Hi, friends. It's been seven years since I published anything on fanfiction (don't go read my old stories, they were baaaaad) and I never thought I'd do it again, but my love for Boy Meets World and now Girl Meets World required it. Ugh. I can't with these two. I really hope they keep this show going.

Have a story, on me! It's theoretically canon except Katy and Shawn still just dating.

He realizes he has feelings for her on a Tuesday.

He's always had very strong opinions about the different days of the week. He considers Tuesday to be the worst of them all. He was forced to move to New York on a Tuesday. His parents' divorce was finalized on a Tuesday. Monday, he feels strongly, gets a bad reputation. Monday is only a day removed from the weekend, he reasons, when the new memories are still swimming around and the feel of her hair against his legs as she leans against him is still fresh. By Tuesday, though, the feeling is gone as they scream at each other about something stupid that he won't remember by Thursday. Tuesday is still so far from next weekend.

Tuesdays this year are the days when football practice goes long, and he doesn't get the chance to walk the girls home. Tuesdays are the days he has Calculus quizzes. On Tuesdays, her mom's rent is due, and he can see the stress in her eyes as soon as she walks in the door. On Tuesdays, she gets angry.

He knows he should be able to control himself. He's officially an adult, over eighteen and a senior in high school. He's been in more fights than he can count, and more than a dozen verbal ones with her alone, but there's something about the way her eyes narrow and her body tenses that makes every part of him ignite. What's worse is she knows him- knows his weaknesses, knows every flaw to point out, and even though he knows she doesn't mean it, he can't help but erupt in anger. And it's on one particular Tuesday, when he finds her eyes searching for his in the hallway, ready to brawl, that he acknowledges that he doesn't normally willingly participate in arguments, especially not since his move.

This particular Tuesday she's decided to get on his case about having to miss Smackle's birthday party for an away football game, even though they both know there's nothing he can do about it, and he snaps back, pointing out that she missed Mrs. Matthews' birthday three weeks before, and didn't that woman half raise her, and could she cut him some slack just this once?

They're attracting an audience, and they both know it. They're maybe two inches away from each other and she's glaring up at him with flames in her beautiful eyes, and he can't help but think how cute she is, even angry, even when she looks like she's about to punch him in the face.

"Bay window. Bay window right now."

Maya groans. "Riles, if this is about the fight Lucas and I had earlier, it's fine, we'll be over it before you know it."

"No, you won't, Maya. You two have been at each other's throats for months now, and people are getting worried."

"What we do is not anyone else's business."

"It is when you're yelling at each other across the school hallway. Maya, what's going on?"

"I can't help it. He drives me nuts. He's self-righteous and arrogant and he doesn't know me. He acts like he knows my life and he doesn't and I'm tired of it."

But Riley knows, knows probably better than Maya and maybe even Lucas himself, that he pays a lot more attention to her than she thinks he does.

The first time he kisses her is on a Monday.

It's in the middle of one of their arguments, on a day when she's not worried about money, but is worried about locking every one of Mr. Matthews' desk drawers so they only open a few inches. It's after seven in the evening, when the football players should be the last ones in the school besides the janitors. The coach has yelled at him all of practice and he's sore and hungry but mostly he's wondering if his dad will ever come to one of his football games. He picks the fight almost too easily, because he knows all of her weaknesses too. They are yelling across the classroom, and each insult brings them closer and closer until it's his body against hers on the chalkboard. He knows the tray is digging in her back and he'll have dust all over his hands from the way he towers over her, fingers planted against the wall on either side of her. She spits out a retort they both know she didn't mean and looks him straight in the eyes, daring him to come up with something better. He doesn't know what else to do.

He's kissed a few girls in his time; her best friend, for one, the most recent time was sloppy and innocent at an ice cream parlor on a warm day two and a half years back, Missy Bradford, not long after breaking up with said best friend, when he's angry and sad and just plain scared that he's going to turn into his father. There have been a few dates here and there, girls that were pretty and friendly and couldn't turn his interest, no matter how much he wanted them to.

None of them mattered. At seventeen, she still seems so young, and as her lips tentatively move against his, he fully begins to comprehend it, guiding her and letting his hands wander freely through her hair. They split apart before long, and as she stares at him again, he sees fire in her eyes again, but also fear, and he knows he made a mistake. They don't talk about it again.

"Maya, you've been quiet for days. What's going on?"

"Nothing's going on. I've just been busy."

"Busy locking my father's desk drawers? It took him hours to get those open, for the record."

