What's up guys? :) And I'm back with another update! Sorry for not updating last week, but I had a family emergency and I did not have time to write this chapter and update until now.
HAPPY ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF SEVEN YEARS IN THE NINETIES! There are 2 more chapters left after this one for season 2! Those of you who have been with me since the first season would know that I like to have this 'Did You Know?' segment where I basically tell you as many trivia facts as I can about how I wrote this season. I will also have the award for 'Loyalest Reviewers' and so this is where I give a shout-out to everybody who have reviewed every single one of my chapters and there will most likely be a lot of people who will be included in this shout-out because of the contest I had. :) The Google Hangout I hosted on Tuesday is now linked on my bio. It's just under the schedule for this story. Please check it out if you are interested in learning some stuff about myself and the background story of how I was able to make this story possible. There might have also been some stuff that I revealed, but you'll never know until you watch it! ;)
Chapter talk: Maya is a very interesting character. Did you know that? Lol, jk. Of course you did. She finds out something about Shawn that we already know. This chapter is very important to what happens in the last two chapters of this season! Just remember that!
I'd like to give a shout-out to those that reviewed my previous chapter: joyfish98, Guest, Esthernight, mrs peeta mellark 2.0, GMW23, Guest, Giggles789, Liseegirl, guest, Livj, Guest, Danni, Mari101, Hoalover716, Guest, Guest, ReaderWriterDreamer18, Guest, EtharahxBennica, emma, Deathlymockingjay, maranoismylife, musicalBooknerd13, Jemmie, and DisneyLover16.
Disclaimer: I do not own Boy Meets World, or its spin-off series Girl Meets World.
In future times, Shawn would be the one assuring me that I was all right. That I would turn out all right, just like he had. Wow, how times have changed...
Maya's Point of View
Tuesday, April 11th, 1995, Philadelphia
Past time, 8:10 A.M
Riley and I had just arrived to school just in time to see Jill Hollinger accepting a date with Shawn. She was one of those girls who had class yet wasn't snobby or stuck up. So why as this bothering me? She was so out of Shawn's league the comparison was massive, but was she exactly what he needed?
"Yes," Jill said, smiling at Shawn as they stood by the lockers.
"Say it again," Shawn pleaded as if it had been the very first time a girl had said yes to him, which was far from the truth. I rolled my eyes in annoyance.
"Yes, I'll go out with you," Jill said teasing, knowing Shawn was on the verge of breaking.
"Now say it with my name."
Are. You. Kidding. Me?
"Yes, Shawn, I'd love to go out with you Shawn." Jill smiled brightly, complying with everything Shawn was asking of her.
"There's no way this is happening!" I commented to Riley, as we stood by the water fountain. Riley held up her hair and bent down to take a drink. "Any girl with status wouldn't just stoop so low as to do whatever Shawn Hunter wants them to do. I feel sorry for them, those poor poor victims."
Riley lifted her head up. "Are you done now Maya? I only say this with love. If Shawn likes the attention, who are we to decide what's right for him?"
"You're actually okay with this? Isn't there a point where it just gets way out of hand?"
Riley stood upright and shrugged. "I don't see anything wrong with that girl liking Shawn so much she's going out with him. What do you see, Maya?"
"I see... not good things. I can feel it in my gut."
We panned our attention back to the couple. I, unlike Riley, watched them with a critical eye.
"Well, who's Shawn?" Shawn asked jokingly.
Jill followed his game and answered, "You are."
"I know!" Shawn said happily.
I casually walked in between them, pretending like I was getting something from my locker when I wasn't, my back facing them. I turned around about to say something to them when I realized Jill had already left and Shawn was stuck in 'Jill-land', way too distracted to even notice I was there.
Cory walked up to Shawn right after Jill had left. "Jill Hollinger, wow! This is a whole new type of girl for you."
"I know!" Shawn responded. "She's got style, she's got elegance, she's got parents."
