ok so i wrote this bc of a post on tumblr i saw about the difference between infatuation and love which maya discovers throughout all three chapters so! also bc i love missy and her and maya could've been great but mostly for the infatuation/love thing
ok title is from like or like like by miniature tigers but my bomb friend clare made me the best hartford playlist in this universe ft songs from my bday present from inna so user/completelycreative/playlist/0yBpneDZAr5hjvibrjDUwVthis is the best thing you'll ever listen to basically
also shoutout to lola who this is dedicated to and who is basically the love of my life this one's 4 u
Preschool
It starts like this: a blonde, a brunette, and a box of 120 crayons that Billy Ross rips the sharpener out of. But, she supposes, all great rivalries have some sort of wild origin story to explain the bitter air that surrounds them - what would make her and Missy's any different?
They're four years old, in Mrs. Page's class, when it happens. There's Maya, coloring a butterfly for their art assignment with a handful of sparkly crayons, the ones that glitter in the light, the ones that she doesn't have in her own box at home. And there's Missy Bradford, marching over to her, determination set in her eyes as she steals those crayons so that her own butterfly can shimmer just as brightly as the locket her daddy had gotten for her on her birthday.
It begins with a blonde, a brunette, and a box of crayons- but it ends with glittery wax crumbling under the heel of Missy's shoe, Maya's chair flying right towards that jerkface's ugly leg, and two preschoolers sitting in time out because Maya tried to practically strangle Missy by the chain around her neck.
xxxx
An unfortunate substitute makes the mistake of placing them next to each other one day in late October. Billy tries to warn him that Missy and Maya cannot be seated within ten feet of one another at any point during the day, but there's a firefighter coming in to teach them all about what to do during an emergency, meaning that the two other teachers they share the hall with all needed to be crammed into their classroom with about thirty more kids than they were used to for the presentation, and so he decides to sit the kids by alphabetical order using first names. It's easiest with the sticky tags that they wear on their shirts for temp days so that they can be identified easily, and it places Maya directly next to Missy which is just about the dumbest thing that he could do because they're fighting before the guest even makes it to the classroom.
Maya slips in a comment about Missy's shoes being stupid, teasing her for the gems on the side and the pink laces that curled and everything else she could pluck fun at.
"At least mine aren't covered in paint and my laces aren't knotted," Missy bites back, her brows furrowed when Maya slams the tip of her converse into the back of her calf.
"At least I won't have an ugly bruise on my leg tomorrow," the tinier girl gloats, leaning back into her seat once her kick was delivered.
"Oh yeah? Guess again," Missy snaps, rising to shove Maya as hard as she can off of her seat.
They're wrestling on the ground by the time anyone in the room can blink twice, and Billy wastes no time in patting his sub's arm and muttering a knowing, "I told you so."
xxxx
Missy and Maya's moms meet and immediately click during the second open house of that school year, a sort of conference meets art showcase of everything the kids had made so far type of event. (Katy couldn't make it to the first one, so Maya's dad went in place but didn't manage to get any of the information. He didn't even go to the right classroom.)
Maya doesn't think there's anything worse in this world than her mom making a new friend, especially considering this new friend is a confirmed relative of Satan thanks to her daughter's actions.
"But, Mom," Maya pleas, "I can just stay here until Dad gets back, I don't need to go see Missy Bratford in her lair of evil and stupid, frilly skirts." She crosses her arms across her chest with a huff as her mother smooths down the skirt of the dress she forced her daughter into.
"C'mon, Babygirl, that's enough. Cassie is a very nice woman and has been sweet enough to invite us for dinner." She leaves out that she's not sure exactly when Maya's father will be returning, if even he is after their most recent fight, and shakes her head at Maya's pout. "We're going and that is it."
That is most certainly not it to the tiny girl, but, despite vicious protest, Katy physically drags Maya to the porch of Cassandra and Nathaniel Bradford's home about fifteen minutes later, making her daughter carry the banana pudding she'd made for dessert as punishment for her sour attitude.
Maya hopes that there won't be some sort of portal to the realm of the undead when the door opens a few seconds later.
xxxx
Dinner at the Bradford's becomes a regular occurrence, though Maya's attitude on the entire scene changes after that very first night. Missy's parents actually end up being really cool, much to Maya's surprise. Her dad is a paleontologist that actually travels to canyons and far off islands to dig for dinosaurs just like in Jurassic Park, and her mom owns a diner called Cassie's in the center of town that is a star on the map of their tiny suburb. She even promises Maya a free milkshake if she ever wants to stop by with her parents- though the Hart patriarch has yet to make an appearance. She hasn't really seen him since dinner like two or three nights ago, but it slips from her young mind when Mr. Bradford pulls out more pictures from his trip to the jungles in Asia to seek out ancient creatures from that part of Earth.
Plus, it gives her bonus time to mess with Missy because after dessert, their moms always insist that the girls go and play in Missy's bedroom until it's time to leave.
xxxx
Maya likes the days that she spends with her dad. He always takes her out after she gets caught between the crossfires of a big fight, but she doesn't mind. She just likes alone time with him because she doesn't get that a lot after he flees for her Uncle Michael's couch as soon as her mom raises her voice.
The aquarium is the favorite place that her dad takes her, she thinks. He always buys her a stuffed animal from the gift shop near the jellyfish, and her collection is getting so big that a few of her plushies fall off her bed overnight when she tosses.
She would give them up to have him home a little more, but they give her soft hugs without the smell that lingers in her daddy's breath that makes her scrunch her nose and they never yell so loud that the walls shake, so she thinks that it's an okay compromise.
Elementary School
Once they reach kindergarten, it only gets worse.
It's in Mr. Samuel's afternoon class that they're introduced to organized sports- Red Rover, of all things. Maya shoots like a rocket as powerfully as she can between Missy and Charlie Gardner, ramming with the intention to tear limbs.
(She ends up only hurting Charlie, offering the Reese's in her snack box as collateral for the bruise on his forearm after being knocked over, and this is how she meets her best friend.)
Because of the liability of broken limbs on school property, Maya isn't allowed to participate in Red Rover for the rest of the year, and each time it is announced that they'll be playing it, Missy sends her the most obnoxious and the most infuriating grin she's ever seen.
xxxx
Sometimes Maya likes to climb out of her window when her parents argue. She sits on the patch of rooftop laid outside of her bedroom window with the Sesame Street notepad she got in her goodie bag from Darby's birthday last month, and she draws the sun setting in the sky and the people walking down below and little squiggly lines that represent the deafening bustle of traffic she wishes would appear so that it can drown out her mother's cries.
xxxx
"Well, I will have you know, Bratford, me and Sandy were-"
"Maya, stop calling my mom Sandy. Her name is Cassie. It's why her diner is called Cassie's!"
"Anyways, me and Sandy were talking the other night…"
xxxx
She runs out of room for plushies in the first grade, and so her gift upgrades to a charm bracelet.
Empty links dangle from her wrist that September, and they're the most shiny and beautiful links she's ever seen in her life.
(They're hidden beneath exactly seventeen charms by summer break, but they still shine if you look very closely.)
xxxx
Charlie's mom is a cop, and so Maya loves playing at his house because she always sees the pepper spray and the belt that holds her ticket book and and the real police handcuffs that get used on real bad guys and it's the coolest stuff she's ever seen in all her eight years on Earth. Charlie teases her that she's only his best friend for his mom, and Maya shameless agrees, smiling as wide as she can when she hears laughing from the kitchen.
Charlie's parents are divorced because they didn't get along well as a married couple, and they split up before he was even one so all he really knows is seeing his dad every other weekend and spending bundles of weeks in the summer with him, but Maya met him a few times and he's really funny and he has a long mustache that reminds Maya of the bad guy in Meet the Robinsons. He also speaks certain words in Italian because his parents were born in Sicily. (She isn't really one for school, but she doesn't mind the language lessons that she gets between drinking sodas outside the ice cream shop and big pasta dinners with her best friend, his dad, and his stepmom.)
