Ilya Rozanov

The breakup had happened six weeks ago, and Shane still hadn’t learned how to exist inside the emptiness it left behind.

At first, everyone assumed he just needed time.

Even Shane had thought that.

Because he and Ilya had always been intense in ways that consumed everything around them, and when it ended, Shane told himself the grief would eventually settle into something quieter if he just kept moving long enough.

Instead, it hollowed him out slowly.

The worst part was how invisible it probably looked to everyone else.

He still answered texts sometimes. Still showed up to mandatory team things when he absolutely had to. Still knew how to smile automatically when strangers recognized him in public.

But the people who actually knew him saw it immediately.

Saw the weight dropping off him week by week.

Saw how exhausted he looked all the time.

Saw how the apartment had become less of a home and more of a place he existed inside without really living in it anymore.

It started with food.

Or rather, the complete lack of it.

At first Shane just skipped meals accidentally because everything felt too heavy to care about properly, and then eventually the idea of cooking for himself in an empty apartment started feeling unbearable in a way he couldn’t explain to anyone without sounding pathetic.

So coffee became easier.

Water became easier.

Sitting on the couch for hours pretending he wasn’t hungry became easier.

Then sleep disappeared too.

Not completely.

Just enough to ruin him.

He’d lie awake until three or four in the morning because every quiet second of the apartment reminded him too much of what used to be there, and when he finally did fall asleep from exhaustion, he kept waking up disoriented and reaching instinctively toward the empty side of the bed before reality settled back over him hard enough to make his chest ache.

After a while, staying awake almost felt preferable.

At least exhaustion blurred things around the edges eventually.

Shane sat curled into the corner of the couch beneath an old hoodie, staring blankly at the TV while some random show played quietly in the background completely unnoticed, the apartment dim except for the flickering light from the screen and the lamp near the kitchen he’d forgotten to turn off hours ago.

Cold coffee sat untouched beside him.

So did the takeout Rose had brought over yesterday.

Still unopened.

His phone buzzed somewhere nearby again.

Another ignored text.

Probably Hayden.

Or his mother.

Lately everyone had started checking on him constantly, and while part of him knew it came from love, another part of him felt quietly humiliated by how obvious his deterioration must’ve become.

The knock on the door came softly at first.

Shane closed his eyes briefly.

Another knock followed a second later.

Then Hayden’s voice.

“Open the door before Jackie starts threatening me again.”

Despite himself, Shane let out the faintest breath through his nose that almost resembled a laugh.

Almost.

He pushed himself upright slowly, dragging a hand tiredly over his face before crossing the apartment with visible exhaustion weighing down every movement, and by the time he unlocked the door, Hayden was already watching him with open concern.

Jackie stood beside him holding baby Amber against her shoulder while Arthur leaned sleepily against her leg clutching a stuffed dinosaur, and the twins immediately looked up the second they saw Shane.

“Hi, Uncle Shane,” Jade said softly.

The simple normalcy of it nearly cracked something open inside his chest.

“Hey,” Shane answered quietly, stepping aside to let them in.

The moment Jackie got a proper look at him, her expression changed immediately.

Not shock.

Worry.

The kind everyone wore around him lately when they thought he wouldn’t notice.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” Hayden said while shutting the door behind them.

“I was sleeping.”

A lie.

A weak one.

Shane could tell from the silence afterward that none of them believed him anymore.

Ruby wandered immediately toward the couch and climbed onto it without hesitation while Arthur stayed glued to Jackie’s side, peeking shyly around her toward Shane, and the apartment suddenly felt painfully alive compared to the dead silence it usually carried now.

Jackie held up a takeout bag gently. “We brought food.”

Shane’s stomach twisted immediately.

“I’m not really hungry.”

Hayden sighed quietly under his breath at the exact same moment Jackie closed her eyes briefly like she’d expected the answer before even coming over.

“Shane,” Hayden said carefully, “you said that yesterday too.”

“I ate earlier.”

Another lie.

No one argued with him about it immediately, which somehow felt worse.

Because now they just looked sad.

Amber shifted sleepily against Jackie’s shoulder while Ruby leaned against Shane’s side on the couch completely comfortably, and Shane stared down at the small weight of her against his arm because focusing on that was easier than looking at the adults in the room.

He missed Ilya so badly it felt physical.

Not dramatic anymore.

Not sharp.

Just constant.

An ache threaded through everything he did from the second he woke up to the second exhaustion finally knocked him unconscious for a few miserable hours each night.

The apartment still smelled faintly like him in certain rooms.

Shane hated that he noticed.

“You need to eat something,” Jackie said gently after a while.

Shane rubbed both hands over his face slowly before dropping them again, exhaustion visible in every movement.

“I’m trying,” he admitted quietly.

That was the first honest thing he’d said all evening.

The room went silent after that.

Because they could all hear it now—that awful exhausted emptiness underneath his voice, like he was too tired to even pretend properly anymore.

Hayden sat down across from him while the twins stayed nearby with the quiet softness children seemed to instinctively have around sadness they didn’t fully understand, and Shane suddenly had to look away because seeing concern on Hayden’s face made something tighten painfully in his throat.

“You talked to him at all?” Hayden asked carefully after a long pause.

Shane shook his head immediately.

“No.”

The answer came rough.

Final.

Nothing else followed.

Because there was nothing else to say.

Ilya didn’t know Shane barely slept anymore.

Didn’t know Rose had started randomly showing up with groceries because she was scared of what she’d find otherwise.

Didn’t know Yuna had cried in the kitchen after seeing how thin her son had gotten.

Didn’t know David had quietly started calling every morning just to make sure Shane picked up.

He didn’t know any of it.

Because they didn’t talk anymore.

And somehow that silence hurt more than the breakup itself ever had.