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Shane looks awful, but clearly, he’s feeling pretty good. Yuna keeps one eye on him as she swipes between three apps, refreshing them periodically: Shane’s work email, ESPN, and her text thread with David. The hospital has long gone quiet around them. The room is dark save the narrow, warm row of lights above Shane’s bed and the small lamp beside her couch.
A small ping from her phone. David’s home for the night. Good.
How’s Shane? David texts.
Shane murmurs to himself, then giggles.
Good, Yuna fires back.
Good as you can be if:
your brain went splat against the inside of your skull
your collar bone found itself in three pieces
your arm came clear of your socket
and you got carted off the ice on a spinal board
ALL while your rival gloated over your body like a freak.
David’s three dots appear.
You have such a way with words.
Yuna replies with a laughing emoji. Switches back to ESPN. On the opening screen is now a brilliantly composed photo of Shane crumpled on the ice. Yuna has seen her son in a lot of states, many of them injured. But this… this was brutal. Her hands are still shaking hours later.
In her purse, Shane’s phone ding-ding’s, then ding-ding’s again.
She leaves it be. It’s probably Pike or some other teammate checking in. Shane can respond when he’s better. For now, he’s busy being out of it on painkillers—murmuring to himself and giggling quietly, over and over. Whatever he’s been saying is private information, so he’s told her each time she asked.
A new sound from the phone in her purse. A boo-DOOP with an upward slant. Shane looks up like he’s been trained.
“Did anyone tell…?” Shane’s brow is furrowed. He doesn’t say anything further.
Yuna considers letting it go, but just to be safe—“Did anyone tell who, Shane?”
“Playing now: Ilya Rozanov.” Then he’s giggling again.
Yuna blinks. Since when does Shane have a freakishly good Russian accent? “I—Nobody has to tell Rozanov you got hit, honey. He was there.” Gloating over your prone form, she does not add. “Who did you want to tell?”
“No, has anyone…” Shane trails off with a huff then starts patting the bed beside him. “My phone.” In the usual way of opioid highs, Shane is cycling quickly between emotions, punch drunk one moment, furious the next. He’s remarkably focused as he pats around for the phone tucked away in Yuna’s purse.
“You can’t look at the screen, honey.”
“I need! My phone!” Shane manages to pull himself up to sitting, hissing in pain all the while. He twists his body which does—alarming things to his shoulder sling, holy shit.
“Okay, okay, honey, you gotta—you need to be still, Shane!”
“I need to have my phone,” he retorts. “Where—my phone. Mom. Mother. My phone. Please.”
Christ. She has never bargained with her son in her life, but desperate times are calling. “I’ll give you the phone. Okay? But you have to sit back.”
Shane blinks slowly with his brows drawn low as he tries to think through his high. “Promise?”
“I promise.” She gently guides him back to laying flat. She has to lift his legs where he’d managed to get them off the mattress and. Wow. He’s clearly been sticking to his workout regimen; each leg weighs a ton.
“Here’s your—well.” She pulls the phone back before he can grab it. “How about this—”
“Mother.” Shane glowers at him with a force she hasn’t seen since he was a toddler. “You promised.”
“You can’t look at a screen, honey. You have a concussion. So how about you just… tell me what you need. I’ll navigate for you. Okay?”
“This is not. What we promised.”
“We’re compromising, honey. These are extenuating circumstances.”
“Extenuating circumstances,” Shane repeats.
Yuna’s heart shifts just a bit in her chest. Shane used to do this all the time: repeat what she’d said, like he was savoring the syllables in his mouth. His pediatrician assured Yuna he’d grow out of it eventually. Yuna hadn’t been certain. She spent many years wondering whether her son would ever… even out—lose even some of his intense focus, his many idiosyncrasies, his quiet and obsessive devotion. He had. Slowly and with a lot more misery than Yuna would have liked. It seemed like things got better when it became clear hockey would be his world. But maybe those rough edges hadn’t worn down. Maybe he’d just been tucking them all away.
