Night falls quickly and quietly, snowflakes beginning to fall in soft, little flurries. A man stares up at the snow-brightened sky with his hands tucked into his pants and his shoulders hunched against the cold as his breath rises in barely visible clouds. The man is so occupied by the sky above that he barely notices a soft hand touch his shoulder, but he does notice the shake the hand gives him. He turns, and smiles as a woman grins back at him, her shoulders exposed in a red satin dress.
“Are you ready, Dimitri?” the woman asks, her hand stroking down Dimitri’s arm and enhancing her ruby painted fingers with his plain ones. She presses closer to him as a short shudder passes down her spine, making Dimitri chuckle.
“I suppose as ready as I will ever be, Annie, and might I just say, you look marvelous tonight.”
Annie laughs in a high voice as she gently shakes her head, the pieces left out of her romantic low bun shaking with her laughter.
“You don’t look too bad yourself,” she comments, eyeing her companion with amusement.
Dimitri glances down at his navy blue suit, complete with a tie as red as Annie’s dress and raises an eyebrow before bursting into laughter.
“Thank you, love. Now come on; we don’t want to be late.”
Annie rolls her eyes as Dimitri pulls out his phone to check on the uber he ordered ten minutes before leaving his hotel room.
“Okay, the uber should be here any minute now,” Dimitri comments, ignoring the tasteful side-eye from his friend.
“Dimitri, look at me.”
Dimitri lets out a soft sigh before looking deep into Annie’s charcoal-lined green eyes, resisting the urge to run back into his hotel room and grab the emergency pack of smokes.
“Dimitri, tell me you’re not going to do anything stupid at this wedding,” Annie scolds, her voice dropping slightly as her crimson lips purse in what could easily become irritation.
Dimitri lets out a breath disguised as a laugh, a hand reaching for his perfectly groomed hair before thinking the better of it and resting on his stomach instead.
“Annie, I am honestly okay with this whole thing. I’m happy for Victor. I’m glad he’s getting married. I’m not going to do anything stupid.”
The possible frown leaves Annie’s face and is replaced with a soft smile, her fingers reaching to stroke Dimitri’s cheek.
“I just want to make sure you’re okay,” she says, her voice as soft as her touch. Dimitri leans into the touch and smiles sadly.
“Perhaps it was a lie. I can’t lie and say that he’s not still the love of my life, but it’s been years. My heart has healed. I’m… happy for him, I am. I suppose part of me wished that he was marrying me instead. But, I know better. I will never love anyone the way I love him. And that’s okay. I’m okay with that. After all, he’s getting married. And he’s not marrying me.”
Annie hums dismissively as a silver sedan pulls up to the curb, the passenger window rolling down.
“Are you Dimitri?” the driver asks, tearing Dimitri’s attention away from Annie’s intense stare. Dimitri nods and pulls his arm from Annie’s side, walking up to the car and opening the passenger backseat door.
“After you, Annie. We don’t want to miss the ceremony.”
x.x.x
The two friends arrive at a lavish three-story hotel, with white Christmas lights wrapped around the shaped shrubbery outside. Dimitri tips the uber driver and helps Annie out of the car, smoothing his suit jacket with his free hand. He takes a moment to look around the venue as they enter, noticing people he once knew very well and making a choice not to say hello.
It was always a difficult choice.
Dimitri grips Annie’s hand tightly, his heart hammering in his chest against his will; why he was so nervous, he wasn’t sure. After all, it had been three years since their breakup. And god, all the fights they had for the ten years they knew each other before that. The constant breaking up and getting back together… No, it was better that they were apart. It was better that they weren’t together. Victor was happy now; Dimitri needed to accept that.
“Dimitri, darling!”
Dimitri looks up and sees Victor’s mother, a short, stout, elderly woman with curly, white-blue hair. Her smile was as wide as her arms reaching for the man that she considered to be a second son, her lilac shawl stretched as far as it would go. Dimitri smiled back just as softly as he let go of Annie’s hand and embraced his ex’s mother, feeling comfort in the only motherly figure he knew.
“Allison, so nice to see you again. How are you doing?”
“Well! Oh, I’m so happy for Victor, though we all believed you would be the one to marry him,” Allison states as she pulls out of the hug, gently pinching Dimitri’s cheek, making the man laugh.
“Oh Allison, I’ll always be your adoptive son; I don’t need to marry your real son to be so.”
Allison laughs and playfully swats at Dimitri’s side before taking his hand and patting it gently.
“I’m so glad you could be here today, Dimitri. I’m sorry it had to be under such circumstances, but I am glad to see you.”
Allison smiles gently and releases his hand and walks away, leaving Dimitri breathless. Annie places her chin on Dimitri’s shoulder, jerking him from his thoughts.
“You okay?” she asks quietly, peering up at him through her darkly framed lashes. Dimitri nods, struggling to get his breath back. All at once, he knew that coming to this wedding was a mistake.
“Is it too late to leave?” he asks quietly, barely turning his head to talk.
“Yeah, I’d say so. It’s bad taste to leave once the groom’s mother has seen and talked to you,” Annie responds, rubbing Dimitri’s arm in comfort. Dimitri groans and allows Annie to steer him toward the ceremony room.
They find a seat near the front, about three rows back, sitting near the aisle. Somehow sitting here seems like both a good and a bad idea, all at the same time, just like Dimitri’s presence there, on what was to be the happiest day of Victor’s life.
Well, one man’s heaven is another man’s hell and all that.
