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One moment they were smiling at each other. Words left unspoken between the two were bounced between them. Joy was painted across their faces.
Next thing Ilya knows is that Shane is on the ground.
His ears are ringing. He thinks he hears yelling, maybe cheering, but the only thing he can hear was how the impact sounded, the sound of breaking bone, the sound of Shane hitting the ice.
He stands there in shock. One moment they were smiling, the next moment was stolen.
He stares at the body in front of him, his mother is reflected back.
They don't tell him if he's responsive, they just rush him out of there. Ilya wants to scream. He wants to beg. He wants to know if he's ok. But he can't, so he keeps quiet.
For the rest of the game he stares.
He stares at his hands, that could've done something other than stand there like an idiot.
He stares at the place Shane hit the ground at. He remembers the sound.
He sees his mother laying on the ice, pill bottle a meter away.
It's not until after the game that the news reaches him. Shane Hollander, 25, dead on arrival to the hospital. Marleau is suspended while an investigation is underway.
The blood doesn't stop rushing his ears. It's all Ilya hears. It's not like there's anything else to hear other than the silence of everyone in the room. Everyone's breaths stop as the words fall into place. Shane Hollander, top hockey player, dead.
Ilya gets out of there as quickly as his feet can carry him. He needs to go home.
He books a flight back to Boston the earliest he can. Doesn't care what class, what airline, he needs to go home.
Home hasn't meant Russia in a while. It meant Shane. But Shane's not here now, so he needs to go to his house.
The flight back is brutal. Every second he fights off tears, he fights off the grief until he's sure he's alone.
Ilya barely holds it together until he walks through his front door hours later. And then he cries.
It's the first of many tears he'll spill.
But every single one always hurts like the first.
It's night. The moonlight is playing tricks on him.
He sees the memories of what happened in each and every room. He sees where they fucked, where they slept, where he made a melt for Shane.
He sees Illusions that hadn't even happened yet. He's imagining the life he—only mere hours ago— was sure he could live through one day.
He's imagining Shane saying I love you in the living room. He's imagining them having soft mornings after waking up in each other's arms in the bedroom. He's imagining making him an intricate breakfast that still conforms with his weird diet in the kitchen.
Even when he walks outside there are illusions.
On the ground, it's them stargazing. By the grill it's them cooking together. On the lawn chairs it's them laughing and smiling at jokes his grief riddled mind can't imagine at the moment.
Memories of what could've been, but are now cursed to never happen.
He knows the stages of grief, knows the steps you're supposed to take, yet he can't even do that right.
He feels every step and nothing at the same time.
He feels like an open nerve; a numb ligament. Hot and cold.
He feels everything but happiness.
He doesn't know when— if — he'll ever feel that again. It doesn't feel like it.
Not when everything he does is accompanied with the thoughts of Shane could've been here next to me.
He cries more.
He doesn't know what to do. He can't do anything that's worthwhile.
He can't prepare for his funeral, can't write a speech to say when he's lowered into the earth to be consumed for all eternity. He can't even mourn publicly. He has to keep this lie up to others.
But Ilya stops lying to himself.
He doesn't out Shane, he never will, but he stops pretending like what they had was nothing.
He never tells anyone that they were anything. Never even tells them that they were friends, that they were always more than just one dimensional rivals who were born to be put against each other.
But on quiet nights in the dark, he remembers the softness of his hair that he'd run his hands through, the smooth to calloused skin when run from his clavicle to his fingertips.
He'd remember all the small things he never took note of before. He'd see the softness in his eyes as he fell asleep. He'd count his freckles in his dreams like they were stars in the night sky.
His dreams were rough.
The best dreams were when Shane died. It was the only way that Ilya would stop reminiscing about what they could've had. It is torture, every second replays. He wonders every time if he could've done something to change the present he finds himself trapped in.
The worst dreams are when they're in another life, when Shane had lived. When he wakes up in his cold bed with phantom kisses across his body and on his lips; wakes up with love surging in his heart. Only to remember that he's gone.
In another life where maybe they talked it out and were more than just rivals, more than just fuck buddies.
Maybe in another life Shane could've been out, and Ilya did not have to only love him in the dead of night, hidden from everyone.
Sometimes he wishes that Shane was out to his parents. Ilya wants to speak to them most days.
He wants to tell them how much their son gave him in their short time as… whatever they ultimately grew to become. He wants to say I'm sorry. Maybe he blames himself, maybe just an apology for making his son hide from them, he's unsure.
