by Claire Adams
Our flirtation had gotten me so hot and bothered that it supercharged our coming together. I could feel it from the first moment our hands touched outside of the library, and even though I refused to acknowledge it, that heat burned slowly in the back of my stomach, waiting for a chance to ignite. It had ignited the night before, and instead of a small flame, it was an explosion of passion and lust. It was like a hurricane burrowing down and moving quickly across the land, knocking down everything in its path, its wrath unheard but definitely not unnoticed.
I had sat with that woman, staring at her in the car, trying to remind myself that I was a man and that life was going on without me. I needed to act right then and there, or I knew I would regret it for the rest of my life. Now, however, I was sitting in my house, completely alone once again, regretting acting with the haste that I did. The emotions were more than confusing, and they didn’t allow me one moment of peace. How long was I going to have to live in suffering? How long was I going to have to sit by and watch life pass me by while I chased a shadow that didn’t actually exist anywhere else but inside of my mind?
And now what was I left with? My life was in complete ruins, and my sanity seemed to be holding on by a thread. I was standing in my kitchen, feeling guilty for sleeping with a woman that made me feel amazing, and all because I was still unable to let go of my dead fiancée. I was starting to think that everything was useless, that coming back to Madison was completely useless. My thoughts that I could ever actually fall into a good routine in that place were almost laughable.
I dumped the rest of my breakfast into the trashcan and walked into the bedroom, realizing I needed to get ready for work. It was probably the best thing for me since it would silence the voices and echoes inside of my head, at least for a little while. By the time I was finished showering and ready to go, I was feeling a little bit less self-loathing. I couldn’t let my life go down this path. I couldn’t allow myself to truly believe that without Lillie there was nothing else in this world for me.
I grabbed my stuff and headed out to the office, jumping in my car and making the short drive over. When I arrived, I went to my desk and started to check my email, answering a few but then becoming distracted as Mike poked his head out his office door and waved at me. There was no reason that I needed to continue to be lonely, to stand there drowning in my own sorrow. If I wanted to move past all of this, I would need to pull myself up and walk forward, haunted or not. I got up from my desk and walked to Mike’s office, knocking on the doorframe and smiling as he invited me in.
“Did you have a good weekend?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, lying. “It was pretty good for the first full week back in Madison.”
“Good,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
“I was wondering if you would email me over more information about the singles’ softball league that you told me about,” I replied. “I think I might want to give it a try.”
“Of course,” he said happily. “I’ll send it right over.”
“Thank you, sir,” I replied, walking for the door.
“Oh, and Ollie,” Mike said, stopping me. “You did a killer job on the Mullholland account. That will definitely be a bonus client on your paycheck.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, smiling and walking away.
When I got back to my desk, I took in a deep breath and pulled out my phone. I scanned down to Elana’s text messages and started typing. I felt terrible, double and triple guessing myself. In the end, though, I knew what was in the best interest of her, me, and everyone else involved. So, I let her know that I was incredibly sorry for leaving the way I did, but because of our history, it might be better for us to not see each other for a while.
I didn’t know why, but pressing that send button was incredibly difficult, but I knew it was the best thing for both of us.
Chapter 14
Elana
I stood there staring at my phone, not understanding what I was reading. I grasped it with two hands, trying to get them to stop shaking. I knew he left like he did, but I didn’t expect this. At least he had apologized for running out on me, but it was little consolation for the fact that he thought it was better to not see me at all. I couldn’t understand what had happened. Everything was so perfect, and we had an amazing time together on Sunday, including the mind-blowing sex that left me absolutely useless, passed out in the bed. I hadn’t ever been turned down and apologized to in the same breath, and it was more than a little confusing. He was being so strange, obviously feeling guilty for leaving, but also not wanting to see me again. It just didn’t make much sense at all.
Maybe I had misjudged Ollie. Maybe he didn’t come back here still caught up in Lillie’s memories at all. Maybe he was as well-versed as all the other guys in playing games, and I just had been too blind to see it. If that were true, though, he would be pretty sick for bringing us together, knowing that Lillie had something to do with our reconnection, and then using our friendship to get in my pants. I knew Ollie, though, and had a very hard time believing that he was just like all the other men in that town, playing games to get a piece of ass and then splitting the first chance that they had. Perhaps the opposite was true. Maybe he was more torn up about Lillie than he led me to believe, and as much as I wanted to think he was coming out of it, he was actually still stuck in the past.
I always thought as a young girl that love was like the movies: straightforward, obvious, and without reproach. As I grew older, and after watching my parents’ divorce and my mother still pine for him this many years later, I knew I was wrong about love. It wasn’t as simple and sweet as it was portrayed to be. It was messy and harsh. It could leave you feeling completely empty inside, like you lost something that you never quite had. These games were exactly why I was not interested in the dating pool whatsoever.
