Mornings with the Matthews were a lot better with Shawn around, he really understood Maya. She thought that maybe since he understood her he could help her, without her having to ask for help. That's the thing about feeling worthless, you know you should get help but you don't think you're worth asking anyone to help you. It was now leading into the cold season, the time of year where lights get strung up and people usually seem a lot happier about themselves and their lives – and this was true for even Maya. Because Shawn came back for the holidays. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jeans, biting her lip to remind her that the cold she was feeling wasn't the worst pain imaginable – although in the moment it felt like it was. Maya turned back and smiled at Riley who was all bundled up with a heavy winter coat and mittens on her hands, her cheeks were a little pink though because her face was uncovered.
"Hurry up Riles we're almost to school." Maya started to sprint, the wind slapping her in the face and making her fingers sting, she was running like her feet might just lift off the ground and she could float away – drift off with the wind, off to a better place.
In the building the hallways stood quiet and still, more calm than most winter mornings because of early activities. Maya helped Mr. Matthews carry his books and new lesson plans to his classroom and then took her seat in the front of the room. He started to walk through the rows placing papers on all the empty desks. Maya picked up the sheet and started reading it.
"What is this Mr. Matthews? The wander assignment?" She flipped the paper over and began to doodle a sky line on the bottom of the sheet, school hadn't even started yet and already she was letting her mind drift.
The skyline she drew was not like most, with skyscrapers and lit up windows, she drew one of a city falling to ashes, with broken rooves and cracked windows – because this was the skyline she knew and was familiar with.
At 8:10 everyone was in their seats and ready to start the day, it was spirit week and Riley and Farkle had gone all out. They were both in horrendous holiday sweaters with flashing lights and enough sequins to make you vomit rainbows.
"Good morning class so today I have a new assignment for you." Matthews said from the front of the classroom.
"Aw BOO!" Maya hollered.
"You all live in New York, it's an American Dream to come here and you all take it for granted, so I'm assigning you the Wander Project – as you'll see on the paper in front of you. Each of you will be partnered up with the person sitting behind you, and for those of you in the back row the person in front of you, you're all 16 or about to be so you can drive or call a cab, and I want you all to travel around New York and see the sights that often get over looked in comparison to places like the Empire State Building or the Statue of Liberty. You and your partner must go to at least 5 different places together and document your journey in a creative way, this will be due in May, replacing your final."
"Mr. Matthews?"
"Yes Farkle?"
"Can we still take a final?" Maya turned around and glared at him. "Never mind sir, I'm very interested in this project."
"Good, now everyone meet with your partner and discuss."
Maya swung herself around so she was sitting in her chair backwards, Lucas was smiling at her but when she looked at him he looked down at his notebook, and as always she pretended not to notice.
"So I was thinking-"
"Here's what's going to happen Huckleberry, we're going to go to 10 places in New York – we're each going to pick 5 – we go where the road takes us and we stop at unexpected places. Mr. Matthews wants us to wander New York, so let's do it right. No phones, paper maps purchased at gas stations only, if we see something strange, beautiful, or unbelievably ordinary, we pull over and embrace the moment. And under no conditions can we question a location, we're wandering remember. I want our locations to cover it all – the big, the small, the unexplainable, all of it. Got it Ranger Rick?"
"Wow Maya, I must say I was not expecting you to be so into this. But I have a few conditions of my own."
She knit her eyebrows together and tilted her head, "Like?"
"You draw. We'll take a picture of wherever we go and then you'll draw it how you saw it and I'll write the way I saw it. We'll be making our own little book for you to look at the pictures of."
Maya smiled and they looked into each other's eyes for a moment, then she spun back around and started scribbling down places she might want to go. This was the best history final ever. The bell rung and she looked back to Lucas.
"We start this thing today. You and me. Topanga's after school."
"I can drive now Maya do you want a ride?" She scrunched up her nose.
"I'm perfectly fine walking myself hop-along, but thanks anyways." She turned on her heel and waked out of class.
Topanga's. It really was a wonderful café, it always had this warm feel – and it wasn't because every time you went in you were coming out of the cold. The bakery shelves were always full, not because they never sold out but because they always seemed to have more. Topanga was the type of person who would make extra, and with whatever was leftover she'd give it away to the homeless shelter. That's one of the main reasons people supported the café so much.
