Straight

XXI

Oh, but this is torture! The minutes crawl, the hours take an eternity. Lesson after lesson comes, and all Eddy can do is try not to cry. 
Fuck, is this what love sickness feels like? 
Why did they ever do this, why did they ever go there? He would give anything right now to go back to the way it was a week ago. When he could sit with Brett, sleep next to him, and never give it a second thought. 

"Are you okay, Eddy?" Brett asks again at the end of the day, when they are both packing up their stuff to leave. Eddy looks up and manages a smile.
"Yeah, I'm okay, just really tired and my head hurts. I'm going to lie down I think, when I get home. I can practise tomorrow."
It's more words than he's said all day, and they have the desired effect. Brett puts his hand on his shoulder and smiles sweetly.
"Alright. I'll see you tomorrow then, yeah? Please text me later and let me know you're okay?"
"Yeah, sure."

He's walked the road home a million times, but today everything is heavier. He knows he's done the right thing, but why is it making his heart hurt so much? 
He walks into his house and tries to get upstairs, but his mum sees him first. 
"Eddy? Are you sick?"
He almost laughs. 
Yeah, but not the way you're thinking, mum. 
"No, don't worry, mum. I'm just not sleeping well at the moment. I guess because of the competition coming up or something. Don't worry."
She looks at him, her eyes boring into him. Does she see through him? Can she tell? But then she just nods. 
"Okay." 

He's crying before he closes his door behind him, and he knows there's nothing he can do to stop it now. He lets himself fall on his bed and buries his face in his pillow.
Oh, this is too much. This is so much too painful. He's been such an idiot, he's fucked everything up.
Everything.  
He cries, and cries, and when his mum calls him down for dinner he manages to tell her through the door that his head hurts too much and he'll eat later. 
She must know that something is wrong, he is well aware. But she respects his privacy. She leaves him be. 

The night passes, somehow, with him awake most of the time and the horrible dream that made him cry yesterday coming back the second he falls asleep. Brett's cold eyes as he rejects him will haunt him, he knows as he wakes up in a cold sweat again, pounds the pillow with his fist in anger and frustration.
And when his room becomes light at last, Eddy knows he can't face today. No way. He picks up his phone and texts Brett that he's gotten sick after all, he won't come in today. 
He hates lying to Brett, but what can he do? 
He lies back in his bed and weeps. 

He must have fallen  into an exhausted sleep at some point, because time has passed, and the light, coming into the window, is changing. He knows he's hungry, because his stomach hurts, but he can't move. He can't show himself to anyone, not with his eyes all red, not with his skin all pale and blotchy. 
Not that he wants to eat, anyway. He would prefer to crawl into a hole and never come out. 
He breathes deeply and falls back to sleep. 

It's only a gentle knock on his door, but it wakes him up with a shock. Shit, has his mum come home from work, has she come to check on him at last? Has she realised that he's in bed, that he never ate anything? 
"Eddy? Can I come in?"
His eyes fly open wide and his heart flutters wildly. 
Brett. Oh my God, it's Brett. Brett has come to see if he's okay. 
He has no choice now, he can't send him away, of course. He can't hide either, not from his best friend, and not from the relief that is flooding through his system like water through an estuary at high tide. 
"Of course." he grunts. 
Brett opens the door and blinks at him.