Excerpt: Thirty Days of Ollie

**This excerpt is rated PG-13 for foul language**

“So she shows up at your door step,” Larry began as he started preparing coffee beans for grinding, “and is looking to stay at your pad? What excuse did she give you for ducking out?”

“None at all,” I began. “That’s the thing that has me so pissed off. Every time I ask her what the fuck is up, she stonewalls. She gives me this ‘I can’t talk about it yet’ bullshit and starts to cry. How is it that you show up on someone’s door unexpectedly, after years of not talking to them, ask for them to put you up for who the fuck knows how long and then not have the courtesy to explain what the fuck you’ve been up to?” My voice was rising and several customers in the coffee shop were watching me.

“Dude, I don’t want to minimize the shit you’re feeling right now because I know this has to be like ripping off a scab to Hell, but I think you’re missing something really important. She didn’t say she’d never tell you where she’s been or what’s been going on. She said she can’t tell you yet. That ‘yet’ is really important, man. She’s got her own demons she’s wrestling and if you keep pushing, she’s just going to keep getting further away. You’ve got a right to answers, but she obviously came to you looking for some kind of sanctuary. Whatever it is that she’s running from, she’s got to be sure she’s far enough away before she stops looking back, you know? It’s like that movie Beetlejuice. If she says what it is that’s haunting her three times, it’ll appear.”

I smirked and nodded. “So I’m just being an ass, then?”

“No,” Larry said over the buzz of the grinder. “I think you’re being cautious, which is good. You’ve got no idea who that person in your apartment is or what kind of baggage she brought with her. Being cautious is good. What you’ve got to figure out is if there’s enough of the Ollie you knew the day before she left in that person to put up with the person she was the day she left. You get what I’m saying?”

I finished my coffee and said “Yeah, I get you, man.”