A/N: GUESS WHO'S BAAAACK? I read through all your reviews on my drive back home, and I honestly couldn't wait to publish this chapter. Your "theories" were all so fun to read because all I could ever think about was "HM-MMM, you all don't know what's coming!" And I know you noticed that Josh hadn't commented on Maya's dress, but maybe you'll get to see that in this chapter? You never know!

This one is a short chapter, but I did that on purpose. I didn't want this particular moment to be overshadowed by any other scenes, so I figured it deserved its own chapter. I did give you three chapters before I left for my trip, so that should be enough to compensate for this chapter's length? Just kidding! I hope you guys enjoy this one.

Chapter 20: New Year's Realization

"I told you not to come here."

Josh stood outside of Maya's studio, his chest heaving up and down from running up the stairs. After Maya had told him not to come with her, he couldn't shake the feeling of wanting to follow after her. Josh didn't tell her about it, but he had heard her crying on the rooftop. He got there minutes before Maya broke apart, and although he wanted nothing more than for her to feel better, Josh stayed put and resolved to give Maya the space he knew she needed.

But he'd given her enough space on the rooftop. Maya needed someone and Josh knew he could be that someone for her.

"You came here to escape, I'm here to help you escape," Josh stated, a hand on the door to prevent Maya from closing it on him.

"Josh—"

"Maya, I'm here for you," Josh interjected. "You know that, right?"

Maya pursed her lips, eyes glazing over Josh's worried ones. After a minute of silence, she nodded and asked, "What about Sophie?"

"Filomeno's having an NYE party for his employees and I told Sophie I'm going to make a quick appearance," Josh replied, shrugging. "Although I might not actually be that quick. Filomeno doesn't like it when a guest leaves before the countdown begins."

"Josh, I don't want you lying to Sophie. Haven't I made that clear enough for you?" Maya said with an exasperated sigh.

Josh laughed. "First of all, there actually is an NYE party for PV's employees, and I do plan on making an appearance—after the countdown at least. I want Filomeno to know that I'm someone he can't get rid off easily. Second of all, this won't be the first time Sophie and I are spending New Year's apart," he responded.

Maya grew silent once again as she kept her eyes trained on Josh. He'd always had a thing for intense eye contact, which was something Maya became used to. She perceived it as one of the ways he communicated with someone, and as he towered over her on the threshold, his stare emitted nothing but genuine concern for her.

"Fine. Come on in," Maya murmured, opening the door wider for Josh to step through.

Josh yielded her a smile as he invited himself further into Maya's studio. With a quick survey of his surroundings, he discovered that Maya hadn't brought out her materials yet. He did leave right after she did, thus the time difference between his and her arrival at the studio wasn't that large.

As Maya put away her bag and her coat, Josh took it upon himself to set up her station. He placed a blank canvas on the wooden easel and rolled her utility cart next to the stool. He also grabbed a few clean paintbrushes from her bookcase and set it down alongside her palette. When Josh finished, he turned to look at Maya, who stood with her back to him.

"Wow," Josh ventured, which caused Maya to swiftly turn around.

"What?" Maya asked, alarmed.

Josh shook his head. "Nothing, I-I-I just . . ." he trailed off. His hand reached up to rub the back of his neck as his eyes attempted to subtly look at Maya from head to toe. When his eyes caught Maya's gaze, he saw her with an eyebrow perked up in a questioning manner.

"What?" Maya prodded.

"You look amazing. That dress . . . I told you you'd look better in it."

Maya's gaze fell to her feet as she felt a sudden warmness creeping up her cheeks. "Thanks," she mumbled. "How did you know I liked this one, though?"

Josh shrugged. "I'm way more observant than you give me credit for, Maya," he answered.

"Well, then . . . thanks for the dress and I guess the compliment, too."

Josh grinned at Maya. He then gestured at the workstation he prepared for her. "I got your station set up already, so . . . go ahead and escape," he said.

Nodding, Maya ambled toward her workstation.

"Maya?" Josh called.

Maya turned and quirked an eyebrow. "Yeah?"

"Don't stray too far, okay? Come back to me."

"Okay," Maya mumbled with a small, reassuring smile on her face.

Josh situated himself on the couch and watched as Maya adorned her stained smock. She picked up a tube of brown paint and squeezed a reasonable amount on her palette. Sitting down on the wooden stool, Maya grabbed a clean paintbrush and coated its bristles with brown paint. However, as she prepared herself to start painting, she paused, the paintbrush hovering just above the blank canvas.

Maya's brows furrowed, finding her own actions bemusing. Normally, the second she coated her paintbrush with a particular color, the image she had in mind would smoothly materialize on the canvas. She knew she had something specific in mind, but she just couldn't find a way to perfectly translate that onto the canvas.

Attempting to secretly snap pictures of Maya for the story he planned to do regarding her, Josh noticed Maya's worried expression through his phone camera's lens. "What's wrong?" he asked, lowering his phone.

