Merri and me only. Buzz off.

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In the middle of the school courtyard, one of the students dropped to their knees, grabbing tightly at his head, a pained expression on his face. His best friend knelt down in front of him, placing his hands on his shoulders, whispering something in the distressed teen's ear.

It took a few minutes, but Thaddeus regained his composure, then made his way to class with his friend following closely behind.

The young woman walking down the hallway was lucky she hadn't run into anyone yet. She was holding open a binder and clearly scrambling to organize everything in it on the way to class. By the look of the papers, this job should have been done weeks ago.

As she sped up, realizing the time was ticking away before her class, her colorfully striped dark hair fell into her face. When she reached up to brush it away, the binder in her hands tilted, and fell to the floor in an avalanche of papers. The girl cursed and dropped to her knees, sweeping the papers into her arms and trying to somehow get them back into order, but any progress she'd already made on the binder had been cancelled out.

Passing through the hallway, Thaddeus and Dexter witnessed the loss of papers, and stopped to help.

"Here you go," Thaddeus said with a soft smile, handing her a stack of papers. Dexter also offered her the papers he'd gathered.

The young woman smiled somewhat pathetically, accepting the papers, "Thank you... I guess this is why it's a bad idea to wait until the day my work binder is due before organizing it."

She scooped up another armful of papers and started to straighten them, putting them haphazardly into the binder, "I guess I'll just turn it in late." she chuckled to herself.

"Yeah, waiting until the last minute isn't really a very good idea," Thaddeus said with a light laugh.

"What class is it for?" Dexter asked.

She chuckled quietly, "English, actually. I'm just lucky I'm not failing, or this binder would kill my grade."

She finally stuffed the last of the papers into the overfilled binder, clutching it to her chest, "Thank you both for the help, it was really sweet of you."

"Ah, don't mention it," Thaddeus replied shyly. "I'd want someone to help me if I spilled everything all over the floor."

"Good luck with your binder," Dexter told her, waving and heading off to class. Thaddeus followed right behind him, seeming to almost avoid conversations with people in the hall.

She smiled, "Thank you! You're both very sweet." She waved and started off toward her class, before pausing, realizing she had gotten turned around, and began trotting the other way, throwing a sheepish smile at the two boys before passing them on her way to her English class.

Apparently she was just a few moments ahead of the other students, so she sat down at her desk and started scrambling to put her papers in order before the teacher walked in.

The boys took seats next to each other near the back of the class, Thaddeus fidgeting with his mechanical pencil and paper. The teacher had them all draw a slip of paper from a hat for a demonstration.

"Alright class, since half of you didn't get the point of the last lesson, I've decided to put together his exercise to demonstrate what adjectives are. Everyone has either 'positive' or 'negative' written on their slip of paper. I want you to put your paper on your desk so I can read it when I walk by. The remarks I make to you upon seeing it will be either positive or negative. I want you to write down what I say to you and you will use those words in today's homework assignment."

Thaddeus bit his lip and tightened his grip around his mechanical pencil. He didn't like the sound of where this exercise was going. Dexter glanced over at Thaddeus, also very worried about how this would play out for his friend.

The girl raised her eyebrows at the two nice boys who had helped her, but before she could wave or anything, the teacher was discussing the assignment at hand. She tucked her binder away and glanced at the piece of paper in her hand, unsure why they both seemed nervous.

When the teacher told them to put the paper on her desk, she set it down so it would be visible as the teacher walked by.

The teacher went about to the different desks in order of which side of the room they were on. She said mean things to the students with 'negative' written on their papers, and said nice things to those who had drawn a 'positive'.

Finally, she had made her way to Thaddeus, who fearfully looked up into her eyes. His 'negative' paper was writing-up on his desk as he'd been instructed to put it.

"You are worthless, insignificant, stupid, miserable, useless, in the way, clumsy, oblivious, pathetic," the teacher told him, before moving on to the next student to praise them for their 'positive' slip of paper.

When the teacher had spoken to him, Thaddeus had begun to tremble, flinching with every word as though being shot in the chest. Sweat was accumulating on his skin, and he hung his head in something more than just shame as he struggled to resist grabbing his head in his hands. It seemed as though he was beginning to have a bad panic attack.

