Fall Into the Gap

It'd been cute when she was little. Adults melted when she flashed them her trademark Sidle grin - wide and winsome, just like the smiles of her father and brother. The only difference was her two front teeth, which were several millimeters apart.

"It's called a diastema," she'd tell guests at her family's B&B. "I read about it in my medical encyclopedia. About one out of every ten people has it. Mine is a central diastema, caused by the pull of the labial frenulum."

Her father would scold her, telling her that people had no interest in how her teeth got funny, and that she'd better knock it off.

In elementary school, the boys had called her Bunny. They taunted her until she retreated back into the school library, comforted by the smell of dusty books and freshly-sharpened pencils.

She'd gotten braces in fourth grade, and measured the steadily-closing gap each morning. Her brother had a stack of old graph paper in his room, and she used it to plot a chart as her teeth crept closer together. By sixth grade, her smile was perfect, as long as she kept her retainer in. Boys stopped calling her Bunny and started calling her for dates.

But then everything changed. Her father hit her mother one too many times, and Sara found herself in a group home run by a woman who kept calling her Sandra. One morning after breakfast, she returned to her room to find her retainer smashed to bits, and her roommate looking terribly smug. By the next week, the space had started to creep back. She didn't bother making a chart this time.

Even in her adult life, there were still occasional comments about it. On a good day, people compared her to Lauren Hutton. More often, though, it was Madonna.

"You look like David Letterman," a suspect had once told her in the interrogation room.

"You look like a horse's ass," Brass had shot back. "Now answer Ms. Sidle's questions."

After they were done, Brass had told Sara to check the suspect's tox screen.

"What for?" she'd asked.

"If he thinks a pretty girl like you looks like Letterman, he must be on something."

Her dentist told her he could fix the problem for a few thousand dollars. She just laughed and told him it was easier to floss this way.

She hardly ever thought about it. Really, she didn't. It was only in the quietest, loneliest moments, when she wondered whether it was the reason why her boyfriends ended up leaving her. Whether it was somehow the reason why she'd never maintained a real, long-term friendship in her life. She would throw an extra comforter on the bed and shiver, wondering why there always seemed to be a space between her and the rest of the world.

The day of her decision was like most other days. She left work, throwing a lopsided grin at Grissom on her way out the door and wondering how one gentle man could cause such heartache. The drive home was through perpetually sticky traffic. A traffic light turned red, and when she stopped, a large group of people crossed the street. Dozens of people, crossing two by two. Some held hands or linked their arms. Others just walked so closely that she knew they must be feeling each other's body heat.

Her parking spot was empty, as was the visitor spot beside it. She pulled in and parked. This wasn't how her life was supposed to go, she was sure of that. She was also sure that she wasn't a doormat, wasn't the type to say fate was fate and leave it at that.

Ten, the woman at the dentist's office told her. They could squeeze her in today at ten. This time next week, she'd have a seamless smile.

She brushed her teeth and grabbed her purse, heading out the door to shape her own fate.

There was a man on her apartment steps, sitting about halfway down the long staircase. He had a thick book in his hands, but was gazing off into the distance. At what, she couldn't figure, because the only thing in front of him were a few cars and an overfull dumpster.

She walked slowly down the steps, paused, then sat down next to him. He smiled with something like relief, not looking up.

"Morning."

"Morning," she replied. "What are you doing here?"

He shrugged. "I come here sometimes."

"To these steps?"

"Yeah."

She glanced at the dumpster. "For the view?"

He finally turned to look at her, his expression mild.

"Grissom, how long have you been here?"

"You mean today, or ever?"

Startled, she chose the latter. "Ever."

"Since before you moved."

Sara stared at him, noticing how much smoother the skin around his eyes looked, how relaxed his posture was. "You sat outside my old apartment building, too?"

"Not all the time," he said, leaning against the railing. "Every once in a while."

"Why didn't you come to my door?"

"Never seemed to make it," he replied ruefully. "I always got stuck on the middle step. So I'd sit for a while. I figured at some point you'd come out."

"And meet you halfway."

"Something like that." They held each other's gaze.

She finally sighed. "Are you this weird with all women?"

"Just with you," he admitted faintly, then looked away.

"When did you know?" she asked, the abrupt question tumbling off her lips before she could catch it.

"Know what?"

"That I was the person you wanted to sit halfway up a flight of stairs waiting for."

She waited for the panic to flash in his eyes, but he just hummed. "That forensics seminar at Berkeley. All through the lecture, you were asking questions, coming up with so many insights that I felt like I should've been the one taking notes. Hundreds and hundreds of students in the room, and just one voice, calling out from the back."

"I was such a dork," she groaned.

"You were brilliant," he corrected. "Startlingly so. I hoped you'd come up after the lecture and ask me more questions, so I could put a face to the voice. And when you did." His jaw clenched. "I was so disappointed."

She felt her heart stop, felt the valves close and the blood drift to a slow stop in her veins. "Why?"

"Because you came up with your nose in your notes, bombarding me with all the things you hadn't had time to ask in class, and when you looked up, I saw that you were." He shook his head. "Beautiful."

"And that was bad?"

"I couldn't face perfection," Grissom sighed. "What could I really offer you? Sure, we could have an intellectual volley, we were equally matched there. But your eyes, your hair, your body. it was all too perfect."

She remembered that day, how his hands had trembled slightly as he put his slides away. "But when I asked you out for coffee, you said yes. What changed your mind?"

"You smiled at me."

She raised her eyebrows. "And.?"

His eyes were soft with memory. "And there was a space between your two front teeth. Diastema. Occurs in about one in ten people, you know."

"I do know."

"And with that one tiny imperfection, you became."

"Attainable?"

"Perfect."

She pursed her lips. "So. imperfection made me perfect?"

"To me, yes."

"So why didn't you go after me?"

"Perfection intimidates me."

She wanted to scream and stomp her feet in exasperation. Instead, she breathed. Breathed and waited, allowing a slow, warm wave of affection for this strange man to wash over her. She reached out and gently took his hand. "I still have the gap."

"I know."

"And guess what else I have."

"What?"

Pointing to her forehead, she raised her eyebrows. "Wrinkles. Not to mention a workaholic nature. a screwed-up family."

"Tendencies toward insubordination." he supplied, a smile forming in the corner of his mouth.

"Poor culinary skills."

"Some middle-aged guy stalking you from your apartment stairs."

She laughed. "How much more imperfect do I need to get before you're worthy of me, Grissom?"

He stared at the gap in her teeth, and while she was still smiling, he leaned forward and kissed it reverently, lingering his lips on the enamel for a long moment. They pulled apart, eyes wide and hearts pounding, until she leaned forward to close the space between them.

The End

========================================================================