"No, I've just had a lot of painting to do. Midterm portfolio's due soon."

"Are you sure you haven't been fighting with Lucas again? He's been avoiding both of us for days and Zay said he's been working out nonstop, and that's what you two do, when you're stressed, you paint and he lifts and-"

"Riley. We're fine."

She leaves for college on a Thursday.

He knows it's coming, but the day still arrives too fast, and he finds himself at her door at 8 in the morning, savoring every last moment he has to be with her. She's tired from packing, and quietly lets him in before her mother is even awake. She's gotten a scholarship from SCAD, and he knows it's an amazing opportunity for her but hates it anyway, not know when she'll be back and even if they'll be back at the same time. He's surprised no one by enrolling at Texas A&M, and despite the fact that she'll be closer than she would be if she'd stayed in New York, he hates the idea of her being on unknown ground, hates the idea that she'll forget all about him and find someone else to fight with. They haven't fought since the kiss but they find themselves at it again, pointlessly disputing an oddly shaped box that doesn't matter and the amount of canvases she's planning on bringing. He insinuates that she needs a man's help and she slaps him, swiftly and coolly. He knows he shouldn't have said it but he can't help himself, because he's going to miss her and they both know it and he isn't ready to deal with everything left unresolved between them. After she slaps him, he wraps both arms around her, pulling her in so he can smell her shampoo one last time. When he lets go after a minute, allowing her to go to her room for another box, he slips out the door.

"Maya, have you been crying?"

"I- I'm just really emotional about going so far away."

"It's not so bad. Don't forget, I'm coming to visit on my fall break, and then you're coming with your mom and Shawn to Thanksgiving. We'll see each other again soon."

"I know, but it's going to be sad not to have all of our friends around."

Riley knows her best friend. "Maybe one of them in particular."

It's actually a Thursday when he hears about the boyfriend.

His name is apparently Todd, he's two years older and a graphic design major who's a resident advisor at her dorm. Farkle mentions Todd to him hesitantly one afternoon, while he's laying on his bed in his own dorm, pretending that he doesn't care. He's tossing a football up in the air, a practice he knows his roommate, a chemical engineering major, can't stand. But he's ticked off, picturing a grown man with her, walking her home from class and putting his hand on her back and he thinks he can actually feel the temperature of his blood increasing. He thinks about calling her, picking a fight, but he's afraid that Todd will be with her and he doesn't want to begin to imagine what he'd say or do if he encountered the 'new man', even on the phone.

It's late October, and he's just settling into the routine of college. His classes are going pretty well, even better than expected, and he's made a good group of male friends in his major who actually care about school in addition to wanting to have fun. He went out for fraternity rush but ultimately decided not to pledge, worried about the time commitment and honestly just not willing to give up his independence for a hundred guys he barely knows. He and the gang from home have settled into regular phone calls and texts, feeling practically like nothing has changed, like they're still a part of one another's daily lives, and that's probably why he feels ambushed when he hears the news. He complains about it to Zay on the phone the next afternoon under the guise that he's simply worried about Todd's age. Zay mentions that Riley's met the guy through FaceTime and that he actually comes across as a great guy, no matter what he thinks. He wishes Zay wasn't nearly 1700 miles away so that he could throw something at him.

It's almost two weeks later when she mentions Todd to him directly, and offhandedly as if she doesn't think that having a boyfriend would be a big deal to him. He knows he shouldn't be so upset, knows that they've never made any true feelings known and that he has no right to feel so betrayed by her. He still does, and so he does what he knows best, picks a fight with her, anything to distract the twists in in stomach that make him feel like it's the end of the world for him. He makes a stupid comment about art degrees and she gets mad and twenty minutes later they're in a full-blown fight, and they'd probably be nose to nose as usual were it not for the fact that they're several states apart. Another twenty minutes later, he's hung up on her and feeling sorry for himself, and he throws his phone under his bed.

He doesn't pick it up for three days.

"He's so infuriating!"

"Todd?"

"No! You know who!"

"What happened this time?"

"He started ranting about how art is a terrible career choice and it would be much more practical to do art history so I could work in a museum and who does he think he is? It's my life, not his, and if he thinks-"

Riley throws herself onto her bed and puts a pillow over her head as Maya continued ranting, feeling very much as if she understands how infuriating a person- nay, two people- could be.

She calls to yell at him on a Sunday.

