Felix Ever After

“[E]ven after starting my transition, sometimes I get this feeling… that something still isn’t right… maybe that’s why I hate my dad deadnaming me, more than anything else. It makes me wonder if I really am Felix, no matter how loud I shout that name.”

This quote foreshadows an ongoing tension in Felix’s character arc, as he questions his gender identity while worrying that this questioning will delegitimize his trans identity. As Felix reconsiders his identity, it is difficult not to internalize the constant questioning and hatred that trans folks receive or to feel as if his uncertainty proves his identity is fake.

“And a part of me—a splinter in my chest—was, and still is, worried that she might be right. It’s ironic, I guess. I wanted to date her so that I could prove I’m worthy of love. Instead, she managed to solidify this slowly growing theory that I’m not.”

Felix thinks about Marisol’s belief that he is a misogynist for “choosing” to be a guy. Even though Felix knows this is a transphobic comment and loves his trans identity, he views her rejection as confirmation that his queer, trans, and Black identities make him hard to love.

“I try to ignore the tingle of fear in the back of my mind—not that we’d get kicked out, but that Declan was right about one thing, at least: I’m fucking around, procrastinating on my portfolio because I’m too afraid to actually get started—too afraid to try, only to fail. Terrified that I won’t get into Brown. I’ve worked hard these past three years so that all my dad’s sacrifices wouldn’t go to waste…”

With Felix and Declan competing for the same scholarship, Declan holds being the director of their group project over Felix. Felix is already anxious about the subject of his college application portfolio, and Declan being a talented and prolific artist does not help. Felix’s father has spent a lot of his income on Felix’s education, so Felix feels intense pressure to get into Brown and prove to his dad that the expense was worth it. He also wants to prove to Declan and everyone else that he is worthy of an Ivy League education.

“[E]very time I’m around him, I feel like I have to work hard to prove that I am who I say I am. It pisses me off that he doesn’t just accept it. That there’s something he has to understand in the first place.”

This quote references Felix’s father’s feelings about Felix’s gender. Felix’s father does not call him Felix yet and occasionally misgenders him, asking for Felix’s patience while he learns to understand his son’s gender. To Felix, there is nothing that needs to be “understand” about a person’s gender once they tell others what it is.

“Why am I always the person who just sits to the side and watches? What is it about me that no one likes, that no one wants? It’s like it’s too much for other people—me having brown skin, and being queer, and being trans on top of that… or maybe that’s just what I tell myself because I’m too afraid to put myself out there again, too afraid of being rejected and getting hurt.”

Felix is self-conscious about his tendency to watch rather than participate in activities. He wonders whether it was the chicken or the egg: Did people start excluding him because they are anti-Black and transphobic, or did Felix stop involving himself because he lacks self-worth? Or perhaps it is a combination of the two, as society’s racism and transphobia wore down his self-worth.

“Declan Keane wants to be in love—and he may or may not have loved Ezra… it was easier not knowing. Easier not to see him as a person with feelings, when he’s been such a piece of shit…”

As Felix tries to draw a secret out of Declan, it becomes increasingly difficult for him to see Declan, his supposed enemy, as unequivocally bad. Felix deeply wants to be in love, so knowing that Declan shares the same desire makes him relatable. It is easier for Felix to simply hate someone than to see them as a complicated human being who shares his same fears and desires.

“I start to wonder if there’s a place Ezra ever feels… I don’t know—safe, maybe, somewhere he can go and know that he’ll be loved, no matter what. Even if my dad messes up, I know that he loves me. Does Ezra have that, too?”

Felix often resents Ezra for the privilege that his wealth gives him. When Ezra begs Felix to come to a dinner party at his parents’ place, Felix sees how desperate Ezra is to not go alone and starts to feel sympathy for him. Although Felix’s father is poor and still misgenders him at times, Felix knows his father loves him, whereas Ezra has the safety of money but not the safety of unconditional love.

“‘He thinks he’s the scriptwriter,’ Ezra says, ‘sitting by the sidelines and watching his fantasy play out on the stage. He had a special part for me once: loyal son, following in his father’s footsteps to become CEO, entrepreneur, philanthropist… What’s funny is that he didn’t even really care that much when I told him I wanted to study art, and that I didn’t want to go to Harvard or Yale for business school. He just revised me out of his play.’”

