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Shane liked his thing with Rozanov. They had been doing this thing for so long now, Shane wasn’t sure if he wanted it to ever stop. He liked the routine of it. One of them would be in the other’s city and they would hook up. It was reliable.
Rozanov was an asshole but Shane for some reason liked that. If Shane received a chirp in a text, it would make his heart skip a beat. He never took it in stride, he just gave it right back. They were equals in that way. Sometimes Shane would be in his head about something and Rozanov would be an asshole – mean, but never cruel – and it brought Shane back to himself.
It was the same in-person. Shane’s brain was always so loud and then every few months, he would be in the same room as Rozanov and everything just slipped away. It was quiet and Shane was scared that he would always be chasing that feeling but only ever finding it in one man. In the one person Shane could never actually have.
One day, they were texting, something that had picked up more the past couple of years, but even more since before this summer even started. Shane was thrown for a loop.
Lily
you won MVP again
congrats
Shane
Two years in a row is pretty good.
You planning on catching up anytime soon?
Lily
next year
promise
Shane
Fuck off. No way
I’ll be going 3 for 3
Lily
is cute you have dreams
don’t be too upset when i win it and the cup next year))
Shane
Keep dreaming
Lily
only ever of you, pretty boy 😘
Shane
you’re not so bad yourself 😉
Lily
aw tysm ❤️
Shane blinked. What the fuck did that mean? Was it maybe a wrong message? Did Rozanov drop his phone maybe? The letters were so random.
But no other message came so Shane figured the text wasn’t a mistake and tried to figure it out. Was it slang? Shane doubted it was Russian, usually if Rozanov sent something like that it was in Cyrillic.
Shane tried sounding it out. Aw-tie-sm? No, that was weird. Aw-ti-sm? Wait, autism? Was Rozanov trying to call Shane autistic?
Shane kind of panicked. Was there something that Rozanov was seeing? Was Shane not being normal enough? Shane had been called it before, especially when he was younger by either players on opposing teams or his own teammates. If he didn’t pick up on something quick enough, or he wasn’t expressing himself enough, or he was stuck in his same strict routines, he would be called autistic or worse.
He just never thought Rozanov would call him it. Was he making fun of him? Or was he seeing Shane in a different way? Was he seeing something there that Shane wasn’t?
Shane tried pushing it out of his mind, but the whole rest of his day may as well be ruined. He was stuck, his brain on a loop. Is there something that he had done to make Rozanov think this? Was it that he folded clothes before sex because he didn’t like his clothes to be crumpled and wrinkly? Was it that he didn’t like sitting in their mess too long, squirming uncomfortably at the feel of liquids drying on his skin? Was it because Shane was always anxious if Rozanov was even a minute late, but also anxious if he was a minute early? Was it because Rozanov would sometimes ask him something, but then a couple of moments later ask it again in a different way because Shane must’ve answered wrong?
Shane needed to prove Rozanov wrong. He wasn’t autistic. He had seen kids with autism at his school when he was younger and Shane wasn’t like that. He didn’t hit himself or flap his hands or need teacher’s aides in class.
So, Shane searched up on Google ‘autism test’ and clicked the first option. He’ll show this as proof that he was normal. The questions seemed to have a rating system from ‘disagree’ to ‘agree’. Shane began the test.
Question 1: I am good at spotting patterns that other people miss.
That’s easy – agree. Shane was constantly finding stuff like this. He played hockey and he had a high hockey IQ. He could find patterns in other players with nothing more than a quick glance.
Question 2: I prefer to do things the same way every time.
Well, duh – agree. Shane liked routine. He liked knowing how to do something and he liked committing to it and doing it the same way every time. Why wouldn’t he? If something worked well, why change?
Question 3: I find it challenging to understand the unspoken rules of social interaction.
Hmm – maybe not fully agree, but slightly agree? He definitely had some trouble trying to figure out what some people were saying or what they wanted from him. He would sometimes find himself unsure of when to talk his turn in group settings.
