"Alright class, partner up!"

Fuck. He already hated Biology so god damn much, and now he has to do some group project bullshit? William Liberman hadn't had a good day up to this point, and this certainly didn't help. And a mere ten minutes before the bell rang!

Will looked around the classroom for a partner, though he knew in his heart how pointless this was. He had only a small circle of friends, none of which were in Mrs. Genine's third period biology. All around the room friends were partnering up left and right while Will just sat there awkwardly. He had to find someone soon.

"Will, you need to find a partner."

"No shit Sherlock. Who the hell is it gonna be?" he thought.

"Helen, why don't you be Will's partner for this assignment?"

Will immediately regretted using his usual strategy of waiting for the teacher to assign him a partner. He was going to have to work with Helen Pilate, one of the hottest girls in his whole school. Being a very shy and awkward boy, this was the equivalent of Chinese water torture. No young man wants to humiliate himself in front a beautiful girl, and Will's anxiety immediately began acting up. While he had not spoken to her personally (nor had many people at all for that matter), he knew she had a reputation for being cold. 

Will wasn't particularly surprised that Helen hadn't found a partner yet, considering that she wasn't the most popular girl in the world, despite her looks. Many boys and girls alike approached her, but they all had trouble gaining her friendship and trust, let alone her romantic interest.

“Okay.”

Helen’s response was immediate and emotionless. She got up from her desk and made her way over to Will. She took a seat next to him, staring off into space. Will was already bad at reading people’s emotions, so working with someone who played their cards so close to their chest would be difficult. And on the topic of chests, Helen’s was hard to look away from. Not only were her breasts very large, their shape was perfectly round and plump. She was wearing a short sleeve, pinkish purple button-up shirt that showed a tasteful but exciting amount of cleavage, and hugged her figure quite nicely.

“So um…”

Will wasn’t exactly sure how to being speaking to her, but as soon as he opened his mouth, Helen snapped her neck directly towards him. She stared at him with her naturally large eyes. Her eyes were a deep brown, almost black. They bore deep into Will’s soul, making him cower like some kind of timid creature. 

“Yes?”

“Well, um… I was gonna a-ask you what ani--”

“Huh?”

“I-I was gonna ask what animal you wanted to do y-your report on.”

“You mean our report?”

“Uh, y-yeah, haha.”

Will died inside. He wished for the ground to open him up and swallow him whole to get him out of this quagmire. Helen staring at him down silently only worsened his already foul mood. While her face should have been empty of expression, Will couldn’t help but sense some malice emanating from her. He wasn’t sure if it was really there or if this was his own cowardice playing tricks on him.

“Hmm... I think doing a report on the black widow would be very interesting.”

Helen’s lips formed a subtle smile. Will wasn’t sure how to feel.

“It’s fascinating how cruel this species is. I mean, spiders in general are terrifying, macabre monsters, but the black widow is especially brutal. The way they cannibalize their mate after breeding, the threatening color pattern, their shiny bodies, it just sends shivers down my spine. Could you imagine being a fly that gets caught in their web? Or being murdered and eaten immediately after sex?

Helen’s small smirk had formed into a full, radiant smile. It would have been a very pleasant sight to anyone who wasn’t listening to her words. Will was practically pissing himself with fear. He was realizing more and more why she remained on her own most of the time.

“Hello?”

‘Uh, y-yeah, that sounds interesting.”

“Great!”

Helen clapped her hands and grinned.

“Tonight I’ll gather the materials we need. I have most of it at home already, so we should be okay! Come visit me after school tomorrow so we can work on it. Here, let me give you the directions from your house to mine.”

Helen tore a page out of one of her notebooks and wrote detailed directions for Will.

“We live fairly close, so you can walk there just fine!”

The bell rang, causing most of the class to jump up and rush out the door.

“I have to go now, but I’ll be looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!”

Helen waved goodbye to will and walked away happily. All the while, Will was still silent with shock at the sudden change in her humor. Why had she perked up so much when she started talking about spiders? What’s wrong with her?

“Oh well, at least I have someone passionate to work on this project with me.”

Will got up and gathered his stuff as he got ready to go to his next class.

“Oh yeah, the directions.”

Will almost forgot about the note she wrote for him. He tucked it into his social studies binder, before stopping in his tracks.

“Wait. How does she know my address?”