Liked it?I nod because I can’t speak. I think if I open my mouth I might say something ridiculous, likeI think this night just changed my whole life.
I walk away clutching the CD like it’s the most important object I’ve ever owned.
Maybe it is.
On the drive home Piotr is grinning at his phone, bragging how the blonde girl’s number is already saved in it. He hums one of their songs under his breath, like he paid attention to anything but her.
When we walk in the door, Tata is waiting in the kitchen.
“So. How was your noise?”
Mama smacks his arm, already pouring her nightly glass of water.
Piotr laughs. “You’d have hated it. Too loud and skinny, one of them even had a piercing.”
Tata points a finger at me. “Don’t get ideas, Kasiu. You’re too young for those things.”
He keeps talking, teasing. I barely hear a word of it. All I feel is the spark still tingling in my fingertips. The echo of that voice. Something cracked open inside me tonight, something got in.
I know, without even understanding why, thatI’ll never forget it.
Chapter 2
The Ticket Queue
Sixteen years laterand I still can’t hear that opening song without my pulse catching. Somewhere between seventeen and thirty-two, between grinding my way through undergrad, med school, and residency,The Riven Altarbecame one of the biggest bands in alt-rock. While I was memorizing retinal vasculature and surviving the onslaught of Johns Hopkins coursework, they were climbing charts and selling out arenas. Their records have gone platinum, and tickets to their shows vanish faster than the page can load. Getting one feels like trying to barter with the gods.
Tomorrow is my first real day as a retinal specialist after two years of fellowship with Dr. Conrad, our resident tyrant, and here I am, cross-legged in cat pajamas, waiting for ticket sales like a teenager with no self-control.The Katabasis Tourgoes live at midnight, so here I am, their dutiful acolyte, clearly no life of my own or animportant jobto get sleep for.
It’s hard to believe it’s the same band I saw in a cracked brick basement, the one whose signed CD I still keep in a drawer like a relic. I cringe thinking about how much I’ll probably have to pay for these tickets, but I simply refuse to care.
The clock on my laptop reads 11:59. My heart kicks up like it’s prepping for surgery. I’ve got every device I own open, laptop, phone, tablet, refreshing every few seconds. The presale code just sits there,mocking me. I whisper a prayer to whatever gods manage online queues. Midnight. The page reloads, then freezes, then crashes.
“No, no, no,come on,” I hiss, hammering refresh like I can will it back to life. One device times out, another throws me into a queue with ten thousand people ahead of me. Then a miracle, the laptop loads. Every section is available, so I choose the pit.
Maybe a responsible adult would choose aseat,or go to bed, but I’m tired of always making the calculated choices. Being reasonable, rational. There’ve been too many years of missed shows, too many nights under fluorescent lights, hunched over scans of retinas that belong to my future but never mypresent.Life got small and exact. This feels likefinallygetting a piece of myself back.
My pulse spikes. Payment details, my brain blanks. My wallet’s across the room. I lunge for it, nearly tripping over the rug, yank it open, and grab the card. My fingers shake so hard I hit the wrong field twice entering the number. The checkout timer bleeds down,forty-five, forty-four, forty-three, each second punching louder than my heartbeat.
“Don’t youdaretime out,” I whisper.
Thirty seconds. I hit submit. The page hangs like it’s mocking me, then, confirmation. Pit, section A, my name. For a heartbeat, I just stare. Then the rush hits. I did it, Iactuallydid it. A laugh bursts out of me, a mix of hysteria and disbelief, then I realize I’m crying. Genuinely crying,over a band.
“Get it together,” I mutter, wiping my face with the back of my hand, but the laugh keeps slipping through anyway.
The memory of that first show still lives in me: sixteen, eyeliner smudged, the sound shaking the walls and my body with it. That first track still feels like a hand at the center of my chest, the one thing that keeps me moving when I don’t know how to anymore.
Chapter 3
Altar Boys
On Friday nights the Sawadzka kitchen is always chaos, tonight is no different by the time I get there. Mama has the stove going full blast, muttering “Boze, kto to zje…(God, who will eat this?)” under her breath as she tosses onions in a pan, while Aga rocks my nephew like she was born to be a mother. Natalia films herself arranging makowiec, our version of strudel, on a plate, narrating the “aesthetic” for her followers.
I drop my bag in the hallway and walk in, still in my scrubs, hair half-falling out of the bun I threw together almost ten hours ago. Piotr sprawls at the table like he owns it, beer in one hand, pretending he isn’t waiting for his turn with the baby. He grins the moment he sees me.
“Look at you, doktorka,” he says, voice rich with teasing. “Can’t even bother changing before family dinner? Shameful.”
“I was saving eyesight.” I slide into my chair, the comeback automatic. “You’re one to talk. You’ve still got grease under your nails.”