They'd been fighting again for weeks, this time over the phone or through text, but consistently, so consistently that he fears what he would do if she were ever to stop responding to him. It's been a whole year since she and Todd started dating, and he's spent most of it in Texas, electing to stay with his grandfather on the farm for the summer to clear his head and spend more time with animals that he will soon be working with on a daily basis. He's missed his friends back in New York fiercely, but with weekly phone calls, he doesn't feel too far away. He certainly misses her, but he's afraid of the person he might encounter when he sees her again, afraid that Todd has changed her and that the fights he's been intentionally starting will change this fragile relationship that he has with her, change the fire in her eyes when she steps up to challenge him. It surprises him when she calls him on a Sunday afternoon in September, nine months since he's actually seen her face to face, and starts ranting to him angrily.

She's broken up with Todd, and it's apparently his fault. He's been saying too many negative things about the guy, making her question her boyfriend and ruining the "beautiful relationship" that they could have had. He's still never met Todd, or even spoken to him, so he's pretty sure it's not his fault, but he still pats himself on the back mentally.

After a while, she calms down, asking him about his summer and telling him a little bit about the summer she's spent working with her mom and Riley at Topanga's. They begin to banter back and forth more affectionately, settling back into a rhythm that feels less intimidating to him and most likely to her as well. She tells him what has really happened between she and her now ex-boyfriend. Apparently Todd spent the summer working at a camp in Michigan and made some friends, some perfectly normal friends that made her paranoid because he was with them all the time, and she walked in on him saying some not-just-friendly things to one of them in particular. She doesn't know his friends, what kind of people they are, and now she wishes she had all along.

You know my friends, he thinks to himself. For once he keeps his mouth shut.

"Wow Maya, I'm so sorry."

"I'm actually feeling a lot better. Lucas calmed me down a lot."

"Oh did he?"

"Yeah, he did. We're going to talk again in a few days. I think we finally have our friendship squared away, no strings, no drawbacks, no angry fights."

"I'll believe that when I see it."

He makes love to her on a Friday.

He hates to even think of it that way, feels like a pansy and a wimp but if he has to hide from everyone else he knows he can't hide from himself. He and his college buddies are on their way to Florida, doing a crazy long road trip for their sophomore spring break. She's moved into an apartment now, and she and her roommate agree to let them crash on their living room floor to split up the driving. His friends are out within a half hour, but he follows her back into her room, bothering her with questions about the safety of the area and whether or not she's been focusing on her studies. She snaps at him like she always has, and it's been months since she's snapped at him in person, all passion and emotion. He's transfixed by every move she makes, finding himself speechless for maybe the first time in their friendship, and every hair on his arm stands up as he reaches forward to bring her lips to his.

It's different. They're both adults now, and they're aware of the consequences. Now they are both silent, and he knows that that's never happened in the nearly eight years that they have known each other. He's acutely aware of every part of her brushing up against every part of him. He hates himself for the way his hands tremble when they slide through her hair, the weight of how much he's missed her crashing through him in waves. He pulls her to him, terrified of what was to come after he lets go, and she responds in kind, running her hands over his shoulders, his chest, his heart. He can't help himself.

He wakes up hours later, aware instantly that he is alone in her bedroom. The memory of what has transpired between them comes flooding back and he gulps, not knowing what it means, not knowing if she'll ever speak to him again after running from her own bedroom to avoid him. It's still dark out, but he jumps up anyway, racing to find the articles of clothing so hastily torn off by her not long before. Her door opens and he looks up at her, half dressed and scared just like he is, and he's so scared that he can't think straight about what happens next. That's when he walks out the door.

"Maya, I don't really know what you want me to say."

"He wouldn't even look at me. When he and his friends got up to drive the rest of the way to Tampa, he looked at everything he could to avoid me. He thanked my roommate for having us over instead of me."

"What did it mean, Maya?"

"It meant," she sighs, "it meant we're both screwed."

He meets Sarah on an unseasonably cool Wednesday.

He's back in New York for the second summer of college, interning with a vet on 72nd Street that mainly consists of walking dogs and cleaning up cages. Sarah is older and higher up the totem pole, about to enter her first year of veterinary school. Sarah's pretty and looks nothing like her, and he genuinely admires Sarah, admires her dedication to the health of animals. Sarah asks him out three weeks into the summer, and they spend a day at Coney Island, sitting together on rides and trying to win oversized stuffed animals for no reason. It's a nice day, and he's struck by how normal the afternoon feels, how easy it is to talk to her. He hasn't been on a real date since before spring break, and he can't help but wonder if this is what dating is supposed to be like, having fun and smooth conversation, getting to know a new person with common interests and not worrying about the consequences of what happens.