Question 4: People often tell me I’m being rude when I’m not trying to be.
That one wasn’t an agree or disagree, maybe in the middle. He could remember sometimes when he was younger his parents had to sit him down a few times and explain to him that he needed to keep some thoughts to himself or he needed to word things a bit nicer, not so bluntly. He learned quickly what kind of things seemed ruder than others and had adapted over the years to be less rude.
Question 5: I have one or two special interests that can feel all-consuming.
Does hockey count? It’s his job, so surely not… but Shane guesses it probably should since he was obsessed with the game since he was a small child. And when he looked around him, he did see most of the books on his bookshelf were hockey books. And he had certainly been teased by his teammates for spending so much time even outside of practice on reviewing tape or working on plays. He clicked agree.
Question 6: I am very sensitive to physical sensations, such as how my clothes feel on my body.
Well, okay, yeah… agree. That was normal though. Everyone had specific clothes they liked! And yeah, his skin could sometimes feel itchy under the skin if he touched the wrong material and would sometimes stay itchy until he could soothe himself with better materials. That was normal though, everyone had preferences.
Question 7: Eye contact can be uncomfortable for me.
Agree. Shane couldn’t fathom how anyone could feel comfortable with eye contact. He never knew how much eye contact he had to hold and he never knew which eye to look into.
Question 8: I’m good at small talk or routine chitchat.
He hated it, it was boring, but it was easy, he guesses. He could do it better than other conversations because he knew how these ones would go but at the same time, he sometimes found it so awkward and he often never knew how get past “how are you?” so the other person would have to move the conversation along to talk about the weather or something. But overall he wasn’t bad at it. Neither agree nor disagree.
Question 9: People tell me I’m too literal.
Shane sighed. Agree. Sometimes people would tell him a joke and he wouldn’t understand it because it made no sense. When he would ask them to explain they would roll their eyes at him and tell him it wasn’t real, it was a joke. When someone would tell him that they would see him ‘in about an hour’ and then when that hour was up exactly, and they weren’t there, Shane would ask if they were running late and he would be told ‘I didn’t say exactly an hour, chill.’
Question 10: In conversations, I’m often unsure of when it’s my turn to talk.
Easy, agree. He could never figure it out. A lot of the times, he would just stay silent and listen so that he wouldn’t have to try and guess when to talk.
Question 11: Repetitive movements, like pacing or flexing my fingers, comfort me when I’m stressed.
Well… yeah. He did do that. He would sometimes rock in his spot when he was overly-anxious, finding the repetition soothing. And he would fidget with his fingers or something he’s holding in the same motions. It would help calm his brain.
Question 12: When my routine is disrupted, it can be distressing.
Agree. Doesn’t everyone hate their routines going wrong? Of course it was distressing!
Question 13: I like to collect or track specific types of information—for example, train schedules, historical dates, or different varieties of birds.
Huh, maybe agree? He certainly collected a lot of hockey stats. And he did like knowing historical dates, it was good information to know in case he needed to talk about those topics.
Question 14: I mimic other people’s behavior to appear “normal.”
Everyone does that! That’s what human behaviour is, right? How else was he supposed to know how to act or stand around other people?
Question 15: It’s easy for me to understand what others are thinking, even if they don’t say it.
He sort of disagrees with this one. He definitely did not pick up on this stuff. But it was easier with some people like his parents, friends, and sometimes Rozanov. He clicked the second circle for this one since he did have some occasions where he did understand.
Question 16: I can talk about my interests for hours and hours.
Duh! That’s what interests are for! Of course he could talk for hours about things like hockey. Hard agree.
Question 17: I often miss when people say one thing but mean something else.
Is this like when Rozanov or – often – his teammates would have to try and ask him a few different ways because he wasn’t understanding them the first time? He clicked agree.
Question 18: Certain sounds that don’t seem to bother other people are very upsetting to me.
