by Daryl Banner
“So please tell me about how you’re doing,” I beg him. “I need to hear something good. With the exception of this book and that bag of Cheetos, I feel like there’s nothing good left in the world.”
Dmitri thinks about it for exactly one second, then answers, “Well, Riley and I are officially caput as well.”
I chuckle at that, then turn to him. His eyes return no humor. “Oh. You’re serious.”
“We had some differences,” he explains. “It sort of … started after Halloween. We got kinda drunk. Her, Eric, and I. And Eric was going through a thing. Long story short: she learned I was bisexual that night in a very here’s-an-example-of-what-I’m-like-with-a-guy kind of way.”
“Wait. She didn’t know before?”
“Nope.”
I find that really hard to believe. “You two were together for, like, over a year … and she seriously didn’t know? Dmitri …”
“I wasn’t keeping it from her, if that’s what you’re implying. It’s just something that never came up.”
“She never happened to check out a guy that you had your eye on?” I ask him, turning the interrogation light on his face. “You never once slipped and acted like her gay best friend for a second?”
“Nope.”
I smirk, then take his answer with a shrug. “So the truth came out. It has a way of doing that, I guess.”
“And some other truths came with it,” he goes on. “Namely, she was not as open to the idea of a bisexual boyfriend as she first had thought. After what happened on Halloween, she kept asking about Eric. Every detail you can imagine. No answer was enough. She didn’t want me in the apartment alone with Eric anymore, and shit just got weird. Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, one time after Brant and I played Xbox in front of her, she was suddenly convinced that he was bi and we were doing it in the butt every weekend. That was hilarious … until it wasn’t. She was really upset by it, and I didn’t realize how upset until she had a meltdown right before we were supposed to go to my parents’ place for Thanksgiving, which was sort of a big deal because she’s—”
“Such a family person, yeah,” I finish for him, remembering. “So what then?”
“She said we should take a break. She’d go to her house for the holidays, and I’d do the same. My parents were pretty disappointed she wasn’t coming because they were thrilled to meet this girl who had taken my heart.” Dmitri sighs and helps himself to another Cheeto. He pops it in his mouth, crunches it down to nothing with conviction, then says, “But the painful truth is, I don’t know if she really had my heart. She surely did a number to it, nonetheless.”
“I’m sorry, Dmitri. I wish I’d been there for you when that—”
“No, no,” he says right away, cutting me off. “It’s okay, Sam. We’ve both been … kinda doing our own thing for a while, I guess.”
Seeing the side of his face as he makes that lopsided smile sends me on a nostalgic path into a bright, leafy forest full of memories and rich sensations. I’ve known him for so long, but I feel like he hasn’t changed at all. He’s always been the same Dmitri to me. I wonder if he thinks the same of me, or if my outer transformation has changed more inside of me than I realize.
“I miss us,” I admit suddenly.
“Me too,” he admits just as quickly, then gives me his soft eyes.
That rich, dark gaze of his still makes me melt. I look away, fighting a blush I can’t properly conceal without my glasses. Damn these contacts.
“All empty,” he notes, poking my bag of Cheetos.
“Whose fault is that?” I tease.
In a maneuver quick as a rattler, Dmitri latches his mouth around one of my fingers, sucking the orange right off. I gasp, jaw hanging as he proceeds to suck each of my fingers. Despite how good and sexy it feels, there is nothing sexy about how he does it, licking them off like a cartoon animal. I have to fight laughter as he finishes, then pulls away innocently, his eyes turning big and an invisible halo hovering over his angelic face.
I turn on my strict voice. “You … never … lick another girl’s Cheeto fingers.”
“No?”
“You don’t know where my hand’s been!”
“You’re a clean gal,” he says. “I trust you.”
Our eyes connect, and a ripple of nostalgia mixed with something new gallops through me. The spark is there. It’s so, so there. Even now, he makes my heart race in that way where you genuinely worry you might faint and never wake up again until he kisses you to life.
“I can’t do this,” I say suddenly.
