Silenced [h.s]

One: Grocery Store Encounters

"Come on, talk to me. Would you?" He pleaded. "Oh, wait, you don't like talking do you?"

She shrugged, then proceeded to walk through the aisles of the store, hoping that Harry would stop following her.

"You've talked to me twice in the past year. It's just crazy, like, do you talk to yourself? Do you ever get lonely?" He peered, continually asking questions that she wasn't willing to answer.

Clara was never really an open book, which annoyed a lot of people. Especially the nosy ones like Harry. He had to know everything about everyone. On a rare occasion he would cross paths with someone like her, and he wouldn't be able to figure them out. This highly annoyed Harry, for he loved to know things.

"Clara! Just say one word. I'm starting to think that you literally can't speak." Harry joked, trying to get something out of this girl, anything.

"I've got an idea! I'll tell you a pun. I'm just warning you, it's hysterical." He said while she took a bag of strawberries out of the frozen section.

"Here it goes: Did you hear about the lad who got hit in the head with a can of soda? He was lucky it was a soft drink!" Harry says, followed by an uncontrolled laughter.

Clara puts on a small smile and shakes her head. Pushing the trolley forward as they progress throughout the store. They stop in the snack aisle, and she takes a jar of applesauce.

"God, this is disgusting, Clary. You haven't got one good item of food in this whole cart." Harry makes a face as he picks up a bag of kale. "What is this stuff?"

"Kale."

"You aren't going to answer-" his face breaks out into a huge smile once he realizes what just happened. "Clara! You finally replied to me, just when I was about to give up! Alas, you have spoken."

Harry pulled a small notepad from his back pocket along with a pen and paused for a moment. "It's day...453. Approximately 134 days since you've last spoken to me. At this rate, it'll only be another 129 days. We're progressing, Clarity!"

"That we are." She agreed, taking Harry by surprise again. "But I'm just a mystery that you won't be able to crack open."

"What makes you so sure of that?" He frowned, shoving the notepad and pen back into his pocket, following her to the check out. "I've been dedicated for 443 days already, not going to stop now." He smiled, knowingly.

"Plus, you're quite interesting. Despite the whole silenced thing you have going on." Harry said, pushing the curls out of his face. "Do you ever talk to yourself? What about your parents? What do they think of this?"

"Harry!" A ginger called, walking towards him. "It's been almost an hour and you're annoying the hell out of Clara."

"Ed, she spoke twice today. I'm doing well." He beamed, proud of his accomplishment.

"Stop treating her like a science project, she's a human-who probably wants to be left alone. So Harry, let's go." Ed reasoned. "Bye Clara."

She waved to Harry and Ed as they left the store. Although Harry was incisive, Clara didn't believe his intellectual abilities were able to find out about her. She was more than just the everyday girl who lived in Vancouver, she was the girl you had to walk the extra five miles for just to know one piece of information about her. However, what Clara doesn't know, is that Harry has already walked tem miles, waiting for her.

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