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Even after security there is still a little over two hours until boarding starts. Ilya sits on his seat near the gate and pretends that he isn’t fidgeting. He glances at the clock, not even a minute has passed since the last time he did so. Then he turns to look at the gate to make sure it still exists.
He can’t wait to leave Russia behind, he thinks quietly to himself.
And then he tries to desperately swallow down the sob threatening to fall from his lips. This is the first time he has allowed himself think about it, admit the thought to be true. Even when he thinks he has known the truth for quite some time already.
For years now, coming back to his homeland has felt like walking into a stranger’s house. No, like staying at old childhood friend’s home who you no longer speak to. You know every street by heart and you could find where the glasses are in the kitchen blind but every step you take still feels like you are intruding.
Expect there were never really any childhood friends because the only thing he ever really had in his life was hockey, hockey, hockey. A practice after practice after practice and then he would do some more once he got home because it wasn’t enough to be good. No, he needed to be the best.
And for that he was wiling to give up sleepovers and school trips because Ilya Rozanov liked being the best.
More than that though he liked how being the best made mother smile and his father proud.
He was also young and stupid and he thought being the best would be enough. It wasn’t. Because once he was the best in the city, he had to become the best in whole Russia and once he achieved that he had to conquer the whole world. Suddenly scoring a goal didn’t matter. He had to be the most valuable player of the game or either he was a disappointment.
Ilya Rozanov was either the pride of the nation or he was nothing. There was no in-between.
His family was always quick to turn their backs on him, to tell him how he was bringing shame to their family name. And then they would call him in the middle of the night asking for money and clothes and designer bags. Always asking for more and more and more.
They are his family, they deserve it, they would say to him. And why would he not share when he already has plenty? Or they were too embarrassed to show their faces, walk the streets, what will the neighbors think if they were seen in last season’s clothes?
And Ilya always gave, more and more and more, because that is how he was raised. He is a good son even when he does nothing but disappoint them.
Even when they said the reason his mother stopped smiling was him– Well, he is not going to think about that right now. But all he is going to say that even then he tried to be better. Until the very end. Even now.
But he thinks he has done and given enough. It’s time to go.
He is ready. Or at least he thinks he is ready to say goodbye to this country. So, he is unsure why does he have to keep swallowing back his tears as he thinks about it.
No, that’s not exactly true. It’s not the part that he is leaving Russia that feels like a heavy weight on his chest. It’s the knowledge, somewhere deep inside himself, that it might be for good. That it is indeed for good, that he can feel it in his bones – he will never again return.
“I don’t think I’m coming back,” Ilya whispers, fidgeting with his phone.
He unlocks it and stares at the chat between him and a certain Canadian. Then he locks his phone. And a moment later unlocks it again.
Why does it feel like I he has been inside his head for so long but in reality, only mere ten minutes have passed. There is still a forever before the flight and he feels uneasy. He needs to get out of here, now. Immediately. He fears that if can’t do it soon, he will get scared and stay.
Svetlana next to him folds her magazine in the most dramatic way possible because even in funeral black, she lives and breathes drama. She sets it down on the empty seat next to her and says, “I know.”
Because, of course, she does. She is Svetlana, his best friend. Some day it feels like she knows him better than he knows himself.
She is the only constant he has ever had in his life. The only person who never wavered, never doubted him. She has always stood by his side, never asking for a thing. And Ilya loves her. That might be the worst of this all because he does love her.
It’s just that he loves her like a sister and he can’t think about that for too long. It gets weird, with occasional sex they have had over the years.
Part of him wants to love her in different way, romantically. Life, at least some parts of it, would be so much easier that way. But he fears there is someone else in his heart, someone he isn’t supposed to love but he can’t seem to help it.
And besides he loves Svetlana too much to put her through it. Svetlana doesn’t deserve a relationship like that, loveless and superficial. She deserves someone who will worship the ground she walks on. She deserves someone who isn’t Ilya Rozanov.
