The Tragedy of Felix and Jake

Felix² gets new ink just above his collarbone: KISS HERE in bold black letters. When he shows Jake¹ in his car, the air between them turns electric. Days later, Jake¹'s coworkers Miguel⁶ and Hector⁷ invite him to a sports bar. Jason,⁹ a racist, homophobic laborer, shows up and insults all three of them, then grabs Felix² when Felix² makes a lewd joke to unnerve him.

Jake¹ headbutts Jason⁹ and throws him across a table. He and Felix² flee into the night, ducking into an alley to evade sirens. Pressed against the brick, Felix² kisses Jake.¹ Jake¹ freezes at first, remembering they cannot do this. Then he kisses back, deep and urgent. They do not stop. Hands find bare skin. Against the cold wall, they bring each other to climax.

After visiting his mother's grave together on a Sunday, Jake¹ and Felix² return to find Felix²'s front door smashed open. The kitchen is trashed, food everywhere. Upstairs, they discover Felix²'s father⁸ passed out in Felix²'s bed, reeking of alcohol and worse. Felix,² mortified, asks Jake¹ to leave. The next morning, Felix² wakes to his father⁸ and a homeless friend drinking mouthwash in his kitchen.

His wallet is empty, his credit card gone, his car keys stolen, his phone sold. On the kitchen table, his father⁸ has left a line of cocaine and a single blue pill, a deliberate trap for a son he resents for getting clean. Felix,² abandoned and overwhelmed, snorts the line and swallows the pill, ending over a year of sobriety.

When Felix² cannot be reached, Jake¹ panics. He calls Felix²'s phone and gets the stranger who bought it. He drives with CJ³ to Felix²'s house and finds the drugs but no Felix.² Dean,⁴ Felix²'s own sponsor, eventually found him and took him to a meeting. At Jake¹'s door that evening, Felix² tells Jake¹ that Dean⁴ will be his sponsor now, since Felix² has relapsed and lost his time.

Jake¹ grabs Felix² by the shirt and pulls him into his bedroom. He refuses. He does not want Dean.⁴ He wants Felix:² as his sponsor, his boyfriend, everything. They argue, Felix² insisting he is not good enough, Jake¹ countering that Felix² would have stopped him from using if their positions were reversed. Felix² relents. They become official boyfriends.

Jake¹ comes home from work to find Felix² and Riley⁵ on the couch, faces covered in green mud masks, Felix² crocheting a baby blanket. Later, Jake¹ showers. The bathroom door opens. Felix² strips off his shirt and sweatpants and climbs in. They trade positions under the spray, eyes roaming, hands finally free to explore.

Jake¹ drops to his knees and takes Felix² in his mouth. Then he lifts Felix² against the wall, and with water streaming over them both, pushes inside him. They fuck with desperate, tender intensity. Afterward, tangled in the too-small racecar bed in Felix²'s childhood room, Jake¹ snaps photos of Felix²'s post-coital, messy hair. Everything feels possible.

CJ³ bursts into the bedroom while Jake¹ is still between Felix²'s legs. His uniform is soaked in blood. Riley⁵ is hemorrhaging. At the hospital, after hours of waiting, CJ³ emerges to announce Riley⁵ survived emergency surgery, but the baby is gone. Then CJ³'s grief detonates. He blames Jake¹ for not telling him Riley⁵ was in pain earlier that evening.

He calls Jake¹ a junkie, a selfish piece of shit who will never stay sober. He throws Jake¹ against a row of chairs and punches him in the jaw. He tells Jake¹ to pack his things and never contact him or Riley⁵ again. Jake¹ spits blood at his brother³'s feet and walks out. Felix² tells CJ³ he is wrong before chasing after Jake.¹

Jake¹ moves into Felix²'s farmhouse. They sleep in the narrow racecar bed, limbs overlapping. Jake¹ bakes a mangled heart-shaped chocolate cake and feeds it to Felix.² They talk about four years from now and both imagine the same thing: sober, together. At Dean⁴'s tattoo shop, they get matching ink on their forearms: We'll Be Okay, each written in the other's handwriting.

