Denial - a Breddy fanfic

34.

Brett stared at his tired eyes in the mirror of the public bathroom of Grieghallen. He shouldn't have let Eddy in the shower with him, he should have taken that time alone to gather energy. His hands were shaking slightly, and he felt like he couldn't breathe properly.
You sounded so bad, you even threw Eddy off.
He felt tears pressing on, but he held them back. The bathroom was large and empty, with many stalls. Hopefully, nobody would use this particular bathroom this break. He stared at the yellow painted doors repeating themselves into the room. He counted them in an attempt to calm down. One, two, three, four, fi...
Standing on your break and counting bathroom stalls. Wow, truly a professional!
The voice's sarcasm made Brett bite the inside of his tongue hard, just to try and make it be quiet. He felt his heart rate going up, but there wasn't enough time left of the break to actually calm down.
He started pacing up and down the relatively long bathroom, with mirrors on one side of him and yellow doors on the other. He counted them again. One, two, three, four, five, six, sev...
You're really good at counting those doors, Brett! Best grade in kindergarden!
"Just shut up, will you?!" he shouted at the voice, hearing nothing but the echo of his own voice against the polished tiles on the wall. The silence after the ecgo went quiet made Brett hear a high pitched ringing in his ears, and he covered them to make it stop.
"Be quiet, please" he sobbed, sliding down to the floor with his back against the yellow painted wall between two bathroom stalls. He was no longer able to keep his tears in check, and he felt the shaking spread from his hands to include his arms, his legs, his chest, his breathing. In a way, it felt like his heart was shaking instead of beating as well. Vibrating.
Look at you, idiot! You're gonna fail so hard when you get back in there, and Eddy's gonna laugh at you. He's way better than you in all imaginable ways, but especially playing. He should dump you as his duet partner and find someone at his level.

Brett sat quietly and let the voice tell him how things were. He checked the time on his phone every once in a while, counting down the minutes to rehearsal start. It only made him feel worse, seeing the time pass. It passed so slowly, every minute felt like an hour.
"Gotta get your shit together, man", he eventually whispered at himself as the time showed only five minutes left until rehearsal should start up again.
"Gotta play your part, come on." He shakingly stood up, removed his glasses, took some water from the hands-free faucet and splashed it in his face. He checked if it was possible to see he had cried, and he was sure it was obvious to anyone.
Everyone's gonna find out you're crazy.
He put his glasses back on, attenoted to ignore the voice, but was still shaking slightly. His breathing was still not perfectly normal, but he was finally convinced he wouldn't pass out walking back to the rehearsal.
"Come on", he said to himself and slapped himself lightly on the cheek before stepping out of the bathroom.

When ge got back to the wardrobe, Eddy was already ready with his instrument. Brett found his violin, but almost dropped it with his shaky hands.
"Bretty", Eddy whispered to him, as if people would hear him call him a cute nickname and laugh in their faces. "Are you okay? Do you need something?" Brett knew that Eddy's worried eyes could tell everything was not okay, and he felt like an idiot for not being okay.
"It's... fine", Brett croaked back, trying not to cry again. He closed hiseyes hard to fight it.
"Brett..." Eddy began, but seemed to stop himself. He took a breath before continuing.
"Do you want to cut the rehearsal short? They won't have to know it's because of you, I'll make sure. Do you want that?"
Brett though about it. How would Eddy make sure it wouldn't seem like it was him? Surely everyone had noticed he was completely out of it before the break? He still chose to trust Eddy.
"Yes please", he whispered, and Eddy went to find mr Gardner.