ashes, ashes ✓

1

Jayden pushes around—what is supposedly supposed to be—mashed potatoes on his plate with a fork, chin in his other hand. Will is seated next to him and is presumably rambling on about some wild thing that happened last Thursday, but Jayden isn't paying attention. He has the tendency to tune his best friend out anyway, but it's different today.

He's too busy staring at the smiling girl sitting a few tables away.

She has cropped pretty red hair that barely brushes her shoulders, and bright almond eyes. Her smile lights up the whole room, but no one else seems to notice. Which he thinks is crazy bizarre, because this girl hasn't ever smiled before—at least, not at school.

She's sitting with Anna and Mira today, like usual, and Mira is fuming about something or other. Maybe that's why the girl is smiling, but he doesn't really care about the cause.

All he knows is, as soon as her lips curled upward, his whole world stopped. It was like she was the only thing in the cafeteria, and it didn't even matter. She's always looked so sad and lost before, but not right now. At the current moment, she's the prettiest girl in the room—and her smile is just as white as her sundress.

Something awkward twists in his chest just as Will socks him in the arm, breaking him out of his reverie. "Hey prick, quit staring at Faith and eat your food before I do it for you!"

Jayden snarls at him, and most thoughts of Faith Madison get pushed to the back of his mind. Distantly though, he thinks he might have been blushing, which is beyond ridiculously embarrassing. Especially if Will noticed. But his friend doesn't say a word about it, and Jayden releases a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.

His gaze slides to the girl one last time before he looks away completely. He's twelve, after all, and she is just a girl. They're barely out of the whole "ew gross, cooties" thing anyway—not that he ever believed in that stuff in the first place.

Just a dumb girl with red, red hair and a pretty smile, nothing more.