Hearts Without Chains

15.

~The loneliest moment in someone's life is when they are watching their world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Harry-

My mother immediately got sent over to a table with a little boy, leaving me standing alone with the woman who had sent her there. She looks to be about in her sixties, and seems to be the owner of this place.

"Now, there's a little girl right there that could use some help." The woman tells me, and her name tag reads Katrina.

She walks away from me after smiling, and I look over to where she had gestured for me to go. A little girl sits at a desk alone at a long table, the other kids at the opposite end. Her face is hidden by a book, and it's only when I apprehensively pull out a chair across from her that she looks up. She looks about six, or maybe a little older.

She has round glasses on, and blonde curly hair that's frizzed all around her face.

"Hi." I speak, finding it hard to talk to a child. I've never had experience with children.

"Hi." She answers back, and looks to her book. After a few minutes of sitting back in my chair and watching her, I notice she isn't even reading. She hasn't turned the page, and she is just staring at the same one.

"Are you even reading?" I ask.

She looks up to me, and shakes her head.

"It's hard. I'm looking at the pictures." She tells me, and her speech is a little bit different. I think she may have a lisp or something of that matter.

"You can't read?" I ask her.

I don't know if I sounded mean or not, but the look on her face seems hurt. I feel awkward now, sitting up in my chair, placing my elbows on the table.

"Do you want me to, uh, help you?" I ask awkwardly, and she studies me for a second, before nodding her head.

"You're big." She tells me.

My eyebrows pull together as I let out a small laugh.

"Big?" I wonder.

The little girl pulls her chair across the table to sit next to me, and I scoot my own over the other way a little bit as she gets close.

"You look tall. Like a giant." She tells me.

"Like in my book."

She points to the page she had been staring at, which shows a green giant on the picture.

"I'm sure the giant is much bigger than me." I tell her.

"You're voice is weird too." She acknowledges.

Now that she isn't behind the desk across from me, I can see her name tag that is on her shirt. Her name is Lilly. She turns in her chair, and smiles at someone before giving a small wave.

"Hi Miss Laken." She says happily.

I look over my shoulder, and see Josephine smiling back at her. I turn back around, and so does Lilly.

"Does your name tag say Harry?" She asks me.

I nod my head, wondering why she said she couldn't read if she could read my name tag.

"What's this word?" Lilly asks me, and points to the first word on the page.

"Treehouse." I speak, and she nods her head. Damn, this kid talks a lot.

Lilly looked at the same page for a while longer, while I looked out the window across from me.

Josephine-