Broken String

XXXII

"Are you sure you'll be okay for an hour?" Brett asks again.
"Yes, mum." he quips, and Brett waggles his eyebrows at him.
"Yeah, yeah, just don't get stuck anywhere else. Okay?"
He's joking, of course, but Eddy knows the worry underneath. He knows what they shared, last night. And he's not even sorry he did. He hadn't known it was even possible to be closer to a guy than he already was to Brett. Now he knows he was wrong.
And it feels... alright.
"Lily will be here in an hour, Bretty Bang. I'll be fine."
"Okay." Brett nods. "And please. Use the chair?"
Just three days ago a comment like that could have annoyed the hell out of him, but right now he could jump up and hug him, because there's only genuine concern in Brett's tone. So he doesn't kid around.
"I promise."
"Cool."
The door, closing behind his best friend, seems heavy, today. The click is loud and reverberates in the now empty room around him. He sighs deeply and reaches for the remote. Getting here was an adventure, but now that he's sitting the pain isn't too bad. He turns on the TV and finds yet another cookery show to watch.

"Eddy!" Lily's face is pale, worried as she comes through the door and into the living room. "Tell me what the hey is going on, right now."
Eddy smiles, because he knows exactly which word she would have used instead of hey, had she not had Edlyn with her.
Edlyn, all two feet of her, dark blonde curls from her dad and beautiful almond shaped eyes that her mum clearly gave her, is running towards him as quickly as she can.
"Uckle Eddy!" she exclaims as she throws herself into his lap.
"Princess! I'm so glad you came! Have you gone and grown?"
He bites his lip at the sting that pulls through his arm and hugs her tight. His God-daughter, the little girl he watched being born almost two years ago. It's still the most amazing thing he's ever witnessed and he loves her as if she were his own.
"Uckle Eddy auchie?" Edlyn asks.
"Aw, sweetie. Yeah, I've got a bit of an auchie but I'll be fine soon."
Lily sits down next to him and puts a hand on his leg.
"Eddy."
"Um... I don't know, Lils. I just started having pain. Now I can't walk. I really don't know more than that. I'm hoping to see a neurologist soon."
"Jeez. Are you... how are you even holding up?"
Her soft, sweet voice, the powerhouse underneath clearly audible, and he almost starts bawling again.
"No choice." he whispers in Edlyn's curls.
"Yeah. And no violin?"
"Not for now." he whispers again.
"Jeez. So... we're watching cooking?"
"Yeah. Or something else, if you want."
She shrugs. "Whatever turns you on."
He almost laughs out loud, but stops himself in time. What with everything going on he really hasn't had a chance to think much about the weird new thing that obviously turns him on.
"Cooking's fine." he says instead.
"And we'll go for a walk. Alright?"
Eddy eyes the chair that is standing in the corner with distrust. He really doesn't want to sit in the fucking chair. In fact, he walked to the couch despite Brett's pleas to let him get it, because he simply didn't want to be in it. The chair seems to swell up to monstrous proportions as he looks at it, the wheels become eyes and the seat curls up in a nasty grin, reminiscent of the leer of the reception lady in his dreams. He blinks quickly and watches as it's just a wheelchair again.
Something that disabled people use.
Sitting in there will be the final nail, it'll make it real. It'll show the world he can't walk. It'll show himself that he can't.
But what other choice does he have? Sit here forever, frozen to the couch like a monolithic ex-violinist? Get stuck on toilets?
"Yeah, sure." he says, without his voice showing any of what it actually means.