"Mum?"
It was early evening, and his first day at the con was over. It had been a long day, but to be honest Eddy would have welcomed it being longer, would have welcomed rehearsing all the way through the night and just carrying on the next day as if sleep weren't actually a thing at all. As if he could work the whole day, or even more. Like every day had forty hours available for him to practise.
It didn't work like that, of course. So they had walked out of the building, with a smile to the nice reception guy, and they had taken the bus home. Brett had given him the warmest glance as their hands brushed past one another and they both walked off towards their own houses.
"Eddy! How was your first day?"
"Mum!"
He could feel the words bubbling up in him like the sweet and sour sauce that he could clearly smell cooking in the kitchen.
"It was awesome, mum. I wish you could have seen me! The orchestra was so good, it was like nothing else I've ever been in. Everyone reacts straight away and everyone gets it, you know? And this was only a reading rehearsal! And Mr. Hill seems really nice and I met some of Brett's friends and we practised a whole bunch. Even the rooms are nice, mum, they're quite big and the..."
The slightly bemused smile on his mum's face stopped him talking. He looked down at his feet for just a second.
"Anyway. It was great."
She nodded once.
"I'm glad, Eddy. When is the first concert with the orchestra?"
"I don't know. I think some point in March. We're doing Mendelssohn Italian!"
She nodded again.
"I look forward to hearing. Please let me know the date."
She turned around and walked back into the kitchen, Eddy guessed to put the rice in the cooker. He couldn't help himself, though. Look, he knew he should probably go upstairs and practise a little more, but he could do that after dinner, right? He followed her to the kitchen and kept chattering to her, the whole time it took for the rice to cook and the sauce to be spooned into a dish. She didn't say much, but her eyes were happy when she turned to him with the dishes in her hand. He took out a couple of plates and some cutlery and followed her to the table.
Actually, now that food was here, he was famished.
His room was exactly the same as he had left it, but at the same time everything was different. He put his violin case down on the floor next to the door and took a deep breath.
In one short day he had gone from a recent high school graduate, from a boy, really, to a student.
A real student at one of the top conservatories in the country, no less. He even knew the guy who manned the reception desk. Try and stop the smile from spreading now, hey?
He unpacked his bag quickly and put the sheet music he had gotten from the con library on his stand. Mr. Hill had given him a couple of new pieces to start practising and he could feel the thrill now, that thrill he always felt when starting something new, that thrill that had two parts to it.
There was excitement, for the new piece, and always a little bit of dread. A little bit of doubt, whether he could really play it, whether he could do it justice.
But hey. He was a student at the con now.
Of course he was going to do it justice.