Chapter 5

Ollie

I breathed in the cool September air as I walked down the street toward the campus. The night had gotten chilly, but that was most likely because I was used to the heat of Phoenix. I turned the corner and started up the path toward the statue of Abraham Lincoln that sat in front of Bascom Hall. There wasn’t anyone out and about, and I assumed they were either studying or already on their way to being half in the bag in their dorm rooms.

Just as I stepped toward the statue, my brain took over, flooding me with memories of when I was in college. Lillie’s laughter floated through my ears, and I could almost swear she was right there beside me, laughing and dancing in the cool evening air. She had told me about every single one of her bright ideas out there in the quad, either resting under the starry sky or closing her eyes and feeling the warmth of the sun beating down on her face, sprawled out on a blanket on the lawn.

I couldn’t even begin to count how many times I made this walk with Lillie. It was the main way to get to her dorms, and it was the best way to get out of the campus and into town. Even when we didn’t have anywhere to go, we would meet there and wander along the paths, holding hands and just talking, happy to spend quality time together outside the hustle and bustle of our everyday college experiences. Looking down at the stone beneath my feet, I realized I was standing right where I was the moment I knew I wanted to marry Lillie.

I had started out the night so excited to actually be going out and doing something with a friend, something I hadn’t done in a really long time. I was pumped to reconnect with Elana and to start my new life in Madison, trying to turn these heart-wrenching memories into happy, fleeting thoughts that didn’t stop me in my tracks every time they floated through my mind. It was unbelievable that I was struggling so hard that it was ruining the excitement of seeing Elana again, someone that actually understood me and how I was feeling.

Elana and I had clicked the first time we met, which made Lillie ecstatic since Elana was so important to her. Elana was the nerdy girl, from the way she dressed, to her hair, to how she quoted historical texts, and all the way down to her amazing, dry humor. Even when Lillie wasn’t around and Elana and I were keeping each other company while waiting for her, I had a really good time with her. There were times I could remember laughing so hard that it brought tears to my eyes. That, however, seemed like so long ago, almost like it was another life.

Now, while I was supposed to be excited to see Elana, I was standing there thinking about my dead fiancée. It was so frustrating sometimes that I couldn’t be a normal person. My grief was so deep and so rooted that it ruined everything that I tried to do to have fun. I wasn’t angry with Lillie. I was angry with my own brain for stopping me in my tracks at every turn. I was angry that I couldn’t lift this heavy load of grief from my chest, leaving me torturing myself with useless memories, memories that only brought me hurt and pain. It was absolutely exhausting.

I walked up to the statue and leaned my back against the cold stone. The sky was clear, and the sun was already very low in the sky, revealing the moon, still surrounded by the blue tint of the sky. Thoughts of Lillie blew through my mind while I waited for Elana. I hoped that I could shake this before we started our evening. I didn’t ask her to dinner to reminisce about painful memories. I came to start fresh.

“Hey there,” Elena’s familiar voice said from behind me.

I smiled at the sound of her voice, the memories fading out of my head. I turned around and looked at her standing next to the statue, clasping her bag in her hands. She was wearing tight jeans, a tank top, and a small cardigan sweater. She definitely wasn’t the nerdy girl that I had known so many years ago. Her style was a lot more with the times and a lot less poor, uncaring, college student. I smiled big watching her look at me and grin. Her thick glasses were gone, and her pixie haircut was so unthinkable I had a hard time remembering what she looked like with it cut that way. She looked chic and stylish, something I would have definitely said about Lillie but never about Elana. But back then, when we were all trying to figure out who we really were, that look fit her. It gave her a bit of a personality, not that she didn’t have one, but she was so quiet about who she was around everyone but me and Lillie, and only when the three of us were alone.

Without her thick-lensed, black-rimmed glasses, I could really see her striking blue eyes. She had put on some makeup, so they really popped out at me. And now, in place of that short pixie haircut was long, flowing, shiny black hair, pulled back and elegantly braided, falling down her back. She was like a different girl, woman really, but I could still see that mischief in her face, her sarcasm dying to come out and make me laugh hysterically like she always did. Without her glasses, I could make out every laugh line, every sparkle in those vibrant blue eyes, and every side glance that she liked to give me on a regular basis.