But he can't.
He can't tell anyone.
Not his family, god no. Not his friends, not Svetlana, not even a therapist. He can't even post anonymously, because shielding Shane’s name like he's ashamed almost hurts just as much as his death did.
He visits Shane's grave at least once every two weeks. He tries not to cry but he does every single time.
Sometimes when he goes to visit the pain is stretched into soft strings that play the saddest soliloquy ever known to man.
He performs it dedicated to Shane.
Occasionally Shane's parents come when he's there. They don't ask him any questions. They don't ask why their son's rival is coming to see him, why he's crying. They just cry with him. A support group with no support, only grief.
It's the hardest to try and pretend those days.
He doesn't pretend when he's alone, but with other people he still always puts up a front. He has to. For the sake of Shane he puts up a wall between the two, labels them only as rivals, when they were so much more.
But when faced with his grieving parents, he wants to say something, anything.
He wants to tell them how amazing their son was. He wants to tell them every single detail of their son he memorized, the freckles in his face, the smooth to calloused skin, the softness of his hair. Maybe if they combined their memories they'll never forget a single part of him. Maybe he can live on like that through them.
But he never speaks up.
Sometimes he can't, the tears well up, chokes him from the inside out. Sometimes he forces himself not to.
No matter what he always stays quiet.
Svetlana sees past him. She probably knows that he's mourning Shane, she never asks.
Ilya would like to think that she actually doesn't know, but that would be a complete mischaracterization of her. She always knew him like the back of her hand even when he snarled at anyone who tried to get close to him like a rabid dog.
Sometimes he can see her look at him with a deeply rooted sadness. One of a person who knows that you'll never love again for as long as you live. One that both equally terrifies Ilya but also comforts him.
Someone can see him again.
The first person that ever saw him was Shane.
He loves Shane.
He will always love Shane.
He probably won't love anyone ever again.
He'll go to his grave, and tell him this over and over again until he himself falls into the earth alongside him.
Would it be so crazy to have a casket near him? Would it be so crazy to ask to be lifted down into the same earth that consumed his lover?
Over time he talks to Svetlana more. He doesn't tell her what they were, although she can tell. He gets scared when he realizes she knows. He was meant to keep this a secret, for Shane's sake.
He is not here to defend himself, to come out. He is dead. And Svetlana knows.
She never tells anyone. She never speaks what she knows into existence. She keeps it hidden like Ilya does— in the dead of night, after a few cups of wine, never to be spoken about in the sunlight.
It gets easier when he has Svetlana. He has someone he can talk to now. Someone who knows him.
Never like Shane did.
No one could ever be like him.
He tries looking at first.
He tries to go to the bar to get a meaningless hookup. He's Ilya Rozonov, he can have basically anyone he wants. But he can never get past the talking stage, it feels wrong, it feels like betrayal.
He tries on some days to pretend like Shane is still around. Like he'd turn the corner at the bar and see him staring at him. Sometimes he thinks he'll see stolen glances when the Raiders play against Montreal.
He is never there.
When people come up to him and try to hit on him all he can think about is Shane.
The private moments they'd have.
The way they'd flirt, the way they fucked, the way they stayed afterwards on some days.
Ilya spiraled.
He was rougher on the ice. Rougher with his team.
Once Marleau is found to not have been liable, he was allowed back on the team. Ilya got Marleau kicked out. His name was banished from the locker room.
Marleau doesn't leave the sport though, he never does what Ilya wants him to do. No, he just switches teams. Every time the Raiders play against him Ilya stays off the ice. He's not sure he won't kill him if he does even the slightest thing wrong.
He was angry. All the time he was angry.
Sometimes English was too hard, so he'd slip into Russian just so he could cuss out his entire team from losing because of a one point difference.
His team seems to not understand why he changed so drastically. He prays they don't.
He wants to be seen. He wants to see the light, see the sunshine. Yet every step he takes is fated to always be a secret under the night sky. Shadowed under fear and intimacy.
He can never come out. That would basically mean outing Shane too.
So he stays in the dark.
He's sitting on his couch. He's watching the Admirals win the cup.
He sees Scott Hunter bring his boyfriend out to the ice.
He sees them kiss.
He cries.
His friends look at him like he's grown a second head.
They could never understand.
They could never see Ilya.