Ezra explains why he does not like his parents to Felix, who is growing increasingly frustrated with Ezra’s privilege. The privilege and the pain are both clear in this quote; Ezra casually elucidates the fact that he could go to Harvard or Yale if he wanted to, and his parents would pay for it no questions asked, but he also describes how his parents abandoned him for choosing his own path in life. In the way Ezra describes it, the most painful part is that they weren’t sad to abandon him.

“To know that there are people out there who hate me, want to hurt me, want to erase my identity, without ever even seeing me or knowing me, just like there are people out there who hate me for the color of my skin—it’s enraging, infuriating, but it also hurts.”

This quote is in response to grandequeen69 trolling Felix and succinctly connects his experiences as a Black person and trans person. Throughout the book the reader sees Felix react with anger toward the transphobia he endures, but this quote emphasizes the sorrow it causes too.

“He’s the sort of person the world adores, just based on the way he looks… claiming that they’re liberal and that they aren’t racist and that they’re feminists, but not really thinking about why they’re so obsessed with white men, and why they don’t love any people of color the same way.”

Most of the people in Felix’s cohort are queer and BIPOC, whereas Austin is a cis, gay, white guy; this quote points to how easily Felix’s friends, and the world at large, accept Austin as lovable and worthy of respect. Felix, meanwhile, lives at the nexus of multiple oppressed identities, meaning that he is not accepted as readily by his friend group or the world at large.

“Transgender people have always existed. Trans people are everywhere through history, even if society tries to erase us. We’re not a trend, even if it makes you feel good to pretend that we are. I know that I’m not a girl. You don’t get to say who I am and who I’m not.”

This is Felix’s response to grandequeen69 saying that being trans is trendy. Austin violently downplays Felix’s identity by implying that it is a passing trend, not an integral part of his personhood. This is the sort of rhetoric that causes Felix to feel as if he cannot question his gender identity or change which label he uses.

“‘I’m not saying anything against Felix, or trans people,’ Marisol says, ‘but if someone decides they don’t want to be a woman anymore, to me, that just means they inherently don’t like women—’”

This quote is an example or trans-exclusionary feminism, as Marisol claims that Felix cannot love women or be a feminist because he is trans. Marisol made her preliminary transphobic comment to Felix years earlier, and this reckoning shows how stagnant her character is, her opinions unchanging despite continuing to hang out around Felix.

“I want to see what a new self-portrait would look like, after I’ve stood up for myself. Would my skin be as purple as the lightening outside, my eyes as dark as the gray sand and sea?”

As Felix’s character grows, his art improves. This quote comes after Felix finally tells his friends about Marisol’s transphobic comments, which is a large moment of growth, as he releases the desire to prove his worth to her. He wonders how this act of self-love will affect his self-portraits.

“‘I probably always will love her,’ he’d said. ‘But it was a tough lesson to learn, realizing that I couldn’t wait for her to decide she would love me again. It wasn’t healthy. If I fall in love again, it’ll be with a woman who loves me also—not someone who I have to convince to love me. It’s easier, I think, to love someone you know won’t love you—to chase them, knowing they won’t feel the same way—than to love someone who might love you back. To risk loving each other and losing it all.”

Felix’s father speaks about Felix’s mother and foreshadows the journey of finding love that Felix traverses with Declan and Ezra. It is easier for Felix to try to convince Declan, who is actually in love with Lucky, to be in love with him than it is for Felix to accept Ezra’s genuine love and risk losing him.

“I don’t know why I’m suddenly so pissed—why I almost feel betrayed by him, like he’s been lying to me about our relationship all along. Underneath that anger is fear. Ezra and I—we’d make so much sense. We support each other, love each other… It’s so perfect that the fear of it all ending, of him realizing that he doesn’t love me anymore, of him leaving me the same way my mother left, fills the hollow in my chest.”

This quote represents a moment of deep self-awareness, in which Felix realizes that he is pushing away Ezra’s love out of fear of finding a love so real and amazing that it will undoubtably break his heart when it ends. Felix feels that if he does not give Ezra the chance to love him, he won’t risk losing him.

