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Fuck, not right now.
Shane could feel his breathing picking up, his heart beating faster, his head beginning to swim.
This isn’t the fucking time.
Rozanov was almost out the door. If he could just hold it in for a few seconds longer, he’d be alright.
Shane’s thoughts raced faster and faster, conjuring images of the public finding out what he’d done. His teammates’ disappointment. His parents’ horrified faces. The news outlets reporting on Shane Hollander, Hockey’s First and Only Public Fag.
The door clicked open. Ilya spared him a glance and a curt nod before shutting the door behind him. The door clicked shut. He heard the soft shuffle of Rozanov’s footsteps walking down the hall.
Shane’s eyes glazed over, focusing on a random point on the wall while his mind showed him all the worst possible outcomes.
Ilya Rozanov Confesses Love Affair with Archrival Shane Hollander.
Photos Show Ilya Rozanov Leaving Shane Hollander’s Hotel Room.
That wasn’t even the half of it.
Hayden comes up to Shane. His eyes are different, he looks…wrong. Shane asks him what’s wrong, and Hayden just shoves him off. He knows.
Shane is talking with his parents. He notices that they’re exchanging little glances while they talk about Shane’s upcoming game against Rozanov. They know.
Each and every one of his teammates gives Shane a disgusted look when they read the articles. They know. They know. They know.
Fuck. Fuck Fuck Fuck. They’re all going to know.
No, not if they can both keep this under wraps—
But what if they can’t? What if someone sees, someone knows. What if they put the pieces together and find out that he had hooked up with Rozanov—and worse yet, that he’d loved it. What if they found out. What if they knew. What if they hated him.
This was going to end him. He sat naked in a hotel room bed and pictured the end of his career. All because he couldn’t help himself when it came to fucking Rozanov. All because he was so fucking weak. All because he couldn’t just like girls like a normal person. All because of him. It was all his fault. He didn’t try harder—didn’t even want to. He was going to lose everything and it was going to be so much worse than if he’d just broken his leg or torn his ACL.
Fuck. He thought he was going to die. His heart felt heavy as iron in his chest, thumping irregularly and shaking his entire body. His breaths were quick and uneven, perpetuating the cycle of panic. His eyes were filling with tears. His head was spinning. All he could do was cover his face with his hands and wish he hadn’t been so fucking stupid.
But he had been. He had been so fucking stupid and he couldn’t take it back, couldn’t undo it, couldn’t make it better. All he could do was hope nobody found out.
He felt a tear fall from his eye and quickly wiped it away. Nobody could see him cry. Nobody was going to see him cry. Nobody.
The worst part of it all? He had nobody to tell. Nobody he could even lie to. He wasn’t going to tell Hayden that he’d freaked out and cried after hooking up with somebody, even if he could lie about who that somebody was. He couldn’t rightly tell his parents and have his mom fuss over him for the next millennium.
He bit his lip in an attempt to keep more tears from falling. It didn’t take. His head fell back and he stared at the ceiling, feeling his breath catch in his throat. His tears fell freely down his cheeks and onto his shoulders. He sniffed up the snot threatening to drip from his nose. He couldn’t let himself fall apart, and yet, he was going to. He knew that he’d never been able to hold it back for long.
The dam broke. He choked on his sobs, his chest spasming as he tried to cry as quietly as he could. Who was around? Who could hear him? Who was going to know that Shane Hollander was crying, by himself, in his hotel room? They’d speculate on if he’d been injured, what girl—or boy he was crying over—who had broken Shane Hollander’s heart?
Nobody. Nobody but his own stupid self. He’d dug his own grave and it would only get deeper.
His hand reached shakily for his phone, looking for anyone he might be able to call, but there was no one. His contacts showed his teammates, parents, and that was about it. There was nobody. Nobody was coming to save him. He was alone.
Alone, in a hotel room in Toronto, where nobody was able or willing to come and comfort him.