Chapter Text
Shane finishes his sentence, takes a sip from the plastic cup of water in front of him, and tries to breathe.
Everything hinges on the next paragraph.
His last chance to keep things behind closed doors. He can skip this, if he wants, and the speech will still make sense. Farah and his mom made sure of that.
He pauses, looks out at the crowd in the conference room. It's the same conference room they announced the Irina Foundation's existence in a few years ago, but this is somehow more packed. Definitely the largest press conference the foundation has ever seen. Even months later—183 days—everything related to the crash still gets tons of attention. Maybe he should have taken the suggestion to stick to an online statement instead, separated everything from the Irina Foundation, he thinks, but—no. He needs to do this, for Ilya. For Ilya's mother, too.
He's been quiet just a little bit too long. He takes a deep breath.
"What has not been made public until now is that at the time of the incident, Ilya and I were in a committed romantic relationship and had been for several years."
He repeats himself in French.
The crowd murmurs. There are honest-to-God gasps. Shane feels tears well up in his eyes and begs himself not to cry in front of all of these people. He could do this with Ilya by his side, he knows that he could, but if Ilya were here, this wouldn't be happening at all. It is happening, though, and so there is no Ilya next to him to tap his foot, or hold his hand, or chime in with a meaningful anecdote or light-hearted joke, because Ilya is dead.
"I know," Shane continues, his voice wobbling, "that my relationship with Ilya will be difficult for a lot of people to accept and understand. I am sharing this information now because I believe that Ilya would..."
They'd workshopped this part to death, trying to strike a balance, knowing it was going to be the most picked over part of the whole thing. If he'd had a choice, Shane had thought, Ilya would have wanted to be remembered for everything that he was. He wouldn't have wanted to hide. Or for Shane to hide. Their love for each other had been the reason the Irina Foundation existed in the first place. People need to know that.
Shane finishes the paragraph, says it again in French.
Hardest part over.
"Inclusion in hockey was deeply important to Ilya, and it is to me, too. The Ilya Rozanov Memorial Fund will..."
He finishes the speech without crying, and his mom takes questions on his behalf. She's the director, after all.
I'm sorry for being a coward, Shane thinks to Ilya, I'm sorry I'm not out there defending us right now. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Maybe they should've picked a different hotel—they'd almost chosen Ottawa, why hadn't they just gone with that?—because even this stupid bathroom has memories of Ilya in it. Ilya holding him, comforting him. Today Shane grips the counter and stares into the sink, just like then, and this time, Ilya is not right behind him. Ilya will never be right behind him again. Ilya is dead.
"Hey," as the door opens at his side. "I thought I might find you here."
Shane doesn't move. He can't tell if he's relieved to have company or if this is going to make it worse.
"You are brave as hell, man," Hayden continues. "I'm serious."
Shane can see him move closer out of the corner of his eye. Tentative, like he's approaching a wild animal or something. Shane supposes he's earned that, after the last six months.
"Look, I know I didn't know him very well, but I think he'd be proud of you."
Momentarily, Shane wants to scream. To yell in Hayden's face. How would you know? I didn't even know what he was thinking, how the hell could you?
He doesn't.
Instead, the tears in his eyes finally spill over. He realizes how much tension there is in his hands, arms, and shoulders, becomes conscious of his tongue in his mouth and how he's biting his bottom lip. Feels the presence of his shirt collar at his neck, the backs of his shoes at his ankles. The barest of flickers in one of the lights catches his peripheral vision. All at once, he becomes aware of all of it.
He breathes.
He lets go of the counter and stands up straight, rolls his shoulders down his back. Turns around to face his best friend, a guy he doesn't actually want to yell at. One of two teammates to show up today.
Hayden is standing with his arms a little away from his sides, the slightest of invitations.
Shane takes it. He surges forward, buries his face in Hayden's shoulder, and sobs.
FORMER MONTREAL METROS CAPTAIN SHANE HOLLANDER ANNOUNCES "ROMANTIC" RELATIONSHIP WITH ILYA ROZANOV
[image]
Hollander’s confession came during a press conference announcing a charitable fund for children’s sports in Rozanov’s name, six months after the Ottawa player’s presumed fatal crash.The professional hockey world was shaken today when former Montreal Metros Captain Shane Hollander claimed at a press conference to have been in a "committed romantic relationship" with fellow player Ilya Rozanov, previous Captain of the Ottawa Centaurs, who is presumed dead after being on board the Centaurs' missing aircraft earlier this year.
As high profile members of competing teams, Hollander and Rozanov were widely seen as rivals since their beginnings in major league hockey, though the two co-founded a charity together in 2018. Hollander's announcement has garnered requests for proof and prompted questions about sporting integrity, with some fans raising concerns about team loyalty and match-fixing in the past.
