Hey guys! Aiming for five thousand words per chapter. :D Let's see if I can do it. Now, this being the first chapter, and what made you all fall in love with the story, I don't think there's going to be much change. But… well. We'll see! If I don't make it to five thousand, I won't throw a fit. X3 it's just a "simple" goal.

Original count: 882

Revamped count: I don't know. :P Let's see at the end of the chapter, why don't we? x3

...

"Maya," groaned a teenage girl to the honey blonde teenager next to her. Her heart shaped showed her clear exasperation, though her chocolate, almond shaped eyes shone with the thrill she clearly felt as she sneaked around with her best friend. Her brown hair was tucked behind her ears, though some still fell into her face as she crouched behind the main school wall. Her thighs were starting to cramp up from holding her in that position for so long, and she shifted, stretching out her right leg in front of her as she balanced herself with her fingertips. "What are you doing?"

"What I always do, Riley." The blonde, Maya, responded, peering her head over the sill of the classroom window, enough so that her blue eyes could see above the wall and into the class she so wished to peer into.

A man was wandering around the classroom, cleaning up after the long day of school. He had brown hair and brown eyes, much like the girl next to Maya, and he happened to be the brown haired girls' father, and, semi-coincidentally, he was also their teacher. He was currently cleaning up his desk, preparing to leave school for the rest of the day and unaware of the two girls outside his classroom window.

"If this is about that test," Riley said as Maya tapped on the window, "why didn't you stay after class like he told you to and finish up?"

"Because this is way more exciting," Maya responded with a grin. "Don't you agree, Ri? It's way more fun to sneak around than do as you're told."

"Yeah, but-"

Riley was cut off when her father and teacher suddenly opened the window they were crouched underneath. The brown haired teen looked up, her almond shaped eyes wide, but still crinkled in their perpetual smile. Maya looked up as well, and she gave Mister Matthews a wide smile.

"Girls," their teacher mumbled lowly, and Maya realized probably because there was someone in the class taking the very test she was there to take. She tried to peer around Cory Matthews to see who exactly it was taking the test, but her history teacher blocked her view, though not intentionally. "Just what do you think you are doing outside, at the end of school? And at my classroom window, at that!"

Riley opened her mouth to speak but Maya quickly spoke before her friend could. "I want to retake the test, sir," she told Cory, only to frown when she saw her teacher was distracted. He was looking at his daughter, Riley Matthews, who was staring into his classroom, somehow able to see around their history teacher. She was smiling stupidly at whoever was in there, and Maya couldn't help but to scoff.

Oh great, the honey blonde teen thought, rolling her eyes. She must've found Lucas. Nobody else could make Riley Matthews forget about everything going on around her like the teen from Texas could, with his blonde-brown hair that seemed to fall perfectly, his kind green eyes that crinkled around the corners whenever he smiled…

Focus, Maya, the teen scolded herself. She turned her attention back to her teacher.

Cory was frowning as he watched his daughter stare at the boy in his class. He moved so that he was blocking Lucas from his daughter's sight, ignoring her whine of complaint at the more than obvious protective fatherly gesture. "And what made you suddenly decide you want to retake a test, Maya?" He asked, letting the question hang in the air for a short while before continuing. "My test, of all tests, at that." Cory leaned against the window sill. He looked over at his daughter once more, who was shuffling her feet in the grass, not knowing what else to do with herself at that moment since she could no longer stare at Lucas. "Go home, Riley. I think it is best that Maya and I were left alone while we talked."

Riley looked up at that, head snapping up as she let out a groan. "But daddy...!"

"No buts Riley," Cory said sternly, stretching an arm out the window and flicking a fallen leaf off of his daughter's shoulder. He then used his outstretched arm to point down the wall of the building, to the sidewalk and main street. "Go home now, or you are grounded."

With an exasperated grunt, Riley flung her bag over her shoulder and started to walk away, only to stop short a few feet away from where Maya was standing, still at the window talking to their teacher. She looked worried as she stared at her best friend, almond shaped brown eyes wide, eyelashes casting a slight shadow across them. "Pick me up tomorrow?" She asked Maya

"You bet I will." Maya replied with a smile, trying not to make it obvious she was forcing it. Riley let out a sigh of relief, clearly not noticing that Maya's smile had been forced, other things on her mind as she disappeared around the corner of the building and headed to the subway, which was her mode of transportation home.

"Maya..." Cory said slowly, drawing back the attention of the teen. Maya gave him a strange, confused look and he quickly closed the window so that the blonde girl couldn't climb through it.

"You give me too much work, sir." Maya grumbled, taking the hint and moving away from the closed window, grumbling all the while about how much work Cory Matthews gave her.

°•°•°•°

"So, Maya," Cory started when Maya entered his classroom, and through the door, much to his pleasure. "Why do you really want to be in my class after hours? I mean, you passed the test with flying colors, and I must say, Maya, I am quite impressed with this accomplishment of yours."

