Beautiful Silence- Chenry

■~8~■

Henry's POV-

Saturday came sooner than I anticipated. Everyone always explains how nervous they get when they're about to meet up with someone who hopes they're not a loser. The sweating palms, the butterflies, and the overwhelming urge to vomit. I didn't have any of those things. Until the doorbell rang and all human brain activity shut down like a liquidated Toys 'R' Us. I took a deep breath before opening the door. Charlotte was standing outside on the porch wearing a smile that was almost brighter than the sunshine that spilled onto the porch behind her.

"Hi, I hope I'm not late."

She held up a notebook and tapped the watch on her wrist.

"Uhh,"

My heart was pounding like a Chinese battle drum. Charlotte's eyes flickered to my lips before a look of confusion crossed her face. She held out the notebook to me, encouragingly. I forced my brain into an emergency back up sequence and took the notebook from her.

"No, you're right on time. come on in."

The look of puzzlement vanished and Charlotte's smile widened as I stepped aside to let her pass through into the house. Closing the door behind her, I mentally punched myself in the gut. I led Charlotte to the kitchen where my mom said we could work. I only hoped she would keep Piper out of the way long enough for us to actually get some work done.

"Nice setup, I also brought my chart so I could teach you some of the basics of signing... If you still want to of course."

When Charlotte was seated at the table she slid her notebook over to me. I scanned the words on the page and scribbled a message back to her.

"Definitely, let's start with a topic for the assignment first."

"Great idea. I was thinking of something that resembles reality. We could write about a personal struggle or maybe something we've overcame. Those are always good places to start."

"You mean like... Trauma?"

Charlotte rolled her eyes and chuckled at me as I grinned.

"Not that kind of struggle, silly. Something that's important to you but you haven't been able to achieve it and if you have then how do you feel about that?."

Our eyes connected over the top of the pages, Charlotte dug around in her backpack for a moment and produced a worn, tired looking journal. It used to be sparkly, I could tell from the bits of iridescent glitter still clinging for dear life to the cover. There were dog-eared pages sticking out of it as well. As she opened the journal Charlotte explained to me what it was.

"This is where I keep all my poems. I thought we could use some of them for inspiration."

I looked up at her, feeling myself emit the expression of surprise. I didn't know a lot about poetry, but I did know that some people treat it like this incredibly personal emotion meant for their eyes only.

"You're gonna let me read your poetry?"

Charlotte read the words on the bottom line of the page where we had finally run out of room.

"Poetry is like an art. And art is a beautiful thing that should be shared... Even if I'm not very good at it."

She passed her journal to me and it was at that moment that I felt as if I was holding something so personal and sacred. She watched me intently, almost as if she was holding her breath. The first page was crinkled, stained with ink blotches and something else I couldn't make out. The title that rested at the very top center of the page was Broken. The words were boldly printed, and jagged... As if they had been broken apart.