The Little Prince
A Josh & Maya Story
By Brown Eyes Parker
Author's Note:
The title comes from Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry. It is one of my favorite stories and I couldn't help thinking of the Little Prince in the story while I wrote about Josh.
Rated: K+
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
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Once upon a time ago, in a land not so far away. . . there was a little boy who lived with his mother and father in a pretty house in Philly. His was a charmed life, he lived the life of a little prince and believed in fairytales in the way he believed in God and that 1+1 equaled 2. He played little league baseball and collected frogs and sang Disney songs with his mom and said I do believe in fairies with the cast of Peter Pan. He dreamed of the day he would meet a princess and marry her and live happily ever after with her, just like his brother Cory had always told him that he would.
He believed in fairy tales, they were a part of him, he couldn't imagine a time when he wouldn't believe in them. . . he couldn't imagine a world where anybody didn't believe in fairy tales until he met a girl that didn't. . .
She was the most tragically beautiful girl that he had ever seen in all of his young life. She was sitting in the window seat all alone, dressed in denim jeans and a white sweater, her lips pressed into a thin line while she watched the partygoers with tired, sad eyes.
He was drawn to her, like a moth to a flame. Except he was sure nothing bad would happen if all he did was talk to her. He knew this was his niece's best friend Maya Hart, she had to be harmless. He found himself walking to her like his feet had a mind of his own. He opened his mouth, his lips moving on their own accord.
"What are you doing back here all by yourself?" Josh asked, furrowing his brow at her.
She looked up and glared at him like he had interrupted something of the utmost importance. She didn't answer him; all she did was stare at him.
He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly completely self-conscious. "I thought all girls liked princesses," he finally said, a little lamely.
"Not me!" Maya declared. "I know the truth!"
Josh sat down next to her and drew his knees to his chest, folded his hands and rested his chin on them, still looking at her.
He was intrigued.
Curious.
"Oh? And what's that Maya?"
"Fairy tales are a crock!"
Josh frowned but not by the use of her unladylike language. He wondered who had been cruel enough to tell her that there was no such thing as fairy tales. "Um, no they aren't!" He told her.
Her mouth dropped open and she stared at him like he had grown three heads. "Oh no, not you too! Aren't you like thirteen? Aren't you a little too old to believe in fairy tales?"
"I'm only going to be twelve!" Josh answered sharply; he saw her wince a little bit and softened his tone. "My brother told me that one day I would meet a girl like my sister-in-law and fall in love and marry her, just like they did."
"Fairy tales AREN'T real!" Maya retorted angrily as she stood up and stomped her feet in a display of anger.
Josh wanted to laugh but he didn't because even though he was still very young, he could see the hurt lying just beneath the surface of this fractured little princess. As she stormed away, he got up and followed her just to make sure she was okay.
She was unaware that he was behind her until she whirled around; he stopped short so he wouldn't accidentally cause her to fall down. His breath caught in his throat, they were standing just a little too close for comfort. She smelled like sugar cookies and strawberry Starburst lip balm. The anger that had been flashing in her brilliant blue eyes had evaporated.
Maya took a step backwards, like she was trying to escape him. When she took another one, she tripped over one of Riley's stuffed animals and lost her balance, falling to the ground. Josh hurried over to her and knelt down beside her to see if she was alright, offering her his hand.
"Are you okay?" He asked with concern.
"I'm fine," Maya answered, looking a little rueful and embarrassed as she dropped his hand like she had been burned.
"Okay," Josh said, feeling it would be more than a little unwise to help press the issue further. He took her hand again and helped her to her feet. "Maybe we should get back to the party. Riley might miss us."
"Okay," Maya echoed.
He led her back to the living room, unaware of the way that she was watching him or the thoughts she was having about him. He was caught up in thoughts of his own, it was like she had cast a spell over him and all he wanted to do was save her from whatever sadness's that had cast their spell over her.
To make her believe in fairy tales again.
He just didn't know how to.
He was still too young to slay dragons and save a princess from her crumbling tower.
He was still too young to do anything much at all.
.
There were other princesses.
Happier looking ones with bubble gum pink smiles and glittery headbands that perfectly accentuated their outfits. They all followed him around during lunch and recess and gave him dopey smiles, sighing dreamily like the three girls who followed Gaston around in Beauty & the Beast. He could have had his pick of any of them, giving them red Ring Pops on the playground while they exchanged fake wedding vows and pretended to kiss.
But out of all the fair maidens in the land of Philadelphia, he couldn't stop thinking about the one that lived 81 miles away. Just thinking about her was enough to cause butterflies to flutter around in his stomach.
It was a crush.