“Extenuating circumstances,” Yuna affirms.
Shane nods importantly. Then, in that eerily good Russian accent, “This, I know about.”
Yuna clears her throat. “Okay, sweetheart. What’s the code?”
“248-108”
She types in the numbers, revealing the standard lockscreen that comes with all iPhones. His apps are neatly tucked into groups except for the iMessages and Phone app, which sit at the bottom.
“Text. Then, Lily. At the top.”
Lily.
“Oh,” Yuna says. “I didn’t—you have a girlfriend?” She doesn’t mean to look but. Wow. Clearly, this Lily and her son text a lot. They’re mostly mundane messages. Complaints about flights, friends, coffee orders being fucked up, how cold it is wherever Lily is.
At the bottom, a new text: call me when u can. pls.
Yuna guesses a girlfriend makes sense. For years, he’s been on his phone at all hours of the day, practically glued to it. Quietly and obsessively devoted Shane. But Yuna hadn’t known—Oh Jesus, how long was Lily waiting?
“Why didn’t you tell me, honey? I would’ve called her as soon as you hit the ice.”
“Hit call. Please.” He’s got his hand out and flexing in a gimme-gimme gesture.
Yuna hits call, then pops the call on speaker and holds it in her hand close to him. He huffs but lets his hand drop to the bed. The call rings and rings and rings. Then—
“This is Ilya Rozanov. I will never listen to your message.”
“Hang up,” Shane says. “Please. Then call again. Please. Thank you.”
Yuna—Her hand is trembling. Shane’s eyes have fallen shut. Leaned against the pillow, head listing toward the phone, a small smile playing on his face… he looks so much like David it makes Yuna’s heart burn with love for both of them. Far below it, her stomach turns.
“Shane,” she says quietly. “Why are you—? Is this some kind of joke?”
“Again,” Shane whines. His brow is creeping down. He starts pushing himself up again, but he can’t quite manage it while he’s also trying to reach for his phone. “I have to...three times. Please.”
Helpless, Yuna calls again.
Again, “This is Ilya Rozanov. I will never listen to your message.”
“That’s okay,” Shane humms. “One more time? Please?”
“Maybe—maybe Lily is sleeping,” she says. Bargaining, she realizes numbly. She’s bargaining for more time. And for whatever is unfolding here to stop unfolding and in fact fold itself back up. Her thumb shifts away from the call button. “And you should be sleeping too, mister.”
“He’s not sleeping.” Shane flares his nostrils—another gesture Yuna hasn’t seen in so many years. “He’s waiting for me to call a third time. Mom. Please. He’s—he’ll be so worried.”
Yuna shifts her thumb and lets it drop. The call screen pops up. Is Yuna a bad mother if she hopes "Lily" doesn’t pick up?
The call has barely rung once when Rozanov’s voice bursts through the speaker. “Shane? Shane, you are alright?”
“Ilyaaaaaa!”
Yuna has seen her son smile every way his beautiful face can manage. Or maybe she hasn’t, because she’s never seen him grin like this: fond, carefree, undeniably happy.
Shit. She’s definitely a bad mom for hoping Rozanov wouldn’t answer the phone.
Rozanov’s laugh is brief and hysterical. “Shane.” He repeats the name like a prayer. “Hollander, you are—you are still in hospital?”
“Yup.” Shane relaxes fully into the hospital bed. “Got my meds. Ate my dinner.”
“Marlow is… he is very sorry. More sorry after I chew him out.”
Shane makes a sound of discontent.
Yuna realizes, painfully and abruptly, that she is out of place in Shane’s—shit. In his entire life, maybe. She definitely has no business listening to this call. And if Ilya Rozanov is worried, waiting for Shane to call—if Ilya Rozanov has his own ringtone in Shane’s phone—if Ilya Rozanov is saved under a pseudonym but makes Shane smile like he has never smiled before… she perhaps has more to feel guilty about than hoping Ilya Rozanov would not pick up this call.