Guests soon start filling the rest of the empty seats as a four-string quartet begins to play to fill in the silences between guests’ excited speech. Dimitri looks around the room, taking in and ignoring the wedding decorations at the same time. Somehow it was too painful to actually take it all in.
Dimitri’s so busy looking around that he almost misses Victor walking out of a hidden room, adjusting his tie.
Almost.
Dimitri takes in the sight, and it’s like taking a breath after holding it for too long. Like finally having a drink of water when you’ve gone days without a sip. Like the first sip of a newly opened bottle of whiskey. Victor was wearing a stunning maroon suit with a lilac tie, the same color as his mother’s dress. He suit paired perfectly with his pale skin, his eyes shining with either nerves or excitement, visible from even three rows from the front. He was adjusting his silver cufflinks, turning his head to converse with his groomsmen, his head throwing back in a laugh.
Dimitri makes a move to get up and go over to him, but he’s halted by Annie gripping his arm tightly.
“Dimi, you cannot go up there. Nothing stupid, remember?”
Dimitri opens his mouth to respond, but is cut off by the quartet beginning to play “The Wedding March.” The crowd turns in their chairs to watch, but Dimitri keeps his eyes on Victor, who adjusts his stance so that his hands are resting in front of him. Victor glances around the crowd, a soft smile present on his face; the smile falters once Dimitri and Victor make eye contact. But the smile only grows, and Dimitri lets out a breath he wasn’t aware he was holding.
Victor holds eye contact with Dimitri, and Dimitri doesn’t dare break it — it feels too good to be true that Victor had even seen him period — and for a split second, Dimitri can almost forget that Victor is marrying someone who wasn’t him. Of course, the second crashes and burns the moment Victor has to break eye contact in order to take the hand of the woman he is marrying, thus beginning the wedding.
The wedding he shouldn’t be having.
Before Dimitri knows what is happening, he is rising in his chair and falling out into the aisle.
“No! No, no, no!” he stutters, voice rising slightly as his breath leaves him as quickly as he takes it. He ignores Annie’s frantic hissing for him to sit down, that he promised that he wouldn’t do anything stupid. Realizing that now every person is staring at him, including the bride and groom, Dimitri clears his throat and smooths his suit, taking a small step forward.
“Victor you… you can’t marry Vanessa.”
Dimitri turns to Vanessa, who’s looking at him in a state of shock like she’s going to burst into tears, but it’s too late. Everything that Dimitri has kept under wraps for the last few years has come loose, and there is no way to put the words back.
“I’m sure she’s a lovely lady, and I’m sure you’d be very happy with her. But you can’t marry her, because...” he takes a deep breath, hesitant to say the words.
“Because it’s you. It’s always been you; it will always be you.”
Dimitri finishes his dramatic interruption, not looking at anything but Victor. Victor is staring back at him, his mouth open slightly; whether in shock, disbelief, or anger, Dimitri isn’t sure. Dimitri takes a shaky breath and runs a hand through his hair, disrupting the perfect style.
“I… I love you. I love you more than I love myself. I love you in ways that I will never be able to love anyone else. I have always loved you, and I will always love you. I know that I’ve been a mess before, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’ve broken your heart, time and time again, but I love you. I thought the best thing would be to let you go, but… But I can’t. And I can’t let you get married without knowing that.”
Silence follows these words, and Dimitri smooths his suit once again.
“I just… needed to tell you that. I’ll… I’ll go now. I’m sorry Victor. I’m sorry Vanessa. Truly.”
Dimitri turns on his heel and begins to walk away but is stopped when Victor opens his mouth.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
Dimitri turns around and sees Victor letting go of Vanessa’s hands and walking toward him, his strides confident and his face twisted in rage — it seems that Victor’s mouth is open in anger after all.
“After all this fucking time? Now? Now is the fucking time you decide to tell me this? On my wedding day! And not even in private! No, no, no, you decide to tell me in front of my wife, my mother, and all my fucking friends that you love me?”
Victor lets out a loud cackle, shaking his head in disbelief. Victor throws an arm back to Vanessa, who had mascara and eyeliner running down her face with tear tracks.
“This was always the problem between us Dimitri; you never cared about my feelings, nor did you ever care when it was important! So what? You think you can swoop in here, last minute, and expect that your “declaration” was going to win me over? That I’d skip out of the chapel with you and abandon my wife and marry you instead?”
Victor shakes his head again, squaring his shoulders.
“No, not by a long shot. I love Vanessa; she’s the love of my life, and there is no one I’d rather be with — not even you. In fact, especially not you. I didn’t even want to invite you! Vanessa made me, and my mother made me, but trust me Dimitri, had it been up to me, you would not even be in this fucking chapel.”
Victor straightens out his suit and exhales sharply, as though he was trying to keep himself from screaming.
“I want you to leave. Right now. I’ve moved on Dimitri. It’s time you do too.”
Silence hangs heavily between the two men and the rest of the church, save for the occasional sniffles let out by Vanessa. Dimitri feels tears brimming over his eyes as a rush of shame and hatred floods over him, and he takes a step back, desperate to leave just as much as Victor wanted him gone.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“Sorry isn’t good enough, Dimitri. Get out. If I ever see your face again, it will be too soon.”
Biting his lip to hold back a sob, Dimitri turns on his heel again and walks away, tears spilling over his eyes, blinding him as he leaves the building.
In the coming years, Dimitri will keep his promise of never forgetting Victor…At least, not until he meets Caleb.