*i see this playing out in vignettes*

Living in the Background

The lonely summer played on. Heat was everywhere and none of it was kind. Karma's parents were gone for the weekend. She was inside her tent with the light of her free macbook, courtesy of sqwerkel, illuminating her face. Her page was open to Amy's facebook page. Again and again she was drawn to it, though she never liked or commented on a thing because it would be too hard to talk to her while far away given everything that had gone on. Karma didn't want to miss anything but she knew she was missing it all.

Amy demanded space and Karma was going to respect that.

Outside, Karma heard a car pull up. Once the car stopped, a door opened and there was yelling.

"When are you ever going to realize, I'm not an alcoholic?! I was just sad!"

"Felix?!" Karma paused at the sound of Principal Turner's voice yelling as he approached the front of the house. She felt the air so still all around her and she wondered if Felix was talking about the first time he got too drunk or the second.

A door slammed. It was quiet. Too quiet.

Crickets sang all around her tent and she missed the noise.

"People die, Dad. They just do." His voice moved closer as he came through the hall of his house and came close to Karma.

Felix was back.

It'd been a long time since she'd seen his face or heard his voice. He was at rehab for a long time. Karma spent all summer trying to one-up Shane and kiss more of the boys who came to the pool just to relieve herself of her true nightmare of living without Amy. And here Felix was living his own nightmare, reliving both his grief and his shame.

A door slammed in the distance. It must've been Felix's dad. Then a soft door shut and she knew. Felix was back in his room.

Karma waited a second before closing her laptop and unzipping her tent. She snuck outside to Felix's window. When she approached she noticed him sitting away from her on his bed and rubbing his eyes with a bit of bitterness on his stoic toy-soldier face.

"Hey," she said. "Long time no see."

"Whoa," Felix said. "You scared me." He offered her a soft apologetic smile but he was obviously sad.

"How'd it go?" She asked.

"Well. It was like jail. Only worse," he scoffed. "We had to talk about our feelings and try to explain why we did the things we did."

"Yikes," Karma said, flaring her eyes and resting her arms on the windowsill. To her that did sound nightmaric.

Felix noticed something on the floor and smiled. "You were in here," he said. Karma's little teddy bear was on the ground. He didn't know but it was actually Amy's bear. Karma left it there because she liked pretending it was actually Amy just a few steps away in some other room.

It was pathetic, she knew. Seeing it there she could just smell it. She craved it back, especially now that someone else was there.

"Oh, yeah," Karma smiled awkwardly. "I've been lonely… Without Amy."

"Amy…" Felix remembered. All day at the center he would just think about her and miss her. He had it bad. He knew she wasn't into him that way but he couldn't shake her. She was the only one who made him feel…

"I can't believe she left." Karma was still trying to make sense of it. As far as she could tell the only reason Amy would even want to leave would be to hurt her. And that burned after everything. It burned and it came from left field. Karma never saw it coming and it still made no sense to her at all. Given everything... Amy leaving now felt cruel.

"Makes sense though, doesn't it?" He was so calm, the way he spoke.

"What do you mean?" Karma asked, angry with him for even thinking it. All this time she'd been trying to find reason. Here he was instantly claiming it made perfect sense without thought.

Felix got up from the bed and walked over to the window. He sat down on the ground so he could whisper and his dad wouldn't hear.

"She loved you and you kissed her. I saw that. It was wrong. You broke her."

"I was drunk," Karma scoffed. She didn't even remember it really. But everyone said it happened and she vaguely felt it at night when she thought about it for a long while.

Felix swallowed a bit of guilt down. "Before she left," he dipped his head and then raised his eyes. He was ready for her wrath. "I told Amy that drunk people usually do the things they're afraid to do when they're sober."

"What?!" Karma's air left her chest. "Wha- why would you say that?!" Karma wanted to cry. She felt herself panic.

"For me it's true," Felix said. "I got drunk at that party too. It gave me an excuse to tell Amy how I really felt."

"Yeah, but, Felix-" He had no idea what he had done. As far as Karma could tell, he was the reason she left in a roundabout way. She couldn't be mad about it, not really, but still.

"No. You got drunk and ruined our movie-date. You did all that sober. And then you kissed her."

He was suddenly less apologetic. All that time alone had given him clarity about a lot of things but most of which his own behavior, but he wasn't talking about that right now with Karma because he'd talked about it far too much in the past month with complete strangers and Karma didn't need that shit during her break anyway.

"I didn't plan-" Karma wanted to defend herself but when he said it right that he sounded rational and true.

"It doesn't matter," Felix said. He looked up at her and actually saw how broken she was. "She's gone," he said.

She'd be back but they both knew it'd be different then somehow and that scared them. Karma had been watching Amy's posts. She wasn't obsessive about Facebook but every day Amy was in a new place, doing new things, and hugging new people. She actually looked happy. Sometimes she was up on a stage. Other times she was at a bar with a drink that she shouldn't have. Occasionally members of Pussy Explosion would post pictures of her in the van and tag them. She was always laying on someone and when she was in the venues she always looked a little bit woozy and flushed. Felix and Karma were both painfully aware of how Amy looked on the road. She looked hot. She looked older. Half the time she looked drunk.

"She'll be a different person when she comes back," Felix said. "I've seen the pictures. I know how she's been."

"She doesn't talk to me," Karma said, crossing her arms and looking out at the night like maybe someone was nearby and watching.

