Andante

V

He lay awake for ages, thinking back of the afternoon he'd had. 
I mean, it wasn't like he had no friends at all: he had some friends at school, he'd played games with a couple of guys and stuff. But he knew none of them really got him. Not like Brett seemed to. 
That was a stupid thing to think, though? I mean, did he actually know Brett yet? They'd hardly talked anyway, they'd just made music and played Mario Kart. 
But he knew he'd felt more himself this afternoon than with anyone else in his life. 
What did that mean? And how did Brett feel? And how would he feel if Brett didn't like him? 
He shook his head vigorously. Come on man, get a grip. 
Brett said he'd had fun, anyway. 

When the alarm blared and woke him up he groaned. Fuck, he needed about a hundred more hours of sleep. He grunted in annoyance softly, but then he dragged himself out of bed. 

Wasn't long before he regretted ever having gotten up though. He should have just stayed in bed instead of going to school, where life was boring and kids were mean. So mean. 
At 3 p.m. he walked home absolutely fuming. He wanted to kick stupid Andrew in the balls so hard that they would be stuck behind his ears. But of course he'd done nothing, like the coward he was.
He crashed into the house, ran upstairs and threw himself on the bed. He was not going to cry like a four year old. He wasn't. 
He sat up and thumped the pillow though, hard. And then he thumped it again. That pillow had it coming anyway.
When the bell rang he let his mum open the door, breathing deeply to compose himself. Brett certainly didn't need to see any of this. 

A minute later Brett walked into his room, and he'd calmed himself down enough to be able to act like a sane person around his new friend.
¨Hi!¨ he said, keeping his face upbeat.
¨Hi...¨ Brett said, but he sounded hesitant. Eddy looked at him, wondering what was on his mind.
¨Errr, Eddy... are you okay?¨ he said then, in his soft voice.
Eddy swallowed. Fuck, he thought his poker face was better than that.
¨Yeah, fine, why?¨ he answered, automatically.
Brett hesitated again. ¨Err, because you... you don't really look fine.¨
Eddy felt his upbeat face cracking. Fuck. How did he see that? He would just tell him that he was abs...
But his mouth had already taken over and he suddenly found himself telling Brett the truth.
¨There's this arsehole kid in my class, Andrew. He found it necessary to grill me in front of the whole class and all the girls about whether I'd kissed a girl yet.¨

Brett looked at him very seriously, but his eyes were kind. So kind. 
¨That's really mean.¨ he said, finally. ¨Did you... did you tell him to fuck off?¨
Eddy cast his eyes down. ¨No. I didn't know what to say.¨
Suddenly Brett sat down next to him on the bed and put his hand on his upper leg. 
¨Eddy, you know it doesn't matter, right? You could have kissed no one or twenty girls. It's none of his business anyway.¨
¨You're right¨, Eddy whispered. His voice wasn't quite working the way he wanted it to. 
¨I guess... I guess I've just never liked someone like that. But I feel like I should.¨

He couldn't believe he'd just told him that. It had just rolled out of him, like he had no filter around Brett or something. What an idiot, this was going to be the point that Brett turned away from him and called him a sissy, just like Andrew had. He should have told him that he'd kissed lots of girls and that he...
¨I get that¨, Brett interrupted his thoughts. ¨I haven't either. But that's okay. It really is.¨

Brett really did have the nicest, warmest hand. It felt so nice to have him close by like that, to feel the weight of his hand on his leg. 
'I haven't either'. Brett's words rang around in his head. 
And Brett was being nice to him. 
The tear ran over his cheek before he could stop it. He turned his head quickly, but he knew Brett had already seen it. 
¨I'm sorry I'm being such a wuss¨, he whispered. 
¨You're not¨, Brett said, and he'd never heard his voice this secure yet. ¨Look, you're allowed to be upset when kids are mean. I'm your friend. You can always tell me the truth. Okay?¨
Eddy turned to him now, feeling the smile come from within and spread slowly over his face.
¨Okay.¨ he said. 
He thought for a second. ¨You too, okay?¨
Brett nodded, smiling as well now. ¨Yeah. Come on, let's play some violin, huh? Otherwise we'll make zero money on Saturday.¨