Author's note: As always, thanks so much to those who reviewed the last chapter! I really appreciate it! I hope you all like this one, it's Isaac-centric, which is something new.

Song for the chapter: Soundtrack To My Life by Kid Cudi

Soundtrack To My Life

Isaac Lahey didn't know when exactly it had happened, but somehow, over the course of the second half of the school year, his house had become the designated party spot. He figured it made sense, given it was just he and Derek, but one thing just didn't seem to fit – and that was that Isaac was a far cry from what could be considered a party animal. Now, he wasn't reclusive by any means, but he was somewhere in between.

Jackson, rightfully, had held the title before him. Jackson clearly adored parties and the attention they brought him, but he had parents. And though they were away more often than they weren't, they did in fact exist. Isaac, on the other hand, had none – only Derek, and Derek was a meager six years older than he was and therefore held little authority in the eyes of his peers. In Isaac's own eyes, however, he held a great deal. This didn't matter, though, since Derek was perfectly fine with anything Isaac chose to do… Sometimes, he felt that he had too much freedom to know what to do with. Sometimes, it felt like no one cared enough to restrict it.

So really, Isaac had no excuse to decline the requests of his friends, and thus had been shanghaied into hosting a party after Friday's lacrosse game.

"It will be fun," they said. "There will be tons of girls trying to get with you," they said.

And now, on the eve of the ordeal, Isaac was sitting on the sofa (which had been moved from its original location and pushed against the wall), watching his friends and classmates use his living room as a dance floor. He wasn't bothered, but he couldn't help but feel… used. And Erica was there, grinding with Stiles. He wasn't bothered, but...

Am I a doormat? he wondered to himself, as if it were the first time the notion had ever occurred to him. They were his friends, they really were. He knew Scott genuinely liked him, at least, and the girls were very nice to him. They just didn't seem to be interested in him.

He let them do this – let them use his house – because friendship was foreign to him and he wanted to preserve it at all costs.

Plus, it wasn't like he disliked having the people around; it was nice not to be alone, so alone, all the time. It was nice to have a house full of people again, even if the didn't know half of them.

But he realized then, as he sat on the sofa amidst the veritable bacchanal that was going on around him, that he was still alone.

A feeling somewhat akin to self-loathing bubbled in the pit of his stomach, and he decided to do something about it. He stood and scoped out the scene. There were girls, beautiful girls, dancing on the island in his kitchen, and he thought that he should probably try to talk to them. Why not? It was his house, he was part of the lacrosse team, and he figured that he ought to have more confidence than he did.

But as he walked towards them, something strange caught his eye. At the top of the staircase, shrouded in the shadows of the dimly-lit upper story, he saw a girl sitting with her chin resting in her hands. She watched those below her, mostly couples, from her lofty station, with a particular air of moral superiority. Her eyebrows conveyed a slight frown, as if she were worried about something, perhaps about the souls of those acting in the debauched play taking place below her.

Isaac didn't know if he was projecting his own musings on this girl, or if this was actually how she appeared. He wondered briefly if this was how he appeared to others when he was sitting on the sofa. To the objective observer, she was just a girl, an unassuming girl with an angelic face sitting at the top of his stairs.

She caught him looking at her, and they made eye contact for a split second before she looked away. He weighed his options. He could go talk to one of the obviously-inebriated girls dancing in his kitchen and possibly get lucky, or he could approach this other, mysterious girl.

He chose the latter option. Navigating through discarded cups and other miscellaneous abandoned items, Isaac climbed the steps.

"Hey," he greeted.

"Hi," she said meekly.

She didn't offer any indication that she was going to continue the conversation, so Isaac prompted, "I don't think we've ever met before – I'm Isaac."

Her eyes – he couldn't make out what color they were in the dark – widened. "Oh," she said in a different, more repentant tone, "this is your house."

"Yeah," he replied, sitting two steps below her.

"I'm Meredith," she explained. "I don't go to your school, which is probably why we've never met. I'm Erica's cousin."

