Damn! Okay so stupidly, it completely wiped my mind that I already uploaded this story a month ago which is so stupid because I literally responded to a review in June lol but for some reason I forgot, and I thought it'd just been sitting in my idea notebook untouched until StarsAndSparkles reminded me that it has been a month since I last updated! Apologies loves!

Thank you for the reviews! I truly appreciate it! :)

Disclaimer: I don't own GMW or A Walk To Remember.


The bell signifying the end of yet another day of long, unnecessary classes rang throughout the school, and Lucas stood up with a groan, stretching his tired limbs as their teacher dismissed them. He gathered his books and trudged out of the class to his locker, his mood sour because of where he knew he would have to go.

As he put in his combination to his locker, Billy sauntered over, tossing his keys up and down in his hand.

"Hey. You free right now?"

Lucas rolled his eyes in annoyance, grabbing his bag after stuffing it with his books and shutting his locker. "No. I have to meet the janitor behind the school."

"So I take it you can't come over and hang out?" Billy asked.

"Maybe after." Lucas said. It sure beat heading home to an angry mother just waiting for him to arrive so she could berate the shit out of him until his ears fell off. "Definitely after."

"Great, because Missy told me that Samantha told her that Jennifer wants to bang you. We need to talk about this."

That's what her name was. Not Jessica.

Lucas snorted and gave him a dry look. "You sound like a gossiping girl."

Billy shrugged, though he had a smirk on his lips, "Consequence of dating a chatterbox, I guess."

"Mr. Friar." Hearst called out as he walked down the hall to head to the teacher's lounge. "Don't you have somewhere to be? Get going."

"I'll see you later?" Billy asked sympathetically.

"Yeah."

Lucas slung his bag over his shoulder and walked towards the back of the school through the crowds of chattering students, excited that another taxing Monday of school had finally been finished. He honestly hoped that this wall cleaning could go by quickly. His mood was already soured from the lunchtime incident. He knew any other annoyances could honestly set him over the edge.

Thankfully, people in the halls seemed to pick up on his heightened anger and steered clear of his path, moving away so they didn't incur his wrath.

He stormed out the back doors leading to behind the school and made his way over to the gym wall.

~.~.~

"It's a very nice penis." Janitor Harley said appreciatively, rubbing his chin pensively. "Very lifelike. You know, whoever drew this should consider taking up art instead of vandalizing walls…"

Lucas kept silent as he scrubbed at an F word written in orange, unsure if Harley was cracking a joke or not. It looked like a cartoon banana with a smiley face and two volleyballs on each side of it, but it was hard to tell whether the older man was being funny.

Harley nudged Lucas, chuckling under his breath. "Relax kid. You're not the first to graffiti a wall, you know? Happens at least twice a week."

"Oh." Lucas stooped to get more soapy water on his sponge before he stood up to continue scrubbing at the paint stains.

Harley eyed him for a second, "You know if you don't have some fun with this, you'll end up miserable before your hour is up."

Lucas sighed and turned to him. "What do you want me to do? Smile and laugh like I'm having the time of my life? Because you and I both know that would be nothing but bullshit."

Harley nodded with a smirk. "Hmm. I see your point, kid. So I suppose you should just stand here in silence, cleaning until your fingers are raw from the solution and you want to dunk your head in a toilet full of shit."

Lucas rolled his eyes and cleaned off the last of the F, passing the sponge over the wall one more time to make sure the wipe marks and any leftover residue was cleared away. He picked up the pressure hose and blasted water at the wall to get any dried paint out of the pores.

Harley smiled, pointing to the lopsided shooting star. "This seems a little out of place in this sea of teenage vulgarity, don't you think?"

"I guess…" Lucas muttered. He had definitely drawn that one. He didn't know what had compelled him to back then or when exactly he'd put it up there, but he knew that he'd had the green paint.

"You draw this star?"

"Probably."

Harley peered at it more closely, scrutinizing the contours of the star. "It's a really shitty star."

Lucas rolled his eyes again, starting up on cleaning the giant blue cannabis leaf. "I was drunk."

"All you teens always are…" Harley commented dryly, tugging on his rubber gloves. "And then you fuck up my walls."

Lucas sighed. "Look, I'm sorry."

"Then why'd you do it?" Harley asked, shaking his head, "Why do you do stuff like this if you're just going to regret it completely?"

Lucas remained silent, staring at the wall. He honestly didn't have an answer to that.

