A/N: This chapter is similar to episode seven of 10TIHAY in content, but everything from here on out is different. Unless I unwittingly can read the minds of the show writers ;)

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Teenagers, Kat had learned, were highly adaptive chameleons – they had mastered the art of doing whatever their friends were doing, and moving between fads quicker than new fads could be found. The most recent fad was a series of books, one that Kat had gotten all the way through three pages of before declaring it as a pathetic lost cause. The name of the series? "Twilight," a fictional saga about a masochistic lion and a stupid lamb that just couldn't help but fall in love.

How romantic.

After her disastrous first encounter with the book (or the first three pages, anyway), she had vowed never to pick it up again, never even think about it lest it …contaminate her mind. Or something.

But Kat found herself thinking of the series at lunch one day, as Mandela warned her for the hundredth time (probably an understatement by now) of the dangers of interacting with Patrick Verona – even looking at him seemed to warrant a direct pass to his collection of skulls.

Kat could picture the back cover of Twilight rewritten, 'Patrick Verona'–style:

There were three things I knew for sure about Patrick Verona:

He was a mass murderer, one whose weapon of choice seemed to be a combination of terror and his bare hands.

His mother was a drug smuggler, who had taught him the art of keeping things hidden, which he had employed nicely by building his own collection of his victim's fingernails. (Their bodies, of course, would be too conspicuous, as Mandela had told me.)

His next victim was none other than I, Kat Stratford, all because we'd exchanged some petty words and I'd kicked some trash on him.

"Kat!" Mandela called out, snapping her back to reality, "Are you even listening to me? I'm trying to protect you here!"

"Thanks, Mandela, but I think I'll be alright. I don't think a mass murderer," she said, putting fake emphasis on the words, "would be too concerned about getting a little trash on him!"

"No, I'm serious!" she sighed, as if the fact that Kat didn't think that Patrick was out to get her was a terrible tragedy and she would be murdered in her sleep the next night.

"Mandela, I already told you this, he's just trying to get girls by being all 'mysterious'. And," she continued, as Patrick came into view with a giggling blonde behind him, "it looks like it's working."

Kat couldn't help but feel a twinge of annoyance. How, she wondered, were females supposed to be taken seriously as an equal sex if they lowered themselves to such groveling – the blonde shot Patrick a slavish, disgusting look – insecure, -- Patrick slung his arm around her and she giggled again – desperate standards?!

"Kat? Are you…okay? You're crushing your milk carton."

"Sorry," she said, coming out of her angry reverie, "Just contemplating the unreasonable, completely futile and unworthy aspects of life."

Mandela nodded slowly. "Uh…huh."

***

"I need to talk to you," said an all too familiar voice from behind her while she fished in her locker for her chemistry book. She recognized the deep drawl instantly, and mentally winced.

"Shame," she said, in what she hoped was an 'I'm-so-bored-with-your-antics' voice, "I was having such a good day too."

He smirked. "Well this should make it even better."

She grabbed her book and closed her locker, walking away from Patrick, even though, okay, she felt a tiny twinge of curiosity. She pushed it away. "Don't count on it."

He grabbed her wrist. "Wait."

Momentarily shocked, she didn't even try to pull her arm away. She felt a spasm of heat, something not primarily accounted for by his hand.

Don't be stupid, she thought, it's just Mandela's horror stories getting to me…

She tried not to think of the other reason she'd be feeling unexpectedly hot when Patrick Verona – of all people – touched her on the wrist.

Back to her senses, she pulled her wrist away. "I'm late."

Still, she lingered for a moment, not walking away, not quite sure what she was waiting for –

"I think I may have phrased something wrong."

She cocked an eyebrow. "Patrick Verona, master of eloquence, phrasing something wrong? God forbid!"

"Don't be so mean," he said smirking, "Just because you're obsessed with me."

She tutted. "Careful. Wishful thinking never gets you anywhere. Now what was that you said you needed to talk to me about?"

"When I said I needed to talk to you…" he smirked, talking slowly, "I meant I needed to do something."

His words were like a trigger – immediately she became aware of the small, easily-bridged distance between them. Of the tiny hints he'd been dropping and she'd been trying to ignore. Of the things she'd been trying to ignore, like the tiny heat when he'd touched her wrist.

And then it was gone, the space between them bridged as he leaned in and kissed her slowly, tantalizingly.

Her mind whirled. We are in a school hallway – someone could see us! What am I doing – what is he doing?! Oh jeez.

But even as her mind went through a list of all the reason this was so, so wrong, she felt all resistance begin to leave her.

When they broke apart, she was stunned, but masked it. "And look," she said, "You didn't even murder me!"

"I can get my scalpel, if you'd like."

She laughed.

"You see," he said, "I've finally figured it out. Why you're different. It's because with you," he said smiling, and she felt herself begin to too, "we can just do stuff. There are no obligations, no…requirements."

She froze, the reasons why everything was wrong and why she could never, ever trust Patrick Verona filtering back in.

"So basically," she said, evenly, still smiling at him, pretending everything was okay and she could just use her like another one of his other fan girls, "You get to, ahem 'do stuff' with me, just for fun. And no 'obligations'."

She could feel herself starting to get emotional now, and she couldn't believe how stupid she'd been for trusting him, for letting him in like that, for believing for one second that he actually cared about her.

He quickly saw that something was wrong and spoke, sounding upset. "Kat--"

Yeah well, thought Kat, I'm never falling for that again.

"Well get something straight, Patrick," she said, furious to the point where she couldn't think, "I'm not going to be another one of your desperate, mindless little girls that you can just toss around. You should've known that."

She turned away from him and begin walking – she wasn't quite sure where, but she could figure that out after she was one hundred feet away from him and the anger abided enough for her to think straight again.

"Wait," he called, "Kat, that's not--"

She turned around, giving him one last defiant stare and cutting him off. "Save it. I don't want to hear it."

And she walked away, trying to ignore the fact that the reason why she didn't want to hear it was because she was scared that she'd believe him.