그대여 내 눈에 비친 그댈 봐요 아름다워 제발 부끄러워 말아요 내 눈에 그대로 담아 둘래요 My love, see yourself reflected in my eyes So beautiful Please don’t be shy I want to place you in my eyes, just as you are

Michael loved how expressive you were.

You couldn’t hide anything from him even if you tried. No matter how taut your lips would be to how you verbally express yourself, your eyes would always betray you first.

Whenever the two of you went out and you tasted something especially delicious, your eyes would crinkle at the corners before your lips had even decided to smile. Michael would watch the reaction unfold from across the table, as though he had been the one to prepare the meal himself. Sometimes he would insist that he didn’t want dessert, only to order the one you had been eyeing and slide the plate between you- just so he could see your face brighten after the first bite.

He could never forget your face when he showed off the final product of the things he would be wearing for his upcoming tour. Michael could tell immediately which ones you liked.

The ones you loved earned widened eyes, an impressed little lift of your brows, and an eager hand reaching out to touch certain embellishments. The ones you hadn’t quite wrapped your mind around inspired a far more complicated response. Your gaze would flicker from the costume to his face, then back to the costume again, your lips pressing together as you searched desperately for something less offensive to say.

Michael would stand there with his arms folded, already fighting a smile. “Well?”

“It’s…" You look at his gold pants in feigned appreciation. "Interesting.”

“Interesting?”

You maintained your very best poker face, one that would not alarm your husband that his interesting choice of fabric did not settle right with you.

“…Sure.”

Michael’s shoulders dropped. “You hate it.”

“I- I didn’t say that," you scoffed, trying to play off your detachment through your deflections.

“You didn’t have to.”

He would laugh while you swatted at his arm, offended that he had read you so easily. It hardly mattered how composed you tried to appear, one look into your eyes and he knew precisely what you were thinking.

Most importantly, he would never forget the first time he gave you a necklace for your wedding anniversary.

In all his years of loving you, Michael had showered you with extravagant bouquets that occupied nearly every vase in the house. He had arranged elaborate dinners, surprise getaways, and vacations to places you had only ever dreamed of visiting. He even went as far as renting out an entire restaurant because he wanted the evening to belong solely to the two of you.

Yet it was a simple rose quartz heart resting on a delicate chain that made you cry.

He had chosen it himself. The stone was a pale, milky pink- polished until it caught the light with every movement. It was a lovely piece, but modest compared to some of the things he had given you before. For that reason, he hadn’t been certain how you would receive it.

The instant you opened the box, however, your eyes told him everything.

Michael watched what seemed like a dozen emotions pass through them in a matter of seconds. Surprise came first, followed by recognition when you realized he had remembered you once mentioning your fondness for rose quartz. Then came the tenderness that made your brows pull together and your lips part without a sound.

Michael swore he didn’t need the world’s most powerful telescope to discover an entire universe. He had already found them in your eyes.

Before they could glass over completely, you blinked rapidly, tipping your face upward as though the ceiling might offer some assistance. “Oh, no,” you whispered hurridly.

His smile faltered. “What?”

“My makeup," you croaked, the frightened sincerity in your voice pulled a startled laugh from him.

You fanned away the oncoming tears with your hand, your voice peaking in the upmost seriousness of the situation of your makeup being the one on the line- and definitely not your heartstrings. “This isn’t funny, Mike. I spent forty minutes on my eyeliner.”

“You don’t like it?”

That brought your gaze straight back to him. “Michael.”

“What?” he asked, all false innocence.

“You know I love it.”

“I jus' wanted to hear you say it.”

“You’re horrible.” But you were smiling as you said it, and Michael could see the tears gathering despite your best efforts.

He slipped the box from your hands and removed the necklace, brushing your hair aside before assisting in fastening it around you.

His fingers and knuckles lingered against your skin, your signature fragrance radiating only stronger the closer he stood. You suppressed a shiver from the feeling of his roughened fingertips that would always handle you with reverence brush over the nape of your neck as he draped the cool chain onto your neck.

When you turned your head around, he could see the trembling pout that was nearly obscured by your hair, followed quickly after one tear that had escaped and begun slipping down your cheek. Michael caught it gently with his thumb before it could travel far enough to ruin anything.

“There,” he murmured, thumb mindlessly starting to brush the underside of your jawline. “Saved your makeup, f’my pretty girl.”

That only made you cry harder.

He laughed and drew you into his arms while you buried your face against his chest, scolding him for being pleased with himself. The necklace was beautiful, but what undid you was the thought behind it. The fact that he had remembered something you had said so casually months before, without any expectation that he would keep it.

But the thing was… Michael always kept those things. He collected every passing comment, every brief change in your expression, every seemingly insignificant preference you revealed. He knew which flowers made you smile and which ones made you sneeze. He knew that when you were upset, your mouth became very still, as if you were afraid the truth might escape if you moved it. He knew that you bit the inside of your cheek whenever you were trying not to laugh.

And he knew that when you loved something- when you truly, deeply loved it- you looked at it as though you wanted to memorize every detail.

Don't even get the man started on the way that you look at him.

At night, when the two of you settled beneath the covers, Michael loved studying your face before the room went dark. He would lie on his side with one hand tucked beneath his cheek, watching as you recounted some story from your day. Your entire face participated. Your brows rose and fell dramatically. Your nose wrinkled whenever you reached the part that annoyed you. Your lips pulled into exaggerated imitations of the people involved, each person receiving a different voice.

Michael rarely interrupted, he didn’t need to. Watching you was entertainment enough.

Sometimes you would stop halfway through a story and narrow your eyes at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like... that.” You pulled your hand out from under the covers, gesturing vaguely towards Michael's face.

He would just smile as he shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re staring.”

“I’m listenin', mama.”

“You can listen without looking into my soul.”

“But then I’d miss half the story.”

You would roll your eyes and turn away from him, but he could still see the smile you tried to conceal.

Tonight was no different.

You had been telling him about something that had happened earlier before he got home, but Michael had lost the thread of the story several minutes ago. He was too busy watching you. The bedside lamp cast a warm glow across your face, catching every subtle shift in your expression.

You were growing increasingly suspicious. "Michael. You haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”

“I have, baby.”

“Oh, yeah?" You propped yourself up from the bed. "What did I say?”

He hesitated, mouth hung slightly agape with nothing but a whimper escaping his throat.

Your eyes narrowed as each passing second, you were left with no response.

Michael’s mouth finally twitched before he carefully started out his sentence. “You were talking about-”

“-Don’t hurt yourself, now.”

He laughed, ducking his head into the pillow. His beautiful curls fanned both sides of the silky pillow like soft tendrils.

“I knew it!” You exclaimed, folding your arms over your chest. “You were staring at me again.”

“I can’t help it," he mumbled into the pillow with a cry.

“That isn’t a defense, Mikey.”

“It’s the truth!" Michael turned his head away from the pillow to face his wife, the grown man practically pleading and whining to prove his innocence.

You tried to maintain your stern expression, but your gaze softened despite you. Michael saw it happen in real time and broke into a smile, which only made you more determined to hide.

You reached over your husband and switched off the lamp in defiance, darkness swallowed the room.

“There,” you declared. “Problem solved.”

Michael's head turned from the lamp and then to you. “Hey-”

“-You can listen properly now.”

“Baby," he huffed. dragging the "y"of your petname. "I was listenin'. Promise.”

“No, you were studying me like I was something under a microscope.”

He shifted closer beneath the covers until his knee brushed yours. “Turn the light back on f'me.”

“No.”

“Please?”

“No," you laughed, pressing your response firmer.

He found your waist in the darkness and tugged you down towards him. A laugh escaped you before you could stop it, and Michael immediately grinned.

“I heard that.”

“Heard what?”

“You smiled.”

“You can’t hear someone smile.”

“I can hear yours.”

His hand traveled up your back, settling between your shoulder blades as he drew you against his chest. You tucked your face beneath his chin, still pretending to be annoyed, though the way you melted into him told a different story entirely.

For a while, neither of you spoke. You took in his steady breathing, the thumps of his heartbeat lulling you into his comforting touch. Michael traced slow, absent circles against your back. Even without the light, he could picture every expression that crossed your face. The small crease between your brows would be gone by now. Your eyelids would be growing heavy. Your mouth would be soft and relaxed, no longer fighting a smile.

He pressed a chaste kiss to your forehead. “You know what I love most?” he asked, breaking their brief moment of comfortable stillness.

“About staring at me?” You immediately quipped back.

“About you, silly girl.”

Your voice softened. “What?”

Michael was quiet for a moment. He had spent so much of his life surrounded by his own carefully managed expressions. Smiles arranged for cameras, rehearsed responses during interviews, people who looked at him and saw whatever they had already decided he was before he ever spoke. But there was nothing rehearsed about you.

Every feeling moved through you honestly, even the ones you tried to hide. Especially the ones you tried to hide. Michael loved that you trusted him enough to let him see them. He loved that there was no audience in the room when you looked at him- no expectations or performances. Just you, seeing him.

“I always know where I stand with you,” he murmured. “Even when you won’t tell me.”

You lifted your head from his chest. He couldn’t see your face very well, but he felt the change in you- the sudden motionlessness, the careful breath you took before speaking.

“That sounds like a very polite way of saying I have no control over my face.”

Michael smiled wistful. “No, you don’t.”

You pinched his side out of protest. He flinched with a cackle, catching both of your hands before you could do it again. He brought one of your knuckles to his lips, kissing them one by one.

“But I love that,” Michael continued, bringing the hand he held captive up to cradle the side of his face. “I love knowin' when you’re happy. I love watchin' you try not to laugh when you’re mad at me. I even love that look you give me when you think I’ve lost my mind.”

You hummed in response, your thumb gently soothing the outline of his cheekbone, “I give you that look often.”

“I know.”

“You earn it often," you added in addendum.

“I know that, too, mama.”

Your other hand relaxed within his- fingers sprawled out as Michael threaded his fingers through yours and rested them against his chest.

“And I love the way you look at me,” he quietly admitted. Something in his voice made the teasing leave you.

“How do I look at you?” You asked with the tilt of your head.

“Like I’m just Michael.”

"Baby..." You mirrored Michael’s affection back at him, thumb brushing the top of his knuckles. "You are just Michael," you affirmed.

“I know.” His answer came more quietly. “With you, I know.”

You leaned forward until your forehead found his in the darkness. Michael’s hand that held you to his chest rose instinctively to cradle your cheek. You leaned into his touch, desperate for more. He felt your eyelashes flutter when he pressed a kiss beside your eye. Then the other. Your nose wrinkled against his with a light giggle. Although the room was far too dark for him to see it, he knew you were smiling.

“There it is,” he whispered. You could feel his hot breath just short of your lips.

“What?”

“That face.”

“You can’t even see me.”

“I don’t have to.”

His thumb moved over your cheek, finding the corner of your mouth by touch. His eyes followed the trail his thumb painstakingly and slowly made along the bottom of your lip before his eyes flickered to you. Your smile deepened beneath his touch but your eyes told a different story. You were patiently impatiently waiting for him to make his next move, the slight restlessness in your eyes as they flitted from his partially agape lips to his teasing expression.

The man could only deny his wife any further before being incurred a wrath so extreme.

And just like that, Michael brought your head downward and kissed you slowly, smiling when he felt you smile against his lips. And as you curled closer into his touch, the both of your legs intertwining underneath the sheets, he realized that darkness did very little to conceal you from him.

He had loved your expressions for so long because they made them you. To know your peculiar behavior wasn't a sign that you were predictable, no- quite far from it. To know the way your eyes crinkle or mouth quirk- in all the ways the world would get a reaction out of you- was to know your heart. Much to your dismay when Michael lovingly points them out.

hii if you made it this far, thank you so much for reading my first posted story !! it's a little daunting posting my work after so long so pls lmk what you guys think ;3 tbh i made this blog so i can write whatever i want while also sharing it to a community so pls don't be mean to me i just wanna have fun lol. i have a couple series in the works so i'll be showing certain snippets eventually!

Claudia released a quiet, contented sigh as she lay beside him, her body turned toward his beneath the soft spill of moonlight that slipped through the hotel curtains and painted the room in shades of silver and blue. Michael’s afro, freed from the careful shaping demanded of him beneath stage lights and cameras, spread wild and untamed against the pillow, while his face remained bare before her, every fading blemish and shallow acne scar exposed without apology. There was no powder softening him, no dazzling costume transforming him into the boy the world believed it knew, only Michael as he truly was—eighteen, exhausted, newly married, and looking at her with such open devotion that Claudia felt as though she had been entrusted with something more sacred than any temple offering.

Her own face must have reflected his, stripped of performance and guardedness until nothing remained within her eyes but love, tender and almost unbearably full. She reached for his hand where it rested between them and began tracing the long lines of his fingers with her own, following each knuckle and crease as though they were roads laid down by the Fates themselves, paths she had been destined to learn by heart. These were the hands that held her when the world became too loud, the hands that rested at the small of her back whenever he feared she might drift too far from him, the hands that had been entrusted not only with her body but with her heart, her secrets, and every soft, vulnerable part of herself she had never offered another soul.

Do you know what I would do for you, my love? she wondered, her thumb passing over the new band encircling his finger.

Michael’s brown eyes lifted to meet hers, warm and luminous beneath the moonlight, and for a moment neither of them spoke, because there were some truths too large to survive being reduced to language. Their wedding rings touched when he curled his fingers around hers, producing the faintest click of gold against gold, a tiny sound almost swallowed by the grandeur of the suite surrounding them. The hotel had given them marble floors, gilded mirrors, velvet drapery, and a view of Las Vegas glittering below like an earthly imitation of Olympus, every street blazing beneath neon light as though the gods themselves had spilled their jewels across the desert, yet no amount of luxury could conceal what they had done.

They had married.

They had stood before a stranger beneath artificial flowers and promised themselves to one another with trembling voices, their youth still visible in their faces even as the vows settled upon them with the weight of eternity. Michael had wanted it from the moment he understood that adulthood might finally place their lives within their own hands, had counted the days until neither family, manager, nor disapproving elder could claim they were too young to choose. He had turned eighteen exactly one month earlier, on the twenty-ninth of August, and had waited through each passing day with the restless devotion of Orpheus standing before the gates of the underworld, convinced that love itself ought to be enough to bend every law keeping him from her.

Then September twenty-ninth had arrived, bringing Claudia’s eighteenth birthday with it, and before the candles upon her cake could properly cool, Michael had taken her hand and carried out the plan he had guarded inside himself for months.

Now they lay together as husband and wife, the words still so new that Claudia could scarcely think them without feeling her heart swell against her ribs. She was no longer merely the girl he loved in private, nor was he only the boy who slipped into her room to whisper impossible dreams about the future; before Juno, before God, and before whatever capricious Fates had first knotted their lives together, they belonged to one another by choice.

Michael lifted her hand and pressed his lips against her wedding ring, his gaze never leaving hers as though he understood the question she had not spoken.

Claudia would have crossed the Styx for him, would have stolen fire from the gods and endured Prometheus’s punishment merely to place warmth into his hands. She would have followed him through every darkened corridor of fame, stood beside him before crowds that demanded pieces of his soul, and guarded the tender boy beneath the legend with the ferocity of a vestal priestess protecting an eternal flame.

There was nothing she would not have done for him.