“Does it hurt?” She asks, her smile sad but her eyes kind. “Knowing you are leaving and never coming back?”
“It feels like betrayal,” he admits.
This country, Russia, it gave him everything. It’s where he was born and where he first learned the rules to this game, to hockey. He scored his first goal on this soil and he fears he won’t know who he is if it’s not this country’s flag he skates under.
What does he have in another country? A promise that he can stay – as long as he plays good enough hockey.
Or perhaps it’s disappointment that he feels. The two are so similar to him that he can’t really tell them apart anymore. All he knows that both feelings seem to be always present in him.
Suddenly it’s Svetlana who looks like she is about to cry. She squeezes his hand, tightly, as she says, “It’s not, I promise you. It’s not a betrayal to choose yourself, Ilya. You deserve to be happy, even if it’s not here, in this country.”
Ilya believes her because she is his best friend. And he needs it to be true. This is probably the first time he has ever truly chosen himself. He can’t have that to be wrong. If leaving doesn’t kill him, he fears having to run back home would do it.
Because, what is there to run back to? A family. He doesn’t have one, not anymore.
Alexei, his brother, can eat dirt all he cares. Expect he does care even when he wishes he knew how not to. Their relationship might be beyond repair but Ilya loves his niece to pieces and would never wish her to grow up without one of her parents.
She might grow up without knowing his name or recognizing his face on the tv but he will make sure she is taken care of for life.
And his father, well. Ilya has just buried his father, in the heart of his beloved Russia. He might have disappointed him until the very end but he thinks he has done his duty as a son. He can bear the thought of him rotting in the ground without anyone bringing flowers to his grave or brushing the snow away to make sure the world still sees his name.
No, the part that threatens to break him is that leaving will mean leaving his mother too.
His mother who loved Russia and had big and beautiful dreams for its future. His mother who he knows loved him, even though not enough to not leave him.
Ilya fears that by leaving himself, he will never see her again. It’s one thing to leave behind a country and to know you will never again be able to visit a grave, to see the place that marks life lost and love with no place to go.
It’s another thing altogether to worry what if she will think poorly of him, even in death? What if he will get to heaven, only to find she won’t see him?
“There is someone in the USA who makes you very happy. No, not the USA. It’s Canada, isn’t it?” Svetlana says, almost causally reaching for his other hand as well. The hand that is holding onto his phone like it’s his lifeline, like he might die if he lets go off it.
“Yes,” he agrees because why deny it when she already knows.
He thinks she might have known he was in love long before he ever realized it himself. Oh, that word. It’s scary, love, but that’s what it is. Why deny that either when he already knows it to be true. Might as well man up and admit it to himself; Ilya Rozanov is head over heels in love with Shane Hollander, the star center and captain of Montreal, his biggest rival on ice.
The other man is not the whole reason why he is leaving Russia behind but he can’t deny it isn’t a part of it.
It’s all horrible and scary and quite possibly insane. He doesn’t even know if Hollander feels the same way about him, if he even wants their nothing to be something. And here is Ilya, at the airport, about to leave his old life, his homeland behind for the small chance that the answer might be yes.
If he was to stay, it could never work. Russia, it’s not safe place like that. It’s not place where he could ever love Shane Hollander.
Him leaving is a step towards a future he isn’t sure even exists or ever will.
There is an announcement that the gate to somewhere far and distant, somewhere Ilya isn’t going has changed. The people hanging around the gate next to theirs receive this news with a mix of frustrated groans and complaining.
He watches as they gather their things and start making their way to their new gate on the complete opposite side of the airport.
“Ilya,” Svetlana calls his name, her tone suggesting that it wasn’t the first time.
Very slowly, he turns his gaze away from the little girl in purple dress and matching butterfly clips in her hair who holds on to her mother’s hand as they follow the people to their new gate. She is jumping from a floor tile to another, giggling happily the whole time. Ilya’s heart aches because she reminds him of her niece and how he will most likely never get to see her like that.
He will never get so see her growing up at all.