His eyes turn serious just as fast. “Me neither.”
“And we really shouldn’t. I mean, we just got out of … We’re still—”
“I know.” He sits up suddenly. “You and I are really good friends to each other. We’ve always been. Even when we don’t speak for a month or two at a time—”
“We pick right back up like we never missed a day,” I finish.
“Exactly. We need a friend right now. You need one. I need one.”
“Let’s be friends.”
“Let’s,” he agrees, smiling with his cheeks flushed in that adorable way they do, and it sets my chest on fire with pride and comfort—pride that I know such a kind, beautiful man like Dmitri with a soul as old and wise as time itself, and comfort that he will never intentionally hurt me, that he’s a safe haven from the insanity of my world, and that he truly understands me.
I’ve never felt this level of comfort around anyone before.
Not even myself.
This day on the grassy knoll under the tree is the first day of the rest of my new adult life. This is the day I give up my silly college boy obsessions and employ a new way of looking at my world.
I think Dmitri must have made a similar mental vow, because the next time we see each other, which is at the studio on Abernathy to attend an end-of-January art show that Brant and Nell both have pieces in, neither of us flirts with the other. Instead, he wants to know how my day was, asks whether I made any progress on my end-of-year composition piece I told him I was struggling with, and then proceeds to tease me about not having finished the sci-fi book yet. “I guess I can’t stand to let a good thing come to an end,” I tell him.
Dmitri’s sister Devin even shows up to the exhibit, which is the first time I’ve actually properly gotten to meet her. She looks nothing like him except for maybe her nose and the dark tint of her hair. She’s very sweet, but a little standoffish. Dmitri tries to explain that she’s too cool for us now that she’s halfway toward her sophomore year—signing his words, of course—to which Devin smacks him and signs a bunch of things at him I don’t understand. It’s sort of a beautiful thing, seeing brother and sister tease each other and interact through the medium of sign language. It makes me miss Dessie and Clayton suddenly.
Dmitri and I get lost among the art, offering our interpretations to each other each time we approach a new piece or photograph. Dmitri listens to me intently, and I afford him the same respect. I’ve never felt closer to him and all we’re doing is observing art and pretending to know what we’re talking about.
Even in the context of an art exhibit where Brant and Nell hold the spotlight, somehow Dmitri makes me feel like I’m the real reason he came. His warm, dark eyes welcome me every time he looks my way, and somehow, I catch myself realizing I haven’t felt this calm or in-my-element in years.
With him, I’m always a part of something, and someone.
Afterwards when we all go out for some random Asian fusion dinner to celebrate, Dmitri and his sister sit by Brant and I sit by Nell, and we’re just five college friends sharing a platter of dumplings, vermicelli-filled shrimp rolls, fried wontons, and sticky chicken wings. Brant and Dmitri play off of each other and his sister so well that even Nell is rolling in laughter by the time the check finally arrives. I try to pay my portion, but Brant insists on covering us all as a thank-you for attending their show.
Dmitri walks me back to his apartm
ent to hang out for the evening after his sister is picked up by some friends. Brant and Nell head to her loft where Brant basically lives now. At the apartment, Eric gets every juicy detail out of me about Tomas, then tells me what a “big weirdo creep” he thought he was. I think he’s just saying that to make me feel better, but I assure him that Tomas wasn’t the weirdo. If anything, he’s a normal guy who’ll find a nice girl someday, and I’m the weirdo.
“If you’re a weirdo,” says Dmitri after Eric excuses himself to the bathroom, “then I’m a freak of freakin’ nature.”
I chuckle, then catch myself in a shiver suddenly, thanks to the odd cold front that blew in tonight. Without missing a beat, Dmitri’s arm is around me. There’s nothing pushy or sexual about it; he comforts me the way he would a buddy, lending his warmth because I need it.
That touches my heart more than any sexual advance in my wildest dream could hope to. As long as Dmitri is in my life in some capacity, I will never feel alone or ignored again.
