summary: Shane spends one night with Ilya before an early flight, overwhelmed by regret over the feelings he never communicated and the love he never claimed. Watching Ilya sleep, he realizes his unrequited feelings never faded, even as guilt about Rose and his own emotional failures weigh on him. By morning, Shane leaves knowing his silence—not distance—was what truly cost him Ilya.
Shane POV:
The ceiling’s too white for this hour of the night. Everything feels too sharp—light, thought, memory. I’m lying next to him, and my phone keeps buzzing on the nightstand, reminding me that I’ve got a flight in the morning. Like I could forget.
Ilya’s asleep on his side, breathing slow, one arm thrown out like he always does. Like he’s claiming space he doesn’t even know he owns. I watch the rise and fall of his chest and wonder when I started measuring time in moments like this—counting hours I don’t deserve.
I’m supposed to be thinking about what matters. My career. The season. The future. Instead, all I can think about is how wrong everything feels and how right this moment does at the same time.
I hate that part the most.
I think about her—Rose—and the guilt sits heavy in my throat. She’s good. She’s kind. She’s easy in a way I’ve never been. And still, my mind betrays me every time, drifting back to the guy sleeping inches away. I hate myself for that too.
If Ilya looked at me right now and asked me to be honest, I don’t know if I could do it. I never have been good at saying what I mean. I bury things. Deflect. Joke. Pretend I don’t care until the lie starts sounding real even to me.
That’s how I lost him the first time.
A year without seeing him should’ve been enough to dull this feeling. It should’ve faded into something manageable. Instead, it just sat there, growing quieter and heavier, waiting for the worst possible moment to remind me it existed.
I drove two hours tonight. Two hours just to stay, just to convince myself that this didn’t mean anything more than nostalgia and bad decisions. That I wasn’t still hopelessly attached to someone I never learned how to fight for.
But here I am, memorizing the sound of his laugh from earlier, replaying it until it hurts. Because I know I’m going to miss it the second I walk out that door. I already do.
That’s the cruelest part—seeing him happy. Seeing him open, unguarded. Knowing that once upon a time, I had that version of him, and I didn’t know how to hold onto it.
I never told him when things hurt. Never said when I needed more. I assumed he’d just know. And when he didn’t, I blamed him instead of myself. Now all I can see are the moments where I could’ve spoken up and didn’t.
I turn onto my side, facing him, careful not to wake him. I want to tell him everything—that I’m sorry, that I was scared, that I didn’t know how to be honest without risking everything. That I still feel it, whatever this is, even if it’s too late.
But my mouth stays shut. Like always.
In a few hours, I’ll leave. I’ll get on that flight and go back to the life I chose because it felt safer. And I’ll carry this with me—the weight of unsaid words, the echo of his laugh, the knowledge that some losses aren’t loud or dramatic.
Some just linger.
And I’ll spend a long time wondering how different things could’ve been if I’d just learned how to say what I felt before it was already gone.
