The Orchestra - Sinfónia Lifsins - 53. Confession

My first “romantic date” was a disaster, and I didn’t even know why. Jó and Eiri hadn’t even left the house for their own romantic outing by the time Dmitri was gone. They came into the kitchen and pulled me in for a double hug as soon as they saw me standing alone by the now-empty kitchen table. Dmitri’s chair lay discarded on the floor.

“What happened, Gunni? We heard the front door closing and thought you were both gone.” Jó caressed my hair and laid my head against his shoulder. “Did you and Dmitri break up?”

“No, we didn’t.” My answer surprised Jó enough that he pulled me back to look at me with a comic face of confusion. He mouthed the word ‘what’, but didn’t say anything. Eiri looked just as confused next to him. “He was really nice and understanding about the things I told him. We decided to stay together. Everything was going so much better than I expected… but then he said he wasn’t feeling well and that he had to go. I tried to ask what was wrong, but he just kept apologising and not looking at me and then he got up and left and I couldn’t even hug him. I don’t know what’s going on. Do you think I did something wrong?”

“No. If you decided to stay together and everything was going well, it can’t be your fault.” Jó pulled me closer to him again. Eiri put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Call him later to ask how he is doing. Hopefully you’ll get some answers then.”

I didn’t. I called Dmitri three times before I went to bed, but they all went straight to voicemail. Each time I left a message saying I was worried about him and that I wanted him to call me when he could. I watched my phone closely the next day, hoping Dmitri would call soon. I kept my nerves in check thinking that if something serious had happened, Karen or Gísli would’ve contacted me already. Dmitri couldn’t be feeling too bad, or I would’ve known. Bu then why didn’t he call me? Maybe it was my fault after all.

My phone rang later in the evening. I was lying on the couch, getting a calming scalp massage from Jó, when the third movement of Tchaikovsky’s Pathetique symphony blared from my phone, indicating Dmitri was calling. The phone was on the coffee table next to me, but I was so relieved to hear it ring that I jumped towards it. I fell on the floor, hurt my knee, and almost caused a disaster with the little porcelain dolls that adorned the coffee table. I was still cringing from the pain when I answered. “Hi, Dmitri!”

“Hi, Gunni. I just saw your messages.” Dmitri’s tone gave me the chills. “We need to talk. Can you come over as soon as possible? I know it’s a bit late, but it’s urgent.”

I sat on the floor, clutching the phone closer to my ear as if it would make Dmitri see how worried I was. “What’s going on? Do you want to talk about something from yesterday?”

“I don’t want to say anything over the phone. Calling you over is taking all my willpower as it is. Please come, it’s really important. Karen says she can pick you up and take you back if your cousins are busy.”

“No, it’s fine. I think Eiri can take me. I’ll see you soon.” I had never heard Dmitri so agitated. Eiri’s head appeared by the door to the living room at the mention of his name, and his worried face indicated I looked agitated too. “This isn’t anything to do with Siggi, is it?”

Dmitri laughed, but his tone didn’t change. “No, Siggi is as fine as he can be. This isn’t about him.”

“Ok. Is it about us, then?”

“Sort of. Mostly about me, but if it didn’t have anything to do with you, I wouldn’t be calling you in the middle of the night.”

“I understand. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Eiri didn’t ask for details before heading to the front door to put his shoes and coat on, but I told him as much as I knew in the ten-minute car ride. It didn’t make him any less worried.

Karen answered the door with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Hi, guys. Dmitri is waiting in his bedroom. Do you want to come in too, Eiri? Or are you just the delivery guy?”

Eiri chuckled. “I’m just the emergency driver. Unless you need me to stay…?”

“You can if you want.” Karen pulled Eiri’s arm to make him come in before he could answer. She closed the door with a kick and took my cousin towards the living room while I headed upstairs.

I found my boyfriend sitting on the bed with his back to the door. He was wearing an old white shirt and fluffy pyjama bottoms with snowflakes all over it. He only turned to me when he heard the door close.

“Thanks for coming on such short notice. It means a lot to me that you were able to come.” He tried to smile, but it didn’t last. His eyes were puffy and red, and his hair was dirty, sticking together in places. He wasn’t wearing his glasses either.

“What do you want to talk about?” I approached the bed. Dmitri motioned that I should sit next to him. Our legs brushed, and he jerked away like I had electrocuted him. “Are you ok?”

“No.” He looked at his knees. “I called you because since yesterday I’ve been watching my worst nightmare unfold in front of my eyes, and I can’t do anything to stop it.”

I inched closer to Dmitri on instinct, but he pulled away again. “Your worst nightmare? Does it have to do with the things you couldn’t tell me about your past?”

“Sort of.” Dmitri’s hands closed into fists on his lap. He stared at me with gentle eyes and shaky lips until I was concerned he had forgotten how to speak. I reached towards him, and this brought him back to the present. “I’m in love with you.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I know. I was as surprised as you when I found out yesterday.” Dmitri gave me his first true smile. “And then I was so scared I tried to drink all the alcohol in the house at once, but my friends didn’t let me.”

I tried to think of something to say, but my mouth opened and closed without making a sound.

“I’m sorry to drop this bombshell on you so suddenly, but I didn’t want to keep something like this a secret. I’m always asking you to tell me when something isn’t right, so it’s only fair that I do the same.”

