I never asked to play this game

Back in Montreal he’s opening document folios in Shane’s apartment and looking at tax documents just to look at Shane’s name. He’s looking at the cologne and lotions and scant jewelry on his bureau, reading the labels, trying out the scents. He’s under Shane’s childhood bed at his parent’s house unearthing a dusty box. Yuna shows him Shane’s best school tests and projects. Construction paper crafts from primary school and an essay Shane did on Lord of the Flies that he was proud of enough to show his parents. Newspaper clippings from every age of Shane Hollander’s hockey journey— from local toddler sensation to the pride of Kingston to the draft to every single periodical and advertisement Shane has starred in, all carefully preserved by a family who loves him. He’s obsessed with Shane’s history, how it’s written all over the places he lives and works and has lived in before, but he’s also hungry for the details. The things about Shane that are unwritten but he can only see now that he’s inside Shane’s home and his heart. He hopes that he’ll discover things no other person has ever learned about Shane, so that he can possess something all his own. A secret, maybe. He tries the pickles in Shane’s fridge and spits them out in the sink. Shane has shit taste in pickles, and he tells him so. He’ll find a different secret, a better one.