He fights the urge to get up and walk over to them, asking for a hug. He never got to say goodbye to his niece.
Svetlana glances into the little girl’s direction and says, “I will visit her. Your niece, she won’t grow up alone. She will know your name, Ilya.”
And he swallows back his tears, once more. He doesn’t know how to thank her. He fears if he was to try, he would never stop trying to find the words for it. There are countless things he owns his thanks to the other.
So, he just squeezes her hand tightly and pretends his heart isn’t breaking in his chest. His niece knowing him somehow feels even worse. It means she will have to miss him too.
“And while I do that,” Svetlana says, squeezing his hand back. It feels like a promise too, like she is saying she will never let go. “I hope you will find a new home there, in Canada, with that person.”
It’s difficult. Practically impossible, even if they felt the same way about each other, which he doesn’t even know if they do. He is hopeful about it. Especially after how much they have talked ever since his father died.
He finds it almost funny how him dying brought them closer to each other. Ilya considers it as his father’s last gift to him. He cherishes it even more because he knows his father would have hated it, them talking and being– whatever they are. He hopes it’s a sign that regardless of father’s personal feelings about everything, he would still want his son to be happy.
It’s a silly thought to have. His father never cared about such foolish things as happiness. He only ever cared about duty; to his family, to God and perhaps above all else, his country, Russia.
And that’s the reason why they never really got along, why Ilya always ended up disappointing his father. He never could bring himself to sacrifice all the things his father demanded from him, to give up his happiness. For hockey, it was easier. He loves hockey probably more than anyone and to dedicate his life to it was easy. It didn’t feel like a sacrifice at all.
But even if you were to ignore all that, there would still be other obstacles. Boston and Montreal. There is the distance between them, there is the rivalry.
He doesn’t know how they could overcome either of those things. The reason he is allowed to stay in the USA is because he plays hockey. If whatever they are was to come to the light of day, could he still play?
Ilya Rozanov might be one of the best damn players in the league right now but would it be enough? Would they still keep him if they found out he likes fucking men on his free time? No, one man. Canadian. The one person he isn’t supposed to want at all under any circumstances.
“I don’t know if it’s possible, if that person even wants the same,” he sighs quietly.
“You will never know unless you try, Ilya.”
And isn’t that true? He just fears he has too much to lose to ever be brave enough to try. He is leaving Russia, his home, behind. If they kick him out of the league, where does he go?
He fidgets with his phone, once more opening the chat with a certain Canadian and then promptly locking his phone again. Then a moment later he reopens it, rereading and rereading the previous messages.
It’s stupid of him to want but he does.
He wants Shane Hollander to call him and ask how he is. He wants to hear his voice and he wants to see him and kiss him. No, above all else he just wants to hold him at this very moment.
Even just a text from him would be enough. Or no, it would never be enough. Ilya Rozanov wants everything and he won’t be satisfied with bits and pieces anymore. But the thing is, he is way too far gone already. He has become greedy, so he will take all he can get his hands on and pretend it’s enough for him. Because at the end of the day, it’s still better than having nothing.
Of course, he could be the one to text first. But he doesn’t want to appear clingy, he doesn’t want to scare Hollander away ever again.
He locks his phone, the screen going dark in front of him.
“There is still over an hour before we board,” Svetlana says, her tone causal.
“Yes, I know that. It’s way too long,” Ilya answers and he knows he sounds irritated and that she doesn’t deserve it.
After all, she flying with him back to the USA, so that he doesn’t have to be alone. She really is a much better friend than what he deserves.
Especially as all Svetlana does is laugh and say, “So, maybe you should call him?”
“Who?” He startles a little even when he knows there is no point, there is nothing for him to hide. Not when it comes to Svetlana, particularly as she already knows.
“Your Jane,” she says sweetly, all smiles as she does so.
Even if it’s the fake name, hearing it like that makes Ilya’s heart skip a beat. He doesn’t blush because Russian’s don’t do that – or so he keeps telling himself.
