Broken String

CLVI

God, he hopes Brett is okay. There was something about the smile he shot him as he left the room with John that he didn't like. But look. After John leaves he's got all day to make sure he's okay and for now there is only one thing he needs, which is to get his head back on straight. John closes the door to his bedroom behind him.
"Um. Sorry about the mess." Eddy says. "Let's go to the balcony?"
"Of course." John opens the doors and pushes him through. Glorious sunshine floods over them both, the air already hot even though it isn't midday yet. He stands beside him and eyes him as only John can. Kind. Paternal, somehow. "So. What's on your mind?"
"Um. Is... is this okay?" Eddy asks quietly.
"Is what okay?"
"Um. Me asking you... for advice. Is that okay?"
Suddenly John grins. 
"Eddy. Please. Why do you think I came here?" He is quiet for a moment, looking out over the park. His hand grips the rail hard. "Look. I don't quite know why I care the way I do. Is it your obvious talent? Is it that I recognised something of myself in you, way back when when we met? I've been worried about you, so yes, Eddy. It's okay."
"Oh! Thank you." Eddy blinks quickly. He saw something of himself in him? How? Why? And does that mean he'll be like him, one day? Calm? Wise? "Um. Ian said something, yesterday. And you said some stuff. About your family. Um. I wanted to..."
"What did Ian say?"
Eddy's lip starts vibrating before he can stop it. But he's so not crying, not now, not in front of John, he's just not. He'll repeat the words that have been floating around his brain calmly.
"About how hard I had to fight to go to the con." he whispers, and it's like the words materialise around him instantly, like a prism hits them as they leave him, shattering light to the four winds in hues of rainbow. Suddenly it's hard to breathe. 
"Your mum? She wasn't a fan, right? You told me once, in Perth."
"Yes." Eddy nods. "It was... she wanted me to be a doctor. And I... well, you know what I wanted."
"So what happened?"
Eddy shrugs. 
"I did the med entrance exam. Scored 97%. Then told her I was still going into music."
"Wow." Another moment of looking down over parks, past words obliterated by prisms, another grip of a rail, hard enough for knuckles to turn white. Then John chuckles wryly. "You've got cojones, I'll give you that."
"Um..." 
I mean, it's not that he actually knows what those are, but he can guess. It's also not that he really has anything to say to that. Because did he, really? 
"I've worked so hard." he whispers urgently. "And now... ever since Ian said that... it's like I suddenly saw how hard. It's like..."
"Like you're still proving yourself to her?"
He can't hide how he stills. He also can't hide the tear that finally wells, finally flows. 
"Fuck." he hisses quietly. "Yes. Exactly like that."
"To the point of making yourself sick." 
"Apparently." he breathes, then swipes at another stupid tear. "Sorry."
"Please don't apologise." John says as he turns to him. "Thank you for trusting me with this. Look. It's like... this whole process for you is healing something in me as well. Like I can pay something forward. So you can see it as a favour to me. How about that?"
"You were right." Eddy whispers. "All along."
Of course he can't see it as a favour to him. But what else is he supposed to say?
"Do you feel you need to talk to her?"
"No." Eddy shakes. "This is in me, not her."
"Okay." John says calmly. "So tell me exactly. What about that made you sick?"
One, two, three deep breaths and of course the tears are flowing but who cares at this point? 
"Um. I guess I've been trying so hard to succeed. So hard to make it, with the competitions and everything."
"And it's worked, you and Brett are the best students at the con."
He looks up in surprise, registering vaguely John doesn't mean it as compliment, but as fact. Then he shakes his head.
"Maybe. But not at Curtis. We're unlikely to ever be soloists."
"So you thought you'd punish yourself until you were?"
"Something like that."
A slight smile on the paternal face. 
"So, how's that worked out for you?"
Eddy's lip vibrates so hard it's giving the prisms a run for their money. And it's a rhetorical question, of course. 
"Sucky." he whispers in the end.