But Svetlana knows. She looks at him and the words she can't say out loud are written into the ring of color surrounding her pupils, I'm sorry that this can't be you and him. I'm sorry that this can't be you.
Ilya leaves soon after. He cries on the way to a hotel. Once he gets in his room he sobs.
He doesn't care what media outlet caught him crying trying to pay for a hotel room 30 minutes from his house. He doesn't care.
Because watching those two kiss on the ice. When it could've been Ilya and Shane in another life.
It felt like the news of his death all over again.
It felt like him realizing he never got to say a final thing to Shane, that Shane never got to say one back.
It felt like him realizing that Shane might've not said anything to him at all.
He wonders some days what Shane would've said if he did say something. Would it be an I love you, the words they both kept hidden under wraps so tight sometimes they themselves had trouble seeing it. Would it be an I'm sorry, for what Ilya doesn't know. Maybe it would be a text, keeping it light.
Some days he wonders if Shane's parents got something. If Shane, prepared for anything Shane, had something written out for them in case of his death.
He never asks. He just wonders.
News stories pop up. Less than there usually would, but still stories nonetheless.
Ilya seen crying.
Captain crying.
Is hockey getting soft?
The last one he quickly scrolls past. The only thing that's soft is his heart that's threatening to break if even the slightest more pressure gets applied to it. He starts to sob again. He's breaking.
He hears a knock at the hotel door. He can't move. He can't even compute that there’s someone that could possibly be hearing him right now. All he can do is curl up into a ball and cry.
A person enters the room. He should be terrified that a stranger could be in here right now, confused at how they got in, but he can't. He can't be scared. He can only be sad right now. His body has no room left for anything else.
The person—he now recognizes as Svetlana— envelopes him in a hug.
She holds him as his sobs wreck his body.
When she used to hold him, it was through the act of intimacy.
After Shane died they hadn't gone back.
So now she just holds him. Holds him so he can cry, holds him to listen, holds him to be there because they both know no one else can.
He can't even talk to Shane's parents.
He can't even tell his parents how much he loved him. How much he still loves him.
It feels like seeing his mom on the ground all over again.
It feels like seeing that empty bottle on the dresser.
Sometimes he looks at pills extra hard—wonders if it's worth it.
Shane would probably be mad. But he couldn't have a say because he fucking died first.
Sometimes he holds the bottles in his hands. Sometimes he pours them on whatever surface is in front of him— counts the dose.
With how many drugs and milligrams he has memorized, people might assume he wanted to be a pharmacist if he hadn't become a hockey player.
He just wants to be dead.
After the 9th month he gives up. He can't keep hiding anymore. He can't keep being alone.
So he does what he swore to never do, he goes to see Shane's parents.
It's probably rude to show up to their doorsteps unannounced for a number of reasons Ilya doesn't want to think about, but he doesn't care. There is no set time or date when it comes to Shane. Shane was never just a specific time for him.
When his mother— Yuna, Ilya believes — opens the door, she's not surprised. It's almost like she expected him to come by someday.
She opens the door wide to welcome him inside, not a single word uttered between the two. They both know why he's here, no pretence has to be spoken.
He meets Shane's dad, and he's just as boring as he joked about all those years ago.
Yuna sits him down at the table. She brings some vodka and pours it for the three of them. When she sits down to join them Ilya tries to talk. He can't.
He doesn't want to cry before he has a chance to say anything. It's inconsiderate. It's rude. It's not fair to Shane who he has a million good things to sing about.
The only thing that leaves his mouth is a sob, half cut off as he tried to reign it in.
The moment Yuna’s hand finds his, it's over.
He cries.
He cries for so long he doesn't know the time. He doesn't know the last time he breathed, the last time he lived, the last time he felt happy, felt loved, felt seen.
He misses Shane. And it's fucked up to think that infront of the people who miss him the most but he does.
And only when his grief is reflected back onto him, via the parents of the man he lost, can he even begin to unravel how deeply his grief goes.
The pain will always be etched into his skin like a tattoo. Etched into his soul like a twin flame snuffed out before its time. Etched in his heart as a red string strangles it.
He slowly comes back, the tears start to dry up. Not because he's not crying, but because he doesn't have any more salt to spill.
He doesn't look up, not for a while. He's scared of what he'll see. Maybe he'll see a knowing look, and he doesn't want that. He's supposed to keep his secret. Maybe it'll be anger, because he showed up at their doorstep and cried over his so-called rival. They might even blame him for his death.
