**I don't normally do author's notes, but I wanted to explain what this is. I've been struggling to write lately and I read a book that inspired me to go back to the beginning of this story and write a little from Elise's perspective. These characters have existed in my brain since I was in high school and I  haven't written anything from Elise's mind since I was seventeen, so it's been about as long as she and James weren't together and I have to say I really enjoyed it. This isn't long but it came out fast and without much thought and I think that was what I needed to help me get back on track. So hopefully you enjoy this little bonus and if you do, maybe I'll do some more little extras like this.**

Late June, 2018

The door at the end of the hall opened and Elise heard footsteps heading down towards Gillespie's office. She was currently sitting across from him and she hurried to finish their conversation, because she was certain, absolutely certain this time (for she had been pretty certain six or seven times already this morning), that this time she knew who it was coming down the hall.

Gillespie, of course, because he was himself, chose this moment to begin a long spiel about something or other that Elise couldn't even listen to because the sound of the footsteps in the hall were so loud in her ears it felt like they were inside her and she had to get out of there fast before he was standing right there in the room and she got trapped, but she was glued to her seat and she her legs were like anchors and she had made a terrible, terrible mistake and then it was too late because he was standing there inside the door.

She pushed her chair back, out of sight. She didn't want to see him, but he spoke, said hello to Gillespie and just his voice made him feel more like a real person she had known than he had in eleven years.

Gillespie's voice was too loud. He was making a joke and James was laughing and she knew she had to get out of there fast, had to make some excuse before Gillespie pulled her into the conversation, only she couldn't think of one, so she just jerked herself up and said, "I'll leave you to it," in a low voice like maybe if she said it soft enough, he wouldn't hear and then he wouldn't look at her and she could slip out the door like she was wearing an invisibility cloak. She pushed an envelope across the desk and said, "Just look it over before the meeting this afternoon."

She did not look at James as she passed, didn't say anything back to Gillespie when he answered her, because she didn't even hear what he said. His voice sounded like it was trapped inside a bubble.

But James was looking at her. She knew because he stepped out of her way as she passed and she could feel his eyes on her back until she had shut the door to her office. She sat down at her desk and put her head down in her hands and tried not to listen to the conversation happening two doors down, but it wafted in her through her closed door anyway and she couldn't seem to convince her brain to tune it out.

Somehow in the last two minutes, she had developed a pounding headache and a nauseous stomach.

What on earth had she been thinking? This was her own fault. She was the one who had mentioned to Gillespie that they could use some extra help over the summer knowing full well who he'd think of first. She was the one who had been careful to say over the summer and not suggest a new hire.

And why? She didn't want to see him. She didn't want to talk to him. Every time she'd accidentally thought about him in the last few years, she'd worked herself up until she was so mad she couldn't see straight.

And now he was here in this office and he would be every day for months and it was her fault and she was just going to have to avoid him, because she could not, absolutely could not talk to him or everything she had spent the last eleven years doing would come crumbling down in an instant.

Elise had not cried since two years after he left. Not for anything. Not for any reason. She had taught herself not to, because she'd been so sick of crying so often. She rarely ever thought about him, because she had taught herself that too. She'd learned to push those thoughts down and back and away, far away. She'd learned to replace them with other, safer thoughts.

Elise had built herself a fortress and it existed here and she was strong when she was in it. She was tough and she didn't get hurt and she didn't mess up and she didn't miss him.

She lifted her head up. Nothing had changed. She knew that. Nothing had changed and nothing was going to change and she was fine. She had just under an hour and a half till she had to meet with the Carston Finster, who was the newest in the department and still needed a lot of support.

It was his fault really, this whole mess. He was the one who'd come in talking about Professor Mason this and Professor Mason that and now Elise was forced to think about James several times every week and that was probably why she had made this stupid, stupid, subconscious decision that brought him here.

She was wasting time. There was so much to do and more kept getting piled on top of what was already there and she had no idea what to tackle first, but James being here was the last priority. She would not waste time thinking about him anymore.

—-

This decision worked just fine until Elise went into the conference room early to get set up — they were meeting there instead of her office so they could spread things out on the larger table surface — and found James sitting there.

This time, because she wasn't prepared for it, she looked at him.

Her eyes flicked away faster than was humanly possible but she'd still seen him. They'd made eye contact.

"We're meeting in here in twenty minutes," she said, and then she walked right back out and into her office and she shut the door and shut her eyes and pushed back everything that had rushed back up to the surface.

James had evidently left the conference room not long after her, because she heard him talking to Carston in the hall and she quickly walked as far from her door as it was possible to go without busting right through the wall. She felt suffocated. It was so much easier to push back any thought of him and of what had happened when he wasn't popping out at her from every corner.

—-

At home that night, Elise took a long shower, staying under the hot water until it made her dizzy, and then when she got out, she stood dripping onto the tile floor and stared at the fogged up mirror, watching it reveal bits of her face at a time, distorted and fuzzy, and she could have sworn that the girl looking back at her was nineteen years old, brand new to her job and to being an adult and so in love with this guy she'd just met it petrified her.

She left the bathroom only when the mirror had unfogged completely, and then she went to sleep on the couch because that bed was the bed James had slept in with her for two years and while she never usually thought about that, it seemed an insurmountable obstacle to sleep that night. Only sleeping on the couch didn't feel all that much easier, because James was all over this house. It didn't matter that she had lived here alone so much longer than she'd ever lived here with him. He'd been here in the beginning. He'd been here when she'd seen it and he'd convinced her to get it and they had made this a home together.

It was the one thing she hadn't been able to part with that reminded her of him. Everything else had gone away, boxed up and out of sight in the attic, tucked back into dark, hard to reach corners of her mind. Everything but the house, which she just couldn't sell, and his sweatshirt.

She got up off the couch like she was in a trance and she went into the bottom drawer of the dresser and pulled it out, pulled it on.

So many times she had done this in a moment of weakness, and every time, she told herself, this is the last time. Tomorrow, you get rid of it. And every time, she added it to the laundry, folded it up neatly, and slid it back in the drawer.

It didn't smell like him anymore, of course. It hadn't in a very long time. But that didn't matter. Elise went back out to the couch. She sat in the middle and tucked her knees up to her chest. She hugged them, staring across the room at the darkened fireplace with unblinking eyes.

"Damn it," she whispered to herself. "What am I supposed to do?"