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Neil woke up, expect he didn’t.
He felt strange, and even after Kevin’s alarm rang and Andrew came in a second time to nudge him out of bed, Neil wasn’t truly awake. A heavy fog sat at the forefront of his mind, his actions weren’t his, his voice and eyes were lost. He watched himself from the passenger seat.
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Felix sat in the kitchen of the apartment, watching his family have breakfast. It was odd, not because it was unfamiliar, but because he was here. Before, he hadn’t been the one pouring the cereal or packing his bag. Halfway through breakfast, he realised he was basically on autopilot, doing what Neil would, he supposed. The Exy junkie was still here, waiting for practice and leading them through the morning routine.
Breakfast first, I always eat the cheerios. Practice is in 20 minutes.
Felix was never the best at doing what he was told.
Exy wasn’t boring, per say. A time passer, something to do, a challenge, but today wasn’t an Exy day, he decided. A plan started to form, like a hurricane.
What? Why? Practice is in 20 minutes. I need to be there. I am captain. I need to be there.
Kevin will take over, surely. He does so anyway, Dan too. The Foxes don’t need Neil today.
A day off, then? Yes, that’s what he’ll do. Felix saw Andrew take look over at him, as he slipped back in the bedroom. Empty and dark, everyone else was still on the kitchen. Slipping into a black hoodie and blue jeans, he picks up his set of car keys and wallet, hesitating a second before putting his phone into his back pocket.
The window in their bedroom was already open a bit, from Andrew’s smoking. It was long drop down, but the piping on the building helped him scale to the ground relatively silently. Felix gave himself about a minute before one of them checked the bedroom for him, but it took only about 30 seconds to drive the Maserati out of the lot. He didn’t know a lot about cars, but the leather felt nice, slipping against his hand. His reflection was both right and wrong, every glance to the rear-view mirror made him flinch, a dead man stared back at him for a second before the scars registered. He opted for the side mirrors most of the time instead.
Felix would kill for a burger right now. He was imagining it, his mind brought him back to a bitter winter where Mary had bought one when they were squatting in a village in Southern Germany. It didn’t taste good, cold and a bit stale, but the night had been freezing and he was due for another round of store-bought pain meds.
But most of all, he hadn’t been expecting it. They still had the leftover cans they’d been mostly eating since the end of autumn. His mother wasn’t one for waste, but she’d gone to collect their next IDs, only to take a detour on the way back. It was the last thing he ate before they moved on to Switzerland, a bullet wound only 4 days old in his shoulder.
Halfway to the McDonalds, his phone lit up. The song about a runaway blasted from his pocket, breaking the peaceful morning silence and gentle hum of the car. Tapping his finger on the wheel to the beat, Felix considered picking up. He should, it was Andrew. Neil was telling him to pick up. He’d already pulled his phone out of his pocket, intending to do just that, but suddenly threw it into the backseat. If he answered, Andrew would tell him to come back.
And Felix would kill for a burger right now.
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Minutes pass with the pop music filling the time, the sounds fill his brain as he stared into space. He wasn’t sure when exactly he left the diner, sometime after his phone called a fifth time, Matt, and a morning shift worker leaves with a coat over his uniform. Time was moving like syrup, clogging up his mind, as the world turned too fast. The burger was okay, too expensive for what it was, but it was fine. He was fine.
He was totally fine.
So fine.
God, he was so fucking fine.
Neil found himself down the I-20, 20 miles above the speed limit, and totally out of it. His brain wasn’t here, not really, not enough at least. The way back to Palmetto was pure autopilot. His hands didn’t feel like his own, even if it they turned the wheel when he wanted and flexed when he told them to. He was watching the world through a TV screen.
The Foxhole court was the same as it looked yesterday, and the quiet midday lull of the campus was expected. Everything was normal and Neil had just driven for four hours to eat lunch.
“What the fuck”, Andrew managed to grit out, “Where were you?”
Neil took a couple seconds to unravel his words to make sense for his blurry mind.
“I went for a drive”, he responded stupidly. It sounded wrong coming out of his mouth. Andrew’s hands were in fists, knuckles white as he fights control from the anger. He wanted to reach out and untangle them, slip his fingers into his own. Instead, he stayed where he was because he did this.
“I’m sorry, I-“, Neil was lost, unsure about his own actions, why he did what he did. He was mad too, angry that he didn’t tell anyone. Mad that this morning even happened.
They probably all thought he was taken or ran away. “I was coming back”, was all he could choke out.