“No,” Shane is murmuring. “Was my fault. Not watching the puck.”
“What?” Ilya Rozanov has stolen the words out of Yuna’s mouth.
“Not watching the puck,” Shane repeats in nearly a shout. “I was looking at you.”
“What are you talking about?” Rozanov says something quick and exasperated in Russian. “I was there. Right behind you. You were looking at puck whole time. Your d-men also, maybe, looking at puck. Looking at fuck all—doesn’t matter. Should have been looking at Marlow.”
“Be nice,” Shane coos.
“No.” Is Ilya Rozanov pouting? “No, I will not be nice. It’s their job—get paid millions of dollars to stop you from hitting ice—”
“It’s just the game.” Shane is smiling like he could listen to Ilya Rozanov bitch and moan all day. “We all get our bell rung eventually, right?”
Rozanov’s response is a dry huff. “Right.” Then, after an audible swallow, “I wish I was there. Now.”
“Mmmm.” Shane’s face crumples with affection so potent it nearly blinds Yuna. "Wish you were here too. You gotta--gotta teach me in Russian, still.” Then he giggles. “Ilya Rozanov.” A perfect mimic of the actual Ilya Rozanov’s pronunciation.
Rozanov’s laugh—Yuna has never heard such a sound emerge from the man in nearly a decade of press conferences, ads, mic’d games, meet-and-greets. “Ah, I knew you would be perfect in this also. No accent, I told you.”
“Ilya Rozanov,” Shane repeats. “Shane Hollander.”
“Very good,” Rozanov says. Soft. Fond. Painfully so. “You are okay, then?”
“I’m fiiiiiiine.” Shane flicks a few fingers on his good hand. “Just miss you.” Again, in the Russian accent, “Ilya Hollander. Shane Rozanov.”
Oh. Yuna knows deep in the marrow of her bones that this is not the first time Shane has wrapped his mouth around those swapped names.
Russian comes rushing over from the other end of the line—a shockingly fluid spill of syllables. Shane listens like he understands. Like this is something they do often. Five minutes ago, Yuna would be certain Shane didn’t speak any Russian at all. At this moment, she wouldn’t be surprised if they slipped fully and fluently into Shane’s third language.
“Okay,” Rozanov – Ilya? Should Yuna be thinking of him as Ilya? Oh God, should she try to figure out what to get him for his birthday? “I’m done.”
“Feel better?”
Yuna’s heart tries very hard to break. Or maybe it is just trying to burst from her chest. Her beautiful, beautiful son.
“Always,” Rozanov says with just as much tenderness. “Always when I am talking with you.” He laughs, the sound so close Yuna can hear when the force of Rozanov's exhalation overwhelms the small microphone. “Very bad for my brand, ah? The Iced Molotov, taken down by goody, boring Canadian and his freckles.”
Shane humms. They’re quiet across the line for a long moment.
“You want to sleep on call?” Rozanov’s end of the line is punctuated by zips, things clicking onto counters. “You have your buds?”
“Don’t have them,” Shane grumbles. “Dunno where aaaaanything is.”
Rozanov – Ilya?? – makes a growling (?) sort of sound. “Not even your sexy little glasses?”
Shane makes a sound like gagging, which prompts a harsh laugh from Rozanov.
“Can’t look at anything anyway,” Shane says.
“How you are calling, then?” There’s shuffling across the line, the sound of a door clanging shut and then a microwave humming. “Should not have phone, hmm? When I go to hospital last—”
“2016,” Shane interjects. “Raiders versus Sharks, second period. Boarded by fucking Iverson—fuck that guy. Dirty hit.”
Yuna grips the phone so hard she fears it might crack. Her quietly, obsessively devoted son.
“Was a clean hit,” Rozanov says. “Refs said so.”
