Achilles

The door swung shut between them and Adrien wasn’t sure which one of them closed it; it stood between them, untouched, as if it was the very thing that cut the thread between them, entirely on its own accord. As he stood there in silence, he found himself chewing on his nail. He snatched his hand away from his mouth and wiped it on his jeans. Too much of Théo had rubbed off on him, he thought to himself, like the fact that he was on the verge of tears right now, something painful stuck in his throat. Back in the living room he picked up the dog and raised her to eye level.
“Did I do the right thing, Penny?” he asked. “Tell me I did the right thing.”
Penny, in lieu of a reply, growled like a cat. With a sigh, Adrien put her down and went to find a leash.
Their walk consisted of the same route to the same park by now. He was starting to form a routine that was snipping away at his half-hour with Théo every morning - the one which had been cut short today, possibly forever. This time, he bought coffee on the way and balanced the paper cup carefully as Penny went for her romp around the park. A small crowd around a bench caught his sleepy attention, and it soon turned out to be mutual. In the centre of it all there was a girl with dark glasses, her dreadlocks piled up on the top of her head like a nest of angry snakes, her white cane propped up by the bench. She was speaking in a loud voice, in English, with an accent Adrien couldn’t place. At first he could only hear the impressed murmurs from the little crowd, and then her voice rose above them.
“And what about that guy in the red plaid shirt? The one having a bad day?”
Adrien stopped dead in his tracks as several faces turned in his direction. He glanced at his own chest just to make sure and anger started rising in him instantly. She turned her attention to him as well.
“Haven’t even had your morning coffee yet and already past a breakup?” she teased, and he shot her a dark look - in vain. There was scattered laughter among the crowd.
“Is that true?” someone asked in French, and Adrien decided to ignore them. Penny was already pulling at her leash impatiently.
“What’s your deal?” Adrien decided to ask the girl, not exactly polite. “You want me to give you twenty euros so you can make some vague generalizations based on my body language and offer me some useless advice?”
“Oh no, I’ll tell you for free.” Her laughter was easy; she didn’t hold anything against him. “If you want to fix this, you’ll need to throw yourself in front of several moving objects. I mean, only if you want to fix this,” she added, sounding - wanting to sound - as if she knew a great deal. I bet you’re not even blind, Adrien thought weakly, and didn’t say a word.
“Thanks for stopping by,” she added after his silence, and with that, he was released.

Théo had expected that his morning would pass over a cup of coffee in Adrien’s kitchen, the way mornings always did, just that one coffee before they went to work, to take the edge of any stress off. Now a complete change of plans was needed, but he wasn’t in the state to come up with ideas. He made the journey back home in a daze, went back to bed, got up twenty minutes later to smoke a cigarette while staring out the window at the dark grey brick wall of the neighbouring building. The glamour of Paris.
He checked his phone and saw that there were still four hours until his shift started. Amid his panic, he realized that the knot in his windpipe wasn’t going away on its own; he would need to talk to someone. With Adrien out of the picture, there weren’t many options left. He considered calling his brother, and then quickly talked himself out of even trying. He still hadn’t learned to figure out the time difference. It could well be the middle of the night in America, he thought, or else the seven hours could be in the other direction and then his brother was at work, probably. He couldn’t afford an international call anyway.
Struggling for a good deep breath, he scrolled up and down his contact list, although he already knew what he was going to do. Not that he didn't have friends, but upon the most superficial reflection he knew they were Adrien's friends first of all, or friends he hadn’t seen for weeks, months, years, or someone else’s friends altogether. This had never been a problem before, it was just fine the way it was, existing in a nearly hermetic isolation six days out of seven, Adrien and him alone. He never really made a difference, he guessed, to anyone.
Except Alice, of course. She has been around the longest. She showed no signs of wanting to go.
She was waiting for him in the small, cheap restaurant they often went to, the one just two blocks away from the store where Théo worked.
She had her thin blond hair tied up on the top of her had, and the long sleeves of her thin black blouse were carefully pulled down over the bones of her wrist. Théo’s heart broke for the eleventh time today, although this once not for himself. Alice already had a beer and a plate of French fries in front of her; another plate and another bottle, untouched, stood there waiting for him.
"I'm not hungry," he said instead of hello and stared sullenly into his plate even after he sat down.
"Of course you are," she said. "Tell me what happened."
He had pleaded with her to come out and talk, yet now he found he could not even say a word. He stared straight ahead, at the texture of the table, at the specks of dust levitating above it, at his own hands.
"Oh, let me guess," she said after a while, almost enthusiastic. "It's Adrien."
He finally looked up to meet her odd blue gaze. People might have thought it was a cold one; he knew better. She took a generous swig of her beer.
"He's finally snapped, didn't he," she guessed, visibly struggling to hold back a grin.
"It's not funny," Théo said, unintentionally loud and defensive. "And what do you even mean 'snapped'?"
She shushed him gently. "You know exactly what I mean. You've been at him for far too long. It must have been stressful for both of you."
Théo drew his eyebrows together, and finally took a sip of his beer as well. "I don't know what you mean," he said, wiping his mouth.
"I'm not going to say it out loud because you'll get mad at me and then you'll be left with no friends at all. Use your brain a little and you'll be able to figure it out for yourself."
He had nothing to say to that apart from a sigh. She reached across the table and stroked his cheek gently. "You'll be fine. I'll make sure of it."
He looked up at her again, into her eyes, and for the first time in the eight years he knew her, he saw something that scared him: she was getting old.