It was the first day of Senior year and already she was dreading it. Of course she loved school, with so much to learn what's not to love? But she'd rather learn from books, rather than having to face the humiliation which is high school. The only good thing she could think of was that this was her last year before college, a place where students actually cared about their education.
Temperance Brennan held her head high as she walked into school. She followed the familiar direct path to her locker. When she got there she was disgusted to see what was sadly not an unusual sight.
"Excuse me…" she said, trying to hide her irritation. But still, the couple did not untangle themselves. Instead, they pulled closer, making out as if there were no tomorrow. "Excuse me!" she repeated, with more anger to her tone.
The boy opened his eyes first. He noticed the obviously annoyed girl standing there. "Oh," he said, and then tried to get some words out between kisses. "Um…Becca…hey, we…gotta move."
"Huh?" the girl asked, finally surfacing for air. "What Seel?"
"We gotta move, we're blocking her locker," the boy said, pointing at Temperance.
"Oh," the girl said looking up, "oh," she said again with a more mocking attitude once she saw who was standing there. "Do we really have to move Seel?" she coaxed, putting her arms around the boys waist.
This whole scene was starting to rather embarrass Temperance, especially because she knew the boy from Chemistry class last year, and he obviously did not remember her.
"Comm'on Becca, I gotta get to my football meeting anyway," the boy said, grabbing the girls hand and leading her away.
Temperance stood there for a moment rather awkwardly before putting her things in her locker and heading down to the library. Of all the rooms in the building the library was her favorite, after the science labs of course. That's why she had requested that she change lockers closer to the library, but she hadn't realized that that stretch of hall was known as "make-out central".
She grabbed a book on the history of evolution that she had started to read last year and went to sit in her spot, a secluded little section behind a few shelves of books. But there was already someone in her spot.
"I'm sorry," the boy yelped and quickly tried to pick up his huge pile of books and run, but his arms lacked muscular definition and he ended up spilling the books all over the floor. The boy looked as if he were about to cry.
'Definitely a freshman,' Temperance thought, but she felt bad for the boy and decided to help him. "Hey, it's okay," she said, wanting to calm his nerves but lacking the empathy to come up with the right words.
The boy's words flew out of his mouth at rapid speed. "I'm sorry, I was just hiding from those boys. They wanted to stick my head in the toilet! But I said no, but they wouldn't listen. Then I found the library, and all these books, and I figured I'd be safe here, but I'm not allowed to sit here, am I? I…"
"I said it's okay," Temperance said, remembering her first horrible year in high school, "You can stay here. I understand…how mean...certain people can be."
The boy looked at her, and she thought she saw him relax a bit.
"So what's your name?" she asked him.
"Zackary Uriah Addy," he answered, "What's yours?" he asked sheepishly.
"Temperance Brennan," she replied. Then she looked through his pile of books and noticed they were a lot of the same ones she had read while tucked away in her corner during freshman year. It was then that she made it her priority to look after this little boy.
This school year was shaping up to be her best yet. There were no older kids to pick on her, so for the most part she only had to deal with other seniors. And for the first time ever, she had a friend. Zack quickly became her little protégé and he proved to be quite adept in the field of science as well. The two of them started an anatomy club once she had chosen to major in Anthropology in college.
She always looked forward to anatomy club every day. It was a time that she could truly focus on science, and not be bothered by the other students who didn't really care. But then one day, he walked in.
"Uhm, hey is this anatomy club?" the boy asked.
Temperance looked up, but quickly looked back down at her textbook. "Yes it is," Zack replied, "And you are?"
"Seeley Booth," the boy said. Then he laughed, "Aren't you that squinty freshman who's taking senior anatomy?"
"I don't know what you mean," Zack stated, his look of confusion was plain on his face.
"You know, squinty. Always squinting at stuff under the microscope, the way kids who love science class way too much do," Seeley answered.
"What do you want?" Temperance bluntly asked, saving Zack from having to find a response.
"Well my teacher said that I need a tutor to help me pass anatomy. So I was told to come here," Seeley said. Then he grinned, deciding that if he was going to have to have a tutor, he at least wanted the only somewhat hot girl in anatomy class. "So I don't think we've met," he said flirtily, "What's your name?"
"I- I've been in classes with you for the past three years," she said.
'That was awkward,' Seeley thought.
"Oh, I'm sorry, uh," and he scrambled his mind to think of her name. Sure he knew the nicknames people called her, but figured he might as well expect a zero on his final if he called her any of those. 'It starts with a T?' he thought, but he came up blank.
"My name's Temperance," she finally said.
"Sorry, I knew that!" Seeley said.
"Sure you did," Temperance said. She was used to people pretending to be nice to her when they needed help with schoolwork.
"Well can you tutor me?" Seeley asked.
"Zack can," she told him.
"What, the squinty freshman? Really?"
"That's not a nice thing to say," Zack said from a few feet behind them.
"But can't you tutor me?" he begged Temperance, "You're the smartest kid in the class."
"That's true," she said, "So obviously I have better things to occupy my time."
Seeley didn't know what to do. Girls usually jumped at any opportunity to spend time with him, but this chick didn't want anything to do with him at all. Then he figured out a plan B.
"Fine. Have it your way," he said. Then he left the club and headed straight towards the teacher's lounge with a trick up his sleeves.
"He was rude," Zack said to Temperance.
"He's one of those ignorant people who always get what they want," Temperance responded. "Let's get back to our research, okay?"
Seeley strolled right into the teacher's lounge, something most students wouldn't dare to do. But he walked straight up Mr. Hacker, the principal, who also happened to be a huge football fan.
"Mr. Hacker," Seeley began, "You know how we football players need to maintain our grades to stay eligible for sports. Well, you see, I went to the anatomy club to find a tutor to help me pass my class, but they all refused. I just won't be able to pass it without help though, and I'd really hate to have to miss the opportunity to take our team down to state."
He didn't have to say another word. Mr. Hacker was already on the phone with the office, putting in a request to connect him to the anatomy teacher. He then told, well, kind of threatened her, to assign the smarted kid in her class to tutor Seeley.
"There you go son," he told Seeley after a matter of minutes, "Some girl named Temperance Brennan is to report to the lab tomorrow after school to begin tutoring you. We can't risk losing our star quarterback, now can we?"
Seeley grinned, "No we can't sir."