Lost and Found || Oliver Wood [2]

Chapter 9: Forgive or Forbear

It's alright.

I understand.

I forgive you.

Those words were plastered all over the reply that Oliver received from Jessica, a whole day after he sent his excuse for missing their date. It should have relieved him, but for some reason, it only made him feel guiltier than he already was.

It was already weeks after the incident, and Oliver was still beating himself up over it. He had made an effort to be more consistent with his letters ever since then, and Jessica would reply and tell him about everything on her end — she told him about her Head Girl duties, Apparation classes, and even that she submitted her applications for a Curse-Breaker job. Still, it didn't feel like they had completely resolved things. What made it worse was that he couldn't even tell if he was just overthinking because he couldn't see and hear from her in person, which would've helped in confirming whether or not she was still upset. Even during trainings, Oliver would think about it.

Is she secretly still upset? he wondered while throwing the Quaffle back to his teammates. Are we okay, or is she just tolerating me? he questioned, dodging a Bludger that zoomed by his ear. How could I have done things differently? I couldn't have ditched the schedules lined up for Puddlemere, so it's not entirely my fault, right? No, it still is... I could've informed her earlier and —

Thump!

"Argh!" Oliver groaned, clutching his forehead. It took a moment for it to dawn on him — he had gotten hit on the head by a Quaffle.

"Oh!" Thornton, the reserve Chaser who had thrown the Quaffle, zoomed towards Oliver. "Sorry, Wood."

"What the hell was that?" Merryweather flew their way, wondering why they had stopped playing. "Is anyone injured?"

"Yes —" Thornton began.

"No, no, I'm good," Oliver waved it off, trying to fight off the redness on his cheeks from embarrassment. Of all things to get injured by, it was a mere Quaffle, and he was supposed to be a Keeper, for Merlin's sake. "It'll probably just bruise."

"What happened?" asked Merryweather.

"Er... I got hit by the Quaffle."

"Seriously? I don't know if I should scold you or laugh at you for such a rookie injury."

Oliver smiled apologetically, saying, "Sorry. It won't happen again."

"Is everyone okay?" Williams practically had to yell from high above. It seemed that he had caught the Golden Snitch already and only realized the mini commotion going on below him.

"Yes, yes," Merryweather reassured him. "You've caught the Snitch already, so the match is over, anyway. Let's take a quick break, and then I'll call the coaches for our conditioning and cool down, alright?"

The pitch was filled with murmurs and faint shouts of agreement, and almost all at once, all brooms were tilting downwards to descend and head to the locker rooms for their break.

Oliver followed suit, pointing his broomstick away from the goalposts and down to make it back on the even ground. He heaved a big sigh once he landed on the soft grass, quite disappointed in himself for his performance at training that day and with how things had been with Jessica recently. He couldn't even get one of them right.

"What's up with you?"

Oliver looked to his right to find that Charles Hawthorne had fallen into step next to him, in the process of unstrapping his gloves.

"What do you mean?" Oliver asked.

"You seem distracted. It's pretty obvious — no offense."

"Really?"