Broken String

LXVII

Eddy's heart jumps as he sees Brett and Todd coming towards the table together. He's been sitting in the cafeteria with this girl he barely knows, who has been chatting his ear off, but he needs the toilet and soon. The nausea has settled a little, but by now he really, really needs to go. Ian has been practising. His stomach has been grumbling louder and louder, and yet he's been stuck here with his other good friends all gone. There's been nothing he could do. 
"Hey." Brett says with a smile once they get to the table.
Wait. 
Where did the tightness in Brett's face go? Something lifts in Eddy's chest when he sees Brett regard him... normally. But then the tension overtakes him completely and his hand flies to his lower belly.
"Hey. Could you take me to the loo?" he asks quickly. And Brett must see the predicament he's been in straight away, because he moves like lightning. 
"Yes! Of course."
He's pushing him towards the toilets already and Eddy tries not to squirm, tries no to show his desperation too much. Oh God. Oh, God, he needs... 
"You good?" he manages to ask his best friend through gritted teeth. 
"Yeah, of course." Brett says, and pushes him forward even faster. 

Look, he would ask something else but he sees the toilets now and he can't help himself anymore, he does squirm in his chair. No, no. He's waiting one more minute. 
One more minute.
Of course he is.
Half a minute. 
They roll into the toilet block and Eddy yanks the door to the first stall open, ignoring his hand's protests. His manages to get his trousers down just in time and he throws himself onto the toilet while Brett takes the chair away and closes the door behind him as quickly as he can. 
Oh, God, the relief. The relief! Brett is just outside the stall and he can hear him, most certainly, but what can he do about that? There's nothing to be done. So he sits and breathes deeply as the tension leaves him, the nausea basically gone now, and he leans his head against the side wall for just a second. 
"Oof." he breathes, then finishes up and flushes. 

Brett is quiet as Eddy washes his hands. And there's something he wants to say, Eddy can tell from his reflection in the mirror above the sink, that he's not saying. Wait. Are they back there? What the hell is wrong with his friend? But just as his heart rate starts spiking again and his mind starts spiralling Brett nods above him and smiles almost shyly. 
"You can always text me, Eddy." he says quietly. "Yeah? Please?"
Somehow his quiet, clearly heartfelt words break the tension that has been there all morning even more and suddenly it's just them, again.
"What, 'I need to shit, please stop practising and come over'?" he quips. 
Brett laughs. 
"Sure beats what almost happened now, yeah?"
Eddy shakes his head. 
"Fuck. Yeah, it does."
"Okay then. Please?"
Eddy pushes the door to the toilet block open with his foot so Brett can roll him through, and he nods. 
"Yeah. Okay."

It's a quiet trip upstairs to the great auditorium. Quiet, partly because of the waves of relief that still flow through Eddy's body, and partly because of a different relief. Brett's eyes are no longer tight. And his smile seems real. 
In fact the solace is so palpable that he almost feels okay, being pushed into this place, once the subject of his dreams, more recently of his nightmares. The orchestra is already setting up on the stage and he turns around slightly. 
"Can you put me towards the back? I don't need everyone to see me and come over."
"Sure thing."
Brett parks the chair all the way in the back of the bottom half of the auditorium. Surely everyone is minding their own business and he can just sit in? 
He'll be okay, you'll see. He'll be just fine, in fact.