Grief doesn't make any sense.
Ilya, despite all his fears and worst case scenarios, looks up.
He sees love.
A look he'd only seen from his mother previously—A familial love. Love and a soft smile on both their lips.
He feels his tears come again. None fall out.
Yuna starts to speak. Her voice is wobbly. “At first I was confused on why you were taking it so hard.”
Ilya really feels like crying again.
“It—it took me a while to realize it. Looking back it was quite obvious.” She continues, she chuckles at the end of her sentence. “You loved my son.” She simply states.
Ilya feels weak. He feels seen. He feels loved. He nods.
“How long?” Is all she asks. No accusations, no anger.
Ilya internalizes the question for a moment before responding, “I don't know, probably since we met?” Ilya realizes his parents don't know when that was, so he adds, “The summer before our rookie season.”
Yuna smiles, but it's caked in sadness now. Tears start welling up in her eyes. And then she cries.
Her husband holds her as he sheds a few tears himself. Ilya wishes that he could hug Shane like that. He wishes Shane was here.
Yuna doesn't sob. Her tears are quiet. Like she's already started to learn how to live with the grief.
Ilya wants to ask how they're able to do that already, when the sound of Shane hitting the ice still keeps him up at night. But he doesn't. So he just watches.
She's still softly crying when she speaks up again. “He loved you too, you know. You were the one person he could ever be truly honest with. He couldn't even be like that with us.”
Ilya wants to protest, he wants to apologize, but Yuna shushes him.
“I'm not mad. If anything I'm happy he had someone like you. You don't have to hide anymore, not with us,” she smiles at him like it's the simplest thing in the world. Like being hidden wasn't eating him alive for his entire life.
Ilya cries again, this time Yuna walks around the table and sits next to him. She holds him close.
She's like his mother.
He misses his mother.
He misses Shane.
He grabs the cross that falls on his chest. He realizes he has nothing like this from Shane.
He cries a little harder.
Nothing but memories.
Nothing but fleeting kisses under the watch of the moon.
Nothing but hidden love and code names.
He can't even go back through their texts because it's all lily lily lily.
He's not lily.
Those texts aren't for him.
Yuna holds him close. The grief the three share blanket the room.
Ilya doesn't have to hide with them. He can tell them how much he loves their son, how much he meant to him.
Shane would be ok with that.
He'll allow himself to do this only with them.
Eventually he pulls away. He wants to cling until he rots, but he can't, so he pulls away.
“I love your son,” he says even though it's already known. Maybe he says it because he needs to ground himself, and his love for Shane is the only thing that's kept him grounded for a long time. Maybe he needs to emphasize it, needs them to really understand how much Shane meant to him.
They don't comment on him using present tense; he's glad they don't.
“We wasted so much time lying to ourselves, and everyday it kills me a little bit more that he's not here anymore. kills me that I still have to lie.” Ilya confesses.
Yuna squeezes his hand. “You don't have to lie with us.”
Ilya can't breathe. He feels trapped, he feels seen.
“Tell us about him.” David pleads.
He complies.
He tells them about his freckles, how he'd always look at them, how he counts them.
He tells them about how soft his hair is, how much he loved to card through it.
He tells them about the texture of his skin. How it went from soft to rough when it came to the parts he used the most for games.
He tells them about the stupid names they had, Lily and Jane. He tells them about when he accidentally called him his first name and he fled. He tells them that's why he started to date Rose. He tells them that they finally got back on track when it happened.
When he hit the ice.
When the only sound he could hear was the blood rushing his ears, the impact, and him hitting the ice. Muffled yelling in the background.
He's shaking. He's weak. But he doesn't care. He keeps going.
He tells them about everything, because he has no one else.
He tells them about how he goes to his grave to tell him he loves him. How his eyes linger on every pill bottle he sees. How he doesn't play when Marleau is on the ice because he feels like he might kill him with his bare hands.
He tells them how jealous and envious he feels over Scott. How he got everything we wanted— to be in the sunshine, to have a boyfriend, to live his life without hiding in the shadows— when Ilya has to be here with his love buried in the earth, forever cursed to be hidden.
Yuna squeezes his hand harder. It grounds him right when he feels himself slipping.
“We will always be here for you, Ilya.” She says.
The first name, the same one that had Shane running from him not even two years ago. He feels seen, finally.
He sees glimpses of sunshine. He knows he'll never be able to fully bask in it. But for right now just the glimpses are enough.
