Here it is! To start off the new year!
This story is the sequel to "The Hopeful, the Hardheaded and the Homework" and takes place approximately a year and half-two years after the ending of that!
I do really hope you enjoy it! I'm getting quite excited about writing this sequel!
                         
                                                                               xxxXxxx

Time could be a fickle thing.

Things changed rather rapidly after school finished and two years changed more than one might expect. Many teenagers were by now legally adults, driver's licences appeared and suddenly many felt much more like their own person. Exam results and university responses flooded in and everyone went their separate ways. Only the ever dreary, grey skies and wet weather seemed unchanged from year to year.

They said people lost touch as they grew up. Friends went their separate ways and moved from home to different schools, and sure people kept in contact, but it was hard to say it was the same. And that's what Enoch had finally accepted after years of annoyance and denial, that he did consider these people his friends and not just a group of people to hang around with who happened to be his girlfriend's friends. Still, it was less irritating to see Emma, Hugh and Millard move away than it was to see Olive go.

To go from years of seeing each other almost every day to being over a hundred miles away from each other did seem kind of weird. Almost as weird as the fact they had actually lasted two years together and counting, of all high school sweetheart couples, surely they were the least likely. But that kind of made the fact all the more satisfying. Now within the next weeks, they would both be starting their university courses, and Olive would be moving to Cambridge in one week. Enoch kind of envied her. He did like London, as the city itself, but he would have given a lot to move well away from his parents' house. Instead, the first, and only, acceptance letter he'd received had been King's College in the city. Well, he'd take what he could get.

Things weren't quite so bad once Enoch had knuckled down and started getting his grades up. He was at least accused of being a lazy failure less. He hadn't even been intending on going to university at all, at least not right away but then once things went south he needed to get out, besides, at least he could play to his strengths without suffering under his father's critical eye and stern thumb. Anatomy and Human Biology was absolutely his element, and after convincing himself to go, was quietly actually looking forward to it. Even if it was another three full years of school. The alternative was get a job and that, realistically, was going to be with his father. No, put it off and establish a definitive independence first, that's what Enoch told himself.

They hadn't talked much at all about Olive going away, but the closer it got, despite how much Enoch said he didn't mind it, it was like the elephant, or rather Elephanta, in the room. Some invisible wedge that only grew the closer it came to her leaving. So Enoch pretended it wasn't happening soon at all. He didn't want to have that conversation, it made him uncomfortable as ever, so he would damn well put it off as long as he could and if that meant changing the subject whenever she wanted to talk about uni, so be it.

It was a tactic that almost always worked for him. Except when someone else mentioned it and he was part of the unfortunate conversation.

He could feel the tension in the room cutting the air like a knife and didn't even bother to try and lessen it. Really it was probably only affecting him, like Olive had told him half a dozen times before, that he made his own discomfort because it suited him. Well he'd wisely kept exactly what he thought of that to himself.

It wasn't that his parents didn't like Olive or she didn't like them, not in the least. In fact, they got on with each other better than Enoch did with his own family. His mother had taken an immediate liking to Olive the moment she'd first set foot in the house as proof that Enoch did have a friend after all. Even if his father's opinion of their relationship had been temporarily tarnished a year and a half ago, that had soon resolved itself. No, a mutual dislike was certainly not the problem like it still was between Enoch and Olive's father, it was merely the fact that he didn't want to be here now that had him as grumpy as ever. It had never once, since the start, been Enoch's suggestion that Olive come over for dinner or anything that included his parents, in fact he much preferred to keep her company here to when his parents weren't even in the house for his own sheer selfish discomfort. Rather it had been either her own, or his mother's insistence that they actually get to know this girl Enoch liked so much.

"So what are you going to be studying now, Olive? Enoch hasn't mentioned a thing."

Enoch rolled his eyes but otherwise pretended not to notice the remark his mother had less than subtly pointed at him. Why should he tell them anything? He barely even told them when he was accepted to university, let alone his girlfriend. He knew Olive was glancing at him as he glued his eyes to his plate instead.

"English Literature and Classical Studies."

She couldn't have sounded more opposite to Enoch if she'd tried. Olive, always smiling and cheerful, more than excited to talk about almost anything and Enoch who sat there sourly and hadn't spoken a word to anyone since they'd sat down.

"Good lord that's quite the contrast to some people."

Enoch let his fork drop with a clatter to the plate and directed his glare at his father across the table instead. "Really? Comin' from an undertaker? That's blo-"

"Enoch."

"Me? Seriously?" He was silenced by a quick word from his mother who cut her eyes sideways briefly to an uncomfortable Olive at his side and Enoch just scoffed.

"Are you going away then or staying in London?"

"I'm actually going to Cambridge next week to get set up."

"Cambridge University? Very well done, Olive." The man whose thick dark hair was starting to grey on the sides, nodded over at Olive, clearly a good deal more impressed with her than his own child, none of which surprised Enoch, and cut his eyes over to Enoch. "You might 'ave mentioned that, son."

