When the Leaves Fall [bxp] ✔

9

It Takes Time

Felix wanted to throw his notebook across the room. He'd been staring at the words on the page for a solid week, and he still hadn't added anything. All that was there was the same verse, and it was like there was nothing that would be able to be as good as the first verse. Every word that had come to his head hadn't been as good as those first four lines, and he couldn't figure out what to do about it. He knew that this song would take him a while to write. Not because the music was difficult to work with, or because he didn't know how singing it was supposed to sound. It was because of that damned first verse. For once, no matter how many times Felix read it, the words still sounded good, and Felix was proud of what he had written. But knowing that it wasn't that bad didn't stop it from being frustrating.

It wasn't like he could ask anyone, because no one knew that this book of lyrics existed. All they knew was that Felix could play The Story by Conan Gray on the piano, but refused to play in front of anyone. His mom and mama had seen him grab sheet music for Alec Benjamin songs, the sound of the music sometimes filling the house when he forgot to close the door to his bedroom, but even Dani hadn't ever heard any of his original stuff.

He didn't know why he was so fucking terrified to show anyone anything that he'd written. But at the same time, he knew exactly why. The music and the lyrics were like a little piece of his heart, and if anyone he showed it to didn't like it... It would be like opening his heart to the world only for it to be crushed. He knew his friends wouldn't say anything horrible about his stuff. He knew they'd say it was awesome even if they hated it. But he was scared that they would do exactly that. Hate it. He'd debated just pulling out the songbook and playing a song for them. Any song. But he still hadn't gotten the courage to do it. He knew he wasn't half bad. He knew some of his stuff was actually good. But he couldn't convince himself that it was good enough.

Felix forced himself to take a deep breath and put the book down gently on the piano. He didn't want any of the pages to get damaged and throwing it across the room wouldn't do him any good. Maybe he should take a break. Not play anything for a few days, and just focus on his homework and his friends and family and stuff. He closed the lid to the piano and just fell face down on his bed. Even if he'd stepped away from the piano all he could think about was the notes spread through the pages, and the lyrics written between the lines. He squeezed his eyes shut. Maybe listening to his comfort playlist would drown out the thoughts that he had in his head. Alec Benjamin's Must've Been the Wind started coming through the speakers of his phone, and he started singing along to it. And before Felix knew it he lost himself from one song to the next, singing along to every one of them and letting the world melt away.

----

    "What am I supposed to do?" Tarla groaned covering her face with a pillow. She'd sent a text on the group chat saying she needed everyone to give her advice, and in-person would be better. So that's why Felix had found himself sitting cross-legged on the floor of Quinn's room with his friends all sitting in random spots.

    "Well do you like her?" Aeron asked, tilting his head.

    "No, Yes, Maybe, I don't know!" Tarla took the pillow down to answer but then ended up just covering her face with her hair.

    "Well then spend some time with her ya know. Figure out how you feel about her," Jupiter said, looking up from their game of Candy Crush.

    "Yeah..." Tarla said slowly. "Ok, I won't say yes for a date or anything, but I'll tell her that we should hang out, get to know each other, before getting into anything."

"See now that wasn't so hard to figure out, was it," Quinn said, smiling.

"Mmmhmm," was all Tarla mumbled. Tarla called all of them over for the predicament about a girl she'd started talking to. Felix had an inkling that knew who the girl was. It was probably that girl from the cafeteria, that always seemed to sneak glances at Tarla. But if Tarla didn't wanna say who it was, then that was up to her. Who knew that the giant world-ending problem that Tarla had, would be solved in about thirty seconds of conversation.

"Now that that's settled, Aeron's turning seventeen in 5 days, what are we doing?" Felix asked, shifting his legs.

"Listen guys, you don't have to do anyth-"

"Shut up Aeron," Tarla said, cutting him off. Felix felt himself grin and glanced at Jupiter to see an amused smile on their face. Aeron opened their mouth to speak, but Tarla just put a finger to her lips making Aeron grumble something and lean back in the chair he was sitting in and stare at the ceiling.

"I mean if we talk about it in front of Aeron it won't be a surprise," Quinn said slowly.

"Yeah Aeron you should leave," Wren added, and soon all of them were laughing except for a grumbling Aeron, who stood up. His lips twitched, as he deepened his frown to keep himself from smiling.

"You don't have to go if you don't want to!" Quinn said, but she was laughing as she said it, so Aeron just waved his hand, brushing her off, and moved towards the door.

"Bye!" Nils called after them, as they left the room. 

"Ok plans," Felix said, crossing his legs again.

"The big one seven," Wren said, tilting his head.

"We could do the whole balloon thing, cake, surprise party, which by now isn't really a surprise anymore." Quinn shifted on her bed, hugging a pillow.

"I mean we do that every year, and it's awesome, but I don't know, I think we should do something different, something exciting!" Wren sat up as he talked.

"But what could we do?" Felix asked, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Well I mean I've never done this before," Jupiter started, hesitantly. "But maybe you get like all of their favorite things, stuff he likes to do, and do a bunch of stuff you usually don't."

"Ooh, we could rent a bunch of romcoms!" Quinn said excitedly, dropping the pillow next to her unceremoniously.

"And have a chocolate fountain!" Felix added, grinning. "With like strawberries and shit."

"We could make it science-themed," Nils giggled. "Also the romcoms thing, you guys might not watch a lot of them together, but the number of romcoms I've watched..."

"Trust me we believe it," Tarla smirked.  Soon all of them started laughing. Whenever they decided to watch a movie together, the only thing Aeron had ever recommended was romcoms, and everyone knew it.

"For the science theme, no chem, he hates chem," Felix added once they'd all sobered up. "We're getting their siblings involved right? Cause you guys know how close Aeron is to them and well his entire family."

"Yeah, they'd probably have an idea on where to have the party, and what else we could do," Wren said, sitting up.

"I'll call them," Tarla said, smiling, her eyes lighting up. Tarla and one of Aeron's brothers were pretty close friends, and although the two of them didn't hang out super awesome, Felix knew that Tarla did enjoy spending time with him.

"Ok, if that's everything for now, Wren c'mon let's go for that date," Quinn said, standing up.

"Oooh!" Tarla sang, making Felix grin.

"You've literally helped us plan dates," Wren said, deadpan. Quinn's straight face crumbled, and she just grinned.

"Okay, anyway," Quinn said, grabbing Wren's hand, and moving towards the door.

"Bye guys!" Wren called as the two of them left the room, sending a wave back to the others.

"I'm gonna go too," Nils said, waving at the three of them still in the room. "Gonna find Aeron."

"Well if all of you are leaving, and Tarla's gonna be talking to Aeron's siblings, we should leave too," Jupiter said, smirking at Felix. Felix felt his heart race as he saw their tilted head and sparkling eyes.

He faltered for a second before mumbling, "Uh-huh, yep, we should." The sound of Jupiter's laugh wrung in his head, and he didn't want to stop thinking about how it sounded. So Felix messed with his car keys in his pocket and followed Jupiter out the door.