It’s a well-trod argument for them, obviously. Yuna wonders how many times they’ve had it, tucked up in hotel rooms across a continent from one another. Rozanov asked if Shane wanted to sleep on the line. How many times has Shane fallen asleep listening to Rozanov breathe?
“Well, the refs can suck my balls,” Shane slurs.
“Wow. You let ref take my place?”
“No!” Shane sniffs. “A ref could never skate like you.”
“Ah. So, this is what you keep me for. My skating.”
It’s a bad joke. Yuna wants to cringe at how awful it is—what the hell is skating even supposed to mean as an innuendo? But Shane laughs like Rozanov is the next comedian to sell out Rockefeller Center.
“Yes. Your skating. And your massive… you know.”
Yuna has to get out of here. ASAP. No time to waste. She cannot, under any circumstances, no matter how extenuating, hold the phone while her son has phone sex.
“You are alone, yes?”
Oh Jesus Christ, that was a sex voice from Rozanov. Yep. She’s gotta go. Right now.
“Nope.” Shane hums. “My mom’s here. She’s holding the phone ‘cause of my head.”
Another string of Russian, this one infinitely more harried. The line drops like a hot fucking potato. Yuna is probably an alright mom for being glad Rozanov hung up.
Shane hears the sad bee-doop of the call ending and frowns with the force of one thousand suns. “Call him back? Please? I have to—have to ask him something. Important something. Extenuating something. Please.”
Shane manages to peel his eyes open. They’re glossy with tears.
Yuna feels herself cracking under the pressure. How often has Shane asked… anything of her? Not recently, anyway. Usually, it’s the other way around. She asks him—or she tells him what will happen—and he agrees. Her quietly, obsessively devoted son. She wishes David were here instead. He'd be so much better at this. Yuna is good at hockey stats, plans, career goals, logistics, contract negotiations. She is not good at helping her son talk to his... lover? Boyfriend? Partner?... while teary-eyed and high on pain meds.
But David isn't here. Yuna is. “Okay. But if you start having phone sex I’m hanging up and taking the phone with me.”
Shane scrunches up his face. “Gross, Mom.”
Yuna would like to remind him he is the one who just complimented Ilya Rozanov on his massive schlong. But she remembers the many, many extenuating circumstances that have recently emerged, including her son being… tangled up with Ilya God-Damn-What-The-Fuck Rozanov.
She calls. Then, when it goes to voicemail, she calls again. Then, a third time.
Rozanov lets it ring a good little while before answering. “Shane?” This is not the relief of their first call. This is pure wariness.
“Ilya,” Shane pouts. “You hung up.”
“You are alone now?”
Yuna clears her throat. “I’m still here. I’m so sorry—uhm. Mr. Rozanov. But his concussion—he really can’t risk—”
“He is concussed badly? How bad?”
Yuna grabs the topic like a god damn life preserver in the middle of the Arctic Circle. “He’s got a mild concussion. He also—" Oh, shit. Raiders. Is Rozanov--is he pumping her for information on a rival player's injury??
“Fractured my collar bone,” Shane interjects. “Three places. Dislocated my shoulder. But? Coulda been worse.”
A quick, harsh word in Russian. “So, you are out for playoffs.” He says this with the confidence of a man who’s seen more than his fair share of injuries. “Fuck. Ah, excuse me.”
Even so. “We won't confirm anything, Mr. Rozanov." She's trying to strike a balance between firm and kind, but she knows she's missed the mark. Too harsh. Too... hostile.
“Oh—” He clears his throat. “Of course, ma’am. I understand. I did not... The league was last thing on my mind, please know this.”
“Ilya?” The tears in Shane’s eyes are dangerously close to falling. They’re in his voice, though—tight and scratchy like Yuna hasn’t heard since he was seven knocking out three teeth at once in a bad fall.
“Shane? You are okay?” A soft, plaintive word in Russian. Shane's pet name, maybe.
