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Six years old. It's her first day of first grade and she's confident and cocky. Her mother, on the other hand, is a nervous wreck as she watches her daughter skip to her cubby, where another girl, one much less confident then her daughter, was putting her things away into the cubby beside hers.
The little girl with the big bright and confident blue eyes and long chestnut curls smiled at the smaller timid girl, who seemed to be wishing she were anywhere but there.
"Hi," the taller girl quips, her smile reaching her eyes. "I'm Miley," she extended her hand in the small space in between the two of them and the smaller girl looked at the pale hand and shyly smiled back, placing her hand in Miley's.
"I'm Ariana."
Just like that - the two girls became inseparable. Best friends from the start. Ariana offered for Miley to come over to her house after school and Miley happily accepted, glad she made a best friend right off the bat, as her mother had been worried she wouldn't - due to her over confident stance, some children might have been too intimidated to form a friendship with her.
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The first time they met, it was like two waves crashing together for the first time - an instant connection.
Before she knows it, there's this fluttery feeling in her stomach that tickles at her knees and feet and has the ability to paint her ears red. It may have to do with the boy she caught sight of while walking into her new friends home, the one with the light shaggy hair and the bright eyes and the shy smile, the one she later learns is her friends step brother. And since she's Miley, she'll be the one to introduce herself. She's not even seven yet, and she's just as outgoing as she will be in a decade.
"I'm Miley Cyrus," she confidently quipped, flashing her pearly whites.
He's nine years old and he's not supposed to like girls yet. According to his sources, (best friend number one, Jai, and best friend number two, Luke) they were freakishly mutant-like, infested with the infamously known contagious cooties dispersed by 1. long hair, 2. lip gloss, 3. dazzling smiles. Or so they say. It's funny, though, because the minute she places her hand in the space between their small bodies, he takes it, forgetting all about them.
"I'm Zac," and he really doesn't care if he gets infected or not.
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The first time she felt something towards him was something iconic in her life - she was only nine. Much too young to have feelings for a boy - let alone a boy three years older then she. It would be something she would never forget, because he practically saved her life.
Being the overly confident and cocky girl she was, she bet her cautious and timid best friend she could jump from the swing set in the Grande/Efron's backyard into the pool. Ariana had tried to talk her out of it, but Miley just wouldn't listen.
She just gave the smaller girl a huge confident grin and started swinging, trying to get as high as she could before jumping off the swing - however, instead of landing in the water as she had planned, she realized in horror that she would land on the asphalt a few feet from the pool. She shut her eyes tightly, anticipating the pain that would soon engulf her small prepubescent body.
Instead of feeling the cold hard ground, she encountered a warm skinny body before cold water engulfed her.
"Are you okay?!"
She hears as her head breaks through the waters surface and she inhales deeply, trying to make up for the water that congested her small lungs. She splashes around for a moment as she regains recollection of her surroundings and she blinks, wiping away the water on her face and pushing her wet hair from her eyes.
