29 anything feel better? The top is a long way to fall from, but rock-bottom and I are old friends; there is room for my ghosts there, but not here. Had I been waiting for them to leave of their own accord? Or had I been desperately hanging on to them? Maybe the locks of my hair kept a fragment of a fourth-grade boy, when he would rather depart to the past in peace. Perhaps the reason my first boyfriend was everywhere and nowhere is because he doesn’t belong anywhere in me—an obvious fact if I thought about it. Was Felix a ghost? Would he become one? Just then, a drunk girl stumbled into the bathroom on the phone with one of her friends. She was crying and she kept murmuring that she hated him. She shut herself in the handicapped stall, barely registering my presence. I used to be that girl, but I wasn’t her anymore. I turned off the water in the sink and dried my eyes, wiping away the mascara that had smudged as best as I could. I faced myself in the mirror again. As I searched myself, I saw that all of the ghosts could be drowned out. Felix had brushed Andrew’s hair and traced Marie’s tattoos. He had held Justin’s hands and kissed Henry’s knee when I had fallen off of his couch. Despite this, I saw only myself in the mirror, not him. Yes, Felix made me feel more myself than I had felt in years, and more and more like the version of me that I could become if I tried hard enough. He made me want to try. He brought out the best in me with his stupid girly drinks and his quiet understanding, his soft smile and his boundless optimism. I straightened my spine and pushed open the door, moving out of the bathroom and back into the chaos of the club. Felix was waiting right where I had left him, and in the purple, fluorescent light he practically glowed. “What took you so long? Are you ok? I didn’t say anything to upset you, did I?” I smiled softly at him and took his sweet face in my hands. It was my turn now, and my tongue had finally thawed enough to say what I needed to say—what he deserved to hear. Just three words.
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