Hearts Without Chains

6.

~Deep rivers run quiet~ Haruki Murakami

Josephine-

"What's this word, Miss Laken?"

My chin which rests in my palm raises to look at Phillip across the table from me, the seven year old boy turning his book around for me to see the word he seeks to know.

"Abundance." I tell him with a smile, and he begins to keep reading to me, saying the word correctly this time.

This place is familiar to me, since I've been volunteering here for almost two years now, starting at sixteen. I come and help teach kids here almost every Sunday. I guess I must have a thing for tutoring, I realize.

So I listen to Phillip as he struggles to read all the words off his book to me.

All I know right now is that he is reading to me about a superhero who can grow wings and fly. He can't pronounce the hero's name, either. But this is why I come here, is to help and to make a change in kid's lives.

After an hour and a half of reading and writing with children below ten, I pack up my things and leave to go home. Tyler hadn't left until late last night, since after we stopped goofing around we actually crammed some studying in. So I'm tired, and I feel like going home and watching a movie with a spoon of peanut butter in hand.

So just as I'd pictured, about an hour later I am in sweatpants and a tanktop, licking peanut putter off a spoon as I watch Sweet Home Alabama in my living room. Teagan is curled up on the floor below the couch where I sit, her deep breaths telling me she is asleep. I know I should probably check over all my homework that is being turned in tomorrow morning, but I simply don't feel like doing so. So instead, I finish off my peanut butter spoon and load it in the dishwasher, making a cup of herbal tea before finishing the movie, padding up the staircase to my room with Teagan following me.

*****

When I see Liv and Shawn the next morning in the hallway at school near my locker, they both raise their eyebrows at me, stopping their conversation which had them giggling and laughing until I had became the spotlight to their attention.

"What?" I ask them.

"You look pissed, are you okay?" Liv informs me, making me shake my head as I unlock my locker.

"I've just been stressed." I tell them, and they both groan.

"You need to stop worrying so much about grades and studying, it's totally consuming you." Olivia tells me, but Shawn stays silent. And maybe that's because she knows just why I want to have perfect grades.

"It's just how I am okay? And it's all going to be over in a matter of weeks, so it doesn't matter." I tell her.

Tyler is already in English class when I get there, and moves to sit in the seat beside me before class starts. I notice Harry is actually in class today, and make it an effort not to pay any attention to him. And I did, absorbing in the words Mrs. Tina spoke instead. When the class is dismissed, I stay in place for a few minutes with my forehead rested in my palm, my eyes heavy and tired. I'm not sure how much longer I can take with all these late nights of studying for exams. Only a few more weeks, I chant to myself as I force myself out of my seat, gathering my stuff.

There is only a few students lingering in class, none of them Harry, but Tyler still remains.

"You alright?" He asks me.

"Yes. Why does everyone keep asking that?" I sigh.

"Because you look miserable." Tyler tells me.