Felix Ever After(14)

He lets out a barking laugh. “Special friend? Felix, you’re with me twenty-four seven. When am I supposed to meet this special friend?”

I shrug. “Or what if you get tired of me, but don’t know how to say it?”

Ezra rolls his eyes, grabs my phone, and turns it to Spotify. The Fleetwood Mac station is still on, so “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum begins to play. Ezra gets up and starts pirouetting around and around—he’s been classically trained since the age of five. I pick off a couple leaves of the weed, grab some of the paper that’s waiting beside the TV, and roll while Ezra kicks his leg all the way up to the beat, toes pointed and all. The lighter is at the edge of the counter in the kitchen—I click, click, until the paper sizzles and smoke wisps into the air. Ezra slides to my side, and I pop the bud in his mouth. I yank open the window that faces an empty alleyway, and we crawl out onto the fire escape, legs dangling. The sun is starting to make its way down. The sky’s darker, purple hues off on the horizon.

“You ever wonder,” he says, squinting up at the sky, “why we’re here?”

Oh, God. High philosophical Ezra is the literal worst. “There’s no reason why we’re here. We just exist. That’s all. That’s it.”

“No. Not like that.” He screws up his face in frustration. “Why here, in Brooklyn? Why this program? Why art?”

“Uh—”

“Why any of this?” he asks a little too aggressively. “Seriously, Felix. Why not science, or business, or—literally anything else?”

“I think you’re a little young to be having a midlife crisis, Ez.”

“What if this is my midlife crisis?” he demands. “What if I’m going to die in exactly seventeen years and I’ve wasted my life on this, on art and painting and fashion and all this creative bullshit, because I thought it was my passion, when really, I’m meant to be doing something else?”

There’s a spark of frustration in my chest. Ezra gets to have a midlife crisis at the age of seventeen because of his privilege and his family’s wealth. Me? I have to figure out what I want to do and work my ass off for it if I want to have a chance of any sort of future. I’m never going to have anything handed to me, the way that things are just handed to Ezra. But I try to push those feelings aside—and maybe it’s the weed, but Ezra’s paranoia sinks into me, too. I mean, who’s to say that I shouldn’t be an astrophysicist? Or that I’m not actually the next Bach?

“You know those people who get into car accidents?” I ask Ezra. “Or who get hit by lightning? And then they’re in a coma or something, but when they wake up, they’ve become this genius in something they’d never even tried before?”

Ezra stares at the sky. “No.”

I frown at him. “Really? Well—I mean, I guess I’m just saying the same thing as you.”

“Okay.” He turns his head to me. “Want me to run you over with a car?”

“Fuck off, Ezra.”

“No, really, I can do that. I mean, if you want me to.”

I try not to laugh. “You don’t even have a car.”

“I will absolutely steal a car so that I can run you over with it.”

I shove his arm, and he flashes a grin at me. “Maybe you should. Then I could have a chance at being talented at something.”

He groans and leans on me. “What the hell are you talking about? You’re talented.”

“I’m—I don’t know, someone with a smidgen of talent, who decided that this is what I wanted to do when I was a kid, and then decided to practice my ass off for ten years, just to get to where I am now. Which is nowhere in comparison to some people.”

“To what people?”

“To you,” I say—and I mean it. Ezra’s artwork is always great. He’s instantly a genius in anything he decides to try. First, it was watercolor; the next year, sculpture. Right now, he’s focusing on fashion and taught himself how to stitch and make patterns in a single summer. Ezra’s so good that he didn’t even bother to sign up for the summer sewing workshop; he decided to just follow me into acrylics so that we could hang out during class.

“Moi?” Ezra says, pretending to be flattered.

I hesitate. “And people like Declan Keane.”

He lets out a heavy sigh. “Are we really going to talk about him right now?”

“No,” I say. “But I mean—both of you have this natural talent, and it’s like . . . I don’t know, sometimes I wonder if talent comes from experience, you know?”

“I really, really don’t,” Ezra says, passing me the weed. “You need to relax, Felix. You’re always second-guessing yourself. Your shit is good.”

“You have to say that because you’re my friend.”

“No, not really. As your friend, it’s my job to be honest. For example, that particular Beatles tank top,” he says, waving a hand at my shirt, which has portraits of the four members. “Do you even like the Beatles?”

I elbow him. “Sometimes.”

He takes the weed back, sucking in one long draw, staring down at the street below.

“I haven’t—” I hesitate, because it’s a little embarrassing to say, but I say it anyway. “I’ve never been in love. Which is ironic, because, you know—my last name and everything.”