The world, of course, may come to a pause every now and then. Believe me, it does.

* * *

I spent the rest of my weekend with Felix, determined in every way to catch up with him. On Sunday, I went over to their house again, happily thinking of how he invited me to come over. I'd forgotten to ask about his therapy however. Inside his little room, I couldn't think of anything else besides how I missed seeing him smile and hearing him laugh. I was overwhelmed to the point of forgetting everything else outside his four walls and closed door.

Felix Corbel had that effect on me.

And as I recall, things changed not only between us, but also with how I saw him.

When he'd giggle, I'd tune in to the music he made while unmindfully letting my eyes roam all over him. If he had noticed me glancing past his eyes and smile once in a while, he didn't show it at first. He'd laugh, I'd smile and stare at how amazingly he grew up.

Felix Corbel stirred not only my emotions, made not only my heart stop, and turned not only my head dizzy. He managed to even stir my curiosity with what lay beneath his clothes. He made my eyes stop where the ends of his loose shirt ran up over his smooth belly. And he turned my thoughts toward his smooth legs, drastically pulling me to his centre of gravity – the centre of all my physical attraction for him.

I'd be frank. I wanted to know how smooth his skin was all over. I wanted to get rid of his clothes somehow. For someone my age, it may come as no surprise.

"You're staring," he told me, pulling my eyes toward his greenish orbs, putting colour all over my cheeks.

"Uhm..."

"Do you like to stare, Chase?"

"Not...not really," I mumbled. "Sorry."

"Let's be clear about things, okay?" he said, straightening his clothes and sitting upright on his bed while I looked up at him from the floor where I sat.

I nodded and he seemed thoughtful for a moment. He took the earphones from his ears and put his iPod aside. He was becoming serious. Without the orange wire of his earphones sort of lacing around his body, he looked different.

"I don't like you, Chase Logan," he firmly said. I was about to retort, but he hushed me and continued. "Are you here as my friend or for something else?"

I gulped and tried to distract myself from the stab he gave my chest. It hurt like hell though.

"If you're here as my friend..."

"I am," I immediately cut him off. "I'm here as your friend. Nothing else."

He looked dissatisfied with my answer as he stared me down. Who knew he could hold such intensity in those innocent eyes of his? I felt my gaze waver, but his didn't even falter a bit.

"Then stop staring at me. I don't like you doing it."

I nodded slightly and took my eyes away from him. The last thing I wanted then was putting more distance between us with how uncomfortable I may have made him feel.

"I just...," I somehow uttered and I knew right then that I just had to say the rest of it. "...think you look good."

We stayed silent once again. It has probably become a habit of ours. Silence sort of tried to make us understand what we miserably failed to say.

"We're both boys, Chase," he voiced out. "You do realize that, don't you?"

I looked at him confusedly as I desperately searched for something to say.

"Yeah, but...it doesn't mean I'm not allowed to like you, does it?"

"It does."

"It does?"

What followed next left me utterly confused and unanswered. He shifted on his bed, reached for his iPod and made himself deaf to the world again. Somehow, he made me disappear from his room. I felt invisible while he kept himself away from this world and trapped in his own.

I stood up, walked to a bookshelf which actually had no books but a stack of CDs and old records and scanned through what must be Felix's collection. From one title to the next, I still couldn't comprehend his taste in music. It spanned every genre I knew and recognized and some I didn't know. He had each and every bit of noise from one end of the shelf to the other.

"I didn't know you like listening to this," I said, holding an album for him to see.

"You mean rock music?"

"And this, and this, and this...," I continued, holding a different CD case each time.

"Metal, R&B and folk?"

"Are these yours?"

He nodded and shrugged. "Music is music. Filter the nonsense, you'll hear it."

"Huh?"

He sighed this time, pushed himself off his bed and walked toward me. Taking each album from my hands, he began explaining to me what he thought of each one. I tried to follow each of his word, but I couldn't grasp the meaning. He sounded like a totally different person on a different level of understanding. As it struck me, he seemed more mature than I remembered him to be.

"Do you follow?" he asked.

"Sort of," I lied. Smiling, I added, "Not really."

He giggled and made me forget the exchange between us earlier. He'd easily leave me confused one minute, then have me intimately listening to his boyish and often high-pitched laughter.

Felix Corbel had that effect on me.

Without ever intending to do so, I moved closer to him and had our shoulders brush against each other. He quickly looked at me and I mimicked his gaze. We locked eyes, to put it simply. And, with barely enough distance between us, it was the first time in years that I saw him up close.

"Chase?" he mumbled quietly, making it sound like he was hesitant about something, but was willing to see where that something might lead.

To my dismay, a CD fell from the case that Felix held and that provided enough distraction to draw us apart. I felt my cheeks fluster and when I turned to look at him, I saw that same colour on his face and my feelings for him soared like an eagle bound for space.

As you might have thought, an eagle can't soar past the atmosphere. Its flight was limited, and Felix reiterated that.

"We're both boys," he insisted. "We're not supposed to like each other."

"But why?" I asked.

He shook his head, leaned over to get the CD and whispered, "It's the way things are. So stop what you're doing before..."

"Before what?"

"Nothing."

"Before what, Felix?" I demanded.

He stood up, placed the albums back in the shelf and walked away, completely ignoring me once again. I became frustrated though. I marched toward him, grabbed his shoulders and made him look at me. I couldn't have him make a mess of my thoughts and continually stab my chest. I needed to know what he was keeping from me.

"Before what?" I asked in a much smaller voice.

"Before you end up doing something like this, Chase," he said. It didn't make sense.

"What?"

"Why now?" he asked back. "Why, of all times, now?"

"What do you mean?"

"You, Chase Logan," he berated, taking my hold off of him. "You pressed play when you've always had everything in pause."

In pause. Was that what I've been doing all these years?

"You can't just start something between us. For all you know, I stopped it already."

He went back to his bed, looked out the window and fumbled with his iPod. He looked irritated, but he may be right all along.