dance of my impressions

Shane's actually the one to accidentally reveal the timeline, when he says "I mean, if you average it out by the seven years where we only saw each other a few times a year and the four years we were long-distance, we're probably still behind most couples."

Confused, Shane immediately calls him.

"Is this some new and unique way to psych me out before the final, Rozanov? I didn't know you had money on Detroit."

"No, I am sending for a good reason," Ilya laughs. "I know it sucks for us that when you win all your team will be kissing their girlfriends and Pike will be making out all gross with Jackie, and we will not be able to. So, I wanted to show you exactly where I first kissed the cup. It was on the top, right over where it says Ottawa 1905, left of where it says 'Challenge Cup'. I remember because I did this on purpose. We weren't anything then, but I was thinking of you. I couldn't help thinking of you. So if you kiss the same place, it will be a little like we are sharing a kiss. And only we will know about it."

And Shane feels the air clean knocked out of his lungs and the back of his throat get tight, as he barely gets out, "Baby, that's... Thank you. I don't know what to say. I love you so fucking much. I'll make sure you see our kiss, okay?"

"I will be watching. I love you, My Shane. Go show the world why Shane Fucking Hollander is the goat, okay?"

On the night Shane wins his third Stanley Cup, he kisses their spot on the cup, thinking only of Ilya, and longs for a day where he can pull him onto the ice like Scott did with Kip.

On a flight to LA I struck up a conversation with the woman sitting next to me, idle chitchat while we waited for the plane to take off. In the air my husband pulled out a book, but the light above his seat was broken. Our new friend in the window seat insisted on loaning him her travel book-light. Shortly after, I pulled out my kindle on which I was reading Everything Is Tuburculosis. It opened on a particularly medical page. She asked if I was studying for med school. I explained what the book is about, and she was fascinated. A minute later she asked "Since I finished my book in the airport and I can't get my phone on the wifi, would you be offended if I read your book with you? I can see from here just fine."

And so for the next 2.5 hours or so this stranger and I quietly read your book side by side. Our reading pace was (thankfully) the same and every now and then she would silently point to something she found especially poignant or whisper a quiet "Wow" or "I never knew that."

For a few hours your book gave a strange sense of human connection to this childless 29 year old from CT on her way to a Bat Mitzvah in LA and a 60-some year old woman from Romania going to visit her daughter in Denver.

At the end of the flight she wrote down "John Green" in the notes app on her phone so she can finish the book, and get a copy for her daughter too.

It's honestly impossible to overstate what a big deal that is. Canada constantly losing their hockey talent to US teams and the Stanley drought...it doesn't fucking matter what went down with those French Canadians, the rest of the country is ignoring that, he's still their hero.

Ilya Rozanov week: Day one Favorite moment(s): Letting himself be a kid again around the people he loves ♥︎