I met her on a Thursday. It was a half-day at school for parent-teacher conferences. It was my Sophomore year. Right at the start. September 12th, I think. I never liked highschool. I got through Freshman year fine, got decent grades and only had one nervous breakdown. The older kids weren't the best to us, but it wasn't unbearable. I was glad it was over. I wasn't looking forward to being back in school, though.

I was in Honors English class. I didn't want to be, but I got an A- in it in 9th grade. The teachers literally didn't let me go into the regular class. It didn't bother me much, it was just that the teacher was awful. Mean. Inconsiderate and unfair, in both grading and personality. The class was unenjoyable and consisted of mostly doing projects, extremely difficult tests, pop quizzes and oral presentations. I didn't speak a word in that room unless it was required for a grade.

I had no friends in general, therefore I had no friends in the class.

It wasn't sad. I was used to it. Since I didn't know anything else, I didn't miss anything. Or anyone.

It wasn't necessarily that nobody wanted to be my friend. People had tried before. Mostly in middle school. I just rejected it. Politely. I wasn't very social. I worked very hard in school and when I was at home, I mainly slept. Because I didn't want to be in reality for longer than necessary. I only had my dad, my parents got divorced in 7th grade. He didn't care that I didn't spend time with him.

My teacher assigned us another project. You were supposed to pick a partner. I never knew who to pick so I just waited until I was the last person available and got stuck with one of my peers, who never hid how aggrieved they were to be paired with me.

But this time, instead of waiting until I was the last option for some unlucky teenager, someone walked up to me.

I recognized her. I didn't go to middle school with her though. She must have shown up in Freshman year at some point. She looked popular. Why was she coming towards me? Was she going up to one of her friends over my shoulder? I briefly turned to look but didn't see anyone. When my eyes went back to her, she smiled brightly, teeth so perfectly white and straight it was almost unreal.

"Hi," She spoke to me when she stood directly in front of my desk. She gently placed her petite, dainty hands on the desk's surface and leaned slightly forward, looking right at me. Her dazzling smile hadn't faded.

"Uh, hi." I didn't know how to react to this. It took most of my effort just to keep my eyes on her and not be looking around the room awkwardly instead.

"Do you have a partner?" She asked innocently.

I paused for a second. Was she serious? This had never happened before. I was very taken aback but I tried not to let it show too much.

"Um... no."

"Can I work with you?"

Why not? I thought to myself. "Sure." I wasn't social. This was both confusing and intimidating to me. I watched her as she took an empty chair nearby and dragged it to sit opposite me at my desk.

"Uh..." When at first I found it hard to look at her eyes directly, now I couldn't look away. I hoped she didn't think it was weird, but she seemed to be experiencing the same thing, "...I'm Beca."

It took her a few seconds to respond as well, and she blinked a few times as if returning to reality before she did so, "I know."

I expected her to introduce herself. I waited a few seconds to see if she would, but she just continued to stare at me. It felt like she was boring holes into my face. Then again I couldn't seem to turn my gaze from her either. She had blue eyes. Normally I thought those were pretty enough on their own, but hers were practically electric.

I let a very small smile come to my face, "What's your name?"

Another pause, "Oh!" She seemed slightly embarrassed that she hadn't told me hers and a light blush came to her cheeks, "Chloe."

For a good minute or so we just sat there, our eye contact not breaking once, before the teacher came over and asked us what we planned on doing for the project. Chloe came up with some lie about it on the spot. When Mrs. Miller left, we actually did start working. It was project on books we read over the summer, or a book that we both had read at some point. We spent the rest of class trying to find a book we had both read, and we couldn't.

The project was due a week from then. But we wouldn't have any class time to work on it. Chloe suggested that I go over to her house that night. I was still slightly intimidated but I said I would. I just wondered a little too late if that had been a bad idea.

Chloe neglected to tell me that her parents were never home after school, not until 6:30. So when I showed up there, she was the only one at her house. All of the anxiety I faced dreading being awkwardly introduced was for nothing.

We sat on her bedroom floor, our english books spread out around us, sitting cross-legged across one another. Again, we were doing that thing where we just stared at one another and it seemed like we couldn't look away. It was so strange that I didn't find it awkward. Normally I hated any type of eye contact and I avoided it at all costs.

