If You Miss It

22. comes and goes

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

COMES AND GOES

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Dmitri was spiralling.

He knew that he was, because while he could get out of bed and brush his teeth, he couldn't find it in himself to shower or comb his hair before work. And when he was driving to work, he had missed three green lights, which resulted in a group of very angry drivers honking at him, and cursing him out until he moved.

To top everything off, he had snapped at Trinh and Eden who were singing along to the song playing from his phone, told them to "shut the fuck up for a minute", and that their singing was "fucking irritating", something that he would never have said if his mind was in the right place.

Unfortunately, it wasn't in the right place. And he wasn't so sure if it ever would be anymore.

"Dmitri?" Trinh asked all of a sudden, a lilt to their tone as they did. "The light's green. You can drive. Preferably before we get yelled at by the people behind us."

Four green lights, now.

Continuing to drive, he let his mind wander to God knows what, he just needed something to think about, something that wasn't the past two days, the next two days.

After his whole spiel with Tariq, the one that involved him passing out at seven in the evening, Tariq staying the night, not moving from his bed for the entire night, only leaving after he had woken up, he had gotten his shit together, and had thought that maybe, maybe his mild disconnect from reality at Eden's gathering was just a one time thing.

However, he was proven wrong by spiralling again.

"Sorry," he muttered after they had reached The Blackbird, parking his car and stepping out, nearly fucking falling over in the process. I need to eat. Fuck, I need to call Claire. I need to go back to therapy.

Trinh frowned, bumping their head against his shoulder, blue hair contrasting the black of his t-shirt. Nudging him with their elbow, they said, "Tariq told us that you felt sick the other day. At Eden's thing. Was that a lie?"

Maybe Tariq hadn't spent the entire night with him.

Was there any point in lying again? Was there any point in telling the truth when his entire life was just him lying to himself and everyone else around him? Was there any point at all.

Fuck. Claire. Call Claire. "Yeah," he muttered, choosing to tell the truth for once. "It was a lie. I was just really tired. Needed to rest," he said, not the entire truth, but not a lie either.

Of course, Trinh didn't believe that, they had every right not to. After all, he had never told Trinh anything about anything, assuming that Eden told them everything.

Admittedly, he would be a little pissed if Eden told them everything about his personal life.

"I find that very hard to believe, but I'll let it slide," Trinh mused, shrugging as they made their way into the coffee shop, holding the door open for Dmitri. He was lucky that they did, because to be honest, he didn't have the energy to open it for himself.

I can do it. It's one day. One day. Get through the day, go home, sleep.

The longer he thought about it, the harder those three tasks were starting to sound.

"You're spacing out so bad right now, I have no idea where you are," Trinh pointed out. From the moment he had met them, they had developed the habit of calling him out on his shit, and clearly, that habit didn't leave. "Work, Dmitri. You're at work. Did you take your meds today?"