Chapter 11 #3
“Yeah, but it’s no worry.” Andre was quick with reassurance. “Dmitri won’t tell anyone. He’s known about Miguel for a while — long story — and he’s the soul of discretion.”
“Okay, your call,” Derek replied. “I’d rather not say anything to Sibila, but Miguel will probably tell her.”
“It’s fine.” Andre’s tone was firm. “Sibila needs to be aware that I have a life outside of Miguel, and he’s going to be curious about it. He’s met her friends, and it’s high time he met at least one of mine.”
“That’s fair.” Derek sighed. “I just hope she agrees.”
The smile that curved Andre’s lips seemed sympathetic. “Thanks, Derek. Good luck.”
“You too.”
Andre ended the call, then tucked his phone into his jeans’ pocket. “So…?”
“He’s the cutest kid I’ve ever seen.” Dmitri grinned at him. “Gonna be a heartbreaker for sure. Have you bought him a drum kit yet?”
Andre gave a startled laugh. “Sibila would kill me, I think.”
“Maybe for Christmas, from Uncle Meech?” Dmitri pretended to consider it, and Andre punched him in the arm.
“Don’t you dare! I’ve pushed a boundary already tonight. Let’s not batter it down and salt the earth around it, okay?”
“Oh, very well.” Dmitri gave a long-suffering sigh, then grinned. “I’ll make it from Santa. Can’t fault presents from the Big Man, right?”
“Asshole!”
Laughing, they started walking back toward Black Rock City.
It was now fully dark, and the velvety blackness above them was illuminated with the distant glow of uncountable stars.
As his eyes fully adapted to the dark, Dmitri could see the Milky Way arching toward the horizon, a brilliant band of mottled light and dark.
It wasn’t a sight he was used to, and the vastness made him feel small and insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
Then Andre reached out to take his hand and give it a squeeze, and his heart leapt.
“Thanks, Dmitri,” Andre said quietly. “You helped me get through something I never thought I could do. I’ve felt like my hands were tied about Sibila, but you helped me take back a little bit of control. Maybe things can get better.”
On second thought, maybe he wasn’t so insignificant after all.
Friday dawned on a blur of media interviews, fan meet-and-greets, and what practice they could snatch in between the promo sessions that Greg had arranged.
The F-Holes seemed to be a hot commodity this year, if the sheer number of questions they’d answered from mass media, Instagram influencers, vloggers, and industry reporters was any indication.
Dmitri was certain by the end of their fan session, where he’d signed so many autographs that his wrist began to hurt, that they’d talked to at least half of the tens of thousands of people in Black Rock City.
Then, during their last interview with MetalMind, Luka had sprung a surprise on him.
“We’re not only highlighting our existing albums tonight,” he told the reporter. “We’re actually debuting a piece that will lead off our third.” Then he’d stubbornly refused to give any more information about it, just smiling mysteriously as the interview concluded.
Afterward, Dmitri took Luka aside. “For the love of all that’s holy, please tell me you aren’t about to make us perform the song I wrote.”
Luka smirked. “Of course I am. It’s a great piece, and you saw how many more interviews we had this year. We’re on the way up, and we need to really wow this crowd. What better way than debuting a great new song no one has ever heard?”
Dread filled Dmitri. Luka knew the business side of things better than he did, but he wasn’t certain he was ready for anyone outside of the band to hear the piece.
Sure, he’d agreed, after he saw the lyrics Luka had written for it, that it could go on their next album, but that wouldn’t be out for months yet. “I can’t! It’s personal.”
Luka shook his head. “Dmitri, every song is personal, both to the player and to the listener. Otherwise, it would just be noise.”
“But we won’t be ready. We haven’t rehearsed it fully!” He desperately tried to come up with additional arguments against it, but that was the only one he could think of.
“You and I rehearsed it several times before we played it for Andre. Tell me you don’t know every note of it by heart. I’ve also been over it with Kit, Andre, and Kris, and they feel ready. We’ve got this.”
Dmitri couldn’t think of any other arguments against it other than “I don’t want to,” so he finally had to acquiesce to Luka’s insistence. But his stomach was tied up in knots right up to the time they were standing in the wings, waiting for Sultana to finish their set.
“Look, you felt nervous last year, and nothing bad happened,” Andre pointed out. He waved a hand at the stage. “We rocked it.”
“Of course we did,” Kris agreed. “Dude, why do you look green? It’ll be fine!”
“Last year was different,” Dmitri moaned. “We weren’t doing a song I wrote! What if they hate it?”
Anxiety roiled inside him. Rocktoberfest was the only concert that had ever given him stage fright; last year had been because it was the biggest crowd they’d ever played in front of, but even though that had turned out fine, it paled in comparison to the thought of performing his own, deeply meaningful composition.
Luka was making Dmitri bare his soul on stage to thirty thousand people. The bastard.
As if summoned by Dmitri’s thoughts, Luka came up and clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ve got this,” he said softly. “I understand. I had the same feeling the first time I performed an original piece.”
“Liar,” Dmitri said, but he smiled. “I bet you threw it in their faces and dared them not to like it.”
“That didn’t mean I wasn’t ready to hurl if they didn’t.” Luka gave him a small shake. “It’s a great song, they’ll love it.”
“Easy for you to say,” he muttered. “Mr. Genius Songwriter.”
Luka shook his head, then pointed to Dmitri’s electric cello. “We won’t do it until the end of the set, so you’ll be warmed up and ready. The stage crew already knows when to bring out the acoustic instruments, so you don’t have to worry about it.”
With a final clap to his shoulder, Luka walked away to where Kit stood. Dmitri watched him go, and then he stuck out his tongue at Luka’s back.
“Oh, real mature,” Andre said, jostling his shoulder.
