Sheldon didn't want to go on a date with Sarah. He didn't want to go on a date Victoria. He didn't really want to go on a date with Rebecca. Even before his brother, Georgie, broke Rebecca's heart, Sheldon wouldn't have gone out with her. Really, Sheldon didn't want to go on a date with any of the girls him mama was trying to set him up with.

"I have a girlfriend," he blurted out when Mama was trying to talk him into the virtues of Sarah. Apparently she could make a great pecan pie. As if that was a completely reasonable foundation on which to base a relationship.

"A girlfriend? Who? Why didn't you say anything? You should bring her to dinner so we can meet her," his mother said.

Sheldon didn't know what to say. He didn't actually have a girlfriend. He wasn't his brother. Girls didn't interest him. Boys didn't interest him either, even if the football players did call him a mean name that implied that they did. No one interested him.

"Her name is Amy," Sheldon muttered. She was the only girl he could think of off the top of his head who wasn't his sister. She was recently assigned to be his lab partner, but he didn't know much about her. She was mostly quiet and let him work on the experiments. That was fine with him. At least she didn't get in the way.

"I'm not ready for her to come to dinner," Sheldon muttered.

"Amy? Amy who? Do I know her mama?"

"Her name is Amy Fowler. I doubt you know her parents. She just moved here," Sheldon explained. He hoped that his mother didn't ask any other questions because he had already told her everything he knew about her. Beyond this, he would need to start making things up, and he wasn't particularly good at that.

He breathed a sigh of relief when Mama dropped the subject. He knew this wasn't going to be the end of it, but at least it ended for now. If only he knew what he started by uttering those four words.

Sheldon's mother wasn't sure why she worried so much for her Sheldon. She just wanted him to be happy, and it seemed like he wasn't doing much to help himself. The other kids had friends and played on teams and joined clubs. They went on dates. Her Sheldon just stayed home all the time: reading, studying, playing video games. She had taken him to someone to see if he was depressed, but the doctor said he was just fine. He just had different interests from the other boys.

Mama still thought she should try to find her boy a nice girl to spend his time with. A girl with hometown roots who would keep him grounded even after he went off to go do whatever it was he dreamed of doing. At least it sounded like he was finally making friends. Still, Mama decided to mention this development to her daughter, Missy, so that she could see if she knew anything about this Amy.

"No, Mama. Amy? Are you sure he said Amy? I don't think there's even a girl named Amy in our whole class," Missy told her mother that night when Mama got Missy alone.

"It isn't like that boy to lie to me," Mama said.

"He would if he's trying to get you to stop setting him up with girls from church," Missy commented.

"Hmm," Mama said. She wondered if she was pushing Sheldon too hard if he was inventing girls. She decided to talk to him about it later. Maybe a different course would be needed. Shelly was a special boy after all.

Sheldon didn't know about his mother's change of heart, so he decided that he better get to know Amy better if he wanted to keep dropping information about the girl. He walked into the biology lab and took his seat next to Amy. She was reading a book, and he peeked over her shoulder to see what it was.

"Hamlet?" Sheldon asked.

"Yes," Amy said shortly. It was the first time Sheldon had ever spoken to her for a reason that wasn't him telling her what to do for whatever lab work they were doing. He thought he was so smart. Well, he clearly was, but she still hated him. He was so smug and she always clenched her fist as to not punch him whenever he spoke. He always cut her off when she tried to explain a biological principle. She stopped trying. It was only a couple more months until the end of the school year, and if she had any luck, her father would be transferred again and she would be off to her fifth high school before the start of her senior year.

"My favorite Shakespeare play is A Midsummer Night's Dream. I don't like the tragedies. Too woe is me," Sheldon commented.

"But A Midsummer Night's Dream?" Amy asked despite herself.

"It's whimsical. There are fairies. It's better than ghosts and suicide," Sheldon countered.

"It's all about love."

"I can like love. I don't want it myself, but it's funny to watch others try to traverse it," Sheldon countered.

"Fair enough," Amy admitted. That was actually pretty close to how she felt about it. She was only reading Hamlet again because she had a test on it and it had been a few years since she read it. She went back to reading her book. The conversation was clearly over. Or at least she wanted it to be.

"So, what's your favorite play? Is it Hamlet?" Sheldon asked. He hated having to ask all of these questions, but he still didn't know much about the girl sitting next to him. Instead he ended up tell her about him. He suddenly wished he had the slightest idea how to do small talk. It had never seemed valuable before this moment.

"I don't really like Shakespeare all that much," Amy admitted.

Sheldon was about to ask her to finally give him an answer when the bell rang and class started. He didn't have a chance to find out any more about the girl.

During their lab, Amy worked hard on their experiment just as he did, but they didn't speak about anything personal again. Sheldon looked at her write up. It was filled with tiny neat writing that was even more extensive than his own. How could she write so much about a something as boring as biology? He always assumed that she just jotted down whatever he told her to write. That's what everyone did in all of his classes. He knew that his classmates didn't like working with him, but they always knew he was right.