There is no precedent in professional men's sports for two players on opposing teams to be in a public relationship with one another, although Hollander is not the first professional hockey player to publicly come out as gay or bisexual.
A formal statement released by Hollander following the announcement includes,
"Ilya and I never let our personal relationship interfere with our competitiveness on the ice, and I believe our career achievements show that very clearly."
The full statement was accompanied by photographs of the two players together. (Read the full statement and view the photographs here.)
The MLH organization has not provided a comment on the matter at this time.
Sports Daily Canada 🍁 @sportsdailyca
Hockey player Shane Hollander establishes non-profit fund in memory of Ilya Rozanov, announces romantic relationship —> https://sprt.ca/h6L38fN
Jason Craigs @jcraigs93
replying to @sportsdailyca
Pics or it didn't happen
Elias Hartman @elias_hart1992
replying to @jcraigs93
There are literally pictures in the article. #BelieveShaneHollanderJason Craigs @jcraigs93
replying to @elias_hart1992
Look like friend pics to meElias Hartman @elias_hart1992
replying to @jcraigs93
What do you want, a sex tape?Jenny 📚 Edwards @jenny_edu
replying to @jcraigs93
I don't look at my friends like this, IDK about you! #BelieveShaneHollander
[image]This reply has been deleted.
Jenny 📚 Edwards @jenny_dot_edu
replying to -
I would not be calling Shane Hollander slurs when you are this easy to find on LinkedIn, Jeff.https://linkedin.com/jeffreyhankgraves
Drew M. @drewisms54321
replying to @sportsdailyca
I mean I can believe it but this casts doubt on every Montreal v Ottawa and Montreal v Boston game for the last decade, no? #BelieveShaneHollander
Lisa J. @jcommalisaaaa
replying to @drewisms54321
Yikes 😬 Hadn't thought of that...
Fred Clarkson @fclarkson89
replying to @sportsdailyca
He has to be making this up this is fucking crazy.
K E V I N @kevin_bouchard123
replying to @fclarkson89
What multiple head injuries does to a mfRobbie 🏒 @robbiemetros2012
replying to @fclarkson89
Yeah I used to really like him, I hope he gets helpEd G @edgar34542
replying to @fclarkson89
Makes me sick, Rozanov can't even defend himselfMégane @montrealmetrosmegane
replying to @fclarkson89
🤢🤢🤢
Emma L @emmagemza
replying to @sportsdailyca
I cannot imagine what he must be going through. This is so incredibly tragic. #BelieveShaneHollander
Jeff Graves @jeff.graves1971
replying to @emmagemza
You can't imagine being a lying narcissist piggybacking off a plane crash to get attention?Emma L @emmagemza
replying to @jeff.graves1971
Are you just going through the BelieveShaneHollander hashtag? Grow up. Blocked.
Let's go Toronto @trntohckeyno1fan
replying to @sportsdailyca
Is this why Montreal bought him out?
fyeah toronto guardians @gooooguardians
replying to @trntohckeyno1fan
My sister's friend's cousin knows a Metros WAG and she said it was locker room culture 👀🏒🏒🏒 @icemiracle333
replying to @trntohckeyno1fan
I heard he flipped out and took a ✨ grippy sock vacation ✨Charlie @charlie1997idk
replying to @icemiracle333
I would flip out too if my secret boyfriend died in a plane crash, wtf? #BelieveShaneHollanderLet's go Toronto @trntohckeyno1fan
replying to @icemiracle333
Heard from who? You can't just say shit like that.
#BelieveShaneHollander 💗 @allie1fangallie
replying to @sportsdailyca
remembering how people called me insane for years for shipping them and i got dogpiled in january for saying i hoped shane was okay
Jamie @winnipegasus
replying to @allie1fangallie
You freaks are seriously thinking about shipping right now?#BelieveShaneHollander 💗 @allie1fangallie
replying to @winnipegasus
"Shane Hollander announces his relationship and you're thinking about his relationship" literally yes <3 i also donated $100 which i haven't seen anyone else mention!Marcus @hockeydad2013
replying to @allie1fangallie
You're still insane, I think it's pretty obvious to everyone with a brain that Hollander went off the deep end when Montreal dropped him#BelieveShaneHollander @ilyscotthunter2017
replying to @allie1fangallie
just block and move on babe#BelieveShaneHollander 💗 @allie1fangallie
replying to @ilyscotthunter2017
true but like i would take 5 million homophobes in my mentions if it would bring ilya back.#BelieveShaneHollander 💗 @allie1fangallie
replying to @allie1fangallie
and everyone else on the centaurs of course.