And perhaps the frightening beauty of it was that Michael, staring at her as though Venus herself had descended into his bed, already knew.

Truthfully, the list had not been his own invention at all, but something he had acquired from Marlon, passed between brothers like contraband after Marlon married Carol in secret and somehow managed, however briefly, to outwit the entire machinery of the Jackson family.

Michael remembered the day with embarrassing clarity, remembered standing outside Marlon’s bedroom at seventeen with his heart beating so violently it seemed determined to betray him through the walls. He had knocked first, timidly enough that the sound barely carried, then again with greater insistence when no answer came, shifting his weight from one foot to the other while anticipation and terror pulled him in opposite directions. He had felt like Mercury lingering at the threshold of some forbidden temple, eager to steal divine knowledge yet terrified of what the gods might do once they discovered his hand inside their treasury.

When the door finally opened, Michael had nearly forgotten why he had come.

Marlon and Carol had still possessed the unmistakable glow of newlyweds attempting to pretend nothing had changed, their private little world sealed behind that door until Michael’s interruption cracked it open. He had burst their bubble only momentarily, standing there all nervous limbs and wide brown eyes, lowering his voice as though Joseph might somehow hear the question from across the house.

He needed to know how they had done it.

Not why, because Michael understood the why too well, understood the hunger to take something sacred and make it yours before family, fame, or duty could reach in and claim it first, but the practical mechanics of it all: where to go, what papers were required, what names had to be signed, how much money to bring, and how two young people could stand before the law and leave belonging to one another before anyone thought to stop them.

Only a few doors away, Claudia lay across Michael’s bed entirely unaware of the conspiracy forming on her behalf, one knee bent beneath the other while her algebra work rested forgotten upon her chest. The lamp beside her cast a soft pool of gold across the room, illuminating the pencil still caught between her fingers and the loose curls spread over his pillow, while equations waited patiently beneath her hand as though numbers could compete with the future Michael had already begun arranging around her.

She looked impossibly young like that, suspended somewhere between girlhood and the woman he loved, and perhaps that was what frightened him most, because the Fates had already wound their thread around them both, yet adulthood remained a narrow gate neither of them could pass through quickly enough.

So Michael stood at Marlon’s door and listened as his brother gave him the list, committing every detail to memory with the solemn concentration of a priest receiving sacred rites, while just beyond the walls Claudia remained in his bed, unaware that the boy she loved had begun collecting the steps required to make her his wife.

“A’ight,” Marlon said once he had managed to fasten the final button of his shirt, though one side of his collar remained folded inward and the faint red stain at the corner of his mouth had only been smeared farther across his cheek by his attempts to remove it. “What you want?”

Michael remained within the doorway as though crossing fully into the room might implicate him in whatever he had interrupted, one hand still wrapped around the brass knob while the other worried anxiously at the seam of his trousers. Behind Marlon, Carol had drawn the bedspread more securely around herself and was watching him with an expression caught between affection and amusement, her lipstick slightly faded and her hair no longer arranged with the precision it had possessed earlier that morning, when she and Marlon had slipped out believing they had fooled everyone beneath the Havenhurst roof.

They had fooled Joseph, at least for the moment, and that was the miracle Michael had come to study.

The house beyond them remained deceptively peaceful, filled with the ordinary sounds of an afternoon that had no idea a mutiny had occurred within it. Somewhere downstairs, dishes shifted in the kitchen while Katherine spoke quietly with one of the girls; a television murmured from another room, its laughter track rising and falling through the halls, and from behind Michael came the faint scratch of Claudia’s pencil moving across paper whenever she remembered that she had algebra to finish. The domestic softness of it all seemed to gather around Marlon’s secret like velvet drawn over a blade, because Joseph was somewhere beneath the same roof, perhaps speaking on the telephone or studying rehearsal schedules, completely unaware that one of his sons had crossed a line no amount of discipline could uncross.

Michael glanced once more into the hallway before finally entering and easing the door shut behind him, careful not to allow the latch to click too loudly.

Marlon watched the excessive caution with growing suspicion, then folded his arms across his chest and asked, “Why you creepin’ around like you got somethin’ tucked under your coat?”

“I ain’t creepin’,” Michael whispered, although his voice remained so low that Marlon had to lean forward to hear him. “I just don’t want Joseph comin’ up here.”

“That’s creepin’.”

“That’s bein’ careful.”

“That’s what folks say when they creepin’.”

Carol gave a quiet laugh from the bed, and Michael looked toward her before immediately lowering his eyes again, the colour returning to his cheeks when he remembered the state in which he had found them. Marlon noticed and made an impatient sound, stepping sideways to block Michael’s view as though modesty had not arrived several minutes too late.

“Quit lookin’ all scared,” Marlon told him. “Ain’t nobody gon’ jump out from under the bed.”

“I’m not scared.”

“Your shoulders nearly touchin’ your ears.”

Michael forced them downward, which only made Carol laugh again, and after a moment she took pity upon him, telling Marlon, “Leave him alone, baby. He came in here for somethin’.”

“Yeah, and he still ain’t said what.”

Michael’s gaze moved from Carol to his brother and then toward the closed door, behind which the whole weight of the Jackson household appeared to be listening, even if reason told him no one stood there. He had rehearsed the question during the entire walk down the hall, had arranged the words so carefully inside his mind that they had seemed almost sensible, but now that Marlon stood before him as a husband rather than merely his brother, the thing Michael had come to ask felt enormous enough to alter the room.

“How’d you do it?” he asked at last.

Marlon stared at him.

Michael swallowed and clarified, “Get married.”

The teasing left Marlon’s face by degrees, replaced first by confusion and then by a slow understanding that sharpened his attention. Carol’s smile faded as well, though hers became something gentler, and the room seemed to grow quieter around them despite the continued murmur of the television downstairs.

“You came bustin’ in here to ask me that?” Marlon questioned.

“I knocked.”

“You keep sayin’ that like it makes the door stay closed.”

“I said I was sorry.”

Marlon studied him for another moment before asking, “Why you wanna know?”

Michael’s fingers resumed their restless movement against his trousers, tracing the same small section of stitching again and again while he searched for an answer that would not expose too much. It was a useless effort. Marlon had grown beside him, had shared bedrooms, stages, punishments, hotel rooms and long bus rides, and he knew Michael’s silences too intimately to mistake one for emptiness.

“Just curious,” Michael said.

Marlon’s expression flattened.

Carol tilted her head and asked softly, “Does this curiosity have anything to do with that pretty little girl doin’ homework in your room?”

Michael looked toward the wall separating them from Claudia, and the involuntary tenderness that passed over his face answered before he could construct another lie.

Marlon followed his gaze and gave a long, knowing exhale. “Man, I knew it.”

“You ain’t know nothin’,” Michael protested, though his voice remained carefully hushed. “And don’t say it so loud.”

“She right through there, Mike. You got her laid up in your bed, and now you in here askin’ how to get married. Ain’t exactly one of them mysteries folks gotta study.”

“She ain’t laid up,” Michael corrected, affronted by the implication. “She’s doin’ algebra.”

“On your bed.”

“She likes my room.”

“She likes you.”

Michael’s mouth twitched despite his efforts to remain serious. “I know.”

The quiet confidence of the answer softened something in Carol’s expression, but Marlon continued looking at his younger brother as though he were attempting to determine how much of this belonged to adolescent fantasy and how much had already hardened into intention.

“You seventeen,” he reminded him.

“I know how old I am.”

“And Claudia ain’t even that yet.”

“She will be next month,” Michael replied immediately, because he knew the distance between their birthdays down to the day, as though the calendar itself had become something he kept beneath his pillow. “She turns seventeen September twenty-ninth, and then next year I turn eighteen first, and she turns eighteen one month after me.”

Marlon blinked. “You done counted it out.”

Michael looked almost offended. “Course I did.”

Carol pressed her lips together, trying unsuccessfully to contain another smile, while Marlon reached up and rubbed one hand over his face, carefully avoiding the remaining lipstick stain. “Lord have mercy, you ain’t come in here curious at all. You got a date picked already.”

“I ain’t say all that.”

“You ain’t gotta.”

Michael shifted beneath his brother’s scrutiny, caught between embarrassment and the stubborn refusal to retreat now that he had finally forced the question from his mouth. In the adjoining room, Claudia turned a page, the sound barely audible through the wall, yet it drew Michael’s eyes as faithfully as a hymn called a believer toward an altar.

He could picture her without seeing her, stretched diagonally across his bed because she never understood why anyone slept straight when there was room to turn sideways, her algebra book resting upon her chest and one sock slipping from her heel. She would be chewing the end of her pencil, frowning at a problem she understood perfectly well but resented being required to solve, while the evening light gathered across her curls and turned their edges gold.

She had no idea that he stood only a few doors away trying to learn how to marry her.

The thought made his heart strike hard enough to frighten him.

Marlon noticed the expression that passed across his face and lowered his voice, asking, “You serious?”

Michael’s gaze returned to him. “Yeah.”

“Naw, I mean serious, Mike, ’cause marriage ain’t just takin’ somebody to a chapel and puttin’ a ring on her finger. That girl gon’ wake up beside you when you sick, when you mad, when money funny, when everybody in this house got an opinion ’bout what y’all oughta be doin’. You don’t get to change your mind soon as it stop feelin’ like a song.”

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

The answer came sharply enough that Marlon’s brows lifted, and Michael drew a breath to settle the defensiveness rising in him before continuing more quietly.

“I ain’t talkin’ about marryin’ her next week,” he explained. “I know we gotta wait, and I know it ain’t gon’ be easy, but I want to know what we need before the time comes. I don’t wanna be standin’ there on her birthday and find out we forgot some paper or gotta wait on somebody’s permission. I want everything ready.”

Carol looked at him with open surprise now, because this was not the dreamy declaration of a boy imagining flowers and cake; Michael spoke with the concentration he brought to music, each detail already being arranged somewhere within him, rehearsed until chance could no longer interfere.

Marlon heard it too.

“You plan on takin’ her to Vegas?” he asked.

Michael hesitated only briefly before nodding. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“Probably.”

“Boy, you came in here askin’ for instructions to do the exact thing I just did, and you gon’ sit there talkin’ ’bout maybe?”

“I ain’t decided which chapel.”

That silenced Marlon for a beat.

Carol covered her mouth, shoulders trembling as she tried not to laugh loudly enough for the sound to travel beneath the door, and Marlon turned to look at her as though Michael’s audacity were somehow her responsibility.

“He done picked the city, the day, probably know what colour socks he wearin’, but he ain’t decided which chapel,” Marlon muttered.

“I don’t know what socks I’m wearin’,” Michael replied.

“Good. Glad there’s still some mystery left.”

A smile tugged at Michael’s mouth, though it disappeared when Marlon walked past him and pressed his ear briefly against the door, listening for movement in the hallway. Once satisfied they remained alone, he turned the lock and lowered his voice further.

“You know Joseph gon’ lose his mind.”

The words settled heavily between them because none of them needed to imagine what Joseph’s anger looked like. It had a sound, the heavy rhythm of his steps approaching through a corridor; it had a posture, shoulders squared while his belt shifted loose through his hands; it had a silence that could be worse than shouting because silence meant the punishment was still being selected.

Michael’s body responded before his pride could stop it, his back stiffening and his fingers becoming still at his sides.

“I know,” he said.

“Do Claudia?”

“She knows how he is.”

“That ain’t what I asked.”

Michael looked toward the wall again. Claudia understood Joseph in the way any person allowed near the Jackson family eventually understood him, through doors shut too firmly, rehearsals stretching too long, and the way Michael’s laughter altered whenever his father entered a room. She had seen bruises he claimed came from dancing, had watched him recoil once when she raised her hand too quickly near his face, and although she did not push when he became quiet, her eyes carried the knowledge he was unable to give her in words.

“She knows enough,” Michael answered.

Marlon shook his head. “Ain’t no such thing as enough with him. When he find out Carol and me got married, he ain’t just gon’ fuss ’cause he think we too young. He gon’ see it like I made a move without him, like I took somethin’ he was supposed to control and put it where he can’t reach it.”

Carol’s gaze lowered briefly, and Marlon’s expression softened as he looked toward her, the agitation in his face giving way to a protectiveness so instinctive it seemed older than their vows.

“That’s why we did it first and told folks later,” he continued. “Once it’s done, it’s done. He can holler, threaten, call lawyers and tell me I done lost my mind, but he can’t make Carol not my wife just because he don’t like how it happened.”

Michael absorbed the words with an almost frightening attentiveness.

There it was, the secret beneath the secret, the reason Marlon’s marriage had fascinated him from the moment he learned of it. A wedding was not merely a promise; it was a door that closed behind you, one Joseph could beat his fists against without forcing it open. Michael had watched each older brother’s adulthood arrive through rebellion, watched marriage create households and loyalties that did not place Joseph at their centre, and some tender, desperate part of him had begun regarding matrimony not only as devotion but as sanctuary.

Carol seemed to recognise where his thoughts had gone, because she leaned forward and spoke with a gentleness that did not soften the warning beneath her words.

“Don’t marry Claudia just to get away from your daddy, Michael.”

His eyes lifted to hers immediately. “I wouldn’t.”

“I’m not sayin’ you don’t love her,” Carol assured him. “Anybody with eyes can see you love that girl, but gettin’ out from under somebody and buildin’ a life with somebody are two different things. If you take Claudia with you, you gotta be sure you runnin’ toward her and not just away from here.”

The distinction entered him quietly.

Michael looked down at his hands, at the long fingers he had spent years training to obey him upon microphones, piano keys and stage movements, yet could never keep from trembling when his father’s anger drew near. He imagined those same hands wrapped around Claudia’s at a chapel altar, imagined gold settling over one finger while she smiled at him beneath cheap flowers and neon light, and the image did not feel like escape.

It felt like arrival.

“I’d choose her even if Joseph was the nicest daddy in the world,” he said.

Marlon released a short breath through his nose. “Well, now we know you serious, ’cause you imagining impossible things.”

Michael gave him a look, but Carol’s eyes remained fixed upon him.

“I don’t want Claudia because she can get me out this house,” he continued, his voice softening as the truth found its proper shape. “I want her because when I’m with her, I don’t feel like I gotta get out of my own skin. She don’t want Michael from the records or Michael Joseph keeps tellin’ what to do. She just wants me, and I want her to know I’m choosin’ her too, not ’cause somebody arranged it or thought it would look good, but because I did.”

Marlon’s teasing finally disappeared.

For a moment, he saw not the little brother who had trailed after him through childhood, nor the nervous boy standing in a room he had entered at the worst possible time, but a young man already carrying desires too large for the life constructed around him. Fame had made Michael visible to millions and known to almost no one, and Claudia, somehow, had found the private boy beneath all that light and treated him as though he were enough without it.

Marlon understood why he wanted to bind himself to that.

He also understood why Joseph would consider such a bond dangerous.

“You tell her any of this?” he asked.

Michael’s eyes widened slightly. “No.”

“Why not?”

“’Cause I’m not askin’ her till she can say yes and mean yes without nobody else’s permission.”

Carol smiled then, a slow, tender expression that made Michael look away in embarrassment.

