Chapter 33

Ollie

It was Friday, and I was off work still, trying to get my head straight and take care of this situation with Elana. I had slept in, my body finally collapsing after days of no sleep and intense worry and stress. That night, I had dreamt about Elana. I was chasing her through the woods, trying to grab her hand, but every time I got close, she would just slip away from me again, disappearing into the fog surrounding us. When I woke, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to figure out what happened and how to fix it.

I sat at the breakfast table formulating a plan, deciding what the best steps were to take in order to get Elana back in my life. I decided that I was going to start by going over to Tammy’s house to see if she had any insight into what happened. The last thing I wanted to do was make Elana feel like I was pressuring her, but she had tied my hands. She wouldn’t talk to me directly, and she didn’t have any real friends that I knew of, besides Lillie’s ghost, so the only person I could think of that might have any ideas was her mother. Since I was off work, I figured I would go over during the day, giving me less of a chance of running into Elana since she was probably at work. As much as I wanted to see her, I knew that if I ran into her now, I would just explode with feelings, questions, and my need to be near her. I was afraid that whatever she was going through would be worsened by that, so I wanted to make sure that when I did approach her, I had done all the research that I needed beforehand. I wasn’t even really sure if Tammy would talk to me about it, but she was my only hope at this point.

I dressed warmly. The cold weather had already arrived, something I wasn’t expecting so soon. As I drove, I thought about what I was going to say to Tammy in order for her to talk to me. I didn’t know what had happened, and I didn’t want to be blindsided by anything. I had to be ready in the case that Tammy felt she couldn’t talk to me because of her allegiance to her daughter. When I got there, though, Tammy seemed more than happy to see me.

“Ollie,” she said. “This is a surprise; come in.”

“Thank you, Tammy,” I replied, smiling kindly. “I’m sorry to drop in like this. I just wanted to talk to you about Elana.”

“I figured you would show up eventually,” she said with a smirk. “Come on; I’ll make you a sandwich.”

I sat down and watched as she pulled out the bread, mustard, mayo, and lunch meat and proceeded to build me a sub. I chuckled slightly, thinking about the sandwiches I used to eat as a kid. They were pretty much meat and cheese on white bread because without the cook on duty, my mother was lost in the kitchen. When she was done, she sat the plate down in front of me and grabbed a soda for me.

“Not working today?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “The boss gave me the day off. I have been a bit preoccupied at work, and he assumed that I could use a few days to straighten everything out.”

“Well, that was nice of him.” She smiled. “Your boss. That’s Mike Banks, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, surprised. “Do you know him?”

“His daughter came over for some sleepovers when Elana was younger,” she replied. “His wife is a really lovely lady. She comes to our church sometimes with her elderly mother.”

“He’s a great guy. He pretty much convinced me with his candor and morality to take the job back here. But I actually came here to talk to you about Elana,” I said, after mustering the courage to ask her about her daughter. “We had a really good thing going, at least I thought so, and then poof. She ran away. I’m trying to figure out what I did.”

“I’ll be honest, Ollie, Elana hasn’t been very open about what happened between the two of you,” she said, causing my heart to slow down. “But I do know whatever it was has taken her down a really dark path. She doesn’t seem to be angry with you. She just seems to be heartbroken. She has been here every day except last night, sleeping in her old bedroom, sitting in the chair by the window, and just moping around. The other day, she started doing busy work, cleaning everything like she was sterilizing a hospital, but other than that, she just sits quietly. I was hoping when I saw you that you would actually be able to give me some insight on what happened.”

“I wish I knew.” I sighed. “She just flipped, literally overnight. I woke up to a cold letter saying she went in early to work, and by that evening, I had a text telling me she needed space.”

“Well, I knew there had to be something going on,” she said. “I honestly haven’t seen Elana happy like that in many years. I was extremely surprised when she told me that things hadn’t worked out for the two of you. I’ve wanted my daughter to be happy forever now. Lillie’s death rocked us all, but it took an extra special toll on her. She felt like she was completely alone, but at the same time, trying to build some kind of life in the same town that seemed to haunt her at every turn. She doesn’t really have any friends because she is so shy, and so she spends her time with her cats, with me, and with whatever torture she has been doing to herself since Lillie left this earth. When you came around though, it was like the old Elana just showed back up, and then it was gone in the blink of an eye.”