Nothing more than a crush.
Besides, she was too young for him.
She lived too far away to play make believe.
And she didn't seem like the type of girl who would play husband and wife anyways. If she thought fairy tales were a crock, he was almost certain that she wouldn't believe in marriage anymore either.
He was still struck by what a sad girl Maya Hart really was.
He still wanted to rescue her from her tower before it crumbled completely and she was buried underneath the rubble of life's disappointments.
But those thoughts were too big for a boy of his age to contemplate.
Josh couldn't stop thinking about them though. He had tried and failed on multiple times. But she was stuck there, in his thoughts. In his dreams.
Sometimes he imagined she had cast a spell on him and he wasn't sure that it would ever be lifted.
And even if it could, he didn't think he wanted he wanted it to be lifted.
.
He started to grow up.
He was sixteen and had gone to New York City for Christmas with his parents when he realized that maybe carrying a torch for Maya wasn't the best idea ever.
It didn't help that she threw herself in his arms and gave him a warm hug, her face lighting up like the Rockefeller Center. His heart stopped beating but he didn't hug her back. He stiffened slightly and reminded her that he wasn't her uncle.
When she pulled away, he got the chance to really look at her. She still had the sad look in her eyes; he still wanted to rescue her. Still wanted to help her believe there were such things as fairy tales and happily ever afters.
But now their age difference felt considerably larger than before.
And he couldn't stop himself from reminding her of this all the time.
But he was doing it mostly for himself.
Because he couldn't be a good knight in shining white armor if he was doing it the wrong way.
She was important to him. He didn't want to hurt her like the other men in her life had.
.
But every time he looked at her and told her that he was too old for her, he could tell that he was hurting her.
And it killed him.
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Maya was standing in front of him wearing a prom dress. If you asked, he wouldn't be able tell you what the colors were or what style of dress it was but she looked like a princess. Although, he wasn't about to admit it to her out loud.
She was the most beautiful girl that he had ever seen and he was at a loss for words. She had rendered him completely speechless. He knew if he opened his mouth that he wouldn't be able to form a coherent sentence. But it was almost like she was looking at him expectantly. So, he had to say something.
"You look gorgeous, Gorgeous," he finally said.
Maya blushed and ran her hands down her dress. "It isn't too much?" she asked, a twinge of uncertainty in her voice.
"On anyone else maybe," Josh said. "But you wear too much well."
He wasn't sure if he had said the right thing or not because she blushed some more and was just about to say something when Riley made her grand entrance in a dress that almost looked like the one Cinderella had been wearing in the latest remake.
She twirled around and Josh oohed and awed along with Maya, perfectly content to indulge his niece's fantasy life about princesses and princes and fairy tale endings.
He would win Maya over a little while later.
He had trained himself in the language that was Maya Hart and he could tell just by looking at her, she was already starting to believe again.
She would never admit it to him though.
Not before she admitted it to herself first.
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Despite being of a certain age, Josh loved movies like Cinderella and Frozen and Tangled. He would take the train to New York often just to watch them with Maya, Ava, Riley and Auggie on a Friday night.
Maya would sit next to him, muttering under her breath about how unrealistic they were. Josh would just smile. Not bothered at all by her "dislike" for the films. He knew deep down that she really did like them because if she didn't then she wouldn't show up for Auggie, Ava's and Riley's Disney movie marathons even when he couldn't show up for them.
He never stopped hoping her seemingly frozen heart would start to melt and she would be the girl he knew that she was meant to be.
Not for him.
He was willing to take her prickles and all when the day finally came and he was allowed to declare her as his own.
He hoped it for her.
Always for her.
.
Josh dreamed of her often.
Sometimes it bordered on the ridiculous. The two of them danced around a grassy field that was strewn with wildflowers while she sang him songs from Sleeping Beauty in her sweet voice. He dreamed of climbing up fire escapes and rescuing her from her notions about life and fairy tales and making her see things from his point of view all over again like Richard Gere did with Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
She rescued him right back.
More often than not, the dreams were so real; Josh could have sworn they were actually real. They weren't dreams of princesses and princes in shining white armor or fairy tale endings where he charged the castle and slayed the dragon and rescued the damsel in distress. They were dreams of a life, of an artsy wife and a couple kids and a house with a white picket fence.
He remembered some wisdom in form of a song.
A dream is a wish your heart makes. . .
If he kept on believing, Josh was sure the dream that he wish would come true.
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He believed in making wishes. On stars, on birthday cake candles, with pennies in wishing wells, at 11:11. His wishes were unselfish.
He made wishes for Maya. Always for Maya because he knew she never made wishes for herself.
