by Claire Adams
I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid to just let things lie with that. I didn’t want to give her space. I wanted to scream at her that I loved her, to make her see that the whole reason we were taking things slowly was so that in situations like these, we would be able to work through them together as a team, not struggle by ourselves. I knew how self-destructive time alone could be when a person was struggling, and I was scared I was going to lose her. I considered going to her house and waiting until she got home, to try to figure out what happened, but I wasn’t even sure if she was coming home anytime soon.
I picked up my phone and wavered my thumb over the call button, figuring if I called enough times, she would finally answer, but I knew in my heart that it wasn’t going to help anything if I sat there and harassed her or forced her to talk about something she obviously wasn’t ready to talk about. She knew I was open to whatever questions or issues she had, and that alone should force me to let her take her time.
I sighed and tossed my phone into the passenger seat. I needed to respect her space, that was just the reality of it. She was a lot like me, and I knew if I was struggling with something and someone tried to force their way in, I would only close myself off more. The last thing I wanted was for her to completely shut me out. I put the car in drive, pulled out of the parking lot, and headed back home. It was going to be a really long night without Elana, but I knew that I was doing the right thing.
Chapter 30
Elana
I sat in the chair in my mother’s living room, running my hands up and down the velvet fabric of the arms. I stared out the window at the passing clouds, trying to get my mind to straighten out. It was a cold day, and for some reason, it felt like it was beating into my chest. I could barely think straight with so many memories, so many feelings going through my brain at one time. I hadn’t realized just how silent my mother’s house could get, and I understood now why she welcomed Sundays as a break from the deafening awareness that she was alone. I was ashamed that I was hiding out at my mother’s house, but I didn’t know what else I could do. I was like a child, running home to mommy when things got rough, instead of standing up and facing them head-on. Maybe I wasn’t as strong as I thought I was.
My mind wouldn’t stop replaying the night before, from the moment I woke up until the moment I heard Lillie’s name coming from Ollie’s lips. At first, I had thought that maybe I was the one dreaming, not thinking that Lillie’s ghost could possibly be haunting me in the middle of the night for no reason at all. When I realized it was real, I was okay at first, grabbing a glass of water and waiting for Ollie to wake up from the dream. However, when I heard him say he loved her and that he always would, a cold fear had gone through me, and it was something that I could still feel inside. It was the same feeling I got when Lillie died, like someone had carved out a section of my chest and left it gaping and raw inside of me. The cold breeze blew right through it, and I still couldn’t get myself warm.
After the words mumbled out of Ollie’s mouth, I stood frozen staring at the bed for several minutes. When I looked up in the mirror, it was like I too was in a dream, standing next to my beautiful friend, my hair chopped off and my glasses thick on my face. I stared at that reflection for a while, wondering why Lillie was haunting me like she was. When I was finally able to break myself free from the chains of her ghost, I set the water down and went into the kitchen. I sat there all night, thinking about my life, about Lillie’s life and about my relationship with Ollie. Millions of different scenarios played out in my mind, with me ultimately trying to justify what I had heard. In the end, though, I knew there was no mistaking what he said, and I could sit there for the rest of my life trying to justify it, but it would never go away. The feeling that Ollie still loved Lillie broke me. The idea that I was the closest thing he could find to bring back those feelings he once had for her.
I sat there trying to convince myself that it was insane, that Ollie truly did care about me. That the last few days and even longer had been real. They had been true and full. However, as the clouds pushed across the sky, my heart just sank lower and lower. How could Ollie have done this to me? I thought that we were at an understanding that life had to go on. I thought that we truly had something special, not something that he could just throw away with one bad dream. I wondered if he had remembered his dream, if he felt guilty about what he had done to me.
After I told her, my mom wavered back and forth, trying to grasp onto any hope that I was completely wrong, that Ollie did love me. Maybe I had to just live with the fact that he would always love Lillie, that she was the one for him and that I was just the person that came next. What if I was simply a stand-in for Lillie? A replacement for my dead best friend.
