29. April 4, Early Monday #3
He went rigid.
“And then the second people need you in a way you can’t control, you disappear before they can need you too much.”
His stomach dropped.
“That’s him, Ilyusha,” she said gently. “That’s exactly him. Just with a nicer story around it.”
The words should have made him angry. Instead, they cracked something open.
Their father hadn’t woken up one morning and decided to drink them into poverty because he hated them.
He told himself stories too. He’d stumble home and ramble that they were better off without him.
That maybe staying away was the only decent thing he’d ever done.
That watching them struggle from a distance hurt them less than staying and facing what he’d broken.
Ilya spent his whole adult life vowing not to repeat him. And then, the first time loving someone scared him enough, he’d done the same goddamn thing in a different language. He let out a breath that shook. “I thought if I loved her from a distance, it wouldn’t…” He couldn’t finish.
“Wouldn’t hurt as much when she inevitably left?” Kira asked. “For her? Or for you?”
He closed his eyes and remained silent. That was answer enough.
Kira sighed, then sat beside him on the cold concrete, shoulder brushing his. “You’re allowed to be scared.”
His throat burned.
“Of being with someone who might watch you get hurt,” she said.
“Of kids who might love you and lose you. Of loving a woman who already had to rebuild after one man made her smaller. Of leading a team when bodies break no matter how hard you try to control the angles.” She leaned her head briefly against his shoulder. “Fear doesn’t make you him.”
He swallowed hard.
“Leaving because you’re scared might,” she added.
Quiet settled between them. Brutal. True.
A tiny piece of him wanted to reject it. To point to all the reasons this was different. Zoey’s job. Jayden’s case. Mitch. The team. Christian. The spotlight. The risk.
But beneath every reason was the same rot. If I am there and something hurts them, it is my fault. If I leave, at least I can pretend I spared them from that pain.
Kira nudged his knee. “What if you stay and you can’t do it right?”
He huffed, raw. “That was my question.”
“Then you apologize,” she said. “You learn. You try again. You don’t get to opt out of loving people because you’re scared of doing it imperfectly. None of us would have families if perfection were the entry fee. I certainly wouldn’t have one particularly annoying big brother if that was the case.”
His mouth twisted.
She poked his thigh. “And before you say something dramatic about how you are uniquely doomed because of your history with Mitch, please know I will scream.”
A laugh broke out of him before he could stop it. Small. Ragged. Real.
Kira smiled faintly. “Nobody asked you to be perfect. You just decided you had to be.”
He rested his head against the wall again. “I don’t know if Zoey will listen.”
“She might not.”
The honesty hurt, but he appreciated it more than comfort.
“She has every right to tell you to fuck off,” Kira agreed. “Probably several times. Maybe with props. She’s creative. Maybe she’ll make a shirt with her Cricut that we can all wear to remind you how stupid you were.”
His chest ached.
“But that isn’t the question,” Kira said. “The question is whether you’re going to show up and let her choose. Or whether you’re going to keep deciding for her because being rejected honestly scares you more than being alone nobly.”
He looked at her.
She lifted a brow. “What? I contain multitudes. Also, therapy is useful. You should try it.”
“I have tried therapy.”
“Going twice and telling Kayla that your pregame rituals cannot be adjusted at all does not count.”
Despite everything, his mouth twitched.
“It was ridiculous that they even thought it would be okay to renovate the locker room after a Stanley Cup year,” Ilya said. “I always need to tap the Cyclone image carved into the wall before going out to start the game. ‘Just touch the new Cyclone image,’ she said. Was she joking?”
Kira stared at him.
He shook his head in disgust. “It was not the same.”
“My God,” she laughed. “Get help.”
He almost smiled.
Kira’s expression softened. “Christian’s going to need you. Not perfect Captain Sergechev, who has a quote for every postgame scrum. You. The guy who can sit beside him and say, ‘I should have asked better questions.’ Maybe the team needs that too.”
Ilya’s jaw tightened. “Kira—”
But she didn’t stop.
“And Zoey needs you to stop loving her like you’re a ghost.”
His eyes burned.
“She needs you in color,” Kira insisted. “Not grayscale. She’s not grayscale. Don’t pull her into that with you. Really be with her in her loud and messy ways, or don’t be with her at all.”
