Chapter Text
1. smile
It is a cliché, but even this writer is prone to those at points: The first thing she notices about him is his smile—not that it’s lopsided and sweet and warm, even though it is all of those things, but that it annoys her. She has no reason for it annoying her, but she doesn’t need one—she’s eleven years old, and eleven-year-olds don’t need reasons for anything. The slamming of lockers is rattling her brain, she is swaying with the frustration of trying to unlock her own, still swallowing the tears after her and Petunia’s fight, and this boy is smiling, cracking jokes with the other boy, even trying to include her. She doesn’t want any part of it—She’s going through something, can’t he see?—but his smile is something else, in addition to all of the other things: It is infectious.