Maya asks if it's bad having parents that aren't together or weird having two moms, and Charlie replies that he loves Sheila, so no, and that he likes that he has two Christmases every year.
Maya wonders if her parents would be better as friends and not a married couple when she waits for to take her home sometimes, but she ultimately doesn't want two Christmases. She just wants her dad home every night and her mother not to cry so much.
xxxx
Missy is in her class again in the second grade, and she has to pretend to be excited about it because her mom is really eager to chaperone field trips with Sandy. It's tricky- it's really tricky- but she manages to paste on a grin when they go spend another dinner with the Bradfords and Sandy asks if she likes having Missy as a classmate.
xxxx
There's a new girl named Isadora that joins their class in October of that year from New Jersey, and, to her misfortune, she's seated right between Missy and Maya. There's an unspoken choice that she obviously has to make between the two when they are asked to partner up with deskmates- otherwise Maya would be darting across the room to Charlie- and she doesn't know what's she's getting into by the time both girls start hounding her to be their partner.
Missy tries to hug her as some sort of welcome to the school, and Isadora is screaming at the top of her lungs about not liking being touched within minutes of being in her new setting, shooting up and running straight to the halls so that she can scrub the feeling of contact off her skin in the girls' bathroom, and Maya scoffs at how poor Missy is at making friends.
"Way to go, Bratford, you managed to scare off yet another possible friend."
"Are you kidding, Maya? It was obviously an excuse to get away from you! I was a scapegoat."
"Who even uses the word scapegoat?"
"Who even uses the word scapegoat?" Missy ends up mocking before the teacher marches up to their desks with an angry look on her face.
(They're forced to be partners, and Maya decides she doesn't like Isadora very much.)
xxxx
Missy and Isadora, Maya's most disliked people on this entire planet, end up being best friends, and Maya thinks that it just goes to show you that the annoying kids must have to stick together in order to survive because no one would ever willingly be Missy Bradford's best friend.
xxxx
Maya's dad buys her an art set for Christmas when she's nine, the only condition being that she has to paint him the world how she sees it.
When she hands him a sheet covered in withering walls and tears filling their home so high that she's drowning, it's still wet. He doesn't hang it on the fridge, and he stays out extra late that night.
(When she wakes up the next morning, there's a charm of a paintbrush tucked under her pillow.)
xxxx
In the third grade, Maya trips Missy in the hallway one morning on their way to library, and that afternoon the brunette uses her ugly yellow flats to launch Maya off the swingset and onto her right forearm, snapping it like a twig.
Missy laughs because Maya cries, and Maya laughs because Missy's mom makes her help Maya do things until she gets her cast off.
xxxx
When Maya is ten, she runs out of absolutely any extra room on her bracelet. She starts keeping her charms on a chain she has from a dog tag that she snatched from the subway station's lost and found when her dad took her with to see a friend in the city, but she wasn't allowed to actually go with when he rushed up the stairs with a bundle of money stashed in his coat, so she hung around the little newsstand and a man playing a bucket like a drum.
She has at least twenty six charms. She stopped counting after that.
xxxx
Maya doesn't mean for it to go as far as it does when she forces Missy into cutting six inches of her hair to form a bob around her face when they're in the fourth grade.
It all just goes downhill when Missy passes out Blow Pops as her birthday treat- the stupidest idea ever considering Cosmic Brownies are obviously the best choice- and then she gives Maya a grape one just to spite her because she knows that grape is Maya's absolute least flavor of anything, especially sweets.
It irritates her to no end because Missy is sure to give her one last, meaning no other flavors to switch with, and Charlie actually likes grape so he chose the sucker in the very same nasty flavor when Missy passed him so Maya couldn't even trade for it- yet another jerk move by Bratford and all her evil glory!
Given that she wouldn't properly appreciate the candy, Maya only thought it would be fair that she return the revolting thing to its rightful owner.
The fact that she returned it after grudgingly chomping her way to the center in order to smear her soggy gum into the ends of Missy Bradford's intricately curled hair being a minor detail with little relevance, in her opinion, when describing the master scheme of Missy's special day.
(The fact that picture day just happened to be a week from the incident? Pure luck.)
xxxx
Her dad leaves for good exactly a week before her fifth grade promotion ceremony.
She expects him to come back after three days, that usually being the cap of his stays from their place, but he doesn't, and she doesn't know that it's for good when it happens. But when she searches the crowd wearing her prettiest dress to get her certificate prompting her to middle school and doesn't see his face, her charms brand scars into her heart as they hang around her neck, and her wrist burns like the tears in her eyes when she rips up the paper graduation cap she'd made in class.
xxxx
They're at the Bradford's when her mom lets it slip: divorce papers are in the works. Missy's dad is in Guatemala and so they're having a "girls' night" because Maya has been so down lately, but Katy doesn't realize that she's standing in the doorway when she informs Sandy that he has no intentions of returning between big gulps of wine and bittersweet sighs.
When she finds out, she runs to the bathroom and locks herself in it because she doesn't want Missy to see her crying. There's a slam and a scream and the soft clatter of charms scattering the tile floor, and, just like that, Maya doesn't have a dad.
xxxx
Charlie tells her that it might be for the best when he finds out because her parents fought and sometimes she'd wake up with her mom asleep on the floor of her room, red marks scattering her biceps and wrists. He even says that Maya can have one of his Christmases- he doesn't need both- and it'll all be okay.
He thinks that they're going to do just fine, taking on the world together, and she wholeheartedly believes him. Everything happens for a reason, and he just might be the only guy she needs in her life.
Middle School
Maya ends up moving the summer before sixth grade, her mom having to downsize them a bit to ease up the cost of rent each month. She tries to be excited as possible because she lives even closer to Charlie now and the middle school she's going to attend is not the same as Missy, finally giving her a break from the girl that's been a pain in her neck since preschool.
Yeah, she misses her old room, and, sure, the neighborhood they ended up in isn't the greatest, but pressing her dresser against the cracks in her walls to hide them, she thinks it's gonna be okay.
(She prays it's gonna be okay.)
xxxx
Her mom convinces her to be a cheerleader. Missy's already made the squad at her school, and the girls' parents think that it would just be the cutest thing in the world to have two little cheerleaders to watch when their teams face each other.
Maya accepts because she's being handed an opportunity to beat Missy, and she wants nothing more in the world than to crush every ounce of pep in the brunette's lanky body.
xxxx
As it turns out, Maya makes a pretty damn good cheerleader. She even convinced Charlie into making the football team so that they're both required at sporting events, and she cheers extra loud for him when he's running around the field.
xxxx
Sandy takes Maya on vacation along with Missy during their first spring break as middle schoolers-her mom was invited, but couldn't get out of work- and they go to the Dells because Wisconsin is on the list of states that Maya wants to travel to and sketch a scene from. (She has all fifty on the list, but Sandy's gesture is still very much appreciated.)
The thing about the Dells is that it's a waterpark, which means bathing suits are involved, and it's not that Maya didn't notice that Missy had started growing- because she had- it's just that she hadn't seen Missy in a bikini ever in her entire life and she's never felt the type of way she does staring at her arch nemesis's exposed skin, and frankly, she doesn't think that it's fair. Maya can barely fill out the top of her two piece whilst Missy had to buy an entirely new swimsuit just to fit her body, and her skin looks so smooth and her smile seems amazingly bright in contrast to her tan complexion and the magenta fabric covering her.
She just knows it's not fair.
xxxx
"Charlie, do you ever feel weird seeing me in a bathing suit?" Maya asks, hanging off the edge of his mattress by the back of her bent knees.
