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"Ellen!"
Felix's voice sounded frantic and panicked even through the crackly receiver. Ellen hoisted her backpack up on her shoulder and readjusted her phone in her grip. She leaned against her locker until it clicked shut.
"What's the issue, Felix?", she tried her very best to sound as disinterested as possible.
There was an edge to his voice that spiked her curiousity. He never really called her unless he was anxious about something. She could hear him breathing fast on the other end of the line.
"Ellen, you need to help me right now, immediately."
The hallways were empty as she walked toward the exit. Her boots thumped heavily against the tiled floor. She hadn't planned on going to class either way, now she could give the teacher a reason that was actually true.
"What could possibly be going on that's this urgent?", she asked, still trying to keep the worry out of her voice.
They had gotten stuck in moments like these too many times for her to count. Felix would spiral into impossible thoughts she couldn't grasp the pattern of, her chest tight with worry, working himself into a frenzy where his breath couldn't catch up with him. She would try to talk him out of it, cold logic against his hot words that clashed and made both their tempers flare.
It had gotten easier to deal with for a while. They understood eachother better than they ever had, hardly needing words to say the things that were truly important. The stressed out feedback loops had come to a near end, only popping up when things got properly out of hand. After the boys' sudden disappearance and reappearance he'd been steadily crumbling down again. Ellen could see it in everything he did, as much as he tried to hide it from her.
She shook herself from her musing. Felix had fallen quiet on his side of the call. She looked around the playground, but he wasn't anywhere to be seen. Ellen felt her stomach drop, her face twisted into a frown.
"I'm by our bench, where are you?"
An indescribable amount of rustling and creaking blew through the speaker. She winced and pulled the phone away from her ear.
"Felix, where the fuck are you?"
She couldn't keep the monotone act up any longer. Her stomach twisted herself in knots as her brain whirred through every gruesome possibility in record time. She cursed herself for ever getting involved with this stupid idiot of a best friend. Of all the people she could have chosen in all of Bremin, this was who she had to pick.
Said best friend was still scrambling around, sounding more and more like a raccoon in distress. The sound of his voice cut in and out, drowned out in part by the racket and the poor connection.
"You're in the woods aren't you," Ellen said, resigning herself to a tumultuous afternoon. "You're calling me from the woods, what the fuck are you doing there? What is wrong with you!"
She tightened her grip on her bag and beelined for the edge of town.
"That's a rhetorical question by the way, don't answer that," she hissed as she hung up the call.
She mourned the loss of her old flip phone, missing the much needed drama of clicking it shut. He deserved the theatrics for freaking her out this badly. She angrily stomped her way down the street, ignoring the insistent buzzing of Felix's calls in her pocket.
--
They met eachother halfway, in the alley by Phoebe's shop. Felix looked awful, he had dark bags under his bloodshot eyes and his hair was even messier than usual. Ellen wasted no time telling him so, plucking a crumpled leaf off his shirt in the process. He barely even registered it.
"I'm so glad you're here," he sounded even worse than he looked, his voice cracked as he spoke. It sounded painful.
Ellen looked him up and down, concern clear in her eyes. She pushed him softly away when he leaned in for a hug. The look on his face made her heart shatter into a million pieces.
"Why were you calling me from the middle of the woods, Felix?"
He floundered, mouth opening and closing like a stranded fish.
"I needed to get away for a while," his voice was quiet, almost embarrassed.
She did lean in for the hug then. They both curled into eachother, like trees growing towards the sun. Neither of them wanted to be the first to let go, desperate for the contact after the two weeks they'd been apart. Felix sometimes looked at her as if she would go up in smoke any second. It didn't help with her steadily growing worries. He'd seemed off for a while now, even before the dissappearance.
Instead she burrowed her head into his shoulder and squeezed him against her so tight it made it hard to breathe.
"Thank you for coming," he whispered into her hair.
She gently released him from the vice grip of her hug and grabbed his hand. It was hot to the touch, oddly so. She held it between both of hers as she lead them to a bench, the physical contact kept the endless churning of her thoughts safely at bay.
"What's got you so wound up?" Ellen asked, tracing patterns onto the back of his hand.
Felix let out a sigh that would have rattled Phoebe's windchimes had it been any heavier. He dragged his free hand across his face, getting his glove caught on his piercings on the way down.
"I'm in the middle of a life threatening emergency right now."
Ellen raised a sceptical eyebrow. Now that the immediate danger of finding Felix had passed, she could go back to her usual, doubtful, self.
"Are you now?"
"Ellen!", he twisted around to look at her without moving the hand in her lap. She giggled as he opened his eyes impossibly wide, portraying the true epitome of shock.
"You're laughing at me! I need you more right now than I have ever needed you in my life and you're laughing at me."
The giggle shifted into a full blown belly laugh. She had to grab the bench to avoid falling off. Felix, meanwhile, was bent almost backwards over the edge, a hand raised dramatically to his forehead.
"Woe is me!", he put on his best British accent as he spoke, it shifted regions with every word, "I am but a poor soul in need of help, and I am being ridiculed!"
