Broken String

L

Somehow neither of them seem to want to leave this bench, because Brett makes no move to push him on and Eddy never asks. It's balmy in the park, so mild for early spring, and the air smells sweet because some blossoms are already opening. It's gotten dark now, but they can see the lights of the city all around them. It's... well. It would be romantic, if he had a girl here or something. He cringes, because now he can't help but think of the last girl he was with. 
Anna. 
He hasn't heard from her since she stormed out of their apartment, and there's been no way he's dared text her himself. 
"What's eating you?" Brett asks him from his spot on the bench. "Doctor?" 
Eddy scoffs at himself. 
"Anna."
A chill seems to pull through the air as he says it, and he thinks Brett shivers slightly. Maybe they should head back in a minute, before they both freeze solid here like some failed modern statue the county has overpaid for?
"Have you heard from her?"
"No. And I don't feel I can be the one to text her. You know? She asked to give her time."
Brett nods and looks away. Eddy waits, but Brett says nothing for the longest time. So he sits back and watches his best friend as he stares out over the far side of the little park, where some high buildings rise over the trees. Lights are starting to be turned off in the windows, clearly it's getting late enough for people to go to bed. 
"Well, any advice?" he asks the side of Brett's face when he can't take waiting anymore. 
Brett grins. 
"Like I'm good at keeping in touch with girls I slept with while I was drunk?"
"Friends." Eddy says quietly. "Friends. That's the problem."
Brett is quiet for another long moment. He leans forward, picks up a pebble from the grass and throws it into the tiny pond that's in front of them like a mirage in the dark of the night, the lights from the buildings around the park reflecting off the still surface. The splash seems louder than it should, because everything else around them is so quiet. Then he takes a deep breath. 
"You don't want to... I mean... like... try, with her?"
"What? Try what?"
"You know..." Brett shrugs. "Who knows, maybe a fling is just what you need."
The image pulls through his mind instantly, he can't help it. Him and Anna, holding hands. Her on his lap. Them going out to the pizzeria together, her pushing his chair. A wave of something vile rises up in him and it's all so absurd that he starts giggling. But giggling's better than crying though, right? Surely giggling is a lot better than vomiting?
"No. Brett, just... no." he says once he pushes the giggles back down. "I'm just... I just don't feel that way about her. And she does about me, apparently, so it would never even be fair to her even if I did want to have a fling."
Which he doesn't. Not a cell in his body does. But how can he explain that one to Brett? I mean, on paper his best friend is right, right? A fling would take his mind off things?
But even the image of bouncing breasts on top of him turns him off, right now, and he would give anything to have the atmosphere back they had just a minute ago.
"We should probably head back at some point." he says, more because he wants to change the subject than because he actually wants to go. 
"Yeah." 

But quietude washes over them again then, neither one making any move to leave, just two boys in a small park in the dark, one on a bench, one in a chair. And now that the Anna topic is behind them Eddy can breathe again.
He can even smile again.
"It's nice here, right?"
"It is. It's weird, the things you get to do when other stuff falls away."
Eddy nods. 
"Wise words, bro."
Brett snickers softly. 
"One of us has to say some sometimes, right?"
"Fuck you." he grins. But his heart is light again. And Brett is right, of course. Everything else in his life may suck, but they have this, right? They have this right now?

He's getting a bit chilly by this point, the colder air caressing his forearms, making the little hairs stand up. When he glances at his phone he sees it's basically midnight. He doesn't care though. Let him freeze. This is the happiest he's been all week.