"What do you mean?" His eyebrows bunch together as he lowers himself down to dangle beside her.
"Well, like, do you ever see me in a bathing suit and feel… I don't know, weird? We go swimming like all the time. Do you ever see me in a bikini and feel like your throat is gonna close up and like you just ate sushi and like life just isn't fair?"
"Well, no. But that sounds an awful lot like the talk my dad had with me about the birds and the bees and stuff and how sometimes I'm gonna look at a girl and there's just gonna be new feelings all over about like sex and like- y'know stuff down there- and all of that. M, it was really awkward. I'm not really looking forward to it. Why?"
"Wait-" Maya flips off the mattress, landing on his carpet with a thud, "That's how you're supposed to feel when you like wanna do the do with someone?!"
"According to Papa Gardner it is-"
"Charlie!" Maya squeaks with wide eyes, "I felt that way looking at Missy."
There's a simultaneous wail of disgust before Maya's entire face contorts in absolute repulsion, an entire scene playing out of her heaving over the garbage can next to Charlie's desk before she reports that his father was wrong, wrong, wrong.
xxxx
"Dude, what if you wanna do the do with Miss- Ow! What the heck, Maya?"
"If you ever say anything in the realm of that sentence again, I'll rip off your arm."
xxxx
Maya makes a playlist of all the songs that make her angry and she listens to it every single time her and Missy go swimming together. She has tanlines running along her neck from her headphones, and when Missy makes fun of them, she turns it up louder.
xxxx
By the time seventh grade rolls around, Maya is at the top of her squad. The middle school cheer scene isn't too hardcore, but her coach lets it slip that she's being conditioned to be captain in high school, and she can't wait to rub it in Missy's face that she's already on her way to being a head cheerleader. It's enough to make her forget all about the stupid bikini thing because she's a better cheerleader than Missy- and who would want to do the do with a subpar cheerleader? Not her, obviously.
xxxx
There's a football player with pretty eyes that she likes to tease during the games. He has a thick accent because he's fresh off of a train from Texas, and they develop a sort of game between her nicknames and his charming responses.
Charlie says that he likes her- he heard him talking about it in the gym class that they share- and Missy always looks super irritated when she sees them together because Maya's only focused on player 29, not their rivalry, and so Maya makes sure to stand extra close to him during those games.
xxxx
Maya and her mom are at the grocery story when they meet Shawn Hunter, a 2 am run after Katy's Thursday shift bringing them to the 24 hour market a few blocks from their apartment. Maya's grabbing four bags of Cheetos, her stock for game night with Charlie, and when she makes it back to the cart, her mom is blushing towards some guy with a beard and Maya's loading in her snacks.
"So, who's tall, hairy, and possibly homeless?" Maya opens with, a grin breaking out when her mom's eyes go wide.
"Maya Penelope-"
The man breaks the scold at the tip of Katy's tongue with a chuckle.
"You got something to say, creepozoid, or am I gonna have to scream for the cops?" Maya glares, her ears burning red.
"Nothing, Miss Maya Penelope," he tugs, her entire cheeks bursting to crimson when he says her middle name again.
"Listen here, bucko, I don't know what your deal is, but you got about ten seconds to take that back or I'm gonna be engraving your headstone myself. Here lies- hey, what's your name?"
"Shawn. Shawn Patrick Hunter."
Maya bursts into a fit of giggles when he shares, "Oh boy, you were laughin' at Penelope with a name like Patrick?! Ma, this dude's hysterical." She turns to see an unreadable look on her mother's face, some cross between amused and terrified that she would ask about later.
"Yeah, yeah, have your little chuckle fest, Penny. I'm gonna get you back whenever your mom answers me about dinner."
Maya lets out a soft snort. "Okay, whatever you say, Patty. Ma, say yes so I can own his loser as-" Shawn thankfully nudges her before she gets the cuss out, "-butt. So I can own his loser butt. Please. Ma'am."
She innocently smiles when Shawn rapidly nods his head with a sarcastic grin. "Yeah, what she said. I want to get my loser butt owned."
xxxx
"So, who's the football player?" Missy asks her one night after dinner, their mothers sending them to play in Missy's room the very same way they have since they were kindergarteners.
"What's it to you?" Maya quirks an eyebrow, noticing the edge in Missy's voice when she asks.
"Just curious. I mean, it's no wonder your squad isn't as strong as mine with their captain hanging all over a boy the entire game." She picks at her nails, spitting out her words nonchalantly.
Maya's body tenses at the jab, her teeth clenching when she replies. "Well, not that it concerns you, but his name is Lucas, and he's our star player."
"That's surprising," Missy bites condescendingly, "Considering he spends all of his time chattering away with you like the game doesn't matter. Sounds just like a Salk move. No wonder we won."
Maya rolls her eyes at the dumb rivalry that splits their sides of town apart, even though the Jonas E. Salk Blue Jays are obviously better than Missy and her dumb Warriors over at Polk, and let's out a scoff. "I don't have time for your childish games right now. I'm meeting up with Lucas in the morning to work on our science homework- wouldn't want to be out too late." She doesn't even turn back to say goodbye before heading to find her mom.
xxxx
Maya and Lucas become the it couple of Jonas E. Salk Middle School within two weeks of her encounter with Missy- though all that really consists of a relationship when you're barely an eighth grader is holding hands and he carries her things around sometimes when she doesn't want to.
Charlie even likes him, which is definitely a plus because Maya loves her best friend and her boyfriend getting along, and so they start having game nights together every Friday. They pull out dusty board games and huddle around Maya's tiny coffee table to play. Sometimes Shawn even sits in as a fourth player if he's over (he and Katy are now a thing), but Maya thinks he's only there to steal Cheetos and team up against her with Lucas to try and make her lose- but her mom loves him or whatever and he took her shopping last weekend so she supposes she can let it slide.
xxxx
"So, have you kissed the blockhead yet?" Missy wonders from beside Maya on the bed, both of them tucked tightly under her comforter nearing two in the morning.
Katy and Shawn are away their first trip together- a cute weekend away in some bed and breakfast near his hometown in Pennsylvania- and Katy told Maya that she was going to be staying with Sandy before she could even suggest Charlie's guest room; hence the sharing a bed with Missy Bratford and her nosy questions.
"Why would I tell you if I've kissed my boyfriend yet or not?" Maya huffs, crossing her arms beneath the blanket.
"Oh, so he's your boyfriend now?"
There's something in Missy's tone that makes her feel small, but she tries to brag regardless. "Mhm, has been for three weeks."
"I bet you haven't even kissed him yet. I've already kissed a boy."
"Oh, yeah?" Maya snorts, "Sure, like anyone would lower their standards enough to kiss you."
"At least I know how to kiss," Missy snaps, a small smirk tugging at her lips when she sees Maya getting more and more riled up.
"I know how to kiss!" Maya snaps, sitting up to face her with flushed cheeks.
"Do not," Missy argues, rising to mirror Maya's position.
"Do too!"
"Do not!"
And Maya, as pent up as she is, just leans in and crashes their lips together because she does too know how to kiss, and now Missy can't say anything about it.
By the time she realizes what she's done, she pulls away panting. Her flushed cheeks burn and she avoids eye contact before lying back down and wordlessly curling to her side away from Missy. A little sigh of relief escapes her when she feels Missy tug on the blankets a bit to get comfortable, her body flat again.
"...Maya?" Missy admits in a small voice. "I've never kissed anyone. I don't know why I said that I did."
Maya keeps her back to Missy, gnawing on her bottom lip while trying to form a response. "Well, now you have," she attempts weakly, her anxiety audible in her shaky words. She inhales sharply before flipping, her eyes going wide when she finds Missy staring in her direction. "...Missy?" The brunette nods a little bit. "I don't know how to kiss. I don't know why I said that I did."
