Work Text:
Ilya,
Truthfully, I’m not good at articulating how I feel. I am, for all intents and purposes, perpetually scared by my own thoughts and anxious at every possible moment. I’m cringing, honestly, as I write this. I’ve never been really good at being honest, but I think you're the person I have to be honest to. But I’m not deluding myself either. This, everything written here, is also purely selfish and indulgent. Forgive me, I hope you don’t mind, but I’d understand if you stopped reading.
I want to apologize to you for a lot of things. I know we don’t do that, but I think you deserve one. I’m sorry for walking out on you in your apartment. I’m the asshole there, I know. I keep thinking about it, Ilya, every single time. I think about your hand outstretched towards me and my ass stupidly walking away. It’s unfair to you, I’m so sorry. I noticed, you know? I noticed that you had all the ingredients for the tuna melt in these tupperwares, and that you had a case ginger ale in the fridge, and that you’d gotten me those house slippers with the orthopedic soles despite not needing them. I noticed, Ilya, and that’s what terrified me.
You see, Ilya, you were right when you compared me to a scared kitten. I feel like one, constantly. Skittish and too afraid to be kept close, to be held. Only to ever be observed from a distance. I’m terrified, I think, of how big it felt. I still have your shirt, by the way. It’s been lost to my laundry, somewhere. I still think about that tuna melt. A bit too much mayo, honestly, but I’d eat it again if you’d let me. I’m sorry. I’m greedy.
I’m sorry because I lied to you too, not just at your apartment, but at Ciel too. Ilya, you are too damn perceptive for my good. You were right, I was unhappy. I was unhappy with my hockey, I was unhappy with my team, I was unhappy with myself, and I was unhappy with Rose. You really do read me like an open book, Ilya. Call me insane or crazy or whatever, but that thought that you do makes me really happy.
And this one's a tinier one, but I lied when I said I was alone when you called. I wasn’t, Ilya. I was in my hotel room and the moment I got your text I sprinted out of my hotel room to find a place we could call uninterrupted. I wonder if it was obvious, it felt like it was to me. Did you hear it over the staticky echo of my phone mic? Did you know?
Ilya, I’m writing because I'm terrified, in all the ways that count. I’m writing everything because I know that you know that sometimes, the things we say aren’t the things we mean, or that the things we do aren’t what we were planning. I don’t want to be compelled any further, but I don’t know how that takes shape. And I’m hiding behind these words and these papers because I’m still a coward, at the end of it all. I can only be so brave, so honest, like this. I’m sorry, I think you deserve better from me, but this is the best I can do. Again, forgive me.
Ilya, there are things I should’ve told you a long time ago.
I have been obsessed with your tape since I was fifteen. My eyes tend to follow you when you walk into a room. When we met in Saskatchewan, I had ten different things I wanted to say to you but it all escaped me when I finally saw you. I shook your hand twice because I was nervous, so nervous, that I may as well have tripped over my skates. I hate that you smoke, and I hate that you still keep up with me with your smoker lungs. I know how much smarter you are, when you talk in that language I can no longer follow.
I might be going crazy, but you might be the only person that has ever looked so fond while I folded my clothes before sex. You are the only one who has ever been so patient with me, truly, because who the fuck waits two years for a booty call, Ilya? You are the only person that has ever encouraged me to be louder, bolder, than how I usually am. You key me up and wind me down so much that I’ve tried memorizing the Russian words you mumble when we fuck.
Ilya, I have a map of the moles on your back, and I’m scared sometimes, because I’m not sure if I’ve spotted a new one or I miscounted. You should get those checked when you’re back home. I know the exact curl type of your stupid head of hair, and I know that you have these mousses in your shower, I’ve seen them Ilya. I know about the scar on your left side and the roughened skin by your pelvis, and that raised, blotchy birthmark near your thigh.
I want to know more, though, sometimes. I’ve seen your garage online, but I want to know which car is your favorite. I’ve seen your liquor shelf, but I want to taste the one that tastes like home. Do you sleep naked, or is your whole lascivious leery thing all for show? You’ve sent me those cute dogs through the phone, but do you like them more than cats?
Ilya. You are the only one who has ever challenged me, truly challenged me on the ice. You frustrate me every time with your cocky chirps for the media. You irritate me on the ice. But playing against you is electric, unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life. You are unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life, did you know this? Now you do.
I don’t know where I’m going with this anymore, Ilya. I’m not the most suave or smooth person. I’m blunt, and you know this. And I’m boring, and you tell me this every single time. And I’m gay, Ilya, I am so fucking gay it took my own ex-girlfriend to figure it out. And I’m still so terrified but I think I’d regret it even more if I never told you, even through this. So.
I am so, so, so selfish, Ilya. So I’m saying it here because I’d rather never see your face when I say it. I’d rather you were far away, so far away, that I can not reach you unless it’s through the echoey static of a phone line And I’m an asshole, because I’m making that decision for you, now, because you don’t see my face either, as I’m writing this.
Ilya, all I have to say now, and all I can say, because I know you’re going to go home, is that you were right. I like you. I want you. For so long I have denied myself of that fact, but I know, now. Okay? I don’t want you to think that this is me asking you to like me back. This is me saying it out now, here in this stupid piece of paper that won’t lie to you and won’t take anything back.
Ilya. Ilya. Ilya. Ilya I really do fucking like you. So much it scares me. So much that I fear I’m only strong enough to write it down here and keep it sealed until that feeling is so far away, as far as Moscow, before it reveals itself again. Ilya I still want to know so much about you, and that terrifies me.
Ilya, I think I have liked you too much for quite some time now, not just a year ago, or a few years ago. Maybe I have more than I should’ve, and that’s the problem. I think I might’ve truly lost it, when I realised I’ve liked you for longer than anyone has ever told me to hate you.
Ilya, please don’t feel guilty or burdened. I know I can’t tell you to not be, but I hope you aren’t. I hope you read this and think that this is just another one of my spiralling, fracturing anxieties. You know how those go, you’ve seen them. Don’t you ever feel bad for me about this. Don’t feel bad that you don’t feel the same. Don’t feel bad that I’m writing so much nonsense.
This feels manipulative, writing it to you, leaving you with this, telling you how to feel about what I’ve written. We aren’t good at talking to each other. We keep leaving. We’re good at talking at each other though, so I guess that’s why I’m leaving you with this.
I’m sorry. I like you.
Thank you again, Ilya.
Signed,
Shane