They continue to see each other throughout the summer. Sarah's from Georgia, and so he takes her to all of his favorite places in the city, learning that she loves baseball, but the Mets, not the Braves, loves running through Central Park and cloudy days and she spent the previous summer traveling on a safari through Africa. They establish a routine. He asks her about chimpanzees and giraffes and lions, and in turn she asks him about bulls and horses and goats. The days pass by easily.

She has been working at the Guggenheim, busting her butt afterhours for upkeep, trying to decide whether or not she wants to put her art history minor to use but mostly, he's certain, trying to not prove that he was right about art history. Part of him feels so bad about that argument that he wants to be wrong. They make polite conversation at weekly friend get-togethers, convincing themselves they have everyone else fooled while trying to avoid having to face reality. They don't talk about what happened.

Zay confronts him about it one day in July. He knows what happened, found out three days into spring break when he called him from Tampa, having paid twenty dollars for a vistor's gym three days in a row from stress. Zay's worried about him, he knows. But Zay's always been protective of her, and even though he knows all of his friends have their best interests at heart, he can't help but be upset when Zay gets angry with him.

His heart's been broken, and he's pretty sure hers has too, but he's not ready to face what happens when they try to untangle the mess they've made of each other. He knows Zay's right, though, when he says that if they don't try, they'll only make it worse.

"I just thought- surely after- how could he do this?" She's tearing up.

"He's just avoiding, the way he always does. The way you both always do."

"What if this girl is the one? What if it's over already, before it's really had the chance to begin?"

"It's not. She's not."

"She's beautiful."

"I know, peaches. But she's no you."

He makes it worse on another Saturday.

It's the middle of August. They're all leaving for their junior year of college within the next two weeks. Sarah's already gone, saying goodbye with a sweet kiss and a promise that she'll come to visit him in Texas when the semester has begun. Katy and Shawn are finally getting married after way too many years of dating, and they've all gone down to the Hamptons for the weekend for the wedding. There are maybe thirty people at the wedding, but he's only focused on one, as she walks down the short aisle in a peach colored dress, smiling at her mother and soon-to-be step-father like she's won the lottery. He knows that as soon the marriage papers are filed, her adoption papers will be filed too, and Shawn will officially be her father. He knows that it's exactly what she's wanted, probably since they all met Shawn, way back in middle school. He's glad.

The reception is really more of a party in the rented beach house, but he's perfectly happy with the alteration. He's 21 now, and he quite enjoys seeing his former history teacher get drunk. Shawn passes him a cocktail as the evening progresses, and he accepts it gratefully, throwing it back in a toast to their wedding and the end of the summer. She matches his actions, and the group of friends all indulge, the older adults having too much fun to notice. Sometime after one in the morning, the extra guests are gone, the bride and groom are gone, and the friends decide to head to bed. He's sobered up enough to notice the disaster they've left in the dining room of the house, and he starts to pick up empty plastic glasses, napkins, and leftover pieces of food. He doesn't notice when she follows him to the trash cans.

He's caught off guard when she asks him to talk, and they set off down the beach in their dress clothes, barefoot and looking a little worse for the wear. They're not sober enough to have any meaningful conversations, and so they begin to discuss the upcoming year. He learns that she's decided at the last minute to add art history as a double major, and he makes sure to remain unbiased about her decision. He tells her that he's agreed to walk on the baseball team the following year.

It's after 2:30 in the morning when they reach a wall blocking different sections of the beach. She pulls out her phone to discover that they've walked nearly four miles in their inebriated state. They agree to take a few minutes to sit before heading back, and slide down the wall, exhausted. He looks into her eyes clearly for the first time in months as he tells her about a cat he grew particularly attached to over the summer, one that was put down after nearly two weeks at the clinic.

Their conversation falls silent as she squeezes his hand, and he realizes that they are pressed up against each other, shoulder to feet, against the wall. His heart drums against his chest. It's the closest they've been to one another since spring break. He curses himself yet again, and the power she seems to hold over him. He looks into her eyes again, ready to suggest that they begin walking back down the beach, but then all of a sudden she's kissed him and all suggestions fly out of his head, all except the one pleading with him to hold her tight and never let her go.

They arrive back at the beach house a few minutes before four, and he's pretty sure he's going to feel terrible when he's awakened by Farkle and Zay in about five hours, but he can't help but be deliriously happy because she held his hand all the way back and she kisses him goodnight again, just outside the front door, before disappearing up the steps to the room she's sharing with Riley.