He knew wishes were one of the things she had stopped believing in a long time ago.
Sometimes, he wished that she would start believing in wishes again.
.
His heart constricted slightly as he watched her walk down the aisle. A vision of loveliness in her maid of honor dress. She took her place right behind where her mother was going to stand and almost reached up to tuck her hair behind her ears before catching herself.
Josh exhaled, realizing he had been holding his breath.
She was a fairy tale princess come to life in her maid of honor dress. Like one of his dreams come true in the middle of the afternoon. He wanted to reach out and touch her, to wrap his arms around her and dance with her.
For a fraction of a second, she turned her head and caught his eye. He smiled at her automatically and she smiled in return, waving to him subtly, her fingers still wrapped around the bouquet of roses she was carrying.
Josh waved in return.
.
He asked her to dance.
It was like something out of a scene from a movie.
It was like they were the only two people in the room. She was looking up at him like he had slayed all her dragons and then hung the stars in her sky. He wanted to kiss her right then and there, to sweep her off her feet.
But despite the way he was feeling, there was still people around and tonight was about Katy and Shawn.
His time would come eventually.
And it would be perfect.
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When he was leaving, he stumbled across one of shoes she had been wearing. He picked it up and was about to go return it to her when he realized that she had already left with Riley.
This wasn't the first time a fair maiden had lost her shoe and a prince had to return it to her.
The irony of the situation wasn't lost on him at all.
But then, he had always wanted to be Maya's knight in shining white armor.
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It was a few months before he had an opportunity to return the glittery pink stiletto back to its rightful owner. When he finally got the chance to do it, Riley told him that she was across town babysitting her half-sister.
Josh sighed dejectedly. He was right on the cusp of a moment and it was just another missed opportunity. But Riley, always the one for happily ever after, quickly jotted down the address of the Manhattan penthouse and sent him on his way.
It seemed like it took forever to get there.
When he finally did get there, it seemed like Maya was taking even longer to answer the door. When she did, it was like he had forgotten how to breathe even though she was dressed in something that looked like it was from Gone With The Wind. A debutant gone wrong.
"Josh, what are you doing here?" She asked. "I haven't seen you since the wedding."
"A PRINCE!" Maya's mini-me screamed before he could answer her. "Do you want to play prince and princess with us?"
Josh laughed and glanced at Maya. "Would I get in trouble if I came in?"
Maya shrugged. "Who cares? It isn't like you're a serial killer."
"What's behind your back?" Maya's little sister asked, tugging at his arm.
"Oh, this? It's nothing really," Josh answered, producing the shoe.
"You've got to be kidding me," Maya muttered.
"May I?" Josh asked, gesturing towards her ballet flat and kneeling down in front of her.
"You have got to be kidding me," Maya repeated, laughing a little bit.
"Why do you keep saying that?"
"I'll tell you when you're older," Maya replied, allowing Josh to slip her shoe off her foot and put the other one on it.
"I knew it would be a perfect fit," Josh said.
"You have to kiss her now," her little sister told them, all matter-of-fact. "That's how it goes in the movie and we are playing Cinderella, right?"
"NO," Josh answered, getting to his feet and cupping Maya's cheek with his hand before giving her a gentle kiss on the mouth while her sister began to sing Kiss the Girl off-key while she clapped her hands in delight. "We're not playing Cinderella, actually."
"Say my prince! Go on, say it!"
"I always knew you were going to grow up beautiful and brave and kind and strong," Maya said instead of parroting her sister.
"Ha?" Josh asked, confused by her confession.
Maya just laughed and kissed him again.
My princess. . . he thought to himself.
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He had always known there was such a thing as happily ever after.
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Once upon a time ago, in a land not so far away. . . there was a little boy who lived with his mother and father in a pretty house in Philly. His was a charmed life, he lived the life of a little prince and believed in fairytales in the way he believed in God and that 1+1 equaled 2. He played baseball and collected frogs and sang Disney songs with his mom and said I do believe in fairies with the cast of Peter Pan. He dreamed of the day he would meet a princess and marry her and live happily ever after with her, just like his brother Cory had always told him that he would.
Then he grew up and rescued the girl from her crumbling tower and slayed dragons and helped her believe in fairy tales again and together they had found their very own happily ever after.
_The End_
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Author's Note II:
And there is my Fairy Tale story from Josh's POV. It took me a while to write it because I was with my sister and brother-in-law this week and then I got sick with a cold. Sequels are rarely as good as their predecessors but I did try to make this one decent. I hope you will tell me what you think of this.
I'm looking forward to hearing from you.
Until Next Time!
Love,
Holly, 7/19/2015_