I shook my head, my heart breaking at the thought. I stood up from the chair and wrapped my blanket around my shoulders, walking back to the bathroom. I ran hot water in the sink, trying to warm myself but failing miserably. The house was warm like it always was, but the inside of me felt like an icebox. I just wanted to feel better, to rewind to the weekend where everything had been so amazing and freeze time. I wanted to wake Ollie up at the first sign of a mumble in the night, so I wouldn’t have to hear those words. But then I would be lying to myself, going on in a relationship where it was absolutely certain that I would one day find out the truth. The truth was so painful, and it made me question everything that I knew about myself.
I dried off my face and walked back out, going into the kitchen and grabbing a hot cup of coffee. My mom was sitting at the kitchen table reading the paper, but she put it down and watched me as I poured creamer into my cup. I knew she wanted to know what was going on, to make me feel better about all of it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her the whole truth. She always had calming and comforting words, but in my self-loathing, I didn’t want comfort. I just wanted to be miserable.
“Come sit down,” my mother said in a tone that I knew meant I had little choice in the matter. “Elana, you need to pick yourself back up. You can’t let whatever happened take you back down in a spiral.”
I looked down at my coffee and watched as the cream stirred around in the dark liquid. I knew she was trying to help, but I just didn’t know what to say to her. I didn’t know how to tell her that I felt broken, so I stayed silent.
“Elana,” my mother said, putting down the paper. “From the first time that I saw you and Ollie together, I knew there was more to it. I knew that whatever you two had going on in your lives, it all stopped when you were next to each other. Remember how much fun you two had when we were all watching the football game? Or when we sat around the table eating pie and talking about everything going on in the world? I haven’t seen you that happy since before Lillie died. And I know you don’t want me to talk about Lillie, but five years later, and she still haunts you. Ollie was your reprieve, the person that made you stop thinking about all of that for just a little while and focused your attention on the future instead of the past. From what I’ve seen, Ollie is a really great guy, but you are an amazing woman, too.”
“I know, Mom,” I said, sighing. “And you’re absolutely right. Ollie is a fantastic man. He is kind, caring, and sweet, and we really have an amazing time together. This past weekend was the first time in my life that I felt like I was in a real-life relationship. We did things that normal people did, and for once, I didn’t feel like the grieving best friend.”
“See, that’s great,” she said, smiling.
“It is,” I sighed. “Which is why it makes all of this so much harder.”
“I just don’t understand,” she said. “If things were so perfect, then what happened?”
“It’s complicated,” I replied. “The past just keeps getting between us. It’s a ghost all in itself, and every time things start to get good, it haunts me. Not just me. It haunts Ollie, too. Neither one of us can seem to get away from it, no matter what we do. That is why it’s useless to even talk about it, unless you have a time mach
ine stored somewhere back there in your room.”
My mother smiled at me kindly and shook her head, not sure what else to say. The thing was, there really wasn’t anything else to say; it was what it was. I could have told her the whole story, but it wasn’t needed. When it came down to it, the past was standing in the way of my future once again, but this time, I was powerless to stop it. I couldn’t force Ollie to love me any more than I could force him to let go of Lillie. All of that was up to him, and I needed to decide whether it was worth standing around and waiting, getting my heart broken at every turn, or break away while I still had at least part of myself still intact.
I took my coffee back to the chair in the living room and sat down, wrapping my blanket tightly around my shoulders. Moping seemed to be the name of the game that day, but I didn’t care. I just felt like total hell. It was no secret. I had gotten pretty good at tearing myself apart, letting myself get to a place where I felt completely alone and helpless. That wasn’t really where I wanted to be—I knew that deep down inside—but I had put myself in an impossible situation, and now my heart was being stomped all over. The reasonable part of me knew that what Ollie was doing was not intentional. It was his own way of moving forward while still holding onto the love that he had for Lillie. At the same time, though, I was the one that ended up getting caught in the middle of it.