"Let me give you some advice, kid." Harley said, "I used to be rebellious too and all into the whole being a delinquent thing. I ended up in jail for quite a while. Look where I am now. I've been the janitor in a high school for twenty something years now. And quite honestly, I wouldn't even have this job if it weren't for a friend of mine."

Lucas glanced at him, a little surprised by the revelation.

"Get out while you still can, Friar. Find people you can hang out with who won't suck you into the bad stuff. Trust me, it'll do you a whole lotta good in the long run."

"Seems like everyone wants to give me a lecture today…" Lucas grumbled, continuing to scrub harshly at the wall.

"Not a lecture. Advice. We're all trying to keep you from ruining your life."

"And how the hell would you know I'm ruining my life?" Lucas growled with an irritated raised brow, "Maybe I'm enjoying it. Maybe I like it this way."

Harley stared at him for a second before letting out a short bark of laughter, loud and obnoxious, and Lucas grit his teeth in annoyance. Why did it feel like this guy was mocking him?

"Who the hell do you think you're kidding? You think if you honestly enjoyed your little 'act like a super dick and get in trouble all the time' life you would be out here helping me clean up this mess? That you'd be out here taking the fall for your ditching friends? I can see plain as day that you want out."

"What the fuck do you know about me?" Lucas snapped, spinning around and glaring at Harley, "You're the fucking janitor in this shit hole of a school who I've never met in my life. Stop acting like you know shit all about me."

"Fair enough. I'll stop bugging you." He chuckled, unaffected by Lucas' ire. He picked up the toolbox he'd left on the ground before walking back towards the school with a nonchalant wave. "I'll see you tomorrow after school at the second floor bathrooms."

Lucas was left to himself to clean up the mess, and he sighed in annoyance, going back to the tedious motions to wipe off the paint. He knew he was brooding, but he was pissed off and tired of all these damn lectures about his life. He didn't want their advice or their unnecessary comments. Why couldn't everyone just leave him the hell alone?

~.~.~

After finally finishing cleaning the wall and finally washing it down so that there was no more paint residue, Lucas had gone to wash his hands of all the paint grit and the cleaning solution. By the time he had finally gotten the smell out of his nose, it was just around five. He just wanted this day to end, but he still had to head to the art room to find this set painter and help her get the sets done.

Lucas made his way to the art room in the basement of the school. He walked down the hall stairs and headed to the far back, past the storage closets and the extra chairs and band stands and tables. It smelled musty, and there was a lingering scent of mold.

His nose wrinkled as he walked into the art room. It was small and crowded and looked like everything art related had been shoved in one single corner. The smell of paint was completely overpowering and there wasn't enough air circulating inside the squished room to help it.

Maya was seated straight-backed on a stool in front of an easel near the front of the room, her back facing him. Her wavy blonde hair was tied in a high ponytail at the crown of her head slung over her shoulder and to Lucas' surprise, he caught the image of a tattoo peeking out from under the collar of her shirt. When she leaned forward to dip her brush into the paint station in front of her easel, he noticed it was a shooting star.

"A shooting star?" he whispered, a little absentmindedly.

"Can I help you?" Maya said, still painting the canvas.

"Uh, hey. I'm looking for the set painter for the theater department."

"You're looking at her." She didn't turn around.

"Oh… Hi, I'm–"

"I know who you are." She cut him off, "Lucas Friar. Asshole extraordinaire and coward."

Lucas' eyes narrowed, a little put off by the harshness of her tone. "Well that's a little harsh, don't you think?"

She ignored him. "You're late."

"I had to clean up the gym wall." His brows furrowed when she didn't respond to his words nor did she even acknowledge he had said anything. "Can you at least look at me when I'm speaking to you?"

"You're not entitled to my attention." She remarked coldly, her paintbrush still gently drifting over the canvas, colouring the white of the fabric with a soft green.

He felt his irritation spike. Damn she was a bitch.

"Fine then." Lucas walked fully into the room, stalking past her and standing in front of her easel, facing her. "I'll move so I have your attention."

The only reaction he was awarded was a slight narrowing of her eyes in annoyance, but other than that, she kept her eyes firmly on her painting.

"You're blocking my light." She grit out after a few moments of silence. "Can you move?"

"Not until you tell me what I have to do." He said, purposely shifting over so an even bigger shadow was cast over the canvas. Maya stopped moving her brush and her grip tightened immeasurably.

