"Appreciate the moment of a first kiss, it may be the last time you own your heart."
- r.m. drake
1.1 TANNER ATTWELL
Since the age of twelve Ava Grace has had her fair share of kisses. Most of which she desperately tried to forget as she shut her eyes at night, forcing herself to forget the feel of the lips of boys who stole kisses from her. Not one of those boys were her boyfriend nor an interest of her eye, and none bothered to call her the following day- for Ava dropped them completely, deleting them from her friends list and ignoring their voices as she slithered by them in the hallway.
None of them deserved to step into Ava's intimate bubble and she hated herself tremendously for allowing each one of those boys to even think they deserved to have her first kiss. First kisses were to be cherished; her first step towards shredding her innocence. They were to be magical and with someone who captured her heart, carefully holding what was hers in the safety of his own.
If one were to ask Ava Grace about her first kiss she wouldn't dare speak of Cole Winter's utterly chapped lips quickly pecking hers in the elective wheel hallway during the seventh grade or the kiss of her first boyfriend during the last week of eighth grade English; Nor would Ava speak a word of her first make-out session as a freshman with the senior who wanted to lure her into the world of sexual pleasure.
Ava would, however, speak of June 1st 2011. The story of the first boy to fill the hole within her heart and tear it bigger, all at the same time.
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Ava was never one for riding the rides at the local festival her church held every year. Normally she would volunteer with the youth group booth, serving families varieties of carnival sweets. With the smell of butter popcorn kernels invading her nostrils and fluffy pieces of cotton candy stuck to her hair brown hair, Ava would watch as teens held hands and screamed on rides with their friends and significant other.
She had expected this year to not be any different, work three days from 10 am to midnight, take a fifteen minute break and a thirty minute lunch. It was Saturday night, day two of the festival and Ava had returned from her lunch to find her dark haired green eyed best friend standing only a foots length before her. The counter barrier of the booth separated the two friends, the both of them staring at the other with sloppy grins plastered on their faces.
Tanner Attwell was never one for attending the fiesta since her hit puberty and found the fair to be lame. It was his cousin Louis who had dragged him out of his bed and demanding he'd change out of his Dodger pajamas bottoms – unless he wanted to go out for the night in those – which he didn't. He had been mopey about the idea but once he stumped over to the youth booth table, his feelings had changed the moment he came across Ava's shining face.
They both were stunned upon seeing the other, both knowing their emotional ties towards the weekend. While the two were smitten in conversation, the world dissolved around them; Tanner had been oblivious to the confetti eggs Louis had smashed into his head. His cheeks burning with embarrassment as Ava covered her mouth with her left palm, laughing into her hand.