Silently, Missy reaches out her hand and laces her fingers with Maya's, resting their joined hands between them with a tiny, nervous smile. "Well, now you do."
xxxx
Maya doesn't tell Lucas about the kiss, only Charlie, and she panics at the slightest chance that her cowboy could find out.
"You and Missy seem to be getting along better," Lucas chuckles at her during half time one night, her entire face going pale at even the mention of the other girl.
"I, uh," she stammers, "What do you mean?"
"Well, you haven't called her Bratford yet, and you haven't threatened to shove your pom pom down her throat, either."
"Oh," Maya laughs shakily, "Right. Must just be an off night or something."
Or something, she repeats to herself, glancing across the field to steal a glimpse of the girl on her mind.
xxxx
They don't discuss the kiss. Whenever they're together, their actions are just more calculated, doing everything they can to make sure not to touch in any possible way when the Hart family is over.
It's a system, sort of, and Maya just hopes they'll manage to keep it up for the rest of their lives.
xxxx
"Charlie, I kissed Missy."
"I told you that you wanted to do the d- Ow, Maya! What the hell?!"
"Ripping limbs, Gardner."
xxxx
When Lucas kisses her outside her front door, he asks if it was her first and her smile doesn't reach her eyes when she says yes.
xxxx
There's a plane crash when they're thirteen that takes the life of Nathaniel Bradford, and Missy is so torn up about it that she can't even get out of bed. Her body struggles with the exhaustion of heavy sobbing during every conscious moment she has, and so Maya sits beside her limp body and rubs small circles on her back while her mother consoles Sandy after the funeral.
Maya can't really blame her for wanting to stay in bed after watching her father be buried, so she just brings her dinner and sets it on her nightstand, running a hand through her hair and quietly climbing over her to lay down. Missy moves her fingertips to trace the lace trimming of Maya's black dress, pink blotches covering her tear stained face.
"They used to fight a lot," she practically croaks, her voice adjusting from not being used since before her father died, "My parents did. Every time he was here, they were fighting. That's why he took so many jobs, why he always brought me back all these souvenirs." She bitterly chuckles, her eyes wandering to the shelves of her room filled with amazing artifacts from exotic islands.
Maya stares at her, puzzled a bit by the thought of Missy's parents ever fighting. They always seemed so… put together. Yeah, he was gone a lot, but Maya was in their home weekly for dinner and never once saw them speak in anything less than adoring tones.
"They refused to fight around others. They would act like it didn't happen whenever you were here, and I hated it. I hated how fake it all felt." Missy's gaze lands back on Maya, her pout turning into a full on frown. "They fought so much, and I wished so much for him to just… be gone. My mom told me about how your parents argued and your dad just left, and I would wish for him to just go on a trip one day and never come back for how loudly he yelled at her."
Maya's confusion shifts to defense when she hears her own parents mentioned.
"I wanted him to just not want me anymore like yours did."
"Your father loved you," Maya bites between gritted teeth, sitting up to stare coldly at the girl saying such ridiculous things. "Why would you wish for him not to do that anymore? Missy, your dad died on his way home to you- how could you even compare that to… Being abandoned isn't a privilege."
"At least your dad chose to leave you."
Maya couldn't believe what she was hearing- she couldn't believe that Missy would see one of the worst moments in her life as some sort of gift. She was absolutely heartbroken, and Missy practically tells her that she begged for such pain.
"At least your dad chose to stay," Maya spits out, climbing from the mattress and storming for the door.
"Maya, where are you-"
"I can't believe you don't see how lucky you were. I can't believe you'd have the nerve to compare my situation like I got some type of miracle by having my heart crushed by someone I saw as a hero. Jesus Christ, I loathe you." With her lungs emptied, she slams the door behind her and heads for the couch, already feeling the prick of tears in her eyes.
She doesn't think avoiding contact with Missy is gonna be as big of an issue as she originally intended.
xxxx
The summer following her last year in middle school, Shawn decides to take her and Charlie to Tampa where he's photographing a few resorts for his advertising agency. It's a big bonding thing to be going without Katy, and Maya's super excited for all the pictures she's going to have to fill their albums with. (They use them a lot more after Shawn recently moving in.)
"So, are you guys excited for high school or what?" Shawn asks them, his arm loosely around Maya's shoulder while hers is linked with Charlie's.
"Or what," Charlie snorts, rolling his eyes at the concept. "I don't understand why we can't just stay in middle school forever. I can learn everything I need to know from those people. I can balance science equations perfectly fine- high school is absolutely ludicrous. It's insane, I tell ya! Completely nuts!"
"His mom wants him to go for football again with the older kids when we get back home," Maya mutters in Shawn's direction, "the much bigger, older kids."
"Gotchya," Shawn winks knowingly, "I mean, we could stop for some ice cream? Help you bulk up with some extra calories so you stand a chance against those beasts."
"Beasts?!" Charlie's shoulders slump as he begins shuffling his feet. "Oh boy, better make it a double scoop... And Maya?"
"Yes, Charles?"
"Tell that cute girl in our math class who sits behind Billy that I love her. It's my dying wish."
She chuckles, sliding her arm to his back and giving him a few pats. "Of course, sweetie, whatever you need."
High School
Maya loves high school. Not only does Abigail Adams South have an intense rivalry fueled with pure hatred against Abigail Adams North, or Missy's current school, but Maya, Lucas, and Charlie managed to make JV for cheer and football, landing them a few steps higher on the food chain as freshmen.
The teachers are all extremely laid back (except for her Algebra instructor, he's kind of a dick), she has lunch with both her best friend and boyfriend both semesters, and Charlie even manages to land three numbers by the end of their first week. (He ends up with some girl named Sally that's the epitome of actual sunshine, and Maya likes her a lot.)
Within a month, Maya is living a comfortable life as a ninth grader with amazing friends, a boyfriend she fits perfectly with, and her family growing in size.
It's insane, she thinks with a grin.Completely nuts. Absolutely ludicrous, one might say.
xxxx
On the Fridays that Shawn isn't traveling for work, Katy Hart hosts the most intense game night since the event was probably created. The teams are typically Maya and Charlie against Lucas and Shawn, and they turn whatever board game Katy tugs out of the closet into a full on war before even a single Cheeto is taken from the snack bowl.
"That's not fair- you can't just give her the property!" Shawn yells, his hand flying to try and snatch the card Charlie was passing off to Maya.
"We're business partners," Charlie shrugs, grateful when Maya captures it before her mother's boyfriend.
"Maya, that's not how this works," Lucas glares, already struggling in last place. He didn't even want to play, but she tricked him into it with false promises of an alliance- like it would be any different than every single game night before.
"Shut up, Moral Compass," Maya snorts, shaking her head, "And pay up, too. Seems you landed on my rising empire with Charles over here."
Shawn let's put an aggravated groan watching Lucas reluctantly stare at his low supply of money. "This isn't fair! Katy! Tell her this isn't fair!"
"Mom!" Maya counters, "Tell Patty to stop being such a crybaby!"
"Katy! Tell Penny that I've seen her steal cash from the bank- I should be banker!"
"Mom! Tell Patty that he can't prove anything!"
"Katy!"
"Mom!"
(It goes on for ten minutes before monopoly is banned from the entire household for good, much to Lucas's relief.)
xxxx
The first time she sees Missy wearing her JV uniform, her veins mimic what she imagines the sensation of bursting is. She's sitting in the Bradford's living room when Missy arrives with her boyfriend, Chase or Chance or something even more stupid, laughing about how she was lucky enough to get the very last set in her size.
The fabric is a deep maroon while her own is mostly navy, with white stripes crossing a pattern on her torso and lining the pleats of her skirt, and even a golden trim lining Raiders across her chest right where Maya's reads Eagles. She watches as Chase or Chance or whatever it is holds Missy by the waist, and when she twists to say goodbye to her partner, Maya catches a quick glimpse of her ass beneath the shortest skirt to probably ever exist.