I still couldn’t speak. I remembered my words from the previous day, ‘I don’t love you in a romantic way’, and everything made sense. It had been my fault. I needed to apologise. If I had known about his feelings, I wouldn’t have said those things. I wanted to make him feel better, but he spoke before I got the chance.

“I don’t know what to do now. I’ve felt everything in the last twenty-four hours, from despair to dread, and I’ve felt like I want to be with you forever, only to change my mind the next second and think it’d be better for everyone if we keep our relationship strictly professional from now on. But I don’t want to make any decisions before we talk things through.”

“I’m sorry, I really am.” I lifted my hand towards him, but changed my mind. “I don’t want to hurt you. That’s the last thing I want!” My hand kept hanging in the air. I was desperate to comfort him, to feel his body against mine again, but he had already made it clear he didn’t want me too close. “You told me you’re scared of falling in love because you lose control of yourself. What do you think is going to happen to you now?”

“It’s already happening.” Dmitri looked at his knees again. “I want you to be happy more than anything in the whole world. That’s a deep feeling inside me I can’t just rationalise away. I feel an urge to do anything it takes to make you happy. Like, now that you told me you felt repulsed by me because of what I did during my birthday party, I don’t want to have sex anymore. I feel repulsed by the things I did, even though two days ago I was having the time of my life when they were happening.”

“No!” How could that be possible? “I never asked you to stop doing anything!”

“It’s not about what you ask me to do or not. You think sex is repulsive, so I don’t feel like having sex, and I regret having that birthday party. I can’t control those feelings.”

“This is horrible!”

“Why do you think I’m so scared?”

“I’m sorry!” I clutched my trousers to keep me from jumping to comfort him. It hurt to watch him suffer and not be able to do anything. “I don’t want you to change! I don’t want to force you to stop… to stop having sex. I’m not repulsed by you anymore.” If anything, seeing his pain made sure that my urge to help him get better overcame all negative feelings.

“Thanks. I’m glad to know that, even if it doesn’t change much.” Dmitri turned to me with a sad smile. “You know, if you ever tell me that you hate the smell of alcohol on my breath, you’ll make me want to stop drinking too. But unlike sex, this is an addiction I can’t get out of so easily. I’ll try, fail, and then feel guilty and self-conscious around you.”

“No, please, don’t do that! I’m the one who’s feeling guilty now! You’re such a wonderful person just the way you are; I don’t want you to change because of me!”

Dmitri looked at me for a long time until his eyes became watery, and the first tear ran down his right cheek. “At least this time around I’m in love with a decent person. It helps to know that you’re not going to use my feelings to manipulate or try to hurt me. Out of all the people I know, you’re the safest one to be vulnerable to.”

His words stabbed me in the chest. “I don’t want to hurt you, and I’m sorry that someone did, even if I don’t know the full story. It couldn’t have been your fault. You don’t deserve to be hurt by those you love.” I spread my arms, hoping Dmitri would come to me this time. I knew it was unlikely, but I couldn’t stand not being able to comfort him anymore. Dmitri seemed surprised at first, but then he smiled and finally let me hug him.

I missed our body contact. It was nice to touch him again, even if the skin on his bare arms was cold and his breath reeked of too much vodka (not that I would ever tell him that).

“Siggi is worried that you’re too young and immature to deal with my issues, but you’re not doing too badly. I missed being this close to you.”

“Me too. I’ll do my best to help as much as I can.”

“I know. You’re a much better person than my last boyfriend.” Dmitri’s hug crushed my ribs. “That is, if you still want to be my boyfriend now that my feelings for you changed.”

I didn’t have to think about my answer. “How could I break up with you when I see you suffering so much? What I said yesterday is still true. I don’t feel the same way as you, but you’re nice and safe. If you don’t want to break up, we don’t have to.”

“Thanks. Your happiness is the most important thing to me right now. If you wanted to break up, I would be like Gísli and stay as close to you as I could, ready to help if my love was in trouble.”

I had never heard words that sounded so heartwarming and yet so wrong at the same time. Red flags went up in my mind, carried along memories of Dmitri telling me I should never prioritise someone else over my own happiness. “I can’t be that important! I’m just… I’m just me. You already make me happy. If you try any harder, you’re going to hurt yourself, and I don’t want that. It would hurt me too if you get hurt because of me.”

Dmitri sighed and blew his nose. “I feel much better knowing that we both just want each other to be happy. Our relationship becomes more equal and safer that way. It’s much healthier than one’s happiness being based on complete domination of the other, and that other person going along to make sure that his partner stays happy.”

“Is this what happened to you?”

Dmitri’s answer was another bone-crushing hug. I tightened my hold on him too, to let him know I was there for him, and he broke down sobbing. I didn’t know what to do other than hold him and caress his hair while he cried on my shirt. I wanted to do more than that, to make his sadness and the bad memories disappear, but I didn’t know how. Maybe Siggi was right and I was too young, but I had to do what I could to help him.

“Þorsteinn was lovely when I met him,” Dmitri said between sobs. “Funny, smart, sexy. He was perfect. Too perfect. I should’ve known. But I fell for his charm instead.”

I didn’t want to interrupt him. Once Dmitri started telling his story, he wouldn’t stop. The words flew out of his mouth at a speed that was often hard to follow. He slipped to Russian every now and then, switching back to Icelandic once he realised his mistake. He only lifted his head from my chest when his story was over.

And then we cried together, sharing our pain and our love, in a moment that could’ve lasted an eternity.