When Valentine’s Day rolls around, Dmitri is the first face I see. He must’ve taken my phone when I wasn’t looking and put a selfie of himself that shows up whenever he calls, because when my phone buzzes at nine in the morning, his goofy face making a cheesy smile with a rose tucked behind his ear is what I see.
I snort, rub my sleepy eyes, and bring the phone to my ear. “At this hour??” is how I greet him before even a hello.
“Will you be my Valentine?”
I glance at the sleeping body of Victoria curled up in her sheets. It reminds me instantly of Dessie for some reason. Maybe it’s the whole Theatre thing. They’ve really become such good friends over the years, keeping in contact and collaborating on so many different projects, even long-distance. Sometimes, they’re like the same person.
Hopping out of bed, I step into the closet and bring down my voice. “You can be my Singles’ Awareness Valentine, if that’s what you mean.”
“Fuck Singles’ Awareness. I want you to be my legit Valentine. But like, in a friendly way. My friendly Valentine. Just a guy and a gal and a ridiculously extravagant dinner at some fancy place uptown where we sit in the company of a bunch of unhappy lovers. C’mon, say yes.”
“Ugh. Yes.”
“Good, because I already made the reservation a couple of days ago. Really, I’ve learned you have to do this stuff way ahead of time.”
I laugh, then clap a hand over my mouth and bring my voice back down. “Seriously, Dmitri? Presumptuous much?”
“I’ll pick you up at six, right after your Symphonic class. Ciao.”
He hangs up and I’m left staring at his goofy selfie on my phone. Yes, he knows my schedule as well as he knows his own. That’s how close we’ve become.
And he said what he meant and meant what he said. When he picks me up, he’s got a bouquet of green roses, which is about the weirdest and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I hold them awkwardly in my lap on the way to the restaurant while my heart races. “And I’d like to thank the Academy,” I say with fake pomp and ceremony.
“No, no, no. You look much more like a Beauty Queen who’s just won the pageant,” he says, one hand on the wheel and one on the stick shift. He’s gussied up in a crisp black dress shirt and a set of green suspenders with a matching green bowtie, perfectly complementing my green dress with a slit up the side. Green, other than being my sorta favorite color, was also our choice in the most anti-Valentine palette we could possibly devise.
“Then I would like to wish for world peace, feed the hungry bellies of children all around the world, and—”
“Bring Mozart back to life, yeah, yeah, I know.”
“Hey,” I sass him with a smile. “This is my pageant.”
“Alright. Sorry for interrupting. Go ahead and finish.”
I look down at the bouquet of green roses, then finish: “And I’d like to bring Mozart back to life.”
Dmitri fights a smile as he continues to drive.
The restaurant is twenty times more beautiful than I imagined. The host doesn’t judge our peculiar attire, instead seeming to embrace it with enthusiasm as he leads us to our candlelit table. I’ve never, in all my life, felt like the pretty girl in the room.
Tonight, I’m a damn princess.
Over the steak Dmitri is feasting on thirty minutes later, he tells me, “I think I figured out the end to my story.”
I’m chewing on a bite of garlic-butter-glazed jumbo shrimp. “The one about the donor? You’ve been working on that for years.”
“I know. I never turned it in for that assignment. Ended up writing some other thing about a masturbation beast. Anyway.” Some nearby woman seems to have overheard “masturbation beast” because she looks up from her salad suddenly like someone just smacked her in the face, and she peers around for the culprit, bewildered. Dmitri, oblivious as ever, just cuts another bite of his steak. His plate fills with the rich juice of his medium rare meat. “I think the donor lets the woman keep his heart. Y’know, the living woman he fell in love with.”
“Aww. That’s sad.”
“Not quite.” Dmitri smiles knowingly. “Because I think she offers him something else in return. Something far, far more valuable than his life.”
“What’s that?”
“Purpose.” With that, Dmitri lifts his glass of wine to me. “Here’s to having a purpose. Each and every human being on this lonely planet full of lovers and losers.”
I smile and, greasy fingers and all, lift my own glass. “May we never forget our purpose.”
“May we never.” Our glasses clink.