(It's the first time she touches her middle school playlist of rage since the summer she made it.)
xxxx
"So, you thinking of goin' to homecoming with anyone?" Lucas starts coyly, earning a grin while Maya interlaces their fingers. They're walking home from their practices, making a pit stop at Maya's for a change of clothes before heading to the Friar's until her mom would be home from the late shift.
"Totally," she smirks, "There's this absolute babe in my history class named Isaac." He rolls his eyes as they approach her street, pulling his hand away so she can let them in. "I've been dropping hints all week."
"You're such an ass," he laughs as she dashes up the stairs, trailing her until they're in front of her house, panting heavily at the two blocks they just ran all for a race they tied in.
"Takes one to know one," she retorts, clicking the lock and stumbling in when he wraps his arms around her and plants sloppy kisses on her face.
"Huckleberry!" she shrieks, wiggling in his grasp, "You're all gross and sweaty! Get off me, no touching until you shower!"
"Only if you say you'll be my date," he prompts, lifting her up enough to capture her lips with his. He swallows her giggles and doesn't set her down or show any sign of stopping until she nods.
"Fine! Fine! I'll be your date just put me down!" She gags at him obnoxiously as she feels his sweat clinging to her tank top, making heaving noises as they follow the hall to her bedroom so that she can swap clothes.
She doesn't expect to see Missy Bradford, of all people, waiting on her mattress when she bursts into her bedroom, swatting at her boyfriend's wandering hands. She freezes immediately, this being the first (sort of, kinda) formal meeting between the girl she'd kissed in the beginning of her relationship with the boy touching her.
Missy's eyes go wide, completely locked on Lucas's possessive demeanor. "Oh, shit, sorry. I didn't know you were having him over or I would've just- like, I wouldn't have- I.. Um, my mom changed our locks because there was some mixup with our landlord and she lost the master, and she forgot to give me a copy before I left for school," she rambles, her gaze never leaving his hands curled to Maya's waist. "Izzy's at a science thing with her dad, and this is the only other place I have a key to, so Katy said that I could come hang out here until my mom gets back from work. I didn't know that you were… uh, using it, or I would've never even come in the first place- I'll just.."
Maya frowns at how uncomfortable Missy looks before she notices how puffy her eyes seem to be and it's painfully obviously that she'd cried off a fraction of her makeup before they'd arrived. She pushes Lucas off of her before turning around to face him. "I think I'm gonna stick around here for a bit, 'kay, babe? Tell your mom that we can do a makeup quesadilla night again soon."
He gives her an off look, glancing back between the girl she'd been claiming to hate since they had met in middle school and his girlfriend blinking innocently up at him. "Alright, whatever you say," he tells her, leaning down and stealing a kiss before waving awkwardly in Missy's direction. "I'll call you tonight, alright, Shortstack?"
She nods at his departing figure, shouting a quick, "You better, Ranger Rick!" before turning her attention back to the withering brunette on her bed. The air is thick considering they hadn't actually shared a real conversation since Missy's outburst, but Maya still feels bad for her. She's obviously struggling with something major and this was her last resort, meaning she's just as desperate.
Maya silently stands and rushes to her bathroom. She returns with a package of makeup wipes, tugging one out before handing over the towelette and supply to Missy with pursed lips. "Your face looks all blotchy and your mascaras kind of smudged… all over."
"Thanks," Missy sniffs in a small voice, immediately wiping beneath her eyes to seem the slightest bit more composed. "Sorry, for, uh… ruining whatever you were doing with the blockhe- Lucas, I mean. You didn't have to kick him out."
Maya wanders over to her dresser, tugging out some pajamas to change into and shaking her head. "No, it's fine. Chicks before dicks and all that bullshit our moms shove down our throats, y'know?" They share a bittersweet chuckle at the mention. "I'm just gonna shower really quick, and then we can order a movie or something because you're pretty rough on the eyes." There's no edge to her insult, but it's enough to ease the tension between them.
"Shut the fuck up, dipshit," Missy laughs, throwing her used wipe in Maya's direction.
The blonde dodges it and sticks out her tongue. "Use as many as you need. You look like a gremlin," she snickers, slipping into the bathroom before Missy can try and strike again.
"Takes one to know one, Hart!"
xxxx
Maya skips the homecoming dance freshman year to make out with Lucas in her empty living room. They really should've gone considering they'd won the election for court, but accepting their sashes on Monday will hopefully be just as fun as being packed into a sweaty gym full of people Maya can hardly stand.
xxxx
Sandy buys her a guitar for Christmas- tells her it's to compliment that beautiful voice of hers- and so far all she knows is Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star, but Missy still tells her that she's doing great when she performs it in her living room.
Ever since the afternoon in Maya's bedroom, they'd been a bit more civil with each other. There's still that edge of rivalry and tension built over the years, but the blows aren't as lethal and they smile a lot more afterwards.
(With a smile like Missy's being what she gets to see, Maya can't find much reason to complain.)
xxxx
The first song that she ever plays for Lucas is for Charlie. He knocks on her window and when she calls for him to come in, sheets of music are scattered across her bed and her tiny figure is in the center of the clutter with her guitar propped up against her chest. He holds back a chuckle as she struggles to reach a notebook on her far left, the instrument nearly too big for her to work around.
"Hey, do you think you could tell me if this sucks? It's for Charles. Marlie Day is coming up."
He's well aware that the anniversary of their friendship is around the corner considering Charlie has had him scrapbooking for the past three weeks. (He claims his mom came up with the idea to surprise Maya with a binder for each year they've been attached, but there's something in Charlie's standards for each page that leads him to believe different.) He slides into her bedroom, kicking off his shoes and throwing his jacket on top of them. "Sure. You wrote him a song?"
"Well, no, but I plan on serenading him with Wind Beneath My Wings after we have his mom's red velvet cake for dessert, and, considering it's our favorite Bette Midler classic, he's gonna love it- I hope. It's obviously our anthem."
"Obviously," Lucas smirks, shifting to a fond smile when Maya begins to strum. "For what it counts, I already love it."
"Well, I don't need you to love it. I need Charlie to love it. It is gonna have to really be something to beat his un-fucking-believable scrapbooking skills. That kid is a master."
He tenses up, wondering if he'd managed to ruin Charlie's secret without knowing it. "I-uh.. I don't think he's making you scrapbooks."
Maya's eyes narrow. "Tsk, tsk. I'm appalled, Ranger Rick." She shakes her head, placing her guitar to her side so that she can quickly peck his lips in greeting. "You reek of tacky glue and lies."
xxxx
Even with being more civil, Maya and Missy don't necessarily spend much time alone per se. The only alone time that they really get is when their moms send them to Missy's room after dinner, and, even then, they're locked to their phones with one girl on the mattress and the other sprawled across the floor.
Maya thinks it's easier this way.
xxxx
"Lucas told me that he loves me tonight," she grins to Charlie, her head resting on his lap as they reel in their emotions after completing their very first year of high school. Yeah, midterms were hell, and finals were worse, but they already have plans to audition for their respective varsity teams and Charlie's dad is taking them to Spain for two weeks this summer so they have a lot to be excited about.
"Do you love him back?" Charlie asks, his hand playing with her hair when her eyes well with pure warmth.
"Yeah, Charles. I love him very much."
xxxx
The Bradford and Hart families go to the beach a record amount of times together that summer, and when Missy laughs so wide that the rays of the sun cast a glow around her entire silhouette, Maya's hands twitch in reflex to try and find her old iPod.
xxxx
"Y'know, sometimes I look at you and think that you're playing games with me," he says to her one day, an odd smile on his lips.