Marlon watched him another moment before crossing the room toward a small writing desk, where he pulled open the upper drawer and moved aside a stack of envelopes, a comb and several loose photographs. Beneath them sat a folded piece of hotel stationery covered in his hurried handwriting, the paper creased enough to suggest it had been opened and checked repeatedly during the days leading to his own marriage.

Michael took an instinctive step closer.

Marlon placed one hand over the paper before Michael could reach for it.

“You gotta keep your mouth shut,” he warned.

“I know.”

“I mean it, Mike. You don’t go showin’ this to La Toya, don’t leave it sittin’ in your pants for Mama to find when she doin’ laundry, and don’t let Randy get ahold of it, ’cause that boy can’t keep water in a cup, much less a secret.”

“I won’t.”

“And you don’t tell Claudia yet unless you ready for her to spend a whole year worryin’ ’bout it.”

Michael glanced toward the wall. “I ain’t tellin’ her.”

“Then why you need the list now?”

“Because I need to know.”

Marlon searched his face, perhaps hoping to find enough uncertainty to justify refusing him, but Michael’s fear and eagerness existed beside one another without cancelling each other out. He was terrified of Joseph, of adulthood, of marriage, and of the possibility that Claudia might not want the future he had already begun building inside himself, yet beneath every fear lay a purpose that would not move.

Slowly, Marlon removed his hand.

Michael unfolded the paper with the care of a priest opening a sacred text.

The list itself was plain enough to be almost disappointing, containing reminders about identification, proof of age, money, transportation, a marriage licence, an officiant and a witness, along with the address of the place where Marlon and Carol had gone and the name of a man who had helped them avoid unnecessary questions. 

Michael read every line twice.

“Both of you gotta go in together,” Marlon explained, standing close enough to point over his shoulder. “You need proof of your age, and you make sure every name is written right before you leave that counter, ’cause you don’t want no trouble later. Carry cash in more than one place, keep enough put away for gas, and don’t trust that car to behave just because you in love.”

“I’d have a different car by then.”

“Then don’t trust that one either.”

Carol rose from the bed after straightening her clothes, joining them at the desk as she added, “Bring something nice for Claudia to wear, but don’t make it so fancy somebody remembers seeing you. And have shoes she can walk in, because if anything goes wrong, you don’t want that girl trying to run through a bus station in heels.”

Michael nodded solemnly, committing even that to memory.

Marlon glanced at him. “You know she might say no.”

The paper stilled between Michael’s fingers.

“I know.”

“You really know?”

His throat moved as he swallowed. “Yeah.”

“What you gon’ do if she does?”

The answer hurt before he gave it, revealing how often he had already asked himself the same question while Claudia lay beside him or laughed with her head upon his shoulder.

“I won’t make her,” Michael said. “I’ll bring her home.”

Carol’s expression warmed.

Marlon nodded slowly, seeming to accept that answer more than any declaration of eternal love Michael might have offered, because wanting someone was easy, while loving them enough to survive their refusal required a different kind of courage.

“You can keep that,” he said, gesturing toward the paper.

Michael looked up. “For real?”

“For real, but if Joseph finds it, you never got it from me.”

“I’ll say Jackie gave it to me.”

Marlon’s mouth fell open. “Why Jackie?”

“Joseph already mad at him half the time.”

“That ain’t right.”

“It makes sense.”

Carol laughed, and this time even Marlon’s outrage could not stop the grin spreading across his face. He reached out and caught Michael by the back of the neck, pulling him into a rough, one-armed embrace that threatened to crush the carefully folded list between them.

“You a sneaky little something,” Marlon muttered against his afro.

Michael smiled into his brother’s shoulder. “Learned from you.”

“That ain’t a compliment.”

“It is today.”

When Marlon released him, Michael tucked the list deep into the inner pocket of his shirt and pressed his palm over it, feeling the stiff outline resting against his heartbeat. It contained no poetry, no vows, and no assurance that Claudia would accept when the day arrived, yet it seemed to him more precious than any love letter because it transformed an impossible dream into a sequence of doors that could be opened one after another.

Carol reached over and repaired the side of his collar, smoothing it down with the easy tenderness of someone who had known him long enough to treat him as family even before the law made it so.

“Just be good to her,” she said.

Michael looked through the wall again, toward the room where Claudia remained unaware of the future being whispered into existence only a few yards away.

“I will.”

Marlon’s expression turned serious once more as he unlocked the door, but before allowing Michael into the hallway, he caught his arm and spoke in a voice low enough that even Carol had to lean nearer.

“And Mike, when the time comes, don’t hesitate halfway through it. Fear’ll have you thinkin’ every car behind you belongs to Joseph and every telephone ring means somebody knows, but once you take her hand and start, you keep goin’ until both your names are on that paper. You understand?”

Michael felt the list against his chest and thought of Claudia in his bed, of her birthday arriving one month after his, and of the entire year standing between them like a sea he would have to cross without knowing what waited upon the opposite shore.

“Yeah,” he whispered.

Marlon held his gaze. “You sure?”

Michael nodded, the frightened boy and determined young man within him speaking through the same quiet answer.

“I’m sure.”

The moment the clock struck twelve and September twenty-ninth slipped quietly into existence, Michael appeared at the Dubois residence with the restless brightness of Mercury arriving to steal something precious from beneath the watch of older gods. Claudia had barely finished laughing at the candles Genevieve had arranged upon her cake before he caught her by the hand and began drawing her toward the front door, his excitement too large for his narrow frame and his grin so poorly concealed that even Lance, who regarded every young man near his daughter with the suspicion of a Roman sentry guarding the gates, could not help but narrow his eyes at him.

Michael promised them he would bring Claudia home in one piece, delivering the assurance with both hands raised as though standing before a tribunal, while Claudia lingered beside him in the dress she had worn for her birthday dinner, one brow lifted because she knew him far too well to believe the entire evening had been improvised. He explained that he merely wanted to celebrate the two of them finally being eighteen somewhere lavish, somewhere grand enough to make adulthood feel real, somewhere the lights burned brighter than the stars themselves and the night refused to end simply because the sun had gone down.

Las Vegas, he said, with a casualness so studied it became immediately suspicious.

Genevieve looked from Michael to her daughter, then toward Lance, her expression carrying the quiet amusement of a woman who had already understood more than either young person realised, while Lance remained beside the doorway with his arms folded over his chest, studying Michael beneath the porch light as though searching for any crack in the boy’s sincerity.

They had known him too long for ordinary suspicion to survive intact.

Lance and Genevieve Dubois had met Michael when Claudia was ten and he was eleven, back when his afro appeared almost too large for the rest of him and his fame had not yet taught him to guard every unplanned expression. Claudia had introduced herself by shoving him from a swing at the park because, in her opinion, he had taken entirely too long and showed no intention of surrendering it voluntarily. Michael had landed in the dirt with wounded dignity, staring up at the small girl standing over him as though she had personally challenged him before the Senate, while Claudia had simply climbed into the vacated seat and ordered him to push her.

He had.

From that afternoon onward, he seemed to appear wherever she did, first as the shy boy trailing behind her with scraped knees and questions, then as the friend who spent so many evenings beneath the Dubois roof that Genevieve began setting another place at the dinner table without asking whether he intended to stay. Lance had taught him how to hold a fishing rod, how to knot a tie properly, and how to look a man directly in the eye when making a promise, offering the patience Michael rarely received from the father whose approval governed his own home.

Lance had been Claudia’s father by blood, certainly, but over the years he had become something of a father to Michael as well, a steady presence who corrected without humiliating and protected without demanding fear as payment. He had watched the awkward little boy grow taller, had seen Michael’s affection for Claudia deepen from childhood loyalty into something warmer and far more dangerous, and although the realisation had once stirred every territorial instinct inside him, he could not convince himself that his daughter was unsafe with the same boy who still called Genevieve before every tour to ask whether she needed anything brought back.

That trust was the only reason Michael had been permitted to stand upon their porch at midnight asking to carry their only daughter into the Nevada desert.

“You said somewhere lavish,” Lance reminded him, his gaze dropping briefly toward the overnight bag Michael had attempted, without success, to conceal behind his leg. “You didn’t say anything about taking my baby across state lines.”

Claudia groaned immediately, leaning her head back as though appealing to Juno for patience. “Daddy, I am eighteen now.”

“You been eighteen twelve minutes.”

“Still counts.”

“To you.”

Michael squeezed her hand before she could begin an argument that would consume the first hour of their carefully planned escape, then looked at Lance with an earnestness that softened every playful edge in his face. “I’ll take care of her, sir,” he promised, and beneath the porch light, with Claudia’s fingers threaded tightly through his, the words seemed to carry far more weight than the trip alone required. “I swear.”

Lance’s attention lingered on their joined hands.

Perhaps some fatherly instinct warned him that Michael intended to do more than take Claudia dancing beneath neon lights, that the boy’s nervous energy was not merely excitement but the terror of someone carrying a secret large enough to alter several lives. Yet he also saw the same eleven-year-old who had once stood in their kitchen dripping rainwater across the floor because Claudia had forgotten her coat and Michael had given her his, choosing to walk home soaked rather than allow her to be cold.

“Bring her back the way she left,” Lance said at last, stepping aside only reluctantly.

Michael nodded too quickly. “Yes, sir.”

Genevieve’s mouth curved. “And call when you arrive.”

“We will.”

“Not at noon tomorrow after I’ve spent all night wondering whether you two drove into a ditch.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And Michael?”

He paused with one foot already descending the porch steps.

Genevieve crossed the distance between them and straightened the collar of his jacket, her fingers lingering there as she searched his face with eyes too perceptive for comfort. “Whatever it is you have planned,” she murmured, low enough that Claudia could not entirely catch the words, “you make sure my daughter has every opportunity to choose it for herself.”

The colour rose slowly beneath Michael’s skin.

For one terrible moment, he wondered whether the marriage licence hidden inside his coat had somehow begun glowing through the fabric like stolen fire in Prometheus’s hands. Genevieve only held his gaze, neither accusing nor granting permission, yet the warning beneath her tenderness was unmistakable.

“I will,” he whispered.

Only then did she release him.

Michael ushered Claudia toward the waiting car before either parent could reconsider, opening the passenger door with exaggerated ceremony while she looked at him as though he had lost what little sense fame had left him. He bowed deeply, one hand sweeping toward the seat as if presenting Venus with her chariot, and Claudia rolled her eyes even as laughter softened her mouth.

“What are you up to?” she asked, pausing before she climbed inside.

“Nothin’.”

“You are a terrible liar.”

“I’m not lyin’.”

“You brought luggage for an evening out.”

Michael glanced toward the bag protruding from the back seat, then returned his eyes to hers with a smile so innocent it would not have deceived a child. “We might wanna change clothes.”

“In another state?”

“Vegas gets warm.”

“It is nighttime.”

“The desert holds heat.”

“You have never cared about desert temperatures a day in your life.”

He laughed, gently guiding her into the car before closing the door and circling toward the driver’s side, his heart battering against his ribs all the while. Beneath his jacket, the folded list Marlon had given him rested beside their identification, the address of the chapel, enough cash to carry them there and back, and two modest gold bands wrapped carefully inside a velvet pouch.

When Michael settled behind the wheel, Claudia was still watching him.

He turned the key, and the engine stirred beneath them while the porch lights painted her face in warm gold, illuminating the suspicion in her eyes and the affection she had never learned to conceal from him. Through the windscreen, Lance and Genevieve remained framed in the doorway, Genevieve lifting one hand in farewell while Lance stood beside her like an anxious emperor watching his daughter depart in the company of a young Orpheus who had promised to guide her safely through the dark.

Michael reached across the space between them and took Claudia’s hand, bringing her knuckles to his lips before easing the car away from the kerb.

Ahead of them waited the long desert road and Las Vegas glowing upon the horizon, its neon temples blazing more brilliantly than any mortal constellation, while inside Michael’s coat rested the secret that had occupied his heart since the day he stood at Marlon’s door and learned how two young lovers might steal their future from the hands of everyone determined to govern it.

Claudia leaned toward the window, watching her home recede behind them before turning back to him with narrowed eyes.

“You better not be takin’ me to some wild party.”

Michael smiled toward the road, his thumb passing slowly over the back of her hand.

“No party, beautiful.”

The lie came wrapped so tenderly that she almost believed him.

He did not know how to describe it without making it sound profane, because every word that came to him seemed either too small for the feeling or so enormous it bordered upon blasphemy, yet as Michael lay beside Claudia beneath the pale Vegas moonlight, watching her fingers travel reverently over the lines of his hand, he knew that he wanted to be wrapped in her—not merely held for the night, not merely wanted while youth and beauty made wanting easy, but enclosed within the whole of her existence until there was no clear place where his life ended and hers began.

He wanted Claudia in the manner Scripture spoke of covenant, as something written not simply upon paper but upon the heart, something carried within the body until it became indistinguishable from breath and blood. He wanted to cover her in every tenderness he possessed, to place his name around her not as a chain but as shelter, to love her through sickness and health, through abundance and want, through the mornings when affection came effortlessly and the nights when loving one another would require patience, forgiveness, and the deliberate surrender of pride. He wanted the triumphs, certainly, but he wanted the wilderness too, the lean years and the frightened ones, the seasons when they might have nothing to offer each other except two tired hands clasped beneath a kitchen table and the stubborn promise that neither would let go first.

It was not enough to share a bed with her; Michael wanted to share time itself.

He wanted years threaded together like beads upon a prayer cord, birthdays and arguments, ordinary suppers, illnesses, journeys, children perhaps, and all the small domestic moments no audience would ever applaud. He wanted to hear Claudia moving through rooms they had chosen together, wanted her shoes beside his at the door and her handwriting mingled with his across grocery lists, letters, and the margins of whatever books they passed between them. He wanted to grow familiar with every version of her the future might reveal, even those she had not yet met within herself, and he wanted her to know every hidden incarnation of him, the frightened boy, the restless man, the believer, the doubter, the performer who belonged to millions and the private soul who wished to belong only to her.

Perhaps that was what frightened him most—the completeness of it.

Michael had been taught to regard the flesh with suspicion, to understand desire as something requiring vigilance because temptation had first entered paradise wearing the patient face of a serpent. For years, he had treated his own wanting as though it were an unruly animal prowling behind his ribs, something to be starved, disciplined, and prayed into submission before it lured him beyond the narrow path laid beneath his feet. He knew the story of David allowing appetite to corrupt devotion, knew how easily longing could crown itself love while dragging a man toward ruin, and so he had once believed purity meant denying every hunger until even the body forgot how to ask.

Then Claudia had come close enough to touch him, and all those severe distinctions had begun loosening without a single argument from her.

She had not tempted him away from God, as some fearful corner of his mind had once imagined a woman might; she had made him understand why the Bible contained the Song of Solomon at all, why holy pages would preserve language so lush with longing, why the beloved was permitted to praise the body of the beloved without heaven striking either of them down. Claudia had made him wonder whether the flesh was not always an enemy of the spirit, whether desire, when held within devotion and offered without deceit, might become another form of worship.

There had been no campaign on her part, no coaxing him toward rebellion, because Claudia had never needed to pry his convictions from his hands; she had merely loved him, patiently and without shame, until some of the rules he had mistaken for faith began falling away from him like scales. Lord knew how thoroughly they had fed the flesh within the sanctuary of their union, how eagerly restraint had unravelled once vows made their wanting lawful, yet he could not find sin in the tenderness that followed, nor in the way Claudia had touched him as though his body were not something dirty to overcome but a dwelling entrusted to her care.

