The Riven Altar

22. Very Important Discussion

Very Important Discussion

My voice sounds steadier than I feel. The sound he makes in response isn’t quite a word, it’s relief, tender and warm.

“Hey,” he says back, low and cautious. “Sorry for calling. Texting felt wrong.”

“I shouldn’t be taking this call,” I tell him. “I definitely shouldn’t have given you my number. This is… borderline unethical.”

A quiet hum of amusement. “Is it? You discharged me. Very official. Signed, sealed, escorted out with instructions not to do anything stupid.”

“That doesn’t mean I should be getting involved with you,” I say. “Or talking to you at all. You’re—”

“Involved?” he repeats, pleased. “First touched, now involved. That’s another interesting word choice.”

“It’s a term,” I say quickly. “A professional one.”

“Mmm,” he murmurs. “I thought we were just talking about rare Swedish albums and museums. Didn’t realise we were involved.”

“We’re not,” I sigh. Why did I have to use that word of all the words in my vocabulary? Mary help me.

“So does this mean I'm your secret?” he continues, slower, more thoughtful, “I’ve never really been a secret before. Usually people want to post me everywhere. Use me for what it gets them. Even when I’d rather not be… public.” A pause. Then, lighter again. “This is different. Kind of fun.”

“No,” I say quickly. “You’re not my secret. You’re not my anything.”

Silence stretches, considered.

“Well,” he says, smiling through the word, “is there an application process?”

I bite the inside of my cheek and close my eyes. That was unfairly charming.

“I’m not kidding,” I say, grasping for ground.

He laughs softly. “Relax, Kasia. You’re safe with me, I promise.” A beat. “I’ll keep all your dark secrets, even if I'm not one of them.”

I press the phone closer to my ear, sinking deeper into the pillow. There’s noise on his end, faint, the scrape of a chair, a mug being moved, maybe paper. It’s late where he is, too. The kind of late that softens everything, makes honesty feel less like a risk and more like a reflex.

"Anyway, I'm working on translating that song but the phrasing keeps dying on me. Maybe you can help me resuscitate it."

I laugh before I can stop myself, the sound spilling out.

“Pretty sure your phrasing’s breathing just fine without me.”

He chuckles under his breath, and the sound hits me low in the stomach.

"If you help me I'll promote you to artistic consultant. A fancy title and everything." I can’t help it, I smile into the dark. He sighs, something heavy clearly on his mind, the weight cutting through all the playful bravado. “I just… needed to hear a voice that’s not asking for something, for a minute.”

The way he says it, finds somewhere deep inside me. I know that feeling too well as a doctor, everyone asking you before they can move on, make a decision. When the world turns into noise and every word starts sounding rehearsed.

“You picked a strange therapist at one in the morning, do you know that?” I say, trying to keep it light.

He laughs, joyful and unguarded, my heart swells at the sound. After, the silence lingers, charged.

“You still there? Tell me I didn’t stop you from sleeping. I can hang up if you were about to.”

“I wasn’t,” I whisper. “Couldn’t sleep anyway.”

“Stay with me a minute then?” He asks, almost shy, open.

Something in me stumbles. I pull the blanket tighter, like that could protect me from what his voice does to my insides.

“Alright,” I murmur. “I’m here.”

Another sound, pages closing, maybe a notebook. “You know what? Never mind the song. Just talk to me.”

I close my eyes but my pulse won’t slow down.

“What do you want me to say, Rafe?”

He laughs under his breath, caught off guard. “Anything, everything? Worst movie you’ve ever seen?”

“That’s easy. Anything David Lynch ever made,” I say, before I can think better of it. “Don’t come for me.”

There’s a dramatic inhale, mock horror, “All of it? You’re joking.”

“All of it, pretentious shit.” I repeat, smiling now. “But The Room gets a free pass. Once a year, minimum. It’s tradition.”

He groans through a laugh. “Alright, that’s fair. Everyone needs a bad movie that keeps them humble.”

