The Magic of Love

Chapter twenty-five

I froze.

"But there's something I have to confess. Something you don't know, you can't know." Oliver's words echoed in my mind.

I knew it was too good to be true. I tried to withdraw my hands but he was holding me tight.

"It's not that bad. I hope!" He said and smiled hesitantly.

I wasn't sure I wanted him to continue. But I couldn't gain strength and will to say anything. So I just waited the inevitable.

"How to start?" He murmured. His hesitance was plaing on my nerves. My stomach tied in a heavy knot. I couldn't bare it any longer. I was about to stop him when he finally spoke.

"That day... at the bakery... when I came back for the cookie box...", Oliver fixed his eyes on me, and suddenly the knot detangled.

"I fell in love with you," Oliver confessed, and I sighed in relief.

Well, that was nothing bad that was... I blinked. Wait. What?!

"That's why I have no regrets that the ring was lost", Oliver continued, "because the quest for it brought me together with you. And if I knew it would provide me with a whole day with the girl I fell in love, I would have lost it on purpose."

He blushed, and my heart skipped a beat. I blinked at him, speechless at his confession. Well, I didn't expect that!

"That day at the bakery... I fell in love with you," I was repeating his words in my mind over and over again until... Until I fully understood them.

"But... how?" I asked breathlessly.

Oliver nodded and replied, "That was my secret, so to say."

As the excitement was slowly replacing the fear of something bad that could ruin this wonderful moment, this magical event for me - finding my soulmate, I just kept staring at him, unable to compose a whole sentence.

"How?" escaped my slightly departed lips as a breath.

He smiled happily and timidly he same time, and my heart skipped another beat.

"That day I entered the bakery to get the order for my brother, but instead I found you. You were squatting behind the counter and I didn't see you at first. But when I said 'Hello', you stood up and looked at me. Strands of hair had escaped your ponytail, and were falling so beautifully around your face. Your cheeks were slightly flushed, and your eyes... Your eyes took my breath away - so beautiful, sincere, but also... so sad. Your beautiful eyes were sparkling of suppressed tears, and if they had overflowed, I wouldn't have had the strength to only watch, I would've reached to you, and wiped them away instead. But they didn't. They stayed in, giving your eyes beautiful but sad glow."

My breath caught, and he squeezed my hands slightly.

He sighed heavily.

"At that moment, nothing else mattered to me, only you. I wanted to know why you were sad. I was ready to do everything in my power to erase that sadness from your eyes. And I felt the inexplicable and insurmountable need to do something... anything... just to make those beautiful eyes smile," he paused and a sad half-smile stretched his lips. "Then more selfish desire rose in me." Oliver confessed, lowered his eyes, sighed deeply, and then locked his gaze with mine again. "I wanted to know what it was like these eyes to really look at me, not through me, seeing me... what it would feel like to make them shine of joy, not sadness."

"Why?" I whispered.

"Because when I saw you so hurt..." he swallowed hard, "my chest tightened."

"Oh," slipped through my lips.

Oliver blushed, and my heart started pounding faster and faster with excitement, with joy. With love.