Chapter 27 Lonely Shooting Star
With her mind and heels bubbling in slippery foam, Ginny tenuously ventured out of the castle lethargically after failing to locate Harry inside. What used to be a familiar layout of the school would morph into a maze of intimidating walls and passageways for her, as her twisted thoughts continued to overwhelm her overcharged senses. Once she successfully managed to reach the castle gates, she immediately got her reward for her struggling efforts; she would spot someone zooming stylishly in the air. Against the backdrop of a darkening sunset, the flyer reminded her of a powerful shooting star. Thinking it was Harry, her heartbeat began to race erratically as she chased his blazing trail.
“Harry!” her untamed eyes imitated her outstretched arm as the emotional-filled pupils extended themselves as far as they could, like a pair of binoculars, into the windy air.
Unfortunately, as the driver turned to smile and wave, she recognized he wasn’t wearing a familiar pair of glasses in front of what was her favorite set of sparkling green eyes. To top it off, he sported an earring. She tucked her pupils disappointedly back into their sockets.
“Ginny! Wanna join me for old times sake?” Oliver floated to the ground to greet her, only to get a pair of tired disillusioned reddish eyes and swollen glands in return. “What’s wrong?”
“I… have a cold. That’s all,” Ginny choked evasively. She was slightly taken aback by Oliver’s rather upbeat demeanor. Seeing his engagement ring dancing around his adam’s apple brought her back to the last time they spoke, when they were in his quarters where he shared his painful past with her.
“Gin,” he smirked teasingly, “why were you… erm… looking at me like that earlier? I thought I told you I’m too old for you”“
“Oh, knock it off!” she cut in. “That joke’s getting tired now!”
Oliver slowly began to recognize the void behind Ginny’s eyes. The torment behind them was the kind he sadly knew too well.
“Remember… I told you if you need a brotherly shoulder… I’m here for you,” he offered graciously.
“No thanks, Romeo,” she replied curtly. “I don’t want you to think I’m in love with you or something.”
Oliver shrugged his shoulders and guided her to the audience stands. He knew she wanted to talk, contrary to what she said, “It’s okay. Why don’t we just… sit for awhile?”
The two of them rested in the stands in silence, watching the dimming skies, the rim of the sun still preventing the nightly curtain of stars from coming in.
“Oliver, can I ask you something?” Ginny suddenly sprung up. “You can tell me to buzz off if you don’t want to answer.”
Oliver’s curious eyes followed her as she had her back facing him. She appeared to be taking something out of her pocket. It was the two photos of her and Harry from the picture frame on her dresser.
“Oliver,” she muttered greasily, her eyes switching back and forth indecisively between the contrasting pictures, as the winds carefully carried each soulful word to Oliver’s eardrums, “do you forgive… her…
“for… abandoning you… at the… train station…
“The way… she… hurt you?”
Ginny kept her back towards Oliver as she mindfully prepared herself for the potential upcoming outpour of emotion from him, similar to what happened in his quarters.
“If…she were to come back…” she continued achingly, trying to use Oliver to justify her tough unforgiving position towards Harry, “and she was standing here… right now… Will you let her back into your life… as if… nothing happened?”
Instead of the emotions, Oliver startled Ginny by punctuating the windy silence with a simpering snort.
“I’m sorry, Oliver… I shouldn’t be… probing about that…” she turned around and gazed apologetically at him, noticing his eyes had ceased to blink, misinterpreting his snort as a sound of muffled cries, only to find him bursting into laughter soon after.
“Ginny. Ginny. Ginny,” he shook his head with an elongated grin as he imitated her sickly tone, “you just want to make me cry again… is that it?”
“Oliver, no. I”“
“Just kidding, Ginny,” he sighed, noticing the two pictures in her troubled hands.
Wanting to cheer her up, he mustered all his strength to sound like a mocking comedian, “Ginny, sit down. You want to know about the train station? Fine! Let me tell you how ridiculous I was that day.
