It Was Always You ~ A Call Me By Your Name Fan Fiction~

Chapter Three

Elio walked quickly back to the house after leaving Oliver standing under the trees. He wasn't sure if he had been too harsh, but he didn't care, he was seething.

He ran up to his room so he didn't have to talk to anyone. He sat down on his bed and buried his hands in his head. He wanted this to all go away, the pain, the longing, Oliver, he wanted it all to be gone. "Why did he ever have to come here that summer?" he thought angrily

He heard a knock at the door. He quickly composed himself.

"Come in", he called.

The door opened and his father walked in.

"Elio," he said, "I would like to have a talk with you."

He closed the door and pulled up Elio's desk chair and positioned it so that he was sitting across from Elio.

"I don't know exactly what happened between you and Oliver when he came here, but I do know that something did transpire between the two of you."

Elio opened his mouth to interject, but his father held his hand up to silence him.

"I will not pry," he continued, "but I do want to tell you this: you are young. You still have so much of life to experience. I may not know exactly what happened, but I do know that what you and Oliver had was special. You do not experience something like that with many people, so when you do, you do not just ignore it, you grab on to it and you do not let go. If you have a connection with someone, you should take the chance, because you never know when you'll get another. As the French author Francois de La Rochefoucauld once said: 'True love is like ghosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.' I'm not trying to make you do anything, but we both know you can't continue on like this. Something like this will break you, I should know. Sometimes you have to take the chance and be confident in knowing that fate will play you the right cards," and with that, he got up and walked out of Elio's room.

Elio shook his head, what exactly was his father saying he should do? Forgive Oliver? Move on?

Thirty minutes later and Elio found himself back at the pond again. He waded into the water and felt the the sensation of the cold water flow over his feet. He hadn't seen Oliver since he had talked to him under the trees, Elio hoped that he had left, he didn't know what to say to him if he had to see him again.

He got out of the pond and and stood in the grass heated up by the sun's rays. He took a deep breath. He couldn't get the talk with his father out of his head, he was so confused by it, but at the same time understood perfectly.

"Elio," he heard a voice call, softly.

"No", Elio thought, "no, no, no."

He turned around to see Oliver standing there. They both stood looking at each other for a few seconds, then Elio broke the silence.

"Why are you here?"

"Why do you think?" Oliver responded.

Elio shook his head. "I can't do this", he said, "not now."

"I know", Oliver said, starting to slowly walk towards Elio, "I'm sorry, I know this isn't fair to you. I know I should've told you at the beginning of the summer, I know I should've told you after I broke off the engagement, I know I should have done so many things, and I'm so sorry."

By this point, he was standing directly in front of Elio.

Elio was trying desperately to keep the tears from welling up in his eyes.

"Elio", Oliver continued, "do you really think I would have come all the way back to Italy if I didn't care about you?"

Now Oliver was standing so close to Elio that he could feel Oliver's breath. He looked up and stared in Oliver's eyes. Before he knew what was happening, he felt Oliver's lips on his, and for a split second, he didn't object. Just a second later, however, he realized what was happening and quickly broke apart from Oliver and turned away.