Amy left as soon as the bell rang without so much as a goodbye. Sheldon sighed because he didn't learn anything about Amy. If his mom pushed him for information, he wasn't going to have anything.

Sheldon planned to try again the next day. He was going to learn one thing about Amy Fowler and then he was going mention it to his mother. Then in a few weeks he was going to tell his mother than he had broken up with the girl and was far too heartbroken to date again for the rest of high school. It was brilliant plan to get him to college.

Though when he got home, his mother was waiting for him with a snack. Sheldon wanted to groan when he saw her there. She was probably waiting to ask him more about Amy. Sheldon tried to remember what he knew about her. She smelled like cherry blossoms. She had long, shiny brown hair. She wore glasses. She was kind. She didn't like Shakespeare. Maybe he could make something out of that.

"Missy told me the truth about Amy," Mama said as he sat down.

"What truth about Amy?" Sheldon wondered what his sister might know about his lab partner. She couldn't possibly know that she wasn't really Sheldon's girlfriend. Missy never knew anything about his life, and Amy just got to their school. Sheldon could just say that it was new.

"That there is no Amy. I just wanted to help you be happy. You didn't need to make up a girl."

"She's not strictly my girlfriend, but she is real. We talked about Shakespeare today," Sheldon offered. He couldn't believe that his sister said Amy wasn't real. Amy was a real head turner even if she was new. How had Missy never noticed her? Even if she wasn't Sheldon's lab partner, he was sure he would have noticed her. That long, brown hair would have gotten his attention from a hundred meters. Not that he thought she was that pretty or anything. At least that's what he told himself.

"You don't need to lie to me. I won't push the girl thing anymore," Mama promised.

"I appreciate that, but Amy is my friend. She's a real girl," Sheldon muttered. He didn't need to make the girl his girlfriend anymore, but now he wanted to prove to his mother than he wasn't making anyone up.

That meant that the next day, Sheldon was going to find something out about Amy Fowler to prove to his family that she was real. He might even actually try to do something he had never done before: make a friend.

When Sheldon walked into his biology class, Amy was sitting there reading. He realized that she always read before class started. He never saw her talking to anyone or doodling in her notebook. She only ever read. It wasn't Hamlet today.

"What are you reading?" Sheldon asked.

Amy didn't speak as she lifted the book to show him the cover of Mansfield Park. Then she set it back down and started to read again. She had no idea why Sheldon was talking to her again, and she really wished he would go back to ignoring her.

"Jane Austen?"

"Mm-hmm," Amy confirmed without actually saying anything. She hated when people tried to speak to her while she was reading. It was one of her few actual pleasures, and she took it where she could.

"So, you're an Austen girl?" Sheldon asked.

"What does that mean?" Amy asked as she finally looked up from her book.

"It's just that you were mocking me yesterday for enjoying A Midsummer Night's Dream, and you read Austen. Austen girls are always romantics," Sheldon pointed out.

"'Austen girls' as you say don't have to live up to any of your standards, Sheldon Cooper. And also, have you ever even read Mansfield Park? It's so much more than that. Fanny's story is one about class struggle and about finding one's place. It isn't just romance. I bet you haven't read any of Austen's work beyond Pride and Prejudice," she argued.

"I've never read Pride and Prejudice," he admitted.

"Then, who are you to judge anyone who enjoys it?" Amy snapped. She then started reading again as if to tell him to shut the hell up. The bell rang and class started.

Sheldon still didn't get any real information from her. He couldn't tell if she even actually liked the book she was reading. Maybe she didn't. She certainly seemed angry enough as to not indicate pleasure in the activity. Still, Sheldon decided to stop by the library on his way home. Maybe he would understand what she was talking about if he read the book.

On Sheldon's way home, he stopped by the library. He checked out both Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park. After he finished his homework, he started into Pride and Prejudice. He only finished half of it by midnight, but it was better than he anticipated.

When Sheldon got to biology class the next day, he didn't try to engage Amy in conversation, to which she was relieved. Instead he just pulled out the copy of Pride and Prejudice and started to read next to her.

"Are you making fun of me?" Amy asked. She didn't care if Sheldon thought she was a nerd. The friends in books were the only ones that really stayed with her while she moved from place to place. But who was he to judge her?

"How would I be making fun of you?" Sheldon asked. He never made fun of people, and when he attempted, it was never subtle. His jokes always ended with a "gotcha" or a "just foolin'." He wasn't sure how sitting next to her reading the book she recommended was even close to making fun.

"You are reading Jane Austen," Amy pointed out.

"Yes. You told me I should read it because I did not understand. I have to say that it's actually pretty good," he admitted with a little grin.

"It is," Amy told him with a smile. It was the first time she smiled at him, and Sheldon noticed that she had nice teeth. She was very pretty, and again, he wondered why she wasn't friends with all of the popular girls.

He was about to ask her about it when he started sneezing. This old library book must be full of dust.

Amy moved her chair over by a couple feet and didn't speak to him again. In all honesty, Sheldon didn't blame her. He would have done the same thing.