instead, he moved with agonizing slowness, extending his hand towards me but stopping just short of my skin, his striking amber eyes locked onto mine with a look of stunned shock and a silent pleading question. Asking 'Can I touch you?' The profound sorrow in his gaze spoke a thousand apologies for the horrors she had endured alone.
My breath hitched, the old panic flaring up as I choked out the question that had been poisoning my mind, "You're not mad at me? You're not going to leave?"
Felix didn't hesitate for a single second. His face softened instantly, and a fierce, immediate "No." left his lips as his arms wrapped around me securely against his chest. I knew Felix could feel the rigid, trembling tension in my shoulders as I desperately bit my lip, trying to force the tears back and lock my grief away.
He pulled back just enough to look at my face, his amber eyes shining with a deep, understanding warmth that seemed to melt her defenses. "You don't have to hold it in anymore Chris," he murmured, his thumb gently brushing against my cheek. "It's okay to cry. I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere."
The dam finally broke, and I buried her face into Felix's chest, my body shaking violently as heavy, agonizing sobs tore out of me. Felix held me tightly, rocking me slightly as he began to whisper like he was trying hard to not wake anyone up even though it was just us, "You didn't provoke him, Chris. You did absolutely nothing wrong. He was just a dickhead. And none of it was your fault."
As the morning heat continued to rise, baking the room and making their skin sticky where they pressed together. I only gripped his shirt tighter. I didn't give a shit about the stifling air, I never wanted to let go of the safest place I had ever known.
When our breathing finally slowed and we reluctantly pulled apart. Felix reached out, cupping my face to kiss me slowly, tenderly, and with a deep, reassuring affection that grounded me completely. Peering into my tear-strained face with his warm amber eyes, he kept his hands gently on my arms and asked softly, "Do you need anything? More food, a blanket, another hug? Anything at all, just tell me."
The heat of the day peaked around two o'clock, baking the pavement outside as my phone buzzed on the coffee table. I picked it up my eyes scanning the five-person group chat.
"Emily<3: Hey guys!! It's boiling today. Anyone wanna go swimming at the outdoor pool???"
My stomach dropped into a cold, hard knot. Absolute panic seized my chest. I looked down at my arms, tracing the jagged, pale scars and the fresher cuts marring my skin. Disgust twisted inside me. I couldn't go. There was no way I could let the others see what I had done to myself.
Beside me, Felix saw my face pale. He leaned in, his amber eyes full of the steady warmth. "Hey," he murmured, rubbing my shoulder. "It's gonna be okay, Pom. You don't have to hide from them."
"I can't Felix," I whispered, my voice trembling. "I'll just... I'll tell them I'll come, but I'll sit up in the cafe and watch. I just don't want them looking at me."
Felix frowned, his finger already flying across his phone screen. "I'm just going to tell the group that we aren't coming."
"No!" I caught his wrist, stopping him. I didn't want to ruin his day any more than I already have, and I didn't want to arouse suspicion from Nick, Em or Catherine. "Don't say no. I'll go. Just... say yes."
He paused, staring at his screen, before slowly deleting his half-written text. He looked up at me, his eyes searching through mine. "Are you absolutely sure?"
"Yeah." I lied forcing a nod.
He typed out a quick agreement to the group, but the moment I walked into my bedroom to get changed, the walls felt like they were crashing in on me. I collapsed against the edge of my bed, my breathing turning shallow and ragged. A full-blown panic attack ripping through me. What will they think? The voice in my head screamed. They're going to look at me like I'm a monster, a selfish monster. They're going to be disgusted. I gripped at my hair, sobbing silently in the dark, spiralling so deep I could barely feel my own hands shaking.
Somehow, I pulled myself together and threw a plain brown, long sleeved top with some blue denim shorts over my fully red, one piece swim suit. Felix and I went down the elevator to get into my car. At 3:00 pm, we set off to pick up Catherine, since she didn't have a car or a license. When we pulled up outside her house, the dread returned tenfold. I couldn't move. I froze, my face turned pale as I stared down at the road in front of us.
The swimming pool was only 10 minutes away from Catherine's house. My hand froze on the door handle, Felix turned off the ignition. We sat there in the sweltering car for a few minutes, the silence heavy. "Christine, look at me," he said softly. I turned to him, tears pricking my eyes. "You're going to be okay. They love you. They are not going to judge you, I promise."
It took five long minutes of breathing through the terror, anchored by Felix's hand in mine, before I finally found the courage to step out of the car and walk up to the swimming pool door.
Later, the bright blue water of the pool did nothing to cool the burning nervousness in my chest. Stepping out onto the pool deck felt like walking a tightrope. I tried to shield my arm, but there was nowhere to hide. As we started swimming, I caught them. Nick and Em, who were floating close together, and Catherine all tried so hard to look away, to be polite. But they couldn't help it. Every now and then,their eyes would accidentally drift to my arm, catching a small glance.
I braced myself for the judgement, for the disgust I felt for myself. But when I looked at their faces, I didn't see revulsion. There was only a profound, heavy sorrow in their eyes, and a quiet, aching guilt, as if they were wishing they had known how to stop me from ever starting.
The cool pool water did nothing to soothe the frantic racing of my pulse, but Felix never left my side. He swam close, his broad shoulders acting as a physical shield between me and the rest of the world. Whenever Nick, Em or Catherine floated a little too near, Felix would shift his body, blocking their line of sight and giving me a safe pocket of space to breathe.
Eventually, the tense silence broke. Nicky swam over to us with slow, non-threatening movements, making sure to keep their hands visible above the water. They didn't stare at my arms, instead they looked straight into my eyes with an expression so soft it made my throat ache. "Hey, Christine," Nick murmured, their voice completely devoid of the judgement I had spent hours fearing. "We're really glad you came today. If you get tired or just want to grab a drink at the cafe, let us know, okay?" Emily nodded warmly from a few feet away, offering a gentle, supportive smile that confirmed Nicky spoke for both of them. At that moment, the suffocating weight of my panic finally began to lift.
The drive home after the swim was quiet, enveloped in a soft, comforting aura that felt like a warm blanket. After we dropped Catherine off at her house, the remaining drive back to our apartment took only ten minutes. The afternoon sun was starting to dip, casting long, golden shadows across the dashboard.
Felix drove with one hand on the steering wheel, using his other to firmly hold my hand across the center console. He rubbed his thumb over my knuckles, his voice a steady, grounding anchor in the quiet car.
"I told you it was going to go alright, didn't I?" he said softly, glancing over at me with those warm eyes. "They love you Chrissy, not as much as me though," He teased, making me huff out a small giggle. He carried on, "They would never judge you for what you've been through. Did you see their faces? It wasn't disgust on their faces. They just felt so much sorrow and guilt because they love you, and they wish they could have been there to help you carry that pain." I looked out of the window as the familiar streets rolled by, finally letting out the breath I felt like I'd been holding for years, knowing that for the first time, I was completely safe.