Oh, this one was a little easy! Agree! He was constantly getting a little irritated at small noises that other people wouldn’t even notice. His parents had to get rid of all their analogue clocks when he was younger because the ticking would drive him crazy. Or he would become more agitated when hearing loud noises but no one else ever seemed bothered.
Question 19: I find it challenging to be in a conversation with two or more people.
Again, sure, of course he did. It was confusing sometimes not knowing when to talk or he would not know what to contribute.
Question 20: Imagining something that’s not real can be difficult for me.
This one was hard. But maybe disagree? He had a great imagination. He could think up so many scenarios for different situations. If he was reading a fiction book, it was a little hard to picture a made-up place, but other than that, he could imagine lots of things.
He reached the end and clicked ‘score test’, waiting for the results to load and then his stomach dropped.
88/100 – Many signs of autism.
He scrolled and saw that he was in the highest bracket of the scoring system.
What the fuck?
He continued scrolling, reading that the page showed – telling him that his “responses indicate that he is displaying many of the social challenges, circumscribed interests, and sensory differences that are indicative of autism, and he may qualify for a diagnosis if formally evaluated by a mental health professional.”
A diagnosis? Formally evaluated? Shane is freaking out. This was supposed to show that he wasn’t autistic! And now he feels like he’s going through five different personality crisis’.
His hands shook as he swiped over to the text thread with Rozanov and before his brain could catch up, he had pressed the call button.
“Hollander?” Rozanov’s voice spoke, dripping in concern. “Are you okay? Is this butt call?”
“Do you mean butt dial?” Shane said, his voice shaky.
“Yes, sure, whatever. Is this butt dial?”
“No, I – uh,” Shane started, but didn’t know how to finish. His breathing was picking up and his brain didn’t seem to be working well. He thinks he might be crying.
“Are you okay?” the Russian man’s voice seemed worried and a little panicked.
“Do you really think I’m autistic?” Shane’s sentence rushed out.
“Do I think you are – what? What is this?”
“Autism. Do you think I have it?”
“Hollander is 4am in Moscow right now. I barely know English right now. I do not know this word. What is autism?”
Shane could tell the word was new to Rozanov by the way his mouth wrapped around the word.
“It’s like a neurological disorder,” Shane explained, sniffling a little. “Like issues with social interactions and sensory things. Hyper-focused on certain things and liking routines… that sort of stuff.”
“Oh, da, yes. This sounds like you.”
A sob broke out of Shane. Fuck, he thought. Am I broken? What was he going to do?
“Shane?” Rozanov’s voice called out from his phone. The name falling from Rozanov’s lips made Shane freeze a little in that moment and then seemed to break Shane more. He started full-on sobbing and he hung up the phone. He laid his head on his arms and rocked himself back and forth as he cried.
He doesn’t know how long he sat there on his couch crying, but at one point he must have fallen asleep because the next thing he knew, it was morning and he was waking up to the sun shining on his face.
He blinked his eyes open and was confused for a few moments as to why he wasn’t waking up in bed when he remembered. His phone next to him was dead and Shane moved to go put it on charge while grabbing his laptop and opening up Google on it.
He felt a little nauseas as he searched up autism. He felt a little like it was a death sentence, like there was something incurable about him. He looked on about thirty different pages before his stomach rumbled and he realised it was almost lunch time and he had missed breakfast.
During his research, he found that it was normal to not know about this until adulthood – a lot of children often going undiagnosed. He found that it didn’t always look like kids being mute with big headphones on, but that a lot of people were better at hiding or ‘masking’ it. That it was a spectrum and that while he might have it, it might not be something that is a huge hinderance to him.
He found that he had already built certain practices around his own issues that he has, like buying specific clothing or creating rigid schedules or making rooms in his homes have low lighting so they weren’t bright or annoying.
He found that a lot of what he thought were weird ‘quirks’ might actually just be autism. That maybe all of those people joking about it could actually be right. All the ‘hockey-robot’ jokes are correct – because he loves hockey and he does have issues expressing his emotions around people he wasn’t comfortable with.
