On the show, Lisbon's mother dies in a drunk driving accident when Teresa was twelve, but I'm going to change it for this story and have her be killed at the end of the last school year, when Lisbon was 15, which places all the characters as juniors now.
And I'm glad everyone is enjoying the story so far! I hope this chapter is like too!

Friday

Patrick managed to get to all of his morning classes, the ones before lunch, without getting lost. He thought that was a big accomplishment on his part, because the school is the biggest he's ever seen. The halls were winding and there were so many different hallways, and there were almost no room numbers on the doors.

That didn't help.

He also saw it as a good sign that he didn't see Angela or Craig or Miranda that day. He'd seen Wayne, a few rows ahead of him in their Geometry class, sitting with a few other guys in football jerseys like him. But Wayne hadn't seen him. Though Patrick figured he wouldn't have minded if Wayne had seen him. He didn't seem so bad.

But the cafeteria was even more chaotic than the halls had been.

Almost every table was full and crowded, except for the two in the middle of the room. One was filled with about 15 girls- he recognized Angela and Miranda as two of them.

The other table was completely monochromatic, due to all of the guys there who were wearing the maroon football jerseys, and he could see Wayne and Craig, as well as Craig's friends from the Geometry class sitting there.

Patrick figured sitting by himself was better than sitting with a bunch of people he didn't know, so he slowly walked to the back of the room towards a round, empty table, and no one gave him a second look as he slid into one of the plastic chairs.

"And so he turned around, and says to me… 'Hey Grace, did you get number three?' And so I looked at his paper and he hadn't done any of the questions, and I was all done so I said I'd help him… But he really just ended up copying all of my answers. But then he said 'Thanks Grace' and he smiled at me. Of course Hightower was annoyed that we were talking but I don't care! He smiled at me!" A redhead, that Patrick recognized from his Geometry class, sat down in the chair across from him, animatedly talking to another boy who looked very bored and out of place. "Where's Teresa? I have to tell Teresa!"

The boy shrugged and looked over at Patrick. "Hi."

"Hi... sorry, I thought this table wasn't taken..." Patrick trailed off as he stood, but the boy waved him back down.

"It's fine. Sit. I'm not outnumbered anymore." Patrick sat, and the emotionless boy kept talking. "I'm Cho, this is Grace. Who are you?"

"I'm Patrick. Patrick Jane."

The redhead girl smiled at him, before turning back to Cho. "And he sits two tables away from me in Science, but right across from me in Government. But Chad's at our table too, so he doesn't talk to me much. Well, not at all really. But you know Chad skips school all the time, and then he might talk to me, right Cho?"

Cho shrugged. "Sure."

Grace sighed. "Where's Teresa? I want to talk to Teresa."

"Who are you guys talking about?" Patrick spoke up, trying to sound as unawkward as he could.

Grace turned to him. "Well, this guy…"

"I swear," A raven haired girl threw her books onto the table, between Grace and Patrick. "Hightower officially hates me. Even more than last year."

Grace smiled at the girl as she sat. "What did you do this time?"

"Nothing, really, you'd think that she'd be happy that I knew all the answers on the pretest and everything. But no. Apparently we're actually supposed to be learning things this year." She rolled her eyes.

The girl finally turned her gaze to Patrick. "Who are you?"

"Patrick," both Cho and Patrick said his name at the same time.

"I'm new," Patrick continued. And I think I'm in your English class."

"Oh, speaking of English," Grace started. "Guess-"

"Hey Patrick," Wayne came up behind Patrick and dropped into the last seat at the table. "Man, why aren't you sitting with us?"

"Your… Uh, your table looked full," he answered stupidly.

Wayne shrugged. "I'll save you a seat tomorrow, if you want…?"

"Sure," Patrick smiled.

"Cool." Wayne started to leave, but turned back around. "Hey Grace, thanks for your help in Geo today. I would've died without you." He winked at her, before going back across the room to his table.

Grace took a deep breath, before squealing and throwing her arms around Teresa. "Did you hear that? He would've died without me! Did you hear?"

She quickly removed her arms from her friend and focused her attention on Patrick. "You didn't tell me you knew him. You didn't tell me that you were friends with him." Grace sighed. "We're friends, right Patrick? And friends take pictures of other people for their friends-"

Grace was interrupted by a loud, dramatic gasp from behind her.

"Patrick?" Patrick looked up to see Angela behind her, smiling widely with her hands on her hips, accompanied by Miranda and another girl he didn't recognize. But he did notice that the tan Angela'd had the day he'd met her was considerably darker. "You shouldn't be sitting here! You should be sitting with us, or the boys." She sneered as she looked around the table. Rolling her eyes, she flipped her hair over her darkened shoulder, and her megawatt smile was back. "So, are you coming to the party tonight? Craig and Wayne'll be there. And me, of course." She let out a laugh that sounded as fake as the extensions she was wearing, and Teresa snorted.

Angela's deep amber eyes flicked towards Teresa. "Oh, hey Teresa." She greeted flatly. "How was your summer? Did the funeral go well?"

Patrick watched as Teresa's hands clenched into tight fists, and Grace's eyes flickered down, so he decided to speak up. "How was our summer, Angela? Get locked in the tanning booth again?"

Miranda threw her hand over her mouth, but not before a loud laugh emerged from it. Grace bent her head down to hide her smirk behind her red hair, while Angela flushed and glared at the girl beside her. She pursued her lips together, and focused her attention to Patrick again. "Well, I hope you come to the party tonight. Hopefully they haven't rubbed off on you yet." And with that, she was gone too, the two other girls trailing behind her.

"Teresa-" Grace started.

"I s-should get to class," the other girl whispered. "Don't want to get lost and be late."

"Teresa, we've had the same French class for the past-"

"Bye guys," Teresa stood quickly, swinging her bag over her shoulder and quickly leaving the lunch room.

Grace sighed, throwing the rest of her food into her bag. She'd lost her appetite. Patrick noticed that Cho had finished eating also.

"Why is Teresa upset? What funeral was Angela talking about?" Patrick questioned.

Grace glanced at Cho before she answered. "Last year… Teresa's mom got in a really bad car crash. It was a drunk driving accident, and it was gruesome. Really gruesome. And they never caught the guy who was in the other car. Plus, Teresa had just gotten into a fight with her mom… And then the death hit her family hard. Tommy- her little brother- started misbehaving, and her dad started drinking." Grace shook her head. "Teresa has been really trying to handle everything on her own, but she's been different. So different since the accident."

The bell rang once Grace had finished speaking, and all the teens scrambled up to get to their next classes.

"Where are you going?" Cho asked Patrick as both boys stood

"Um… Patrick trailed off, checking his schedule 'French. With Ms. Dang… Din-"

"Deingus," Grace corrected. "And I'm headed there too. Teresa's there too. Come one. We'll walk together."

Hope you like this. Please review! (: