𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐈𝐒𝐇// 𝐄𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐗𝐎𝐂

𝐢𝐱. ✭ 𝐒𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐄

Author's Note: By the way, Chance's grandma and I do not share the same values or anything. She is just a character I have written. The woman is crazy.

FEBRUARY 1983; CHANCE

Background Music
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Smile by Nat King Cole-
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"Smile," Grandma ordered cigarette wedged between two fingers. My face followed her demand quickly, instinctively shooting up into a radiant smile. I watched myself do it, overanalyzing every muscle my face used in the grand mirror of my bedroom. "Do it again, prettier this time." Sweetly, my eyes twinkled into another smile. "Again." My conditioned body obliged, face stiff from my forced happiness.

"Grandma, do I really have to do this?" I asked, exasperatedly. My face fell apart to regular human expression. "My face hurts."

"You think you're ready?" She flicked her cigarette, ash falling onto the baby blue shag of carpet. "You think you could get him to give you his ring, fifty bucks, one of daddy's little trinkets?" Pointing out the window, she directed my gaze to Presley Crowder working out in his bedroom.

His bedroom window was directly across the street from mine. I could see easily into his due to his boyish refusal to put up curtains. Presley was seventeen, a few years older than I was. He was also who Grandma chose to be my next target.

You see, she'd set up these challenges. They centered around taking, getting something by simply charming a person. Presley was going to be tricky.

Partly because he came from the family that was the most well-off in our neighborhood. Also partly because my enchanting feminine wiles hadn't developed yet. I was just a kid stuck in that awkward part of puberty. Everything was only about half grown.

"But I don't want to." It was the truth. I didn't like the act. I didn't always want to perform. My life shouldn't have been one big entertainment special. Still, Grandma thought otherwise.

"But you can, Sweetheart." She encouraged, stroking my hair. "You can have anything you want if you just work hard enough for it. This is to train you for your future. For when you're off in fucking California. All you gotta do is go over to his house and you'll be golden. Just smile."

So I did. I strained my lips to turn up and followed Grandma's wishes. I went across the street in the blouse she had partially unbuttoned to look sexy, but not enough to be 'slutty'.

It was just enough skin to make a boy's mind wander. I was supposed to make his mind wander. And I did. And I forced myself to smile as I did.

"Hey." That's what Presley said when he opened the door on the fallacy I portrayed. I was a fake. But fakes still get Boys' watches. Boys are stupid. My fourteen-year-old self quickly found that they couldn't tell the difference between a cat and a mountain lion. Not one could see under the layers I hid under. His eyes trailed from my face to my chest. "Wanna come inside?"

"You've got a lovely place here." I chanted, lines fed from my brain. The act was ingrained in my head. I couldn't get rid of it. The thing had become a part of me. "It's real classy in here."

That was true. The Crowder's home was straight out of a magazine with its grand architecture and over-the-top interior.

"Right. What'd you come here for again?"