Broken String

LIX

"I'll take you to class." Anna says once everyone has had their coffee and the clock is approaching solfege time.
"Are you sure?"
Brett may be asking her but it's Eddy he's eyeing from the side, his large eyes a question mark. "Is that good, Eddy?" 
Not that there's any way for him to say no, here. 
"Of course." he states quickly, before Brett can read the doubts in his eyes. Look, he knows that his best friend only has about an hour to practise before his lesson as it is, and on top of that he's not been practising enough this whole week, because of him. Anna is in Eddy's class. It would be stupid and selfish to ask Brett to take him to solfege.
So why does he feel like a lamb then, being led to the slaughterhouse? What will Anna say to him once she has him alone?
He smiles manfully at Brett as his best friend turns around and starts to rush upstairs with the key he's managed from the lady behind the desk just now. Then he wracks his brain for anything safe he can say to Anna. She pushes him through the hall and presses the button for the lift.
"I would walk the four flights of stairs, but you're a bit heavy to carry." she quips.
He laughs.
"I think it's the chair that's heaviest, although you should see Brett handle it."
"He's getting pro?"
"Yeah, quickly."
The lift arrives and the doors slide open.
"So, is there any news on... this?" she asks him as she pushes him in. It's empty, thank God. He really doesn't need any witnesses to his flailing about.
"Yeah, scan, next week. The neurologist... well, she seemed to have ideas but nothing she wanted to say yet. I've decided not to try to find out either."
"I think that's very smart."
He can see her face above him, reflected in the dirty mirror in front of him. The lift moves upwards quickly, he can feel the movement in his belly.
"Yeah?"
She nods, for once without any jokes coming out of her mouth, and the silence seems to grow around them with every metre of the lift's ascent. Until suddenly he can't take it anymore. He had been dreading her asking him all this time. But now...
"Are you good, Anna?" he asks quietly. The lift comes to a halt just then and the doors slide open behind him. Luckily there's no one waiting in the hall to catch him looking guilty and sullen.
"Yeah." she says just as quietly as she pulls him back out. "No worries."
It's clearly hard work for her to make the circle to get him in the right direction of the hallway with the wheels of the crap chair digging into the brown carpet, and suddenly she giggles.
"Eddy, you've seriously got to think about going on a diet, mate. You weigh a tonne!"
He laughs, despite himself, breaking some of the tension that built just now in the process, but when he turns around in his chair and sees her hooded eyes above him he knows beyond a doubt that the joke means the topic is closed, as far as she's concerned. So he jibes back.
"I think you just need to build up some muscles in those soft violiny arms."
"Well, a few more times taking you to solfege and I don't need to go to the gym anymore for this whole month.

Look. He's happy that she's clearly not mad. And she doesn't seem... hurt. Sad. Does she? Not anymore? In fact, she seems like the same Anna she always was. He just wishes he would have a chance to ask her what she meant, the other day when she said he belonged to someone else. That's the one question that's burned inside him ever since she bought him coffee this morning. But he can't, not now. He needs to respect the boundaries she sets. He wants her happy. So he smiles his thanks as she rolls him into the classroom and puts him by a table, taking the chair next to him. He smiles at the teacher too, who looks up in surprise and starts coming over.
Oh, great. Someone else who is going to ask what's happening to him and does he know anything yet. He takes a deep breath and nods pleasantly when the expected question comes.

But you know what? Sure, it's a drag, this explaining all his shit to every other person in the building. But it's not that bad, because he understands they want to know because they care, and at least he's here, in the land of the living. Surely that beats their couch and stupid daytime cookery shows? Surely it's better that everyone else around him gets to live normally too, because nobody has to stay home?
See? It was the right decision to come here, after all.