Sorry for the late update. It's kinda late for me but hopefully you guys are up, scrolling yay. But um, luckily Spring Break is this week and I definitely need a break from school and I need to sleep and babysitting and it's just be great to get away from school for a while. That also means more writing woop! Also this new font is weird.

Partners.

It seemed like every time anything seemed just a little bit okay, something was bound to mess it up. School was alright, I had friends, well I had one friend and a few people said hi to me but it was better than normal where I'd still be walking around saying nothing all day. But there was nothing that scared me more than partners, especially when there was only one person I'd favor to be picked with. And with twenty or more students in my class, I had about a 4% chance of getting him.

I shifted in my seat each time Ms. Dawes went down the list of English partners. As she got closer and closer to my name, my heart started racing and my hands turned clammy. I looked around hoping that my partner wouldn't be someone who did nothing or someone who was mean or someone who was as awkward as me. I tried to shut off the feeling that my heart was sinking as she was one named closer to mine.

"Ms. Mitchell," I heard. Sunk, there went my heart. I wanted to run out of the classroom, hoping I'd be luckily enough to come back and everyone would have a partner and I could work alone. But of course, life was never that easy for anyone and I tried to calm myself as I looked up to find out who would be my partner.

"Your partner is," she said, looking at me above the rim of her glasses with a smile, "Mr. Goldsworthy."

I stared at her wide-eyed, thinking I heard something wrong. There was no way that 4% chance was on my side, there was no way. I looked around, searching for my real partner to look at me but when I got to Eli, there he was, smirking at me. I couldn't believe it. I never ended up with who I wanted, ever. Throughout all my years of school, when we had school projects, I choose someone in my head that I wanted to be partnered with. It seemed like everyone else was partnered with the person they wanted and if it wasn't who they wanted, it was still someone who they liked. And then I got the person that either hated this project, or ended up talking to another group the entire time and since I didn't want to fail, I did the project myself, or I'd get the person who was as shy as me and we would just sit there in awkward silence, hoping for the other person to say something. But something changed because I got paired with the one person I wanted to be paired with. That 4% chance was mine, I got it.

I sighed a sigh of relief as I didn't have to worry about reliving any of the scenarios that played on repeat every year of school. My was still racing and my hands were still clammy as I was recovering from the sink that my heart took. I calmed down more as Ms. Dawes began talking again.

"These English partners here, will not," she paused, I assumed for emphasis on the statements she was about to continue with, "Write your papers. They will go over what you've already written to make your writing better. They will not make you feel bad about your writing. They will help you to have more confidence in your writing and in what you put into your writing. They will not distract you from getting your work done causing you to do it at midnight the night before it's due, turning in crappy work. They will encourage you to do your work on time. If I find that any of these rules are broken, which trust me, no matter how much you teenagers think you can get away with, I will find out and there will be different arrangements. And I am saving you the trouble now, I will not change any partners here unless me, myself and I find fit. Do not attempt to sway me later on in the year that you need a new English partner for whatever reason. If I see a reason to change you, I will, without your input."

"Now," she said, putting the list of partners back onto her desk behind her, "For your first assignment I want you to think of a question you've been asked your whole life. Whether you hear it every day or you hear it every year, if you've been asked it many times, use it. Now I want you to write a detailed response to the question, putting in factors of why the question was asked, what the response that everyone gives would be, what the actually response should be, anything like that. But of course, go over the question with your English partner, who I promise you will most likely have a completely different answer than you."

The bell rang at the exact moment she stopped talking as everyone was already packing up to leave. Before we rushed out, she let us know it would be due on Monday of next week and that we were going to present it. As soon as she said present, the excitement I had of this project was flushed down the drain in just a matter of seconds.

"So you have your question?" Eli said, as we walked out.

"Yeah, do you?"

"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?" he said, then paused, "And no, that's not the question."

"Does she usually make you present projects?" I asked, completing ignoring his previous statement. Not that I wanted to but my mind was just preoccupied with the thought of standing in front of a class of people who didn't know me, who I didn't know. It wasn't even happening and I was nervous. And the everyone in underwear trick never worked for me, I always just felt like I was invading someone's personal space by imagining them in their underwear.

"If you want to get a good grade, then yeah." Eli's words finally drifted their way back into my mind.

"Well so much for straight As." I said, as a joke but the the laughter drifted as I realized that I really probably wouldn't do well and that wasn't funny.

"You're thinking about it too much." Eli said. Of course he wouldn't understand, he couldn't care less about what anyone thought about him. He could go up to the class with an essay about how Crayola crayons are made and I'd admire it because he was confident enough to even go up there with it.

I could feel him staring at me as we walked, I wanted to turn around but then he'd turn away and I liked it, him staring at me that was. It wasn't that I longed for attention but that I never got it so when it did happen, it was something I wanted to hold on to. I was always the friend that was "forgotten" about or when a plan involving everyone I was friends with was made I was the one that everyone thought someone had told me when it wasn't even brought up in conversation around me.

Those were the worst feelings. Having people around you but feeling as if you suddenly disappeared, no one would really care or remember. Being in a group but feeling like you were in your own group inside. It was lonely but people were around so in actuality there was no reason to be lonely but you couldn't help but feel like you didn't belong or that you weren't wanted. Was it ever the case that I wasn't wanted? I wouldn't know. I wasn't a talker, I was a thinker. I didn't like taking to my friends about emotional things. I didn't want to hear that I was overreacting when I knew I wasn't. I hated talking, I hated trying to explain the thoughts that wrapped around my brain, like tape on a mummy, that sometimes I couldn't even figure out to other people. I had a likable outside, I could make people laugh, I could fake a smile and since I did it so much, it was second nature. I could fake a smile and it would seem real, I would convince myself I was happy until I was left out, until that smile didn't mean a damn thing to anyone. Then there was no use. Why fake it when no one cared?

But then I looked up at Eli and he cared. I thought he cared. He was the only person at Degrassi that didn't put just an effort to be nice to me, but put in an effort to be my friend. It wasn't in the most traditional, "hey we have this in common, let's bond over it!" friendship approach but I liked his approach better anyway. He was there, a friend. Someone I could talk to and someone that I didn't feel alone around. When he was there, I knew that he could see me, I wasn't invisible, I was in fact, the most visible. And when you've felt invisible all your life, finding someone who saw you was when you realized that all those years of transparency were worth being seen in that moment right there.

Hey like I know you want to review cause I want you to review because I love you and I care about your input so reviews are great for everyone!