a/n: Hey guys! Sorry that it's taken me so long to update this, but after MUCH harassment from Ericka and a few of my other lovelies, I have taken time out of my busy daily life to update something for you. It's not as much as I would have hoped, but I think that it will be enough to satisfy all of you guys. I hope you all enjoy this little treat!

-hearts-

merc.

oo

The white dress that she wore was accented by the silver necklace she wore strung around her neck by a silver chain as it perched upon her breast. She sat in the front seat of her dark grey Monte Carlo, staring at the beautiful, tiny diamonds that were glittering so beautifully in the bright and gorgeous day. She drove past boys and girls, hand in hand, smiling, laughing, and enjoying their time together. As Massie made her way through town, she couldn't help but remember their beginning—their awkward but beautiful beginning.

oo

"Massie, one does not simply stalk the boy that she is crushing on. That's just weird!" Alicia Rivera giggled, making a reference to both the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Massie's love of stalking the boy that she met in her history class over two and a half months ago when school started.

"Oh hush, Leesh! I'm not being that weird! And I'm not stalking him!" Massie defended, punching her best friend lightly on the arm. Alicia looked at her, doubt and humor playing in her dark brown eyes, and scoffed.

"Right, and you're also not crushing on the guy you've talked to—hmm, let's see—a total of five times in your entire life?" Alicia laughed, glancing at the boy that sat on the other side of Massie.

"We're so not talking about this, Leesh!" Massie whisper-shouted, tossing a paper ball at her. She stole a quick glance at the boy next to her and glared at her friend.

"And why not?" Alicia whispered back playfully. Massie, however, rolled her eyes and turned her attention instead towards the blank worksheet on her desk. She would never admit to having a crush on the upperclassman boy. He seemed too closed off and like he would rather not talk to girls - or people in general - at all. He acted like one of those depressed rocker boys that didn't really care about the things that were happening around them, but he dressed nicer than the majority of people that attended the school with his khaki pants and crisp Polo shirt, so he gave off a sort of different vibe that Massie was used to seeing. She had to admit: he did carry an aura of mystery around him. Massie smiled whenever he was around and she noticed that he didn't smile a lot.

At the end of class, Massie quickly gathered her books and walked over to him, giving him a slightly bemused look. He seemed surprised to see her.

"Why don't you ever smile?" she asked, hoping that she wasn't coming off as rude. However, he didn't miss a beat.

"There's no reason for me to," he replied, not much expression playing on his face.

"I'm sure that there's something that will give you a reason to smile!" she exclaimed, ignoring the looks that Alicia was throwing at her. The other students that shared this class with her filed out quickly so that they could hurry up and get home sooner. Massie, however, didn't have anywhere to go and did not see any harm in trying to figure out the mysterious boy that stood before her.

"There really isn't," he said. He didn't mean to offend her, but Massie knew that this was the way that he talked to everyone; she could hardly hold it against him. Quirking her lips in determination, she reached her hands up and pulled his lips to form a smile. He didn't resist, albeit he did look quite confused at Massie's gesture.

"There," she said, letting her hands drop back down to her sides once she was satisfied with his smile. "I'm going to make you smile every time that I see you."

She didn't know what drove her to say such a thing. She really did hardly know the boy. There wasn't much to know about him, according to everybody else, but she wasn't everybody else. Massie was curious and intrigued by the boy that never really spoke a word to anybody. All she really know about him was his name: Derrick Harrington.

Before Massie made it out of the room, she heard Derrick speak.

"You can try."

oo

It was time for new beginnings, that much Massie knew. But new beginnings meant changes, and changes were things that Massie Block was not very fond of.