The Salvatore School for Troubled Youth

Partners

The next day, Hope goes to her Advanced Spells class early with an extra pep in her step despite it being before 8 am.

The excuse she comes up with in her head is that she wants to get a good seat, but in reality, she's so early that nearly all the seats are still open. She spots the Saltzman twins, who are chronically early to everything.

"Hey," Hope takes the seat in front of Josie.

"Morning, Hope," Josie responds cheerfully.

"Hi, Lizzie," Hope greets to be polite.

"Don't talk to me," Lizzie puts a hand up. "It's too early for social interaction."

"Then why are you even here so early?"

"I go early because Josie has to," she turns to glare at her sister. "It's a compulsion of hers."

"If I'm not super early to first period, I get this overwhelming feeling that something terrible is going to happen for the rest of the day," she admits shyly. "I'm working on it with Emma."

Hope hates the way Josie's head hangs down in shame. She's avoiding eye contact, as if she's afraid to meet some kind of rejection in Hope's eyes.

"Don't worry, I have my fair share of crazy thoughts," Hope puts her hand on Josie's to comfort her.

"Wait! Not that I think you're crazy!" she realizes how judgmental that must have sounded. "I mean, like, irrational thoughts, that you can't control, and-"

"No, I know what you meant," Josie actually looks up and smiles at her.

Hope lets out a sigh of relief that she didn't just totally offend Josie, while Josie is glad to have found someone who understands and accepts her.

They spend the next 10 minutes smiling at each other like idiots while Lizzie uses this time to rest her head on her desk desperate for more sleep.

The other students trickle in, followed by the teacher Mr. Martin just as class is scheduled to start.

"Ok, class. We're going to be doing a project on advanced magic techniques. You and a partner will research one of the advanced topics outlined on the assignment sheet, present your findings and, if you can figure it out, maybe even demonstrate. Any questions?"

The room full of tired high schoolers just stares back at him.

"Alright, everyone partner up."

Hope immediately turns around to face Josie.

"Do you want to be partn-"

"Josie and I are already partners," Lizzie links arms with her sister.

Disappointed, Hope looks around for another partner, but everyone else already seems to have paired up.

"Um, sir," Hope awkwardly raises her hand. "I don't think there's anyone left for me to partner with."

"Well then," he begins just as the door opens and the final student walks in. "Penelope Park, late as usual. We're doing a project, you and Hope are partners. Problem solved."

"Looks like you're stuck with me," Penelope says with an amused smirk.

Josie's eyes go wide and give Penelope a death glare before turning to Lizzie pleadingly.

When Penelope starts talking to Hope about the assignment, Hope mostly tunes her out in favor of using her wolf hearing to listen in on the twins' conversation.

"Please, you can't do this to me," she begs her sister. "You cannot  force me to watch my ex corrupt Hope."

Ex? Penelope and Josie dated?

Lizzie has her arms folded in front of her, and she doesn't seem like she's going to budge any time soon.

"Twin favor, please? I'll owe you one."

"Ugh, fine," she gives in. "Satan! You and I are partners!" she calls over to Penelope.

Penelope rolls her eyes before walking over to Lizzie's table.

"See you around, Hope," she winks.

Josie lets out a huff as she sits down next to Hope.

"What was that about?" Hope raises an eyebrow at Josie as if she hadn't been secretly listening to their conversation.

"Oh, it's nothing," she easily dismisses it.

Hope makes a mental note to ask about it later, but lets it go for now.

"Ooh, projection seems kinda cool," Josie reads through the list of options.

"Yeah, it does," Hope nods her head in agreement.

Josie gives her a look.

"What?" Hope wonders what she did wrong.

"Why don't you seem enthusiastic about it?"

"What do you mean? I agreed with you."

 "We don't have to do it on projection if you don't want to. It is a group project."

"I don't really care what we do it on, as long as you're happy with it."

Hope recognizes that the sentence makes it sound like she's totally whipped for Josie, but she shrugs it off. She really doesn't have a preference, so they can do their project on whatever Josie wants.

Josie looks at her for another moment, not fully satisfied with Hope just going along with whatever she wants without any input of her own.

But, Josie eventually goes on, talking about ideas for the project while Hope just stares at her and nods.