The marriage bed did not feel like the mouth of temptation.

It felt like an altar.

Not because Claudia was divine, for Michael would never confuse the creature with the Creator, but because loving her demanded the same virtues his faith had always required of him: patience, humility, mercy, discipline, truth. She could summon desire from him with the slightest movement, certainly, but she also called forth gentleness, made him wish to become a man whose love nourished rather than consumed, whose hands never resembled the hands that had frightened him in childhood. To hold Claudia was to feel the difference between possession and stewardship, between wanting to own something beautiful and recognising that another person’s heart was sacred precisely because it had been given freely and could never truly be taken.

That was what their rings meant to him as they touched between them with the faintest click of gold against gold.

Claudia had chosen him.

Of all the men she might have loved, of all the lives she might have constructed beyond the strange orbit of his fame, she had placed her hand inside his beneath artificial chapel lights and allowed him to slip a band around her finger. She had met him at the altar without coercion, looked into his face while the city blazed outside, and promised herself to him with the calm bravery of Ruth laying her future beside Naomi’s: where he went, she would go; where he lodged, she would lodge; his people would become hers, and whatever earth received him at the end of life would receive her memory beside him.

The knowledge humbled him almost as much as it thrilled him.

It was pathetic, perhaps, how completely she held him without understanding that she possessed any power at all. Claudia did not know that one disappointed glance from her could send him into hours of self-examination, nor that her laughter had become the sound by which he measured the safety of a room. She did not know that Michael remembered every careless preference she mentioned, storing them away as though preparing for some examination in which his entire worth as a husband would depend upon whether he brought home the right flowers or recognised when her silence meant she needed to be held rather than questioned.

She had never commanded him to worship.

That was precisely why he found himself kneeling.

He thought of Jacob labouring seven years for Rachel, only to accept another seven when deceit placed the wrong bride before him, and Michael understood how fourteen years might pass like a handful of days when the promised reward was a lifetime beside the woman one loved. Had someone demanded twice that number from him for Claudia, he would have worked until his hands split and still considered the bargain generous. Had heaven told him that the road toward her required wandering forty years through the wilderness, he would have packed before sunrise, trusting that each grain of desert sand carried him one step nearer.

Do you know what I would do for you, my love?

The question filled him as Claudia continued tracing his fingers, unaware that beneath her touch his heart had become a restless psalm.

She could ask him to jump, and Michael would scale Everest for her, climbing until the clouds lay beneath his feet and the world became nothing but cold air and prayer, yet even standing upon the highest point of the earth would feel inadequate, merely the first rung upon Jacob’s ladder when what he wished to offer her reached beyond the heavens. He would bring down the mountain stone by stone if she desired a path across it, would divide seas with his bare hands if water dared stand between them, and would spend the strength of his entire life building an ark large enough to preserve every dream she had ever trusted him with.

Still, it would not be enough.

No feat could equal the quiet miracle of her loving him back.

Michael turned his hand within hers until their palms met, threading his fingers through hers as though sealing the spaces between them, and when Claudia lifted her gaze, he saw himself reflected inside her eyes without stage lights, screaming crowds, or the terrible distortions of fame. She looked at him and saw no prodigy, no little king, no instrument created to sustain a family’s ambition, but simply Michael—the boy with the untamed afro and scarred cheeks, the young husband trembling beneath the enormity of his own happiness.

His thumb passed over her wedding ring, slowly enough to feel every edge of the modest band.

Set me as a seal upon thine heart, he remembered, the words rising inside him with the solemnity of Scripture spoken aloud, for love is strong as death; many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.

That was what he wanted to become for Claudia: not a flood consuming her, but the seal upon her heart, a love fierce enough to survive every water sent against it and gentle enough never to demand that she drown proving hers.

He brought her joined hand to his mouth and kissed the ring before pressing his lips into the centre of her palm, his eyes remaining fixed upon hers as though he could deliver the entire confession through touch alone.

If she asked him what he would do for her, Michael was not certain language could hold the answer.

He would live for her, which seemed harder and more sacred than dying.

He would wake each morning and choose her again, even when the choosing cost pride, comfort, or certainty. He would meet her joy with gratitude, her grief with patience, her anger without cruelty, and her fear with hands held open enough that she never mistook his love for captivity. He would learn her and relearn her as years changed them both, remaining beside her through every valley until death itself arrived to part what they had joined beneath the blazing lights of Las Vegas.

And even then, some faithful part of him believed he would search eternity until he found her again.

Claudia’s fingers moved over his bare face with the careful curiosity of someone tracing a map she intended to commit to memory, following the faint hollows left by old blemishes, the uneven texture along his cheeks, and every small scar he had spent years learning how to conceal beneath powder, careful lighting, and the practiced turn of his head. Michael lay with his head resting in her lap, his afro spread dark and unruly across the pale fabric of her nightgown, while moonlight poured through the hotel curtains and softened the room until Las Vegas, with all its neon temples and manufactured stars, seemed impossibly far away.

Her touch was light, almost absent-minded in its tenderness, but Michael felt every pass of her fingertips as though she were peeling him open layer by layer, stripping away the performer, the obedient son, the disciplined believer, and every carefully constructed version of himself he had offered to the world. She saw him too easily, and he loved her for it with the same helpless intensity that made him resent the vulnerability of being known, because there was nowhere to hide when Claudia looked at him like that, no shadow deep enough to conceal the parts of himself he still believed were unworthy of tenderness.

When her thumb brushed across one of the deeper marks upon his cheek, Michael turned his face slightly, an old instinct urging him to retreat before she could examine it too closely, but Claudia merely followed him, bending until her lips met the scar.

The kiss was soft enough to hurt.

She pressed another beside it, then another, her mouth moving patiently over every flaw he had expected her to overlook, as though she had mistaken the places he disliked most for sacred ground. She did not kiss him out of pity or offer the exaggerated reassurance people gave when they wished to prove they had noticed nothing; she kissed him because she had noticed everything and loved him without requiring any of it to disappear.

Michael’s eyes closed.

“Claudia,” he breathed, though he could not have said whether her name was a warning, a plea, or something dangerously close to prayer.

She hummed without stopping, one hand settling against his jaw while the other continued tapping a gentle rhythm against his chest, and Christ, did she understand what she was doing to him, how completely she was unravelling him with nothing more than her mouth upon his scars and her fingers moving through his hair?

Did she know that he would have torn himself apart for her if she asked?

The thought did not arrive with violence so much as surrender, a quiet and terrible certainty that there was no part of him he would withhold from her, no guarded chamber of his heart he would refuse to open if Claudia stood before it and requested entrance. He would have split his ribs with his own hands and placed the trembling organ into her palms, would have offered flesh, blood, breath, and bone if any of it could become proof large enough to contain what he felt.

The language frightened him, because it brushed against imagery he had been raised to treat with reverence, and Michael would never have dared place his mortal love beside the sacrifice of Christ as though the two could be weighed equally. Yet some echo of the Eucharist stirred within his understanding, not as blasphemous imitation but as the only language of complete self-giving his faith had ever given him.

At the altar, bread and wine became remembrance, covenant, body and blood offered not to satisfy hunger but to declare that love, in its holiest form, withheld nothing of itself.

Michael understood suddenly why such devotion had been expressed through the body.

Words could promise faithfulness, yet the body was where promise became action: hands that served, shoulders that carried, blood that sustained life, flesh that endured pain rather than pass it onward. The sacrament was sacred because it spoke of a love willing to be broken and poured out for others, and although Michael knew he was no saviour and Claudia required no salvation from him, he recognised within himself the humble, human shadow of that impulse—the yearning to give her everything he possessed until nothing remained hidden behind his teeth or beneath his skin.

Take this heart, some private voice within him seemed to whisper. It is already yours.

Not as worship, because Claudia was not God, nor did she ask to be placed upon an altar; she was simply the woman he had chosen, the wife whose ring now shone beside his beneath the moonlight, and loving her made him want to practice the kind of devotion Scripture demanded rather than merely recite it. He wanted to feed her when she was tired, wash her feet after long journeys, sit beside her through illness, forgive before pride could harden, and allow himself to be known without decorating every wound first.

Perhaps that was the truest offering he could make her.

Not his blood spilled dramatically across marble, nor his heart presented like some grotesque relic, but the daily surrender of the parts of himself he guarded most fiercely: his fear, his shame, his need for control, and the trembling boy beneath the polished image who still expected affection to be withdrawn the moment he ceased performing properly.

Claudia kissed the shallow scar near his temple, and Michael’s fingers curled into the fabric at her hip, holding her as though the tenderness might otherwise carry him somewhere he could not return from.

“You ain’t gotta do that,” he whispered.

Her lips paused against his skin. “Do what?”

“Kiss all the ugly parts.”

Claudia drew back just far enough to look down at him, her expression tightening with such immediate displeasure that Michael almost wished he could pull the words back before they reached her.

“What ugly parts?” she asked.

He glanced away, but her hand followed, cupping his cheek and returning his face gently toward hers.

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t,” Claudia replied, her thumb stroking over the same mark he had attempted to hide. “These are yours, Michael. I love your face because it belongs to you, not because it looks untouched.”

Something inside him gave way so quietly that he felt no collapse, only the sudden absence of a wall he had assumed would remain standing forever.

His eyes burned.

Claudia noticed, because she always noticed, yet she spared him the humiliation of naming it, lowering herself instead until her forehead rested against his and their breath mingled in the small space between them.

Michael looked at her and thought again of the chalice raised beneath solemn light, of covenant made visible, and of love becoming sacred not because it was painless, but because it chose to remain present before every wound.

She did not know the power she possessed over him.

She had never demanded it, never tested the boundaries of his devotion or asked him to prove himself through suffering, and perhaps that innocence was precisely why he would have given her anything. Claudia did not want his flesh torn from him; she wanted him whole, breathing beneath her hands, his scars uncovered and his heart still safely beating behind his ribs.

That knowledge humbled him more than sacrifice ever could.

Michael turned his face into her palm and kissed its centre, holding her wrist with both hands as though receiving something blessed.

You could ask me for everything, he thought, his eyes lifting to meet hers, and I would still pray for something more to give.

Michael brought their ringed hands together as he rose from her lap, fitting his palm against hers until the two modest bands met with a faint click of gold, so quiet beneath the distant hum of Las Vegas that no one beyond the room might have heard it, yet to him the sound carried all the gravity of temple bells announcing that some sacred rite had been completed. He looked down at their joined hands for a lingering moment, still half-dazed by the sight of his future made tangible upon their fingers, before drawing Claudia toward him and connecting their lips.

The kiss began gently, almost reverently, his mouth settling over hers without haste as though he had been granted a lifetime and intended to make full use of every second. One hand remained threaded through hers while the other found her waist, supporting her as he guided her backwards into the sheets, lowering her with such care that she might have been an offering entrusted to his keeping rather than the girl who had spent eight years shoving him from swings, stealing food from his plate, and refusing to let the world frighten him into becoming smaller than himself.

The mattress yielded beneath Claudia, the silken bedding gathering around her in pale folds while Michael followed, bracing himself above her so that his weight never pressed too heavily against her body. His afro cast a soft shadow across them both, shielding her face from the moonlight for one private instant, and when he drew back, their mouths still close enough for their breaths to mingle, his brown eyes moved slowly over her features as though marriage had changed nothing and everything at once.

She was still Claudia, still the girl whose handwriting filled the margins of his notebooks and whose laughter could find him backstage through walls of noise, yet she was also his wife now, the word settling inside him with such sweetness that he almost feared thinking it too loudly might wake him.

His thumb passed over her wedding band, tracing the narrow circle as though reassuring himself that it remained there, and then he lifted their hands between them until the gold caught the moonlight.

“I love you,” he whispered, his voice trembling beneath the enormity of what he meant, because the sentence felt painfully insufficient for a devotion that had taken root in childhood and grown around his bones. “Claudia Jackson.”

Her new name left his mouth like a vow spoken for the second time, softer than it had sounded before the officiant and infinitely more sacred for belonging only to them now. Michael smiled as he said it, shy and awestruck all at once, yet there was something possessively tender beneath the expression, not the satisfaction of a man who believed he had claimed her, but the wonder of a boy realising that the woman he loved had freely chosen to build her name beside his.

“Claudia Jackson,” he repeated, almost to himself, testing the rhythm of it upon his tongue as though it were a psalm he intended to recite for the rest of his life. “My wife.”

The words nearly unravelled him.

His forehead lowered to hers, and he closed his eyes while holding their joined hands against the centre of his chest, directly over the heart he would have torn out and given her had she ever asked. It beat violently beneath her palm, betraying every feeling he lacked the language to explain, and Michael allowed her to feel it without embarrassment, because there was no longer any part of himself he wished to conceal from her.

“You really married me,” he murmured, a breathless laugh moving through the words as though her consent remained the most astonishing miracle of the evening. “You stood there and said yes to me.”

Claudia’s mouth curved beneath his, her free hand rising to cradle the cheek she had kissed so tenderly moments before. “You sound surprised.”

“I am.”

“You planned the whole thing.”

“I know, but you could’ve told me no.”

“I could have.”

The simple admission made his eyes open, and Claudia watched something vulnerable pass through them before she softened her touch against his face.

“But I didn’t,” she reminded him.

Michael turned his head and kissed the centre of her palm, closing his fingers around her wrist as though he could hold the assurance there forever. The lights of Las Vegas continued blazing outside their windows, gaudy and brilliant, mimicking a heaven built by men who believed neon could rival constellations, but Michael scarcely noticed them now; every star worth seeing lay reflected within Claudia’s eyes.

“I’m gon’ be good to you,” he promised, his voice losing its earlier wonder only to deepen into solemnity. “I know we young, and I know everybody’s gon’ say we don’t know what we doin’, but I’m gon’ learn. Whatever I don’t know, I’ll learn it for you.”

“For us,” Claudia corrected softly.

His expression warmed.

“For us,” he agreed, bringing her ringed hand to his lips and pressing a kiss against the band. “Through all of it.”

Through illness and health, applause and silence, abundance and want; through every wilderness awaiting them beyond the glittering city, every serpent hidden within the garden, and every angry father who might attempt to undo what had been sealed before God and law. Michael did not yet understand how long a lifetime truly was, but he knew he wanted every uncertain year of his placed beside hers.

He bent once more and kissed his wife, no longer with the frightened urgency of a boy attempting to steal happiness before someone entered and took it from him, but with the steady tenderness of a husband beginning to understand that love was not proved through one grand escape into the desert.

It would be proved tomorrow, and the day after that, and in every ordinary morning they managed to choose each other again.

Still holding her hand against his heart, Michael smiled into the kiss and whispered once more, simply because he could now, “I love you, Mrs. Jackson.”

Michael sat on the edge of the hotel bed for a long time after the woman left. She had gathered her things quietly, giving him one last look before closing the door after he’d asked her to leave. His elbows were braced against his knees and he had both of his hands pressed over his face. Like maybe he could hide from what he had just done if he stayed that way long enough.

The room was eerily quiet now. Nothing but the distant hum of traffic and horns from impatient cars down below. 

Just an hour before, music was playing from the stereo on the dresser and the curtains were pulled back wide revealing the glittering city below. Somebody was laughing at something Michael had long forgotten now. 

