Chapter 1
February 22, 2026 at 2:43 PM
Soln Shane Hollander,
It's time to be brave and admit that this isn't working. We're not on the same page. We never were. You're afraid of disappointing them, of no longer being a role model, of no longer playing hockey. I don't care about hockey, I want you to see that it hurts me when I lie to you that everything is fine. You need a comfort zone and control over your life because you're obsessed with rules, daily routines, routines of seasons and years, because your brain is wired differently. I need my brain to stop showing me my dead mother every fucking night and throwing images of accidents at me — where I don't betray you, but my life ends tragically — and for me to not want that so much.
I love... fuck, I don't know when I'll finish, I spent an hour on the first paragraph and smeared snot all over the paper, but I don't have the strength to rewrite it. My English sucks, my handwriting sucks, my life... I don't want to write in Russian, it won't be any easier — just into the void. Like everything that connected me to Russia, it lost its meaning long ago. And hockey lost its meaning. It's not about the losses, although you don't know that after each one, tears flow, it didn't start right away, but it became a reflex, and I go to the shower first, everyone thinks it's because I'm angry and will soon leave the team. Eleven games in a row, and I score, but it's meaningless. The Centaurs are really cool, humanly speaking, and I wouldn't want to play anywhere else, but it's meaningless. And it reminds me that I love you more than anything, more than life itself — and that's meaningless.
I have no right to dump all this crap on you, sit next to you and wait for you to read it and look at me with the eyes of a wounded fawn, wait for you to cry and try to convince me to talk to someone... I'm fucking doing it, Shane! Galina, my Russian psychotherapist, really tries, she's kind and understanding, but I don't even tell her half of it. I tell her what can be fixed, I pretend to be normal, I lie that hockey players aren't allowed to take any drugs, I go home and dream of walking across the bridge. And you know what the problem is, Hollander? I wouldn't jump, I couldn't kill myself, because my mother's suicide destroyed my whole psyche, my personality, my whole life. I won't do that to you with my own hands. But if I get on a plane that crashes... If I could have known about it in advance...
Our quarrel isn't the last straw or anything like that. You're fixated on your feelings, and that's okay, your anxiety is okay, you shouldn't sacrifice your peace of mind and sense of security, become unhappy for my sake. Because it won't make me happy, nothing will make me happy, it was predetermined when I was twelve. I played hockey to forget her death, I fucked every day to forget her death, I chased after you and surpassed you to switch to something... someone alive. When we met in Saskatchewan, I fell in love with you because you were like the sun. Shane. Shine. Freckles. Your eyes. You're not like her at all, you were never unhealthily sad, no matter how much you panicked over trifles. You're always full of life. A couple of years ago, I hoped that my, your, our love would fix everything. I was happy at the cottage. With your parents. With the Pike's kids. When we had Anya.
I'm sorry. I forgive you for your stupid question about whether I would choose you or hockey, but forgive me for everything I'll ruin when you read this. Or if you read it late. I believe that thoughts are material, Shane, I believe in God, this cross is not just a tribute to my mother. Because she believed, and I seem to be her son in every way. I believe that if I wait for disaster, ask for it, someday it will find me. More than anything, I don't want to part with you, but I don't want our life the way it is now either. You know, sometimes I take the impotence drugs, my cock won't fucking get hard if I think about my mother, even when you're next to me. Sometimes I pretend to be asleep so you won't talk to me, but I can't sleep all night and count the hours until we part. Sometimes I pretend to be a normal person, go out with my team, I don't care where or with whom. I push blind idiots in love towards each other if I see my past — my normal self — in them. It's much easier for me to be... not in my own life.
Of course, I'll go to that damn game. I love you. We don't always get what we want, so nothing will happen to me. Maybe I'll marry you and have a child with you. He will definitely have your genes: my heredity is disgusting. I'll end my career when my knees start to fall apart, find a new hobby, get Canadian citizenship, and teach Pike's children to curse in Russian. I'll propose to you on the lake, by candlelight, because you're still my solnyshko, Shane. You always have been and always will be. See, this paragraph turned out almost adequate? I drink vodka, a lot, so I can think only of you. I'll fuck you as long as I can stay afloat, your parents will love me as long as they don't find out.
You don't have to read this, okay? Don't find it, ever. Only if I die. I want to give you care and happiness, and I see no other reason to live. I'm sorry that I don't tell you anything, that I can't get better and feel loved. That I dream of meeting her.
Yours. I'm so sorry.
Fuck, I CAN'T ...KE IT ANYM... ease ...T ME GO...
***
Are thoughts material? The Centaurs' plane made an emergency landing, and everyone on board escaped with only a severe fright. Only Ilya Rozanov was seriously injured and had been in a coma for two weeks. He wasn't dying, it was just that... the doctors were studying his body's reactions. They performed a difficult brain operation. Now all that remained was to wait. Wait and hope.
Shane found a letter at home when he returned briefly to Ottawa to visit his parents. It was lying in a desk drawer, crumpled and covered with dark spots. The last words — was it a cry from the heart? — were blurred, but still perfectly clear. Shane cried when he read the second line, and when he reached the end and threw the letter away with trembling hands, he sobbed, biting his fingers to keep from screaming. He curled up on the sofa (Ilya had consulted him about which one to buy), buried his face in the pillow (Ilya had scattered them throughout the bedroom and living room for his sake), and choked on his grief. It seemed even worse than the coma and the vague prognosis for awakening.
Ilya had been dying inside all this time. And he wanted to die for real.
Shane was ready for anything. To buy a ring and propose as soon as he woke up. To talk to Farah and publish a post that would dot all the i's and cross all the t's — and let the whole world finally know about their relationship. To quit hockey, if necessary. No, quit unconditionally, cause nothing is more important than Ilya, which he, the idiot, realized so late. But what would bring him even a little relief and give him strength? Not temporarily, but for real?
He couldn't give Ilya the one thing he asked for — to let him go. Yes, he was selfish. If he had to fight for Ilya's life against Ilya's brain, Shane could handle it. If he had to resort to dirty tricks to keep Ilya close, promise to follow him if anything happened, Shane didn't care. When he woke up, Shane would do anything, and maybe he would need a therapist too, and Ilya would need medication and extensive treatment, but nothing is lost as long as Ilya's heart is still beating. As long as Ilya loves him so much that he clings to it with his whole being. And lives. Breathes.
Shane returned to Tampa and arrived at the hospital at dawn. The nurse assured him that nothing had changed, that Ilya wasn't getting any worse, as soon as she saw the dead look in his swollen eyes. He nodded without saying a word. It doesn't matter what she thinks, what she guesses, or who she shares it with.
The sun stubbornly broke through the lowered blinds. A single ray touched Ilya's limp hand, and Shane took it in his. A continuous line of life slowly stretched across his pale palm and the black screen.
“Let him go,” Shane whispered into the void and closed his eyes so he wouldn't cry again. It seemed that Ilya would feel it immediately. “I'll take care of him, okay?”
No one answered him. Ilya's fingers didn't move, his eyes didn't open, no miracle happened. But for the first time in all these terrible days, Shane smiled faintly.
He has to learn to do it for both of them while Ilya sleeps.
