Her Broken World

The Family Storm

January 16th 2001, I was brought into this world by my parents, Katy and Kermit Hart. I was born here, Greenwich Village, New York City, The United States of America, Earth. The plan was, I was to live a normal life. That's what, at first, my parents wanted for me.

My dad wasn't very good to us. And by good, I mean there. He wasn't home very often when I was a little girl. When I was old enough to talk, he was there less and less. "Where's daddy?" I'd often as my mom. She'd never know what to say, and not because I was only 3-4 years old, but because she was wondering the same thing. One night when I was five years old, my dad told us he'd be back in an hour. After a while, a storm shook the apartment. The lightning was so bright, I thought the world was on fire. I hid under my covers in my room and screamed in terror. My mom came in and peaked under the covers and decided to make it a game. Where we were in Alaska, the Aurora Borealis, the lightning was the northern lights. She made it an adventure until the storm passed, and when I woke up, it was a sunny day. The sun was back, but my dad was not.

Months passed and it was time for me to move from kindergarten to grade school. First grade. I met my best friend in the entire world, Riley Matthews, that year. We were only five or six, but I felt something when I met her. Something different. I knew that she and I were going to be best friends for a long time. Her mom, Topanga Matthews, met mine and my mother told her what had happened with my dad. He said he'd be back in an hour, but never came home. Riley's mom explained that to a seven-year-old Riley who found it hard to understand considering she had the best father in the entire world. Cory Matthews. He became a part of my life right quick. He was like a father figure to me.

My mother and I started drifting apart. She has always wanted to be an actress, so with my father gone, she decided to put her attention more on that. She signed up for auditions and spent most of her time fulfilling those. Her acting career didn't take the turn she wanted it to, so she found herself working as a waitress at the Nighthawk diner. Jumbling between her failing acting career and her waitress career, she was hardly ever home. I often found myself alone with my thoughts and I decided to make something out of it. I went out a lot, did absolutely nothing important. I wandered the subways and got to know people who spent their time down there as well. That's when I met my friends, Gretchen and Dweezil at about ten years old. They were a few years older than me, but what's the harm in that? They taught me how to survive in the outside world all alone. They also taught me seventeen ways to shoplift without getting caught, but that's beyond the point. They helped me with my style and I dressed more like a rebellious, lost teenage girl before I hit puberty.

My mom stopped worrying about my academics and how I was doing in school because it was one less thing to worry about. She hardly paid any attention to me at all and our relationship became tense because I was always so upset with her for abandoning me after my dad left. I know she was upset because her husband had just walked out on her, but that didn't mean she got to just walk out on me! What, just because he did it to her, she thinks that makes it okay for her to do it to me? Ugh, it just wasn't fair. I was so angry with her and I was even more angry with him, for what they did to me.

I grew closer with Riley over the years. I would often find myself at her house with her family. Sometimes I felt as if I was intruding, but Riley insisted I was always welcome with them. She would often question and complain to me about why that weird kid in our class, Farkle Minkus liked her so much. I didn't have much to offer that kid, I mean he was weird. I didn't know him very well and I didn't want to. He was way below both Riley and I anyways. "I don't know why he's so obsessed with you, he's weird" I told Riley. "He compares me to everything!" Riley squealed. Her little brother, Auggie was born shortly afterwards and he was just the cutest thing. He bit me all the time, but what could you expect from a toddler? He grew as well as we did. Riley and I progressed with our friendship and we soon became inseparable. Nobody knew Riley without knowing Maya, and nobody knew Maya without knowing Riley. We were always together, everywhere we went, talking about absolutely anything. Anyone who even tried to split us up was bound to end up on my bad side, but Riley didn't have a bad side, so she just cried.

My family had always been a wreck and Riley and I had struggles with Farkle and other things at school, so we decided to go ahead and make the window in her bedroom our special spot to talk when we had something important to discuss. I wasn't a good influence on her. With Gretchen and Dweezil always hanging with me in the subway whenever I wasn't at Riley's, and my mom's abandonment caused me to act out as well. I was misbehaved, I broke everything and dressed in dark and intimidating clothing. I was a bad girl, a rebel, and everyone who's anyone knew not to mess with me. And if someone messed with Riley, I put them their place. And I knew this, every girl (especially troubled girls like me) needed a caring and supportive friend like Riley. We were growing up together, and we were about to begin the middle school at John Quincy Adams Middle School, but what we didn't know was, with middle school comes feelings, opinions, friendships, crushes and lots and lots of drama. That was only the first thing to know about it. Our journey was just beginning.