“Ilya. I’m sorry I didn’t text you.”
“No.” Rozanov takes a quick, shaky inhale on the other side of the line. “No. It's okay.”
“I am out for the playoffs,” Shane offers. Yuna could kill him. She could actually fucking kill him.
Rozanov chokes on a laugh. “I think maybe you should not say this.”
“Why? It’s true. Truth is important, Ilya.”
Rozanov laughs for real this time, like he wants to listen to Shane lecture him about truth all day. “I know. But your team and your Mama—”
“She doesn’t—she won’t tell. Right, Mom?” Before Yuna can work up the spit to say anything at all, Shane is continuing. “It’s important. Russia is. Bad. For us. If people knew?” He shakes his head in big sweeping no’s. “So, we must stay shhhhhhhhh for Ilya so he can go home again. This is turbo top secret.”
“I understand, sweetheart. Mr. Rozanov, you have my assurance this… this stays between you two.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hollander. I appreciate your... ah. Your silence.” It hurts Yuna’s heart to hear, even in his voice, how stiff he is. Yuna would never have noticed if she hadn’t heard him speak with Shane. What else might she never have noticed?
“Yuna,” she offers.
“Mrs. Yuna,” Ilya repeats dutifully.
“You should come by the hospital tomorrow.” Yuna can’t imagine what’s compelled her to say that. God, if the press ever caught wind of this—
Ilya inhales sharply. “I … This cannot happen.”
Yuna watches the tears roll down Shane’s cheek.
“But thank you, Mrs. Yuna.” Rozanov clears his throat. “Thank you. I’m sorry to, ah, disturb your son’s rest. I wish him…” Something is set down gently on the other side of the line. “I wish him swift recovery. I’m sorry he will not play in playoffs. I know how much it means for him, playing for cup.”
Yuna swallows down her own tears. As she closes her eyes, a hundred games between the Metros and Raiders flash through her mind. All this time, she thought it was the rivalry that made these games some of Shane's best. But if what Shane and Rozanov have feels even half as good as Yuna feels skating with David...
It sounds like Ilya’s gearing up to end the call. No time like the present. “Shane,” she prompts. “You said you had something to ask—uhm. To ask Mr. Rozanov.”
“Ilya,” Rozanov says on the other end.
“Ilya,” Yuna repeats.
“Ilya?” Shane has shut his eyes. He’s rallying hard despite the exhaustion clearly pulling at him. “I’m mad at Marlow.”
“Oh? I thought you say I should not chew him out.”
“You shouldn’t.” That sweet glower from Shane’s childhood. “But he fucked up my plan. I wanted to ask you something. Will you—”
“Hollander—”
“—come to my cottage this summer?”
Yuna is so startled she nearly drops the fucking phone.
“Shane,” Ilya tries again to interrupt.
“Don’t go to Russia.” Shane is plowing on. “Come to my cottage. We could have a week, maybe two.”
Yuna loses the battle with her tears. Shane hadn’t wanted to spend his two weeks with someone he didn’t know. Shane wanted to bring Ilya to his home in Ottawa—the place that was his heart outside his body.
“It’ll be so private. No one will know.”
“You know I cannot do this, Hollander.”
“We’ll be alone. Together,” Shane finishes on a whisper.
“Maybe.” Ilya swallows thickly. “Maybe.”
Shane sighs. “I know that 'maybe'. That’s a no.”
“Shane.” Rozanov says Shane’s name like his heart is breaking.
“If there’s anything I can do,” Yuna offers, “please, let me know.”
“It’s nothing you can—” Ilya curses on the other end of the line. “Excuse me. I appreciate the offer, Mrs. Yuna. You are … very kind.”
He doesn’t speak for a long while. Shane listens to his silence like he listens to Ilya’s Russian. Yuna tries to listen as well.
“You knew?” Ilya asks. “Mrs. Yuna? You knew about Shane?”