It wasn't really a harsh comment in the least, and in reality it probably wasn't meant to be one, but it still irritated Enoch. He was tense enough everything the subject of Olive moving away came up, he didn't need his father to be the one to talk about it. Maybe he should just live on campus, living nearby be damned.

"Why so surprised? Why would I?"

Then Olive's foot brushed against his own under the table and Enoch started for a second. He didn't dare glance at her. She nudged him gently which could have been interpreted either as 'be polite', which she rarely bothered with when it was his own family he was being rude to, or, more likely, 'calm down, it's not a big deal'. He did calm down a little, and clenched his jaw to stop himself saying anything else he knew he shouldn't say. As much Olive would, and did, insist that it was okay and she wasn't uncomfortable, it was hardly a good idea to make a scene or provoke another harsh reprimand in front of his girlfriend.

The plain truth behind his particularly bad attitude now was simply that he didn't want Olive to go, even if it was only a few hours drive and it wasn't like he'd never see her again. He could in theory see her most weekends. She would still be gone and it had taken him long enough to get used to the fact that he wanted her right there that now she wouldn't be, it annoyed him. There was no pretending it wasn't happening when it was all his mother damn well wanted to talk about. He should be glad Olive got along with them so well but right now he despised it.

So he kept his mouth shut for the duration of the meal.

xxxXxxx

"You've been awfully quiet all day."

"Is that unusual all of a sudden?" Enoch's fingers tightened minutely on the steering wheel as he waited for a break in traffic. Olive was watching him, he was very aware of that, but didn't as much as glance back over at her. "I know what ya finkin', an' I'm fine."

"You didn't seem fine an hour ago. I'm sorry he's so hard on you."

"Oh bloody 'ell..." Enoch sighed. He was long since used to his father, he'd dealt with it most of his life and if Olive thought that's why he was especially grumpy then she was wrong. He let go of the clutch a little too quickly in frustration as he started moving again and changed gear and narrowly avoided stalling the car as he turned down the street toward Olive's home.

But she didn't let up and he only tensed his jaw as Olive gently kept trying to get through to him.

"It's nice that they ask me for tea, I know you don't like it Enoch and I think I know the reason but-"

"Okay fine, you tell me then if ya know so much." Enoch snapped and finally glanced at her in time to see Olive raise her eyebrows at him.

"Yes, you're fine, my foot." She seemed to hesitate and Enoch scoffed impatiently.

"Well-"

"You don't like that I might see it and you think I'll be embarrassed because of it." Olive's words came out in such a rush she sounded quite nervous about suggesting it. "But...they are your family and I want to know them because I love you."

Enoch said nothing, momentarily stunned into silence. She wasn't wrong, by any stretch, in fact she was...pretty much dead on. He must have stayed silent for a little too long because what Enoch thought was only a few moments later, Olive spoke again softly.

"Enoch, you passed it..."

"What?" He blinked suddenly and snapped out of it. He had indeed driven right past her house in whatever daze he'd been in. Cursing under his breath he pulled off to the side to turn around.

"Am I wrong?"

A muscle twitched in his jaw. He didn't want to admit it. Admitting the truth was almost as painful to his pride as living it.

"You're...not wrong." He muttered quietly as he drew the car to a halt against the curb outside her house and dropped his hands from the steering wheel with a sigh. "That ain't why I'm ticked off but ya not wrong."

Olive unfastened her seatbelt with a click and before Enoch could even really turn his head, she'd leaned over to kiss his cheek.

"You know, if I didn't know better, Enoch O'Connor...I'd say you were going to miss me."

How she always had to know what he was thinking was beyond Enoch. She knew him, of course, really knew him much better than anyone ever had and probably ever would. She could read him more and more the longer they were together. Had he changed much? He didn't think so, except for letting Olive in a lot more and that had just come a little more naturally than Enoch anticipated.

"Well, good fing ya know betta then." There would be no indication at all in his monotone voice that he was kidding at all. Olive scoffed and shoved his shoulder lightly until the smirk crept out at the corner of his lips.

She laughed and Enoch almost smiled at the sound. He'd never, ever told her, and didn't intend to, but he really liked the sound of her laugh when she was happiest. She'd let her hair grow a little over the last few years so it fell closer towards the middle of her back now, and frequently over her shoulders into her face on a breezy day. He undid his own seatbelt to lean over better and catch her into a kiss that was a little harder and a little longer than what should have been a goodnight kiss.

"I'm going now, Enoch."

"Fine." Through half lidded eyes Enoch could still tell how pink Olive had turned as she pulled away and her hand slid from his cheek. He let out a long breath and straightened back up in his seat as the passenger door opened. "Night."

"Goodnight."

He watched until Olive had opened the front door and turned to wave before disappearing inside before he started the car again and dropped his head back against the head rest with a quiet sigh. He should probably try to be happy for her, or at least tolerant, which he was in a way. Cambridge was a great school, and Olive was going to be happy. He'd have his own to distract him soon enough anyway.