I scoffed. "Big deal. There's more important things to life than having 'style, elegance and parents'. What about intelligence?"
"Maya, Jill's one of the top students in our class," Riley reminded me, walking over to us. Well of course she would know that.
"Does everything have to be about school?" I asked in annoyance.
"Sounds to me like you don't like Jill," Cory inferred.
"Sounds to me like you're jealous," Shawn smirked. I stepped up closer to Shawn.
"Sounds to me like you're an idiot," I fired back, smirking back.
Before Shawn could defend himself, Eric and his friend Jason appeared next to us. Where did they even come from? That question didn't seem to matter anymore when we all realized they had been eavesdropping in our conversation the whole time!
"Look! Baby geeks discovering the female of the species," Eric teased.
I was about to fire-back with a smart comeback when Riley grabbed my arm and whispered tensely, "He's talking about Shawn and Jill, right? Please tell me he is."
I avoided Riley's question, knowing the truth.
"I say we tag them and return next spring," Jason continued the teasing.
"Why don't you return never!" Cory retorted at his brother and his brother's friend. Not that it made a difference anyway. As long as there was nothing else to do, Cory and us (sadly) were their targets of amusement.
"They attempt to protect themselves by puffing up," Jason answered smartly, causing him and Eric to burst in laughter.
In all honesty, it didn't bother me that they often teased us. Because it was just them poking fun at us. Not meant to be taken seriously. While there were other guys such as Harley Keiner and his lackies that did more than just joking around.
"I don't see you guys with any girls," Shawn pointed out. Hmm, impressive. Strong argument. Wonder how they would get out of this one?
"Oh, please! We only hunt when we need to hunt," Eric defended their 'masculinity'. Then Jason made some kind of Bugs Bunny reference when they saw a girl and then they were drawn to flirt with her.
I turned to Shawn, pointing my finger at him and spoke in a warning tone, "Don't believe everything people tell you. If something's too good to be true, it most likely isn't. Understand?"
"Anything you say."
"Good," I said, satisfied that I was able to convince him, until I turned around to walk into homeroom.
Shawn muttered under his breath, "But I still think you're jealous."
Too good to be true. Should have seen that coming.
For English class we were forced to write biographies on someone we admired. I was planning to write about Spongbob SquarePants until Mr. Turner told us we weren't allowed to write about fictional characters once Cory admitted he was going to write about Captain James T. Kirk of the USS Enterprise. Then I realized Spongbob didn't exist yet until 1999!
I tapped Riley on the shoulder. She turned around and raised both her eyebrows.
"Who are you planning to writing about?" I asked her.
"Malala Yousafzai," she answered proudly until she came to the same conclusion that I had just seconds before asking her. "Oh..."
"Do we even know anybody from this decade? How are we even supposed to do research for this assignment without our cell phones? It's impossible!"
"Nothing is impossible. The word itself says 'I'm possible!'" Riley smiled cheerfully.
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" I asked, staring at her incrediously.
Instead of answering my simple question, Riley raised up her hand instead to ask Turner something. It was like a lightbulb had went off in her head.
"Miss Matthews, nice of you to raise your hand," Mr. Turner joked heartily. "Do you have a question about the assignment?"
"Um, yes. Could I do mine on Audrey Hepburn?"
"Well," Turner started, and I knew it would not end well for the little plant. "It's an interesting choice, Miss Matthews. Now unfortunately Audrey Hepburn passed away two years ago. I'd prefer you'd do your biography on a living person. It doesn't have to be somebody famous. Just somebody real. Anybody you like."
"Anybody?" Cory perked up.
"Anybody," Turner responded.
"Absolutely anybody?" Shawn asked.
"Absolutely anybody."
I raised up my hand, knowing where this was heading. "When you say anybody, you mean like anybody?"
Turner lifted an eyebrow. "Yeah? What's the problem Miss Hart? Anybody means anybody."
"Just watch," I said simply.