Jake,¹ terrified of needles, does it anyway. At their favorite diner afterward, over donuts, Felix² blurts out that he is in love with Jake.¹ Jake¹ says it back. They are ecstatic, giddy, certain they can beat anything. Then Riley⁵ texts Jake¹ to say the miscarriage was not his fault. CJ³'s silence continues. Jake¹'s hands begin to shake.

Jake¹ gets laid off from his construction job. He suspects CJ³'s brother-in-law Reed¹⁰ fired him because of CJ,³ though Reed¹⁰ claims it is just a slowdown. Driving through the pre-dawn dark, desperate and directionless, Jake¹ ends up parked at a liquor store. He knows what he is about to do and cannot stop himself. He buys vodka.

He drives to the church where a dealer lurked outside his meeting days earlier. The dealer offers him small baggies of everything. Jake¹ snorts heroin in his car, washes it down with vodka. Felix² wakes to an empty bed and a call from CJ.³ Jake¹'s phone is off. Felix,² without a car, frantically steals a delivery truck and speeds to the only meeting location Jake¹ described.

Felix² finds Jake¹'s car at St. Matthew's church and Jake¹ slumped inside it, barely breathing, foam bubbling at his lips. He drags Jake¹ onto the pavement, shoves his fingers down Jake¹'s throat, and forces him to vomit. CJ³ arrives and cradles his brother,¹ sobbing and begging him to keep breathing.

When the dealer emerges from behind the church, CJ³ flies at him, pinning him to the ground and beating his face until his knuckles are shredded meat. Felix² holds Jake¹'s seizing body, screaming that he loves him, as paramedics rush in. Jake¹ has three pills still in his fist: he never took them all. He is alive. Four days later, he wakes in a hospital bed.

Jake¹'s first word upon waking is his brother³'s name. CJ³ bolts upright, eyes wet and bloodshot, and they both begin weeping. CJ³ confesses he did not mean anything he said at the hospital. He was terrified, lashing out, and he is sorry. Jake¹ says he is sorry too, for everything. Then Jake¹ speaks the words he has been avoiding for years: he needs to go back to rehab.

CJ³ agrees immediately, promising this time to support whatever Jake¹ needs. He promises to look after Felix² while Jake¹ is gone. Jake¹ asks about the dealer. CJ³ shows him his mangled knuckles and says the man will never sell to another addict outside a meeting. CJ³ calls Felix² 'little bro' for the first time.

CJ³ drives Jake¹ and Felix² six hours to the Tennessee rehab facility Jake¹ attended years ago. At a gas station stop, Felix² pulls Jake¹ into the bathroom stall and takes him in his mouth, trying to ease the panic attack Jake¹ has been fighting the entire drive. A greasy older man lingering in the bathroom gets aroused, propositions Felix,² and punches Jake¹ when Jake¹ confronts him.

Felix² swings back. They flee laughing, both bleeding from split lips, and kiss with the taste of blood. At the rehab entrance, Felix² gives Jake¹ a crocheted blue beanie and a donut from their diner. They split it. Jake¹ promises he is coming back. Felix² promises to wait.

Two years and ninety-seven days into his recovery, Jake¹ finds a crumpled piece of notebook paper in Felix²'s things. It is a letter Felix² wrote as a rehab exercise for Dean,⁴ imagining his own death from relapse and saying goodbye. In it, Felix² describes the life they will never have: marriage, kids named Charlie and Cassie, a dog, Jake¹ as a firefighter.

He tells Jake¹ their tragedy was great, that he died happy because of him, and begs Jake¹ to beat his addiction. Jake¹ weeps reading it. When Felix² catches him, embarrassed, Jake¹ tells him he hates that he had to read it, but it makes him certain of one thing: he will never risk losing what they have.