"She probably can't after..." Felix let his voice trail off before covering. "Think of how long she's been in love with you."

Karma thought about it but she didn't know the answer, not really. They always loved each other. That had always been themselves before but now… There was something different. Things were changing. It scared her so much.

Outside of his window, in the dark, Karma shivered and Felix saw. She wished she was with Amy. She wished she had gone on that stupid fucking tour. She wished she had at least asked if she could come. It hadn't crossed her mind then but now… Now it was all she could wish.

"You're cold," Felix said. That shiver had unnerved him. "Come in."

"I probably sh-"

"Karma," he stressed, standing up and offering his hand.

Karma took it and he helped to pull her inside. He was so strong and for whatever reason she really trusted him even though she hadn't known him for long.

Felix's hands were big and strong just like Liam's. It had been over a month since Karma had even seen Liam. Liam was off doing Sqwerkel things with his dad and Seetah. He was done with her now and she couldn't blame him. Even if he was home she knew she'd probably be avoiding him anyway after all that stuff with that check and his dad. Her mind was with Amy. Just like her heart.

"Sorry," Felix said. He didn't mean to grope her sides. He just wanted her to feel better. He understood why she was sad. She deserved her own room and her own bed and her own life that didn't involve sleeping alone outside in some tent. Karma was technically homeless. That never escaped him. If anything he was beginning to notice that it escaped almost everyone else.

"I shouldn't keep stealing your room," Karma said, laying down on his bed. She felt suddenly bad for him. He had just come back from rehab and he couldn't even have a second alone. What was her problem?!

"I think I'm used to you," Felix said. He picked Amy's bear up off the ground and handed it to her before laying down beside her and feeling a strange sort of calm that he only ever felt with Amy or his Mom before she died. "Not to mention," he confessed. "If you leave I might do something I'll regret."

"Really?" Karma asked, hugging her bear that smelt like Amy and turning in to look at Felix, this boy who looked more like a man.

"I've never felt this way for another person," Felix confessed. "After my mom died, I thought I'd never love anyone… But now…" He turned his head a tiny bit and looked at Karma with both of his sad eyes. His feelings for Amy were far too intense.

"Trust me," Karma said. "I wish she felt the same about you, it would make both of our lives simpler."

Felix just stared at her, sizing her up but lying real still. "Why did you kiss her," he asked. "If you didn't love her you wouldn't have kissed her."

Karma let out a heavy sigh. "Why do I do anything?" She asked. "Why did I seduce Liam or lie to the entire student body?"

"Those questions aren't important," Felix swallowed down a bit of his sadness. It felt good to talk to someone who wasn't trapped with him but willingly deciding to seek his company out. "And the answers to those questions make sense."

"I was drunk-" Karma tried. Felix's eyes stressed how ridiculous that answer would always be in his opinion.

"Who are you lying for?" Felix asked. He wasn't sure if she was just blind or defiant. It was obvious to everyone that she loved her. Whatever the problem was, Karma was the only person who saw it.

"Ya know," Karma sighed, laying onto her back and hugging the bear away from Felix's gaze. "I used to think I didn't want her that way but after the pool…"

"What?" Felix asked when Karma got too quiet and it scared him.

"Now I just think I'm scared."

"Scared of what?"

"Lots of things," Karma said. "Losing her. Breaking her heart."

"You've done both of those," he said.

"Don't say that," Karma wanted to cry. That was the worst thing she could possibly hear.

"She's been away from you a while with all new people living a whole new life. And you know you broke her heart."

"I didn't mean-"

"It doesn't matter what you meant." Why couldn't she see that?

"It should though," Karma said. She wished she could change it, go back in time, make sense of things. She couldn't even rightly say that she wanted to kiss Amy again. She didn't know why she'd done that back then. It hadn't been to get her to stay. And she was drunk. Maybe she just wanted things to go back again to the way it was when they were faking it before she knew. Maybe she was just happy and she wanted to kiss her so she did. Why couldn't it just be simple? Why couldn't people believe her when she told them the truth about what she felt?

"Why haven't you talked to her?" Felix asked. He rolled his head away from her and rested his eyes.

"Why should I get to talk to her? It's like you said. I fucked up." She looked over at him, waiting for his eyes to open and see her. "I don't deserve to treat her like she's mine. Not after…"

"What?" Felix asked.

"She asked me again… Right before she left." Karma turned her eyes back to the ceiling. She clenched her jaw and tried not to feel stress and… Regret.

"What?" Felix asking, wanting to know.

"She asked me if I had feelings for her."

"And?"

"I said no," Karma sighed.

"But you do," he said. To him it was plain as day. Here she was thinking about Amy all alone with so many other things to think about and so many other things she could be doing.

"Maybe," she sighed, rolling onto her side and hugging Amy's bear. She breathed it in close and felt the soft hair on her lips as she desperately clung to it. If only it were Amy. Karma would give anything to hold her right now and fall asleep with her on her bed. She'd only been to Amy's room twice while Amy was away and both times she ended up crying beneath Amy's covers alone in the dark. It felt too good to remember her there. It was almost like a cruel trick.

Felix felt how hurt she was.

He rolled onto his side to and moved behind her to hold her.

"She'll be back soon," he said. "She loves you too much to hate you." He knew enough about Amy to, at the very least, know that.

"I hope you're right," Karma cried silently while Felix held her.

Neither of them spoke about anything else after that. Felix just held her and Karma felt held.

Eventually sleep took them and then dreams. They both dreamt of her and both different.