"I pick Shawn!" Cory announced.
And of course Shawn decided to follow suit. "I pick Cory!"
I smirked slyly at Riley. "And because that just happened, I pick Riley. What do you say little plant?"
"Yay," Riley said, a little less enthusiastic than I anticipated her to be.
While we were eating our lunches in the cafeteria midday, we decided we would all start working on our biographies on each other. "Alright, Shawn Hunter, now, where are you from?" Cory asked Shawn.
Riley imitated her father by taking out her pen and paper. "Alright, Maya Hart, now, where are you from?"
"I'm from here," Shawn responded to Cory's question.
"I'm from New York," I said, responding to Riley's question.
Cory scratched his chin, evidently not liking Shawn's answer. "Uh-huh. Shawn was raised by wolves," he said, writing down his made-up answer.
Shawn was about to protest when he saw Jill Hollinger walk into the cafeteria and he howled jokingly. He quickly got up and left to go talk to her.
Riley leaned in to me and whispered worriedly, "What do you think is gonna happen?"
I sighed, observing Jill's nervous behavior to the way Shawn came up to her. "Well, if I know girls like Jill, not good things."
Seconds later, Shawn came back with a confused and sad look on his face.
Cory got up and walked over to Shawn. "What was that about?"
Shawn shrugged. "I don't know. She just totally blew me off."
"Yeah, but this morning she couldn't wait to go out with you," Cory mentioned.
"Doesn't make sense. Something's wrong," Shawn said, finally coming to the same conclusion that I did a long time ago. That something would not be right.
"I don't wanna say 'I told you so' Hunter, but I did." Did that even sound sincere? It probably wasn't since it was coming from me.
"Maya, don't-" Riley said.
Shawn interrupted. "No, she's right. I'm nothing more than trailer trash, right Maya?"
I froze. "N-no. That's not what I meant-" I didn't have the chance to even finish my sentence before Shawn stormed out of the cafeteria.
"Why did you do that Maya?" Riley asked me in a motherly tone as we were getting ready by our lockers to walk home.
"I didn't do anything!" I said defensively. "He just assumed that I meant he's trailer trash! I should go talk to him, right?" Riley gave me a look. "Yeah, I know."
I walked outside the school. The cool crisp air of spring hit my skin as I made my way to the trailer park. When I arrived there, I had noticed that almost nothing had changed since the last time I was there. At most there were a few trailers that were parked in different places. But that made no difference since trailers came and went just like friends did.
I walked to the trailer that read 'The Unters' and just assumed that the 'H' had fallen off since the last time I was there. All the trailers looked almost the same anyway. Little did I know that assuming what I had I would regret in an instant.
I knocked on the door confidently and waited for a response. A grumpy old man with a pitchfork came out and said, "What?"
I quirked my eyebrow. "I-I'm looking for Shawn Hunter, sir. Isn't this the Hunter's trailer?" I was confused as to why none of the Hunters came out. Who was this man?
"This ain't the Hunter's trailer! This is the 'Unter's' trailer! Now scram lil' girl or I'll lose ma patience on ya!" the grumpy old man yelled, holding up his pitchfork, ready to charge on me. I didn't think twice and ran as far away from the crazy old man as possible. Without stopping, I looked back to see if he was following me when I bumped into something hard and fell on a puddle of mud. I looked up and sort of sighed with relief when I saw that the person that I had bumped into had been Shawn.
"You wanna tell me why you're sitting in mud?" Shawn asked plainly, running his hand over his hair.
I glared up at him. "You wanna tell me why you're suck a jerk?"
Shawn offered his hand and I took it. He pulled me off the ground.
"What are you even doing here, Maya? You don't belong here."
"What does that even mean? Why did you even skip school after lunch?"
"My uncle Mike needed me to watch his Motorcycle Repair Shop while he hid from the cops for a few hours," Shawn said like it was a common thing.