"I just couldn't help myself, not with the way the ocean reflected in his eyes."

"Did you talk about it after?"

"No. We walked back and went to bed."

"And the next day…"

"You were there. We went to breakfast, packed up and drove home. I texted him like six times and never got a response."

"This is bad, Maya."

"Very bad."

"What about Sarah?"

"I honestly don't know."

He realizes he loves her on a phone call with Riley on a Monday in mid-November.

Okay, it's not so much realizing as admitting, and he only does it because he's never been so frustrated in his life, not even back in high school when they got mad at each other on nearly a weekly basis. Riley's called to yell at him again, just as she's done at least once a week every week since he got back to Texas. Even though he broke up with Sarah at the beginning of September, after he'd had time to process everything that happened, the fact that they're talking again, but not together, is way too much for Riley, and she tells him so each Monday night when she calls him.

This time he's walking back from a particularly brutal off-season baseball practice, he has at least two papers and a lab report to finish in the next eighteen hours, and he's done pretending their relationship is anything but what it is. He tells her clearly, stopping in his track halfway across campus and nearly taking out some fellow pedestrians as he does so. For the first time he can remember in months, Riley is quiet. He's honest for the first time in what feels like forever, as he tells Riley honestly about how he's petrified of commitment because of his parents' messy divorce, and because of the way his heart races and he can't think straight when he's around her. Riley, the first girl he ever kissed, tells him plainly that he's an idiot and that they're both idiots and that if he ever wants to be happy, he's going to have to grow up and accept the way he feels. He tells her that she doesn't understand and that he doesn't have time for a long distance relationship and that he's busy. She sighs. She's gotten good at sighing.

He knows she's right. He still can't find it in himself to do what she says.

"You're both crazy."

"What did I do this time?"

"Not you. He's driving me crazy. He's acting like he's perfectly fine, you both are, when really…"

"We are fine. We are getting along fine. It is completely fine."

"Ugh. You two deserve each other."

He buys a plane ticket to Savannah on a chilly day in early December.

He feels like an idiot. He has classes. He has finals starting in a few days. What's more, he actually just saw her a little over a week ago, when for the first time during college he made it to the Matthews' for Thanksgiving. He can't wait another minute though, and so he boards a plane without telling even his roommate, knowing that if he waits another minute he won't go at all.

Riley and Zay are dating. He's pretty sure it won't last, not that he'd admit it, but they've been alone in New York for two and a half years, and they've apparently gotten closer and closer since the wedding. They share this information with the rest of the gang over pumpkin pie and third helpings of dinner rolls, and he's pretty sure Farkle's heart has been completely shattered. Farkle excuses himself a few short minutes later, and within a day he's back at MIT. He's scared, but he's not willing to end up like Farkle.

He lands in Georgia at 7 in the evening, Eastern time, and he's at her apartment by 8. He stares at the door for a full five minutes, contemplating what he wants to say and how and why. But then the door opens and it's her roommate, who doesn't even look surprised to see him, and she simply shouts into the apartment that he's there and that she'll be back eventually.

She opens her bedroom door quickly, with a paintbrush in one hand and wearing clothes full of splattered colors. Her mouth opens. No words emerge.

"Lucas."

She disappears back into her room, but then she's back without the paintbrush, and she practically skips over to him, throwing her arms around him and smacking him a little and whispering to him what took you so long and he thought he was happy at the beach, but that was nothing compared to this, and he can't bring himself to care that his favorite jeans are being covered with orange and yellow specks of paint. He's scared again, and he feels the fire between them even now. He wants to kiss her, wants to hold her and stroke her hair and tell her how much he's missed her all this time but he can't, he won't let this be another failed opportunity. Instead, he leans into her ear and whispers the one thing he's pretty sure he's known all along, known since he started spewing retorts at her in the hallways of Abigail Adams High School, or maybe even since he was fourteen years old and she was just a girl on the subway that threw herself into his lap, into his world.

"I love you, Maya."

It's only later, hours later, that he looks at his phone, screen full of seven concerned texts and voicemails from friends back in Texas, and notices the day.

It's Tuesday.

"So he just showed up at your apartment in Savannah? No warning or anything?"

"I had no idea," she says, giggling slightly, "he's actually- he's still here right now, can I call you back Riley?"

"Sure, but when can I hear…"

A male voice interrupts her. "Sorry Riley, but Maya and I have to go, we have- ah- we have some business to attend to."

She hears the beep of the call ending before she can get in another word.

Leave me a review so I know I'm not the only long-suffering Lucas/Maya fan :)