She's seated on Lucas's lap, the hems of her practice outfit being traced by the pads of his fingers. She'd made varsity only a week before he and Charlie had, and a big celebratory dinner was held at the Gardners' apartment with all types of treats after the news.
"What do you mean?" Her eyebrows bunch as she stretches out her legs, hyperextending them and twisting to crack her back when she faces him.
"I mean that sometimes I see how beautiful you are and I can't believe you're really mine."
"Oh, shut up, Huckleberry," she smirks, pushing lightly on his chest. "You're such a sap."
(She loves him- very, very, very, very much.)
xxxx
Missy makes varsity around the same time that she does, and their schools hold practice games in preparation for homecoming week that make Maya want to rip her hair out. Most of her squad is seniors, meaning that she only has a year to get in their good graces enough to promote to the first junior head cheerleader in Eagles history next year, and she's already exceptionally good, meaning that she's off to a fantastic start and they already adore her.
She just hates how the varsity uniforms are ever-so-slightly shorter and lighter and basically a second skin and how Missy looks fucking unbelievable in hers.
xxxx
"How's the boyfriend, Bratford? Still not star quarterback?"
"Peachy. Yours, Penelope? Still suspiciously the size of a college senior?"
"Just as perfect as a plum."
xxxx
Things aren't as peachy as she portrays, and Katy insists that Missy take Maya to homecoming when Chase or Chance or whatever dumps Missy for a girl half as gorgeous and a fraction of how funny she is. Maya plans on kicking his ass when he sees Missy's dressed balled into a pile on the floor only a few days before the dance.
"Well, I'll go with you," Maya proposes, the required forms for a date out of the school already filled out in her hands. She sets them down on the bed with a shrug. "My homecoming was like two weeks ago, so I have everything I need. I can half ass something with my hair that you can fix before we take pictures. All that fun stuff. Our 'rents will eat it right up."
Missy stares at her, but Maya knows that she's going to accept. She has a crown to redeem at that dance- of course, she's going to go.
"C'mon, Princess, don't leave me hangin'." She pushes the papers closer to the brunette, a peaceful smile in play.
"It's not Princess," Missy corrects, taking her bottom lip between her teeth momentarily. "That's the juniors. Sophomores win Dutchess. And we'll get you a new dress to match mine, they'll all be really cheap since my homecoming happens so late in the month."
"Just as long as you're paying, Dutchess Bratford."
xxxx
They manage to get her an entirely new homecoming outfit for less than forty dollars, the pastel she ends up in bringing out her eyes in a way that makes Sandy tell her that the breath was snatched from her lungs.
Missy agrees quietly, and when they pose for pictures, there's a subtle hesitation to every move they make. An odd rush of adrenaline through Maya at Missy's touch, and so she makes sure to call Lucas when she gets home and tell him that she loves him more than once.
xxxx
Charlie has a girlfriend named Alexandra that hates Maya with all her being, and they make it less than a month before he's single again because she tries to fight his best friend.
Maya would give up Lucas in an instant if he disliked Charlie, and she wonders just how much she truly does love him if that's the case.
xxxx
"If we're both single when we're like 35, will you marry me so I don't end up a hermit?"
"Charles, I'd marry you now if it meant you wouldn't be a hermit."
xxxx
She is almost sixteen and she learns what being in love is when clinging to her boyfriend's arm, gliding around the rink at Rockefeller with bewitching laugher and alluring grins being shared between them almost surreally. It's incredibly cheesy, and she almost didn't want to go because she was terrified it would be crowded, but he assured that if they go early enough that they'll be fine. They packed a small thermos filled with her favorite tea and they stuffed a ziploc bag full of their favorite cookies into his coat pocket and they left while only a total of six people were on the ice.
(She doesn't admit that he's right, and she kisses the smug look off of his face when she knows he's gonna brag about it.)
Even aside from their date in the city, they can't be in a room without touching each other in some way and she can't help but spend all of her time with him-sans the few hours her and Charlie catch alone, but she still misses him then- and if she doesn't call him every night to tell him about everything that happened while they weren't joined at the hip, she feels the ache of loneliness rotting in her core.
He doesn't see her as the broken girl with half a mom and no dad that haunts her in the mirror every morning, so she paints less to share dinner with him and she invites him to all of her movie nights and when she assumes his eyes are lingering too long in a direction away from hers, he talks her down until her boiling blood simmers and that's what being in love is.
She wants every part of him to slowly etch itself into the curves of the veins under her skin until she's covered in novels describing his childhood in Texas, and that's what being in love is.
xxxx
Shawn sneaks in monopoly behind Katy's back one faithful Friday.
(She finds out- they always find out- and now she checks his bag every time he comes through the door.)
xxxx
"Hey, guys, can I..uh, talk to you?" Lucas mutters, stumbling up to Charlie and Maya in the halls one morning towards the end of their sophomore year. They wordlessly nod, and he announces to them that his dad got transferred, he'll be back in Texas by December the upcoming school year.
Charlie grabs Maya's hand before she can register that she's silent because her throat is closing up.
xxxx
Maya falls into a sort of depression after finding out Lucas is moving again. It's not that her entire life revolves around some boy or anything like some desperate teenage cliché, it's just that she had plans for them- major plans throughout all of high school that he needs to actually be in high school with her to play out- but now he won't be because of his fucking dad having to fucking work in fucking Texas and she hates her life, she truly does because fuck, fuck, fuck.
"Excuse me?" Sandy coughs from across the kitchen table, her mother's eyes bulging from her side.
"I'm not gonna lie to you, I have no clue what I just said, but if it's along the lines of truck like I think it is, I think I'll just excuse myself to Missy's room instead of dessert," Maya admits in a small voice, sliding out of her chair and dumping her plate in the kitchen sink before storming to the bedroom.
There's only about three minutes before she hears the sound of Missy escaping from the dining room, apparently also skipping dessert, and Maya wonders if maybe she has some sort of crisis happening, too. They could bond or something over Maya's crumbling love life and her bittersweet view on the rest of her high school career.
"Moms sent me to check on you," Missy says, lifting a plate with a single cupcake on it in the air as she closes the door behind her, "I come bearing dessert, too. They only had one red velvet in the box, so they said we could share it." She cautiously approaching Maya's figure, sitting on the bed beside her with enough distance to place the treat between them. "Are you… Like… Do you…"
"Lucas is moving," Maya blurts out, her lips pressed firmly together as she watches her swinging legs. "I'm trying not to let it upset me, but it really is because he's my boyfriend and I love him and now he's moving to fucking Texas without me and I had the next three years at least planned for us that are all now ruined." She lets out a shaky sigh to avoid the tears she can feel welling in her eyes. "And I don't want to cry over it because that's so stupid. It's dumb and cliché and I want him to just leave and me to be perfectly okay with it, but we're gonna have to break up before junior prom is even set in stone, and I don't know if he's going to be able to do football next year, and I don't want to act like some weeping cry baby in an angsty teen novel, but he's leaving me and he's not supposed to leave."
"Oh," is all that Missy responds before she can see tears slipping down the blonde's cheeks. She puts their food onto her lap, scooting in to try and provide comfort. "I… Damn, that really sucks."
"Yeah," Maya laughs bitterly, wiping at her damp skin, "and I haven't even told my mom yet. I know she's gonna make a huge deal about it when I do, so I wanted to wait until we at least have a definite day. I just… I can't believe I was fucking idiotic enough to hope for this, y'know?"
"It's not idiotic," Missy assures, "I mean, you're many things, but you're not an idiot." She breaks the cupcake into sloppy halves with her hands. "Let's just focus on this, yeah? You have the rest of your life to cry over blockheads, but we only have now to eat three dollars of pure ecstasy from the bakery down the block."
When Maya snatches her share up and her tense body falls limp with the first bite, relief washes through Missy.