Amber @greyskies01
replying to @sportsdailyca
#BelieveShaneHollander Several years... So we're agreed this finally explains Rozanov's bizarre transfer to Ottawa right? 🤔
raiders 4 playoffs 2022 @bosbabe1992
replying to @greyskies01
If the best player in the league moved to a shitty team for me and then died because of it I would simply keep my mouth shutI Believe Shane Hollander! @teresa_james56
replying to @bosbabe1992
That's such a cruel thing to say, it was a horrible accident. No one could have predicted thatSteve Logan @steveloganhockeyfan
replying to @teresa_james56
An accident Rozanov wouldn't have been in if it weren't for Hollander 🤷♂️
He goes home to Ottawa, to Ilya's house, not his house in Montreal.
For the rest of the day, Shane ignores the news and his phone, but that night after dismissing all of his notifications at once he lies awake in bed, rereading Instagram messages.
Not those Instagram messages—the ones he'd taken screenshots of, uploaded to the cloud, and printed off on actual paper, just in case he accidentally deleted them on the app or something—but ones from before then. There's some photos Ilya had sent him, occasional ribbing about Shane's own rare posts that he didn't always acknowledge, but woven through it all is a chronicle of flights going back to fucking 2017. Conversations that start and end in weird places because they switched to actual texting or a phone call partway through. Lots of Ilya bitching about minor travel inconveniences or making affectionate fun of the behavior of his teammates stuck in a giant metal tube with him.
All of those flights landed safely at their destinations. Every day, around the world, a hundred thousand planes take off and land without accidents. Everyone in the league can probably rattle off the safety stats by now, they've heard them so many times.
The last thing that air traffic control in Alberta heard was Declaring an emergency mayday mayday mayday engine failure fire on board. They'd played the recording on the news. Shane had watched the program over and over, as if he would unlock a secret, different result if he listened enough times, and now it's burned into his ears forever. Engine failure, fire on board.
Had he suffocated? Burned? Survived a fire only to die on impact? Was it painful? Was it fast?
They never found the wreckage. Alberta, January. Whiteout conditions, white plane. Three months of one of the most intense search operations in aviation history, covering hundreds of kilometers in the plains and the Rockies. There's just too much fucking land to cover, and it had been the worst time of year to cover it. There's been talk of picking up the search again now that it's summer. Private searches have turned up nothing, but maybe a second go at a coordinated effort would get further, this time of year. Families still want closure. Bodies are better than nothing. Shane, for his part, doesn't want to know what Ilya would look like after a plane crash and six months of exposure to the elements, but having his remains would be...
Better. He thinks. Better than this, this ridiculous, childish, in-between feeling he has where he knows in his head that Ilya is gone but his heart refuses to accept it because there's no proof.
The authorities presumed no survivors almost immediately.
Engine failure, fire on board.
Safe in your heart. I believe it.
Shane falls asleep crying.
In January they'd suspended league activities for a week, just long enough to hold a few vigils and let the Ottawa owners decide if they wanted to continue with the season with an Emergency Rehabilitation Draft. (They decided not to, and now that the playoffs are over there's rumors of selling to a different market.)
For the first time in his life, Shane had thrown himself into learning about something other than hockey—reading books, listening to podcasts, watching documentaries and YouTube videos—and now he can list notable plane crashes with survivors in chronological order. And notable mountaineering disasters. And notable search and rescue operations. He'd also become very familiar with weather patterns and the chances of clear skies and sunshine in the mountains in January, though that stuff he can't remember as much anymore.
It helped in that he gained enough knowledge to keep a kernel of hope alive for the duration of the official search; it didn't help in that weeks kept passing with nothing in the news but nothing, and so he ended up with a useless understanding of how miraculous all these other incidents were while the one that mattered to him became more and more like the tragic majority.
After the first 24 hours, officials made it clear they would be looking for bodies, not survivors.
About a week after the plane went missing he'd gotten the call from Ilya's lawyer that Ilya had named him in his will without telling him. If he had no reason to believe Ilya was alive, he could petition to have Ilya declared legally dead based on a disappearance in circumstances of peril, at which point his estate would go to Shane; if he wasn't interested in doing that, he could at least apply to have him declared an absentee, which could give him a legally valid controlling stake in his affairs. In the meantime, Ilya's assets were, in layman's terms, in limbo.
What this meant in practice was that Shane maintained Ilya's house in Ottawa, because he already had a key, and ignored everything else that might warrant his attention.
It's past time now to deal with it, though. The everything else.
Shane hasn't started on the actual legal shit yet.
They decided on the fund as the first step with the help of his mom; the announcement that came with it was completely Shane's idea. He was desperate, more desperate than he could possibly have imagined he might be, for people to know the truth. After all, it wasn't like there would be consequences. He doesn't have a team anymore. He's probably never going to get signed again.
Ilya is dead; Shane's life is over. No reason for people not to know.
And now they do.
Rose
Hey! I am so, so proud of you.
I wish I could give you a big hug.