"Asshole…"

"Look. I don't want to be here any more than you want me to be here." He shrugged, feeling a bit triumphant that he had the upper hand. "So just tell me where the sets are, and I can paint them in an hour and be on my way."

She slapped her brush down on the brush holder of her easel and frowned, her eyes roving over what she had painted.

"You think it's that easy to paint sets that you can be done with it in one hour?" she said in disgust, her jaw clenched tight, "It took me all summer to do all that work—all fucking summer—and you ruined it because you're an ass. You don't even have the decency to apologize for everything you burned."

And Lucas' eyebrows lifted, partly because he knew he hadn't apologized. But also partly because despite the fact that she was masking it well, he could still hear the pain in her voice. He hadn't even been the one to burn them, yet that feeling of shame that'd been so prevalent during lunch hit him full force, and he felt appalled at himself. She'd been the only one to paint them. With her small stature and tiny body, it must have been a lot of work. And then he and his friends had just torched them like it was game.

He moved back from her easel, rubbing his neck in embarrassment. "I'm sorry about the sets. I didn't realize that much work had been put into them."

"Then why'd you do it?"

She glanced up from her canvas, shrewdly watching him and finally meeting his gaze for the first time since he'd walked in. There was a sharp, unforgiving glare in her eyes, and Lucas realized that her eyes were a really startling blue-gray. They were beautiful, if not a little striking.

"That seems to be the question of the day…" He finally said, not really knowing how to respond to her inquiry.

Clearly that was the wrong answer. Her eyes narrowed, eyes glinting in pure loathing.

"Pathetic." she scoffed.

"What?" he growled, raising a brow.

"So you don't even know why you do shitty things to people. You just do them. For shits and giggles. And then you stand there, king of your mountain of trash, while everyone else suffers because you're the biggest fucking asshole on the entire planet."

"I…" And he frowned. This wasn't about the sets. "You're talking about lunch today."

"And the award goes to Lucas Friar for making an obvious connection." She sneered, clapping her hands derogatorily, "You're a real dick, you know that? Farkle didn't deserve that kind of humiliation or treatment."

Lucas averted his gaze, starting at a spot on the cracked tiles of the art room floor. He could still see the image of Farkle's thin legs flailing about trying to find a way to get out. He could still hear Riley's cries, begging and pleading them to stop.

"He didn't."

"And your crony of friends tossed him in the garbage. Do you know how awful that must be? To be pantsed and then tossed into a trash can?"

"I can't imagine…"

"People don't come to school to be harassed and treated like crap you know. Our lives are already hard enough as it is!"

He knew she was exerting all her frustrations onto him because he was there, despite the fact that he wasn't the only one who had been involved in the bullying of her friend, but he didn't say anything to counter her words. Because she was right.

"I'm sorry."

"And you people just–" And Maya stopped abruptly, staring up at him wide-eyed in confusion, "Wait, you've been agreeing with me?"

"He didn't deserve that. I was just pissed, but it shouldn't have gotten that far." Lucas confirmed, feeling like absolute shit.

Her eyebrows lifted the slightest bit as she stared at him and then she looked back down at her easel with a sigh, curling a stray piece of hair behind her ear.

"…Wasn't expecting that."

"Expecting what?"

"An apology…" she rolled her eyes. "Fuck, if you're nice about it then it makes it hard to yell at you."

His lips quirked up in a little amused smile. Was she for real?

"Still…" she frowned at her canvas. "The one you should be apologizing to is him. Not me."

"Fair enough. But I'm also apologizing on behalf of my friends for the gangbanger taunting. That was awful."

Her eyebrow twitched the slightest bit at the reminder of the cruel words that had been flung at her by people in the cafeteria. There was a moment of silence where she scuffed her shoe against the ground, her face hidden from Lucas' view. Then she lifted her head, glancing up at him, her expression hard to read.

"I appreciate the apology." She said quietly, "But it means nothing to me."

He stared at her in slight shock, completely put off by how sharp her words had been. Yet, her eyes had softened and held none of that stony undertone and hardened shadow he had seen before. She was regarding him curiously, as if trying to figure him out. She had opened herself up a little to him. And he could read her. He could see a bit of the vulnerability in her eyes. Something deep and sad and melancholic.

"I–"

"Never mind that." Maya waved her hand, cutting him off before he could say anything else. "Have you ever painted a set before? Or anything else? You know, aside from gym walls?"