Yuna coughs out a laugh. No, she didn’t know her son was … gay? Not for sure. She certainly did not know her son was gay for Ilya Rozanov. In no universe could she have fathomed that Shane was in a committed relationship with the man who fucked his way across two nations and has probably never been photographed after dusk without a woman on his arm.
“No,” she admits. “I didn’t.”
“Then I am… sorry you are learning this way. Very sorry. I think… this is shock, maybe?”
Yuna is reminded of her mother—watching her mom struggle through parent-teacher conferences, pinning together unwieldy English words that were nothing like the clever, witty turns of phrase she spun in Japanese. So, Yuna lets herself soften. Just a little.
“Yes, it’s a bit of a shock. You’re right. But… I love my son. I only ever want him to be happy.” She tries to imagine what Ilya Rozanov is thinking on the other side of the line. “You’re in a hotel tonight?” she asks.
“Yes, ma’am. We leave on red-eye tomorrow.”
Well, there go Yuna’s plans to invite him for a late dinner. “Got it. Well—”
“Ilya?”
“Shane?”
Yuna hopes Rozanov always comes running for the plaintive tone in Shane’s voice. She hopes, desperately, he is always so attentive to her son’s requests. Her beautiful, quietly devoted son. His wants are so few. So precious.
“Ilya. I’ll miss you. Okay?”
A soft string of Russian. Then, “I will miss you too.”
“Really?” Shane’s face opens into the widest smile yet.
“Yes,” Rozanov laughs. “Really. Especially now, no chance to see you at playoffs.”
“Mm. You’re gonna play beautifully anyway.”
“Ah, no. My play is not beautiful. Is manly, like big Russian man. Handsome.”
“No,” Shane says softly. “On the ice? You are so beautiful.”
Ilya exhales shakily. “You… oh, Hollander. Shane Hollander.”
“Ilya Rozanov.”
Yuna does not know whether these boys say I love you. Not every couple does. Certainly, she and David don’t throw the words around. But if there were ever any other words to sound like I love you, it would be these. Just each other’s names, said so fondly Yuna’s ears burn to hear them.
“I should go,” Ilya whispers. “You need to rest.”
“Okay,” Shane murmurs back. “Bye-bye.”
“Goodbye, Shane Hollander.” Ilya breathes a long while on the phone before finally hanging up. Shane’s chin drops to his collar bone at the second bee-doop of the night.
Yuna doesn’t know—she doesn’t know anything.
She looks at the phone in her hand. Her son’s phone that locks and shows a totally bland lock screen. She thinks of her own phone, which has a photo of David as the lock screen and Shane as the home screen. What other small moments of loving someone has Shane missed out on? Because of Ilya?
Or because being Asian in hockey was hard enough? Because eventually he will have to deal with being gay in hockey as well? Because—and Yuna can be honest here—if she had known Shane was gay, that would become a whole wing of sponsors and ad campaigns? Because perhaps he wanted something that was just his?
“Is there—does anyone else know?” Yuna already feels shitty. She would feel atrocious if someone knew about him being gay before she did.
“Hmm?” Shane hauls his head up with what seems to be herculean effort.
“About you… and Ilya.” A cop-out and she knows it.
Shane shakes his head in another big no. “Not safe for Ilya.” Then he tries to shrug. “Maybe not safe for me, either. Some of the guys... Ilya thinks they would be not good. If they knew and they got drunk or whatever. I dunno. I try not to think about it. Those are my guys. I want... want to pretend.”
Yuna will not cry any more tonight. She just won’t. Enough.
“I want you to know,” Shane says slowly. “Mom. I’m sorry.”
Yuna looks at Shane, who is looking down at his hands. His hands, a bit too big for his body, like Yuna’s father’s hands before him.
“I tried,” he continues. “I tried really hard.”
Yuna gasps around the hurt lodging itself in her stomach. “Oh, honey—”
“But I just can’t help it,” Shane finishes.