Andrew’s gaze was searching, a deep pit of rage barely masked.
“You left, you didn’t text, you didn’t say anything”, Andrew’s voice was barely audible, slow and deliberate, not daring to risk anything louder to show the cracks of his apathy breaking through.
“I- I was coming back”, Neil stressed, because he was, he was just leaving for a bit. He was hungry. He was coming back. He was coming back.
Andrew just scoffed, a mean bark.
“How many states over did it take you to convince yourself that?”
A cold flare lit Neil’s body, Andrew genuinely thought he was running. Was he? He was too tired, his brain felt melted, and this conversation was just bringing him slower and slower.
“I was in Colombia. I was fine, Andrew.”
It was Aaron who spoke up. “You have got to be kidding me! You climbed out the window, scaled the fucking building, missed practice to go for a drive in Andrew’s car, told no one, and decided that was normal?!”
Neil didn’t even try to defend himself. It wasn’t normal behaviour, even for him. They were right, but even thinking back, it seemed fine when he slipped through the bedroom window. Completely normal to scale the walls, he’d done it so many times in his life for a quick exit.
Andrew was watching him, arms crossed over his chest, waiting for his response. Instead, Neil just pushed past his team, heading to the changing rooms without a word. All their eyes on him were too much, expecting an explanation he didn’t have.
An arm came out across his chest, stopping him in his tracks. It took everything to not flinch at the sudden movement, and Andrew must’ve seen it because he lets his arm drop. His hazel eyes just looked back at him, Neil let him. He was so tired right now. The foxes were quiet, watching them look at each other.
“Can we go home?”, his voice was quiet and foreign, starkly vulnerable and Neil cringed at himself. Andrew didn’t ask, he wouldn’t, not here.
The team watched them leave but Neil didn’t look at them, or do much really. The world was too fast to keep up, like an optical illusion. The drive back was dead silent, Andrew’s hands clenched to the wheel like a lifeline.
It hit Neil then that Andrew has spent the last hours thinking that Neil had left. Baltimore was too fresh, too close for them. They’d never talked about it after that hell of a weekend, not really anyway. He needed a way to tell Andrew that he’s here, he wouldn’t leave, not now.
They were back in their dorm room when Neil spoke.
“Andrew”, the man stopped in the middle of the room, but didn’t turn, his hands clenched into fists. Neil had so much he wanted to tell the man and no way to say it. “I-I don’t know, okay?! I don’t know why, I just…”
“You what, Neil?”, Andrew had turned around, “You don’t know what you did? You did it! Not me. Not Aaron or Kevin or-r fucking Allison. It was you”, He took a breath, “You promised you would stay”.
“I’m here”, Neil was begging, “I’m here.”
“No, you’re not”, Andrew snapped, before taking a step back, “You might be in this room, but I see you, Neil, you’re not here”. The man threw his arm, gesturing around.
Andrew sat at his desk, elbows resting on his knees.
“I can’t help you”, his hands slide through his hair, his face turned towards the floor. Seeing Andrew like this was it’s own form of torture. “You keep disappearing and I can’t help you”, he whispered.
“I’m sorry” was all that Neil could say. Andrew looked up, the two of them watching each other.
“Go see Betsy, or-r someone else, I don’t care. I’ll even come with you if that’ll make you go”, Andrew was so close to begging as Neil had ever seen him, that’s what made him say his next words.
“I’ll try, I’ll go once and see, if you can come with me”
Andrew and Neil look at each other for a moment, and he wasn’t sure what Andrew found but it made him stand, grabbing his cigarettes and phone to presumably to call Betsy, and walk straight out of the dorm.
A couple minutes pass before Neil moves from his spot, his mind replaying the conversation.
Despite daylight still seeping in through the curtains, he kicked off his shoes and slipped into his bed.
Neil wasn’t sure why, except he did. It was a stale burger in a barely standing shelter. It was letting him pick which radio station on long drives to their next life, even if she knew he’d pick the sport channel.
Both of them had been running on borrowed time for years, it was only a matter of when. Neil didn’t miss those times, never wanted to relive those memories. A bullet through his shoulder, out-of-town motels, hands yanking his hair, dye running down shower drains. But a part of him still clung to the mother who’d devoted everything to him.
It wasn’t living, it was only barely surviving. He never wanted to be nothing again. He didn’t think he’d ever forgive her, hated her for that too. He loathed and loved her, but above all, Neil just missed his mother.
He burrowed deeper into the covers, a hand subconsciously under his pillow, the dark room dragging him to sleep.