I put my mug down on the table next to me and sighed, rubbing my hands over my face. I wished I could just stop my brain from running wild. That I could step back from the situation and see it from an outside perspective. That was impossible, though. I was in way too deep to go back now.
I knew that I should stand up for myself, tell Ollie how I really felt, and take control of my life and my relationship. I knew that I had every right to feel safe and secure with the man that I loved, not second guessing whether I was number two on his list. But how could I express that I didn’t want to be someone’s replacement? How could I say, “Enough is enough,” and that if that was all I was, then we have nothing between us anymore?
I groaned, laying my head back in the chair and staring blankly at the street. My mom was right, though. I was amazing, too. It wasn’t just Ollie. I had a lot of things to offer. I wanted him to understand that I wanted someone to love me for me. I knew that with everything that had happened, and with the most recent events, with Ollie, I would always wonder to myself. How could I not? How could I not wonder if he was with me for me, or because I reminded him of her?
I had loved Lillie my whole life, even after she died, but lately, her ghost was starting to piss me off. The thing was, her ghost wasn’t actually her. It was a manifestation that both Ollie and I had created to make ourselves feel like we didn’t have to let go of something so wonderful. However, over the past few weeks, I’ve started to think that maybe Lillie’s ghost was more of a hindrance than a help. Hopefully, Ollie would eventually realize that as well.
Chapter 31
Ollie
I sat at my desk, staring at the screensaver flashing across the computer. It was now Thursday, four days after everything went down with Elana, and all I could do was sit there and watch the animated fish swim across my computer screen. My mind was somewhere else, and I was pretty sure I hadn’t checked my phone so many times in my entire life. Still, Elana had said nothing, and even when I lost my control and drove to her house, she wasn’t there. Was she hiding from me? How could I have done something that bad that she had felt the need to completely remove me from her life? I thought about going back to the library, but I didn’t want to affect her job, if she was even there. Instead, I embraced the loneliness, realizing that the last few days had been the most painful ones I had experienced in a very long time.
Everything that happened hit me with no warning. I woke up thinking I was in the best relationship of my life and ended the day wondering if I would ever see Elana again. The emotions that followed were a surprise, too, and I hadn’t been ready for the crushing numbness. For the first time in my life, when I looked into Elana’s eyes, I actually felt like I was home. I was more than excited to start this journey with her, ecstatic about the possibilities that our future could bring. I had sat and dreamed about traveling the world with Elana, or just staying right here in Madison, raising a family one day. Sure, it was early on to have those thoughts, but I couldn’t help it. Everything had turned out like I wanted for so many years. I just didn’t realize it would be with Elana until recently. Once I knew, though, I knew, and I decided to take a deep breath and go with it. Now, I was left in ruins again, a familiar feeling of loss starting to creep its way into my chest.
I thought that it would be decades before I was ready to ever let anyone back into my life, and that was a generous estimate. When I got back to Madison, I was hellbent on exorcising Lillie’s ghost, but when Elana stepped in, I realized that I was the one that created that ghost in the first place. After I realized that, it was just a matter of controlling my mind to realize what was real and what I had created in order to continue to hold myself back because fear had completely taken me over. I didn’t know if I would ever let Elana in, but I was dead wrong. It hadn’t even taken that long, but as soon as Elana had worked her way under my skin, I knew that I couldn’t go without her. The last few days were killing me, and I couldn’t even begin to comprehend what it would be like to never have her in my arms again.