And just like that, we’re talking. Stupid questions back and forth, what song is our guilty pleasure, best concert we've been to, what we’d cook for someone we wanted to impress. I tell him about the years of med school, the rotations, the way exhaustion becomes a personality trait.

“That’s wild, fifteen years of school?” he says, “I’m lucky if I can remember the setlist. My mum wanted a doctor too, she didn’t quite get her wish.”

“Mum?” I echo, catching the word.

He laughs softly. “Yeah, leftovers of a British dad. No sexy accent, just some words that stuck.”

I smile at that, tracing circles on the bed sheet. “So you rebelled against both of them, then? Rejected their doctor dreams and British restraint?”

He chuckles. “Exactly.”

We start talking about movies again, how people pretend to love the ones that are impossible to sit through. “It’s like a made-up hierarchy,” I say. “Something to make others feel stupid for not ‘getting it.’”

“Yes!” he says, so relieved it makes me laugh. “Finally, someone said it.”

Then he brings up Mulholland Drive and I almost scream. “Don’t even mention the blue box,” I warn him. “When I was in med school, this guy defended that movie like it was a masterpiece. I wanted to stab him in the eye with my pen or strangle him with my stethoscope!”

Rafe loses it, I can hear him gasping, trying to breathe, laughing so hard I start laughing too, tears in my eyes.

It’s ridiculous, contagious, perfect. When we finally calm down, it’s still but not awkward.

The kind of stillness that feels safe. He tells me about the next stop on the tour.

He’s got downtime but says it never feels like downtime on the road, loud one minute, empty the next.

I tell him I get it, that my version of burnout looks different but feels the same.

Time slips away, three hours pass before I even glance at the clock.

My alarm will go off soon, and I still haven’t closed my eyes.

“I won’t sleep tonight,” I admit, half laughing.

“I’m sorry,” he says immediately, tripping over his words, endearing in that dangerous way.

“I’m an adult,” I tell him. “I chose this.”

We stall again, both pretending not to notice the weight in the silence. I finally force myself to say goodbye. When I hang up, the room feels too still. It hits me in the gut, not guilt, exactly. We didn't do anything wrong, technically. No lines crossed... so why do I feel so heavy?

It’s nothing to do with Obelus or The Riven Altar anymore.

This is just… someone who talks to me about nonsense, who doesn’t want to hang up either.

Someone who doesn’t treat me like a dream from boyhood, but as a woman he actually wants to know, now.

The silly unimportant things that become important.

I've never known this feeling before and I'm not sure what to do with it.

To have someone so genuinely enthusiastic to read the map of my life, of me.

I move like a zombie, trying my best to exist on zero sleep.

I shower, shove my hair into a clip, grab coffee that tastes like burnt tar, and try to pretend my life hasn’t just tilted on its axis.

That a single phone call didn’t change the air I breathe.

But it did. I feel it with every step. I’m moving through the clinic like I’m underwater.

Every chart takes twice as long. I text Dominik between patients, an apology, and a warning:

I didn’t manage to sleep at all last night, probably going to crash before we even have a phone call tonight. I'm sorry.

i'll accept it if you come to dinner tomorrow

i’ll cook you something real no boxes involved

What dish? If you say pierogi I’ll laugh.

go??bki. real food.

Agreed, you've convinced me. Now I'm hungry.

I grin at my screen despite the haze. A second later a photo appears, a selfie Dominik snapped in the car, Zosia in the back seat waving so hard her braids blur.

The warmth hits me so fast it makes my eyes sting.

For a minute the noise of the clinic fades, replaced by that simple image of them on an ordinary morning.

By lunchtime my phone buzzes again. Rafe.

just woke up.

dreamt you were arguing with me about Lynch again. not sure who won. probably you?

That sounds like me. What’s life like on the glamorous side of insomnia?

the guys are already arguing over something. I’m not even paying attention.

You’re a pretty integral part of 'the guys' too.

You’re talking like you’re outside of it.

feel outside of it. after talking to you. trying to remember how to go back to normal life now.

You’ll manage.

You’ve got thousands of fans to distract you.

that’s not helping.

they don’t rant about diabolical movies.

or sound like you.

