→ The ones you love will always be with you

→ Where ever you are, I know you are watching

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I sang, pushing the very evil broccoli in circles around my plate. My tongue danced around, playing with the tooth at the back of my mouth.

"Jess, stop wiggling your tooth and eat the broccoli missy," daddy scolded without looking up from his computer on the dining room table, an amused smile grazing his face.

"Okay..." I droned quietly but made no move to move the silver fork to my mouth.

"Angel!"

"But... the evil broccoli is a meanie head."

"The 'evil broccoli' is good for your health," daddy stated, using air quotes.

"Fine," I groaned, deciding to face the wrath of the broccoli. After a moment of inspection, I finally lifted the broccoli off my plate and shoved it into a mouth, a frown on my face. After a full moment of chewing, I swallowed the broccoli, finally getting rid of one out of the hundred on my plate.

Putting my tiny chubby fingers near the tooth at the front of my mouth, I continued wiggling it, the feeling satisfying to me. On one wiggle though, the tooth fell out. I held it with my fingers and put it on my palm, the bloody tooth serving as such a mystery to me.

"Angel, what are you doing?" daddy asked, sighing loudly before finally looking over at me. I stay frozen in my inspection and daddy raises an eyebrow before pushing up his glasses to finally notice the tooth on my hand. "Oh Jess!"

Walking over to me, daddy lifts the tooth out of my hand and grabs my clean hand, dragging me over to the bathroom sink. He pulls out my pink stool from under to sink and I climb onto it. I open my mouth wide to look in the mirror and the empty place of where my tooth once lay makes me gasp.

"Daddy!"

"See sweetie, you're growing up!"

"I'm a big girl now!" I claim proudly and daddy helps me rinse out my mouth. He washes the tooth in the sink before wrapping it in a paper towel and putting it inside a plastic ziploc bag.

"Ever heard of the tooth fairy, princess?" daddy asks, handing the bag to me. I hold it carefully, clapping it in the middle of both my hands.

"Toof fairy?"

"The tooth fairy, love. Every time someone loses a tooth and they put it under their pillow, the tooth fairy gives them a present in the middle of the night and takes the tooth."

"The tooth fairy steals the tooths!"

"Teeth angel, not tooths," daddy says laughing. "That's one way of looking at it but the tooth fairy gives you a surprise present instead."

"What's the present daddy?"

"Well that wouldn't be much of a surprise if I tell you now, would it?"

After a moment's thought, I agree, "No..."

"Well, now you just have to wait till next morning." Daddy grins widely at me and I latch onto him with a smile of my own.

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And as promised the next morning when I lifted my pillow, still drowsy from sleepiness, there lay a small nickel in the place of the bag with the tooth.

"Daddy, daddy!" I scream, running out of my room as fast as my tiny legs would take me, tripping over the carpet on the way. I run into his room and launch myself onto him.

"It's way too early in the morning for this," daddy grumbles incompetently under his blanket but removes the blanket and sits up, looking at me with sleepy eyes.

"Look! Look what the tooth fairy gave me!"

"A special nickel!" he says, much more excited now.

"Ni-ck-el," I test out how the word sounds and smile. "A nickel!" I squeal a second later.

"Okay hun, let's go back to sleep now alright," daddy mumbles sleepily before laying back down on the bed.

"A nickel," I repeat more quietly, before laying on my spot near daddy, cuddling up with him.

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Entering the school's main doors, I stuff my hand inside my pocket, feeling a nickel deep in the depths of it. I imagined my dad watching me from heaven right now. Would he be proud of me?

Mason and Aiden both went to this school but judging by the crowds of students that surrounded them the moment we exited the car, they were popular kids. So after being abandoned straight in the parking lot, I cautiously made my way through the hallways, ignoring the stares and whispers directed my way.

A poster stuck to the wall that clearly states, "Office that way" in big bold letters helped my case majorly. I pushed through another door, leading to a quiet room that smelled way too scented.

"Hi, can I help you?" A soft voice asked, looking up from a computer on the desk. I snapped out of my memories and registered the lady sitting on the other side of the desk.

"I'm Jessica, new student here?" I asked, hoping it would ring a bell. After a moment of thought, the lady perked up and held a finger to me, indicating one second, before pushing her glasses up and typing away.

After one click and several taps, a printer started buzzing, lighting up from the other side of the room. The lady, whom I assumed was a secretary, stood up and grabbed the bunch of papers from the computer, handing them to me.

I thanked her and then exited the office, all while looking down at the notes. A map with five squares, all that seemed oriented the wrong way. I flipped it around, scrunching my eyebrows. How could the "A" building be there and the "F" building be there?

Still squinting at the map, I continued trudging across the rows of lockers in the hallway. Swiveling past the crowds of students, I finally located my locker, 13.

Great, a superstitiously unlucky number. Could this day get any worse?

Seconds later, I found myself on the floor. It was as if the Gods themselves decided to answer my question. My bag flew open and the only books I was carrying dropped to the floor, the papers in them spilling across the hallway. I groaned in pain, my back sore at the landing.

Hoping to see a helping hand willing to pull me up, I looked up to see three boys standing with their arms crossed, staring down at my petite figure, currently at an uncomfortable position.

The first boy had dark brown hair and was wearing a leather jacket, along with a plain white shirt. He had a neutral expression on his face but the slight concerned look he directed towards me showed me he wasn't that bad.

The second boy had messed up black hair and a smirk on his face, one that reminded me of a goofball, more than a bad boy.

But the third boy was the one that caught my eye. Standing tall in the middle of both the boys, he had chocolate colored eyes that lured me in and was wearing a white t-shirt that fit perfectly, showing off a perfect muscular body.

With a swift movement, they all stepped over my books, blandly laying there on the floor.

"Want to take a picture? Stop staring, it'll last longer" the second boy talked first with an amused expression filling his face, only confirming my goofball theory.

While staying in the background and observing for so long, I learnt how to read people, just like my dad taught me. If you looked carefully enough, everyone was easy to read, just by their looks.

"Watch where you're going," the third boy gruffed, his eyes narrowing in my direction. Suddenly, their stunning hot looks no longer mattered to me.

Adrenaline rushed through me as my wanting to put these idiots in their place increased. Who did he think he was to scold me after he was the one that bumped into me? Soon, all the not dragging attention to myself pep talk was forgotten about.

"You!" I screamed out, pushing myself off the floor. The entire hallway turned towards me and the entire body of students seemed to quiet down. The boys slowly turned, the first two looking amused while the third one looked pissed.

"Why should I watch out? You were the one who bumped into me! A**holes!"

The expression on his face was unreadable while the other two had a smirk enacted, but unmissable shocked looks on their faces.

"If I were you, I would watch your tongue princess." Leaving it at that, he turned around and the two other boys followed right next to him.

His threat didn't register into me though. The only thing that I heard was 'princess.' That was my dad's nickname for me.

Judging the way the entire hallway was looking at me, mouths hanging open, it seemed as if I had already earned myself a reputation. Undeniably, people certainly didn't talk back to those boys often.

Typical bad boy school rulers group, maybe? I guessed, familiar with these cliches from my old school.

Why couldn't I have just held my tongue? I already managed to embarrass myself in front of my brothers last night and now these people too?

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