Rewritten

       I can’t sleep tonight. Tossing and turning out of my half-dream, I eventually become aware that Dimitri’s not beside me. I sigh: I told him to try to get some sleep. Then again, I can’t really blame him. Kicking my feet into slippers in the dark, I fumble downstairs. I find him sitting at the kitchen table in the dark: eyes closed, chin propped up in his hands, face buried under flat bangs that drape limply over his cheekbones.

            “Hey,” I say quietly, flipping on one light and coming up to him. “Hey, Dima. Are you alright?” Stupid question, but what else can I say?

            He looks up and his eyes are black. Beautiful black, like two onyx gems, glittering with tears, pained and miserable. His cheeks are hollow and his lips are set in a fine line. Haunted, frightened, he is a shadow of himself.

            Dimitri shakes his head. “No, I’m not.”

            I sigh, feeling helpless, and sit down next to him, noticing the Book he guards between his arms. “Oh, Dima, you’re going to drive yourself insane reading that.” 

            “Ha, too late,” he chuckles hardly. “Listen to this: After finishing a degree in Fine Arts from the Harrison Art School, Dimitri will start an internship with the Regional Gallery at the age of 24. In what universe do I give up a Ph.D. program to work at an art gallery?”

            “You are a good artist,” I argue. “It’s not a totally unreasonable career path.”

            He shakes his head with a sigh. “I love art as a hobby, but not enough to make it my job. Or like this: he will move to the west coast of LaSalle Province, where he will live most of his life. I can’t imagine living that far away from Delilah; I don’t want to be the kind of brother who just comes around for the holidays or occasional birthdays.”

            “You won’t be,” I tell him firmly. “Dima, this doesn’t have to mean anything unless you want it, unless you choose it.” 

            “The only things I want are what I can’t choose,” he reminds me. 

            He was never supposed to see his Book. Not in the sense that he can’t physically see it. He can; he’s psychic so that means that unlike regular humans, he can actually read his Book of Destiny, both of them. In one version is his life as psychic, open to any and all choices he could make, though as we read through it now, pretty unreasonable and unlikely, yet predicted nevertheless. The other version is his storyline if he weren’t psychic. Everything in that version is prohibited to him, like forbidden fruit. It includes me. Together, we’ve chosen to be with each other anyway, but Destiny still finds ways to reprimand him about it. Dimitri had sworn off reading either Book, but when he received that note from his father, he was forced to confront what his life might actually have to look like in the near future. 

            “Dimitri’s job in the Secret Library will entail editing last names R-W and maintaining the crystal wards; this is the post he will hold for all of eternity,” he reads softly, digging a hand into his thick, curly hair.

“Okay, stop,” I gently shut his Book and pull it away from him, hoping to draw its negative energy away from him with it. “Pretend you can’t read it,” I say softer. “Pretend it’s your sketchbook.”

            “It is my sketchbook,” he points out heavily. Oh, to add insult to injury, Destiny also printed Dimitri’s Book into his sketchbook, his most prized possession. “For years, all I’ve seen are blank pages. Blank pages where I drew what I wanted and wrote what I wanted and it was mine: why couldn’t it have just stayed that way? Now it’s tainted, it’s tampered, its – twisted. It’s supposed to be my life, it is my life technically, more than my Book if I weren’t psychic… but I don’t recognize it. This isn’t me, and this isn’t who I want Destiny to force me to be; I want such different things.” He buries his head in his arms, and I feel useless. My heart breaks for him, and I reach out to embrace him but pull back when I touch him.

            “Dimitri, you’re so cold. You’re freezing down here in just your pajamas. I’ll make us a cup of hot tea; it’ll warm you right up.”

            “Katya, it doesn’t matter,” he stops me. “Whether I’m hot or cold, hungry or thirsty: it doesn’t matter. It’s not like any of it can hurt me. Besides myself. I’m doomed to destroy myself.”

            “No, you’re not,” I sit back down next to him and take his cold hands in mine. “I won’t let you.” 

            “What if it’s not up to you?” he asks quietly.

            “Well, I’m certainly not going to let it be up to Destiny. Now decide: do you want black tea or green tea? It’s not like either of us are getting any sleep so don’t worry about the caffeine.” I keep talking to keep him distracted (honestly, maybe myself too), bustling around the kitchen looking for our mugs and setting the kettle to a boil. I’m aware of him gazing after me, black eyes heavy and saturated. “Do you want any lemon or honey in your tea? I think there’s still some honey at the bottom of the jar –”

            “You’re not in it,” he whispers the words I didn’t know I’ve been dreading. If I were in this Book, and I know I’m already pre-destined as his soulmate in the other version, then there would be no doubt in the universe that Dimitri and I are made for each other. And even though it shouldn’t matter, even though I know we fell in love despite it being written against us, somehow hearing him say that crushes me a little.

            “Well,” I take a deep breath to myself. “We already assumed that-”

            “Juliet is,” he says in disbelief. 

The façade I’ve been putting on crumbles completely and I set the mug down on the countertop loudly. “What?”

Juliet is Dimitri’s ex, a girl he briefly dated before we started going out. They were more like best friends than a couple though, and the three of us are actually all good friends with each other. Still, that does not mean I enjoy hearing her name as his match in his Book of Destiny. 

“Apparently, we go to the same art school and-”

“I don’t need to hear it,” I stomp over angrily, ripping the Book out of his hands and flinging it across the room. He seems to visibly flinch when it slams hard against the floor. 

“Katya, you’re the one who just said it doesn’t mean anything,” he starts, reaching out to me, but I slip out of his grasp.

“Like hell it doesn’t,” I fume. “I’m supposed to be happy to hear your ex’s name in your Book?”

“But I choose you.”

“So what? What good is it that you choose me when you’re not allowed to choose me? You’re the one who just said the only things you want are what you can’t choose,” I throw back in his face, and I know I pushed too far when I see his face drain of what little color it already had. 

“Katya, I promise you, I am going to do everything I can to fight Destiny on this. I will do everything in my power to fight for you, for us. I can handle everything else: working in a gallery, living away from Delilah, even spending eternity holed up in the Secret Library. But I can’t handle not being with you,” he pleads, his eyes wide and honey brown. 

I sigh, knowing he means every word of it. “I know. Actually, I know that, and I’m not actually worried about Juliet or anyone else for that matter. But I am worried about you, because I know how much you don’t want this and how much pain I can cause you in this, and that’s what scares me: that you’re stuck in this mess because of me.”

            “Funny,” Dimitri strokes my cheek, almost a perceptible smile twitching on his lips. “I was thinking the exact same thing about you.” 

            “I guess that as long as we’re in this mess together, we’ll be okay.”

            Dimitri’s smile finally makes its way to the surface and he kisses me softly. “Go make the tea; I have to do one more thing to make it official.”

            “What?”

            “Just wait a moment,” he raises an eyebrow and studies my profile intently. 

            As I pour the tea, I notice he’s picked up his Book and a pen, and then I see that he’s drawn me into the pages.

            “If this is my Book of Destiny,” he says, “that means that everything in it is supposed to come true. Now, you’re in it, and Destiny will have to rip the page out in order to get you out of it.”

            “Hmm,” I grin mischievously. “How convenient you drew me on the page that mentions you getting with Juliet.”

            Dimitri smirks and rolls his eyes. They are still haunted and sleepless, but there’s a green light of hope returned to them knowing that I’m with him on this, that I’m his someone to stay, that as long as there’s the two of us, his Book is still unwritten because we can still write it together. It may not be in the next chapter or two, but eventually we can get to our happily ever after, this I need to believe in.