Finally, we actually started working. We still had yet to even find a book we had both read at some point. She started spouting off random titles.

"Looking for Alaska, all of the Harry Potter books, the Hunger Games, The Fault In Our Stars, Oliver Twist," She had been staring off into space while she told me this, as if reading some invisible list. She paused after that and looked at me again, a smile spreading across her face before she added, "Fifty Shades of Grey, obviously."

I let myself laugh a little at that, finding my chest become oddly lighter at the sound of her giggling at her own humor. It was such a joyous sound. I had never replayed the sound of someone's laughter in my head before. My smile faded slightly. We stared at each other again.

"What about you?" She asked me after a few long seconds.

The way that she looked at me made me nervous and happy all at once. I hadn't felt genuinely happy in such a long time, and it took being with her to realize that. I had known Chloe for less than a day and I already felt like it had been much, much longer than that.

Instead of responding to her question, I asked her one that had been bothering me for hours, "How did you know my name?"

She raised an eyebrow at me, looking confused, "Huh?"

"When I told you my name, you said you knew it already." I tilted my head slightly at her, eyes narrowing, "How did you know it?"

"Oh," Though she looked very nonchalant her tone sounded slightly forced, "I just asked about you a while back."

I could tell that she was playing it off as less than it was, "Who did you ask?"

She had looked away from me for a moment, probably for the second time in an hour or so, but she looked back at me at the question, "Uh, Aubrey."

I knew who that was. She was popular. She wouldn't know my name. That seemed like a lie. But I could see how tense she was and I decided I would let this go. If it was important it might come up again later.

"Okay," I muttered under my breath. I saw her shoulders sag as if she had let out an exhale she had been holding in for a while.

"Books?" She asked, reminding me.

"Right, um... Bloomability, - terrible - Touching Spirit Bear, - awful - Hatchet, - boring -" I analyzed her expression for a second, noting that she looked pretty amused. A smirk was slowly spreading across her face. When I smiled she started laughing, again, a sound that seemed to be embedded into my brain and made my smile more genuine, "-in case you couldn't tell, these were all school assigned books. I never would have read them on my own."

"Really?" She asked, laughter dying down, "But it seems like you liked them so much!" I rolled my eyes at her sarcasm.

"I'm a good actress."

She stopped laughing but she didn't stop smiling, and we hadn't taken our eyes off one another, "Wait, so you really didn't like any books assigned to you for school?" She tucked some of her long amazingly red hair behind her ear before taking a strand of it onto one of her fingers and absentmindedly twirling it, the entire time not even glancing away from me for a single second.

"Well, I liked one that we read at the very end of eighth grade. My class wasn't smart enough to understand it but I asked if I could bring it home and I stole it from the school to read it over the summer."

She gasped theatrically, "Beca, you little thief!" Chloe playfully scolded me, making me smile again. She made me smile so easily. Nobody had ever been able to do that before, "What was it called?"

I thought for a second, "I think it was The River King. Or something like that."

She smiled ear-to-ear, her face lighting up and her eyes sparkling, "I read that!"

I hadn't expected that, it wasn't a well-known book. But I wasn't complaining, I liked it. "Really?"

"Yeah! I read that last summer!"

"So, are we doing our project on that then?"

"Well we haven't found any other books we both read, have we?"

"Nope."

We started working. We both had to write a pretty lengthy paper, and then make a display too. Then present that display to the class. Oh joy. Even though we were genuinely trying to work, we kept getting distracted and ended up just talking about completely unrelated topics until 6:15, when she told me that I had to go because her parents were coming home, I was a little confused at why I was so hesitant to leave.

She walked me politely to her front door and even opened it for me. I stepped outside and stood for a second on her porch, looking at her. She was smiling weakly. I returned it with a half-hearted grin before turning to walk home-

-when her voice stopped me, "I like it, by the way."

I spun around, eyes finding hers automatically, "Like what?"

"Your name."

Hope you guys like this :) Chapters are gonna vary a lot in length and stuff but I really like this story, I have a bunch of it already typed up. And I could honestly just write about these two for like years on end and never get tired of it. Seriously I think I have a problem.