“Trust me, I understand that completely because I was the same way,” I said, opening up a bit. “When Lillie died, it took everything in me to finish school. I actually went to graduation, but before I walked through the auditorium doors, I threw my cap and gown in the trash, loaded up my car, and just left. I thought if I put enough miles between me and Madison, that the pain would be less. When that didn’t work, I turned to drinking, work, and anything that would take my mind off things for even a moment. That didn’t change when I got back to Madison, at least not right away. When I saw Elana again, though, that was when I realized I was creating my own suffering, and Elana made me want to look toward the future, not keep sitting in the past. We went to sleep happy that night, me and Elana, but when I woke up the next morning, everything had changed. I can’t even begin to understand why.”

“You know, I know a little bit about you and Elana’s history,” she replied, sitting back in her chair. “I know that you were Lillie’s fiancé, that you and Elana had been good friends, that Elana always had a secret crush on you. I knew that she would have never betrayed her friendship with Lillie, not for anyone or anything. She thought the world of both of you, and she would mention you in conversation all of the time. Now that Lillie is dead, I can only imagine how hard it is for Elana to move forward with Lillie’s fiancé. It must be a very difficult position to be in, trying to fill the shoes of her best friend, the woman you had loved immensely.”

I put down my sandwich and wiped my hands and mouth on my napkin. Taking a sip of my soda, I tried to understand what she was saying. Filling someone’s shoes was never one of Elana’s jobs, and I thought that she knew that. Lillie was part of our past, that would never change, but she wasn’t expected to be part of our future. She was gone.

“I’m sorry, Tammy. I don’t really understand what you are saying.” I looked over at her.

“When I asked Elana what was wrong, she was very short and defensive,” Tammy said. “But what she did say was that the past just kept coming up in your relationship. Maybe Elana thinks she is being compared to Lillie in some way. Or maybe she thinks that the only reason that you’re into her is because she was the closest thing to your dead fiancée. I’m not saying you’re thinking that way, but I can see how it would be extremely easy for Elana to think that. Was there any kind of conversation about Lillie that night, even if it seemed fleeting and unimportant at the time?”

“No,” I said with an upset voice. “We didn’t talk about Lillie at all that weekend in fact. It was just me and her, being ourselves and having a good time.”

“There had to be something that triggered this,” Tammy said.

I sat there at the table, replaying every moment of that weekend through my mind, trying to figure out if I had messed up somewhere. Maybe I said something that made her think I was comparing her to Lillie, but every memory I had of Elana that weekend had nothing to do with Lillie. In fact, I had gone out of my way to make sure that we had time to be with each other, teach each other, and find out for ourselves if this was going to work out like we wanted it to. I had even been scared to think that our connection in the past might make us realize, when we opened up about who we were, that we didn’t fit together as good as we thought we would. As far as I was concerned, though, I thought we fit together even better than I originally had suspected we would.

“Tammy, I swear that this isn’t the case,” I said, shaking my head. “I care for Elana because I like her as a person, as her own person. I’m not, in any way, trying to replace Lillie. Lillie is gone, and I want to move forward in life, and I tried to keep myself from Elana, thinking it would be too difficult for either of us to move forward with the past on our backs, but I just couldn’t stay away from her.”

“Well,” Tammy said, breathing in deeply and taking my empty plate to the sink. “As much as it’s nice for me to know that, it isn’t going to help your situation at all. Maybe you should tell Elana that, or even better, show her that.”

“You’re right,” I said, smiling. “You are so right. Instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself, I need to show Elana how much I care about her and how serious I am about caring for her as a person, and the past is behind us.”

I walked over and gave Tammy a hug, listening to her giggle with surprise. I was pumped, and I knew that I needed to do something big to show Elana how much I cared. I grabbed my jacket from the rack and raced toward the door.

“Thank you so much, Tammy,” I yelled back.

“You’re welcome.” She laughed, standing in the doorway. “And good luck. My daughter can be pretty stubborn.”

“That’s one of the best things about her.” I laughed as I closed the door behind me.

I was leaving with a plan already starting to formulate in my mind. I was going to get Elana back, and this time, she would never doubt my feelings for her again.