Love Always, Olive.

6

6. (Harry's POV)

"So do you want to share first or what?" I asked when Olive came and took a seat beside me. I miserably watched Liam stroll across the room, leaving me with a girl I had, accidentally, vomitted for.

"Oh, so hostile, Hazzy." She joked, her eyes seeming more blue than they had been seconds ago.

"Hazzy?" I raised an eyebrow.

"My new nickname for you. Do you hate it?" She giggled. It was a glorious sound.

"Yes." I said plainly.

"Then it's decided, to me you're Hazzy."

"Great." I rolled my eyes attempting to look like I didn't care. In all honesty I wanted to rub it in Thomas' face that Olive had given me a nickname and only gave him a one night stand, although I think he got the better end.

"Alright so how about we say that we read each other's but actually ditch?" She suggested, eyebrows wiggling.

"What, you don't want me to read your entry or something?" I sighed, reaching for the journal.

Olive opened her mouth then clamped it shut, "No. Well, yes. I don't know. I didn't know we'd be sharing." She frowned, her guard appeared to be down with me. She seemed completely different from the rest of the day.

"It's just me." I smiled softly, successfully grabbing the journal this time. Her brows furrowed but she took mine and didn't protest when I opened and began to read.

The first couple lines were scribbled out or written illegibly. So, it began six lines down with:

Growing up does not mean getting a job or starting a family.

That's called maturing.

Growing up is broken hearts, and drugs, and stress. It's those bottles of alcohol consumed after a day of hard work. It's trying to find your place between adults and adolescents. It's sex. Lots of sex. Sex with people you love and hate and whose names you will forget in a week. It's learning how to move on and how to hold yourself up high when the world seems to be against you. It's about traveling the fucking globe. I mean who doesn't want to travel?

How can you grow up and later mature with no experience? I want to travel as many places as possible and as far as possible.

Growing up is fucking painful, but I don't mind because I intend to make every minute worth it.

It was brilliantly written and more than anything relatable. I looked up at the girl who had captured my eye yesterday morning. The girl who I attempted to take home last night. The girl who chose to fuck Thomas O'Neil. The girl I couldn't bring myself to hate despite the fact she chose him over me. I looked at her reading my journal with a tiny grin on her lips and I too smiled because she really was something else and I intended to get to know her.

"It's funny." She said when we left Malcolm Darren's classroom. She drifted through the empty halls, not a single person was in this wing except us. Her dark hair swayed back and forth in her high ponytail, occasionally getting caught up in her school uniform. As I looked at her hair I noticed the way the light caught in it and it shimmered as it flowed with her every move. My eyes were drawn to the fact that her hair was very lengthy, stretching down to the middle of her torso when down, so long that it brushed right above the small of her back. I found myself wishing to run my fingers through her hair- wondering if it felt like silken fabric. I found myself wanting to bury my face in her hair, as if to hide from the world and all the problems it holds for me on a daily basis.

"What is?" I raised my eyebrows, unable to suppress my pure glee that she was following me around campus for time being.

"I basically wrote what you did." Olive's smile faded in and out, "Isn't that a tad funny to you?"

"I think it's slightly ironic, but funny? Not really."

She thought this over for a moment before her face fell into a pout and she plopped onto the grassy quad. Her arms stretched out over her head as she lay there angelically. More than anything I wanted to lay down beside her, wrap my arms around her waist, kiss her neck, kiss her-

"Alright," Her voice shook me back to reality. "Three questions."

"What?"

Olive stood from the green just as fast as she fell onto it and pulled me towards the dorm rooms, "Three questions."

"Where are we going?" Her little feet moved much faster than one would give her credit for, and I was panting by the time we reached the pond just behind the dorm building.

"You finished the list."

"Technically I'm still missing one-"
"I'll help with that later if you're that devoted." She rolled her eyes. I watched as Olive sat by the edge of the pond, her legs curled under her, and tossed a few pebbles into the water. She smirked when the ripples scared away the minnows.

"You wanted to get to know me... You get three questions." She smiled at me over her shoulder, "Offer expiring soon, better make 'em count."

Her beautiful face demanded attention. Her impossibly high cheekbones called my eyes to the statuesque bone structure underlying her seemingly angry expression. She had been graced with a look that could be that of royalty, of a fallen angel. Her tight, rose colored lips were pursed in what appears to be mid-kiss. The slight hint of moisture on her lips made them glisten in the light, and caused them to look as though they were really a reflection on the waters of the pond and not really a part of her at all. They seemed to call out to me, beckoning me to lean in and press my lips against hers. Her grey-blue eyes stared back at me as though to pierce my very soul and derive my thoughts and feelings. I could see the different shades of blue streaked through her eyes, making them appear to be alive just as fire does when it moves and flickers.

Realizing I had been staring at her without responding, I quickly spat out, "Why're you here?" What a fucking lame question.

"Why're you?" She countered with a fierce look of curiosity in her grey-blue eyes.

"I thought I got to ask the questions."

A few birds, gulls I think, squawked in the distance. Olive had her back to me and she was throwing more pebbles into the pond when she finally answered, "I'm a total fuck up. Fucked up daughter, sister, friend, girlfriend... I'm just fucked up in every way possible."

I felt my eyes roll without even meaning to, "Oh please, you can't be that bad."

She raised her eyebrows, "I'm worse than bad. Parties, damage of property, drinking, drugs.... I've done it all, parent's worst nightmare."

"Sounds like a regular teenage life if you ask me. I've done all that- most of us here have."

Olive opened her mouth to argue with me, but shut it and just gestured for the next question.

"I'm saving them for later." I shook my head, well aware that better questions would arise in the future.

She smiled, mumbled, "Wanker," and tossed all the pebbles out to the pond. With that I knew I had finally made a smart move with Olive. Everything with her mirrored as a game... And I was beginning to learn how to play.