When I was in college, I hadn’t gotten much attention at all. I was nerdy and frumpy and didn’t really try to get anyone’s attention. It was especially difficult when I was always standing next to Lillie, who was extraordinarily beautiful with long blonde hair, hazel eyes, freckles that adorably peppered her nose, and an extremely brash personality. Men flocked to her like she was a goddess. Her tall, athletic build and big boobs was just the outside. When they got a glimpse of her personality, they were even more smitten. I knew exactly what Ollie had seen in her. It was everything I did, only on a romantic level. It didn’t bother me that she got all the attention, though. I was too busy with my studies anyway. Over the last few years, though, I had gotten increasingly noticed. It had started when I had let my hair grow out into long tresses, gotten rid of those God-awful, thick-lensed glasses, and learned to dress in something other than sweatpants and old t-shirts.
I could still remember the first time I had put on a pair of Express jeans and looked into the mirror. I was actually shocked that I had a pretty rocking body. I just never did anything to accentuate it. Lillie had tried for years to get me to change my appearance, and I knew that she would have been proud of me for taking the leap. Still, after all the physical changes, guys inevitably tried to change me into something I wasn’t.
My mother told me that I intimidated them because I had the whole package, but I just laughed. To me, I was still the frumpy girl from college, just with nicer hair. To them, I was a hot chick with too much of a brain, and I made them uncomfortable with how smart I was. Even the guys that were known as intellectuals were looking for arm candy, not a girl they could have a conversation with or trade dry humored jokes. Every single guy I had even attempted to date always turned out the same way.
They wanted me to read fewer books, not understanding why I would spend my time sitting around reading words from the past. They never got it when I explained how there was a larger wealth of knowledge in the public library than any college course they could take at school. I obviously wasn’t advocating against education, but I was just letting them know that if they had questions, books had answers. They never liked
that response and always tried to push me toward going out, finding a new career, and cleaning off my bookshelves. Books had gotten me through a lot of things, things that I couldn’t even begin to explain to them.
After that, it was an endless bashing about how I corrected their grammar too often or made jokes that they couldn’t understand. That last one got them the worst, especially when my answer was something like, “Maybe if you weren’t so stupid,” which always ended the relationship. It wasn’t like I had given that many guys a chance to begin with. I had been on quite a few dates, but the games and stupidity that followed was too much for me to give anyone a second chance. I had blown through dates like Lillie did lipstick, and I didn’t feel bad about it all. The last thing I wanted was to be saddled with some guy that I couldn’t stand, or worse, that I had to change who I was to be with. I had considered lowering my standards several times, but then I thought about Lillie and Ollie and realized I didn’t want anything less than perfect. I wanted a man that loved me for who I was, wasn’t going to play games, and cherished me like I was the most important person in his life. I didn’t think that was too much to ask for, but according to the dating pool out there, I just might be wrong.
I was fine with my dating status, but my mother drove me crazy. She was on a crusade to hook me up with someone. She told me that it was to see me happy, but that was in the same breath as her wanting grandbabies. Most of the time, I ignored her requests, but there were a few times I had cracked, feeling bad for always turning her down. So, I would get dressed up all pretty, get my mother’s approval on my outfit, and go out with these guys that she didn’t realize were no different than the rest. Every guy knows in order to get the girl, he has to be nice to her mother, and my mom fell for it hook, line, and sinker every single time.
One of the very first guys my mother ever set me up with showed up at my house twenty minutes late, lipstick on his collar, and looking like he had just jumped out of a hooker’s bed. The second one at least showed up on time, neat and orderly, but he was definitely looking for someone he could just hook up with and have no attachment to. These guys floored me with their audacity, allowing my sweet mother to set them up with her daughter and then approach me about sex and a number of other things. One guy had already made a list of things I needed to change about myself by the end of the first date. There definitely was not a second date. Needless to say, none of my mother’s ideas for dates ever turned out well.
I was starting to think that I had made a mistake in the way that I looked at men. Maybe I had set a standard based off of one guy, even though now, I wasn’t even sure he was who I thought he was. I had compared every guy on every date with Ollie, at least how Ollie handled a relationship. Maybe I had built him up to be something that was much bigger than he actually was in real life. I was setting myself up for failure every single time.
But Ollie had been that guy to both me and Lillie. He was so considerate to the both of us, always trying to make us both happy, always going out of his way to be a good boyfriend to Lillie and an above and beyond friend to me. He kept up with my jokes, and never, not even once, made me feel less than important or unique in any way. How could I not see that and want a man exactly like that? There was never a time that I could remember where I felt awkward or uncomfortable around Ollie, and if any of his friends made me feel that way, he put them in their place immediately.
