14 hours | lee felix

7

8 hours before

"What's it like having a big friend group?" I ask as Felix lays his head on the tray table.

He switches the side he was laying so he can face me, and I laugh at how his mask is getting messed up from being squished.

"It's," he pauses. "An adventure. Like there's always something happening. If someone's not gaming with their monitor volume turned all the way up, then someone's screaming along to music, or cooking and burning down the kitchen. It's chaotic sometimes, but they're my best mates."

I smile.

I never had a big friend group like that. I have 1 best friend and that's it. Sure there's other people I get along with, but it must be nice to have something like that.

"What about you, are you miss popular back home?" he teases.

"Absolutely not." I laugh leaning back on my chair more. "Growing up I had 2 best friends, like- since we were toddlers we were besties- kind of friends." I start. "I'm still best friends with 1 of them now but," I trail off realizing how sad this sounds.

It's hard to lose someone you care a lot about. But it's for the best sometimes, even though it hurts like hell.

"Yeah, only one really close friend. I hang out with friends from college sometimes, but I have one person who I would trust to help me hide a body if I needed."

"That's your requirement for friendship?" he questions.

"Who are you the police?"

He just laughs, lightly hitting my hand.

"I've gone through that before though. Not hiding a body- the friendship thing." he clarifies.

A sad smile takes over his face, even though he tries to hide it, it's like I can actually feel his pain. My heart breaks a little seeing his smile turn into a frown.

"We used to be 9," he starts. "We even had a motto: 9 or none." he chuckles. "But sometimes things just have to happen, there are times I wish things stayed the same and it was all good. Then there's times I thank every god out there that it's different now."

"She stopped talking to me when we started to learn more about soulmates in school. I was one of the only kids who wasn't being raised by a pair of soulmates, I didn't mind though."

I remember my dad sitting me and my brother down once after we kept asking where our mom was. We didn't know any better, but my dad was still so kind about it.

He loved her more than I can ever understand. No matter what she did to us, I know he loved her still. She's the gravity that holds him up, she's the sun that the earth spins around, she's everything.

"I found out she was talking about my dad, how he was cursed to have a soulmate that didn't love him back, she said me and my brother were gonna end up like him."

Looking back i'm shocked I didn't beat her up right then and there.

It hurt, hearing my best friend say that, I felt like I had gotten shot in the chest.

"What did you do?" he asks.

"I went up to her and asked why it was any of her business. She was talking to a group of people I didn't even know. I just asked her why did it matter, I told her I don't care if i'm cursed but if she ever talks about my family again she's going to be."

"That's kind of subdued compared to what she did to you." he tilts his head.

"Then I poured milk on her." I pause. "And got my neighbor's cat to follow her home for a few months so she actually thought she was cursed. And put a rotten fish in her locker every week until we graduated."

His eyes widen as I list off all the things I did.

"I never said I was proud of the things I did. Come on, you can't say you never thought about doing something like that." I egg him on.

"What? Me? Never!" he sarcastically proclaims.

"Yeah, yeah 8 is fate whatever." I roll my eyes at him.

"8 is fate huh." he echoes. "I like that."