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Shane gets used to the ceiling first.
Different ceilings, technically—hotel rooms, rentals, his own place when the season lets him—but they all blur into the same off-white nothing when he’s flat on his back at night, phone cooling on his chest, heart doing that stupid thing where it pretends it’s calm and then suddenly isn’t.
He learns the cracks. The vents. The way light from the street sneaks in through curtains like it’s trying not to be noticed.
It’s easier to stare up than to think about time.
Time is the enemy here. Time stretches. Time laughs. Time says six weeks, two months, until the schedule lines up again, and Shane wants to grab it by the collar and shake it until something useful falls out.
Instead, he lies there and listens for airplanes.
There’s one most nights if he pays attention. A distant roar, low and steady, moving across the sky with purpose. Shane imagines it cutting a clean line through the dark, like someone drew a rule-straight wish and actually meant it.
When he was a kid, someone told him shooting stars meant wishes. Shane never saw many of those. Grew up under city light and rink light and the fluorescent hum of places that didn’t leave room for magic.
Airplanes, though. Airplanes he can hear.
He wonders what would happen if he treated them the same way.
The first time he does it, it’s almost a joke. He’s half-asleep, phone facedown because if he looks at it again he’ll check the time and that’ll just make everything worse. A plane passes overhead, unseen but loud enough to feel in his ribs.
Fine, he thinks. I wish he’d text.
The phone buzzes less than a minute later.
Shane sits bolt upright, heart trying to escape through his throat, and immediately hates himself for how fast hope snaps to attention. It’s nothing dangerous. Just Ilya, three words, no punctuation.
still awake?
Shane stares at it like it might vanish if he blinks. Like maybe this is the universe mocking him for being stupid enough to make wishes in the first place.
He types back too fast.
yeah
A pause. Long enough for Shane to feel ridiculous again. Long enough to think about ceilings and distance and how many miles are between them right now, exact numbers he knows because he looked them up once and then never forgot.
Another buzz.
good
That’s it. That’s the whole message.
It shouldn’t be enough. Shane knows that. It’s not even a conversation. It’s barely a thought.
It still loosens something in his chest that’s been locked tight for days.
After that, it becomes a habit.
Not the texting—that part comes and goes, unpredictable as weather—but the wishing. Every plane gets one. Sometimes he’s careful about it, shaping the thought so it doesn’t sound desperate even inside his own skull.
I wish he’d be okay.
I wish I don’t fuck this up.
I wish the next time we meet still feels like impact.
Sometimes he’s not careful at all.
I wish he was here.
Those wishes hurt the worst. They echo.
The weeks drag. Shane plays well. He plays angry when he needs to, controlled when that works better. He fights with guys who aren’t Ilya and hates how unsatisfying it is. Their hands don’t know his shoulders. Their weight doesn’t settle right against his center of gravity.
Every hit feels like it’s missing a piece.
They text in fragments. Time zones make liars out of both of them. Conversations start and stop like someone keeps flipping a breaker.
Ilya sends pictures occasionally. Nothing sentimental. A view from a hotel window with his shirtless reflection in the glass. A bad coffee. A plane wing, once, shot from his seat with the city blurring underneath.
Shane stares at that one for a long time.
He doesn’t ask why Ilya sent it. He doesn’t need to. It feels like a message written in a language they’re both pretending they don’t speak.
I am moving.
I am waiting.
So are you.
On nights when the wishing feels especially stupid, Shane goes outside. Balcony if he has one, fire escape if he doesn’t. He lets the cold bite into his knuckles, grounds himself in something real.
The sky is bigger than it has any right to be.
Airplanes cross it anyway.
Shane counts them sometimes. One wish per plane. He tells himself this is just a way to pass the time, like counting sheep, like replaying shifts in his head until sleep finally wins.
But the wishes keep getting more specific.
I wish the next time he looks at me, it’s like before.
I wish he still wants this when we’re face to face.
I wish I don’t have to pretend I don’t care.
The last one scares him enough that he stops wishing for a while.
He doesn’t stop listening.
The day he knows he’s going to see Ilya again—really knows, schedule locked, city confirmed—it hits him sideways. Not relief. Not excitement.
Nerves.
Pure, electric nerves.
Suddenly every wish feels like a contract he signed without reading the fine print. He wants to take them back, just in case the universe is the kind that collects.
That night, there are more planes than usual. Or maybe he’s just noticing them more, every sound magnified now that the waiting has an end date.
He lets the last one pass without a wish.
Then his phone buzzes.
see you soon
Shane exhales, long and slow, like he’s been holding that breath for months.
He doesn’t look at the ceiling this time. He looks out at the dark, at the invisible lines crossing overhead, and finally lets himself think the one wish he’s been circling without naming.
Not I wish he’d come back to me.
Not I wish this doesn’t hurt.
Just:
I wish we collide exactly the same way.
Some distances aren’t meant to be erased gently. Some things only make sense at full speed, bright and loud and burning their way across the sky, impossible to miss.
Shane closes his eyes and lets the roar fade, already counting the hours instead of the planes.