#filling them

Dear Mr. Commissioner,

No. For fuck’s sake, scratch that.

Dear Mr. Crowell,

I am writing this email to inform you of my departure from the Voyageurs. Or rather, from hockey as a whole. I’ve decided that living a public life while casting my private life aside isn’t worth it. And I’m not willing to tell the world that I’ve been fucking Ilya Rozanov for over a decade.

No, not that. Focus.

I don’t want to live hiding the best thing that ever happened to me anymore. I don’t want to go out to dinner with friends and pretend he’s just a friend too. I don’t want to be at a concert dying to touch him and dying of fear of touching him at the same time. My God, how I wanted to hold him. I’d probably have gotten hard and started grinding against him right then and there, but who would care if we were just two anonymous people, completely random in the crowd?

Delete that part, the commissioner doesn’t need to know that. I’ll start over.

Dear Mr. Crowell,

I am writing this email to inform you that I have made enough money and have decided to end my hockey career. I’m going to focus on other things, like doing yoga and coaching kids at summer camps—if they tell you I’m bad at it, they’re lying. Don’t look for me and don’t ask anyone to try and understand what’s going on because I won’t talk. Tell the press I’ll file for a restraining order if they try to contact me. I don’t want to explain anything to anyone because it’s no one’s business.

Ugh.

Dear Mr. Crowell,

This is very hard to explain. As hard as putting together a speech in my head to come out to my parents without mentioning Ilya Rozanov. I think I’ve been running from this the whole time for that very reason. It’s all about him, and I can’t lie and pretend it’s not.

Commissioner, I know you have a good sense of how marketing works. You know what they were doing when they took two rising names and used them to plaster headlines. You wanted to sell tickets, to fan the flames, to make the fans thirsty for violent games. That’s what you got, isn't it? That’s what we gave you.

For us, what remained was a legacy that neither I nor Ilya asked for. We never hated each other, Commissioner, though I think you thought so sometimes. Back then, in fact, we barely knew each other. In my eyes, the name Ilya Rozanov represented a warning. Someone I needed to watch, to learn his moves, and study just enough to stop him from winning. I think I admired him from the start, if I’m to properly interpret what that interest meant. He remained a warning. Because he was everything I wanted.

He is everything I want.

We got involved during our rookie season. I won’t give you details, but what you need to know is that there hasn’t been a single version of Shane Hollander the league has known that didn’t have his mind on Ilya Rozanov. Whether competing on the ice or meeting between games, he has always been my partner. And today, he is my life partner.

I’m not naive enough to think the league will want anything to do with me after reading this email. I think you’re all homophobic and I’m not willing to fight for a spot on the team that I rebuilt. You are the ones who should be fighting for me. But I know that the one who would – and does – fight for me is Ilya. So, I’ve decided to fight for him.

He chose me by going to Ottawa to be near me, and I’m going to choose to leave hockey so he can keep playing the sport we both love so much, and that I’ve fought since the beginning to be the best at, and that I’ve pushed myself so hard to be the best at, and despite it being so hard for me to communicate with people, I managed to join a team I have synergy with, and the feeling of lifting the Cup with my own hands makes me feel like I’m going to explode, and competing against him on the ice is one of the most fun things in the world right after fucking him, and I need to stop because otherwise all of this was in vain and everyone will forget everything I did because everything will be reduced to this and to this moment and to my decision to abandon my whole life just to be happy with what I truly love and I can’t do this. Why can’t I do this?

Shane slammed the laptop shut and rested his forehead on it. He squeezed his damp eyes shut and tried to calm himself, clutching his chest with one hand. A notification chimed on his phone, and he looked immediately.

Lily: Training to make you lose.

And a photo of his legs stretched out with skates on his feet.