I had replayed that night over and over again in my mind. I was desperately trying to get Elana back, but I didn’t even understand what had happened. There was no possible way I could have hurt her in the middle of the night while I was dead asleep. I was so exhausted from the day, I had fallen asleep quickly and was out like a light, even before she had fallen asleep. Sometime between then and when she woke up, either I had done something or her mind had twisted her up so badly that she couldn’t handle it anymore. I knew that she was worried about having me spend the night again because I had said that I wanted to take things slowly. But that was my wants, not necessarily hers. She had shown more than once that she was perfectly happy going with the flow and allowing things to progress at whatever rate that naturally occurred. I stayed because I wanted to, not because I felt obligated to. I knew that slow and nonexistent were two different things, and I had held myself back from life for so long that I didn’t want to miss out on anything else, especially not with Elana.
I groaned and pulled my hands over my head, stretching as the time just continued to tick on by. It was more time that I wasn’t spending with Elana. It was more time that I was left to feel helpless and alone. It was more time for me to continue to slum around, not caring about anything in life other than just getting through the day so I could go home and feel sorry for myself some more. Hell, at least I was honest with myself. I was completely in self-hate mode, not understanding anything that was going on. What did I do? That was the question that kept running through my mind over and over again. What had I done that was so bad that Elana had broken things off with me? And without even so much as a conversation about it.
It was no secret to anyone around me; something was definitely going on. From the way that I was acting, even down to my quality of work, it was blatantly obvious that there were things in my life not going the way that I had planned. I looked down at the file on my desk that was supposed to be taken care of two days before. I just couldn’t seem to keep my mind on work, and when I did find those rare moments, I was only half into it, making mistakes that had to be fixed by other people. Even when I had left and was grieving Lillie, I found solace in the fact that I was a monster in my company. Not now.
“Mr. Anderson,” my secretary said over the speaker.
“Yes, Alisha,” I replied.
“Mr. Banks would like to see you,” she said.
“All right, I’ll be right there,” I replied, standing up and looking at myself in the mirror.
I straightened my tie and ran my fingers through my hair, realizing that I hadn’t shaved all week. My work was sufferin
g, and I knew Mike was calling me into his office to talk about it. I took a deep breath and buttoned my jacket, heading out of my office and across the hall to Mike’s. I knocked on the door, and he called me in.
“Ollie,” he said happily, as he shook my hand. “Please, please, have a seat.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, sitting down and crossing my leg.
“Ollie, you have done an absolutely astounding job since you walked through the door,” he said. “But, it’s no secret that this week has been a little rough as far as work is concerned. There have been things turned in half done, huge mistakes on other client accounts, and files that haven’t been fully completed yet but are way past deadline. Luckily, with you taking the brunt of the load lately, I had enough hands to double check your work, but I figured since your reputation precedes you, that this is not the normal way for you. I guess what I am asking is, are you okay? Are you settling in okay?”
I sat there rubbing my face, realizing how badly I had been screwing up. Until then, I had let the words of others go in one ear and out the other. I didn’t want to think that I was failing in my personal life and my work life, so I just ignored it. I knew, though. I knew that I was fucking things up, and part of me was starting to think that I was doing it on purpose. If I got fired, I was free to leave Madison, to go back out on my own without anyone asking me if I was okay. But in reality, that was not what I wanted at all. I needed to give Mike some idea of the truth at least. I owed him that much for being such a standup guy when I took the offer and came to his office. I let him down. I knew that, and it wasn’t okay.
“Mr. Banks,” I said, shaking my head.
“Please, call me Mike,” he replied, listening intently.
“Mike, you’re right. There is something going on.” I sighed. “I met a girl, well, re-met a girl, and we started dating, but things have gotten really messed up, and they aren’t working out. I know that my work this week has been more than lackluster, and I greatly appreciate you having people fix my mistakes. I really do. I’m sorry that you had to even bring me in this office to talk about it with me. Honestly, something like this has never happened in a way that it has affected my job. I have always thought of my career as my refuge, a place I could put all my personal issues to the side and just blast things out. Honestly, that is how I became as good at my job as I did. I was constantly thirsting for more and more when I was in Phoenix. I never meant for anything to affect you, though. I know what you did to get me here.”