Author's Note: I wondered who Patch's lab partner before he was changed to be Nora's. So I wrote this.

I wasn't very good at talking to people. And people were fine with that because no one wanted to talk with me. Sometimes I wondered if it was the lanky, boring mousy brown hair and the nondescript blue eyes that made people instantly assume I wasn't one they could lower themselves to talk to. I still don't know, to be honest. But I've never really minded, since I didn't find people very interesting. I always sat on the second row of the classrooms, so that I wasn't the center of attention but I still didn't have to try and listen over five to seven rows of Chatty Cathys' and Talkative Tims' heads. I walked into biology at the end of the first second semester school day and sat down on the second row behind two sophomores. I knew their names from other classes. Nora Grey and Vee Sky. I was behind Nora. I was probably the only junior in that class, but I had wanted to get chemistry over with, so I'd taken it as a sophomore instead of biology.

Right before the bell rang, the new senior kid walked in. He had black hair, black eyes, and dark Mediterranean skin. I bit my lip to keep from cursing. The only seat available was the one next to me. I had so been hoping that there were an odd number of people in the class so I wouldn't have to have a partner. Yeah, human interaction wasn't my strong suit.

The weight of the senior dropped into the seat next to me.

"I'm Naomi," I greeted reluctantly. "Naomi Addams."

"Patch," the boy grunted. I internally shrugged when he didn't offer a last name, but also had to sigh with relief. He wasn't a talker then. That was great. We could pass the rest of the year in silence.

A lot of other girls my age would hate that. But I was fine with it. Surreptitiously, I shot a sideways glace at the black shirt the senior—Patch—wore. It was a T-shirt from a rock band's tour. The year and months the tour spanned were quite plainly written on the front of the shirt. If Patch was only a year older than I was, then that tour happened way before he was even born. I was pretty sure neither of us were alive in nineteen-sixty-nine. We were nineties kids.

But whatever. I couldn't bring myself to care. Maybe the shirt was his dad's or something. It wasn't my business and it wasn't my problem. I opened my notebook and began to do a pen drawing of a feather on the blue lines.

The semester passed between Patch and I in silence. I liked it. He was the best lab partner I'd ever had. All the others insisted on chatting whenever they got the chance. But Patch and I were fine using minimal contact. Occasionally I would glance up and his eyes were trained hard on Nora's back, but I already knew that super-focused look came from when he was thinking. I was quiet, not stupid. He probably didn't even know he was staring at her. She certainly didn't.

Then the day came when we had to change the seating chart. Something about how we chose our seats and probably knew our partner pretty well. I twisted my blue gaze over to the senior boy next to me. Three and a half months I'd been sitting next to him, and I still didn't know him any better than the day he had to sit next to me. I still only knew his first name, the fact that he was a senior, and that he was out the door before the last second of the bell could ring. But when Coach made the announcement, inwardly I groaned. It wasn't Patch that I would miss. It was his beautiful silence. The boy who sat on the left side of the table the row behind us was one of the most annoying males ever to walk the Earth. He was smart enough, but he never seemed to shut his pie hole.

As Patch stood up, I grabbed his wrist. "Thank you," I said.

"For what?" he asked.

"For not feeling the need to talk to me all semester."

Patch nodded to me. It was a goodbye that seemed very final. I resigned myself to the new partnership with the kid who took Patch's empty seat next to me and closed my eyes, waiting for the floodgates to spill open.

When I was supposed to be answering Zach's questions—that was my new partner's name by the way—I felt my eyebrows subconsciously scrunch. When my eyes began to wander—as they often did when I was listening to the idiotic ramblings of the other high school students—I saw Patch's lips moving. He was talking. To Nora. And I'm going to be honest when I say that surprised me. We'd said maybe thirty words to each other the entire semester, and suddenly he was talking to her like a normal person. She was looking very flustered. I didn't have time to tune in to whatever it was he was saying—and of course it still wasn't any of my business—because Zach poked me in the leg—hard—with the tip of his pencil.

Over the next couple days in biology, I was really starting to miss the comfortable quiet I'd been allowed to dwell in for most of the semester.

I also noticed he talked to Nora. And in those moments when his mouth was producing noise, I had to admit I was glad we changed seats when we did. I didn't want him talking to me. I didn't want anyone talking to me.

I don't know what day of the week it was, but I was at my locker, dropping off my biology textbook, when something smashed into me, knocking me to the ground.

If you're thinking anything about sympathy, don't even worry about it. Someone bullying me was a constant occurrence, and didn't really bother me anymore. "Hey Addams!" some jock jeered. I didn't do anything. Just made sure none of my other school supplies had fallen out of my messenger bag and stood up. The shove had pushed my locker door shut. I smirked. That had been my next step.

"Thanks," I told him, readjusting my shoulder strap and starting my stride to walk away.

"Hey! I'm not done with you yet!" the jock called after me.

I shrugged and ducked under some tall guy's arm. At five-two, I was shorter than most of the people at the school, and so it was easy for me to disappear into the crowds. "That's odd," I mumbled to myself. "Because I'm done with you." My comment was directed towards the bully—though I knew he'd never hear it—not in this din.

A hand grabbed my bag strap and yanked me backwards, ripping the breath right out of my lungs in shock. "I said I wasn't done with you sweetheart." The guy's breath smelled funny. I didn't want to tell him that though, because I highly favored going home in one piece.

"I heard you," I retorted. "I just didn't care."

The hand on my bag strap yanked again, twisting me to face him. The jock's face looked a little bit like a rat. It was thin and pinched. "I don't like your tone," he sneered.

Before I could get a word out, a pair of tanned hands landed on the jock's shoulder and shoved him to the side. I looked up about a foot to see Patch's dark eyes looking dangerous. In that moment I was truly afraid of him. "Leave her alone," he snapped darkly at the bully. The rat-faced guy scrambled away and vanished in the throng. Patch turned back to me. The threat in his black eyes was gone. "That was for not feeling the need to talk to me all semester." There was a glint of humor in his eyes.

I smirked. How kind of him to remember the words I'd spoken. I wouldn't pin Patch down as kind, but just like when he started talking to Nora, he was full of surprises. "Thanks," I said, giving him a smile. He gave me an amused grin and the next thing I knew, he was gone.

I gotta say, that was the first time someone stood up to a bully for me.

The rat-faced jerk never bothered me again.

And in that moment, I was so glad that the one seat that had been available in Coach's biology classroom was the one next to me.

End Note: Hope you enjoyed! This was so much fun to write.

Thanks for reading!

~Cass