"I just...I don’t understand why."
"I am sorry, Dany."
"You said that already!" Dany was frustrated and he knew it was audible in
his voice, especially to Simon. Even if they hadn’t talked in a week.
"It is still true. I do love you."
"But then why!"
Simon sighed. They had been over this already. "Because of him."
"I don’t see what Ilya has to do with this."
"Of course you do. You are just being stubborn."
Dany’s mind flashed back to the conversation with the Russian in Buckhead
Diner a week ago. "But...even if I do feel something for him, it doesn’t
matter! I would never...not with you..."
"I know. It isn’t that. It is just...if you had to choose I did not want to
lose."
"Oh, so you chose for me, is that it?" Dany nearly shouted into the phone.
He almost hung up, but he still wanted to hear Simon’s voice, even if it
wasn’t saying anything he wanted to listen to.
"Yes. I will not regret making that choice. No matter what you say."
The anger left Dany, and he sat down heavily. "I miss you." That certainly
wasn’t a lie. He missed him a lot. He missed talking to him every day.
He missed seeing him every couple of weeks. He missed his gentle, sure
touch.
"We do not have to stop being friends, Dany."
"But...we cannot be more than that again?"
"No," was the soft reply.
"’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t good enough for you."
"Fuck, Dany, do not think like that. It was never like that. I’m the one
that should be sorry."
"How ‘bout we both stop apologizing, hm?"
"Yes, I think that is a good idea. I...I better go, Dany."
"Ok. I...I love you, Simon."
"Love you, too."
Dany clicked off the phone, and to his surprise, he felt a little better. It
gave the whole thing some finality, to talk to Simon again, to talk about
it with him again. Which left Ilya. He hated seeing his best friend
so...emotionally taut. But he wasn’t completely sure he could help and he
was a little scared to try.
He threw an arm over his eyes and sighed. He was 21. Things weren’t supposed
to be this complicated.
*
*
*
Igor felt guilty pretty often for what he did to Ilya. He figured that Ilya
was probably right the first time, that it didn’t matter if he was in love
with his roommate, or not, he was loyal to Igor always, and Igor knew Ilya
still loved him. He was feeling guilty now as he listened to Kovalchuk
talk. Knyazev knew he didn’t need a reply, he just needed someone to
listen to his problems and frustrations.
"And I do not know how much longer I can handle this," Ilya finished weakly,
and cold fear seized Igor’s heart.
He had heard that phrase in that tone of voice one time previously from Ilya.
Sitting beside him in the cold locker room on the Spartak campus after a
particularly tough loss, Kovalchuk had whispered those words as he bent
over his knotted skates. He had been shaking with overexertion, with
fatigue, he was working himself ragged to live up to the expectations and
his own promises. He was one of the league’s youngest and undoubtedly its
best, but he couldn’t seem to be good enough for his coaches, for his
family, for himself. Igor had ignored the words then, just patted Ilya’s
shoulder and told him he scored two goals and couldn’t blame himself.
Later that night, Knyazev had entered the small room they shared in the
barracks to find his best friend sitting cross-legged on his bed,
clutching a small razor blade with a shaking right hand, the tip already
digging into his left wrist deeply enough to draw blood. Igor could
remember clearly standing in front of the closed door for an eternity, his
eyes locked with Ilya’s. He could remember staggering forward, Ilya’s
name falling from his lips in a plea. He could remember Ilya turning over
the blade without a struggle, could remember him clinging to Igor and
sobbing apologies into his shoulder. That had been the first night they
slept together, both of them barely fitting on the skinny, flimsy beds the
team provided.
Though his apartment in Lowell was perfectly warm, Igor shivered. "Ilya," he
spoke into the phone, unable to shake the images of the past from his
head. "Please don’t say that, you will be ok, things will be better, I
promise. I will see you in a couple of weeks, I’m coming before
Christmas, remember?"
He could hear Ilya sigh. "Ah, what would I do without you, Knyaz?"
"I don’t know, but I don’t want to find out, either."
"Calm down, my friend," Ilya said, his Russian still gentle. "I will not put
you through that again. You know I have grown up since then."
Igor had learned that night in Moscow that it was not the first time Ilya had
sat by himself, drawing the smallest drops of blood in his left arm while
he tried to decide if it was worth it to keep pushing. That night, which
seemed an eternity in the past, now, had been the last time he did it.
Ilya said it was because after that night he always had a readily
available reason to keep living, and Igor made him happy.
He was glad Ilya still had a readily available reason, even if that reason was
taller than Igor, played forward, and was Canadian. "I know. I’m sorry,
I just get..."
"You just worry too much. It’s why you were such a good captain. And friend."
"Yeah, I guess I do."
"It’s ok, I love you anyway. Thank you for listening."
"I always listen. Do you feel better?"
"I always do, when I talk to you."
"So how much longer can you keep doing it?"
"As long as it takes," Ilya said, and Igor could hear the smile in his voice.
Those phrases were routine for them. It was the first thing Igor had said
the morning they woke up in the same bed for the first time, and Ilya’s
reply had been instantaneous. They had been ending conversations with it
since.
"Ok then. I’ll see you in a couple weeks."
"Bye, Knyaz."
"Bye." Igor smiled as he hung up. Ilya would be ok, even alone.
Ilya was smiling too, but it was a little sadder. He valued Igor’s friendship
dearly, but days like these, times like these, he wished he didn’t have to
sleep alone.
Of course, it was no longer Igor he wished was with him. He stood up and
stretched and glanced at his watch. If he left now he’d be an hour early
for practice. He could send a lot of wrist shots right under the crossbar
in an hour.
Physical workouts made everything better.
Continued inpart 11