Once upon a time, a misunderstood girl met a lonely boy. They held similar values, kind and intelligent both, and wanted little more than a good friend.

Neither realized the similarities.

As time went on, the girl was always a little drawn toward the boy. He was quiet but seemed kind and interesting, and something was magnetically tragic-feeling about him. The boy saw the girl here and there as well but felt she was out of reach.

Fast forward a few years; boy and girl both had fallen into quite deep abysses in their thoughts. The sun seemed rather out of reach for each, although they saw the situation a little differently from the other. The boy was used to his only friends being the shadows dancing on the walls of his mind. The girl knew that her God could and would reach down His hand to save her when it was time.

Then, one fateful morning, boy and girl were in a room with nearly a crowd of others. Everyone else was speaking, yet the room was silently empty to both of them. The girl's eyes fell on the mysterious boy she'd always wanted to know. The boy shifted his feet and wished he hadn't agreed to this trip. The girl, heart aflutter, stepped forward to meet him, and she spoke perhaps the first words they'd exchanged in two years.

"Hullo, there!" Sounding falsely confident and cheerful, she smiled brightly at him, desperately hoping, wishing, praying, pleading to God that this wouldn't fail into miserable awkwardness.

Surprised that someone was addressing him, he slowly turned to the girl. Swallowing, he said, "Um, hi."

Not wanting to be uncomfortable, or make him more uncomfortable, the girl nodded and let them lapse into silence, but neither moved away. Occasionally, she'd force some bit of faux-lighthearted small talk, and the boy would reply, unused to talking to random peers.

Eventually, they all piled onto the bus and lost one another in the crowd. Once at their destination, though, she forced conversation again. At some point, it flowed semi-easily, and the out-of-his-comfort-zone boy grew more at ease with the girl.

And even though the dialogue was awkward, even forced at times, both boy and girl stuck it out because they recognized one thing: they might have finally found a comfort in the darkness.