“When I was there,” he mumbled numbly to the images of his past, “with my luggage… on the platform, waiting…
“Watching the people… other passengers… kiss each other goodbye, as I was standing alone…
“Train after train, they would depart,” he forced a snigger between his words. He needed to hear himself laugh in order to restore his mocking tone, because he noticed it was swirling down emotionally.
“But they would depart without me. I thought it was like… like…
“Each train left with a part of my soul.
“The arms of the clock continued to chip away at my heart... like a knife… stabbing me… tick-tock-tick-tock…
“Wow… is that schmaltzy or what?” he interrupted himself and chuckled hollowly, resurrecting his casual voice once again. “I bet you’ve seen these lines used thousands of times in one of those romance novels you read.”
“I don’t read things like that!” she narrowed her eyes. Oliver was happy they were no longer reddish. His efforts were working.
“I was so foolish I begged the clock to stop… or at least… slow down for me… because I was positive she would arrive in the next minute…
“Anyway, I took out a photo of us… in panic… like a madman, I asked anybody that was willing to listen… the ticket desk… the janitor… if they saw her…
“Of course they all… shook their heads!” he snapped angrily to silence the slight heat threatening to defrost his frozen eyes.
“The last train would depart… and took the final piece of my soul with it.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” he announced nonchalantly. “An owl dropped by to give me a note. Surprise. Surprise. It was from her… Didn’t say much. It was less than ten words, if I can recall.
“After everything we went through,” he winced but maintained his indifferent expressions, “it would abruptly end in ten words, scribbled on a piece of blue paper. Just like that!
“The last thing I remembered was… I tore up the picture… the letter… as I paced along the platform one last time… into a thousand pieces…
“Bits of it were sailing… following the draft of current… from the last train.
“The station would close… leaving me behind.”
Oliver raised his voice, “I felt… like a hollow log of zombie as I walked out… just wandering aimlessly… in the streets…
“I was walking in the crowded sidewalk, filled with people and their voices... laughter... probably laughing at me... and the streetlights and neon signs in such a big metropolis… surrounding me... but I never felt… more abandoned in my entire life.”
Ginny could relate. She recalled how she was wandering listlessly in the London streets and almost got hit by a car before Oliver saved her, although she couldn’t relate as to how he could recite his story so casually.
Oliver whistled a tune, “I like to come out every night by myself… and just explore the skies. Do you know why, Gin?
“As a fool, I somehow convinced myself that one day, I’ll see her again. Is that crazy?
“For a brief moment earlier, when I saw you chasing my trail… believe it or not, I actually mistaken you for her, until I remembered… she doesn’t have red fur.”
Ginny grimaced meekly, remembering she too had momentarily mistaken Oliver for Harry, “I hope you’re not disappointed, but you… still haven’t answered my question.”
Avoiding her question once again, he gently took the photos out of her hands and examined both of them, “Ahhh… so he is the poor soul. I knew it!”
Ginny attempted to take them back but he stretched his arm into the air to make sure they were out of her reach.
“Ginny, Yuriko once told me,” he smiled musically, “the most beautiful girl is a girl that’s truly… in love… there’s a certain warm radiant glow in their eyes…
“I can see she’s right, judging by the picture…
“But… so far, I have never seen you like this in person.”
She was fed up with his dodging her question. She seized his arm, her nails threatening to sink into his skin, “PLEASE ANSWER ME! Can you forgive her?”
With his eyelids still anchored up solidly as if he couldn’t feel anything, he replied coolly, “Isn’t it odd how we think of everything as either black or white? You forgive… you don’t forgive…
“Ginny, see the many colors in these photos?”
“What does that have to do with my question?” she demanded in frustration, loosening her grip on him.
He ignored her protests and pointed to the clouds philosophically, “See the skies? Daylight and nighttime… it’s still the same horizons, but notice all the colors that filled the space in between?
“Ginny, the question is not about forgiving a person or not. It’s whether you’re willing to accept all the possibilities, all the colors, rhythms in a person… that no one is perfect, but…
“It’s up to you to choose to focus on the good… the things you like to see… in the person you choose to love.
“It’s like a record album. It comes with fast tunes, followed by fluffy love songs… You don’t have to like every song.”
Ginny stared at Oliver confusedly.
