As Felix hopes to love and be loved for the first time, he must learn the difference between unhealthy and healthy love. Felix is habituated to unhealthy love through his unrequited search for adoration from his mother. Because she left him when he was 10 and never responded to his email coming out as transgender, Felix wonders if his mother still loves him. In the hundreds of emails that he drafts to her, he repeatedly asks if she loves him and tells her how she’s made him feel unworthy of love. Part of his journey toward maturity is recognizing that his mother’s absence is not a reflection of his lovability or worthiness. This becomes more clear after an honest conversation with Felix’s father, who says of his failed marriage,

‘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’ (225).

This quote elucidates the lesson that Felix learns himself after falling for Declan and then discovering his love for Ezra.