“No, Shane—look at me.” She helps steady his head when it lolls against the pillow. Though his eyes are open, they rove the wall behind her, never quite settling on hers. “Listen at me,” she insists. “You have nothing to apologize for. I’m sorry. Okay, honey? I’m sorry I ever made you feel like you couldn’t tell me.”
“It wasn’t you,” Shane croaks.
Yuna knows a steaming load of horse shit when she sees one. “It was—”
“No,” Shane insists. “I couldn’t. Couldn’t say it to myself. Couldn’t say it to Ilya. Couldn’t say it to you. Not your fault.”
What is Yuna Hollander’s life, that Ilya Fucking Rozanov is the only person who could possibly understand how she feels in this moment? She has been behind Shane his entire life, watching him—watching him watch the puck, watching him be slammed by people and forces who should have been nowhere near him, watching the people and systems that should protect him disappear. She was one of the people that should have protected him. Clearly, she didn’t. Even if he couldn’t have breathed a word about Ilya, he should have been able to tell her about being… gay?
But of course, Shane would never see it that way. Her beautiful, lonely boy, carrying everything on his shoulders. Carrying everything Yuna put there. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
“Can I ask… how long have you and—ah. How long have you and Ilya been together?”
“Always.” Shane lets his eyes drift shut. “I heard about him, watched his tapes, whatever. But then I saw him on the ice. He's so... I had to introduce myself. So, I did. In Regina.”
Regina?
Oh God. His passcode. 24-81-08. 2008. Before his rookie season.
“All this time?”
Rookie of the year. Two Stanley Cups. Playing on the fucking Olympic team. Clawing his way to the top of every record. How many times should Ilya have been beside him, cheering him on? And how many of Ilya’s accomplishments should Shane have celebrated with him? How many sweet moments have they lost?
Shane’s face does something Yuna has never seen before. When did her son become someone she couldn’t read?
“Mm. We… struggled a lot.” He sighs heavily. “Didn’t always know how to…you know….” Shane only flutters his fingers against the hospital bed spread. “I couldn’t get too close. Neither could he. Family stuff. Hockey. Rose. Sveta. But we’re like magnets.” That besotted smile from earlier. “And then, Tampa. That’s when we… when we made it right.”
Yuna lets that sit for a moment. Where does she even begin? Since 2008 they’ve been like magnets. Now Shane imagines them swapping last names. “So you’re ... boyfriends? Partners?”
“No.” Shane shakes off the words. “No. We can’t be. Not yet. Maybe not ever."
Yuna rolls her eyes. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Shane, but you already are. There’s no can be, can’t be. That ship sailed.”
“Maybe someday.” Shane is losing the fight with exhaustion. “I want that with him. A someday.”
As Shane drifts off, hopefully to dream of somedays, Yuna grasps up his phone from her lap. Twenty-Four. Eighty-One. Oh-Eight. Lily’s text thread is still open.
He’s asleep, she sends.
Thanks for picking up when he called.
He was really eager to talk with you. (Both times.)
On impulse, as though it was not blindingly obvious.
This is Yuna.
Lily-Ilya’s dots appear and disappear several times. Finally, the unique message tone.
Thank you, Mrs. Yuna.
I was eager to speak with him also.
Again, the stiffness. It’s jarring to see so many capitalized letters beneath what is obviously his more comfortable, less grammatically-correct texting style.
Can I share this number with my phone? For emergencies.
More dots.
Yes. This is fine. Thank you.
He loves you very much. I’m sorry again.
Yuna allows herself one heartfelt sob into her hands. Thankfully, Shane does not wake. She replies with the most frequently used heart. Ilya sends the same one back.
She pulls her charging block from her purse, plugs in Shane’s phone, and leaves it on the hospital bed. Close by, so he can call Ilya first thing when he wakes.
She grabs her own phone and closes every app but iMessage. To David:
I’m on my way out, she types.
I have so much to tell you.
I love you.