He unlocks his phone again
He wants to call him, so much. It’s just that he is exhausted, be it emotionally, mentally or physically. He thinks he could sleep for a whole year and still wake up tired. Though one thing he could never get tired of is hearing Hollander’s voice. He thinks he could listen to him talking for the rest of his life.
At this moment though, there is nothing for him to say. He has no energy for conversation.
“I’m not sure I have anything to say,” he finds himself admitting.
“So don’t say anything,” Svetlana says like it’s the easiest thing in the world.
And before Ilya can do anything, she reaches over, like the menace he often forgets she is and presses the call button for him.
Ilya is about to end the call before it has ever started but Hollander is faster. He picks up immediately, almost like he was waiting next to his phone for the call to come. The thought warms Ilya’s heart.
Though he still finds it in himself squinting at Svetlana, even though in truth, he is endlessly grateful about this as well. He would have never found the courage to call. She shrugs like it wasn’t a big deal at all and picks up her magazine again.
“Hi,” he says to the phone, English feeling strange and unfamiliar on his tongue after speaking only Russian for so long.
“Hi,” Hollander answers, sounding a slightly out of breath and Ilya can’t help but picture him rushing to answer the phone immediately as it started ringing in hopes that it was him calling.
For a long time, they are silent.
Ilya watches at the people walk past him with their suitcases and backpack’s, holding their overpriced airport coffees and sandwiches. He watches the tearful goodbye hug between what he assumes is a couple before they head towards gates in different directions.
He doesn’t even really notice he is doing it until he does it. But he is listening carefully Hollander breathing on the other end of the line and he tries to match that.
In and then out. In and out. In and out. In a gentle and even rhythm. Again, in and out.
In.
Out.
He thinks he could fall asleep like that, right here in the middle of the airport. It doesn’t really matter that his father just died or that the chair he is sitting on is beyond uncomfortable. Svetlana is a warm presence next to him, her curls ticking his cheek as he rests his head against her shoulder. Even though Hollander isn’t physically there, it means a lot to have him on the phone.
If Ilya had to name a moment where he was, well perhaps happy is not the right for it, content, he would say this moment.
He is with his two favorite people in the entire world, about to board a plane that will take him far away from home but hopefully closer to where his heart is. He feels oddly safe here, in this moment, like nothing bad could ever happen to him now, like nothing could ever hurt him.
“How are you?” Hollander asks quietly, like he is aware of how precious this moment is and is afraid to disrupt it.
“I don’t know,” he answers honestly.
“Okay,” the other says. “Do you want to talk about it? I will listen. Or if you want to get your mind off something, I can talk and you can listen.”
Oh, Ilya loves to listen Hollander talk, just not right now. So, he does what Svetlana suggested.
“Can we just be silent like this?”
“Yeah, of course. Whatever you need,” Hollander answers immediately.
Ilya wishes it didn’t make him feel as warm as it does because he isn’t sure if the other actually means it. Or no, he isn’t sure if he means it in the way Ilya hopes for.
But like he said earlier, he is greedy man. He will take everything he can get because it’s better than having nothing at all.
Ilya thinks he might have actually fallen asleep for a moment because the next thing he knows is the slightly muted voice over the phone calling, “Shane, darling, dinner is ready.”
It’s followed by some rustling as Hollander moves around.
“Oh, yeah. I will come in a bit. Thanks mom,” the other answers, his voice sounding distant too.
Ilya does not think about the last time when his mother called him to come for dinner. He doesn’t remember anymore what they ate that day and it kills him a little every time he is reminded of the fact. He was so young. He thought there would be other dinners.
And perhaps that is why he failed as a son and why mother left him.
He bites on his tongue to stop himself from crying right there and then. He misses his mother all the damn time but more often than not, he can’t let himself to even think about her. If he does, the grief, it will overtake him and he doesn’t have the time for it.
So, very carefully he pushes away the thought of his mother and the mental image of her dancing around the kitchen, her dark curls a halo around her face. In that memory, she is smiling. Which means it must be a very old memory. She didn’t smile anymore, or at least not very often, the older Ilya got.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you are on the phone,” Yuna Hollander says to her son. “Is it Hayden? Say a hi to the kids from me.”
