Nevah. That was her name. It meant pretty, beautiful, pleasant. It meant she was a combination of these traits, ones that should have made her stand out, be unique, be accepted. Yet, she wasn't. She was simply a girl made of smoke & shadows, hidden as she walked through the halls of the home of all teenagers.

His name was built on the success of a man so long ago. It a noose around him. The pressure, was more than he could take as each day he walked towards the ending he loathed; the life of repetition, boredom and monotony.

Yet, she knew that there was nothing to change. This hidden girl that she had somehow become through the nineteen years on this planet, was who she was. It was too late to be someone else, someone better. So she walked through the halls with a book in one hand and a backpack over her shoulder.

And he knew that this unyielding pressure would never stop. So he too, lifted his shoulders like the man he was named for and strolled on like there was nothing to it. Pretended like he just did not want to fade away into the universe and become nothing more than a speck on the wall. No fate. No destiny. No planned future. Just pure happiness.

A dead look in her eyes and a vanishing smile on her face, she grasped the door knob of the old wooden door & pushed inwards. One step after the other, all she could hear was the deafening noise of the heels clinking on the floor. Yet that groundbreaking sound to her was nothing to the clusters of students around the room. Talking and moving and ignoring her as she slid her way to a seat in the shadows.

Yet, that was never in the cards for him. So as the students parted left and right to make a path for him, he continued walking till he reached that old wooden door of the dreaded classroom filled with students. Within the second, the clambering of students shouting his name, moving around their seats hoping to get to know him, or more likely, use him. Yet, there was a girl who didn't. The mystery girl from the halls, sitting in the back of the room, her head shoved in a book. And so he took a step toward her and watched as the hordes of student froze, but she didn't even look up.

She noticed the noise had stopped.

He continued walking toward her, his head cocking to the side when she continued to not acknowledge him. Taking a seat to the right of the beautiful stranger, he held out his right hand. "Atticus."

She lifted her head, her frozen eyes zoning onto the handsome strangers face. She raised an eyebrow, wondering why he would even bother to introduce himself. Yet, there was something about this mystery boy who saw through her shadows that intrigued her. And when she saw the faint smile emerge on his lips as she whispered her name to him, she decided that there was most definite something special about this boy.

He thought of her name in her mind. A mantra repeating in his head, reminding him to not forget her. Nevah. Nevah. Nevah.

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a/n: thanks for reading!