“Baby? Did you, by any chance, forget to stop for gas on the way to work this morning?” he asked, keeping his voice as upbeat as possible. Light. Non-accusatory.
Arlo’s face contorted into a horrified expression that was far more serious than the situation itself. “Oh, god. Are we broken down? Are we out of gas? We’re in the middle of nowhere. Did I do this?”
His breath hitched at the end, the words tumbling over each other like they were all trying to escape at once.
“Hey, look at me,” Dimitri said, gently redirecting Arlo’s gaze back to his. He waited until Arlo’s eyes finally snaggedon his, instead of skittering away. “We are not in the middle of nowhere. We have plenty of supplies in the emergency kit in the back. I’m gonna call Mom and she and Lola will come get us and we’ll all be at Thomas’s before midnight. Okay? No big deal.”
Arlo’s whole body was stiff as his eyes flitted across Dimitri’s face. He knew he was reading every micro-expression in an attempt to gauge whether Dimitri was hiding how angry he was. He wasn’t. He was never angry with Arlo. Still, he did his best to school his resting angry face into something placid. Neutral mouth. Soft eyes. No tension in his jaw. Dimitri had learned, the hard way, what Arlo needed to see.
It really was no big deal. He didn’t want Arlo to?—
Arlo burst into tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I was in a hurry and Nancy called from the shop and asked me to come in early ’cause we had a callout and she was swamped and I was still in line getting breakfast and then I spilled my water on my sweater and it was so cold?—”
Just like before, the words came out in a rush, stacking on top of each other, each one another weight added to the pile he was already drowning under. Arlo had learned the hard way that every wrong decision came with swift retribution and sometimes, the only way out, was to apologize and beg for mercy.
No matter how many times Dimitri tried to assure him that he wasn’t mad, Arlo apologized, explained, begged for understanding even when he’d done nothing to cause the situation. All Dimitri could do was reassure him as manytimes as he needed.
Dimitri pulled him into his arms, wrapping them around him and squeezing tightly. “It’s okay. It’s my fault. I’m usually the one who fills the tank. I’m the one who forgot last night and I’m the one who didn’t even bother to check when we got in the car to leave. This is on me.”
He continued to hold him in a bear hug. It wasn’t about intimacy. It was about emotional regulation. About resetting his parasympathetic nervous system. When the panic set in, he needed pressure. Sometimes Java laid across him, but Arlo said he always preferred Dimitri’s hugs. They were Arlo’s hard reset button. A physical reminder that he was contained.
He was stiff in Dimitri’s arms, his breathing wet and ragged against his ear as he sobbed and hiccuped. Each breath juddered like it was catching on broken glass.
Dimitri closed his eyes, making soothing noises as he continued to crush him in his grip. Low, repetitive sounds. Predictable. Familiar. He kept his heartbeat slow on purpose.
“I can’t believe this is happening. And with Java in the back. What if she has a complication from her surgery because of this? Because of me. And it’s all my fault.”
Dimitri continued to hold him. He didn’t contradict him yet. Panic didn’t listen to logic. Arlo was deep into his EMDR therapy and his therapist, Jennifer, had warned that it would stir up old memories, reopen old wounds, make things from the past float to the surface. Arlo was so strong but some days he just needed to fracture a little.
Arlo had far more good days than bad. He had a jobhe loved, teachers who accommodated his anxiety, allowed him to take tests alone, didn’t enforce time limits without time limits, knew not to call on him in class unless he raised his hand. He had friends who knew to avoid pranks, loud noises and play fighting. Friends who would protect him with their lives.
Dimitri had worked hard to learn Arlo’s triggers and minimize them as best he could. He handled all the mundane tasks that might throw Arlo into a panic attack. Things that most people merely found annoying, Arlo often found overwhelming or triggering. Forms. Appointments. Deadlines. Unexpected changes. Dimitri took those on without complaint, without ever framing it as a burden.
Because it wasn’t.
Dimitri did the dishes because Arlo had once been beaten so badly he’d ended up in the hospital over a broken glass. Last Christmas, Arlo had tried to do the dishes and a simple glass slipping from the sink into soapy water had almost sent him into a panic attack. Seeing that panic on Arlo’s face, took Dimitri back to their childhood, the way Arlo would huddle beside him, would beg not to go home. He never wanted to be the reason Arlo didn’t want to go home.
He would take on every task if he had to.
He handled phone calls because Arlo couldn’t read people’s micro-expressions and always assumed they were angry or annoyed with him when he stammered his way through the call. Silence felt like rejection to him. Pauses felt like judgment. Dimitri ordered at restaurants because people asking Arlo to make decisions while staring himdown caused him to shut down entirely, his mind going blank as panic flooded in.
And Dimitri handled going to the gas station because Arlo felt like he was being watched. He overthought every move, every gesture, every facial expression. If his card didn’t work or he dropped something, he would often just leave rather than deal with the consequences he made up in his head. The imagined fallout was always louder than his reality.
This was on Dimitri. He’d been the one who forgot to get gas last night and he was the one who had accepted Arlo’s offer to do it himself this morning. He knew Arlo took on tasks because he thought the world was his responsibility. He also knew that Arlo minimized his own suffering to appease others. Dimitri should have known better. It was on him. One hundred percent. He didn’t believe in splitting blame when it came to Arlo’s safety. Keeping Arlo safe had always been and would always be Dimitri’s only priority.
“You’re just trying to make me feel better about the fact that we’re going to die out here,” Arlo wailed, shivering as he stared out the window at the white world surrounding them. The snow pressed close on all sides, the dark swallowing the road until it felt like there was nowhere left to go.
Dimitri couldn’t stop the laugh that escaped. Not sharp. Not mocking. Soft and startled, like the sound had slipped out before he could stop it. “Baby. We’re barely two miles outside of town. Worst-case scenario, I walk to town, buy a gas can, fill it up, and walk back. We’re not gonna die out here. I promise. I won’t let that happen.”
“I’m so stupid,” Arlo whispered, harsh and accusatory.
“I hate when you say that,” Dimitri said immediately. Firm but gentle. A boundary. “You’re not stupid. You’re human. If the roles were reversed, would you say I was stupid?”
Arlo’s shoulders sagged. “It’s not the same. You rarely make mistakes.”
Dimitri snorted at the absurdity of the statement, setting Arlo away from him just enough to assess his face, his breathing, the tension in his jaw. He needed to see where Arlo was at before he went any further.
“You are the only person who would ever say that. My own mother has an alphabetized list of all the things I’ve done wrong. Ever. She pulls it out and unfurls it like a scroll whenever she wants me to do something I don’t want to do.”
