During breakfast, I am unable to swallow anything. All the while, I watch with thoughtful eyes the boy who sits across from me, slowly consuming small amounts of food. I can see that swallowing his breakfast is causing him great effort.
He has no appetite. So do I.
He lifts his gaze and looks at me, catching me watching him the whole time.
- I am not a child, Selena. I eat, by force, but I eat. You should too," says Felix in a depressed voice.
- Should we go out for a walk today? Fresh air will make you feel better.
- You now sound like a retired woman who wants to take her dying husband on one last trip," he says jokingly, although his voice is so sad and filled with suffering that I am unable to recognize this as a text I should laugh at.
- I will ask Lucas for permission.
- He is not my father, so you should ask his permission.
- But I'm keeping an eye on you," a young man who enters the room at the same time speaks up. - It's nice that Selena counts with my opinion, unlike you," adds Lucas.
- You messed with her head, she's just afraid of you. - Felix doesn't let up.
- No, she just found out how seriously ill you are and that you need proper care.
- I know I'm sick, I realize it, you don't have to remind me of it at every turn," he says through clenched teeth.
Lucas sits down next to me, frequenting his breakfast. He looks at his younger brother, who is visibly pale in the face.
- So get a grip and try to fight the damn thing, so I don't have to lock you up in the hospital!
- No one is telling you to take care of me. If you are sick of me, get rid of me from your life.
Brunet angrily puts down the cutlery and looks at his brother with piercing eyes.
- I'm doing everything for you to get out of this mess so that you can recover and live a better life, and you still resent me? With self-pity, you won't get anything done! Do something, start fighting! Show that there are people for whom you want to get better! If only for her! - he shouts, pointing his finger at me.
I am full of admiration. This is the first time I have to admit that Lucas speaks eloquently.
- If it were that easy, I wouldn't need medication, and I especially wouldn't be put in a mental institution. And that's twice.
- Your mother placed you because she no longer had the strength for you. I took you out of the hospital to help you outside. That's the difference, and do you know why Selena did it? - He asks him a question, squinting his eyes.
Felix looks at him dispassionately.
- She had to, because I killed my parents.
Lucas shifts his gaze to me. I look at him with terrified eyes, then shift them to Felix.
- No, I did it because you wanted to commit suicide. I was trying to protect you.
- So why didn't you do it now when I also wanted to kill myself? - he asks me a question. - Surely you didn't act that way because you weren't afraid of me after I killed my parents?
- Felix, you... - I would like to mention that he never killed anyone, that these are just his realistic images — images he has believed in for many years, but Lucas shakes his head for me not to do that. - I knew you did it unintentionally, that's why I was never afraid of you. You're a good person, you have always been.
- You can't blame everything on illness, I'm not a good person at all. If I were, you wouldn't have suffered through me for so many years. I am your poison, Selena, Both for you and for Lucas. For my parents, I was also it.
It hurts my heart every time he blames himself.
- Trust my words and believe that you are not," I declare, looking into his eyes. - I'll take him for a walk this afternoon, all right? - I ask Lucas, shifting my gaze to him. - I will have the phone with me.
- Bottom line.
- Since when are you two so compatible? - Felix squints his eyes.
- We are in agreement only in your case. I still don't like her," claims the brunet.
- In this we also agree, because I don't like you either," I answer him, snorting under my breath. - And even if you take off a star from heaven for me, I will never like you.
- Let's start with the fact that for you, I wouldn't even bother to take a star out of the sky.
I can feel Felix's gaze on me.
- Don't tease him, or I'll get jealous.
*
It's getting to twelve o'clock when I run downstairs to catch up with Lucas. I see that the man is leaving the house, so I don't even put on my shoes and follow him, wanting at all costs to ask him something, now that Felix is not around.
- Wait," I shout, running through the garden in my slippers. He turns to me with a face that looks tired of seeing me. - Can I take you literally a moment?
- I let you go out for a walk with Felix, what more do you want?
- I want to ask you something important, something that has been keeping me up at night since last night.
I can see that he is becoming interested and also slightly concerned about the question I would like to ask him.
- Why do you always have to ask me something at the least opportune moments?
- Because Felix fell asleep after the drugs. I didn't want him to witness the question I want to ask you.
Lucas crinkles his eyebrows.
- So what else is bothering you?
- Will you sit with me for a while? - I ask, pointing with my hand to a bench by the fountain. The brunet rolls his eyes and sits there without a word. I take the seat next to him, nervously rubbing my hands together. - How did you know what I wanted to say at breakfast? You stopped me before I chimed in that Felix didn't kill his parents, that they were still alive.
- I guessed that you already knew. Have you met my mother? Where? Because she clearly has a restraining order against my house and against Felix.