Ellen half heartedly shoved at Felix's arm as they both collapsed in a fit of laughter. It took a while to catch their breath, every time they looked eachother in the eyes the giggles started all over again. By the time they'd more or less composed themselves they were both gasping for air, faces flushed red.
Ellen granted herself a moment to relish in the feeling before looking back over at Felix.
"So", she hesitated for only a moment, not wanting to waste the ease their laughing fit had given the conversation, "What's actually going on?"
He didn't look at her, fidgeting instead with the straps on his gloves.
"You're going to laugh at me."
"If you don't tell me I'm just going to be very upset instead. Would you prefer that? It's no trouble, really."
Felix held his hands up in mock surrender, fingers spread wide.
"Okay, fair enough, you got me there", another beat of silence, he coughed.
"It's- The thing is-"
He cleared his throat again. Ellen impatiently drummed her nails against the chipped wood of the bench.
"I think I've got a crush."
She pushed him off the bench. He landed harshly on the ground with a rattling of chains.
"What?!" her voice squeaked as she yelled. "You got me to come the entire way out here, all this worrying, for a dumb crush?! You scared the shit out of me, Ferne. And now you're telling me this life threatening emergency of yours is a crush?!"
She made air quotes around the words as she said them, overemphasising every syllable.
Felix sheepishly peeked his head over the edge of the bench, eyes still wide. He looked a bit like a kicked puppy.
"I know what it sounds like, Ellen, but I promise you it's really a bad thing."
"It better be bad enough to have you trying to hide from me in the bush," she huffed. Despite trying, she couldn't keep a slight fondness out of her voice.
"Something happened to us, while we were lost in those woods," he started hesitantly, "We had to work together to get by. It was strange, but it almost felt easy, like we were meant to be a team. I didn't expect it to be like that when I- when we got lost."
She caught the way he stumbled, but urged him to continue. It got carefully filed away for later in her vault of oddities about Felix Ferne.
"Along the way, I don't know how it happened exactly, but I think we became friends. I'd be sad to lose them now, that's so weird to say, but I've gotten used to having them around. Even though Jake used to bully us and Andy's still kind of a loser, they're good guys."
"And Sam?"
Felix looked at Ellen with shame written all over his face. He knew she'd figure it out before he even told her. He nervously wrung his hands together, taking a shaky breath in.
"Sam's the best of them, to be honest. He's dumb as a bag of bricks but he's kind and he's really trying to be a better person, he apologised for the bullying and everything. And he talked about Mia a lot while we were lost? It made me realise he's not as bad as we thought, far from it. He saved me back there, I think, his optimism. He made me feel like it was possible to get back home, to change, to-"
He broke off his monologue with a frustrated groan, throwing up his hands in defeat.
"Do you see my problem now?! I can't do this! There's no circumstances under which this is okay! I sound like a goddamn schoolgirl."
He buried his head in his arms, face flushed a violent red. Ellen felt her heart swell about five sizes as she watched poor lovestruck Felix scramble for something to distract him.
"I didn't know you could talk so passionately about anything, Shakespeare", she laughed.
He let out another groan and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her back and forth like a ragdoll. Her jewelry clattered and clanged.
"You are not taking this seriously enough, Ellen! What am I supposed to do?", he was almost yelling by now, agitated and embarrassed. The red on his cheeks made no effort to leave anytime soon.
She rolled her eyes at him, a smirk playing on the side of her mouth.
"So let me get this straight. Your issue is you have a crush, and this isn't a good thing because..?"
If Ellen had suggested he dance naked underneath the full moon and perform a spell to summon a demon Felix would have probably looked less shocked.
"It just isn't! I don't have time for this at all. Besides, he's still obsessed with getting Mia back."
Ellen would have felt bad if it had been anyone else, but this was Felix, who she'd known since they were both in diapers. Felix, who she'd had her own debilitating first crush on when she was eleven and barely discovering boys. Felix, who'd bought her pads for her first period when she was on the couch with cramps. Felix who wrote songs and thought too hard about the past and pierced both their ears with a hot needle. Felix, who desperately needed to let loose, even just once
She smacked him hard in the back of the head.
"You're so fucking stupid, Felix."
He sputtered and started to protest, she held up a finger to silence him.
"Have you ever considered, just once in your life, that things might turn out fine?"
"Not really, no."
She grinned wider than was comfortable, her cheeks strained with the effort.
“Well maybe you should start to. I know for a fact Mia doesn't care about Sam anymore. Don't ask me how I know, I just do. And you deserve to have some fun after all you've been through. what's the worst that could happen?
He scoffed at that, swiping at a strand of hair that had fallen into his eyes.
"Do you want me to actually answer that?"
She pushed at his shoulder, spurred on by his lack of outright refusal at her suggestion.
"Come on! You need to promise me you'll try! For me?" She added the last part in a sing-song, batting her eyelashes exaggeratedly.
"Okay then, no promises."
Felix smiled at her, cheeks still red. He held out his hand. Ellen shook it with a determined grin.
”I will try my best."