Broken String

XXXVII

It's degrading, having your best friend help you out of bed. Having him ask you whether you can manage putting your clothes on. It's even more degrading to catch him glancing at your bed, where you had sex with your friend, last night. Stupidly. Drunkenly. Like a moron. Eddy sighs and doesn't press it, doesn't say a word as Brett rides him to the bathroom in the wretched chair so he can get cleaned up and stuff. 

A couple of hours later most of them are leaving. Brett's off to see his parents, due to some threats by his mum about what would happen to his chicken if he doesn't turn up for the monthly family lunch. Todd has rehearsal and Ian has drawn the short straw and is staying behind, practising in his and Todd's bedroom. Although Eddy knows he shouldn't say the thing about the straw out loud. His friends would kill him. Is it so weird, though, to feel like a burden? He's not pulling his weight, far from it, and right now he doesn't even know if he'll ever be able to again. 
So now he's on the couch once more, watching stupid daytime TV, listening to Ian's scales coming through the thin walls. He sighs and looks at the clock. At least three hours before anyone will be back. Are they going to play D&D again this evening? Or does everyone have plans, like sane twenty somethings?
And he can't help it, sitting like this, left to his own devices, the images of last night start flooding in. 
Yeah, sure, the sex was nice. Real nice, in fact. But he knows how daft it was. He has no feelings for her at all, not even now. Does she for him? Brett seems to think so, but Eddy doesn't believe it, not for a second. He's known her for years! Would he have missed something like that? 
So... last night... was that a sympathy fuck?
He winces into the quietude of the room. 
Oh God. He hopes it wasn't a sympathy fuck. 

He's just about to pick up the remote and find something loud on TV to drown out the thoughts when there is a sound at the door, and like the proverbial devil Anna walks in.
Eddy freezes. Shit. She's here? She's turned up? He hasn't even had a chance to think about what he'll say to her yet! And once again, of course, he has no option to run.
"Anna. Hi."
She walks over and sits on the couch. She looks terrible. Frazzled. Pale, too.
"Hi."
"Anna..." Eddy starts. "I'm so sorry, about last night. It was a mistake. We just..."
She scoffs and holds up her hand, interrupting him.
"Eddy. Please."
His mouth snaps shut and he waits as she takes a deep breath.
"Eddy... dear, oblivious Eddy." she says quietly. "You didn't do that, I did. I sat on your lap and wiggled around on you when I knew you were drunk. I knew you were getting hard. I knew exactly what I was doing. I took you to your room and... you know. The mistake is all mine."
"Oh! Um. It... Anna." Eddy stammers. "No, please. Don't worry about any of that. It takes two to tango, that's not on you. Let's.. maybe we should just forget about it, okay?"

She smiles then, suddenly, a weird, forlorn ghost of a smile crossing her features, and that's when it hits Eddy like a jackhammer to the chest. Oh, no.
Oh, fuck.
She's not about to forget about it at all. Brett was right.
"Fuck..." he whispers.
She shrugs.
"So now you know." she says softly. "I've always liked you, from the first moment in Perth when you were there with the quartet. You looked so handsome. So competent. Confident. I've also always known you were never mine to have."
"What?" he grunts, his mind too frazzled to say anything else, anything that makes sense, anything to wipe the sad, sad look off her face. Her eyes are glistening and he knows she's holding back tears.
She laughs once then, and it's a bleak, dark sound.
"You're someone else's, Eddy. Even if you haven't figured that out for yourself yet. Anyway. I should get going. I... I'm hurt. It's my own fault I'm hurt, so please don't take that on yourself. I'll be okay, and we'll be friends. Cool?"
"Please. We can... go for a walk, maybe. I'll buy you a cinnamon roll."
She laughs bleakly again.
"Another time I will take you up on that. Right now I would like to be alone."
She gets up, walks over and presses the softest, gentlest kiss to his forehead. Then she smiles the same, sad smile from before and she walks out, closing the door behind her. He can hear her footsteps fading away down the stairs as he leans back in the cushions. His heart is hammering in his chest as if it's trying to escape and he's breathing way too fast, he knows. What the hell is he ever going to be able to do to fix this?

Fuck it sideways. Brett was right. Of course he was right, he's been right about absolutely everything this week. Oh, no. She likes him. Had he known that she likes him he would never, ever have slept with her, drunk or no.
She's told him not to feel guilty. 
Well, too fucking late, Anna. 
How could he have missed that for all that time? He's known her for years!
And what the hell did she mean, he belongs with someone else?