Hey. Sorry, I've had my phone off for two days.
Thanks.
No apology needed, I totally get that
Honestly you could probably stay offline for a little while longer.
Is it bad?
Not going to lie... a lot of it is.
But you have SO MANY supporters, too.
I am going to post something about the fund on socials.
Thank you, you don't have to do that
I want to!
I also want to include a photo of you two.
Anything would work, but something a little more physically intimate than the ones you've already shared would be even better.
Do you have anything like that?
This sounds super weird now that I've sent it.
Yeah it kinda does.
Why?
So, some people are having trouble believing you.
I think it would make it more real for people.
Oh.
If you want to keep it to yourself, I totally understand. You can forget I asked!
I think I get it
I'll see what I have.
I don't want to do it if you're not comfortable! It would be seen by a LOT of people. Like it might make the news if I post it.
I don't think he'd mind.
But do you mind?
I feel like I don't have anything to lose at this point.
That's not really the same 😕
You can do it. I'll find a pic
Ok maybe these two?
He took them.
These are perfect. Thank you so much.
I love you!
Love you too
Rose Landry @RoseLandryOfficial ☑️
Just donated to my friend Shane Hollander's fund in memory of Ilya Rozanov, his long-term boyfriend and fellow hockey player. Proceeds will go toward making hockey more accessible to kids and teens in marginalized communities through grants and school programs.
If you'd like to support the Ilya Rozanov Memorial Fund, too, you can do so at irinafoundation.org/Rozanov.
We love you, Ilya, and you are missed every day. #BelieveShaneHollander
📸 Ilya Rozanov
[images]
emily 🦋 jane @heyheyemijae
replying to @RoseLandryOfficial
oh so those men were like in LOVE love.
kayla 🌹 @kaylalaylarayla
replying to @heyheyemijae
wait ok so was she actually his beard all along?emily 🦋 jane @heyheyemijae
replying to @kaylalaylarayla
kayla i love you but this is not the priority, a man diedemily 🦋 jane @heyheyemijae
replying to @heyheyemijae
like literally 61 people died.
Jenna @jennascoolurl
replying to @RoseLandryOfficial
Rose Landry said disrespect my ex one more time...
Cam @itsmecammie321
replying to @RoseLandryOfficial
I already believed him but those photos 🥺🥺🥺 This is so so sad
Kate @landryfangirling4ever
replying to @RoseLandryOfficial
If a man looked at me like that and half the internet said I was lying about being his boyfriend I would be on the news. Shane Hollander you have my sword
#BelieveShaneHollander 💗 @allie1fangallie
replying to @RoseLandryOfficial
unironically sobbing irl rn
Go watch X-Squad 4!!! @mollys_stan_acct24
replying to @RoseLandryOfficial
I don't know anything about hockey but this is devastating 😭
Shane realizes a few hours after sending photos to Rose that what he has to lose is his privacy, but by then she's probably posted something, and he's taking her advice and staying off every app but messages.
He has a ton. Too many to go through at once.
Farah had warned him not everyone would believe it, under the circumstances. That a lot of people wouldn't want to believe it, and so they would choose not to, no matter what proof was put in front of them. But Rose seeing the situation as so severe that she wanted to help by speaking up about it...
Should he have asked Farah for advice before letting her do that?
Too late now.
Finding something to use was easy, though. It wouldn't have been a year ago, but it was today. He has a handful of selfies he deleted shortly after receiving them in December only to frantically dig through his phone trash to find them again in January. Ilya kissing his temple. Ilya kissing his cheek. Ilya looking at him while he's shying from the camera. Ilya's arm around him. His head on Ilya's shoulder. A rapid impromptu photoshoot Ilya initiated and Shane tolerated, with the expectation that it was just for temporary fun and the evidence would be erased in a timely manner.
No fucking wonder they'd fought. Shane had been such a paranoid asshole, for stupid reasons that stopped mattering two weeks later. He wishes he could shake his past self by the shoulders and say, What are you doing? Don't you know how much worse it could be? Why can't you see that this isn't the end of the world?
The actual end of his world just hadn't happened yet.
But it was going to.
He can never make up for what happened between them, but he hopes that Ilya really would be proud of him now. That he would understand what he's trying to do and respect it. Be happy with it, even.
It's only been six fucking months. If it weren't for his family and his friends hoisting him upright and dragging him around—literally, on a few notable occasions—Shane would still be catatonic. Sometimes the idea that Ilya wouldn't want him to die inside for the rest of his life is the only thing that gets him out of bed in the morning. Not just sometimes, more often than not.
Ilya would, Ilya wouldn't. Every day, the question comes up somehow: what would Ilya do? What would he decide? How would he react? It can be as simple as would this make Ilya laugh, or more complicated than that.
The worst part is, Shane doesn't always know.
He'll never know again.