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It always came down to the same choice, didn't it?
Shane ran his thumb over the smooth, glossy paper of the photograph in his lap. The writing on the back was in loopy Russian cursive, handwriting he could recognize as Irina Rozanova's despite never having met the woman. On the front, a beautiful woman in her late twenties with long dark blonde curly hair hugged a two or three year old child tightly, out in the snow.
Shane didn't remember the story associated with this picture. He could remember certain details—Irina had wrapped Ilya up in his coat, but then Ilya, still only a toddler, started picking up handfuls of snow and shoving them into his shirt. He couldn't recall what Irina had done about it. Had she taken Ilya back to the car and changed him? Had she taken him inside and warmed him by the fire? Had this photo been taken at his grandmother's house, or at his family's dacha?
Shane never hated himself more than when he forgot a detail. Any detail. Why hadn't he listened more carefully? Why hadn't he kept every scrap of Ilya he'd been gifted? He should've shoved Ilya's used napkins into his pockets; he should've tucked away utility bills and candy bar wrappers. Everything that Ilya had touched was gone, save for the handful of objects in his house and the cross hanging from Shane's neck.
Shane carefully set the photo aside and picked up his phone. He and Ilya always deleted their voicemails, but he had one left over that he hadn't gotten to yet. Ilya had been about to walk onto the plane when he'd left it.
Once Shane had realized he still had a voicemail, he’d saved it to a cloud account, and on his phone, and on his hard drive, and on his mother’s hard drive. He could hear Ilya’s voice in a thousand interviews, but this was the only snippet of his Ilya that had had—softer, sweeter, accent looser. Shane pulled up the voicemail on his phone and pressed play.
Hello, sweetheart. I know you're busy right now, but I'm hiding out in the bathroom to leave you this. I only wanted to tell you that I love you. We should talk soon. I don't want to have the big talk about everything until I see you in person again, but… I miss you. I want to hear your voice. Call me once you get back to your hotel. I'll tell you all about the Carolina game. Hope you’re doing good. I love you, talk to you later, bye.
Had Ilya had a strange gut feeling, getting on that plane? Had he suppressed it?
Shane would give anything to talk to him.
Missing Ilya like this was the most common reason the thoughts came creeping in. They weren't as frequent anymore; Clara was doing her job. Still, they came. Shane couldn't stop them entirely.
I don't know if I believe in the afterlife, Ilya had once told him. I think I do, but if it's just nothing, I want to be in nothing with you next to me.
Shane didn't even know what he'd do if he saw Ilya, if Ilya appeared in front of him instantaneously, tall and healthy and golden. Break into sobs on sight, of course, the violent and painful sort, and probably beg to be held. A year or two later, perhaps he'd be ready to lift his face from Ilya's chest and talk.
Suicide wasn't an option, and Shane wasn't suicidal. He'd never been suicidal, and he'd never hurt himself. If he did, his parents would be absolutely destroyed.
If he did it, so much of Ilya would die, too.
Shane studied the photo again. He knew that Ilya's coat was a gift from his grandmother, his mother's mother, who he was rarely allowed to see and never allowed to stay with because she hated his father. He knew that his mother washed her hair twice a week, at least until the depression had gotten bad, and that Ilya would sit and talk to her while she worked styling products into her curls. Shane could remember how Ilya talked about the dacha—spacious, cozy, rural—and the layout Ilya had described to him once. His own bedroom was close to the back of the house, so he'd been able to sneak in girls without too much fuss.
Ilya had known Shane. Shane knew him back.
Maybe Shane wasn't the perfect steward of Ilya's memory. Maybe he couldn't recall every detail, maybe he was never meant to. Maybe Ilya left things out, believing he'd get to tell his stories fifty more times, believing he'd sit down his deeply Canadian grandchildren at Christmas and regale them with stories about the far-off place he'd been raised, how his mother had taught him to skate. Maybe he even believed someday it would get better, that he’d be able to take Shane to the city that had made him the person he was.
You, sweetheart. Shane could almost hear the correction in the low, smooth tone of Ilya's voice. You made me who I am, from the time I was seventeen, or even younger. The rest was… secondary.
Shane didn't know what Ilya had believed, wasn't sure what he'd hoped for or wanted. He couldn't ask.
What Shane was certain of was that there were certain pieces of Ilya that would die forever if Shane wasn't brave enough to stick his time out. The way his face would crack open during sex, vulnerable and raw, something only Shane had seen because Shane was the only person he'd ever made love to. The way he snored, the way he cried, the way his cross always got crooked and twisted around his neck. The messy puff of his curls in the morning, before he ran his fingers through, and the wet drip of them after a shower or the lake. The flavor of his toothpaste when his teeth were freshly brushed.
A million vulnerabilities Shane would give his life to see again, and a million vulnerabilities he'd already lost to his imperfect mind.
Shane tried so hard to carry all of it alone. He imagined Ilya's face in as much detail as he could, every day, just to make sure he'd never forget a detail. There were pictures, of course, but Shane wanted to remember how he personally saw his Ilya: the intellegent glint in his hazel eyes, the roguish scruff around his jaw. How had he managed to merge casual and high maintenance so perfectly? Shane had never been sure what to make of him. He was the sort of effortlessly put-together, cool, and confident that Shane had always envied.
Somehow, in some way, Ilya had envied him back. Ilya once told him he wished he could be half as honest as Shane was. Shane had replied that he trusted Ilya more than anyone, but Ilya just said that it wasn't the same sort of honest.
In the last year, Shane had started to realize what Ilya meant. Shane hadn't lied to anyone, not that he could recall, but he hadn't been remotely honest since the moment he'd opened his Instagram DMs and saw Ilya's last words waiting for him to find them.
Were you afraid while you typed? Did you pray? Did you know you'd never see me again? Were you still mad? Were you just pretending not be because you knew how upset I was?
Did you know how broken I’d become?
Dying was a fantasy, nothing more. It would be beautiful to see Ilya again, hear his voice and put a few unanswered queries to rest, but Shane couldn't leave any sooner than he was meant to. Not when he'd take so much of Ilya with him.