Chapter Text
Ilya: Let’s go to bar. Tonight.
Ellie: ? It’s 9 am?
Ilya: Fine. I go by myself
Ellie: What’s going on?
Ilya: Click to open: Rose Landry spotted out with hockey player Shane Hollander”
Ellie: What the fuck!?
Did you text him?
Ilya: No.
No more texting.
Clearly Shane is busy getting his dick wet with movie star.
Is fine.
Does not matter
Ellie: Babe. Jesus I am so sorry.
Ilya: Is fine
Ellie:
Shut the fuck up.
You might lie to everyone else but you can at least be honest with me.
We can go get margaritas and Mexican food.
How about 4?
—---
Breaking News! Shane Hollander seen with Rose Landry near his Montreal apartment
Ilya threw his phone into the wall after he read it and went back to running on the treadmill. Ellie had told him to delete twitter. To block Shane. To block the tags about them. He did not listen. He couldn’t help himself. It was like watching a car crash. He couldn’t stop checking to see what had been posted about them.
What was wrong with him? This was never supposed to turn into… whatever this is. Ilya wasn’t supposed to care about Shane. This was the perfect example of why. You cannot depend on anyone. They all leave, or lie, or steal, or manipulate, or die.
But Ilya had started to think maybe Shane was different. Shane with his sweet face, his beautiful freckles and sharp eyes. His crooked, bashful smile. Shane was honest. Shane was kind. Shane was… perfect.
And Ilya loved him.
And he didn’t love Ilya.
“Fuck!” Ilya shouted, pulling the emergency stop cord on the treadmill and practically falling onto the floor. His face burned. His throat ached. He felt like he couldn’t breathe. There was a pit in his stomach and he wanted to throw up, punch something, die.
—
“I just do not understand. He was so perfect. He is so perfect. Beautiful. I felt like… for a moment. For a second, I had something real. I felt like… like I could be happy. Now I wake up every morning and feel like nothing matters. Is stupid” Ilya almost slurred.
He was drunk and laying flat on his back in the middle of Ellie’s living room rug. He couldn’t tell if he was speaking in Russian, English, or a combination of both.
“I go to gym. I like gym. I go to take my mind off this. Then I go home to shower. I cry. I go to bar and I try to kiss pretty women. And I feel sick. I go to practice and I want to punch everyone who talks to me. They say “geez Roz, what’s your fucking problem Roz?” If only they knew. I go to drive sportscar. I love sportscars. I drive all sportscars. And I feel nothing. It makes no difference. I am… I feel naked like a crab with no shell? I feel alone even when people are there. I feel… I do not know.”
“Down bad,” Ellie offered sympathetically from her spot on the couch.
“Da. Yes.”
—
Ilya:
I feel like petulant child.
Dramatic teenage baby.
Ellie:
Broken hearts can do that to you.
Ilya:
I know I am being mean.
I know I am being dick.
Team says
“What the fuck Roz?
“What’s your fucking problem Roz?
“Jesus Roz, you need to get laid
“Roz you need to get the fuck over this Jane girl”
And I say fuck it.
Ellie:
I’ll hit them for you.
Glitter bomb their cars?
Ilya:
I feel like I am dying.
I stare at sky now. Instead of clubbing.
Instead of having sex with beutiful women.
I sit on rooftop of my building
and stare at sky and think
“Does Shane see this sky too?
What is he doing right now?
These constellations look like his freckles.”
Disgusting
Ellie: Romantic.
Ilya:
No.
Pathetic.
—-
9:31 pm
Ellie:
I love you. You know that. I say this with love. You have to calm down on the ice though.
I know you are mad and hurt about Shane. But you were in the penalty box like a million times.
Read
9:47
Ellie: Roz. Babe.
Ilya: I know.
—--
2:07
Ilya: This is voice to text translate. Sorry for mistakes.
Ilya shared a note. Click to open.
New Note
I had a dream. A nightmare. It was Shane, he was here. I woke up and it sounded like he was in the kitchen. I get up to go see him. I feel so excited and happy. And then he. Fuck. It’s dream. I know. He is kissing Rose Landry. Perfect pretty Rose Landry. He has his fingers in her hair and he is laughing and happy and she is happy. And I just watch it. And it’s like I’m not even there. It was supposed to be nothing. But it was always something. I know it was always something. I knew from the time he came up to me the summer before rookie year to introduce himself. They say Ilya Rozanov is cold. He has no heart. But it is not true. Now I will watch him fall in love with movie star. Perfect beautiful movie star Rose Landry. And I will watch him get married. I will watch him have the best hockey career. Have little babies. Do interviews and spend summers in his perfect cottage with his perfect family. And I will have nothing. It was like a car crash maybe. We crashed into each other. It was so beautiful, Ellie. He is so beautiful. Maybe it will be enough to just watch him. To float in his orbit. I do not know. I will always wonder. Fuck. This is stupid. It just did not happen. But if he said he loved me, I think I would die. I think it would tear my world apart if he said he wonders too.