A/N Hello, lovelies~ Sorry my chapters are short; I'm still figuring out how to add layers to a story. Anyways, enjoy~

Chapter Three

I wait in the library like Lucas told me to when in fact, I really don't want to. I don't know why I'm here. I yearn to be in my room, painting, but something is stopping me. Maybe it's this book I'm reading, All the Bright Places. The protagonist, Theodore Finch, reminds me of who I used to be: unstable and sassy. I want to reach into the book and grab Finch and make him stay with me and make me understand why I lost myself. But then again, I don't think he could help.

"I'm most afraid of myself," he says. I am too, Finch.

As I'm about to put the book back on the shelf, I notice Lucas sitting across from me, staring.

"Shit!" I shout-whisper from shock. "How long were you there?!"

Lucas chuckles as if I'm the weird one. "Ten to fifteen minutes. Honestly, I thought I'd have to wait thirty."

"Creep," I mutter.

"So you ready?" he asks.

I eye him warily. "Ready for what?"

"For discovery," he replies with his arms outstretched, embracing the possibilities I cannot see.

I sigh. "Can you at least tell me where we're going?"

"You'll see when we get there," he says with a smirk.

I sigh again.

No. Just no. Why here? Why here of all places to go? I wear a guarded expression and look at Lucas with a raised eyebrow.

"I figured we would have to start from the beginning," he says.

John Quincy Adams High School is most certainly the beginning of something, but how could he know that? We drifted apart during freshman year, so he—wait. Is that what he means? Start from the mystery of why Maya Hart suddenly ostracized Lucas Friar?

"Lucas…," I say.

He laughs, catching my implication. "Don't worry. What I mean is we're going back to the place where I first noticed your liveliness fade."

I furrow my eyebrows. He was watching me?

He moves forward, and I follow. He navigates his way through the familiar haunted hallways. I always sensed there were others like me here, lurking, waiting for another soul to add to their collection. Of course, it was just my imagination running wild, but it was a strangely comforting idea.

He leads me to the art room, and I wonder why he led me here. I still love art.

"What are you trying to do?" I ask him.

"I'm trying to help you remember."

"But I haven't forgotten."

"Are you sure about that?"

I gaze into his eyes and realize he knows that there's something hindering my ability to paint. He isn't quite sure what, but he knows there's something.

I clear my throat. "So then what's your plan?"

"Do you recall where you sit?"

I nod my head slowly and point to my seat in the corner, a place I got from intimidating the teacher and the student who sat there before me.

"Go on," he says, gesturing towards the desk.

I inch towards the forbidden seat and look at Lucas skeptically, who nods encouragingly. I plop ungracefully in the chair and say, "Now what?"

"Close your eyes," he replies, so I do. "Now go back in your memory."

"My memory of what?"

"Of why you began feeling disconnected to everyone and everything."

That's simple. I don't need to remember. I don't want to remember. I don't want to go back to day my dad got arrested, and my mom just stared at me like it was my fault. I don't want to go back to every fight I had with her since then, the yelling about nonsense simply because she couldn't handle realizing we'll never have my dad in our family. I don't want to go back to the day I came home to no one and nothing because my mom didn't even have the decency to explain her disappearance. I want none of it. I want none of this messed up person I've become, but I can't escape because I can't let go. I don't want to let go.

"Maya," Lucas says, jostling me away from my train of thought. He is frowning, and his eyes are worried.

"What?" I ask, voice cracking. I take an unsteady breath and realize I am shaking.

"You zoned out for five minutes there," Lucas replies, then shakes his head. "God, I'm sorry, Maya. I should have thought this through more. I didn't mean to put you through all of that."

His concern is touching, but I refuse to let it affect me. I cross my arms. "You totally meant to. Maybe not exactly like that, but you did."

He slightly pouts, and I hate how adorable he looks. "I'm sorry…"

I sigh. "Fine. Just make it up to me."

Lucas gives me a bewildered expression. "How?"

"Tell me a secret and not a little one. A big one."

He smirks, his eyes twinkling. "I thought you said we weren't friends, Shortstack. Don't friends tell each other secrets?"

I roll my eyes. "Stop avoiding this, Huckleberry." My eyes almost bulge out of my head from the nonchalant way I speak because I figured I would never say that name again, but I don't show it.

Lucas laughs. "Fine, fine. Well…," he says and fidgets. "I used to like you in middle school." He bites his lip, and though I appear not to react, inside my chest, my heart is racing. All I can think to say is "But Riley."

He sighs. "I was a confused fourteen-year-old, okay?" When he sees my shocked expression, he says, "Sorry, I didn't mean to sound so harsh. What I meant to say was that I was in an awkward phase where I had to be somebody to someone, and I was to Riley, if that makes sense."

I look down at my hands, chest constraining. "I understand," I mumble. "But I didn't know that was something that was just supposed to be just a phase."

"I guess it depends on the person," Lucas says, and when I look up, his smile says that it's going to be okay, but I don't really know why he feels the need to tell me that. I never asked for reassurance.

After a few moments of this silent staring, I smirk, recalling why we're here in the first place. "Hey, Ranger Rick?"

"Yes…?" he says, knowing that when I call him by his nickname, something bad comes after it.

"Your plan failed."

He sighs. "Yeah, I noticed." Then he grins. "But I'll figure something else out."

"When will that be? Our project is due in two months."

"Trust me, Maya. I got this."

Trust is a luxury I can't afford, Lucas.