title: love is nothing (but a weakness)
category: girl meets world
genre: romance/angst/friendship/humor
ship: maya/lucas
chapter rating: pg-13
overall rating: mature
warning(s): strong language, sexual content
timeline: set in senior year of high school
summary: In the end, she'll always be a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, and there's only so much rebelling a Huckleberry like him can do. [AU, the gang grows up in Texas, where Maya's an outsider growing up in a trailer park and Lucas is a golden boy living in suburbia; paths cross, sparks fly, and love is fragile]

i.

When Maya was a little girl, she and her mama used to take little trips. They'd pile into Katy's beat up old Sedan with its rusty door and the heater that worked one day and not the next, and they'd drive around. Katy called it house hunting, and as a little girl, Maya let herself believe it was a dream that would one day come to fruition. They would drive by the nicest houses in the whole town, with their green lawns and multiple stories. Their mailboxes with the family surname painted prettily on the side. The flowerbeds kept in pristine condition, looking like something out of a magazine for Home & Garden.

And sometimes, with their bag of drive-thru McDonalds, they'd idle by a curb and watch as a family sat down at their dining room table, held hands as they said Grace, and then dug into a home cooked meal on their best dishes. With each house they passed, Maya would declare "I want that one," or "That one's my new favorite," and Katy would nod and say, "Yeah, it's nice, isn't it? You think it's got a pool? We'll need a nice pool in the summers." Together, they would map out what each house looked like on the inside, guessing how many bedrooms and bathrooms there were, and how big the kitchen was and what kind of food they made there. Until it grew late and Maya would yawn and Katy would check the time and mutter that she had to get up early tomorrow for a shift at the diner. So they would take that beat-up old car back over to their own neighborhood, climb the steps to their trailer, and return to reality.

For years, Maya would build up the image of her perfect house in her head, with everything her and her mother could ever want or need. Later, when she found an interest in drawing, she would put memory to paper and map out what every inch of it would look like. She'd tuck that memory away in a musty drawer of a desk she rarely used, to collect dust and the cobwebs of a time in her life when she believed in miracles.

By the time she's a teenager, Maya's stopped dreaming of houses they'll never live in. She's stopped hoping for pools or home cooked meals or the big family that holds hands and thanks some omnipotent being for their food. Maya knows who put the food on their table, what little of it there was, and it wasn't some bearded dude; it was her mother. A woman that worked two jobs and barely had enough time to come home and sleep before she was back up and working again, all just to get the bills paid. There was no time for sitting by the pool or tending to non-existent flower gardens. Katy had her hands full working overtime.

There's still a lingering fascination though. Not so much with the houses, even if they are pretty, but with the people that live in those nice neighborhoods, with their expensive cars and fancy homes and dinners served each night at the same time. Sometimes she wanders through the neighborhood, her sketchbook under her arm as she rides her skateboard down the center of the road. She'd draw the houses or the flowers or the yipping pets that sat in windows all day long. She'd draw the children on leashes, dragging their parents, glued to their cellphones or walking in packs as they discussed PTA meetings and book clubs.

Sometimes she'd sit on the curb and draw the cookie cutter people that looked nothing like her and her mama, and she'd wonder if they had faults and weaknesses and days when they cried themselves to sleep because they were just so tired and nothing in life was ever better or easier. She wondered if any of the mothers there pasted on a smile while their eyes were full of sadness, and if they knew what it felt like to struggle each and every month just to keep the lights on. If they had to save up all their tips just to get a birthday present for their kid. One present. And hopefully that was enough, because it had to be. It was all they could afford. She wonders, but she never asks. Not because it's rude, she's never much cared for that, but because, in a strange way, she feels like an outsider looking in, detached from their reality. Like she is a scientist with a magnifying glass and they are all ants.

What she doesn't expect is for one of them to sit down beside her one day. He doesn't say anything at first. Just sits on the curb and looks over her shoulder at her sketch before he casts his eyes in the same direction as her, to see what it is she's drawing. It's a boy, not more than eight, with shaggy brown hair, and a blonde girl that rolls her eyes more than any other human Maya has ever seen. The girl's got her hands on her hips and she's tapping her foot as she rants about something while the boy stares up at her in adoration. When the girl finally turns on her heel, flips her hair over her shoulder, and walks away, the boy stares after her as he sighs, and Maya can almost see the little animated hearts floating around his head; she's sure to add them to her own drawing. He murmurs 'Ava' to himself with the sort of longing a boy his age shouldn't be capable of, before he finally walks away. Maya wonders how long this kid has been playing with fire and how long he'll keep playing.

The boy next to her pipes up then. "That's Auggie Matthews, he and Ava got married three years ago. It was a big to-do; they invited the whole neighborhood. We had a community barbecue."

Maya's brows hike before she turns to look at him. "Married?"

He grins, all blue eyed and friendly. "There's not much you can do when a five-year-old tells you he has a wife but accept it. Besides, they were offering cake and the ribs were cooked so well, they were fallin' right off the bone. I wasn't about to turn those down for anything."

Maya hums. "Well, I hope the crazy kids make it," she decides, before closing her book and pushing up to stand. She stretches her arms up high to loosen up the muscles that have been locked into place since she started sketching and then puts a foot on her skateboard to redirect it toward the road.

He stands with her. "You're leaving?"

She looks back at him. "It's getting late, Sundance. I've got a long ride home. I don't live in the kind of neighborhood you should be hanging around in when it's dark."

He frowns, looking conflicted. "I could drive you, if you like. Make sure you get home safe."

She snorts, and then frowns when she sees he's serious. "You don't even know me..."

"Well, maybe I'd like to fix that." He thrusts a hand out toward her. "I'm Lucas Friar. I live just around the corner from here. I've seen you around, on your skateboard... I think you were drawing my mama's rose bushes last week... She took first prize for those; she's real proud of them."

"She should be; they're nice." She glances at his hand and then shrugs and reaches for it. "Maya Hart."

"Hey, don't you go to my school…? I heard something about an art competition on the announcements. Someone named Hart won it last year; it was some big thing. There was a scholarship or something, wasn't there?"

She shrugs. "Yeah. I won, I guess. The school's in New York though, so I probably won't do anything with it."

"New York?" He whistles. "That'd be something."

"Yeah, I guess." She shuffles her board around under her foot. "Anyway, I really gotta get going. I wasn't kidding about the sketchy neighborhood thing." She tucks her book under her arm. "Nice meeting you, Hop-Along."

He laughs. "It's Lucas."

"I know what it is." She steps onto her board. "And I know what I said."

As she pushes off and starts down the street, she can feel his eyes following her. But, much as her curiosity bids her to look back, she doesn't. He's just a pretty house she'll never have; it's best not to start dreaming.

She gets home a half hour later, drops her book on the couch, and makes herself a pot of mac n' cheese. It isn't until she's ignoring her homework and watching a Gilmore Girls re-run that she finds herself skimming through her book to find those pretty roses she'd drawn the week before. They really were nice. And in the background, through the window, there's a silhouette she'd caught. She wonders if it was him. Lucas. She almost can't believe he tried to give her a ride home… What a Huckleberry.