Drabble: These Three Little Words
It’s a Tuesday night in February when Dmitri finally says it. It’s nothing special, that night. He’s in the kitchen, extracting the night’s meal off the dishes with the sponge he’s been meaning to replace. Ben’s in the living room with the TV on mute as he nibbles on his pencil, grading papers. Dmitri’s watching him work, smile as he squints down to read and either nodding in approval or shaking his head with disappointment.
The kids are sleeping. Ivan taking Lisabeth into the room with him, setting up her bassinet next to his little twin sized bed with the dinosaur sheets. He turns on the constellation lamp, insisting that the baby sleep in his room because she likes the stars on the ceiling. Dmitri agrees with his son, she’d always slept better when she slept in the room with the little boy. It astounded him how grown up Ivan was for an eight year old, taking responsibility for a baby girl that wasn’t even part of his family.
Though, Ben and him had almost made this odd jigsawed family together. Finding the pieces scattered all over to come together in one household. There was Dmitri, widower and single father who was constantly out having sex with random people, finding himself vying for a past love who’d moved on. He’d destroyed himself inwardly looking for some peace within the clash of two sweaty bodies and whispered names on swollen lips. There was Ben, broken-hearted and left with the child of his broken heart’s fixation. They’d pieced themselves together in some idiosyncratic way, finding some equilibrium between friendship and lovers.
Stealing kisses and moments of tenderness shared when their hearts swelled up to the brim for each other. Dmitri couldn’t bring himself to be with him. He knew it must bother Ben, whether he admitted it or not. There needed to be that link there, that’s what people did. People committed. Yet he couldn’t do it, he couldn’t bring himself to give his heart over to another person so willfully after it all. Partly because he believed the better part of his person now layed in the ground with his wife in a cemetary in Santa Monica.
It’s when Dmitri looks up and see’s Ben that he feels it. You always feel it before you say it and it hits him like a train. He feels his mouth fall open to let in a inhale of nervous air as his heart feels heavy in his chest. He watches him sit there, unknowing of the supernova sized emotions running through Dmitri’s head. There was Ben, his best friend. Still part way between that gullible little boy he’d always been and the patched up quiet man he’d grown up to be. Face still bruised slightly from the beatings he’d taken from homophobic teenagers on main street. Scar on his right arm where’d fallen off the dug out when they’d first met. Somehow those injuries seemed to be connected. Like markings to commemorate moments in time he’d shared with Dmitri.
Dmitri feels this stupid tears stinging at the back of his throat and he’s nearly paralyzed on the crappy cream linoleum staring at him. He finally convinces himself to move, smacking the still wet plate down on the counter top making a clatter that startles Ben. He looks up just as Dmitri walks over, face red with heat and the force of keeping back tears. They make eye contact and Ben set’s down the stack of papers. His mouth is halfway forming around a sentence when Dmitri get’s down on his knees in front of him and plants a kiss on his lips. And there they are Dmitri down on his knees while Ben sits on the couch accepting the kiss like the gift he’d always imagined it to be. When Dmitri pulls away his eyes are half mast and Ben is there with his hands wrapped around Dmitri’s wrists.
It’s a Tuesday night in February when Dmitri whispers a choked up “I love you” to Ben.
