Session Five

            Even though Mr. H. told me not to try so hard, this entire week I’ve been stressing about that book.  I felt like this was some Jedi mind trick or something, like he says I can choose, but I should actually choose what he wants me to choose.

            Can you tell this has been driving me crazy?

            I asked my friend Adam what his favorite book is, but he hates reading.  He’s more of a Jersey Shore kinda guy.  “Why don’t you just bring a movie or something for the old dude to watch and then you can chill and take a nap?  It’s not like he can tell on you or something.”

            “Yeah, really,” I said.

            I know I shouldn’t have cared so much about a stupid book.  I mean when my brother Jay took this class, he helped at a canned food drive once a week and you never saw him worrying about which brand of peas to bring.  I’m just weird, I guess.

            I’ve never been good at making decisions.  Usually I wait for someone to point me where to go.  But this time, after much deliberation, I finally said screw it and brought the book I wanted to read.

            “Good morning, sir,” I said after Christa left.  He looked at me expectantly as I sat down.  “Sir,” I asked kind of embarrassed, “have you ever read the Harry Potter books?”

            He shook his head.  I felt my inner nerd start to get really excited.

            “Okay, they are like the most awesome books ever.  They’ve got adventure and mystery and magic and everything!  My mom doesn’t like them—she thinks they’re stupid—and the later ones are better, but I’m gonna start with the first one so you can know what’s going on.” I realized I was rambling.  “Is that okay, sir?”

            He smiled and nodded.

            This was the first time since we started that I was able to read the entire session without him interrupting once.  I got really into it (don’t worry, I didn’t attempt a British accent), but I’m not sure if he was too.  We actually got about four chapters in when Christa walked in and said Mom was there to pick me up.  I couldn’t believe how fast the hour went.  Christa asked what we were reading, and when I told her she did a kind of laugh that made me feel self-conscious.  I know she didn’t mean anything by it, but still.  I said bye to Mr. H. and left.

            I was walking down the hall when I felt my phone vibrate.  I smiled.