“I’d rather throw a brick at his head, but there aren’t any that I’ve seen backstage.” He turned to look at Andre. “Do you really think they’ll like it?”
“They will.” He paused, then lowered his voice. “And they won’t know, okay?”
“Right.” Dmitri drew in a deep breath. “I’ll know, though.”
He and Andre hadn’t really talked about the song since Andre had first heard it, but Dmitri was sure Andre knew it was about them.
On the stage, Sultana finished up their set, took their bows to a storm of applause, and then headed into the wings. Dmitri smiled at Blake, Josh, and Pete, then found himself picked up and hugged.
“Damnit, Jett, put me down!” he groused at Sultana’s bassist, who just happened to be the F-Holes’ original bass player, before Kit and Jett swapped bands so that Luka and Kit could play together.
“Right, Dmitri, wouldn’t want to damage F-Holes’s newest songwriter.”
Dmitri pulled back as Jett placed him back on his feet and scowled. “Very funny.”
Jett shook his head, his expression turning serious. “Look, I know how it feels, okay? The first time we did One Breath in concert, I was terrified.”
“So how did you get past it?” Dmitri asked, genuinely curious.
“I pretended it was someone else’s song. Just listen to it critically as if Kris or I or Luka wrote the whole thing. Don’t hear yourself in it. Hear everyone else.”
“Hmmm… I guess I could try that,” Dmitri said slowly. He wasn’t sure if he could, but he could see if it made a difference. Anything had to be better than the huge butterflies currently staging WWIII in his guts.
Then it was time to hit the stage, and he was suddenly too busy to worry about it.
The set seemed to fly by, starting with their opening track, “Du Hast,” moving through the hits from their first album, and then the top songs from their current album, which was climbing steadily up the charts.
Then it was time. Dmitri’s electric cello was replaced with his acoustic, and he saw Luka accepting his Hillaire from a roadie.
A swift glance back showed Kit was also equipped with his double bass.
Then, finally, he met Andre’s eyes. Andre smiled and gave him a thumbs up, and suddenly the butterflies seemed to settle down.
“Tonight we’re presenting the first song from what will be our next album. Lyrics by Luka Davies and, for the time, music by none other than our own Dmitri Martin!” Kris announced, and she was greeted with applause and whistles. “Now join us, everyone, and… ‘Never Break’!”
There was no choice now but to play, so Dmitri did.
The music that had poured out of him weeks ago as a way to heal his pain now wrapped itself around not only him, but the entire band, and it pulled the audience in as well.
Kris began to sing, her unique, smoky voice sultry as she gave Luka’s poignant words her all.
It was part metal ballad, part classical riff, and pure emotion.
In the uncaring darkness where shadows dwell,
I walk my path like an empty shell.
Your memory a ghost, always haunting me,
Mourning a love that could never be.
I spend my nights in the depths of despair,
While whispers of you linger in the air.
My heartbeats slow, the silence screams,
With fading echoes of shattered dreams.
Won’t you come back and save the pieces of my heart?
Drag me from the endless void where our love fell apart.
In this lonely nightmare, I beg, and I plead,
Lost in this black abyss from which I’ll never be freed.
Come back from the darkness where you roam,
In this graveyard of souls, please come lead me home,
I need your guidance. I need you to feel,
The wounds that I have need you to heal.
Every window, a candle in the night,
Everyone around me just a witness to my flight.
I’m wandering blind through the storm of my pain,
The memories of you like the ever-falling rain.
Chains of sorrow, forever binding me,
Keeping me a prisoner lost on a soulless sea.
Yet through fog and infinity a spark can ignite.
A sure and steady beacon on the darkest night.
Please come back, and save the pieces of my heart.
Drag me from the endless void where our love fell apart.
In this lonely nightmare, I beg, and I plead,
Lost in this black abyss from which I’ll never be freed.
Come back from the darkness where you roam,
In this graveyard of souls, please come lead me home,
I need your guidance. I need you to feel,
The wounds that I have need you to heal.
In this labyrinth of sorrow, I am looking for the light,
On this sea of broken dreams, I need the will to fight,
Tempest-tossed and drowning, I’m lost in the fray,
But your voice is calling out to me, showing me the way.
Like a phoenix from the ashes, hope can live once more.
Like a lighthouse in eternal dark, love reveals the shore.
Now with every heartbeat, I feel you drawing near.
In the terror of my loneliness, only you can quell my fear.
Please come back, and save the pieces of my heart.
Drag me from the endless void where our love fell apart.
In this lonely nightmare, I beg, and I plead.
Lost in this black abyss from which I’ll never be freed.
Come back from the darkness where you roam,
In this graveyard of souls, please come lead me home.
I need your guidance. I need you to feel.
The wounds that I have need you to heal.
The rest of the band stopped playing, while Dmitri alone accompanied Kris for the last stanza, his cello soft but sure behind Kris’s voice.
We rise from the ruins, our souls entwined,
Leaving our grief and sorrow behind.
Come back, my love, and I’ll never forsake —
Together we’ll burn, but we’ll never break.
The last note died away into silence, and Dmitri felt peace settle around him.
Moments later, it was broken as people surged to their feet, clapping wildly, cheering, and whistling.
Dmitri sat completely stunned, before he felt his arm taken in a firm grip and realized Luka was hauling him to his feet.
“Take a damned bow already,” Luka shouted to be heard over the din.
Dumbfounded at the response, Dmitri did, and then as he straightened once more, he felt a surge of pride take the place of his earlier panic. The rest of the band gathered around him, and they took their group bows, while applause rose into the desert air like the thunder of a summer storm.
Pain and doubt gave way to triumph. Dmitri met Andre’s dark gaze, saw the complicated emotions written in it, and he understood. He was glad that, even if Andre was never ready for more than friendship, they could at least share this special moment.