Maybe when he dies he'll be reborn, and he'll find Shane all over again.
Maybe then they can have their happy ending.
They'll be able to live in the sun, they'll never stand in the shadows again. They'll love and be loved openly for everyone to see.
He leaves the house with a new family. With people he doesn't have to hide from.
It gets easier after that.
Over time he doesn't dream about Shane's death anymore. Over time he comes to appreciate the dreams where he's alive instead of wishing just to see him dead.
The next couple of years he visits his grave just as much, but less tears are shed.
He updates Shane about his life. He tells Shane about everything he wishes they could have done together.
He tells him he bought another house, he says he wishes they owned it together.
He tells him Scott and Kip announced their engagement—he has to tell him about their kiss too obviously— and tells him he wishes it was them.
When everyone goes, Ilya, Yuna, and David, he tells Shane how they're all here right now, and how he wishes Shane was here too.
Sometimes he wonders if Shane can hear them.
He's not religious, he never has been, but sometimes he wonders if he should just believe so he could have some hope that this wasn't just the end of it all. That maybe they might meet again one day, that maybe he could hear them and was with them at all times.
When he goes out some days he sees people tell others they'll burn in hell for being gay. He somewhat hopes they're right just so he can be with Shane again.
Eventually he adds a snowflake to the necklace he got from his mother. He wondered what he should put on there to remember him, but he always came up short with any reasonable charm. There was nothing that he instantly recognized as being related to Shane.
So, he picks a snowflake, for Canada, for Shane.
Shane will always live on his necklace, just like his mother does.
Before every game he kisses it, not only as his good luck charm but also to tell the both of them I love you before stepping out onto the ice.
He still thinks about death sometimes.
He still stares at the pill bottles.
He stops counting the dosages.
Instead he starts to wonder if he'd want to go out the same way Shane did, so he can be closer to him. He would never do it on purpose, but if it happened it wouldn't be so bad.
He gets better over time.
He's less angry, less rough. It still hurts when he plays against Montreal.
He always makes sure to hug Hayden before they have to leave during those games. It was weird at first, but now it's expected.
Hayden was one of Shane's only friends outside of the locker room. Ilya wants to thank him but can never find the words. So he hugs him instead. He doesn't know if Hayden understands why, he both fears and hopes he does.
He starts to talk to Rose too. A part of him was angry at her because for months Shane was with her instead of him. He lost precious time.
But over time that, too, starts to go away.
Rose was the reason he even came to terms with being gay. Rose was there when he had no one else to talk to. Ilya hates himself when he remembers that Rose was there for Shane when he couldn't be.
It feels like his father all over again.
Rose to Shane, like Yuna and David for Ilya, was the sunshine bleeding through the blinds, the first glimpse of happiness. He'll forever be grateful for her because of that, even if it hurts a little bit that she did more than him for Shane.
It's a little over two years since Shane's death when he gets a call from Yuna.
It's not unfamiliar, Ilya has become close friends with everyone deeply involved with Shane's life. Yuna and him talk all the time, sometimes about Shane, sometimes about random things.
In fact, he even bought a house near them to stay at while he's not playing, so he can stay close to family. Today is one of those days.
He answers the phone thinking she's just going to rant about the most recent metro game. Instead he hears crying.
They're soft, barely noticeable to normal people, but when you learn to live through grief with someone you hear every silent thing they wish to hide.
“You should come over. It's important,” he hears over the phone.
“Ok,” he replies and nothing else.
Ilya rushes to the house. He doesn't know why. He knows it's not anything bad because she would've been crying harder; she wouldn't have even called at all.
He knocks on the door knowing very well he has a key to the house. It doesn't feel right to use it right now. He doesn't know what he's walking into.
David opens the door, he has tears in his eyes but none fall. “Follow me, we found something of Shane's.” He says.
Ilya already feels his tears welling up but he complies. He follows in step behind David as they walk to Shane's room. “We were just cleaning up his room a little bit. Organizing and dusting, but we found something. It's for you.”
Shane stops in his tracks. All the months where he thought about the what ifs came back. What if Shane said something what if Ilya had done something what if what if what if.
The first tear drops.
It's like the first one all over again.
He continues to follow.
He makes it to the room and sees Yuna on the ground— her mouth covered— as she reads a note in her hand.
She looks up at Ilya before outstretching the paper to him.