His head was swimming, so loud and Shane tried to make it less so. He tried distracting himself by going to the gym, but when he noticed that the repetitive motions of his workout were soothing him, and then he realised that it could be because his autism likes the repeated motions, he almost went into another panic and had to stop.
He sat in a weird type of limbo for the rest of the day, unable to think about anything but this, but also not wanting to think about it. He tried reading multiple different books, not getting through a single paragraph of any of them.
Around 8pm that night, there was a buzz on his intercom and he rushed to it, confused of who it might be, worried it might be his parents in an emergency.
He buzzed them up and a minute later Ilya Rozanov knocked on his door. He looked tired, bags under his eyes and his hair a mess.
“What are you doing here?” Shane asked, completely confounded. “Aren’t you supposed to be in Russia?”
“I flew here,” Rozanov replied. “Are you okay?”
“Uh, yeah? I’m fine.”
“You did not sound fine on phone.”
Shane groaned internally. Right, the phone call. “Shit, sorry. I freaked out about something. Sorry if I worried you.”
“You were crying,” Rozanov said, his eyes searching Shane’s face.
“Yeah, I was upset about something,” Shane said, shifting on his feet.
“Yes, about – ah – autism?”
Shane nodded slowly. “I think I have it and I don’t know… I don’t know what to do.”
“And having this is upsetting to you?”
“Well, yeah,” Shane said. “It’s a serious disorder. Wait, did you fly all the way from Russia?”
Ilya looked a little sheepish and mumbled, “you were upset.”
Shane froze, his brain trying to process this information. Surely, Rozanov – someone who didn’t even seem that interested in Shane – wouldn’t fly across the world just because he was upset?
“Huh?” he said dumbly. “You flew here for me?”
“Yes, Shane, that is what I just said.”
And there was his first name again, from Rozanov’s lips. It sent a jolt through him and he realised that he liked it. He didn’t want Rozanov to ever stop saying his name.
“I… don’t understand,” he said slowly, his brain working overtime.
Rozanov stepped over the threshold and grabbed Shane’s arms, pushing him further into the apartment, kicking the door closed behind him. He grabbed Shane’s face in his hand and gave him a soft, slow kiss.
“You were upset and I didn’t want you to be,” Ilya whispered against his lips. “You did not pick up your phone after so I came here to see if you were alright.”
“Why though?” Shane asked, glancing up into Ilya’s eyes. “You don’t even like me.”
“I do,” Ilya confessed. “I like you so much, Shane. You scared me, I thought you were not okay.”
“You like me?” Shane whispered, his eyes searching Ilya’s face.
“I try not to,” Ilya said and Shane could see his eyes go glassy. “But it did not work.”
“I like you too,” Shane said and crashed his lips into Ilya’s. Their mouths moved against each other, desperate and hungry. Shane breathed an “Ilya.”
“Shane,” Ilya said, his voice saying the name like it was revered. He kissed Shane again, slow but passionate. When he pulled back from it, he rested their foreheads together.
“There’s one thing I’m stuck on,” Shane said and Ilya let out a quizzical noise. “Why did you tell me I have autism but then say you didn’t know what the word was?”
“What? What are you talking about?” Ilya looked about as confused as Shane felt.
“Your message. It said autism? I mean, it was spelt all weird an incorrect, but you said it.”
“Shane, what is this message?” Ilya asked, reaching into his pocket for his phone and bringing up their text thread. There seemed to be some sent from Ilya to Shane that he hadn’t seen since his phone was dead and then on charge.
Ilya scrolled through the messages and Shane said, “there! Look, it says autism.”
“Shane, this says ‘aw thank you so much.’”
Shane’s brain short-circuited. “What?”
“Yes, is – um – acronym?”
Shane opened and closed his mouth. “You weren’t saying I was autistic?”
Ilya just looked at him and burst out laughing.
“Fuck you, I had like a whole identity crisis over this!”
Ilya just laughed harder.