The Hopeful, The Hardheaded and the Homework

Chapter 34 : To Speak or Not to Speak : Olive

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid girl. Olive chided herself as she buried her face in her hands. So close. She'd come so close and then chickened out completely from telling Enoch exactly how she felt. All the same she was pleasantly warm from head to toe, despite her bitterness with her own cowardice. There were so few times when Enoch let go for a few minutes and everything was so keenly driven by emotion he didn't ever like to outwardly show, that it was when she felt she knew him best of all. Every word and movement from the press of his hand on her back to his annoyed huffs whenever she stopped the kiss first, was more real than all of his pretences and airs, and she loved that part of him more every time it appeared.
Olive's fingers drifted up to her lips and a silly, breathless grin started to creep across her face. Enoch was right, that had certainly been new. As had been the way he'd looked at her then. It was as if he'd never seen her before and she had dared to hope just for one brief moment that it meant something. But she was not getting her hopes up for anything of that kind. Still...it had been a right sight more than a nice feeling, brief though it was.
She must have been leaning there against the door, lost in her wandering thoughts, for longer than she thought because the next thing Olive was aware of was the door pushing against her back and clicking closed again as someone tried to open it.

"What-"

"Sorry!" She jumped and stepped out of the way to open the door to find her mother standing wide eyed on the doorstep.

"What on earth were you doing, Olive? I thought you were out with Enoch today?"

"I am-I was...was." She quickly corrected, biting her lip sheepishly to try and stifle the unquenchable smile that didn't want to leave her face. "I've been home for a while."

Her mother stared at her knowingly and shook her head. "Oh I know that look, dear, better make sure it's under control by the time your father comes home or he'll want to throttle that boyfriend of yours."

"Right..." Olive wrinkled her nose but could do nothing to stop the blush rising in her cheeks again as she quickly ducked into the living room to grab the discarded cloths and antiseptic before she could be caught out. "Mum?"

"I thought we'd just have pasta tonight, you can help if you've been out all day with that boy. Come and put the shopping away."

"One second..." Olive stuck her head into the kitchen quickly as she passed, heading towards the hallway bathroom to hide the evidence. By the time she popped back into the kitchen, half a dozen plastic shopping bags were on the countertop waiting to be sorted and put away and her mother was putting the kettle on and retrieving a mug from the cupboard.
"Mum?"

"Mmhm?"

"You don't think Enoch's as bad as Dad thinks do you? It would be nice if at least someone didn't think I was being stupid." She wrinkled her nose slightly, holding the fridge door open a little longer than she probably should have to put the milk away.

"I think I don't know him from a bar of soap so it wouldn't be entirely fair to judge him on first impressions. Would you like a cup?"

"No, I'm fine, thanks. I'm afraid Enoch's not very good at twenty-first impressions either. He's not very sociable-at all sociable actually." Olive huffed. "I just really would rather Dad didn't start every conversation with 'Is that boy still around?' or 'I still don't like that boy one bit', or anything of the equivalent. It's...nasty and that's why you haven't seen much of Enoch because Dad would tear him to shreds." Or try at least. She had a strong feeling that Enoch would give him a run for his money that would benefit no one at all in the end.

"Your father just loves you and he wants to protect you."

"But I'm seventeen, I'm not seven." Olive couldn't stop the smile that played at her lips as she found herself repeating Enoch's same words.