“Ginny, look at the sunset. It is bad because it is robbing the bright sun away… but look how stunning it is… all the amazing colors it brings to the skies.”
He turned to her solidly, his eyes sparking earnestly, “I love Yuriko. She made a decision that hurt me deeply, but I focus on all the good things she brought into my life. That’s what love is all about, the ability to see past flaws and mistakes… to be able to withstand pain… tests and challenges.
“She did something that hurt me but it will not stop me from loving her,” he said determinedly. “It will take more than that to make me stop. Maybe if I die or something.”
Ginny’s mind and heart were debating relentlessly with each other, working their way to loosen her tight grip on her past as well as Oliver’s arm. Without realizing it, her claws slipped off his skin.
“Of course I am deeply hurt. Of course I am angry, but do I not know it was equally as punishing for her, if not more, when she decided to leave… why she could only come up… with ten words to say to me?
“I know Harry. He is a good person. He will never hurt people on purpose. And if he does, he must have his reasons, and he will feel awful about it.
“Whatever he did to you, I’m sure he has paid his debts, with guilt and remorse.
“At least Harry is in close proximity with you… unlike me and Yuriko, separated by miles and miles of waters... We can’t even talk about our problem.
“All I have is the rain chain and those wind chimes she gave me, birthday presents to hold on to.”
Ginny suddenly remembered her birthday gift from Harry. She was finally ready to open it, and to accept him.
As Oliver was still occupied with his thoughts, Ginny snatched the picture of the Leaky Cauldron from him. After staring at it defiantly, she would come to a decision. Just like what Oliver did at the train station, she tore up her past in a thousand pieces and hurled it into the air. Watching the pieces drift away, the wall she built to separate her and Harry had finally cascaded. She would accept Harry.
“Thanks, Oliver. I know what to do now,” the words flew out of her lips as she bounced up weightlessly, brushing off the effects of her epiphany, her mind empty except for booklets and booklets of Harry’s handsome images and the possible contents of his gift.
“Oh, by the way, did you fix your freaky doorknob?” she laughed, readying herself to head back so she could open Harry’s present and find him.
Oliver shook his head sarcastically and handed her the other picture, “I don’t want to take away a reason from you… you know… to sneak into my room and sleep in my bed in the future.”
Ginny giggled energetically and smacked the top of his head, the symptoms of her cold seemingly disappeared, “It’s late. You wanna head back to the castle?”
“Er… you go ahead,” Oliver replied with a weak grin that was being powered solely by her uplifting spirits as his casual composure was beginning to unravel.
Ginny paused gratefully, “Oliver… the jigsaw puzzle is almost finished. I… just lost two pieces for some reason.
“Remember what you promised me when I complete it?” she beamed.
He rolled his eyes, “I have a date with a certain nosy redhead at Angeline’s Café.”
“Oliver… one more thing!” she cheered.
He turned his face up.
Ginny leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, “Thank you for everything. You’re a good friend.”
As he watched her gallop happily back to the castle, his head gradually collapsed under the weight of his emotions. To his amazement, he had just realized his eyes had ceased blinking the entire time that he was talking with her. Once she disappeared safely from his view, he quietly unlocked his eyelids to let them blanket and defrost his frozen eyes for the first time. Gradually, the corners of the ice cubes began to melt, giving way to a drop of water rolling down his cheek.
“Ginny, I hope… you’ll smile… just like how Yuriko once described,” he wished with a voice that was as ailing as hers earlier, “and regain… the beautiful look… of a girl… in love.
“I’ll make sure… that it will be Harry… taking you to Angeline’s Café.”
He climbed on his broom and sputtered to the lonely skies once again, to continue his futile mission, the search for the discarded sounds of his happiness, recapture yesterday’s sensations of affection, and rejuvenate the shooting star that had since fizzled past its pinnacle. As ruthless as it was, the more he wants it, the more it would elude him.
The Boy Next Door by gossipweaver
Chapter Notes: Due to unfortunate events that struck them both, he became her unlikely friend and soul mate, and he’s determined to not allow her to end up like him, a man with a love that bloomed but fizzled like a shooting star…