Dexter reached out and gently patted Thaddeus on the shoulder. "You're not," he said firmly, loud enough for Thaddeus and those nearby to hear. Whatever spell that appeared to be overpowering Thaddeus eased a bit, the teen slowly nodding to acknowledge that he'd heard his friend. He let out a heavy sigh of relief.

She knit her eyebrows together, watching the boy's reaction to the teacher, then tore a little bit of paper from her notebook and scribbled a quick note on it, before folding it up and flicking it behind the teacher's back to land on Thaddeus' desk.

In her small, curly handwriting, there was scribbled a note, "Are you alright?"

Thaddeus looked at the note before tucking it away and glancing up at her. He signed 'I will be' in American sign language, then went about scribbling down the words his teacher had said to him for later use.

Seeing Thaddeus' movement, Dexter shot a look at him, before peering at the girl as well. He watched her with a protective look of curiosity, then went about writing a few things down for class as well.

She knit her eyebrows again, looking a bit confused, but he seemed like he was better than a moment ago. But the look his friend gave her was a little bit confusing as well, so she lowered her head and wrote down her own words.

After the bell rang and they were dismissed from class, she approached Thaddeus quietly, "I'm sorry... I don't know sign language... What was it you said? Are you alright?"

"I said I would be fine," Thaddeus answered quietly, shoving a few things into his backpack. "I just... I don't take harsh words very well..."

Dexter stepped into Thaddeus' view and signed something to him, seeming to be in a rush. Thaddeus signed back a reply. Dexter sighed and signed something in an impatient manner, then sat on one of the desks nearby to wait for Thaddeus so they could go to their next class together.

With a quiet glance at the other boy, she nodded, "Well... I'm glad you're alright... I'm sorry if I'm bothering you... I just wanted to make sure you were alright."

Returning to her desk, she gathered her books and her backpack and glanced at both of the young men with a nod before slipping out of the room. It seemed that the other of the two preferred she not bother them.

"You're not bothering us," Thaddeus told her, offering her a weak smile. "We have to catch our bus, it has a tendency of leaving early."

"Yeah, gotta love having an automotive class. Have to ride the damn bus there, then back, then try to catch the bus home," Dexter muttered.

Thaddeus swung his bag onto his back and headed for the door. "Alright, let's go. We can't afford to miss the bus again this quarter."

She blinked with surprise, then nodded, "Ah, I see. Well good luck catching your bus! Maybe I'll see you around later. Have a good rest of the day."

After school, she popped into a flower and gift shop, glancing around curiously and brushing her colorful hair from her face as she looked the plants over, seeming to be in thought over what to get.

"Can I help you locate anything?" offered Thaddeus, wearing one of the store aprons. "We recently reorganized, so let me know if you need any help finding something."

She blinked in surprise, then smiled, "Hi there! I didn't expect to run into you."

She walked over and glanced around, then back up at Thaddeus, "Actually I was going to get some flowers. It's my mom's birthday, so I thought I'd pick something up for her."

"Do you know what kind of flowers you'd like to get for her? We have premade bouquets, or you can choose the flowers for your own."

She smiled, "Well, her favorites are lilies, so I guess anything with those would be good. If you guys have a nice vase... But I'll have to get this in my bike basket, so.."

She rubbed the back of her head and chuckled, shrugging, "I haven't quite figured out how to manage on the ride home..."

"I can wrap the vase securely for you and you can simply put the flowers in it when you get home," he told her, heading over to the refrigerators where the flowers were kept. "Do you have a specific color in mind?"

"That sounds great! I knew there was probably no way to put a full vase of flowers in my basket and get it home in one piece..."

She chuckled to herself, "And my mom's crazy about anything in orange. I think the tiger lilies are the ones she likes the best."

"Mm." He nodded a little and began pulling flowers from the large buckets full of water, gathering them together neatly. The baby's breath he chose had a rich orange color to it from having been in dyed water.

"How does this look to you?" he asked, showing her the neat little bouquet in his hand.