Now, the glasses on the dining room table were half empty. The sheets behind him were rumpled and smelled of an unfamiliar perfume. And the gold wedding band around Michael’s finger felt like it had doubled in weight.

He twisted it back and forth on his finger. Then he raised his hands back to his face.

“Oh God… what did I do?” he whispered into his hands. The words sounded so small in the expensive suite.

Then, his stomach rolled in an awful way and he rushed to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before losing the contents of his stomach.

He had spent most of his life surround by chaos and noise. People screaming his name, cameras clicking and flashing, executives talking over one another because they all wanted to be right. He had learned out to tune out the noise over the years to find a quiet place inside his own mind when the world became too much.

But now, there was no quiet place deep enough to protect him from himself.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw your face. It wasn’t angry either. That would’ve been easier. Instead, you were smiling. 

The same way that you had when he’d left for this business trip a month ago. You were standing barefoot in the foyer, arms wrapped tightly around his waist with your cheek resting against his chest. You had asked him to let you know when he landed. Reached your hand up to straighten the collar of his jacket that was turned up, because somehow Michael always managed to leave something out of place when he was tired. Then you had kissed him slowly and told him you loved him.

He had said it back without hesitation. He kept replaying it in his head. That was the part he couldn’t understand. He loved you. Truly. With every inch of his being. 

He knew that with the same certainty he knew the first note of every song he’d ever written, the exact number of steps between the wings and center stage. The way your body fit against his like a puzzle piece when you slept. 

He loved the sweet warm scent that clung to your skin after a shower. The tiny line between your eyebrows when you were reading something very carefully. He loved how you talked to yourself when you were cooking and trying to figure out a recipe— and denied it when he caught you, and the way you reached for him in your sleep without stirring.

He loved you, all of you, and he had betrayed you anyway.

The thought made him bend forward until his forehead nearly touched his knees, stomach still churning.

It wasn’t planned. Never. That was the excuse waiting closest to the surface. The one his frightened out of its wits mind kept offering him as if it would soften what happened. Truthfully, he was exhausted and lonely. Frustrated after a long night of industry obligations he didn’t want to attend. Those events were always full of people who treated boundaries like something temporary.

He drank more than usual, but not nearly enough to erase the choices he made that led him here. The woman made him feel admired without asking for anything complicated from him. And for one shameful, shameful hour, he had stepped outside of the life that belonged to him and pretended there would be no cost.

Then that moment came to an end, and there was still you. His mind kept drifting to you. Your clothes in his closet, the books stacked beside his bed that you had started but never finished. The handwritten notes you’d snuck in his luggage when he wasn’t looking. Your voice on his answering machine, asking him if he remembered to eat. 

By morning he had already decided he had to tell you. But then you called. Your voice was warm and sleepy because it was still early back at home where you were. You teased him about sounding completely miserable, told him he should’ve brought you for company. Said you missed him.

Michael sat on the hotel sofa gripping the phone so tightly his tendons ached. 

“I miss you too, baby.” He whispered. He almost confessed his sin to you right then and there. But when he opened his mouth, nothing came out.

He couldn’t bear the idea of telling you like that. Not like that. You deserved more from him. From your husband. 

Michael was disgusted with himself, and it showed in the way he’d been sick twice the night before. Now, sitting in the ruined hotel room, His eyes fell to the wedding band on his hand and he began to cry until the sobs crescendoed violently through his body.

The tears slipped between his fingers and fell silently onto his slacks while the world carried on outside. Completely indifferent and undisturbed by the fact that somewhere in it, a man had just shattered the most precious thing he’d ever been trusted to hold.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

It was sunrise when you woke up on the morning Michael returned home. The estate was still dark and its long hallways were silent  except for the occasional creak of the home settling around you. Outside, the sky was turning from black to a deep blue and mist drifted over the lawn.

You stayed in bed a little longer, curled in the sheets on Michael’s side of the bed. It was a habit you’d developed over the years whenever he was away from home. Pressing your face into the pillow, you inhaled deeply and sighed contently. It still carried a faint trace of your husband’s cologne. Warm, sandalwood, clean linen, and something sweet you couldn’t quite pinpoint.

A month had never felt so long

Michael and you had been married long enough to survive separations much longer than that. World tours had taken him across oceans. Film shoots and recording obligations swallowed whole weeks sometimes. There were too many birthdays and anniversaries celebrated through telephone wires than you cared to remember.

But lately, even when Michael was home, you’d missed him. And that bothered you. A lot. He was physically there. Eating dinner with you, sleeping beside you, every now and then resting his large palm on your thigh as he did his reading. But something felt off. His smiled came slower and his kisses were softer, but shorter too. And every now and then, you would look up and see him watching you closely with an expression you couldn’t read. Sadness flickered across his features before he tucked it away, but you didn’t know.

It must be the album you thought. Dangerous was due to release soon, so there was always a deadline or a room full of people waiting for Michael to decide whether the bassline needed to be heavier or if the strings needed another layer.

Michael carried his work inside his body until it reflected in his posture and the hollowed skin beneath his eyes. Over the years, you learned how to recognize the signs before complete burn out.

That was why this morning, you decided to take care of him. You yawned and stretched as you finally climbed out of bed, the cold air of the room hitting you quickly. You pulled one of Michael’s sweatshirts over your head and twisted your hair into a bun to keep it out your face before padding downstairs.

You only turned on the light above the stove, preferring more darkness as the sun slowly rose. Then you mixed pancake batter and started brewing your coffee. By the time the sun had fully risen, the kitchen smelled like butter, bacon, cinnamon, coffee, and maple syrup. You hummed to yourself quietly as you arranged fruit and powdered sugar over the pancakes. Then, you set two mugs on the table.

His car was in the driveway just after seven. You recognized the distinct engine humming in the distance and the faint voices from his security team. Excitement coursed through you so quickly that you nearly forgot to shut off the stove. You rushed into the foyer just as the front door opened.

Michael stepped inside wearing dark slacks, a black sweater, sunglasses—and the exhaustion of a man who had slept little to none. His curls were tucked beneath a hat and his leather overnight bag hung from his opposite hand. Still, he looked beautiful to you.

His head lifted when he saw you, and for a second his whole face changed. Relief, love, and something more dark passed through his expression in a frenzy. You quickly closed the distance between the two of you, and he dropped his bag to catch you.

“Hey handsome. There you are.” You murmured against his neck, leaving soft kisses. Michael melted into your touch and held you tightly. A little too tight.

He pressed his face into you, breathing you in. You laughed softly as you ran your hands over his back in that way that always grounded him.

“You act like you’ve been gone a year.” He didn’t answer, but his arms tightened. The force of the embrace surprised you enough to make your smile fade a little.

“Mikey?”

“Just missed you. That’s all.” He whispered His voice was strained though. You turned your face and kissed his temple. 

“I missed you too, baby”

When he finally pulled away, his eyes were wet behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses. He removed them quickly like he forgot he was wearing them before looking over your face with a tender gaze.

“You okay? What’s up?” You asked.

He nodded too fast. “Yeah mama, just tired.”

“More like exhausted”

“I’m alright.”

Still not convinced, you reached up and pushed a curl out of his eyes. He leaned into your hand instinctively. Then his gaze dropped to your mouth, and you kissed him. He kissed you back, but something about it felt hesitant. It lasted just a second, almost so quickly you didn’t notice. 

When you pulled away, he gazed at you like you gave him something he didn’t deserve. The expression made you uncomfortable in a way you couldn’t put words to. So you changed the topic.

“I made you breakfast. Your favorite” A shy smile tugged at his lips despite the way he felt inside. 

“Of course you did” That was the thing. You were always taking care of him. Making sure he had what he needed, sometimes at a cost to yourself. He followed you to the kitchen, wondering how many more acts of love he could survive before the truth broke him.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Unfortunately, the distance didn’t disappear when Michael came home. It got worse. 

He was attentive in weird, uneven bursts. One afternoon, he just appeared out of nowhere in the doorway of the library carrying your favorite flowers for no reason. Then he stood watching while you arranged them in a vase, eyes following every movement of your hands. And then that night, he held you so close that you woke up feeling suffocated and sweating against his chest.

The next day though, he barely spoke at all during breakfast. 

He started bringing you gifts after long rehearsals and recording sessions. A new book he thought you might like, a silk scarf in your favorite color, and a small bottle of perfume he had smelled somewhere and immediately associated with you. 

The gifts were appreciated. But they frightened you. Now Michael had always been extremely generous with his time and money. He loved to give, much more than receiving. But you couldn’t help but feel like these offerings weren’t just spontaneous affection, but more so an apology for something you had never accused him of doing.

If you asked if something was wrong, he would just say it was work stuff. 

“This mix isn’t right yet”

“Just not sleeping well, that’s all”

“Management's been on me”

And every time, you believed him. Because you loved him and trusted him. The alternative never entered your mind.

In the past, there had been rumors about your marriage.

Women constantly claimed things and headlines manufactured affairs from various photographs Michael had taken with fans. Every friendly conversation and smile he gave became evidence for the press to declare he had a new secret lover.

Michael was always more hurt by these stories than you were. “How can they say that about us?” He would ask, genuinely distressed. “They don’t know me…Us.” You always reassured him.

The trust was so deeply ingrained in your marriage that you didn’t even consider the possibility of unfaithfulness even while standing in its shadow.

Instead, you turned inward and blamed yourself. Maybe you had gotten too comfortable. Or maybe the marriage was less exciting to him now that the honeymoon phase was long gone.

You wondered whether your complaints about his long nights at the studio had added more pressure on top of the weight he was already carrying. And as embarrassed as you were afraid to admit, you had even begun studying your own reflection more closely when getting dressed.

On date night, you changed your hair twice. Bought a new nightgown— that never got worn because Michael came home at 2am and fell asleep before you could show him.

You tried hard. So much harder.

And that’s what haunted you later.

You cooked more of his favorite meals and waited for him to come home to enjoy them, even though you never knew when he’d arrive. Kept leaving handwritten notes for him to encourage him. Sometimes if you had time, you’d stop by the studio with lunch for him and massage his shoulders while he listened to the same run over and over again, trying to pinpoint how to improve it.

Every act of love you offered made him quieter and pushed him farther away. 

Then one night, you found him standing by himself in the bathroom with the water running endlessly. He was facing the mirror, both hands gripping the sink as his head hung low.

“Runnin' up my water bill, boy” You had said jokingly. But he startled so violently that your stomach clenched. Immediately your face changed when he met your eyes in the reflection of the mirror. You stepped inside immediately.

“What is it? Is something wrong?”

“Nothing” 

“You’ve been in here forever, Mike. What're you thinkin' about?”

He stared at you through the reflection instead of turning around. For a moment, it looked like he might tell you. His mouth opened and his eyes filled, but then he dropped his gaze.

“Just that record. That’s all.”

You exhaled softly and moved behind him, shutting off the water and wrapping your arms around his waist. His body went rigid under your touch. You felt it immediately.

“Baby,” You whispered, resting your cheek between his shoulder blades. “You’re carrying too much again.”

Grace he didn’t deserve.

Michael closed his eyes as guilt washed over him, nauseating him.

“You don’t have to be perfect all the time. You can just be you with me, you know that right?” A tear slipped down his cheek and disappeared before you could see it.

“I know” He said quietly.

“You can talk to me. Whatever it is.”

His hands came down to where yours were resting against his stomach, holding you too now.

“I know, baby.”

He turned in your arms and held you with his face buried against your neck. His body was trembling, and you mistook it for exhaustion. So you stroked his curls like you always did and told him it would be okay.

You always made him feel so safe. He nearly confessed right there. He inhaled sharply. “I have to tell you something” he whispered.

You pulled back to look at him. “What is it?” His eyes moved over yours. Fear entered them so suddenly that you went totally still. But then, he shook his head and said it was nothing.

He didn’t have the courage yet. He wanted to tell you. So badly. But he couldn’t bear to put you in that type of agony. He’d rather die. And that’s why he hated himself in this moment. In every moment you’d overextended yourself or did something just because you loved him.

He didn’t deserve it, and he knew it. He was devastated.

Later, you would replay this memory until it felt like punishment that you couldn’t see things for what they were.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

You learned the truth at a charity luncheon six weeks after Michael came home.

The day was unremarkable. You picked out a cream suit and wore a silk blouse underneath. Gold hoops adorned your ears with your hair swept back away from your face. Michael was supposed to be attending with you, but a scheduling conflict came up that morning. He kissed your cheek while you got dressed and apologized, promising he would make it up to you.

It was no big deal it happened a lot. So, you went alone. 

The luncheon was in a private ballroom that had been decorated elegantly with white flowers and soft, gold fabric. Wives of people in the industry, performers, executives, humanitarians, and philanthropists moved about the space while photographers hovered near the entrance. Being Michael’s wife, you had attended enough events like it to smile through small talk without thinking.

Halfway through the event, a woman from Michael’s label approached you at the refreshment table. You knew her vaguely, she’d always been friendly and talkative. And today, you noticed she was on her second glass of champagne, which meant she was sure to be extra chatty.

“It’s sooo good to see you. You look beautiful!” She said, kissing the air beside your cheek.

“Thank you, so do you.”

“We missed you sooo much in New York.” At first you just blinked. The sentence didn’t register initally. 

“Excuse me?” You smiled politely, trying to get clarification.

“The Mercer dinner. Michael was basically hiding in a corner all evening, you know how he gets at those things.”

A cold chill washed over your body. Michael wasn’t in New York. He was in Chicago.

At least that’s what he had told you. 

Still, you maintained your smile, even as your right eye began involuntarily twitching and your heart rate picked up. 

“And when was this?”

The woman gave you the date. It was the exact night Michael had called you from what he claimed was his hotel in Chicago.

He claimed rehearsals ran late. He sounded really distracted and then he ended the call early because he said he was tired and needed some sleep.

Your fingers tightened so hard around your wine glass you thought it might break. “Oh” was all you said, like the wind had been knocked out of you.

Instantly, the woman knew she spoke too much. You saw it in her face. “Well maybe I just have the dates wrong…”

You continued to smile politely, at this point it was frozen on your face despite the rage you felt internally. You felt like you were in the Twilight Zone. 

“You don’t.” you said simply. The activity in the ballroom continued around you. Silverware scraping, laughter and music. But at this point it all seemed far away, and you had tunnel vision.

“Who was he with?” you asked. The woman looked toward the crowd, desperate for an escape.

“That isn’t my business.” At this, your heart rate picked up even more.

“Who was he with?” You asked again calmly, this time your voice took on a covert threatening tone.

She lowered her voice as her eyes darted nervously around the room hoping no one was watching.

“Look, I didn’t see anything happen, okay? I’m sorry. I thought you knew. Please don’t say you heard anything from me! I really need this job, I can’t afford to lose it.” You stared at her unblinking now. That was not an answer. But it was confirmation.

She reached for your arm, but you stepped away before she could touch you. The room tilted and you placed your wine glass on the table before it slipped from your hand and shattered, exactly like you felt you were right in this moment. The truth entered your body slowly, then all at once. 

New York. 

The lie. 

How distant Michael had been. 

The endless gifts. 

Him crying in the bathroom. 

The way he kissed you like he was apologizing. 

You felt sick.