Maya turned slightly red at the compliment, and she cast a sideways glance at Lucas, who was working hard on the test now that Riley was gone, free of distractions. "I don't want to go back home, Mister Matthews." she told Cory. It felt weird calling him "Mister Matthews". Usually the teen had some sassy, creative nickname for her best friend's father, but today she just wasn't all that into it. "My father came home yesterday, and ever since he walked through the door, he and my mother have been fighting non-stop. I want to stay away from home as long as possible."

Cory let out a small sigh. "Maya, avoiding problems isn't going to solve anything," he told her, tone slightly scolding, but Maya didn't think much of it, choosing to ignore the scold instead. 'You have to go home at some point in time. But," he quickly added when he saw Maya's saddened expression. "In the meantime, you may stay here in my class. At least until five." Cory looked up at the clock. "You have three hours, and then I am going home." He looked over at Lucas, who was still working hard on the test. "You heard that, right Lucas?"

Lucas looked up from his test momentarily and nodded in affirmation. "Yes sir," he replied, nodding shortly once more. "Three hours."

Cory nodded in satisfaction. "Good." He looked over at Maya, who was staring at Lucas, trying to figure out why he was there. Normally the Texas boy passed his tests, just as Maya had just recently done. She wondered if, somehow, he hadn't studied enough for the test, or if something was going on at his home as well. "Why don't you go on now and take a seat, Maya?" Cory asked her, interrupting her quizzical thoughts about Lucas. "Don't want you having to stand the whole three hours, now do we?"

Maya shook her head, unable to help but to chuckle. "No, I definitely don't want to do that. Thank you, Cory," she told him before taking a seat next to Lucas. She swung her feet up and placed them heavily on the desk in front of her, creating a loud thud that bounced off the walls of the room and dust to poof up from some dried mud that was caked onto her boots from the wet dirt outside, causing flakes of the dried mud fall onto the desk as well. Cory sent her a contempt look, which the honey blonde teen chose strictly to ignore as she reached underneath the desk and pulled out her journal and started to write.

After a few minutes of writing gibberish, she tore out the page and threw it at Cory Matthews, who was sifting through some papers at his desk, now, scanning the tops for names and organizing them. He looked up when the crumpled piece of paper landed on his desk, and he frowned, shaking his head at the girl.

Maya sent him a sweet smile before she looked back down at her paper and started to sketch out a crude drawing that she would fix once she was done sketching it out, all the while thinking of how she was going to get out of her most recent mess without Riley finding out about the troubles she was having at home. She didn't want to worry her best friend, even if that's what they did best, worrying the other and helping them either get into trouble or get out of it. It was a personal thing, and she didn't want it to affect her friend in any way.

Maya sighed and erased a line in her drawing, redrawing it so that it looked neater than before. Why is the nose always so hard? She thought as she steadied her hand and fixed the line. The teen looked up at the clock, squinting her blue eyes slightly to read the red numbers displayed on the front. Four fifty-five. Five more minutes until Cory left and she had to go home. Sighing, Maya looked down at her journal, prepared to put it away, but stopped short as she saw exactly what… no, no, no. She stopped short when she saw exactly who she had been drawing.

Oh no. She thought, and it was an "oh no" indeed.

On her paper was a drawing of Lucas. An unfinished, unrefined sketch of him and his features, but a drawing nonetheless, clear and distinctive. It was also clear that she had been drawing him as he was now, sitting at a desk and slightly hunched over, hovering above his test and a look of hard concentration on his face as he finished it up. A few strands of his hair were falling into his face, covering one of his green eyes, and a hand was up, captured in the motion of brushing those strands out of his face. The drawing was only of his upper half, but the amount of detail put into it was uncanny, unnerving for the honey blonde girl, especially when she saw what emotion she had drawn in Lucas' sketched green eyes.

Desire.

O-oo-ooh n-oo-oo... Maya thought, shaking her head slightly to and fro, trying to deny the truth of what was happening, of why she would draw such a thing. This can't be real, she thought desperately, scanning the drawing with her clear blue eyes, now shadowed with poorly masked horror and fear, looking for any sign, any dead indication that the boy in her drawing was not Lucas Friar, the boy sitting next to her and her best friends obvious crush. But she found nothing that said otherwise. Her drawing was quite obviously Lucas Friar, and there was nothing in the drawing she had done that screamed otherwise.

Startled into action by the ringing of the school bell, Maya tore out the page and ripped it to shreds, dumping the pieces in her pocket so that she could burn them later at home. She jumped as Cory dropped his book on his desk after the bell finished ringing, though it kept ringing in Maya's ears, both the bell and the book thudding down.