"Alright well, all I came here was to apologize. You're not trailer trash, that's not what I was trying to say. I feel sorry for Jill though, because she's missing out on someone great."
"You think I'm great?" he smirked cockily.
"Eh, you're all right."
Shawn led me into his trailer and I looked around, noticing that in fact it was not his trailer at all. It was a little bit more spacious and hollowed but this was definitely not his trailer.
"Uncle Mike's letting me stay here for a couple of days while my parents are out of town," Shawn explained to me.
"Where did your parents go?" I asked curiously, looking around the worn out and dusty place.
"Uh, Vegas I think they told me? I'm not sure, they like to go to random places and not tell me until they come back. They're unexpected and surprising that way."
Unexpected and surprising, why did this sound familiar? It was not like anything that was happening in Shawn's life mirrored what had happened in mine. But the thing was that it did. I shrugged it off and decided to go change into whatever I could find in the bathroom. I came out wearing a pair of Shawn's jeans which I had to roll up the cuffs a little so that they wouldn't drag on the floor and make me look shorter than I already was.
A scent of chicken hit my nose immediately once I entered the living room. I followed the scent into the kitchen where I was extremely shocked to find Shawn cooking.
I smirked amusingly. "Since when do you cook?"
Shawn turned around and smirked at my choice of wardrobe. "I've always thought my clothes would look good on you. To answer your question, since my uncle told me I should be doing more around here until my parents come back. But you can't tell anybody, not even Cory. Want a bite?" he asked, dipping his spoon into the pot and scooped up a bite-size piece of chicken.
I shrugged my shoulders at the seemingly editable object. Why not? I was starving and it wasn't like I was gonna die from it.
I tasted the chicken in my mouth. "Not bad Hunter," I said, impressed by his hidden cooking talent. "Who needs Jill, right? If she doesn't like you for you, she doesn't deserve to go out with you."
"You're right!" Shawn exclaimed, boasting up his energy.
I sighed. "If only Jill knew the real you."
"Yeah, but she doesn't. But now you do."
The next day at school, Cory, Riley and I had noted that Shawn missed first period, which was unlike him. He would often come in late, but never miss it entirely unless he was sick. Especially after our conversation yesterday, I thought he would be better than ever... guess not.
As the three of us were getting our books for second period, Shawn came up to us at fast pace, excited to tell us something.
"Cory! Guys! There you are."
Cory quirked an eyebrow. "You okay?"
Shawn nodded. "I'm great!"
"Good," Cory responded, seemingly not fully convinced.
"Why did you miss first period then?" Riley asked.
"I had a conflict," Shawn admitted.
Realizing what that could possibly mean, I asked cautiously, "What conflict?"
Shawn giggled like a little school girl for lack of being able to contain himself. "Wait for it."
We all looked around until we saw Mr. Feeny passing by the halls. He was soaked from his knees down. My eyes widened, realizing there was a connection to Shawn's 'conflict' and the cause of Mr. Feeny's socks being soaked.
Mr. Feeny tried his best to block as many students from entering the lower hallway of the school.
Riley walked up to him and asked. "What happened, sir?"
"Well Miss Matthews, the lower hallway is flooded," Mr. Feeny explained sadly.
"Who would do such a thing?!" Riley expressed over-dramatically, like she usually did. "My next class is there... oh..." she said, finally understanding what or who had been the cause of the flood. "Never mind, I didn't even like that class anyway," she shrugged, coming back to us while Mr. Feeny went to go get Janitor Bud and his 'big mop'.
"You?" Cory asked Shawn.
Shawn nodded proudly. "I also freed the rats in the biology lab and get this, I turned all the clocks ahead twelve hours." The bell rung as if on cue and Shawn smirked, "Yeah sure."
I pushed Shawn aside as Riley and Cory followed close behind me. "What did we talk about yesterday? You said you were alright, right? So why do you gotta go and do something like that to Mr. Feeny?"