You left the luncheon without saying goodbye to anyone. Outside the afternoon sun was still hot and bright. Papparazzi called your name as you walked toward your car, but you barely heard them over the chaos inside your head. Your mind was racing. 

On the way home, you didn’t cry. Not yet. You sat completely still as if you were having an out of body experience as the city moved past. Your mind began recalling memories with cruel precision. Michael coming home and showering immediately before he’d let you touch him. He claimed it was grime from the plane and he wanted to be clean for you. 

Him pulling away when you touched him. Bringing you flowers with tears in his eyes. 

And then, him whispering, “I have to tell you something”.

Realization settled over you, slowly, coldly. The first tear fell before you reached home.

For weeks, you believed him when he said it was just work. You thought the distance meant you were failing him. You stared at yourself in mirrors wondering if he still thought you were pretty. Dressed more carefully. Tried to cook better, even asking his mother for tips. Swallowed your complaints and loneliness.

And all this time. He knew exactly what he had done. He watched you—allowed you— to chase him while he held the truth in silence. The humiliation of it all made your face so hot it burned to the touch.

When you entered your shared home with Michael, you walked straight upstairs without saying a word to any of the staff. In the bedroom everything was indifferent. His book rested on the nightstand, turned upside down on the last page he read before his eyes got too tired to continue. His sweater was strewn across a chair from him leaving in a rush that morning.

Then, your eyes landed on a picture of you both, taken during the first year of your marriage. Michael was smiling at you instead of the camera.

You picked it up and threw it across the room, feeling satisfaction as the frame struck the wall and shattered into pieces. You sat on the edge of your bed and cried until your chest ached.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Michael felt the change before you said anything. He came home that night expecting the familiar sounds of you moving through the house, playing your favorite music from the stereo. Maybe your voice on the phone talking to one of your girlfriends. 

Instead, everything was silent. He found you sitting at the dining room table with an untouched plate of food in front of you.

You had cried until there was nothing left before you cleaned up the glass from your outburst. Your eyes were swollen, and the sight made his heart lurch.

“Baby?” You looked up. You’d been so deep in your thoughts, wondering where you went wrong, that you hadn’t noticed his presence. “What happened?” He asked.

“Nothing” The word was eerily familiar in your home. Michael swallowed and moved closer, reaching for your shoulder. Sensing his touch impending you rose to your feet suddenly. “I’m tired, I’m going upstairs. Goodnight.”

He watched you leave, and panic began as a faint pressure under his ribs. After a long moment, he followed you and willed himself not to overreact. Maybe the luncheon was exhausting, or paparazzi had said something cruel. Maybe you just didn’t feel good.

When he found you, you were in the bathroom washing your face and completing your bedtime routine. 

“What happened today? Did somebody upset you?” Michael stared at you through the reflection, watching every single movement carefully like doom was soon to come.

Casually, you continued smoothing cleanser over your skin, watching it foam in the reflection. “I said I’m tired.”

Still Michael didn’t depart from the doorway.

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Yes.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

Michael shifted awkwardly on the balls of his feet like a child pestering their mother with a million and one questions. He knew he should probably leave you alone, and usually he would have given you your space. But the guilt of knowing what he had done, paired with your reaction, forced this awkward response. Your answers were too calm.

So Michael stepped closer. “Look at me”. You rinsed your face and reached for a hand towel. He caught your wrist gently. You froze under his touch, eyes lingering where his hand was.

For one hopeful second he thought you might turn into him. Let him hold you, or even ask the question he’d be dreading for six weeks.

But instead, you looked down at his hand and said simply, “Let go”. His fingers opened immediately. The words were not loud at all and that’s what struck him much harder than if you had yelled at him.

You walked past him. He remained next to the sink, gazing at the empty space where you’d stood.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

That night you slept on the far edge of the mattress with your back to Michael. He laid awake behind you, watching you since he’d gotten in bed. The distance between your bodies was short but it felt impenetrable.

He reached towards your waist once during the night. He stopped himself before he could reach you. 

“Baby?” You didn’t answer, but your breathing pattern told him you were awake. “Can I hold you?” More silence. Michael lowered his hand, and the simmering panic he felt tightened.

Over the next three days you became polite and that terrified Michael more than anger would have.

You had stopped waiting for his presence after long workdays. You didn’t accompany him when he watched television. And most painfully for him, when he kissed your cheek before leaving in the morning you stood still and allowed it— but you did not turn your face toward him.

You started calling him Michael.

Not Mike.

Not Mikey.

Not love.

Just Michael. Every withdrawal felt like punishment to him. And he tried everything. Everything except the truth. 

He brought you more flowers. You thanked him and left them wrapped on the table. He ordered you take out from your favorite restaurant, and you said you weren’t hungry. When he asked if you’d take a walk with him you declined, stating you had more work to finish. 

At night he craved your touch. He laid beside you aching to confess, but fear kept closing around his throat.

If you didn’t know, telling you might destroy the marriage. But… if you did know— then the marriage might already be over.

Michael existed in limbo between these two options and it petrified him. He wasn’t able to choose either option. He was too scared.

The fourth evening, he came home early. The house was unusually quiet again. He called your name from the foyer and received no answer. His heart started beating faster before he had even reached the stairs.

He told himself not to panic. You could’ve been in the bath or reading with the bedroom door closed. Maybe you fell asleep early after another long day of barely speaking to him. There were dozens of harmless explanations, but none of them quieted the dread that had been building inside him since you stopped reaching for him.

When he found you, you were in the master bedroom. You were standing with your back to him and your suitcase was open on the floor. For several seconds, Michael’s brain couldn’t register what he was seeing.

He saw the suitcase and the neat stacks of folded clothes—and the empty spaces and hangers starting to form on your side of the closet. But he refused to connect them. He stood there, frozen and helpless in the doorway with one hand wrapped around the strap of his bag. He watched you place items inside the luggage, like maybe the room might reorganize into something less scary if he blinked enough.

Then he forced a nervous smile. It was born out of habit, not natural emotion. 

“Baby?”

You placed another sweater in the suitcase, not answering him or looking at him. The small movement pulled his attention to what was already inside the suitcase. Your jewelry. A soft blue blanket your late grandmother gifted to you. The same one you carried from room to room whenever you were sick or sad.

Quickly, Michael realized these were not items someone packed for just a weekend. They were pieces of your life. A life you shared with him. His smile disappeared.

His hand loosened around the bag strap until it slipped from his fingers and landed softly against the carpet. The soft thud made you pause for just a moment even though you didn’t turn to him.

“What’re you doing?” He asked. His voice was quieter than he intended it to come out. There was already fear laced through it, although he pretended he didn’t understand. 

When you reached for another blouse, he took one step into the room, then another. His eyes moved frantically between your face and the suitcase.

"Where are you going?” You kept folding. The lack of an answer made the pressure in his chest deepen. He could feel his pulse beating hard and uneven under his skin. His mind raced through possibilities. Maybe you were just gonna stay with your mom for a few nights for some reason. Or you needed space? 

He thought if he stayed calm and chose the right words, he could keep the situation from becoming what it already was coming to.

“Baby, look at me.” 

You smoothed your hands over the blouse you had just folded. Michael moved around the bed until he was closer to you. When you still didn’t look at him, he reached out and took the next piece of clothing from your hands. Not roughly, but because he couldn’t bear to watch you continue.

You stared at the empty space between your fingers where the jacket had just been. 

“I found out.” You said.

The room started to close in around Michael, and suddenly he felt like his worst nightmare was coming to life. His hand went slack around the fabric, and the jacket slid from his fingers and fell to the floor. He didn’t ask you what you meant, and that was most damning.

The silence lasted for only a few seconds, but in that time his breathing had stopped. His lips parted and the terror he had spent weeks trying to escape had finally caught up with him.

“Who told you?” He whispered. A sad laugh escaped you.

“What do you mean who told me?”

Michael closed his eyes the minute he heard disbelief wound tightly through your question. He knew instantly he’d said the wrong thing. But panic had pushed him before he could stop it.

“That’s what you wanna know?” You asked. “You don’t wanna know how I feel? Or what I heard? You wanna know who said what so you know how much I know? Are you fucking kidding me, Michael?”

“No” he shook his head quickly and reached toward you before he could think otherwise. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

“So what did you mean?” You turned fully to face him now, arms crossed and lips pursed. His mouth opened, but fear crowded every answer he could think of out of him. He looked at you helplessly, eyes starting to fill with tears. The absence of an explanation only made your expression harden.

You nodded slowly as tears stung your eyes. 

“Exactly.”

Michael’s stomach dropped when your first tears fell. Tears that had always pulled him closer to you without thought. He stepped closer, his hands rising toward your arms because his body believed he still had the right to soothe whatever was hurting you.

“Please let me explain” he said softly, voice trembling. You moved away before he could touch you and the rejection stopped him in place. His hands remained suspended in the air between the two of you for a long moment before they fell awkwardly to his sides.

Something heavy settled in his chest, heavier than the guilt he had carried for weeks. This was the first time you were in pain and wouldn’t allow him to get near it.

He had spent years learning the shape of your hurt. When you needed words—when you just needed him to hold you and say nothing. Now, he had become the thing you needed protection from.

“Explain what?” You seethed, angrily wiping away tears that had slipped despite your best efforts to contain them. “Explain to me why you told me you were in Chicago and you were in New York? Or why some random bitch from your label knew where my husband was, and I didn’t?”

Michael flinched at your words and his throat tightened.

“It was only one night.” The words escaped him before he had a chance to think about how they sounded. Your entire face changed and instantly he felt dread.

“One night? Michael, I’m your wife.” You said in disbelief, voice choked with grief.

“Baby, I didn’t mean it like that” He said quickly, voice cracking through tears. “I swear, that’s not what I was trying to say.”

“How many nights would make it matter to you?”

“It matters to me. It matters so much, this has been killing me.” He pleaded.

“Why, because I found out?”

“No, god no” He shook his head frantically, words failing him completely.

“Then why didn’t you tell me Michael? Why did I have to find out from someone else?” Your eyes were locked on him now, unblinking with blatant disbelief.

“I was scared. I’m so sorry.” Michael didn’t know what to do except be honest now that the weight of his decisions had come crashing down on him. You scoffed in disbelief. 

“You were scared?”

“I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want you to hate me.” Tears were spilling freely now as Michael’s hands dangled at his sides. He didn’t know what to do with them, and he was fighting the urge to reach for you after your previous reaction.

“But you knew how to lie to me, right?” 

He physically drew back, one hand moving toward his chest like your words hit something tender under his ribs. The truth of them hurt because there was nothing he could say to defend himself. 

He had arranged his flight, and divulged a false schedule, called you from one city and said it was another. Every lie required effort and thought.

The truth he claimed he couldn’t manage only required courage. 

You stepped toward him, angry now. 

“You knew how to call me from New York fucking City and tell me you were somewhere else. How to come home and kiss me like you hadn’t touched anyone else.” Now your voice choked, “How to climb in our bed like you didn’t break our vows, and let me touch you like nothing had happened.”

Michael’s face fell more with every sentence. He wanted to interrupt you so badly, tell you that none of those moments were false. Loving you had never been the lie, but unfortunately he understood how paradoxical and cruel that sounded now. You would find no comfort in knowing he had loved you while betraying you. If anything, it would just make what he did seem more senseless.

“Every single time I asked you what was on your mind you looked me in my face and told me you were tired. What the fuck, Michael?”

He flinched again as you swore at him, something you never did. “I know” He said, barely above a whisper.

“And I really thought it was me.”

Michael shook his head immediately, eyes widening. “No baby, it was never you. You’re perfect. Always been so perfect for me.” Your heart sank to your stomach.

“If I’m so perfect for you, why would you do this to me? To us?”

The words silenced him. Your face twisted with disgust as the anger finally gave away beneath the full weight of the humiliation you had felt for the last three days. “I kept trying to figure out what I needed to change. I stopped complaining when you weren’t here when I needed you. I made your favorite foods and waited until they got cold, hoping you’d come home early. I even bought new clothes because I thought maybe you didn’t want me anymore. Oh god, Michael” your hands came to your face as the grief overtook you, no longer able to retain it.

“Baby, I’m so sorry. Please don’t ever think—” His voice cracked heavily as he spoke through tears, stepping toward you before he could stop himself.

“It’s too late. I already did.” A sob tore through you involuntarily before the last word had fully left your mouth. Michael moved on instinct. The sight of you breaking apart in front of him erased every thought except the need to catch you. 

His hands closed gently around your arms as he tried to pull you toward his chest, desperate to offer you the same comfort he’d given you throughout every pain you had endured together— throughout his time loving you.

The same comfort he’d given you when you when your childhood dog passed away. The kind he’d given when you decided to walk away from a career you loved with your soul because it wasn’t right for you anymore. The same comfort he’d provided when you cried quietly at night, wishing he was there more.

You shoved him away, and he stumbled backward. He was completely stunned into silence. His hands remained raised for a moment, fingers still curved around the shape of you even though you weren’t there anymore.

The rejection drove the weight in his chest deeper, your tears had always been something he was allowed to soothe. He’d never needed permission to hold you before. Now the distress on your face only sharpened when he came near you. He lowered his hands slowly, afraid of agitating you further.

“Don’t touch me.” You cried. Michael’s lips parted, but no words followed. His gaze moved helplessly over your face as another tear slipped down his own. That was when the truth settled inside him with unbearable clarity. He was not the person who could make this hurt better. Because he was the reason it existed.

Silence swallowed the room and stretched until it became unbearable for Michael. You turned away first, not angry or dramatically. Just… quietly. You reached for the zipper on the suitcase, and he watched your fingers wrap around the metal tab.

Something inside him screamed. 

The zipper closed with one smooth, unforgiving sound, and to Michael it sounded like the end of every future he had ever imagined with you. Like someone closing one chapter of their life before they began another. The realization made the room spin for Michael.

No.

This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be.

Then, you reached down and grabbed the handle of your suitcase. His body moved before he had ever made the decision to. Two hurried steps carried him around the bed until he stood directly between you and the bedroom door.

His chest was rising and falling unevenly, his expression somewhere between terror and disbelief. The movement surprised even him. He was blinking rapidly like he was disoriented, like he didn’t consciously decide to block your path.

He just couldn’t bear the idea of watching you walk away. Not while there was still breath in his lungs.

When you looked up at him, your face was streaked with tears. His stomach twisted so violently he thought he might lose the contents of his stomach.

He had done that. Every single tear, every ounce of hurt written across your features. He put it there.

He hated himself with a depth he didn’t know was possible.

“Move” Your voice wasn’t angry anymore. Just exhausted. And that hurt Michael more than if you'd slapped him. His lips trembled and he shook his head.

“I…I can’t” the words came out barely above a whisper. “I can’t let you leave”

“You don’t get to stop me.”

“I know,” He whimpered helplessly. “I know I don’t.” His eyes fell to the floor in shame before lifting back to yours. There was no defensiveness in them. 

“I know I don’t deserve a conversation… or another a chance” He rubbed his hands over his face, dragging them down until they rested over his mouth for a moment. His shoulders shook under the effort of trying to compose himself. When he lowered them again, more tears fell. “I know I’m embarrassing myself. I know” A humorless laugh escaped him and his chin quivered. “I understand that you can’t even stand to look at me right now, and I wouldn’t either…” his voice trailed off sadly, unsure where he was going with this. “But… I don’t know what else to do.”

