III
Rose
'I once loved a girl named Rose.
And one sunny day she began to wither,
so she took a dip in the pool, felt restored.
she said, "I hate these thorns."
so she cried, "one day I'll be beautiful and one day you'll love me."
she said, "one day you'll love me,"
but I, I already did.'
And now… now there was Katie.
Sunny, vibrant, beautiful Katie Bell, his best-friend since before he could remember; the girl who had always been there for him… through Amber and through Meghan, and through all the other less meaningful flings he'd had.
Oliver being Oliver, had of course, not noticed the strange but all-consuming feelings he had for her, and had almost been too late in realising them. But he had realised them, and that's what counted…
They had been spending time at her parents' property in the Scottish countryside, on a rare sunny day in spring, which they had spent most of, lazing beside the pool in a strange sort of awkward silence. Oliver had been confused, it wasn't like Katie to be so quiet and he was forcibly reminded of Meghan, and wondered if perhaps she was going to change on him, except in the opposite way. This scared him for many reasons, but the first and foremost, he realised, was that he loved her exactly the way she was – how could she be anything but Katie if she changed even in the slightest?
As he'd contemplated this, Katie, who had been lying silently in the luscious sunshine had gotten to her feet and walked inside, slamming the pool-gate behind her as she went. He watched her as she kicked off her flip-flops and began to sprint away from the house, running as fast as she could through the unmown grass of the vacant acres of lawn. Bewildered, he'd continued to stare at her until suddenly she buckled and fell, disappearing from his sight.
Frightened, Oliver had hurried out of the gate and run to where he'd last seen her, stopping short when he heard the unmistakeable sounds of her crying, a few metres away. Katie didn't cry, he'd only ever seen her shed a tear once, and that had been when her pet dog Prince had died.
Slowly he'd walked to her side, biting his lip nervously when he saw her lying sprawled in the grass, her bikini the only thing she was wearing as the wind picked up a bit around them. Getting down onto his knees, he'd gently reached out and stroked her cheek, pulling away a few loose strands of her wild chestnut hair.
Startled by him, she'd sat up, hurriedly wiping the tears from her eyes.
'G-go away.'
Wincing, stung, Oliver marvelled at the wounded quality her voice had suddenly assumed, and as he finally looked at her, he realised that there was something desperately wrong with her… her eyes had dark circles under them and she was thin, too thin.
'Katie, what's happened to you?' he'd asked her worriedly, reaching to once again tuck a few more wild waves from her tear-stained but still beautiful face.
She'd laughed hollowly, turning away from him and had refused to make eye contact with him as he continued to plead with her… beg her to tell him what was wrong.
'YOU!' she'd burst out suddenly, interrupting him mid-plead, facing him with a facial expression that scared him, 'You! You with your musicians and charity-cases! You've been so busy saving the world one scarred woman at a time you haven't even noticed the one woman who actually loves you!'
She'd continued on, screaming at him as if she couldn't bear to hold it all in any longer, and as she had, he'd just remained kneeling there, blinking at her as all the pieces to the jigsaw suddenly came together and he'd realised that she was right, he had been too busy with other women to notice that Katie, his constant companion, was in fact the one woman he was destined to be with.
'I don't know Oliver, maybe if I was beautiful, maybe if I was beautiful like your sweet, dark-chocolate little Meghan Daily or that blonde bombshell Amber! Maybe if I was like them you'd love me! Well, one day someone else might actually think I'm beautiful and maybe then you'll realise that it isn't about dark ringlets or pretty blue eyes, it's about loyalty, a-about love, Oliver, love!'
And she'd sat there, panting, staring incredulously at him as he smiled dreamily at him, beginning to cry with exasperation, until suddenly he'd started to laugh. And then just as suddenly, he'd stopped. And then he'd looked at her with a fascination he'd never realised existed.
'I've always loved you… al-always, and I didn't realise until just now… but I did. I always did.'
And it was then that Oliver learnt vital love lesson number three, the most important of them all:
That love is almost always already there.
"You just have to see that it's wrapped in beauty and hidden away in between the seconds of your life.
If you don't stop for a minute, you might miss it."
A/N: the last bit in quotation marks is a quote from Sean Biggerstaff's new movie "Cashback", no copyright infringement intended.