color me in gold (lips like petals on my throat)

fermata.

In the end, he doesn't even get to drink the damn coffee.

By some stroke of pure luck, Brett manages to flee Eddy's room and out the front door without seeing his best friend once. Not unlike a cowardly dog fleeing with its tail between its legs, but at this point, he doesn't really care how he looks. The world around him has narrowed to a fixed point, his focus shrunk to tunnel vision: escape, reflect, regroup.

> Going out, be back later. :)

He looks at the smiley face—judgmental little thing that it is—glaring neon back at him from the mobile screen where he's sent the message to Eddy. And hell, but he already knows this is a fucking mess, no lie there.

Pocketing the phone, Brett leans heavily against the street bench and lists out his options. The thought of returning to the apartment makes him want to walk into a manhole and never come back out. If he needs to, he could stay with other friends for the night. Hell, he'd deign to crash at his parents' place if it has to come to that point. But then—what would Eddy make of that? What would Eddy make of him running?

(If he runs, will Eddy think it a rejection or respite?)

Caught between a rock and a hard place. God, but there's nothing else to it. He has to man the fuck up and go back, face the fury of Eddy's wrath one way or another.

There's two paths stretching out before him.

Consider: He's not the subject of Eddy's letters. All he gets for his troubles is a bruised ego and maybe a few weeks of awkward unease. He can grovel for Eddy's forgiveness, apologize for his trespass, and promise never to do it again. He can move on. He can live past the misstep. He can forget he ever had the passing thought that his best friend could've possibly wanted him like that and continue on his merry way for the rest of his life.

(He can bury the hurt. He can swallow down the ache.)

And then—

Consider: He's the subject of Eddy's letters. And—and.

"And nothing," Brett grumbles to himself, because really. It doesn't bear thinking about.

Funnily enough, he spends a fuckton of time carefully trying not to think about it, and he isn't sure he's succeeding. He visualizes the Thought as a wad of paper he's kicking around through the streets of the city, catching on the cracks in the sidewalk and tumbling over pedestrian crossings. He imagines punting it into storm drains, thick bushes, gaping entryways into buildings. Any place he can watch it disappear, wilt away into nothingness.

In the end, he can't escape it.

Brett chances a look up at the sky. The sun is setting; he has to get home. It might not be home any longer, by the way things are happening at the moment, but—well. It is what it is.

His phone chirps in his pocket.

> You left your coffee.

He can't figure out the tone of that sentence through a mere text message, so he doesn't try to, even if his insides are screaming for something, anything of note he could use to gauge Eddy's—fury, is the most likely emotion he has right now. Fuck everything.

Brett sends a reply and turns on his heel, footfalls pointing homeward.

> Omw back.

*

He spends an embarrassing amount of time fixing himself up at the front door. It isn't strictly necessary, not for a man who has seen him at his highest and lowest, but Brett figures he might as well look good for the firing squad. Might as well compose himself for what may very well be the end.