Quiet Little French Girl. [h.s.]

Fiddling Fingers; Scattered Hearts.

"Hey," my eyes scan her shivering body and my hearts pains knowing that I'm the cause, once again. "Here's your coffee." She takes its gratefully from my hands and uses it as a small radiator to heat up the rest of her limbs. Her blue eyes in their purest form, unfortunately they always look like crystals after she cries, something I want to see all the time but also never see at all.

'Thank you.' She replies, still shaken up from my earlier outburst.

I break the unforgiving silence, "Odette I'm so sorry, I truly am. I didn't mean to scare you, I was just so angry and it consumed me. I would never hurt you, I love you-" she stops my incessant rambling by holding her hand up, and my heart drops in preparation for her reaction.

'It's okay Harry, I know it wasn't you, I know you wouldn't hurt me.' I nod in agreement and watch her hesitantly, as if at any moment she could burst into unforgivable tears. The minute I heard her voice I froze, I stopped breathing for a few seconds - everything around me just seemed to slow down and all I could focus on was her sweet voice; the voice I've been waiting months to hear, only for it to be forced out in an act of desperation. I never wanted that, I never wanted her to feel unsafe in my company, although, at the time I'm not sure I knew what I wanted, I was just vengeful. But now I feel the calm, I feel my heart beating regularly and my breaths are slow and calculated. I hear Odette's nails clink against the side of her coffee mug and remember that it's one of her many nervous habits.

"I love you." She looks at me from her seat on her living room couch, blankets wrapped around her like a cocoon and she gives me a small delicate smile, small glimpse of hope is visible in my heart after seeing that fragile smile from her kissable lips.

'I love you more,' I smile indefinitely at her hand movements, placing myself next to her on the couch. Considering my apartment is full of shattered vase fragments and shards of modern art I brought Odette to her apartment and away from all of the destruction littered across my carpet, I don't think it's dramatic state will help the situation very much. 'It brought back memories,' Odette breaks my thoughts as she stares down at the floor in deep contemplation. Memories? What is she talking about? I ask myself. Why on earth would me throwing vases bring back memories, unless...

'My father,' she starts, 'he used to throw glasses or vases when he came home drunk.' My heart leaps for two paradoxical reasons; the first is that she is finally opening up to me and I flutter at the thought, after all this time she is finally deciding to let me in on her misunderstood past, the second however is less positive - it's the knowledge that a young Odette had to witness such anger and despair at the hands of her father, and had to watch a man she loved and trusted dissolve into someone she quite happily disowned. Someone that I refuse to become, a stranger.

I stay in my silent bubble and just allow Odette to unload her haunted memories out into the open, something I think she's longed to do for some time now. 'We had a wonderful family, just mama, papa and I. Our village was small and everyone knew each other, everyone cared.' Her coy smile warms my heart as unwelcome tears fill her eyes, this story will most likely have an unhappy ending. 'Mama raised me whilst papa worked, he worked as a delivery man. I went to school and spent my days with mama, there weren't many kids in our village, just me, but I was happy.' The cloudiness of her eyes turn her iris to more of a dull blue, losing that sparkle I've grown to adore.

"I like it when you're happy." I mumble, my hands signing as I speak, her eyes distracted from the horrific childhood memories just for a moment.

Odette takes a deep breath and I scoot closer in comfort, my arms wrapping around her cocooned body in an attempt to bestow safety onto her raging heart and flustered mind. 'Then when I reached ten years old, I started to hear less and less. And somehow I just woke up to silence, everything changed after that.' Her head lowers and I squeeze her body tightly, forcing it closer to mine in the process. 'He started to despise everything, drinking due to the stress, he'd come home and throw glasses or vases at me - mama found out that she was pregnant with Evelyn by this time, and with her not working, without him, we had nothing. She used to cradle me every night and sing against my cheek.'