The Orchestra - Sinfónia Lifsins - 50. The Kid Ruined Dmitri's Life

The music room was still uncomfortably flooded in sunlight when the front door opened and heavy footsteps interrupted my practice session. Karen was already home (wasting her afternoon with Gísli and a superhero movie in the living room), so the new arrival could only be Dmitri back from his nauseating date with the kid.

“You said you were going to be out until late. What happened?”

Dmitri was too busy examining a bottle of vodka in the kitchen to turn his face towards me. “Nothing you have to worry about.”

“Did you break up with the kid?”

He drank a third of the bottle in one gulp. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“What part of don’t want to talk don’t you understand?”

This was the kind of answer I gave to intrusive arseholes when I got angry and wanted them to shut up and leave me alone. But stranger than hearing those words coming from Dmitri was his tone of resignation.

Karen and Gísli chose that moment for their dramatic entrance. Of course their total cluelessness could only make things worse. “Shouldn’t you be on a date with Gunni?”

Dmitri drank another third of the bottle. He did nothing when Karen took it away from him. “I’m going to my room. Don’t come after me.” He left without looking up from the floor.

“Do you know what happened to him, Siggi?”

“I know as much as you do.”

Karen almost dropped the bottle. “Do you think he and Gunni broke up?”

“If they did, this has just become the best day of my life.” And not only because the kid would finally be out of my personal space. It was about time Dmitri be free from that damaging, dangerous, and repulsive relationship.

Not that Karen would ever agree with me. “How can you say that? Didn’t you see how sad Dmitri was? He’s obviously hurting right now; their break-up isn’t something to celebrate.”

“Dmitri already told me this relationship was just an excuse to get the kid closer to me. It was never a real thing to begin with. And you know what he really thinks about romantic relationships.”

“But he’s still suffering. You should at least respect that.”

“I don’t understand what he’s suffering for. Getting rid of the kid will be good for him.” It would be good for all of us.

“But Dmitri obviously cares about Gunni. If you can’t see past your issues with him, you won’t understand Dmitri’s feelings, and you’ll make things worse instead of helping.” Karen stood in front of the door. Did she think I was going to rush to Dmitri and sing to him all the wonders of no longer depending on an immature brat for emotional support? Even I had enough sense to know I should wait until he was willing to talk to people again for that.

Gísli finally decided to do something useful by stepping between Karen and me. He put a hand on her shoulder and another around my waist, but looked only at her when he spoke. “Let’s not get into an argument, ok? We don’t even know if Dmitri and Gunni really broke up, so there’s no point in discussing what the right thing to do is. Let’s wait for Dmitri to come forward before we do anything.”

“Fine, let’s go back to what we were doing and hope Dmitri will be ready to talk soon.” Karen and Gísli left the kitchen. Their superhero movie resumed soon after that, loud enough to be a buzzing annoyance from the other side of the wall. I counted Dmitri’s stock of alcohol before I returned to my cello. He had three-and-a-third bottles of vodka left after his birthday party.

If this crisis was as serious as Karen made it out to be, there would be none left in the morning.

(...)

We had the quietest dinner since my first night home after failing to kill myself. Dmitri drank from a glass of transparent liquid that he claimed to be water. We pretended it did not reek of alcohol.

Only after that disastrous meal I was allowed back in my own room. Dmitri’s nightstand had two empty bottles next to it by the time we laid in bed. He was naked under the covers, as per usual, but turned away when I joined him. “If you want a goodnight fuck you’ll have more luck in Gísli’s bed.”

“Are you that messed up? What did the kid do to you?”

“I already said I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Sure, whatever. Just don’t let that misguided sadness of yours destroy your liver.”

Dmitri turned so fast the duvet slapped me in the face. “What ‘misguided sadness’?”

“I can only think of two explanations for your mood today. The first is, as Karen and Gísli also suspect, that you and the kid broke up. The second is that, despite what you told me about not wanting to fuck the kid because of your sex-romance boundaries, you did it anyway, and now you regret it. Whichever the case, it was about time you got away from him.”

“That’s what you think, then?” That weak voice did not suit him.

“I didn’t tell you before because you were too lost in the happy, puffy clouds about your no-sex cuddles to listen to reason. You thought the kid was someone special, and I didn’t want to be the one to take that feeling away from you.” His eyes were wet. Why did my chest feel so tight? “But now that you’ve done all the messed-up self-destructive behaviour that I go for when I want the world to stop existing around me, that ship has sailed.”

“You think my relationship with Gunni is a mistake.”

“Yes. I think it’s the worst decision you’ve made since you followed a man you barely knew across the continent.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Dmitri’s voice shook. It was not anger, but another feeling I knew too well: fear. “You can’t… you can’t compare Gunni to… You can’t!”

Dmitri threw the duvet at me and fled the room while I tried to disentangle myself from the mess. He was rushing through the door to the garden with his last bottle of vodka by the time I caught up to him.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

He stood in the middle of the garden. His ragged breath condensed in front of his face. His body shivered with no clothes on to protect it from the cold. “I’m doing the messed-up self-destructive behaviour that you do when you want the world to stop existing, like you said. I’m sorry I’m stealing your thing, but—”

“I meant the drinking. Stop this nonsense, and come back inside!”

“No.” That was his first sip from the bottle. “You’ll have to make me.” And the first gulp.

Like that would ever happen. “You’re behaving like a kid on a throwing tantrum. Come back inside before you get sick.”

“I’m sick already.”

For once Karen and Gísli’s dramatic appearance did what it was supposed to. They had enough muscle power to drag Dmitri back into a heated environment despite his struggle. Karen took the vodka away. Gísli threw his fluffy robes over Dmitri’s shoulders. I watched my best friend’s rescue in useless, pathetic silence.

Dmitri collapsed on the living room couch. The others laid him in a position that would not give him uncomfortable cramps, and Gísli went as far as covering him in a blanket. Dmitri’s body was limp. Dead. But his eyes were open. Empty and red, but open.

“I did something horrible today.”

And that was how we learned what happened between him and the kid.