He breathed through the ache, but something shifted. Not fixed. Not healed in one dramatic garage conversation under fluorescent lighting like a movie with a manipulative soundtrack. But loosened. Enough to see the shape of the lie.
He thought walking away was the brave thing. It wasn’t.
The brave thing would be walking back into the mess he’d helped make.
Talking to Zoey without demanding forgiveness.
Facing Mitch without letting guilt turn into surrender.
Sitting with Christian when the kid was ready and admitting to his failings.
Staying available, even when availability meant people could tell him no.
“Okay,” he said quietly.
Kira leaned back to see his face. “Okay?”
He nodded once. “I don’t know how to make it right, but I’ll try.”
Her expression softened. “Good start. Also, don’t think there won’t be hell to pay for not telling me about you and Zoey sooner. I’m just waiting until you’ve recovered a bit.”
He pushed a hand over his face, suddenly aware of how cold she looked, how her fingers shivered slightly from where they poked from her sleeves.
“You need to go home,” he said.
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You’re exhausted and cold.”
“So are you.”
“I’m still searching.”
“Yeah, no. You’re sitting.”
“I am strategically regrouping.”
“Oh, now we’re lying with terminology.”
He stood, every muscle in his body protesting at once. His back cracked. His knees hated him. His neck had written a strongly worded letter.
Kira tipped her head back to look up at him. “You look ninety.”
“Get up, zaychyk.”
“Bossy.”
“Yes.”
She accepted his offered hand and let him pull her to her feet.
He kept hold for an extra second. “Drive home carefully. Text me when you’re inside. Not parked. Inside.”
She rolled her eyes. “There he is. The tyrant returns.”
“And sleep.”
“Wow. Anything else?”
“Eat something before coffee.”
“Now you’re being unrealistic.”
“Kira.”
“Fine.” She squeezed his hand once, then let go. “I’ll text. I’ll sleep. I’ll even eat a piece of toast while thinking resentful thoughts about you.”
“Good.”
He walked her the few feet to her car. She unlocked it, then turned back before getting in. “Ilyusha?”
“Yeah?”
Her gaze flicked over him, too knowing and too kind. “Don’t sit down here all morning punishing yourself and call it reflection.”
He looked toward the dark rows of the garage. “I’m going to check a little longer,” he said.
“I know.” Her mouth curved sadly. “Just remember there’s a difference between searching and suffering.”
He didn’t have a smart answer for that.
She climbed into her car, started it, then rolled down the window. “And text Zoey if you find them. Not because it fixes anything. Because she deserves to know.”
He nodded.
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“Okay.” She shifted into reverse, then paused. “Also, if you tell anyone I did emotional labor in a parking garage, I’ll deny it.”
“Your secret is safe.”
“Good. Love you, idiot.”
His throat tightened. “Love you too.”
She backed out carefully, gave him one last look, then drove toward the ramp. Her taillights disappeared upward, red fading into concrete shadow.
The garage went quiet again.
Ilya stood beside his truck for a while, listening to the ventilation hum and the distant groan of the building settling around him.
Then he sank back down against the wall near the front bumper. Not because he had given up. Because his legs were done pretending.
He pulled out his phone and stared at Zoey’s text again.
He could picture it too clearly. Fido’s weak jaw clamped around the leather. Zoey’s hands shaking as she lifted the dog into her car. Zoey, who moved toward hurt things even when she was hurt herself.
He’d told himself leaving meant protecting her from pain. But Zoey had been in pain anyway. Pain for Christian. For Fido. For the puppies. For Jayden. For her job. For him.
He hadn’t spared her pain. He’d only made her face it without him.
Ilya closed his eyes. Kira was right. That was the worst of it. Not that he feared failing. Fear made sense. Fear was human. The failure was deciding alone that his fear outweighed Zoey’s choice.
He wanted to be better than his father.
Maybe better didn’t mean never making a mess.
Maybe better meant not using fear as an excuse to leave one behind.
His head tipped back against the wall.
Just a minute, he told himself. Then he would search again. Behind the trash cans and recycling. The utility pocket. The row near the ramp. The stairwell one more time.
Just a minute.
Sleep caught him in the lie.