The admission seemed to cost him something. Michael had spent his whole life trying to solve problems. If a certain dance move didn’t look right, he’d rehearse till his feet were numb. Song wasn’t right? He’d rewrite it 50 times before it saw the light of day. There was always something to do, some way to fix things.

This was the first problem he had ever faced where his effort felt meaningless. There was no way for him to rehearse his way back into your trust, and he couldn’t outwork the betrayal.

“I can fix it.” The words spilled out before he could stop them. His mind was racing miles ahead of him, desperately searching for anything—anything that might convince you to stay.

“I… I won’t travel alone anymore.” He took another careful step toward you before stopping himself, worried of you recoiling from his touch again. 

“I’ll cancel trips if I have to, you come everywhere with me” His breathing remained uneven. “I’ll give you every itinerary before I leave. Every hotel, every phone number.” His words started tumbling over each other now. 

“I’ll tell you where I am before you even have to ask. I’ll…” he frowned in that same way he did when he was a little boy and an interviewer’s question perplexed him. He was frustrated that his own thoughts couldn’t keep up.

“I’ll fire people, I’ll stop going out. I’ll…” His voice broke under a sob. “I’ll do anything. I mean it. There isn’t anything I won’t change.” He searched your face desperately, looking for any tiny shift that would show him you were hearing him. His chest heaved as tears continued to fall. “I swear to God, I’ll spend the rest of my life making this up to you.” His lips were swollen now from how hard he was biting on them in between sentences, trying to stop himself from completely falling apart.

“I’ll do anything to earn your trust back. I don’t care how long it takes.” He shook his head frantically, voice dropping to a whisper so fragile it carried across the room.

“Just…” he couldn’t finish the sentence. This was killing him. His throat closed around the word so he tried again. “Please don’t leave me. I can fix it.”

Now your eyes filled with tears. 

“There isn’t anything to left to fix, Michael. I can’t do this anymore.” You said sadly. 

Your statement settled over him with a chilling finality. He simply stared at you, blinking. For a minute, it seemed like he didn’t understand what you had said.

“I have to go.” Your voice wasn’t angry anymore, just tired. Like somebody who had spent the last three days crying until there was nothing left.

Michael felt his chest seize painfully. His hand instinctively pressed against it, trying to soothe the ache. He had never understood why people described heartbreak as physical until now. 

And when he saw you reach for your suitcase handle again, his stomach dropped when he realized you were done listening. When you stepped toward the door, he moved instinctively, pressing his back further against it. His movements were frantic and clumsy now. His body had totally disconnected from the calm composure he usually carried. His curls fell into his face as tears spilled down his cheeks.

He looked at you the way a drowning person would a shoreline. “Please… please don’t do this to me. I love you.”

“I can’t, Michael. I don’t want this anymore. Not like this.” You said, shutting your eyes tightly.

The words hollowed him out, and he stared at you. Waiting for you to take them back. Or to say you were gonna stay at your mom’s for a few days. But the words never came.

Michael’s breathing quickened and his eyes darted around the room, his mind was betraying him. He could already see it. You carrying your things downstairs, opening the front door… the sound it would make when it closed behind you. You driving away. Never coming home.

His chest tightened so violently he had to press his palm harder against it to ground himself. He dropped to his knees when they buckled. He pressed his forehead against your stomach as his breathing refused to settle.

Every inhale came in sharp and frantic, not fully reaching his lungs. Each breath chased the last as if his body had forgotten how breathing was supposed to work.

His shoulders were trembling now, not from crying, but from panic. Pure, overwhelming panic. Your hand fell away from your suitcase as you dropped to your knees too.

“Michael” you said firmly. He didn’t answer, lost completely in fear and his own thoughts. His fingers curled weakly into the fabric of your shirt, holding on to you like you might disappear if he let go. “Michael” you repeated, more sternly this time. You cupped the side of his face, and his whole body leaned into your palm. For a second, it felt like every other time you’d ever comforted him. After bad dreams, migraines. Whenever the world became too much to bear. 

He was fully hyperventilating now. “Look at me” you said. Slowly, his eyes opened and they were shiny and terrified. 

“I can’t… I..” 

“Breathe Michael, you gotta breathe baby. You’re gonna pass out.”

“I don’t care” he said in between hiccups and breaths. “I can’t… you’re leaving” he gasped. 

“In through your nose, and out. Try for me, please” You deliberately kept your own breathing slow. His breath started to even, he tried but it kept catching in his throat. Then he looked toward the suitcase, and the panic doubled. His chest spasmed again and his hands slipped from your waist to the carpet beneath him.

“…You’re really leaving” he said, voice trembling as he tried to talk between breaths. It wasn’t a question. It was a devastated man finally acknowledging the reality he had tried so desperately to outrun.

When you closed your eyes in response, Michael knew. And it hurt more than if you had just said yes. Because now, you weren’t even trying to lie to him. 

“No” The word dissolved into a sob. “No” His breathing had become so erratic that his entire upper body jerked with each failed inhale. Michael had panic attacks in the past, but never this severe.

Instinctively, you moved closer and your hands found either side of his face. He leaned into you again, desperately. The way a freezing person reaches toward warmth.

“I need you to breathe.”

He swallowed another sob, “I don’t know how” The confession broke your heart. This was a man who commanded stadiums and rehearsed until sunrise. And here he was, sat on the floor looking up at you like a frightened little boy. Totally lost. “I don’t know what to do… how to make you stay.”

The room fell silent. There was still plenty to say, but there just simply weren’t any words left. He searched your face anyway, looking for mercy. Or hope. Instead there was nothing. Just tears that flowed from a place that felt empty now. 

“Oh god, baby. I’m so sorry” he covered his face, the shame, burning through him full force now. What had he done? “I’ll never forgive myself. I don’t expect you to either.”

His eyes drifted to the wedding ring on your left hand. It was still there—for now.

His lifted his gaze back to yours. “Are you gonna take it off?” You were silent. He watched your face carefully for any sort of an answer. But all he got was fresh tears, and trembling lips. He understood without you needing to answer. 

His own wedding band felt heavy now. He looked down at it, turning it slowly. The little gold band that symbolized forever with you. He had broken that promise. “I ruined everything” he said softly. Not dramatically or looking for reassurance. Just a fact.

For a long time neither of you moved. The room felt suspended in time. Michael remained on his knees at your feet, shoulders rising unevenly beneath shaky breaths. His hands had slipped from your hips sometime during the silence. Now they just rested against his thighs, palms open and empty. He didn’t reach for you again. He wanted to. But he finally understood that wanting wasn’t good enough anymore.

You looked down at him one last time. He had exhausted himself. Not physically, spiritually.

He watched quietly as you gathered your purse from a nearby chair. His eyes followed the movement automatically. His lips parted, but he was out of pleas, promises, and apologies.

He couldn’t ask anymore. He had already offered you every version of himself he knew how to give. And there was nothing left. You had rejected all of them.

You walked across the bedroom floor, and the sound of your footsteps seemed unnaturally loud in the moment. This time, he didn’t try to stop you.

His body wanted to. Every instinct he had was screaming at him to stand up. Run after you. Throw himself in front of any door he had to.

But he stayed where he was. He knew you deserved the freedom he’d stolen from you weeks ago. 

When your hand settled around the door knob, you hesitated. “I loved you with everything I had to give, Mike. I really did.”

Michael shut his eyes, the sentence felt like a knife. Not love. Loved. As in past tense. His breathing faltered again. When he opened his eyes, you were already stepping into the hallway. He listened as your footsteps grew fainter. As the front door opened and shut. And then nothing.

It was the kind of silence that settles over a home after someone who once filled it with love is no longer there. Michael stayed where he was. His eyes never left the bedroom doorway, as if maybe you’d come back if he stared long enough. His hand drifted to the center of his chest slowly, right over his heart. The ache that had settled there was dull and heavy. He pressed harder, but it didn’t help.

Hours passed. Afternoon melted into evening. Evening into night. The house darkened around Michael. Someone called the home phone, and it rang until the answering machine picked up. A car pulled into the driveway, then left. The world continued on outside with no reverence for how Michael’s heart had been broken.

Every room suddenly held the shape of someone who wasn't there anymore. The mug you'd used that morning still sat in the kitchen sink. Your favorite throw still rested over the arm of the living room sofa. One of your hair ties lay on his nightstand. Little pieces of you remained everywhere.

Everything except, you. Michael blinked slowly, the reality still refused to settle completely. It felt impossible that a marriage could end in a single afternoon. That a person could wake up having a wife, and go to bed alone.

His thumb rubbed absently over his wedding band. "I did this." He spoke the words into the empty room. He lowered his head, shoulders sagging beneath a grief too large to carry.

And for the first time in his life, there wasn't a stage big enough, a rehearsal long enough, or a song beautiful enough to fix what he had broken.

He simply sat there in the dark room, one hand pressed over his heart, staring at the doorway long after the sun had disappeared, trapped inside the quiet realization that some mistakes don't end when the confession is over.

And this one would follow him into every tomorrow he had left.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

please respect my work 💌

Everything posted here is written

Then the fans started up with “Hey Jude” and you had to look away quickly, blinking hard. The pride you feel swells up so huge it doesn’t fit in your chest, it spills over into these stupid tears every single time you hear the song, no matter how many times you see him do something like this.

“He looks exhausted,” Denise says quietly, her arm still hooked through yours, squeezing a little.

“I know. Bless him. I don’t know how he’s still standing out there. He gave that absolutely everything.”

You take some deep breaths with his parents, gushing over his performance as usual and wait for him to finish with everything else he has to do after the final whistle.

Soon enough, you watch him walk over showered and changed into the usual post-match tracksuits, his hood half up already like he’s already trying to shut the world out. Even from a distance you can see the heaviness in his shoulders, the way he’s moving a bit stiffer than usual, his tall frame carrying the weight of a country for ninety-plus minutes. He looks happy though. So, so happy. His dark eyes scan the stands until they find you three, and you can see the sparkle in them as soon as he spots you. 

He hugs his mum first, extra tight, murmuring something that makes her laugh and pat his back. All week she’d been saying watch your language, watch your tackles, watch your face so he wouldn’t get booked. You could see how proud she was of him, her eyes closing when they hugged. It almost made your heart burst. 

Then his dad, the two of them clapping each other on the shoulder like they always do, that quiet father-son thing that always makes your chest warm. Mark kisses his cheek, and your smile mirrors Jude’s bashful one. Only after that does he turn to you.

“There she is,” he says, voice a little rough from the game, his accent coming through even stronger when he’s tired. He smiles down at you, exhausted but sweet, and you stand up to meet him.

You cup his cheek, thumb brushing his sharp cheekbone, your other arm sliding round his broad back. He’s warm, solid, still carrying the smell of the grass mixed with fresh shower gel. “I’m so proud of you, Jude. That looked so tough out there.”

He leans down and kisses you, soft and quick. He’s never one for big PDA with the cameras hovering, but he never lets you feel unloved. Then his hand comes up, gentle as anything, tucking a bit of hair behind your ear. His eyes go all soft as he looks at you, the intense match-day fire dialled right down just for you. “Thank you, baby. Yeah… it was hard. Proper hard. But we got there. It was rough though, I’m shattered.”

You sit back down and he drops straight onto the seat next to you, no hesitation. His head finds your shoulder immediately, heavy and trusting, like he’s been waiting for this exact spot the whole night. You slide your hand up to scratch lightly at the back of his neck, the way he likes, and feel him let out a long breath, sinking further into you. The relief in his body is so obvious it makes your heart twist.

His mum and dad chat lightly for a minute — something about the referee, how proud they are, the usual post-match debrief — and Jude mumbles along, half in it, half gone. His hand finds yours in your lap, fingers threading together lazily.

After a bit he turns his head, lips brushing your ear as he lowers his voice. “Are you gonna come visit me tonight?”

You snort, playfully nudging his head away. “You look like you’ve been hit by a bus, babe.”

He laughs then, loud and bright, teeth flashing, his eyes lighting up with the loving mischief that always gets you. “What? I can’t get cuddles from my girl? After that?”

You raise an eyebrow, fighting your own smile. “Cuddles?”

His lip twitches, smirk spreading slow and dangerous. “Cuddles,” he repeats, all innocent like. “And a couple of kisses. Just three or four…”

You tilt your head, giving him a look. He’s dead on his feet, shoulders slumped, yet still managing to look at you like that. You ignore the heat pooling in your stomach from the way he's looking at you and try to think logically. The semi-finals are midweek. “You’re gonna cramp up at some point and whatever idea you’ve got of cuddles and kisses is gonna be straight out the window.”

“Can I not enjoy my recovery with my girlfriend? Is that against the law now?” He huffs dramatically, but his hands are already stroking up your sides, warm and familiar.

You huff at him, already giving in. “You’re so spoilt.”

He grins wider, leaning in to kiss your cheek. “You can never say no to me.”

And it’s true. You can’t say no to him. Not when he looks at you like that. Cuddles. Right. 

It wasn’t long before you found yourself being led by Jude back to his room in the team hotel in Miami. They’d just had a squad dinner, winding down after the match. As soon as players started to retreat he’d texted you and met you in the lobby. Other England camps weren’t like this in the past, you were so grateful the rules had been changed to let you see him, even if he should be resting.

He’d showered again, you could already tell by the cologne and body wash mix you could smell as you followed him down the quiet corridor. His hand was warm around yours, thumb brushing your knuckles every few steps. He still moved a little stiff from the game, the beautiful body of his carrying the bruises and the exhaustion, but there was this restless energy in him too, the win still buzzing under his skin.

Once the door clicked shut behind you, he didn’t stop talking. He kicked his slides off, flopping back onto the bed as he kept going, voice low and rough but nonstop the way it always gets when he’s over-excited.

“...and then after the equaliser, I swear the pitch felt like it was moving, the humidity was mad out there. But the lads were buzzing, it was so loud on the pitch. Harry pulled me over after and was saying something about the run we’re on now, and I was just thinking the whole time about that last chance, how I nearly messed up the touch but it just fell right. Then extra time, my legs were gone but you just dig deep, don’t you? Mum’s texts were killing me the whole week about watching my face and my language, I nearly got booked just for breathing heavy at the ref at one point—”

He laughed at himself, running a hand over his damp hair, eyes bright even though his shoulders were sinking deeper into the pillows. You perched on the edge of the bed, watching him, the usual warmth spreading in your chest.

He reached out and tugged you closer by the wrist, still mid-story. “—and then I was like, nah, we’re not losing this one. You get me babe? And then I was like—”

“Jude, take a breath, love. I was there and watching the whole thing,” you chuckle, adjusting to lie next to him on the bed. His arm slipped under your head straight away, pulling you in like it was the most natural thing in the world. His thumb moved slowly across your cheek, warm and a little rough.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry,” he murmured, half-laughing at himself again, voice dropping lower. “I’m just… excited. I don’t know. We left everything out there and…”

He trailed off for a second, eyes half-closed, but his fingers kept moving, tracing your jaw, then down the side of your neck, like he couldn’t quite settle even though his body was heavy with tiredness. Up close like this you could see every little detail: the faint sheen of sweat still at his hairline from how warm it was in Miami, the way his chest rose and fell a bit quicker than normal, a fresh bruise along his jaw starting to darken. You breathed in his warm skin scent that always made your stomach flip.

