These Little Wonders

Felix woke up the next morning to the soft blue light that peeked through her window in the breaking dawn.

The empty opaque thoughts of first waking slowly began to focus, clearing into painful images of the day before.

If it didn’t hurt already, the realization that hit her like an eighteen-wheeler, followed by a couple stampeding elephants, that there was something missing from the picture.

Brendon.

It was like a hangover without the fun of the night before, the feeling of being an anchorless balloon when she understood that side of her bed was cold for a reason.

Felix didn’t move from the fetal position she had curled into, her arms still wrapped vice like around her torso, trying to protect what felt like a gaping hole in her chest.

Blinking in the milky darkness she felt the tears that had crusted and dried to her face and only just realized she had cried in her sleep, something she hadn’t done in years.

The air still felt different, despite how much everything seemed unchanged like her position, and it took her a moment to understand it.

Maybe it was a change in temperature or a small draft that had blown the scent of his cologne by.

Either way Felix knew he had been there, and that was all she needed to encourage the rest of her to move from the bed.

With the floor like ice under her feet she padded out of the room and down the stairs, disregarding the soreness of her body as she searched for any sign Brendon had been there.

She didn’t like this foreign hold he had over, the way he could bring her up or crush her down with a smile or a few well aimed words.

Felix wondered why people yearned for love, searched for it sometimes their whole lives, when that person could kill you internally without even breaking a sweat.

The years she had spent wandering through life, only dipping her toe into the water of other people's lives suddenly seemed so wonderful, so free, whereas now she had hurt someone, and in turn hurt herself.

Her inner musings broke off as she realized her wandering was in vain.

Whatever hope that may have grown in the span of time between her bedroom and the living room vanished, replaced by a cold dread, all because of her hand.

Felix hadn’t noticed until then that there was a scrawl of black letters across her palm until that moment.

Reading the first few words was enough for Felix to understand.

I'm sorry Felix, but maybe this wasn't meant to be.

And that was all she needed to read to know he wasn’t coming back, not to be with her.

~\\~//~

Brendon was on a plane high above the sky watching the sun peek over the horizon.

The rest of his band mates were sitting around him either asleep or chatting among themselves.

It was Brendon who was lost in thought.

He didn’t regret anything he had done, leaving Felix behind, he wasn't one for regrets.

But it didn’t mean he wasn’t hurting like he'd left his heart with her.

A part of him said leaving Felix was the right thing to do, that they both needed time to think and be apart, but that wouldn’t make the feeling go away that it was all wrong.

Now that he was away from her and could think clearer it was like an older him was in his thoughts, thinking level headedly like an observer and less like a participant.

It was so right for her to be so distant, the fact he continued pushing her to commit to him.

When he had confronted her in one of his rare acting in the moment moments had he really expected her to go his way under that pressure?

He was an idiot, that much he agreed on, but at the same time it was quite clear he wasn’t going back.

As the plane flew toward the windy city Brendon's thoughts were scattered, but they all revolved around one central point.

Felix.