9. Dressed Like A Sin
Dressed Like A Sin
The week after our kiss is… strange. The kind of strange where I don’t know where to put my head, or my heart.
Dominik doesn’t push. Every morning, without fail, he texts a simple: Good morning, doktórka.
Sometimes a Zosia update. Sometimes a stupid story from his construction site, like how a genius with buckets decided it’d be faster to haul drywall up a ladder instead of using the pulley, and ended up flat on his back, swearing he saw God, maybe even Mary too.
I reply with my own absurdities: patients who ask if they can take our lidocaine drops home because their eyes feel itchy.
How I explain that these aren’t just lubricant, they’re a powerful numbing agent and you could literally melt your cornea.
One even asked if we could suction the retinal fluid out of the back of their eye with the same device dentists use. If only we’d thought of that.
Finally, Friday arrives. My day. The day.
I can’t quite contain it, all through the usual flow of patients, my brain is hijacked by The Riven Altar itself.
I text Piotr a string of nonsense as the clinic winds down, and his response is more realistic: Wear comfortable shoes. We aren’t teenagers anymore.
I finish the chart, strip off my white coat, and bolt.
Somehow my makeup is intact, eyeliner still bright, lipstick still holding.
The scaffolding is there; all I need to do is add to it.
At home, I throw on my concert outfit, extend the eyeliner into bold, winged smoke, dust glitter along my cheeks and under my lash line.
By the time I slide into Piotr’s car, I’m head-to-toe in black lace and a leather corset pushing everything where it belongs, I feel like a gothic goddess.
He makes a brotherly eye roll of judgement at my lack of modesty but I just smile back at him, sweetly.
I snap a picture before we even pull out and send it to Dominik, for punishment and yearning purposes. Dominik texts back:
you’re dressed like a sin
one id gladly committ ;)
enjoy your concert
My stomach does something traitorous and light. I smile, pocket my phone, and step out into the flood of people outside the venue. The air pulses with life, bodies and voices surging in excitement, an array of humans doing The Altar proud.
The heaving throngs of people, all walks of life, all ages, descend in a shimmer of reds, blacks, blues, and whites.
Every way the band has represented themselves through the years is reflected back tonight through us.
It’s not just about being seen, not just about hoping they might see us, it’s part of who we are.
Something we needed, still need. The sight of it makes my eyes sting.
Piotr smacks my arm. “This is not the place for tears. Babciu will haunt you, if you shed even one.” We both laugh and it distracts me long enough to stop them surfacing.
The line for the pit snakes long by the time we get there.
Some kinder god let the early birds claim the best spots, but I don’t care.
I’ll be close enough, able to see and hear them.
That’s what matters. The energy is in my bones, the voices, the stomping feet, the anticipation, pulling me back to that first show years ago, hoodies and makeshift masks.
The second the lights dim, I scream myself hoarse.
Fog spills, the build-up pulses through the floor, and then, those first notes.
Backlit shadows reveal the band already there, waiting.
The pit surges forward, but I hang back, breath caught.
I can see the stage. I can see everything.
So much closer than I thought, too close, like my heart might burst.
The lights blaze. They’re revealed. Every member where they belong.
Threnos with his beloved drums, above them all like a judge and jury in one.
Bomos, statue of strength, feet planted wide.
Obelus leaning, then breaking away as Haima joins pressed against him, blood-red smile glistening on the veil.
All three lean into each other as the riff rips the air and the drums go wild.
The crowd detonates. Obelus’s black hair, dyed red underneath, glows like fire beneath the lights.
Every close-up on the big screens shows his smiling eyes above the veil, his voice laughing into the mic, freer than I’ve ever seen him. The darkness in him doesn’t seem as heavy this tour. The weight feels lifted, and with it, so does something in me.
And then his eyes sweep the crowd. I swear he sees me.
Straight through the crush of bodies. Straight into me.
It’s insane, impossible. But I feel it anyway.
When he calls for a pit to open, I don’t hesitate.
I dive in, hair flying, boots stomping, elbows out.
Piotr shouts after me like he’ll kill me later, but I don’t care.
This is it, the high. The scream tearing my throat raw.
The beat in my chest. For one night, I am nothing but sound, sweat, song.
Nothing but them, all of them, and every soul here.
When the final song begins, my heart heaves, already mourning it.
I glance at my pager, a reflex, guilt cutting through, but nothing.
Then the last notes tear free. Their first album, always the closer.
My eyes blur with tears as they descend into the stage.
Smoke, light, roar. But from this close, I see it, the stutter in the platform, the falter in Obelus’s step.
I hear it, muted and wrong under the music.
My chest seizes and then, blackout. Gone.
We stumble to Piotr’s car, bodies buzzing, feet numb, ears ringing. He curses me between laughs, threatening me for diving into the pit. I collapse against him, still floating somewhere above my skin.
The parking lot is a nightmare, cars inching like tectonic plates.
I scroll the forums, and there it is: someone above us caught it.
A bird’s-eye video of the stumble. Obelus’s foot missing the platform edge, slipping at the last second, head snapping back against the wall as it descended.
Screenshots, panicked posts, even prayer chains.
The fear that tomorrow’s show might be canceled hangs heavy in every word.
I show Piotr, concern lacing my voice. “God, I hope he’s okay.”
He cuts me a mock-serious look, raising his hand like he’s blessing a congregation. “Do you wonder if the millions of dollars or all the sex he could want will help him get through this bump on the head? What do you think, siostra?”
I laugh, because I know how I sound. Because I know he doesn’t get it.
But inside, I worry. Because sometimes it feels like he reads the pattern of my heart and gives it back to me, complete and translated, like a gift.
I nod. I know he’s right; he’ll be fine.
But when my head hits the pillow, I can’t stop wondering, hoping. Thanking him, silently, from afar.