"I can't paint," Maya answered with an infuriated sigh. She threw her paintbrush on the utility cart placed beside her.

"Come on, I'm sure you have something," Josh encouraged.

Maya shook her head. "I got nothing."

Josh stood up from the couch and strode over to Maya. "You said you wanted to escape . . . what do you usually paint when you're trying to do that?" he interrogated.

"I just paint whatever I'm feeling," Maya responded, moving her hands animatedly. "I let go of whatever it is that's making me feel like I'm locked up in my own emotions."

"Then do that," Josh stated.

"I can't, Josh. It's been like this for a week now."

"And why is that?"

"Because!" Maya snapped, which didn't surprise Josh at all. He'd been expecting her outburst since he arrived in her studio; it was only a matter of when it was going to happen. "I'm feeling everything and nothing at once! How do you exactly paint something like that?"

Keeping a cool and collected demeanor to balance out Maya's unstrung behavior, Josh gripped the paintbrush she threw a while ago and handed it back to her. She made no move to take it from him, thus he grabbed her hand and made her wrap her own fingers around the paintbrush.

"Paint," Josh instructed.

"I can't, Josh! Which part of that do you not understand?" Maya exclaimed, shooting up from her stool and breaking Josh's hold on her fist.

Refusing to give up, Josh breathed in heavily. "What happened tonight, Maya? Why do you need to escape?" he questioned, following Maya with his eyes as she paced back and forth by the studio's windows.

After hearing Josh's query, Maya sat back down on the stool, her chest still heaving up and down. It surprised her how little hesitation she felt when Josh asked her about what happened. She usually talked to Zay about her mother issues, but being in the studio alone with Josh, there was something in the atmosphere that urged her to open up to him. Perhaps it was the privacy of the studio, or it was brought on by the intimacy of the moment.

"I realized how much of a coward I really am," Maya confessed in a low whisper.

Josh grabbed the stool from Maya's drafting table and positioned himself alongside her. He wanted nothing more than to disagree because he knew Maya was a far cry from being a coward, but he wanted to hear what she had to say. He knew it was better to put himself in her shoes rather than patronize her in her most vulnerable state.

"And why would you say that?" Josh asked. "What did you do to make you think of yourself as a coward?"

Subconsciously, Maya dipped her paintbrush again on the palette again, coating the bristles with a dark brown color. A knowing smile crept up Josh's lips, which went unnoticed by Maya.

"For all those times I've avoided my mother, I didn't know I was putting her through more suffering," Maya explained as she began stroking lines on the blank canvas. "All that I ever thought of was myself. All I ever thought of was how angry I was at her for not acknowledging my pain—or my help for that matter. All I ever thought of was getting myself away from her because she couldn't be the mother I'd always known her to be. I let my feelings get the best of me and I ran away, without so much as trying to fight harder for her."

As Maya rambled on about her feelings, Josh noticed how vigorous her strokes had become. The strong material of the canvas dipped every time the brush came in contact with it.

"And now I only made everything worse," Maya continued, dipping a different brush on the blob of blue paint before returning to torturing her canvas with angry strokes. "Zay said that she's in rehab because she wants to get better for me, but she wouldn't be there at all had I been there in the first place to prevent all this from happening. I could've made a difference, but instead, all I ever did was get scared and run away!"

Josh remained tight-lipped, knowing for a fact that Maya still had more pent-up words left in her.

"Now I'm hurting Zay, too!" Maya exclaimed, standing up from her stool. "He's the one person who makes me feel like I actually deserve to be cared for after what I've done with my mom. He's the one person who treats me like his own family since we were kids, and what did I do to repay all that? I'm killing him! By refusing to make amends with my mom, the woman whom he treats as his second mother, I'm killing him! All her ever wanted was to see us together again, but I'm not exactly making that an easy task for him. And the worst part is, I didn't even know I was doing that because I chose to become this selfish coward that only thinks and cares about herself! I'm a coward, Josh! I'm a coward. I'm a coward. I'm . . . a . . . coward!"

Maya dropped her paintbrush and sat down on the stool. Her breathing grew laborious. Closing her eyes, Maya leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees and covered her face with her hands.

"I'm so weak, Josh," Maya mumbled as she shook her head. "I didn't try harder for my mom. I ran away the first time she refused my help, and now she's in rehab. This is all my fault."

Sensing that Maya had let out everything, Josh crouched down in front of her, taking both of her hands to remove it from her face. Maya's eyes were bloodshot, but she wasn't allowing her tears to escape, which gave Josh the indication that she was still attempting to put on a brave front.

"What's your favorite color?" Josh randomly asked, much to Maya's surprise.

"Seriously? You're asking me that right now?"

Josh shook his head. "Just answer me, Maya."

"Blue."

"Favorite artist?"