"Y'know what, Bratford...you're not half bad."
"Wow, Maya," Missy chuckles in return, "I think that's about the sweetest thing you've ever said to me."
"Don't let it get to your ego," Maya teases, popping another piece of the cake into her mouth. "It's the sweets talking."
"Oh, yeah, I bet," Missy snorts, her eyes falling to the frosting caught on the corner of Maya's mouth. She hesitates when she reaches up, her eyes focused on her friend's (are they even considered friends?) lips. "Here, you have…"
The room goes silent when Missy's hand brushes the side of her face, Maya's breath hitching at the unexpected contact.
Their second kiss is accidental- or so Missy will claim- and it's a really big heat of the moment thing that happens on a saturnine Tuesday in their excruciatingly quiet suburb, and the brunette shoves herself from her friend (she thinks that they're friends, maybe) as fast as she can as soon as her mind catches up with her body.
"Fuck, Maya, I'm so fucking sorry," she rattles out, "I don't know what I was thinking. You were just so close, and your mouth was right there, and I just sort of leaned in to look even closer, and fuck, Maya, fu-"
Their third kiss is intentional- Maya can't deny that- and it's a clumsy combination of teeth and tongue and pale hands desperately scraping olive skin for a grand total of sixty seven seconds (Missy was counting how long she would be able to hold her breath before passing out) and then it's Maya's turn to scurry away in realization.
Both of them inhale sharply in an attempt to sooth their rapid hearts, and Maya stutters out a hurried, "I have to go," with flushed cheeks, not daring to look Missy in the eyes as she rises from the mattress and seeks out her mother.
xxxx
She goes straight to Charlie's, some bullshit excuse about leaving some book or lipgloss or whatever her mom bought as reasoning with a promise of being home within the hour, and she sobs into his chest for upwards of forty minutes because she doesn't know what's going on anymore.
"Missy kissed me," she huffs, storming into his bedroom and throwing herself dramatically onto his resting body.
"Maya?! What the fuck, I was sleeping!" he grunts, only getting her to nuzzle closer in response.
"Missy kissed me, and I kissed her back, and I think that I like girls, Charlie."
He goes silent for a few seconds, stroking her back soothingly before she shudders.
"I just… Lucas is leaving and Missy kissed me and then I kissed her and I… God, I needed to be with someone that's never going to leave me or confuse me or make my heart clench so tightly I doubt the arteries are even open anymore, let alone pumping blood."
"I love you, Maya," he mutters, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, "but you sure are a handful sometimes. Plus, I totally told you that you wanted to do the do with Missy like forever ago."
"Charles, I am attached to practically all of your limbs right now. I would choose my words very carefully before you get torn to shreds."
Charlie smirks, shifting so she can comfortably rest beside him and taking out his phone to text Katy that Maya's spending the night, a rough day taking its toll. He tells her that she'll be home in the morning and that he'll make sure she comes clean with the details before tossing it onto his nightstand and pulling his best friend closer. "Please at least leave the arm I write with," he begs, covering them both with his comforter after she shimmies out of her jeans meekly, absolutely worn from her emotions.
"I'll consider, but only 'cause I love you, too." Her sighs grows content as she relaxes into Charlie's touch, humming at the contact when she tucks her head onto his chest and closes her eyes.
"Hey, Charles?" she mumbles out.
"Yes, Penelope?"
"You're my best friend in this entire world, and I love you."
"You're mine, too, but don't think that buttering me up with get you out of telling your mom about everything with Lucas."
"God damn it, you dickwad, you can't let me have anything!"
"And there's my favorite little asshole poppin' back in before shut eye."
"I want you dead."
"Oh, I love you, too, bud. Sleep extra tight."
She smiles against the fabric of his shirt, her hands clinging ever so slightly more to him after he bids goodnight.
"Yeah, yeah, whatever, dumbass. Don't let the extra bed bugs bite."
xxxx
She tells her mom, and she gets hugged so tight that she questions revealing anything to her mother about anyone at any point in any lifetime ever again.
xxxx
Missy and Maya only see each other during football games after their second kiss (and their third) (and there being a very real possibility of their fourth) because Maya starts skipping out on dinner with the Bradfords to soak in as much Lucas as she can.
She's not particularly sure if only encountering the enticing brunette while she's clad in her less than modest cheerleading uniform is her best idea, but she'd just kissed that fucking girl about two weeks ago, so it's obviously not her worst.
xxxx
With his pending departure, Maya and Lucas become absolutely inseparable. They skip classes to make out in stairwells, share each bite of every meal between 'I love you's and 'I don't ever want to be apart's, game nights even get cancelled to become dates- therefore, it's only logical that when they get a definite date on purchased plane tickets, they decide that they want to have sex before he's gone.
"I just- I'm not pressuring you or anything, Maya, but I just want you to know that I'd really like you to be my first, and if you aren't ready, I'm fine with that, I just really fucking love you and I really fucking want the world with you and I want your first time to be with someone that loves you and, fuck, I love you so much, and I want you to be my first and I just-"
She shuts him up by kissing him, only kissing him, and it doesn't settle in until late that night, bundled beneath blankets and pillows and the toxic air of impending heartbreak, that today she made plans to lose her virginity while only sixteen to a boy who's leaving her.
xxxx
From the week her father left to the first day of the next month, young Maya had come up with a sort of contract with herself. She watched her mother's eyes succumb to the pressure of heartache just like glass, spiderweb fractures distorting the image of a happy home, a happy family, a happy life.
Maya refused it and, at eleven years old, vowed that she would allow herself one chance at love. She would allow one sliver of hope to drip from her heart to the core of her lungs to steal her breath when the perfect boy smiled her way- just like Lucas had.
She wanted a streak of only a single person stealing the title of her first, but that meant that she wanted her first time to be with her first date, her first boyfriend, her first kiss, and Lucas was only two of those things.
"I'm having a crisis," she moans to Charlie after school, draping herself across his couch before he lifts her head to seat his lap beneath it.
"What about now?"
"My stupid rules about stupid firsts and my stupid boyfriend wanting to stupidly have stupid sex."
"So, you and Lucas plan on doing the do and you're having a crisis because it's supposed to be Princess Bradford but you didn't plan on Missy being your first kiss so you don't know what to do?" Charlie sighs, his hand stroking the top of her head after she gives a sad nod. "Oh, Maya, what am I going to do with you?"
"Charles, I wish we had fallen in love and I never met anyone else ever."
He laughs a little, settling into his couch before speaking again in a sweet tone, "I know you do, Penelope."
xxxx
Missy calls her sometimes, late at night when she can't sleep and Isadora is dreaming of formulas and equations and cures for every disease whether known to man or not, and Maya answers because she likes the way Missy's voice rasps when she laughs at a dumb joke she read on the wrapper of a candy she found tucked under her pillow.
They act as if the conversations don't happen when the sun rises because it's summer and Maya doesn't think anyone really cares except Charlie, who's the only one she tells anyway.
(She keeps the nights that she ignores Lucas for Missy's company to herself, a guilty secret wrapped with the paper thin fragility of her relationship's ticking clock and a bow stitched together with unspoken apologies.)
xxxx
Charlie says he thinks it might be a good thing that Lucas is leaving, and Maya really, really tries not to see his point.
xxxx
"Maya, you need to tell Lucas that you don't feel morally sound sleeping with him."
"He doesn't even know he wasn't my first kiss, Charlie."
"Then you need to tell Missy that you feel morally sound sleeping with her."
"Say that again, I'll use your mom's handcuffs to chain you against a streetlight on the highway."
xxxx
When Maya sees Missy undressing after making the revelation that she subconsciously wants to fuck her, she's pretty sure that she has a nervous breakdown.