"Time's up!" Cory Matthews called, motioning to Lucas. "Bring up your test," he told him. Lucas did as he was instructed to do and got up, though he didn't pick up the test yet. He swung his backpack over his shoulder, first, and pushed in his chair as Maya hastily scooped up the pieces of her shredded drawing of Lucas Friar and dumped them into her pocket. The teen from Texas sent Maya a smile as he walked over to the front of the classroom, unbeknownst of the other teens panic ridden fear as he handed his test to their history teacher.

"I'll come back tomorrow again to finish it up, sir," Lucas told their teacher. "I got stuck on a problem and left it after a while, and I didn't get a chance to go back and fix it."

Cory looked at the test. He stared at it for a short while before slowly nodding. "Very well then," he told Lucas. He set the test down on top of a pile of upgraded and incomplete papers. "I'll see the two of you tomorrow in class."

"You bet you will." Maya grunted, trying to play it cool as she got up. Lucas reached the door before her and he flashed her yet another smile. Maya felt her heart melt at the sight of the smile, and she quickly mentally scolded herself for it, but it didn't do much to stop the colony of butterflies that had suddenly migrated to the pit of her stomach.

"See you tomorrow, Maya," Lucas said before exiting the classroom, still unaware of the teens reaction to him.

Oh no, Maya thought once more. Oh freaking no. For once she was glad that boys were so dense as to not realize the effect they had on the girls that liked them, because Maya was more than certain that she probably looked sick with her sudden, undesired feelings for the Texas boy.

Turning to Cory, Maya muttered a simple "see you tomorrow" before exiting his classroom for the final time that day, darting out of there and into the hall, where she sprinted down the corridor and out of the high school, not stopping till she reached the subway home.

°•°•°•°

Maya laid in her bed at home, fingering the torn scraps of her drawing of Lucas. They were still in her pocket, not yet burned. Maya didn't think she had any intention of actually burning them. Instead, she wanted to put them back together, fix the drawing that she had done of an unaware Lucas. She had a strange desire to hang it up in her room, much to her disgust.

God, she thought, I'm turning into another Riley.

But it was true, her feelings. She didn't know where they had come from, either. One moment she was watching Riley as she chased after Lucas, sticking out her tongue and doing tricks whenever he so pleased, and the next she, too, was falling head-over-heels for the blonde-brown Texas boy.

Growing exasperated with messing with the shreds of her drawing, Maya got up and went out to the dining room, her sketchpad in hand. She ignored her mom when she asked if she was hungry, and she sat down at the table, pulling out the scraps of shredded paper and beginning to line them up, fitting them together like a puzzle, a puzzle she so desperately wanted to solve.

What if Riley ever found out…? She thought as she found and situated the corners of the paper in their respective spots. Would she be mad? Sad? Jealous? Would she become my rival? The last thought set Maya on edge. What would happen if she and Riley became rivals, and over a boy, at that? It would ruin their friendship. They'd drift apart. But Maya couldn't help her feelings for Lucas anymore than Riley could. She wanted him to be hers, and hers alone. She'd do whatever it took to get him to be hers.

No, Maya! She silently screamed at herself. No! That can't be how it is. They already have a small thing going on. You can't ruin it.

But what if I add in another factor? Another side of her voice suddenly and rudely interrupted the semi-angelic side of her. What if I add an obstacle, a distraction that would get Lucas to be mine?

The honey blonde teen bit her lower lip at the thought, forcing it down. You'll just have to see how things play out, Maya, she told herself, though, strangely, it was in the voice of Cory Matthews. She was confused on that, slightly, but didn't dwell on the thought, figuring that it was because she saw him as a wise old man who was now giving her the wise words an old man would give. Just sort out your feelings, Maya, and then tell your friends the conclusion you had come to once you get to it.

'Yeah," she mumbled to herself, putting the last piece of her drawing in place. "Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." She picked up her pencil and glanced at the drawing really quick before she started to draw it once more in her sketchpad. "I'll just figure out if what I feel is real, and then tell them about it if it is. And if it isn't, then, oh well."

But Maya, her inner voice spoke up, on a mission to refute her words still. What if it isn't that simple? What if you find out you love him, and it angers Riley?

Maya froze at the silent word.

Love.

What if she did love Lucas Friar? What then? What would happen?

Oh no, she thought once more, heart sinking. This is bad. This is all very, very bad. Biting her lip again, Maya shook her head to clear it, and allowed herself to get lost in her drawing, her thoughts going silent as she redrew Lucas Friar.

…

Oh, so close! 3,100 words! But that's a big difference from the previous word count!

Yes, I am going to leave the old version of this up. I'm not going to take it down, just in case people liked the shorter, simpler version of this more. Yes, I will continue writing BOTH stories, but the other, unimproved one will only be brought back up once I catch up to where it left off in this version. Does that make sense?

Anyways. Hope you enjoyed! Until next chapter! Leave any questions in the reviews, and, please, do review! I love reading and responding to the reviews! :D

Ty