Let This One Go

Eighty Six;

I'm glad that I showed Charlie that book because she's been so wrapped into learning new words and looking at the illustration that she didn't even notice my gloomy mood.

I look down at my watch seeing it was now mid-afternoon.

"Do you want to go home?" I ask Charlie.

"No, I wanna finish this book."

"I can check it out for you, there's a couple others on the bookshelves too if you want to go and see."

"Okay."

I show her the bookshelf that she needed to look at to find all of the books by Roald Dahl. I wait patiently as she picks out two more books. The two of us walk over to the front desk and Ana checks them out, all the while I avoid her gaze. Ana knows me well enough to know when something's wrong with me and usually I'm so good at hiding how I feel but not today, not after what happened with Jen.

"Thanks Ana." I force a smile on my face and follow Charlie out of the door.

I put my arm around her shoulder looking down at my feet watching as one foot went ahead of the other repeatedly.

"Uhh Chloe." Charlie stops, I peer down at her curiously as she stared ahead.

I follow her gaze and find out what she's looking at. Better yet, who she's looking at and even though Harry's presence was the best feeling in the world, I don't know if I could handle it right now. Wearing black jeans and a white shirt he was leaned against his parked car with a bag in his hand outside of the library.

I glance down at Charlie to see what her reactions would be and with no surprise at all she didn't look the least bit interested to be seeing him here.

"Stay here, okay?" I bend down to be eye to eye with her.

"No."

"No?"

"No."

I'm taken back by the attitude in her voice but ignore it and turn around walking towards Harry, I can hear Charlie's footsteps behind me.

"What are you doing here?" I stick my hands in my front pockets. "I thought you had to see Sam."

"I already did and on my way back home I grabbed some chinese," He holds out the large brown paper bag. "And saw you through the window and thought I'd wait out here to ask you if you'd eat with me."

The thought was kind but between Charlie's hatred and my guilty feeling the last thing I was in the mood for was a chinese meal. "Thank you, but I can't. My dad is probably making dinner at home."

"Charlie, you in the mood for some chinese?" Harry looks straight pass me and down at Charlie, I furrow my eyebrows at his bold move.

"Harry, don't. You know she-"

"Yeah,"

Harry and I both turn our heads looking down at Charlie as she looks at the brown paper bag.

"I'm kind of hungry." She adds.

"Uhm..." I stare down at her.

"Great, let's go back to the library and eat there. Yeah?"

"But I'm not really..." Harry doesn't wait for me to finish the rest of my sentence and takes me by the hand guiding me back to the library with Charlie behind us.

Ana knits her eyebrows together when we all walk through the door. I silently shrug.

Harry greets her. "Hey Ana, it's cool if we eat here right?"