Saving His Smile

BONUS: nulla

Grace Fletcher was a rather self-important child, proud of her many accomplishments in both the reading and musical arenas. Having lived close to her grandparents for the majority of her life, and far surpassing anything her older brother had done at her age, she had been raised to believe that she was a very special snowflake indeed. Her grandparents' continual reassuring words had affirmed in her mind that she was most probably the very best at anything and everything there was to do.

Her first encounter with anyone that dared tell her otherwise was a very unpleasant and humbling experience for her. First impressions are immensely important. They can either make or break a relationship, whether its platonic or romantic. As a general rule, kids are not fantastic at first impressions (simply because they aren't aware of their importance), and ten-year-old Zachary Duncan was no exception to the rule.

In a gymnastics class, as Grace was performing a back bend, he ran right up to her, and began to mimic her movements. His stomach, however, was much further off the ground, and he was up on his tip-toes.

"Hi!" he said brightly, looking over at Grace.

Grace would have responded had she actually been breathing. Back-bends always took all her concentration. It was either breathe or bend, and she was dead-set on bending.

Zachary dropped down quickly, his back slamming against the padded flooring. "I said, 'hi!'."

Finally, Grace joined him on the floor, gulping in huge breaths of air to compensate. "Hi." She didn't like how this boy could not only breathe and bend, but get his tummy higher, and his toes pointier than hers. She did not like that one bit. She'd never seen him in her class before. He didn't even go here, for goodness sake!

He rolled over onto his stomach and extended his hand so quickly towards her that he accidentally hit her in the nose. "I'm—oops!"

Grace cringed and covered her nose with her hands, glowering at the blond boy in front of her with all the venom she could muster. "What kind of name is 'oops' anyway?"

She had meant it as an insult, but Zachary took it as a joke, his smiling widening showing off two gaps where his incisors were meant to be. "No, that's not actually my name." He reached toward her again, this time slowly, and said, "my name's Zachary."

Grace reluctantly shook the boy's hand. "Grace."

It was probably supposed to be physically impossible, but his smile got even bigger. "Nice to meet you."

Grace jumped to her feet and began walking backwards. "Yeah..." Quickly, she turned on her heel and scampered away.

And thus a beautifully one-sided friendship, and a one-sided aversion were born.

///

Hey guys, I'm posting this quick little bonus scene, in order to announce... SAVING HIS SMILE has a sequel in the works! I don't have a cover to show you, nor even a title to tell you. But rest assured, it's happening, and I could not be anymore excited. 

So. Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to post ONE MORE bonus scene, probably within the next week that shows what Grace and Zach's relationship was like before the events of SHS, (a little more insight into the before, before I show you the after) and then I'll be posting the first part of the sequel. I'm feeling a full-length novel for this one, so it may end up being my NaNoWriMo novel this year. 

Speaking of NaNo! If you're planning on participating, please do add me on the website! My username on there is my old username from here: BeautifullyImperfect. I'd love to write with you guys, and motivate each other to finish. 

I can't wait to share the sequel with you guys! 

~Dani