Cory nodded. "Yeah, because naturally I'm impressed and all, but what do you think you're doing?"
Shawn shrugged simply. "Just giving you good stuff for your bio, Cor. 'A mild-mannered youth until seventh grade, Shawn realized he was nothing but trailer trash, so he blew up the entire school'."
Riley gave me a confused look. "I thought you handled this, Maya?"
I glanced at her before turning back to Shawn. "I did! Again with the trailer trash thing, Hunter? Haven't we've already said that Jill knows nothing about you? We're your friends, and we're saying that you don't need to blow up the school."
Shawn looked at us as if we'd just insulted him big time. "This is about me being who I am, so if you don't like it you three can just buzz off." He turned away and walked toward Harley Keiner's gang. I was ready to charge at him for talking to us that way when Riley and Cory held me back.
"We haven't lost him yet," Riley said, hope sounding through her voice.
Shawn and Harley's gang walked past us moments later. Cory stopped Shawn before he could leave with them.
"Hey, Shawn, why do you want to hang out with these guys?"
"What's wrong with that?"
I spoke up. "Whatever your problem is, these aren't the guys to help you. You should know that Hunter."
"So you think I have a problem?" Shawn asked me directly. I didn't know what to say, so Shawn turned to Cory. "It's time we both faced the facts."
"The facts?" Cory asked him.
"Cory, you and I are different. Sooner or later, we're gonna end up in different places."
"Says who?"
"Why don't we just do us both a favor right now and call it quits, okay?"
"How could you said that?" Riley asked hurtfully.
I could see Shawn's eyes turn into a pale grey color. "You guys just don't get it, do you?"
"Get what?!" Cory yelled in Shawn's face.
"Look at your house, Cor! Look at where you live. Look at how I live. Look at your parents. Look at my parents. I know where I'm gonna end up. Just let me get there now." Shawn left with the thugs before we could do anything else.
The bell rung which meant we were late for class.
I looked over at Riley. "We lost him now pumpkin."
Turner poked his head out of his classroom and just saw us three standing in the hallway with nobody around us. "Where's your friend going?" he asked, referring to Shawn.
Cory shrugged sadly. "I wish I knew."
Turner let us work on our biographies in class the next day at school. Since Shawn skipped class and he knew he was most likely hanging out with Harley and his thugs outside the school, Cory had no choice but to not do anything for the entire period. Riley and I felt bad for him, so we let him join our circle to keep his mind off his best friend.
"Maya, what do you think of yourself?" Riley asked me, preparing her pen and paper to write down whatever I would say.
I shrugged. "I dunno. I can't think straight right now when I know Shawn's out there doing god knows what with those lowlifes!"
Riley groaned. "How are we supposed to do anything while we're still in class?"
I looked around the classroom. Wait, where did Cory go?
"Where's Cory?"
Riley looked at me worriedly. "Something's happening, I can feel it!"
I called Turner over as I tried to calm Riley down. "I think Harley and his gang are up to no good," I whispered in Turner's ear.
Turner, realizing what that meant, quickly hurried out of the classroom. We tried to follow him, but he told us we should stay in class and that he would handle things from here.
Once he left, Riley and I snuck through a different way around the school and peeked out the door which lead to the school's parking lot. We were relieved to see that Turner had arrived just on time before his bike was wrecked. It was just Harley and Shawn that remained out of all the thugs. Cory stood beside Turner.
"Why is Shawn holding the bat? What does that mean?" Riley asked concernedly, referring to the fact that it was not Harley that was going to wreck Turner's bike, but Shawn. I had to admit, I was surprised by that.
"It means he's lost his mind," I explained, opening the door before stepping outside into the parking lot. Thankfully Harley had left by then so it was only Cory, Shawn and Turner. Instead of trying to stop me, Riley only followed.
We had walked in in the middle of Turner's lecture to Shawn.
"Who you kiddin'? What's with you, Hunter? Why you wanna hang out with these lowlifes?" Turner asked in his state of protectiveness toward the boy.