Without missing a beat, Hollander says, “Sure thing mom.”
The other surprises him by being actually somewhat decent liar when he tries to. If he didn’t know better, he would almost believe Hollander was actually talking to Pike.
“Okay, I will save you a plate if you take long,” the other’s mother says which is then followed by the sound of door closing.
After a moment of silence, Hollander says, “Sorry about that. When does your boarding start? I can stay with you until then and eat later.”
Ilya glances at the clock. He must not have slept for long because there is still somehow nearly an hour before boarding.
The seats around the gate have now mostly filled up. Even Svetlana has had to give up the seat next to her where she was keeping her purse for someone else to sit on. She is now filling out the crossword puzzle on the back of her magazine. Ilya thinks it’s worth mentioning that she is using a lipliner instead of a pen.
That’s probably because she doesn’t have one on her because according to her, no one ever needs pens these days. Which is proved untrue by her current actions. And for that reason alone, he always carrier a pen with him. In case she needs one. She knows this too.
He finds it unbelievably sweet that she didn’t want to wake him up to ask for the pen. Though at the same time he isn’t sure why he is even surprised. This is the person who has had his back every single day of his life, his best friend.
He smiles at her when she glances at him. She smiles back to him the special smile that lights up the world like no other.
“Hour. You can go,” Ilya says to the phone. And because Svetlana makes him brave in ways he never thought possible, he very carefully adds, “Can you keep the line open?”
Hollander is quiet for a moment.
“Okay, sure,” the other agrees before Ilya has time to start overthink his request. Hollander doesn’t say anything about it even if he finds the question odd.
There is rustling from the other end as Hollander moves again. He can hear the door opening as the other leaves his room and the quiet echo of his footsteps as he walks through the house.
Ilya tries to imagine what the Hollander’s home looks like. White walls and carefully selected furniture, more pillows than any one could ever possibly need on the couch. There must be awards and trophies every, just like the walls must be filled with photos of Shane Hollander from throughout his life.
Home, he thinks. It must look like home. Nothing like the old house Ilya grew up in. The one that to him always felt more like museum than a place where someone actually lived.
Even the air must smell delicious with homecooked meals instead of old cigarette smoke clinging onto the old, heavy, moth-eaten curtains.
It’s ridiculous, really. Ilya has never been there and yet he can picture the Hollander’s home in such a detail that for a moment it feels like he actually is there with them. Maybe he will be, one day.
“They say Canada is nice,” Svetlana comments casually without looking up from her crossword puzzle. “It’s not Russia, of course. It can never be Russia, homeland. But I think it could be a home. For you.”
Ilya, surprised, blinks furiously to keep the tears from falling down his cheeks. He is remotely aware of the scrape of chair against the floor as Hollander must sit down to the dinner table with his parents. There are pleasantries exchanged but they are talking fast and he can’t really keep up. Not that he is currently trying very hard, too busy staring at Svetlana.
When she finally puts down her magazine and turns to look at him, her eyes are filled with tears too. And yet, she smiles through them like it’s the best day of her life.
“You can build beautiful life somewhere else. I hope it’s in Canada,” Svetlana whispers and then very gently kisses Ilya’s cheek.
And that’s when he can no longer contain his tears. They fall freely down his cheeks.
“Thank you,” he whispers back to her, clutching the phone on his hand tightly. “I love you, you know that?”
“Always,” she says, crying now too. Instead of her own, she reaches for him to wipe his tears away first.
For a long time, they stay like that, Ilya’s head on Svetlana’s shoulder as she squeezes his hand like all of their lives might depend on it. They both cry silently but comfortable in the knowledge that these are not sad tears.
No, these are tears full of hope for the future yet to come.
Ilya listens to the sound of cutlery against plates, gentle chitchat about the days the Hollander family has had through the phone and he feels safe.
He feels almost at home.