And just like that, she closed herself off again, regarding him coolly, arms crossed and expression indifferent. It was a bit jarring seeing her make such a sudden switch.

"I haven't."

She sighed and stood up off of the stool, rolling her eyes in exasperation as she walked towards the back where boxes were stacked one on top of the other and everything seemed to be haphazardly placed.

"Figures…" she grumbled under her breath.

She stooped down and opened one of the boxes and pulled out a painting sketchpad and a small paint set, one of the kiddy looking ones that Lucas remembered using back in elementary school. She rummaged a little bit more through the box before pulling out a couple brushes.

"You need to practice getting consistent and even strokes and varying the viscosity of the paint from the amount of water added." She said. "If you can do that in one night, then the sets will look cleaner once you paint them, and you won't have to worry about redoing them."

"Are you sure it's okay for me to use those? What about all the students taking art?"

"You mean the six students who take studio art?"

"There are only six of you? How come there are so few?"

Maya turned over her shoulder and gave him a look. "Do you know anything about this school other than what pertains to you and your friends?"

That bugged him.

"Okay, to be fair, we've never had a real conversation before. Obviously I wouldn't know what's going on in your life."

Her look transformed into a disparaging glare. "I'm talking about the funding for the arts at the school being cut by two-thirds because it was deemed unnecessary. And that money is being used to increase protective measures at this school since some students feel like trespassing from time to time and trashing the school. But of course you wouldn't know that since you're so caught up in your own life."

Lucas ran a hand through his hair with a low, irritated sigh. "Look. I get that you hate me. But can you cut me some slack? It's not like my life has been fun and games either."

"Oh boohoo." She scoffed, "You get arrested a couple times because you're stupid enough to get into trouble and all of a sudden your life is hard? Give me a break."

"You know what? I don't need this." He growled, narrowing his eyes. "Just give me the damn stuff so I can go. I've got things to do, and I'd rather not spend my time getting chewed out by some frigid bitch."

Her lip curled, and she stood up slowly, her eyes glinting in that way that he knew meant she was pissed. She stalked over to him, roughly shoving the paper and the set of paints and the brushes into his chest. He caught it with a grunt, and she spun around and snatched up her bag from the floor.

"You better be here on time tomorrow, shit bag." She said over her shoulder as she left the room. "God, you're such a dick…"

Lucas stood in his place, staring after her in irritation. What the hell was with her? And why was she such a cross bitch? He got that she was angry because of some of the stuff he'd been involved in but damn, some of her irritation and comments toward him were unjustified. Sure, he'd done his fair share of pretty fucking awful stuff, but he couldn't be held accountable for everything. She was being immature.

He rolled his eyes and looked down at the stuff in his hand. And then he realized that on each of the things she'd given him, there was a neat M.P. Hart scrawled in Sharpie.

These were her personal painting materials. Not the art program's.

And she was letting him use them to get practice.

"Fuck…"

Lucas shoved the stuff in his bag and then raced out of the art room, going through the hall and hurrying up the stairs. She couldn't have gotten that far, could she?

As he rounded the corner towards the front entrance of the school, he saw her walking to the door, her ponytail swinging side by side in time with her steps.

"Maya, wait." He called out.

She stopped walking and turned around, eyeing him indifferently as he came to a stop in front of her.

"Look I didn't mean to say that. I'm sorry." he said, "Thank you for letting me use your stuff to practice."

She stared up at him for a second, silently contemplating him for a while before her lips quirked up into something of a small smile.

"You've really been doing a lot of apologizing."

"Yeah." He grinned, laughing slightly. "Story of my life."

Maya sighed in resignation, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"Okay. I think we got off on the wrong foot. If we have to work together to paint these sets, then it won't do for us to be at each other's throats all the time. So let's start over."

"That sounds good."

She nodded. "I'm Maya Hart."

"Lucas Friar."

"Well, Lucas. I'm looking forward to working on these sets with you."

She smiled then, a real smile, and one Lucas had never seen on her face before. It lit up her face like a bright light and made her eyes sparkle. It caught him completely off guard, and for a second, Lucas found himself stupidly blinking at her, captivated by her. Was this was the same Maya he'd seen in the art room?

"Uh… s-same." He stammered, trying to play off his momentary lapse of response.

"See you tomorrow." She said as she turned to leave the school, "And be on time."

He could only nod dumbly for a moment before finally leaving towards the parking lot in the back. He could have sworn that for a moment, just a moment, his heart had skipped a beat. What the hell had that been?