Between the dark hair and the blue eyes, she almost looked feline, and it was amazing to me how much sleeker she looked when she moved under the darkening sky. I was having a hard time not staring directly at her, and I knew if I continued to do so for any more time, she was going to catch on, making things really awkward for the rest of the night. There was just something about her, though, something I just couldn’t put my finger on.

She smiled and tucked a rogue sliver of hair behind her ear. That was when it hit me like a ton of bricks. It was something that I had never even noticed before, something that had been on the tip of my tongue since I first saw her on Monday. Everything seemed so different, not because she was any different on the inside, but because I realized that I thought she was beautiful. I had thought a million things about Elana in the past, and even considered her to be adorable at times, but I had never realized that she was stunning.

“You all right?” she asked.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” I said, shaking my head and coming back to the present. “Sorry about that.”

“So, where are we going to go eat? I’m starving, and I might resort to cannibalism if you don’t take me somewhere soon.” She said it with a serious tone. “And just know you are the first on my list of humans to eat.”

“I think the first problem is the fact that you actually have a ‘humans to eat’ list in the first place.” I laughed.

“You never can tell about people.” She smiled. “So, spill it. Where are we going?”

“Dotty’s,” I blurted out, not even thinking.

I watched as Elana’s eyes widened, her mouth dropping slightly open, and immediately I was thinking that I might regret my choice to take her there. It was too late now, though. I had already committed and blurted it out like I was some kind of weirdo. Elana immediately tried to adjust the shocked look on her face, and I cleared my throat, feeling bad about not taking her feelings into consideration when picking a place for dinner. It was just that it had been our usual hangout all through college, and I figured if I was performing an exorcism, trying to get Lillie’s ghost from my life, there was no reason to spare the holy water.

I smiled at Elana as she forced a smile back at me, and I offered my arm to her. I was starting to feel bad, bringing my exorcism and grasp for life down on Elana. I knew that Lillie’s death had affected her to the point where I had heard she wouldn’t even leave her apartment for a really long time. Eventually she did, though, and hopefully, this was going to help her, too. Either way, we were heading deep into the belly of the beast.

Dotty’s Dumpling Dowry was a Madison institution. The place was a staple that specialized in burgers and fries, and it hadn’t even changed the seating in years. You could smell the endless layers of burger patties baked into the wood walls, and I thought it was amazing. I loved the place since freshman orientation when my parents took me there for dinner. They thought it was a bit of a dive, but figured it was just part of the college experience. When we walked through the doors, Elana stopped for a minute and looked around the place. It still had the same charm and a plethora of memorabilia covering the walls, from vintage posters and a small hanging replica of the Hindenburg to the giant metal statue of the person on a motorcycle above the booths.

Elana and I slid into a booth and took out the menus, looking down at the burgers they had added since the last time I had been there. The waitress brought us some water to start with, and we placed our order. I went with the cheese curds, something familiar that I had eaten when I lived there before. In fact, Dotty’s cheese curds had gotten me through many a hangover in my younger years and sobered me up for finals right before I graduated. If walls could talk, I would gag them. This place hosted me many times when hosting me was getting difficult to do. They also had an extensive bar, which was exactly what I wanted at that point in time. I hadn’t had a cold beer at a restaurant in a long time, and I finally felt like I could drink one without attempting to drown my unhappy feelings.

“Cheese curds? Really? What, are you nursing a hangover again?”

“Ha-ha,” I said. “No, not this time. I just wanted something familiar, that’s all. They don’t make things like this in Phoenix.”

“Oh, God, what did you survive on then?”

“Mainly rice and beans.” I laughed. “Not sure why, but it’s like on every menu in Phoenix. You just have to look for it.”

“So, tell me about Phoenix. What did you do while you were there?”

“When I first got there, it was literally just supposed to be a stop on my grand tour of the United States,” I explained. “But I ran into a guy in investing, and one thing turned into another, and suddenly, I had been there for three years, hating the heat of the summer and craving the coldness of Wisconsin. It really was a beautiful place, though.”

I kept it light, not quite ready to dive into the Lillie discussion just yet. I was here with Elana, and I wanted her to remember why I was there. I couldn’t deny, though, being back at Dotty’s was a lot more to take in than I ever thought.