When Maya walked in Lucas was already sitting at the counter jotting down notes in his note book, her was listing places he wanted to go with her. She walked over and set her notebook down before sitting next to him across the counter.
"Maya, what if we go to more than ten places?" Lucas said, slightly dazed and confused after noticing how Maya's notebook was filled with places to go – and how his own was starting to look the same way.
"Then we go to more than ten places."
They were working together and planning everything out, Maya narrowed down her locations to a simple seven, five of them being places to wander, two of them a place for her to show to Lucas outside of the assignment. As they collaborated sometimes they'd both turn their heads to each other at the same time and their face would be so close to each other they were almost touching and they just look into each other's eyes for a second before Lucas smiled which always made Maya melt away. After that they'd continue on conversation as usual.
Farkle watched Riley watching them, sadness sinking into both of their eyes. Riley bit her bottom lip as she watched her ex-boyfriend and her best friend giggle and tease each other with a bond that she never had with him, they had such an obvious chemistry she wished she'd known before.
"Do you think they like each other?" Riley asked turning to Farkle.
"I- I think they do, but he's a good guy and she's a good friend so neither of them would want to hurt you."
"So they're not going to be together," she looked at them and how happy they looked, and she thought of how she never, ever, not once, made Lucas's eyes sparkle like that when he looked at her. "Because of me."
Farkle nodded, "Essentially."
"Am I a terrible person for being okay with that?"
"You could never be terrible Riley, you're a great person." He looked at her the way Lucas looked at Maya, but she was too busy looking at them to even notice. "So, 5 places to wander."
"Yep," She pressed her lips together and smiled, "5 places to wander."
Both groups stayed up until closing, Riley and Farkle were working hard discussing the best times for each location and how they're going to document their travels with a video, while Maya and Lucas were hardly working giggling and spreading frosting on each other's faces. They'd already had it all figured out, they'd take turns picking places and they'd stop when there was something else worth seeing along the way. After being kicked out by Topanga, Maya let Lucas drive her home since it was dark out and he insisted, and Topanga drove Riley home after Farkles chauffer picked him up.
After parking in front of Maya's apartment building she thanked Lucas for the ride then started gathering her stuff and going inside, Right before she pushed through the front door Lucas rolled down his window and shouted,
"Aren't you going to invite me inside?" Maya turned around and smiled at him pushing open the door and waiting for him to run inside. They climbed the stairs together and Maya unlocked the door to her apartment. Katy wasn't home yet, which was a good thing, and nothing seemed to be out of place or drunkenly thrown anywhere. Maya led him into her room, expecting him to seem as appalled as Riley first did walking in and seeing the leak and the mold and the crack in the ceiling. Instead Lucas smiled and walked over to her desk, shuffling though her books.
"You know if you're going to want me to believe you only look at the pictures you're going to need to stop reading books without pictures in them." Maya walked over and playfully pushed him.
"Shut it Ranger Rick." She took the books and opened the drawer where she kept all of the things she's collected to put the books inside.
"Maya what is all this?" Lucas asked, picking up the old rings and plastic necklaces, the stolen scarves off the road and the cup she took from Topanga's that was filled with all the pennies she'd found on the road.
"None of these things had a home, people just left them." She picked up an old worn down, weathered out book that she'd found a month before near a dumpster, "I give them a home, and I make up their story." Instead of judging her for stealing things Lucas picked up a stuffed bear with no arm and a missing eye.
"What's the story behind this guy?"
"A little girl won it at the rodeo her dad takes her to every year." She smiled at the bear, it was crusty and unloved because of it had a non-plush exterior.
"The rodeo? Why the rodeo?" He asked leaning back onto her desk.
Maya smiled and closed her eyes imagining have a parent-daughter tradition, one that was happy and something to look forward to like a holiday, "The rodeo because I thought of all the places I could go to win a bear, the rodeo is the one where I'm most likely to run into you."
Lucas looked down and smiled at his feet, "I should probably go."
"Yeah- um – I'll see you tomorrow Huckleberry."
"I'll see you tomorrow Clutterbucket."