Isaac was taken aback and he tried to examine her features more closely, searching for a resemblance. Sure enough, she shared Erica's curly, golden hair, but that was about it. Meredith was much paler and had a fair smattering of freckles across her face. He couldn't tell much about her body type from her seated position, but she seemed considerably less voluptuous.

"So, what school do you go to, then?"

"I go to St. Beatrice's – it's an all-girls school."

"Oh okay," he replied lamely, racking his brain. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but BHHS kids rarely associated with the private school students. "Are you a senior too?"

She shook her head, her long ringlets catching the light as she moved. "No, I'm a junior."

"Cool. So, I don't mean to sound rude, but you don't really seem to be having such a great time."

Meredith bit her lower lip, as if to stifle a guilty smile. "I'm not really into the whole party scene, but Erica wanted me to come to see what it was like," she told him.

"Oh, so I see the private school girl thinks she's above all this," he teased lightly.

Meredith did not seem to realize that he was joking, and her eyebrows flew up in protest. "Oh no!" she stammered frantically, "I didn't mean it like that, I –"

Isaac broke into a grin and interrupted, "Relax! Relax, I'm just kidding."

At this, she seemed a bit embarrassed. "Oh. Sorry, I'm not good with sarcasm." From her tone, it seemed that such outbursts were not an uncommon occurrence for her. She was painfully awkward, he realized just then, beneath her beautiful exterior. She was lucky, because she could retreat into it when faced with uncomfortable social situations. He doubted she was aware of how lucky she was, in this respect and in others.

"So," he started bravely, "since I can't expect to see you at school or even at one of my parties again, when am I going to see you?"

Her blush was noticeable, even in the dim lighting. It was as though she had just realized that he was flirting with her, despite the fact that Isaac himself had thought that he was being rather forward. "Oh, I – um – I don't know," she stuttered bashfully.

"Well, I'd like to see you again. Can I call you sometime?" Isaac couldn't believe how bold he was being. It probably had something to do with the five rounds of beer pong he had played with the lacrosse team before everyone else arrived.

"O-okay," she agreed with a large grin. Oh good, it seemed like she actually liked him. Isaac was beginning to worry that she didn't and that he was annoying her, but maybe she was just shy.

He dug his phone out of his pocket and handed it to her. When she returned it to him, he saw that her full name was Meredith Jacob. "Your last name's not Reyes?" he questioned.

"No, Erica's mom is my dad's sister," she stated. It took Isaac a moment to connect the dots, but eventually he understood.

"Gotcha," he said. He peered down from the top of the stairs, somewhat surprised by just how much he could see from this vantage point. Noticeably fewer people were present since he'd begun talking to Meredith. The core group – Stiles, Erica, Scott, Allison, Lydia, and Jackson – was still there. Amy was conspicuously missing, but one glance to Derek's firmly shut bedroom door told him all he needed to know. Derek's car was in the driveway, so he was most definitely in the house.

After this pause in which Isaac absorbed his surroundings, Meredith was the first to speak. "Wait a sec," she said slowly. "You're Isaac Isaac – didn't you used to date Erica?" She seemed incredibly off-put by this epiphany, and he scrambled to come up with some sort of placating response.

"Y-yeah, but that was a long time ago," he reasoned.

She crinkled her nose in a way that he unfortunately found adorable and exclaimed, "I can't go out with Erica's ex!"

"I really don't think she would care, plus she's dating my friend Stiles," he pressed. "I can ask her first, if you want."

"But still, I'd feel bad…"

"Are you two really close?"

"Not super close, but still pretty close."

"Look," he started with a sigh. "You seem really cool and I just want to get to know you a bit better. There's no pressure – just like coffee or something. I'll even ask Erica to make sure it's ok. What do you say?"

She bit her lip again and looked towards the ceiling, as the answer was somehow hidden there. She turned to him again with a mildly pained expression, before tentatively replying, "Alright."

"Great," he said with a broad grin. "I'll text you later this week about it. Do you have a car?"