"Easy. Fernand Léger."

"Favorite song?"

"I can't tell you. I got plenty."

Josh nodded in understanding. "That's all right. What's your favorite food?" he queried.

"Uh . . . the champagne cronuts from Topanga's . . . I think?"

Josh feigned surprise. "You did not just second guess yourself," he accused.

Maya emitted a soft chuckle, her breathing regulating back to its normal rate. "I live and breathe food, okay? It's hard to come up with just one answer," she explained.

"Where's your favorite place in the world?" Josh asked.

"Here, my studio. It's where I feel like I could be anything."

Josh smiled at her in response. He stopped asking questions right then, knowing that Maya had finally calmed down. His intention was fulfilled.

"This is your plan all along, isn't it? Aggravate me until I break free, then you give me room to lose myself before you come in and help me get my sanity back," Maya suspected, her fingers fiddling with the hem of her smock.

"It worked well, didn't it?" Josh boasted as his thumbs moved smoothly across Maya's knuckles.

"How is it that you know exactly how to deal with me?" Maya questioned with a smile. "Is it because of the fact that you're actually a grandpa?"

Josh chuckled, shaking his head. "I'm only one year and eleven months older than you."

"Actually, you're one year, eleven months, and three days older," Maya corrected.

"Are we seriously gonna go over this whole thing again?"

Maya gave him a playful shove. "Aw, come on! I wouldn't be mocking you like this if our age difference had been exactly one year and eleven months, but those extra three days makes you much older than me. So, yeah, you're technically a grandpa—"

"I'm ignoring you now," Josh intervened, making his voice louder in an endeavor to tune out Maya's teasing. A satisfied grin crept across his lips the second he heard the sound of Maya's laughter. It wasn't the giggly one nor the mischievous one, but the genuine kind that made her face scrunch up adorably.

Josh's eyes averted from Maya's for a moment to take a look at the end result of her outburst. Maya was the one who told him she couldn't paint what she was feeling, and there she went proving herself wrong.

"Take a look at it," Josh instructed Maya, jutting his chin at the canvas.

Maya followed Josh's gaze and the second she caught sight of the painting, her breath caught in her throat. On her canvas was a painting of a cliff, exactly like the one Zay had described to Riley back at the party. The only difference between Zay's description and Maya's painting was the addition of a second person kneeling on the edge of the cliff. The same as her companion, her arms were outstretched as she helped pull the falling person back up to the ground.

Maya realized the message she'd painted herself, and with tears brimming in her eyes, she turned to Josh. "I have to see her. I have to tell her that it's all my fault and that I'm very sorry," she said.

Without waiting for Josh's response, Maya rushed to gather her things.

"Maya, where are you going?" Josh questioned as he watched her struggle to put her coat on.

"I have to see my mom, Josh. I have to tell her that I'm sorry."

"Maya, you can't do that. The rehab center's already closed for the night," Josh informed, catching Maya's arm before she had the chance to get to the door.

"I don't care. I'll break in if I have to."

"Maya—"

"I want to see her—I need to see her, Josh!" Maya argued. She attempted to wriggle out of Josh's grip, but he fought against her.

"Maya, I told you—"

The sound of fireworks exploding in the night sky interrupted Josh. His and Maya's head simultaneously turned in the direction of the studio's massive windows, both surprised by the fireworks display. They had been too preoccupied with their situation that they'd forgotten it was the New Year's.

Josh was the first to turn away from the colorful firework show. His eyes glaze over Maya's side profile, admiring the way the different exploding colors reflected a kaleidoscope show across her delicate features. He took a step closer, his lips parting as he emitted a subtle gasp. Realizing that his actions had made them closer to one another than they were before, Josh swallowed and settled for a simple greeting.

"Happy new year, Maya," Josh uttered in a low voice.

Maya's gaze snapped toward him, surprised by how close his voice sounded in her ear. A small smile broke out on her face as she echoed his words back to him. "Happy new year, Josh."

Song of the Chapter: Belief by Gavin DeGraw. You guys seriously need to listen to this! The song is essentially what Maya thinks of Josh during this chapter.

Okay, you guys got one thing right: Maya didn't make it back to the party, but Josh went after her, so really it didn't matter that she didn't ;) Also I know that in the show, Josh and Maya are three years apart, but I sorta based their age difference on the GMW Wikia page, and it turned that they were only almost two years apart. Can't remember if the show did something regarding their birthdays, so Josh and Maya are three years apart. If you know why, let me know and I'll make the changes immediately!

It's good to be back, guys! I have to leave for another trip next week, but hopefully, I'll be done writing the entire story by then? I only have 12 chapters left to write before the epilogue, and I'm so excited to write how things will play out! I've written down the plot, but it's always fun to see how events I write affects what I originally planned, so the plot can still change somewhere down the road.

Thanks for reading and let me know what you think!