The Geometry of Anxious Waiting

Caleb's meticulously planned picnic-confession is derailed when Eddie doesn't show up. As minutes stretch into an hour, he spirals into self-doubt, with only the silent, mocking grin of a bronze cat for company.

Three o’clock. Then ten past three. Now, a quarter to four. Caleb checked his phone again, the screen glaring in the dappled light filtering through the canopy of leaves overhead. No new messages. The last one, sent from his own phone at two-forty-five, was a single, pathetic question mark that sat there, unanswered and accusing.

He smoothed a non-existent wrinkle on the picnic blanket. He hated this feeling, the loose, untethered anxiety that came with waiting for Eddie. Eddie, who operated on his own unique timezone, a chaotic swirl of ‘five more minutes’ that could mean anything from thirty seconds to the next geological epoch. Caleb, by contrast, lived his life by the crisp, reassuring tick of a clock. Punctuality was a virtue. Waiting was a special circle of hell reserved for people who didn't set enough alarms.

The sandwiches were starting to look sad. He’d cut the crusts off, just how Eddie liked them, a ridiculous, sentimental gesture that made his cheeks burn now. He’d pictured this moment for weeks. He’d run through the dialogue in his head, a script polished to perfection. He would offer Eddie a sandwich. Eddie would make a joke about the lack of crusts. They’d laugh. And then, in the comfortable silence that followed, Caleb would just… say it. Three words. Nine letters. A sentence that could either build a bridge or blast a crater into the middle of their friendship.

Instead, he was alone, being judged by a gallery of bronze weirdos. The Mad Hatter’s manic energy felt like a personal attack. The Dormouse seemed to be sleeping through Caleb’s entire romantic crisis, the lazy git. And the Cheshire Cat, perched in the tree above Alice’s head, wore a grin that knew too much. It knew Caleb had spent an hour debating between lemonade and iced tea. It knew he’d changed his shirt three times. It knew he was a bloody idiot.

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### The Archaeology of a Text Chain

He unlocked his phone again, scrolling up through their chat history as if it were a sacred text holding the answers to the universe. It was a dizzying collage of Eddie’s chaotic energy and Caleb’s attempts to contain it.

Eddie, 10:15 AM: PARK TODAY???? I HAVE AN IDEA.

CALEB, 10:17 AM: An idea involving what? Last time you had an idea, my shoes ended up in the Conservatory Water.

Eddie, 10:18 AM: Details, details. This one is better. Promise. Meet at the crazy tea party statue? 3pm? Bring snacks.

CALEB, 10:20 AM: Fine. But if I get wet, you’re buying me new shoes.

Eddie, 10:21 AM: Deal! See you there!!!!!!

He read it over and over. The quadruple exclamation mark seemed sincere. ‘See you there!!!!!!’ It was a promise, practically a blood oath in Eddie’s world of fleeting whims. There was no ambiguity. So where was he?

Caleb’s mind, a well-oiled machine for worst-case scenarios, kicked into high gear. Maybe Eddie had forgotten. No, he had his phone. Maybe he’d been hit by a taxi. Possible, given Eddie’s habit of walking into traffic while staring at cloud formations. Maybe—and this one landed with a cold thud in his stomach—he’d realised what this was. That this wasn’t just ‘hanging out’. That Caleb’s carefully constructed nonchalance had sprung a leak, and Eddie had seen the messy, hopeful feelings spilling out and decided to run for the hills.

He flopped back on the blanket with a groan, staring up at the shifting pattern of leaves against the sky. Being friends with Eddie was easy. It was effortless and fun and loud. Wanting to be more than friends with Eddie was this: sitting on a stupid blanket with rapidly warming lemonade, feeling his heart shrink with every passing, silent minute.

He was done. Forty-five minutes was a respectable amount of waiting. It was more than respectable; it was practically saintly. He sat up, decision made. He would pack up his failed picnic, go home, and eat all the crustless sandwiches himself while watching a documentary about concrete. A nice, predictable, un-Eddie-like evening.

He was stuffing the crisps back into his bag when a frantic shout of his name cut through the park’s ambient hum.

“CALEB! MATE! DON’T LEAVE!”

He turned to see Eddie sprinting towards him, a whirlwind of flailing limbs and apologies. His hair was a mess, there was a smudge of what looked like paint on his cheek, and he was holding a single, slightly wilted daisy.

“I am so, so, so sorry,” Eddie gasped, bending over to catch his breath. “I completely lost track of time. I was helping Mrs. Gable with her window box, the one with the petunias, and she insisted on telling me the entire life story of her cat, Mittens. Apparently, he had a thyroid problem. It was a whole saga.”

He straightened up, offering the droopy daisy like a peace treaty. His grin was wide and guileless, and in that moment, Caleb’s carefully constructed wall of indignation crumbled into dust.

“You’re an idiot,” Caleb said, but there was no heat in it. He took the flower.

“The biggest,” Eddie agreed cheerfully, flopping onto the blanket and immediately reaching for the sandwiches. “Ooh, you cut the crusts off!” He beamed at Caleb. “You’re the best.”

Caleb watched him devour the first sandwich in two bites. The script was useless now, the perfect moment gone. But as Eddie started talking, a mile a minute, about Mrs. Gable’s cat, gesturing wildly with a half-eaten sandwich, Caleb felt the knot in his chest loosen. It wasn’t the plan. But it was Eddie. And maybe that was better.