Jonathan Byers didn’t like group projects. Not because he couldn’t carry his weight—he could, and usually did—but because they always ended the same way. He'd do the work. They’d get the grade. No one would remember he was there. Which, most of the time, was fine. He preferred it that way. Visibility came with questions, expectations, and those always led to disappointment.

Still, something about being assigned a partner today made his stomach twist. Maybe it was the quiet buzz of laughter when the teacher read the names out. Maybe it was the way a few heads turned—not toward him, but toward the other name. He didn’t look up. Just pulled his hoodie tighter and pretended to study the wood grain in his desk like it had secrets worth knowing.

When class ended, he didn’t linger. He slid his notebook into his bag, zipped it with one hand, and moved like a shadow to the door. No need to introduce himself. No one ever expected him to.

Out in the hall, the air buzzed louder—lockers slamming, voices bouncing off tile and cinderblock. He moved through the noise like a fish in deep water, untouched. Until someone said his name.

Not Byers. Not Will's brother. Not the freak who takes photos of dead things.

His name. Quiet. Precise.

He turned.

They were standing there—cool, composed, not out of place at all. They didn’t smile like they were doing him a favor. Just met his gaze like it meant something. He felt his ears burn.

“Yeah,” he said, voice low and scratchy. “I... guess we’re partners.”

No awkward laugh. No pity. No fake enthusiasm.

And just like that, something shifted. A silence bloomed between them—not the stiff, Uncomfortable kind that makes people fidget, but the rare kind that feels like a deep breath. Like an exhale, you didn’t know you were holding.

Jonathan tilted his head slightly, studying them through his lashes the way he might frame a photo—catching angles, shadows, truth.

“We could do it outside school,” he offered, already bracing for a polite excuse. “There’s a creek near my house. Good light, if we’re doing photos. It’s quiet out there.”

Johnathan didn’t add that the quiet helped him think.

It helped him feel less like a piece of background noise and more like a person with a pulse. He didn’t say he liked working with his hands, or that nature made more sense than people. He didn’t say any of that.

Instead, he looked down, shifted his weight, and rubbed the strap of his bag where it cut into his shoulder. “Or... if you’d rather not, that’s fine too. I can just—”