Shawn looked anywhere else but at Turner. "Maybe I'm a lowlife too, okay?" How could he think that about himself?
Turner gave a short pause. "Is that what you think?"
"That's what everybody else thinks."
"I wanna know what you think," our teacher insisted.
"Hey! I'm out here with a bat, aren't I?" Shawn answered angrily.
"Yeah! But you didn't swing it."
"I don't know anything. I don't even know who I am!" Shawn shouted. It reminded me of the cherry bomb incident which happened a year ago, but we were younger at the time. Now things were different.
I walked up to the boy with the bat. "Hey Hunter, we know who you are. You're our friend and you can't just forget something like that."
Cory jumped in. "You're Shawn Hunter! You were raised by wolves. It says so in your bio."
"Turner knows you're all right, right sir?" I turned to Turner.
"You think I'm all right?" Shawn asked our teacher.
Turner nodded. "I do, but if you don't know that deep down inside you're all right, then I haven't taught you anything at all. I think you need to think you're all right."
Mr. Turner and Cory walked back into the school while Shawn, Riley and I stayed outside.
Riley was about to follow Turner and Cory until she saw we weren't following her. "Aren't you coming guys?"
I looked at Shawn, knowing we had some unresolved issues. "We'll be inside in a minute, okay?"
Riley nodded and went back inside the building. I sat on top of Turner's bike, resting my elbow on top of the handle.
"Tell me the truth Hunter, was this all because Jill didn't want to go out with you because you live in a trailer?"
"Why does it matter to you what Jill thinks?" he asked me.
"Because I know girls like Jill, okay? People judge you because of where you live and it gets inside your head. I've seen it a million times at-"
"The orphanage?"
I paused. Sure, let's go with that. "Yeah... the orphanage. But the thing is Shawn, you can't let any Jill get to you!"
"You think I'm all right?"
"Yeah, I do," I admitted.
In future times, Shawn would be the one assuring me that I was all right. That I would turn out all right, just like he had. Wow, how times have changed...
"Okay," he shrugged. Then it hit me.
No, this had to be something bigger than what Jill said. She was not the reason for Shawn's behavior. I had heard the stories millions of times because I wanted to. Older Shawn's parents leaving him in the seventh grade... I'd heard the stories a million times, but... how could I have not seen it coming?
"Your parents didn't actually go to Vegas, did they? At least not together. Your mom left, but you're dad went after her."
Shawn's eyes widened. "How did you know?"
I chuckled bitterly. "Shawn, we're more alike than you think. We're stayers, remember?" Only older Shawn would understand what I meant there. One day so would this Shawn too.
Back in class, we were all back to normal. I noticed Riley sweating bullets in front of me as she worked on my bio. I tapped her on her shoulder and she turned around to look at me.
"Hey, Riles?"
"Mhm?"
"What did you put down for my bio? Who am I?"
A smile tugged on Riley's lips as she read the first line in her bio.
"Maya Hart, a good friend who always knows when her friends need her by their side..."
Author's Note: What did you think of this chapter? :) You'll be happy to know that I will be having another Google Hangout, so if you missed the first one, don't worry! You can still be a part of the next one in any form that you wish. The info of that will be posted on my Twitter and Tumblr. I may have it sometime this week, but we'll see. :) Girl Meets Rileytown has inspired me to talk about my in school bullying experience, which are three separate stories.
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I want to give a special shout-out to three great people who I have been conversing with through Fanfiction (joyfish, the trailer park scene was inspired by her), email (Delainey Lucas) and Twitter (Shannon). They are super nice people and are a privilege to talk to. :)
P.S- If you want to be on my Loyalist Readers list for this season, make sure you have reviewed every chapter of this season. :) Girl Meets Rah Rah premieres this THIS Friday! Don't miss it! Texas next week! :O
Love you all! :)
-Mimi1239