Chapter 29

Ollie

When I woke in the morning, my first instinct was to reach for Elana, hoping to get in some cuddles before I had to drag myself off to my house to get ready for work. However, as my hand ran across the cold sheets next to me, disappointment hit me. The bed was completely empty, and the blankets were wrapped tightly around me. I wondered how long I had been sleeping on my own.

I knew I had a tendency to move in the night, but I hoped it hadn’t forced her out of the bed. I pulled myself out of the bed and pulled on my pants and shirt, heading to the bathroom to take a piss. When I was done, I walked around the house, hoping to find Elana somewhere getting ready for work. However, as I walked through the last area of the house, the kitchen, I realized that Elana was nowhere to be found. She wasn’t anywhere in the house, not even in the kitchen where she loved to cook breakfast or in the bathroom doing her hair and makeup. I stood there for a moment feeling utterly confused, not sure what to do now.

I looked around, feeling a bit of an uncomfortable knot in my stomach. I realized then how horrible it must have been for her to wake up in the middle of the night and have me already gone.               I glanced over at the coffee pot and saw a note that she had left me. Smiling, figuring she had said something sweet or funny to start my day, I walked over and picked it up. To my disappointment though, it really didn’t say much. She had gone to work early and told me she would talk to me later, signing her name at the bottom. I could feel a twinge of fear as I looked down at her signature. Elana was a happy woman now, and as of the night before, it seemed like she couldn’t believe how amazing life had become, just like me. For some reason, though, I couldn’t help but feel like there was something going on that I hadn’t picked up on quite yet. I felt like she left early for work for a reason, and I could almost picture her standing here, fighting with herself on whether to leave a note or not.

By the look of her signature, just haphazardly drawn across the paper, she put little thought into the note. There was no cutesy closing, not even a “fondly” or “yours truly” before her name was written. Maybe I was being paranoid. I knew there were plenty of mornings that I had woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Maybe she’d done her best, and I was way overanalyzing it. Elana had become extremely important to me, so part of me was terrified to lose her. I knew, though, I couldn’t spend my life terrified that I was going to lose her. It would drive me and her insane to say the least.

I set the note back down on the table and took a deep breath, shrugged it off, and made my way back upstairs to gather my things. I needed to get home, so I too could get to work, and now that she was gone, there was no reason to dilly-dally. Still, I couldn’t escape the feeling that something just didn’t feel right, and I didn’t like it at all. I needed this relationship to stay strong. I cared far too much for Elana to let it all fall to pieces now.

I went home, took a shower, and changed my clothes, stopping to grab a breakfast sandwich on my way to work. I texted Elana several times throughout the morning, hoping that I would hear back from her. Work was crazy, so my mind had drifted to other things, but every time I checked my phone, I was definitely disappointed. She hadn’t responded to any of my text messages, which was unlike her. I tried to put it out of my mind and convince myself it wasn’t on purpose, but it was becoming harder and harder to do with every passing minute.

I always texted her funny things I heard at work, memes that popped up on my phone, or anything that made me laugh. Usually, she would send back similar things, and we would go back and forth the entire day. It made getting through the work day completely bearable, but it also kept me close and connected with Elana. I knew that she worked on campus, and I knew that had to be hard sometimes, so I wanted to make sure that she always knew that I was there for her. Today, however, was a completely different story.

When lunchtime rolled around, I skipped out on going with everyone else to the diner down the street and grabbed a sandwich from the shop next door. I made my way back up to my office and sat down, looking at my empty inbox on my phone. I scrolled through my contacts and stopped on Elana’s name, pressing send and waiting for her sweet voice to pick up the phone. However, instead of Elana, I immediately got her voicemail.

I left a short message to tell her I was thinking about her and hung up, not wanting her to know how I was really starting to freak out. I sat back in my chair and tried to think rationally. It was Monday, one of the busiest days of the week at work. Everyone was coming back from the weekend, trying to get their bearings and picking up where they left off on Friday. She was probably having a busy day at work. I took that explanation and went back to my own work, trying not to think about it. However, by the afternoon, with no phone calls or texts, I found myself more anxious than ever.

At the end of the day, I said goodbye to Mike and packed up my things, keeping my phone close by. I decided that instead of calling again, I would just take a drive over to her house and see what was up. I jumped in my car and headed over, glad to see that I had missed a lot of the major traffic. When I got there, however, she wasn’t home, and her car wasn’t parked anywhere close by. This immediately struck fear into my heart. I was really worried by this point, unable to even think about what was going on. A familiar feeling of panic ran through me, thinking about the day that Lillie died, and how none of us could find her all day until her parents had come to let us know what had happened. I pushed the thought out of my head, knowing that there was most likely a much simpler explanation to all of this. I put the car in drive and headed back toward the campus, pulling into the library parking lot and sitting there for a moment.

There were a lot of students going in and out of the building, and the parking lot was pretty full, although I didn’t actually see Elana’s car anywhere. Knowing she usually took public transportation to work, I went inside and looked around for her. I rambled through the dusty stacks looking for any sign of her, stopping at the base of a large Phoenix statue. I glanced down at the nameplate and realized it was Lillie’s work. I stared at it for a moment, thinking about Elana and where she could have possibly gone. I checked with the librarian on duty, but she said that Elana had left early. I looked at the statue again and then headed back out to my car, glad that it hadn’t sent me spiraling into depression like it would have before. Elana must have had that piece put into the library as a tribute to Lillie. It warmed my heart instead of making me feel sad.

I sat there tapping my phone against my leg, trying to decide what to do next. The last place to check was her mother’s, but if she wasn’t there, I didn’t want to alarm Tammy. If Elana had just needed some time alone, she would be pretty upset to come back and find the entire town looking for her. Just as I thought about doing it anyway, my phone buzzed in my lap. I looked down and let out a deep sigh, seeing that it was Elana who was texting me. Instantly, I felt better knowing that she was okay and safe. However, that happy feeling was fleeting as I stared down at the message on the phone. At first, I couldn’t compute what I was reading, so I rubbed my eyes and started over, trying not to let my emotions take hold.

Elana: Ollie, I’m sorry for not calling you back. I know you must be worried. I just wanted you to know that I was okay. That being said, I think that I need to take a break. I need some time to myself, and I hope that you will give me some space.

I read the message over and over again, trying to take in every single letter that she wrote. I put the phone down on my lap and gripped the steering wheel, sitting still in my parking spot. I didn’t understand, and the words just seemed to be jumbled up in my head. To say that I was crushed by this news would be a complete understatement. I could feel a lump in my throat and burning at the corner of my eyes, something I had never experienced before from a girl telling me she needed space. In reality, no girl ever had, but even if they had, it wouldn’t have affected me with the magnitude in which this was sidelining me. I didn’t see it coming. How could I? Everything had been so perfect, right up until the moment I went to bed the night before, with Elana wrapped in my arms.

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.