“By the way,” I say after taking a sip of my wine, “which are we? The lovers or the losers?”
“Oh, by far the lovers. When you have art, you’re always in love.”
I can smile at that. And just then, as if it was planned by the Fates themselves, the restaurant pianist starts to play Mozart. Both of us recognize it, eye each other, then burst out into laughter that draws the attention of every table around us. “Mozart lives!” Dmitri cries out, watery-eyed and hysterical. “He lives!!”
My gut is splitting from laughter, and I’m a girl who never laughs, not like this. Dmitri is the only person I will ever know who can open me up like this, revealing every shimmery bit of what I keep so tightly hidden in my shell.
Nothing’s ever felt as good as the first crack of my shell splitting.
Even when he drops me off at my dorm and all we do is hug each other goodnight, a fleeting fear races through me that this might be the best Valentine’s Day I’ve ever had and no other will ever match it.
Dmitri’s ruined me in the best way possible.
That hurts somehow as much as it feels good. And when I sleep that night, I’m as weightless as wind, yet heavy as a stone sinking to the bottom of the sea. And it’s on that ocean floor, on this night of endless dreaming and wishing and wanting, that the composition I’d been struggling with works its way out of my head. I dart out of my bed at precisely three in the morning and sit at the computer to finish my great work, then fall asleep dreaming of the next time I’ll touch the keys of a piano to hear my work realized.
Spring break is fast approaching, and a very important question sits on my tongue. The entire time Dmitri and I eat lunch, I’m staring hardcore at his face, desperate to ask it. He’s going on and on about the fifty-thousand-word novel he’s trying to finish, but there is something missing, something so obvious he can’t see it. I’m listening with all my ears, but ignoring him with all my heart, because of that stupid question lingering on the edges of my lips. Just ask it!
“Do you want to come home with me for spring break?” I blurt out in the middle of something he’s saying.
Dmitri blinks and fumbles with his sandwich, dropping it into his lap. He lifts his cute eyebrows at me. “Come again?”
“Spring break,” I repeat. “Do you want to come to my house, meet my mom, and spend it with me?”
He drops his jaw. “Do I? … Do I??�
�� He snorts like my question is the most ridiculous thing. “Sweetheart, I’m already there with a bag packed and you don’t even know it yet.”
I grin, feeling my insides settle at once. It’s funny, how one silly answer from Dmitri can make me melt and put me back together all at the same time. I’ve been a knot of nerves all day, and now I’m floating through clouds with giggles in my throat.
Dmitri offers to drive me home, which saves my mom the long trip. Pulling up to my house with Dmitri at my side feels frighteningly more normal than I expected, as if he was meant to come home with me all along. My mother is pleasantly surprised when she opens the door to find us both. “So you’re the famous Dmitri,” she sings.
“Infamous, actually,” he says, shooting me a crooked smile.
“Get your butt in here!” My mom pulls Dmitri in for a hug. “Gosh, you two have been friends forever. I’m thrilled to finally meet you in the flesh! Make yourself at home,” she says as she leads him through the house. “It’s a bit messy. Sorry. I’m pulling doubles all week and haven’t had much of a chance to spruce things up.”
“No need to,” Dmitri insists lightheartedly. “I live with a playwright and an artist. My home is doomed to eternal mess.”
My mom finds that way too funny, then proceeds to pour drinks for both of us while telling him where he can put his bag. We don’t have a guestroom per se, but the couch pulls out into a big, creaky bed, and Dmitri is all the more happy to make it his home for this week. Watching the two of them get along warms me up so much that I catch myself just staring at them forever, completely out of my body.
Dmitri gets along with everyone he meets. He’s full of life, full of wonder, and carries the spark of fire in his eyes that I’ve, for so long, lacked in my life.
“There weren’t any hours available at the movie theater for the break,” I explain to Dmitri around midnight when we’re kicking back on the fold-out couch watching the living room TV and my mom is gone to her graveyard shift, “but they said I can still utilize my special employee privileges, which sorta means—”