Ilya hesitates for a second before grabbing the paper to read it.
Dear Ilya,
I'm writing this as a letter because I don't trust that I'll be able to find the right words when it comes time to ask.
After the game tonight I brought you here not to fuck but to ask you something instead.
I want to ask you: will you come to my cottage this summer?
I don't want you to go back to Russia. I want it to be just you and me for a couple of weeks. We'll be completely alone, no one—not even my parents— will know we're here.
The next thing I say might scare you off but it needs to be said before you come stay with me. I need you to understand what you mean to me.
I love you.
I think I've loved you for a while now.
I'll come out one day to my family and my friends. But right now I just want to be with you, alone.
So will you please come stay with me this summer?
-From, Shane.
Ilya wetly chuckles at the last part. From Shane like he wouldn't have handed him the letter in the first place.
He rereads it and starts to cry. I love you.
The words he wanted to hear for so long were put on a piece of paper.
It was almost like Shane knew what would happen to him and wanted to tell Ilya before leaving.
He could've stayed with Shane. He could've stayed with Shane for two weeks. He could have been told I love you in person.
He continues to cry. This time it's worse than the first.
They were so close to the sun. Dawn was on the horizon and he was taken from him. He wrote this assuming that he would have many more summers to come. He didn't know his last one had already passed.
He starts to feel angry, he starts to feel sad. He thought that the answer to all of his what ifs would give him some peace, instead it gives him the opposite.
Why couldn't he have been given this by Shane himself? Why did he leave him? Why did he have to find out about this two years later?
He leaves the house without another word. He can't be around people right now, he can't be around Shane's family, he can't be around people that see him right now.
He drives back to his house.
When he gets inside he re-reads the letter again.
I don't want you to go to Russia.
He re-reads it again.
I want it to be just you and me for a couple of weeks.
And again.
I love you.
And again.
-From Shane.
He cries all night.
It's summer right now. Maybe that's why it hits so hard for him. Because two years ago he could've been here with Shane, that's how it was supposed to go.
He wasn't supposed to die. He wasn't supposed to die in front of Ilya when he had this to tell him.
Two months. He would have only waited two months before he stayed with Shane once he handed him this letter.
Now he has to wait a lifetime for even a chance to see him in their next life. Maybe he can see him in heaven. Maybe see him walking the streets as a ghost.
It's not a hard decision to make when he thinks about where he's going to live over the summer.
Ilya decides to stay at the cottage. Alone. Like Shane intended.
Everything looks like memories they never got to create: The water outside they would've swam in, the bed they would've slept and fucked in, the fire pit they would've watched as the sun went down, the grill they would've cooked on.
The feeling of grief is overwhelming. Some days he's barely able to get out of bed as he just imagines what it would be like to be here with Shane. Alone together.
But through it all the sense of love never leaves. Accompanied with his grief is always love when it comes to Shane, and when he's here he feels it the most.
Shane thought about him. He wanted to have soft mornings and rough conversations. He wanted Ilya to be comfortable with him, as he wanted to be back.
Ilya doesn't leave once the two weeks come and go. He stays.
He stays in the cottage even as the new season starts up and he's a whole flight away from his team. He doesn't care.
He doesn't care when he sells his apartment back in Boston. He doesn't care when he asks Yuna and David if he could stay at the cottage indefinitely. He doesn't care when he places the letter into a frame and puts it over the doorway, always and forever a member of the house.
The rumors come quickly. Ilya seen staying in Shane's house. Ilya sold all his homes? He still doesn't care.
He's asked one night before a game—a game that decides if his team wins the cup or not— Why? Why are you living in his house? Why did you sell all your other houses? Isn't this a big inconvenience?
It's not a sports related question, he knows this, the interviewer knows this. You don't ask personal questions like this when they're about to play for the title, it's taboo.
But he's tired of hiding them from the light. He's tired of deceiving everyone around him. He's tired of pretending that they were just rivals, when even since the start Shane was so much more than that.
He lets his grief breath for the first time ever.
“I love him,” he finds himself saying. That was the simple truth, the whole truth.
“Being there makes me feel closer to him. I wish to be buried next to him when it’s my time to go,” he's said too much but he doesn't care. It's what he's wanted to say for months now.
He walks off, he has a game to play.
Later, when he wins the cup that night, instead of screaming ‘this is for you, mama!’ he screams—
“Для тебя, Shane!”
“This is for you, Shane!”