Fantasia

LXXXIV

"How did it go?", Mrs. Yang immediately asked when Eddy came back to Brett's room.
Eddy massaged his forehead to ease his rising headache a bit. His heart however felt as joyful as it hadn't been in years whenever he'd thought of his mum.
"Good! Real good! We had a really... important talk. And she supports my decision."
The Yang's relaxed visibly and it moved Eddy, how much they cared about him.
"That's great news!", Eric stated, "I remember when Brett told us he wanted to do music. We wanted to show our support and we'd kind of expected that he'd go in this direction. We were still worried though."
"You were?", Eddy asked, surprised by this information. He only remembered them giving Brett their blessing for his career choice, and how envious he was in a way.
"We didn't say, but yeah. We were. We knew it's hard, hard work to get by as a musician. We believed in Brett though, but sometimes...", Brett's dad hesitated, prompting Mrs. Yang to continue. "Since Brett fell into a coma, we've asked ourselves, if we should have questioned his choice more. Maybe if we would have, he wouldn't be in this situation. He wouldn't have burnt out."
"But we don't know that, love!", Brett's dad threw in.
Eddy shook his head. "Nah! Brett would have gone through with it no matter what you'd have said. It's not your fault in any way!"
"Exactly, mum!", Alan exclaimed, his facial expression clearly displaying that he had no idea his parents had been having these thoughts, "Brett's stubborn af! No way he would have listened to you. Also, I'm actually very grateful you let us choose what we wanted to do."
"Yeah! My mum didn't. And look what happened to me!", Eddy pointed out.
"You didn't fall into a coma though", Brett's mum sighed, a hand on Brett's forehead.
"I puked my guts out for half a year", Eddy raised an eyebrow, "Not sure if that's better. And who knows, if I would have kept up the pace, it wouldn't have gone well."

Brett's parents eyed him with empathy.
"It's too late to think about all those questions anyway", Mrs. Yang said, "We can't change the past. We can only try to make sure it doesn't happen again."
"Brett didn't tell you anything about the pressure. There was nothing you could have done", Eddy tried to ease their conscience.
"We could have asked more often, come visit more often."
"Brett's really good at hiding stuff though. I'm not sure if you'd have noticed anything", Alan remarked. I saw him then and there and I didn't suspect anything, for which I also could be blamed though."
"Brett's the deadpan king", Eddy said to Alan, knowing Brett's brother also blamed himself for not intervening sooner, "If he doesn't want to show how he's really doing, he doesn't. But we talked about a lot of stuff in my dreams. He knows that him not admitting that he was doing unwell brought him into this mess. I'm confident he won't let that happen again."
"Let's hope so." Mrs. Yang took Brett's hand and squeezed it.
Eddy nodded, his soft and yet determined gaze resting on Brett. "And I'll make sure he won't. Don't worry."

As the afternoon progressed, Eddy got more and more tired, courtesy of the kind of overwhelming phone call he'd had with his mum, he guessed. Dinner came and passed and while the sky over Sydney darkened, Brett's folks debated over whether to stay at the hospital or not.
"If he really wakes up tomorrow, shouldn't we all be here?", Alan asked.
It was out of question for Eddy that he was going to stay by Brett's side, even if there was no free bed the hospital could provide.
"I'm here. I can call you when something changes... or I guess the hospital's gonna do that anyways?"
"There is not much space in this room", Eric remarked, "And we need to be well rested when Brett wakes up. He needs us even more then, I think."
They all agreed and thus decided to go home for the night, not without Eddy having to promise them he'd call.

Could this really be the night where everything would change, he thought to himself after the others had left. He blinked at Brett, rubbed his tired eyes before he opened his violin case and started to tune. He hadn't played much today and the last thing he wanted was that he'd end up NOT dreaming because he'd been slacking off. His fingers quickly found their place on the fingerboard, his bow producing the notes to Brett's piece and then their Adagio. Practicing it certainly didn't hurt and Eddy imagined Brett's first while he played his part, imagining them on a stage, performing to whatever audience was awaiting them. Brett's features were calm this time. No smile, no saying Eddy's name. It was like the other was resting, meditating. Preparing during the calm before the storm...

Eddy lowered his violin. There were a thousand things swirling through his head that he wanted to say to his best friend, and yet, his mouth was dry, his tongue sticking to his top palate. And as much as he wanted to hold on to the conviction that Brett was going to wake up, that their performance would be a success, whatever that meant, there was a tiny part inside him freaking out about their possible failure. What if Brett wouldn't wake up because of that?

What if Brett would...

No. No! That thought had to be cast away to the edge of the universe and beyond, because if that would become reality, Eddy wasn't sure if he wanted to be part of that world anymore.