"Yeah," she answered. "And okay, sounds good." She looked at her phone in an effort to figure out what time it was; it was half past one, and at this realization a look of distress overtook her features. "Crap, I've gotta go," she said, standing abruptly. "It was nice talking to you – see you later." She then descended the staircase, presumably to pry Erica from Stiles and head home.

Isaac remained in his seated position, but he could hear the exchange in the distance.

"We need to leave soon, I have to get up in the morning for ballet," Meredith explained ruefully to Erica. Of course she does ballet, Isaac thought to himself wryly.

"Okay." He could hear in Erica's voice that she was not pleased, but understood that tonight she was her cousin's chaperone first and Stiles' girlfriend second. "Bye babe." The last part was undeniably meant for Stiles. Isaac almost winced.

The pair started towards the front door, into his view. "Bye!" Erica called to him, waving. Meredith smiled sheepishly without showing her teeth and also waved. Seeing the two of them together like this, side by side, was strange. Their hair wasn't just similar, it was exactly the same. But everything else was different.

"See ya," was Isaac's subdued farewell. When the door closed, he leant his head against the wall, shut his eyes, and wished for a moment that everyone would be gone when he opened them. No such luck.

Suddenly, he heard a faint noise come from upstairs. It was the quiet creak of a door, and it was undoubtedly the sign of someone leaving Derek's room. He craned his neck to see Amy tiptoe out, a sheepish look plastered on her face.

"What are you doing up here?" she asked before he could beat her to it.

"I could ask you the same," he countered with a smirk.

"I think you know."

"Gross."

"Nothing bad," she protested indignantly. The word "bad" clearly held an alternate meaning for her, though Isaac had rarely heard it used in this sense; he assumed it was meant to be interchangeable with "scandalous" or something similar. "Nothing too bad," she added as a mumbled afterthought.

He put his hands up in an indication for her to stop. "Hey, I didn't ask."

"Yeah, sorry." She perched where Meredith had been sitting.

"Where's Derek?" he questioned.

"…Sleeping," she answered very quietly; she was blushing madly.

"Ohhhhh," he taunted.

"Like I said, nothing bad," she assured him. "So, why are you up here anyway?"

He shrugged. "Believe it or not, I'm not really that into partying."

Amy gave him a quizzical look, like she thought he was lying to her. "Then why do you have so many at your house?"

Again, he shrugged evasively. "I guess just because it's convenient, seeing as it's only me and Derek, whereas most people have entire families to deal with."

She clearly found this explanation sad, and her expression changed immediately to be compassionate. Isaac shifted uncomfortably against the wall.

Amy looked like she wanted to say something reassuring, but changed her mind at the last moment and instead said, "Well, I was just going to get a drink of water and then I'm going to go to bed. Do you want me to get you anything?"

"No, I'm fine."

"Alright," she said skeptically, stepping over him. There was something oddly maternal about her tone as she said that one simple word, but Isaac brushed it off. Any thoughts relating to parents always put him in a low mood.

Amy quickly came and went, wordlessly retreating back into Derek's room for the night. He vaguely wondered how many of his friends were planning to stay over at his house, seeing as the only other suitable place to sleep was the sofa. Oh well, he finally decided, it wasn't his problem. He had a nice, plush, queen-size bed that he was sure as hell wasn't going to let anyone else use.

The bones in his lanky legs cracked loudly as he finally rose to a standing position and moseyed into his bedroom. The promise of seeing Meredith Jacob in the near future kept him from feeling as alone as he usually did, and he was able to fall into a dreamless sleep the moment his head hit the pillow.

Author's note: SO. This is my first time truly trying to delve into Isaac's character, and I'd love to hear what you all think. Also what do you think of Meredith? Love her or hate her? I feel like there's room for more than one OC in this story because there are so many characters, but I could be wrong. Also side note, in my head she is portrayed by Freya Mavor, who played Mini in Skins (gotta keep with the Skins theme haha). Anyway, let me know what you think!