They have their first varsity competition as head cheerleaders and their moms spend too long taking pictures of them in their uniforms when they're supposed to be at the school loading onto the bus, opting them out of the free ride and causing Maya to stuff all their things in the back of her mom's rusty Buick and whip the keys towards Missy's palms.
It's not even that it's that long of a ride to their destination either, they didn't even need to make a pit stop to rest, but Missy refused to listen to Maya's directions so the four hour trip turned into a six hour trip which turned into an eight hour trip which turned into "Fuck, Bradford, why does that sign say state lines?!" which turned into a night in crammed in the single vacant suite of a shitty motel on the border of New Jersey that makes Maya want to rip her hair out.
As icing on the cake, their squads don't even come close to placing without them there, which makes it that much worse when Maya bursts into the room after hanging up with Sarah to deliver the news to Missy that their first competition was a bust- only to find the other girl slipping out of her uniform and into the practice outfit she has tucked into her bag.
Charlie's voice in the back of her mind tells her that she really needs to inform Missy of her weird firsts rule, but her mouth won't move and her eyes are glued to the curve of her waist, the notches of her spine trailing her back, soft skin that she can practically feel from her place five feet away.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck."
Missy's attention snaps to the stumbling blonde, watching Maya advert her eyes while muttering words her mother wouldn't approve of. "Uh, you alright there?" Missy asks, tugging her tank top over her torso before stepping closer.
"No!" Maya yelps, slamming herself back against the closed door when Missy approaches. "I need you to just not come any closer to me for like the rest of my life please." She curses herself and refuses to look anywhere but the ceiling, her thighs being pressed tightly together when Missy gives her an odd look and goes to change into her shorts.
She tries not to notice Missy's skirt dropping to the ground, her spanx following before probably the tiniest pair of shorts that Maya has ever seen replace them, but she does notice and it's slowly killing her and Missy's legs are so long and fuck, fuck, fuck.
"Okay, why do you keep saying that?" Missy scrunches her eyebrows together, half expecting Maya to stay silent before she seems to erupt from her thoughts.
"Look, I have this thing about firsts and like how I only wanted one person to be my first everything because true love and bullshit, but I fucked that up because we kissed when we were like fucking thirteen and then I told Lucas that he was my first kiss and now he wants to have sex because we love each other and he's leaving- but he thinks I'm okay with it because he thinks he was my first kiss, and I'm not okay with it- and Charlie thinks that I should just come clean and tell him about how I kissed you and I think I like girls, too, and how you're basically the only person on this planet that I am okay with losing my virginity to, but I tried to tell him that I can't just tell you that I want to sleep with you when I'm supposed to fuck Lucas like he's the only person I've ever even thought about in that way even though he's not because holy fuck, Missy, have you ever seen your fucking body?!" Maya inhales sharply, pacing the ground as her rambling continues. "It drives me fucking insane, and I'm forced to have dinner with you and sleep at your house in your bed and we spend so much time together even though we've had this weird rivalry thing going on for like twelve million years and I know Charlie's right because I should tell Lucas, but I don't want to break his heart because I know it will, and I can't not sleep with him because he thinks I'm alright with it because he thinks he was my first everything and it's fucking eating me alive! I'm going absolutely fucking crazy and I was doing so well until I had to get in the car with you and you were singing to the radio too loud and missed our exit and swerved lanes when I threw those gummy bears at your head and landed us in this fucking dump for the night with one bed that probably has dirty sheets and piss stains!"
Missy stares blankly, blinking at Maya with an unreadable look as she slumps onto the bed defeatedly.
"I just want to have sex with my boyfriend without feeling like I'm disappointing my eleven year old self because he wasn't my first kiss, and he's not going to be my last because he's leaving me," Maya sniffles, kicking the ground with the tip of her shoe.
Slowly, Missy steps to her, eyes locked on the blonde's sulking figure with a tight frown. "Okay."
Maya's head snaps up with a bewildered look, greeted with Missy towering over her determinedly. She watches as Missy climbs onto the bed, one leg on either side of Maya's waist to straddle her. "W-what?"
"Okay," Missy repeats to her, trailing her arms above Maya's shoulders and using a hand to brush her hair aside.
"I- Missy, what?" Maya's mouth falls open as she notices Missy's eyes following the the features of her face, a light smile tugging on her lips.
"Look, this is obviously tearing you up, and if it really means that much to you, I don't want you to miss out on anything with him," Missy admits softly, "I've known you my entire life, Maya. No matter what we've been through or how we've treated each other, I want you to be happy."
Maya is frozen under her, the beating of her heart probably audible above her constricting uniform- fuck, she should've changed- and Missy just grins at her, like she knows a secret no one else does, like this is how everything is supposed to be and Maya was the only one that didn't get the memo. "You don't have to do this, though, if you would rather it be anyone else, I'd understand-"
"I've thought about it, too," Missy says abruptly, "About us and like firsts, I mean, and just…" She leans down, her face only inches away now, "If you want me to stop, tell me, okay?" She fumbles with the zipper on Maya's skirt, undoing it clumsily without making any effort to actually take it off. "If you don't want this, just tell me to stop."
And she shouldn't want this, she knows that she shouldn't, but still her hands warily uncurl themselves from fists and she uses her fingertips to trace up the tops of Missy's thighs, completely ignoring the boundary set by her shorts to rub the skin beneath them, and her lungs constrict when Missy dips down enough to kiss her causing her nails to dig into her smooth flesh.
Everything just falls into place after that. Shaking hands steady out, awkward positioning changes to ridding of clothes to lying flat against the bed, one girl over the other, unsure gasps shift to moans of each other's names, cursing as they take turns arching into every stroke; their detour became dirty words on dirty sheets in that dirty fucking motel room that Maya is finally starting to like.
And Maya doesn't think she's ever seen Missy so beautiful. She hates how cliché it sounds, but the second that she flips them over to slide her hand between the brunette's legs, there's a unexpected whimper let out and Missy is begging- Missy, fucking begging- her to keep going. Her cheeks flush and she grips the blanket bunched awkwardly around them when her head rolls back, and Maya can't fucking help but think about how lucky she is to see her this way, to see her so vulnerable, and for a second, just as Missy's crying out the loudest she has the entire night, she's so fucking thankful that they got lost. She wants to thank Jesus himself that Missy is an asshole when it comes to taking directions because the only way to describe the feeling of her pupils dilating as the girl she's attempted to torment practically her entire life unravels from beneath her is pure bliss.
(She doesn't remember that she has a boyfriend until after they're spent when she's shuffling through her duffel. She pulls out two of his shirts that she keeps handy for when she wants to pull on something loose after hours of being stuffed into an unfortunate polyester blend, and she hesitates before she tosses one to Missy, the brunette not even noticing as she puts it on and tucks herself beneath the comforter to catch some sleep before they leave in the morning.)
xxxx
Lucas calls around four because he hadn't gotten a goodnight text and he wanted to make sure that everything was alright, and she answers it impulsively without realizing that there's a warm body wrapped around her.
"Hey, Shortstack, sorry it's so late. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. It was kinda keepin' me up." She can practically hear the sheepish smile on his lips, and it makes her stomach churn.
"Oh, yeah, no, I'm great, Lucas." Missy leans up head up with a yawn, and Maya avoids looking her way.
"Did you just call me Lucas?" he questions, his voice growing more alert.
"Yeah, I did, but it's fine, don't look into it, I'm just tense- tired and everything from this whole trip. I'll just… I'll, um, talk to you in the morning, okay?"
"Alright, if you say so. Night, babe, I love you."
She grimaces as she rushes out a whispered, "Night, I love you, too," and hangs up as fast as she possibly can.
When her heart rate starts to pick up again, Missy pulls her closer and mumbles sleepily that it'll be okay, that everything will work out, and Maya blindly melts against her because she sure as hell hopes so.