Then there was the way he treated Lillie. He never raised his voice to her, he was always there to let her get whatever rant she had going on out of her system, and he treated her like a delicate jewel all of the time, not just some of the time. I couldn’t lie; I was extremely envious of that relationship, going to bed at night wishing for my own Ollie to look at me like I was the only girl in the world. There was no concern of cheating or lying on his part. He was completely, one-hundred percent dedicated to Lillie in every way, and she was to him as well. It was literally the perfect relationship.
I walked over to the couch and sat down, dropping my phone on the table. I just realized that I had spent my entire adult life looking for someone that didn’t even exist in the first place. I had put unrealistic expectations on men because I thought Ollie was someone else. I thought he actually cared and was a good guy. On top of that, I was extremely disappointed that I had been relegated to a regret text, something that had never happened to me before, and frankly, it felt terrible. That was it. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life alone because I put some guy up on a pedestal. I had to start living my life, and things definitely needed to change.
I reached over and picked my phone back up and scrolled down to my mother’s number. I sat there for a second with my finger hovering over the call button, but then I took a deep breath and called her. I had to do something to get me out of the funk that Ollie put me into.
“Hey, honey,” she said, answering. “What’s up?”
“Well,” I said, taking a deep breath. “I was calling to hear again about the latest candidate for the future Mr. Simpson.”
“Really,” she said excitedly. “Well, he is tall, handsome, has a really good job in accounting. He is one year older than you, but grew up in Boston, so you didn’t go to school with him. He…”
I sat there trying desperately to concentrate on what my mom was saying, but I was already comparing this guy to Ollie.
Chapter 15
Ollie
It was a good thing I got the information for the singles’ softball since Mike was wrong. It was held every Saturday, not every Friday. Either way, I decided that it was time for me to put myself out there, so I dressed for physical activity with a pair of basketball shorts and a sweatshirt and headed over to the ballfield. As I walked across the lawn toward the group of people standing on the pitcher’s mound, I couldn’t believe how nervous I was feeling.
It wasn’t because I lacked the skill to play ball. It was way more complicated than that. There was a group of single people, most of them my age or older, getting together on a Saturday to play softball. It sounded like just the thing I would make fun of someone else for doing. In fact, I was pretty sure there was a time where one of my buddies did something similar, and I teased him relentlessly. Talk about karma. I was right there where he was, ready to meet new people and completely exhausted by the dating scene. Regardless of how nervous or embarrassed I was, I committed myself to giving this a shot. What was the worst that could happen?
I had been playing sports since I was old enough to walk. My father had put a baseball in my hand when I was a toddler, and I was playing tee-ball before most of the other kids were comfortable enough to walk on their own. In middle school, I played every sport I could get my hands on: baseball, football, soccer. It didn’t matter as long as I was doing something team-oriented and got the copious amount of energy I stored up all day out of my system. Though I was somewhat of a sports junkie, I wasn’t there to show off. In fact, I had told myself that as far as athletic ability was concerned, I wanted to fly under the radar with this whole thing and try not to be so damn competitive. It was supposed to be fun, not stressful.
In reality, the biggest thing on my mind was not sports or my competitive nature. It was the idea that I had crossed some kind of invisible line with myself, allowing myself to entertain the idea of dating again. Every time the thought had come into my mind in the past, I felt like I wasn’t ready to do it yet. I was starting to think it was more about fear and stepping out of my comfort zone than it was the fact that I wasn’t ready to date. But my mind was tricky, and each time, Lillie popped into my head, bringing a serious amount of guilt and grief down on me. That needed to change, and it needed to change now. I had to be able to move forward in my life without constantly worrying that I was cheating on a woman that no longer existed, except for in my mind.
Being with Elana had made me realize a lot of things: things that I didn’t want to admit to myself before. Elana was amazing, and in any other circumstance, she would be the girl for me, but I was too af
raid that Lillie would always linger between us, making it impossible to move forward in our lives. But just being with her brought freedom to my world that I didn’t realize that I needed or that I was even missing. When I was with her, I forgot about all the painful things in the past, and I was able to remember Lillie the way she should be remembered, as someone that changed my world and affected me in a way that could make me appreciate the beauty in life. Being with Elana made me realize that if I ever wanted to have any sort of chance at happiness, I needed to open up and have a strong female contact in my life.
I needed someone I could laugh with, tell jokes with, and at the same time, grow with into the future. Someone that I was inexplicably attracted to and had no fears when it came to letting them into my heart. In all reality, I needed a clone of Elana that had never been best friends with my dead fiancée, but since that wasn’t in the cards, I figured maybe singles’ softball might bring me a new catch, pun completely intended.
Every time I started to think about dating someone, Elana would pop into my mind, which was an improvement from Lillie, but not by much. I had to keep telling myself that Elana was too firmly rooted in my past. Every memory I had with her before I came back to Madison involved Lillie in some way, and there was never a way that I could escape that. I truly felt that if I was going to have someone there during my recovery, it had to be someone that had no connection to my past or to Lillie at all.