I swallow, thumb trembling. I choose the cowards way, I don’t reply.

Instead, I shove the phone into my pocket and get back to work.

I can’t breathe when he talks to me. I can’t breathe when he stops.

It follows me all day, through patients, through charts, through the commute home.

Even when my head hits the pillow, even when we both stay in our corners, it’s still there, just under my skin.

Wednesday arrives unremarkably, but something’s missing.

The whole day aches with that absence, the kind you can’t name without making it worse.

Rafe hasn’t sent anything. I haven’t either.

It shouldn’t matter, but it does. I check my phone between patients, in the breakroom, in the parking lot before driving home. Nothing.

By mid-afternoon, I tell myself it’s better this way.

He has his world stretched across buses and stages and a million strangers waiting to devour whatever part of him he gives.

I have mine: this clinic, this city, this small life that’s almost steady.

What would we even do with more? Still, it feels like stopping an addiction cold, the silence aches in my bones.

So, I decide to focus on what’s here, on Dominik.

When I pull into his driveway, the aroma of onions and butter floats through the open kitchen window. Zosia’s laughter trails behind it, bright and unstoppable. I leave my bag at the door and step into warmth that feels like something whole.

Dominik glances up from the stove, grinning. “Perfect timing, moja kochana. The go??bki is ready.”

“Stuffed cabbage, mm.” I smile. “My Mama’s favorite.”

He winks. “Then you’ll love mine. Family recipe. Probably stolen by your mama from mine anyway. Even Father Marek says hers is the best.”

Dinner is easy. Zosia fills the space with chatter, school stories, bunny sketches, the doll wedding of the day.

Dominik plays along, solemn as a priest, nodding like it’s classified intelligence.

When she yawns through dessert, he scoops her up and carries her off, singing something tender that tugs somewhere deep.

When he comes back, the house feels softer.

We curl up on the couch, plates soaking in the sink, bellies full.

His arm settles heavy and warm around my shoulders; I let myself lean into it, the rhythm of his breathing anchoring me.

I want to try, really try tonight, to stop living between the cracks of things.

To build a solid foundation on the things we do share.

To get to know him better, I owe him that. To make an effort, to be curious.

“What’s your favorite movie?” I ask, curled into his warmth.

“Don’t really watch many.”

“None?”

He laughs. “When I was younger, I was always out. Parties, work, girls, beer or vodka. If one was on, I'd watch it.”

I smile, though something pangs in my chest.

“Books?”

“Do manuals for car engines count? Read plenty helping Piotr. I don't think your brother can actually read. He had me read so many to him under the hood of a car.”

I laugh again, lighter than I feel. “Hobbies?”

“World Cup I guess. Piotr and I make a big thing of it, a party for each round. Drives poor Aga crazy, so loud. Beer bottles everywhere. Shame it's only every four years.” He shrugs.

“I remember, I went to one, once. Never again.” He chuckles, squeezing me tighter.

“Hard to have a life when I work long hours. I come home, cook, sleep. Since Zosia, all my time belongs to her. Maybe my favorite show is Peppa Pig? Song is... Baby Shark?”

That earns real laughter, even as something smaller flickers beneath it. But before I can name it, he tilts my chin toward him.

“Maybe now we have each other,” he says softly, “I can make space for all that, with you? Hm?”

The words catch in my throat. Before I can answer, he kisses me. It starts slow, a question. Then deepens, his fingers tracing along my jaw, down the line of my neck. The warmth spreads until it’s hard to breathe. His hand slides back to my throat, just enough to pull me closer.

He murmurs against my lips, voice dark and hungry, “Time for the adults to talk.”

I laugh, breathless. “Talk, huh?”

“Very important discussion,” he says, already standing, tugging me to my feet. I barely have time to straighten before his hand closes around mine, leading me down the hall toward the bedroom.

As I follow, something in me whispers that this is where my focus should be. Here. Now. Not echoes in another time zone. Not my silence that feels like withdrawal. Just this: Dominik’s warmth, his certainty, his world, and me, still trying to believe I belong in it.