“Changing this world, yes—we need people who will fight for our rights, fight for justice in the courts so that it will be better for the next generation. But creating our own world, not just for ourselves in our bubble, but one that can spread to those who need it most—one filled with our stories, our history, our love and pride—that’s just as beautiful. That’s just as necessary. Without that, we forget ourselves. Crumple under the pain of feeling isolated, unaccepted by others, without realizing that, above all else, we need to love and accept ourselves first.”

This quote comes from Tom, an attendee of the gender identity discussion group. Tom explains that radical change cannot happen if those expected to make the change do not have safety, community, and love from others and from within themself. This concept is applicable to Felix, who is fighting hard to prove that he is worthy of love and respect through activities like responding to his troll and applying to Brown, while not allowing Ezra to provide him unconditional love.

“[T]here are still hardships, but don’t forget to enjoy these years. Live. Live them for the people who didn’t get to enjoy being a teenager. For the people who never live past being a teenager.”

Tom says in response to Felix’s question about figuring out one’s gender identity. Tom serves an important role as a queer elder in the book, giving Felix wisdom about how to exist happily in an anti-gay world. In this quote, Tom tells Felix that he should enjoy his youth as vindication for all the queer folks who were unable to.

“Why do I keep reading these messages, knowing that grandequeen69 is only going to hurt me? I remember what my dad had said—that it’s easier to accept hurt and pain, sometimes, than love and acceptance.”

Throughout the book Felix spends immense energy responding to his troll, trying to convince this nameless stranger that he is a human worthy of love and respect. This sort of engagement is exactly what a troll wants, and by deleting the app, Felix denies the troll the satisfaction of hurting him. Without the app, Felix has more room to accept love from his real friends, like Leah and Ezra.

“He waits, still watching me with that same expression—except it’s shifted, just a little, back to the expression I’m used to seeing on Declan more. A bit of steel. Protection, armor, I realize, against me hurting him again.”

Felix recognizes that Declan’s habitual steely exterior is a self-preservation method. For the first time, Felix sees himself as someone capable of breaking another person’s heart.

“It’s something I’ve wanted for so long—to have the last name Love, and actually know what it feels like to love and be loved. It’s everything I’d wanted… So why does it feel like something’s still missing?”

At Declan’s grandfather’s house, Felix has to reckon with the truth that he and Declan are not in real, healthy love; as hard as they’ve tried to make their digital romance translate into real life, they are in love with the idea of loving one another, not with each other. Felix feels like something is missing because he and Declan have desire and attraction but not the unconditional love they’re both searching for.

“‘It’s not like it’s easy to be gay, even if we are in Brooklyn, even if this is New York City, and now we have to deal with people like you taking our identity, taking our space… and its’ annoying, too,’ he says, ‘seeing you—I don’t know, pushing it in our face that you’re transgender.’”

In this quote, Austin is extremely transphobic, arguing that there is not enough space within the queer community for transgender folks; Austin pits cisgender queer people and transgender/genderqueer people against one another. He sees Felix merely existing as an openly trans person as an affront to his own existence.

“I’ve been too afraid to let myself love Ezra, but I was willing to put up with Marisol. I told myself I wanted her to realize that I’m worthy of love and respect, but I knew she would never understand that… It’s almost like I was looking for pain and hurt, because it was easier to live with the idea that, even though I want love, I’m not the kind of person who deserves to be loved.”

Felix realizes that he looked for love and acceptance from Marisol, Declan, and his mother knowing full well that they would not be able to provide it because it would validate his belief that he was unlovable. Trying to convince these people to love him was easier than pursuing real love because he knew it could never happen, whereas Ezra does love Felix unconditionally—and thus could break his heart.

“You’ve been so courageous, just by being yourself, even knowing that the world won’t always accept you for who you are. You refuse to be anything but yourself, no matter what. I look up to that. I admire that.”

Felix finally confronts his father, holding him accountable for the deadnaming and misgendering. This quote comes from Felix’s father’s apology for learning so slowly, and it disproves Felix’s theory that his father will find his new identity a burden.