Summary:

Ilya has heard people say that suicide is a selfish act. He's heard people say it about his mother, and it used to make him furious. He’d punched Alexei for it, once, broken his nose when he said, why are you still moping over that selfish bitch, she left us without a thought, even though he knew it was his brother’s grief speaking and not his heart.

That word, selfish, made him so furious, maybe, because some small part of him believed it. Some part of himself, a part of him that he was too ashamed of to acknowledge, let alone to name, believed that his mother should have been braver. Should have been stronger. Should have fought harder to stay with him, to keep taking care of him. Would have, if she’d loved Ilya as much as she claimed to.

He knows now, now that he has Shane, that it isn’t true. He knows it is possible to love someone entirely, completely, with the purest and truest love, and for life to still be unbearable.

***

Another look at Ilya's depression in The Long Game.