Waiting for Sunday

chapter 17 - speaking without talking

Felix hovers his jacket over Lillie's head, and still the jog to her car leaves them both soaked, Lillie's hair frizzing out of its slicked-back ponytail, Felix's falling in wavy dark clumps into his face.

The rain has slowed to a trickle by the time they've shut themselves inside the car, the air inside warm and humid, even as the city around them is sleek and cold as a fine jewel. "Are you sure?" Felix asks. "I can get a ride—"

"You have a ride. I am your ride," Lillie says. She grabs the steering wheel, squeezes it, releases it again. She's not sure where the feeling comes from, but there is something about this night, something telling her to hold onto it for as long as she can. "Felix, I...I don't wanna say goodbye yet."

A strange look passes Felix's face, and for a second Lillie's convinced she has read him wrong, read everything wrong, and he's going to turn her down. Then he says, holding her gaze. "I don't, either."

So Lillie turns the key in the ignition. Rain a soft blanket misting over the windshield, she pulls out of the lot, and drives toward home.

The stairwell up to Lillie's apartment is an echo chamber of cold mildewy air and the remnant scents of everyone's dinner for that night, clashing and mingling like an international food market. Basil and garlic and hot pepper. Herb butter and shrimp. Soy sauce, gochujang. And something very tomatoey.

Though Felix has been here once before, Lillie still leads the way, their footsteps one after the other like an arrhythmic marching band. "The first time," Lillie says, turning the corner, "at the coffee shop—it was easier to be calm because it seemed like you were doing all the panicking for me."

Felix emits a soft, self-deprecating chuckle. "That's fair enough."

"Besides, it's the storms at night that always scare me," Lillie says, reaching the landing, pausing outside her door. Her hand still trembles a bit where she grips the railing. "Always have, since I was a kid."

Moonlight through the window beside them casts a beam of bluish-white light into the stairwell's dimness. Felix steps into it, and transforms—the light turning the frizzy halo of his damp hair to amber fire, his visible eye to wild honey—and he glows, like something not quite from this world.

"I'm the wrong person to comfort you," Felix says, his voice low. He leans one shoulder against the wall, searching Lillie's face. "You know that, don't you?"

Lillie turns away, her mouth tugging up into a smile as she rifles around in her bag for her keys. "I know," she says, and hesitates, "but you're the person I want. That's what matters to me right now."

He sighs like something important inside of him has just cracked in half. "Lillie—"

She turns the key in the lock and feels it shift in her fingers, the door falling in and a sheaf of warm, artificial heat rushing out. She waves Felix inside, turning to shut the door behind them, and swallows a noise of surprise when she whirls and he's close to her, very close, his eyebrows tense.

"Felix," she whispers. The whispering is involuntary, like Felix's body heat has stolen the rest of her voice. "What is it?"

"Tell me what I should do," Felix says. He closes his eyes, opens them."Tell me what I'm supposed to do when I know this can't end well, for either of us, and yet this is the most hope I've had my whole life. For anything."

Now Lillie's concerned expression mirrors his. She rests her back against the door. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm sorry. I just—can we think about this for a second?" Felix's hand goes to his brow. "I can't even tell you this won't happen again—a storm like that—because I know it will, and I just—I can't control my own heart all the time."

"That's okay; you're human. I can't either." Lillie shakes her head. "But that's the whole point of this, Felix. When we break our curses, that won't matter."

"What if we don't?" Felix says, and his voice breaks, cowering beneath some extra weight Lillie realizes she knows nothing about. "I'm not saying I'm not going to try, but we have to...we have to be logical, here. What if it just isn't possible, Lillie?"

Though it's far from the deluge it was before, Lillie hears the patter of rain start up again outside the kitchen window. She glances at it, the glitter of raindrops against the glass, before she turns back to Felix, who has his hand over his heart, as if trying to soothe it.

"I'm sorry," he says again. "I shouldn't have—I should go."

The only thought that passes Lillie's mind then is that if he goes out that door, she may never see him again. It's dramatic, likely irrational, but it's enough, enough for her to break the lingering, pregnant space between them and take Felix's hand, pulling it away from his chest.

He does what she wants him to. He stops.

"I believe it's possible, but even if it weren't—I think if it was you, I would be okay," Lillie says, before she knows what she's saying at all. "I'm not saying it would be perfect right away, but I would learn, and you would learn. Give us a chance, Felix. To learn each other."

She squeezes his hand, then lets it go. There's water dripping from Felix's hair onto his face; Lillie reaches up, swipes it away beneath her fingers.

"I would've driven you home if you asked, but you came here because you wanted to, didn't you?" Lillie asks. "God, Felix. Isn't that enough?"

An energy hums off his skin, alive and hungry, alive because it is hungry, and he shakes the rain from his hair and kisses her. His hands are around her face, the pressure of his mouth on hers gentle before it intensifies—and something about the way he holds her is so uncertain and clumsy, so freshly unsteady, that it's enough for Lillie to realize it is the first time he's done this.

When the shock wears off, Lillie exhales into his mouth, letting one hand slide through the damp curls of his hair, down his cheek, around his shoulder. With the other she grips his jacket, pulling him closer to her, until they are hip-to-hip.

The taste of sweet wine still lingers on his lips as Lillie catches them between her own. His body is firmer than it looks; he's slender, but beneath the softness of him there is a layer of hardened muscle as he presses against her. Lillie pulls at him again; he half-staggers, steadying himself with an arm against the door, closing Lillie into his shadow.

Felix pulls back, but remains close, leaning over her. His breath shudders as it leaves him and he drags a slow hand down his face.

Lillie, too, is catching her breath, the world flooding back in, so sharp it almost hurts. The rain outside is much more than a patter now. Her wet clothes are still clinging to her, and her hair is in her eyes, and her face is warm, so warm.

She touches her lip, still tingling with the taste of him. "Felix?"

"You look beautiful tonight, Lillie," he says, and Lillie jolts, the words so not what she had been expecting him to say that she forgets what to do with herself. He backs away then, and says again, "I should go."

"Felix, wait. Seriously?"

"I'm sor—"

"Don't say that," Lillie snaps. Felix blinks at her, and she softens her tone."For the love of God, I am just...tired of hearing you say that and not explaining anything. What is going on with you? Really?"

He says nothing, just looks away, his expression all quiet and anguished.

She's not letting him go that easily. "Why did you kiss me, Felix? Can you at least tell me that?"

Finally, he lifts his gaze to her, brushing his hair back from his face. "I need time to think, Lillie," he says. "Thank you for inviting me tonight, but I have to go. Please?"

He looks at her, pleading, and though in the back of her head she knows he's three years older, he looks young at that moment, all the confidence of his years hidden away somewhere.

Lillie curses, softly. She moves out of the way.

"Are you still in this?" she asks him when he has the door open. Then, what she really means: "Can I call you again?"

The smile he gives her is lopsided, rueful. "Of course."

Then, like a ghost or a memory or something else that will haunt her, he's gone.