He gasps at me. I look at him with disbelief in my eyes.
- So you know about everything.... So why don't you tell him the truth? Maybe then he would feel better, he would stop blaming himself, he would have no remorse for killing his parents! It seems to me that this has made his condition worse again.
- No, Selena. The psychiatrist forbade me to mention it, because he says that his condition will get even worse. Only then will Felix realize how sick he is and completely lose the will to live. He will think that everything around him is an illusion. Even me or you. He will stop distinguishing between realism and imagination. He cannot know the truth.
- Your mother called me while I was hiding with Felix.
- What - Lucas crinkles his eyebrows.
- She told me that Felix was still sick and that he was a threat to me. Did you meet with her at that time?
- Yes. - Lucas swallows his saliva harder. - She had me lock Felix in a mental hospital because she said he would entirely ruin my life, just like he ruined hers. She had him locked up there before she left for Canada because she said he was a danger to society. While in the hospital, Felix pretended to take medication, he managed to fool the doctor that his condition had improved, that's why he still had hallucinations after he left, including the image that he killed his parents. They never came for him, they had been in Canada for a long time, with no contact with him.
- So why did your mother return from Canada? If she wanted to be free of her son once and for all?
- She had no choice. Felix's father divorced her. He had enough of her and found a younger one. She was left with nothing," he claims in an amused voice. - Karma came back.
- So she lives in the old house? - I ask.
- Yes. - Lucas looks ahead and sighs. - I wonder how she got your number, but I understand her intentions. She wants to move you away from Felix again.
- Why? Since she claims her son is the problem? She ran away from him to Canada, she left him in the hospital, she also told you that he was an issue, and you should lock him up. She completely doesn't care about him, so why does she want to push me away from him?
- You don't understand, Selena. Returning to Los Angeles, she thought she would be Felix's sole caregiver. She didn't expect me to be the one to take care of him. She asked me to leave him because she wanted to take him back to her. Furthermore, she is alone like a finger and wants to cure him in her ways.
- What a toxic, cruel woman! Cure? She wants to destroy him even more!
- That's why I threatened her to stay away from him, to stay out of his sight, because I can remove her at the snap of a finger. She is my mother, but I sincerely hate her when I remember all the past. I may not have been one of the saints myself, but now I want the best for Felix, I'm trying to atone for my past mistakes.
It scares me to think that this woman is in the same city as us. Perhaps she is hanging around somewhere nearby, preparing her claws on us.
- Do you think he will keep his word?
- I hope so, because so far, she hasn't even come close to my house. - The young man stands up and adds in a departing voice. - Take care of him on this walk. Don't go too far away. If anything happens, I'll be on the phone.
*
I enter Felix's bedroom and see that he is having a bad dream. He is writhing restlessly on the bed, mumbling something under his breath. To calm him down, I stroke his face with my hand and it helps.
I watch him with caring eyes, at one point tightening my lips to keep from crying.
Why does he have to go through this hell all these years? How can I help him to feel better? Why is it that just now his mother, who largely brought him to this state, is showing up?
Not only did Felix inherit the disease genetically, the events of his youth worsened his condition.
Lonely tears run down my cheeks, and just then he opens his eyes. With my hands, I quickly wipe my face so he won't see that I'm crying.
- You are sad again because of me, Selena," he says in a hoarse voice, raising himself to a sitting position. - People around me can't be happy.
- Don't say that, Felix. I'm not sad about you.
- Then why did you cry, looking at me? After all, I saw you wiping the tears from your face. I'm not stupid.
And at this point emotions take over me and I uncontrollably burst out crying.
- This is because I want so much to help you recover, to make you happy, but I don't know the way. I am distressed about you.
It is surprising to me when Felix grabs me in his arms and hugs me tightly. With his hand, he strokes my back, trying to calm me down.
- The new medications from the psychiatrist make me feel much better. Besides, your presence has the biggest part in it. I'm glad to have you with me, Selena," he says in a soft voice. - Lucas' words over breakfast today gave me a slight kick. He is right. If I don't want it myself, if I don't decide to fight my disease, nothing else will help me. I have to overcome the demons in myself, fight the damn thing and enjoy life with the people who are close to me, I want to fight for that first and foremost for you. You are my greatest happiness in life, and I would like to show you that I can be strong. My dream is that you will no longer be sad, so that I can make you happy after all the years of suffering I have caused you.
I smile through my tears, feeling the joy of the words he is saying at this moment. I was waiting for this. I wanted him to prove to me that he was able to fight himself — to overcome this cursed disease that was devastating him from the inside out!
- You will overcome this, Felix, and I will help you with it, I promise. Nothing bad will happen to you again in this life. I won't let that happen.