He shifted closer, leg hooking over yours casually, voice going soft and a little rough with emotion. “It’s mad innit? One minute you’re out there thinking your legs are done, next minute the ball drops and it just… happens. And now we’re in the semis. Semis, babe.”

His grin came back, tired but bright, the one that always made your heart do stupid things. He pressed his forehead to yours for a second, breathing you in like he needed it more than air. “Couldn’t have done it without knowing you were up there. Makes it all feel different.”

“I love you,” you whisper softly, thumb brushing his cheek, “and I’m so proud of you.”

“How proud?” he beamed, raising an eyebrow, a playful spark lighting up his exhausted face.

“Very proud. Like… prouder than you can even imagine. I think I’ve cried at nearly every game—”

Jude giggles, almost giddy, the sound low and warm in his chest. He loved praise, especially from you, it always turned him soft and a little cocky at the same time. “I know, my little crybaby,” he cooed, voice teasing and fond as he leaned in, pressing little kisses all over your cheeks, the tip of your nose, the corner of your mouth. Each one gentle and sweet, like he was savouring being close after the chaos of the match.

“Shut up,” you laugh quietly, trying to sound stern but failing completely. “You need to calm down, baby. You have to sleep.”

“My body’s tired,” he mumbles against your skin, kissing your cheek again, then lingering lower near your jaw, “but the adrenaline is just making me wired, man.”

You stroke his side, up and down in a slow, steady rhythm, feeling the solid warmth of him under your palm, the faint tremor of leftover energy in his muscles. His tall frame was heavy against you, one leg tangled with yours, but his hands kept wandering. Sliding under the hem of your top to rest against your lower back, thumb tracing lazy circles there. 

After a moment he shifts, propping himself up on one elbow so he’s looking down at you properly. The lamp on the bedside table casts a soft glow over his face, his beautiful brown eyes and pink lips slightly parted. He looks unfairly good for someone who just played extra time in a stadium that felt more like a sauna.

“So…” he starts, a smirk creeping back in. “About those kisses I was promised.”

You raise an eyebrow, fighting a smile again. “I don’t remember promising anything.”

“Oi, don’t lie to me..” He leans in closer, nose brushing yours, breath warm against your mouth. “I distinctly remember talking about three or four. Minimum.” His hand slides higher under your top, palm flat and warm against your ribs, thumb stroking just under the curve of your breast. “Come on, baby. I earned them, didn’t I? Scored two, dragged us to the semis… least you can do is give your man some proper kisses.”

He’s grinning again now, all cheeky and tired and completely devastating to your self-control . Before you can answer he dips his head and presses one slow kiss to the corner of your mouth, then another just below your ear, lingering there like he knows exactly what it does to you. 

“You’ve just wasted two kisses…and you look like you’re about to fall asleep.”

He groans in joking frustration, eyebrows furrowing to give you a little puppy dog look that always gets him out of trouble. “I just want cuddles and kisses before i sleep-”

He stops as you tilt your head at him, giving him another look.

“I swear, I swear! Baby, please…”

The pleading look on his face already has your stomach flipping, mouth a little dry. He’s so unfairly gorgeous like this. Tired eyes, messy damp curls,his toned body stretched out next to you, still radiating heat from the match. The way his tracksuit top has ridden up to show a sliver of toned stomach… it’s ridiculous how much you want him even when he’s half-dead on his feet.

“Fine,” you say, trying to sound stern but your voice comes out softer than you mean it to, “but you need to try and sleep too…”

He shifts slightly so you’re fully facing each other, one hand moving to your lower back, his leg still draped heavy over yours. “I can fall asleep kissing you.”

The kisses start off sweet and slow. Gentle presses of his lips against yours, his hand stroking your lower back under your top. His other hand in your hair, fingers loose and tired. Then they deepen.

Jude lets out a quiet, relieved sigh into your mouth as his lips part wider, tongue sliding in slow and warm. The kisses turn sloppy fast. Wet, lazy, unhurried in an exhausted way that somehow makes it hotter. His tongue moves heavy and deep, tangling with yours in long, messy strokes, licking into your mouth like he’s too tired to do anything but feel you. Every so often he sucks softly on your tongue or your bottom lip, pulling it between his before going back in deeper, slower, wetter. You can taste the faint mint from his post-dinner toothpaste mixed with the warm, familiar taste that’s just him. His breaths are heavier now, little groans vibrating against your lips as the kisses grow filthier. Your tongues sliding slow and slick, mouths open and messy, spit-slick lips catching every time you pull apart for air only to dive right back in.

He’s genuinely exhausted, you feel it in the heavy weight of his body against yours, the way his movements stay soft and sleepy even as they get more desperate. His hand in your hair tightens slightly, holding you there as he kisses you like he’s trying to melt into you. Deep, lazy swirls of his tongue, slow sucks, the occasional sleepy grind of his hips against your thigh. He’s half-asleep and completely turned on at the same time, and it’s doing dangerous things to you.

Your hand slides under his top to rest on his ribs, and the soft, needy sound he makes against your tongue makes you shiver hard in his arms.

“M’so hard for you,” he whispers against your lips, breathing heavily. He presses his hips forward, grinding slowly so you can feel exactly how turned on he is, the thick, heavy outline of his cock straining against his joggers.

“You need me to help you, baby?” you murmur, letting your hand trail down his stomach until your palm cups the hard bulge. He’s so warm, so fucking hard already, twitching eagerly under your touch.

Jude’s breath hitches, hips jerking up into your hand as he lets out a soft, desperate whimper. “Please…”

“But you’re so tired, Jude.” You stroke him slowly through the fabric, teasing, because you love when he gets like this…all soft, sleepy, and whiny for you.

“Baby—” he whines, the sound high and needy, forehead pressed to yours. His hand moves down to squeeze your ass, fingers digging in just a little. “M’never too tired for you… fuck, please touch me properly. I need it. Need you so bad..”

You push his joggers down just enough to free him and wrap your fingers around him. Jude’s whole body shudders, a broken moan spilling from his lips as you start stroking him. You start slow, firm pulls from base to tip, thumb swirling over the slick head every time. He’s so thick and hot in your hand, veins pulsing, leaking steadily now. You’re transfixed by the sight of him.

“Fuck… yes, just like that,” he whimpers, voice all sleepy. His head tips back against the pillow, eyes fluttering shut, mouth open as soft, desperate little sounds keep falling out of him. “Your hand feels so good, baby… don’t stop, please. I’ve been thinking about this for hours.”

You twist your wrist on the upstroke and he jolts, hips bucking lazily into your fist, chasing the pleasure even though his body is heavy with exhaustion. Every whimper is quieter, needier. He’s almost submissive in the way he lets you take control, thighs trembling, fingers clutching at your waist like you’re the only thing anchoring him.

You lift his shirt higher so you can see his toned stomach, selfishly maybe, but he looked so pretty. You keep going, stroking him faster, tighter, watching the way his abs clench and his chest rises and falls quicker. “So pretty Jude,” you whisper, and Jude lets out a broken whine, biting his bottom lip.

“Baby… I— fuck, I’m so close already,” he pants, voice cracking. “Your hand is gonna make me come if you keep— ah—”

You slide down his body before he can finish, taking him into your mouth in one slow, wet glide. Jude’s back arches off the bed with a loud, guttural moan, one hand flying to your hair, holding on tight as his fingers tremble.

“Oh my god— your mouth, fuck—” He’s losing it completely now, sleepy whimpers turning into desperate, broken sounds as you bob your head, tongue swirling around him, sucking him deep. “So warm… so fucking good. Baby, please— I can’t— you’re gonna make me come down your throat if you keep sucking like that.”

His hips twitch up gently, like he’s trying so hard to be good and not fuck your mouth, but his control is slipping. Whiny, breathy moans fill the room as you take him deeper, hollowing your cheeks, tongue pressing along the underside. Jude’s thighs shake, hand tightening in your hair, voice hoarse.

“Baby… slow, please, I’m so sensitive— fuck, I love your mouth so much…”

You slow down and look up, making eye contact with him. His eyes are glassy, half-lidded with exhaustion and pure bliss, lips parted, chest heaving. The sight of you between his legs like this seems to ruin him even more.

“You’re so beautiful,” he moans, voice cracking, thumb stroking your cheek gently. “My beautiful girl.”

He keeps watching you with that dazed, adoring look, hips rocking up in tiny, helpless movements as you suck him slow and deep. You swirl your tongue around the head, then take him all the way again, relaxing your throat until your nose brushes his stomach. Jude’s whole body trembles.

“Fuck— baby, look at you,” he whispers, voice hoarse and reverent. “Taking me so well… even when I’m this tired. You’re perfect. So fucking perfect for me.”

His praise comes out soft and broken, each word punctuated by a shaky breath or a little whimper. You can feel how close he is, the way his cock throbs heavier on your tongue, the constant little twitches of his thighs, the way his fingers keep flexing in your hair like he’s fighting not to lose it. But he stays so good for you, letting you control everything, just moaning and whining softly every time you swallow around him or suck a little harder.

“Gonna make me come if you keep doing that…” he pants, eyes fluttering. “Your mouth is too good, love. Too warm and wet and— shit—”

You pull off with a wet pop, strings of spit connecting your lips to his cock as you stroke him slowly with your hand instead. Jude lets out a wrecked, needy sound at the loss, hips chasing your mouth for a second before he catches himself. Before you can say anything, he’s tugging at you weakly, desperate.

“Too far away… come back up here, please.”

You crawl back up his body and he immediately pulls you in, kissing you deep and messy, tasting himself on your tongue with a low groan. His hands are everywhere, sliding under your top, squeezing your waist, your hips, like he needs to feel all of you at the same time. The kiss goes on and on, lazy and filthy, tongues sliding slow while he whimpers softly into your mouth every time you stroke him.

You keep working your hand over his cock, slow and slick, and Jude’s hips rock up to meet every stroke, his breathing getting shakier. He breaks the kiss just enough to rest his forehead against yours, panting.

“You don’t want to come yet?” you whisper against his lips, still stroking him lazily.

He shakes his head, eyes fluttering. “Wanna be closer to you baby, wanna make you feel good.. wanna.. wanna— fuck.”

His sentence cuts off into a broken moan. For a long moment he just kisses you again, deeper this time, one hand cupping the back of your neck while the other slides down your body. His palm smooths over your stomach, then lower, teasing along the waistband of your shorts like he’s giving you time to feel the anticipation. His fingers finally slip under the fabric, pushing your shorts and panties down your thighs in one clumsy but eager movement. He helps kick them the rest of the way off, big hands gentle on your skin the whole time.

Once they’re gone he settles between your spread legs, still kissing you slow and deep. His fingers drag through your folds and he curses softly against your mouth.

“You’re so wet for me, fuck…” He circles your clit slowly, almost lazily, but the way his breath catches tells you how much it affects him. “All this for me? After I played like shit for half the game?”

You laugh breathlessly, rolling your hips against his hand, and he smiles a tired, crooked grin before leaning in to kiss you again. His fingers keep moving, slow circles on your clit, then dipping inside you just enough to make you gasp into his mouth. He’s still so hard against your thigh, twitching every time you moan.

Jude buries his face in your neck, kissing and sucking softly while his fingers work you open. “Need to be inside you,” he mumbles against your skin. “Please, baby. Wanna feel you around me. Wanna make you come first… then you can ride me slow while I hold you. I just— I need you close. So fucking close.”

He curls his fingers just right and you arch into him, moaning his name. Jude whimpers in response, pressing his cock against your hip like he can’t help it. 

“Please, baby,” he breathes against your neck, voice hoarse and shaky. “I need to be inside you. Can’t wait anymore.”

You nod, pulling him up for another deep kiss as he lines himself up. “If you get tired just say, Jude,” you whisper against his lips. He looked so exhausted — eyes heavy, shoulders slumped — and part of you still felt a pang of guilt that he was going to be the one putting in all the effort tonight.

“You’re such an angel,” he whispers softly, pecking your forehead with heartbreaking tenderness, then leaning down for another deep kiss. “As if I could ever be too tired to fuck you.”

The head of his cock nudges against your entrance, hot and slick, and you both moan into each other’s mouths as he starts pushing in. He’s so slow and careful, even though you can feel how badly he wants to bury himself.

“Fuck… so tight,” he groans, forehead pressed to yours, eyes squeezed shut in concentration. Inch by inch he sinks into you, stretching you open until he’s fully seated, hips flush against yours. The sound he makes is relief mixed with pleasure, a long, broken moan that vibrates through his chest.

For a moment he just stays there, buried deep, breathing hard against your lips. His arms wrap around you, holding you close, desperate for the full body contact. You can feel how tired he is, the way his muscles are trembling from the long match and the effort it’s taking just to hold himself up. “You feel so good,” he groans. “Just for me, yeah? Tell me this pussy belongs to me. ”

“It belongs to you, baby. Only you,” you moan softly, clenching around him. “I belong to you.”

A shaky breath leaves him. He buries his face in your neck, sucking softly on your skin while he gives one slow, grinding roll of his hips. “Good girl… all mine,” he mumbles, the words slurred with tiredness. “I don’t share you with anyone.”

Then he starts moving with slow, lazy rolls of his hips, grinding deep instead of thrusting hard. Every stroke is deliberate, like he’s savouring every second even though exhaustion is weighing on him. His breaths are heavier, his arms shaking slightly as he holds you, sweat beading on his forehead and sliding down his temple. Still, he doesn’t stop. You wrap your legs around his waist, pulling him even deeper, and Jude lets out a soft, whiny sound again that makes you clench harder around him.

“Baby… yeah, just like that,” he pants. “Feels too good. You’re squeezing me so tight— fuck.”

His mouth finds yours again, the kiss sloppy and tired, tongues sliding lazily while he keeps that slow grind going. One hand stays gripping your hip, the other slides up to cup your breast through your t-shirt, thumb brushing your nipple almost absentmindedly, like even his hands are running out of energy but he refuses to stop touching you. He’s so vocal, whimpering your name, telling you how perfect you feel, how much he needs you.

You can feel him getting closer, his thrusts losing their steadiness, becoming a little more desperate. “I’m so close,” he whines against your mouth. “Come with me, baby. Please. Wanna feel you come around me.”

One of his hands slips between you, fingers finding your clit and rubbing slow circles. The combination of his cock dragging deep inside you, his fingers, his soft sleepy moans, pushes you over the edge first. You clench around him hard, crying out his name as pleasure crashes through you.

Jude follows right after with a broken groan, burying his face in your neck as he comes deep inside you, hips stuttering. “Fuck— love you, love you so much,” he mumbles against your skin, trembling through it.

Afterwards he collapses on top of you, heavy and warm, still buried inside. His arms wrap around you tightly, face tucked into your neck as he catches his breath. Soft kisses press against your shoulder, lazy and sweet.

“Best recovery ever,” he murmurs with a tired little laugh, voice muffled. “But I’m never moving ever again.”

You run your fingers down the muscles of his back, smiling as both of your breathing starts to even out, his body finally giving in to the exhaustion. You kiss his temple, open your mouth to respond, but he's snoring softly before you can even reply.

"I'll be back before lunch," he'd promised last night, his hand resting on your stomach as you lay in bed together. "Two hours, maximum. And I'll have my phone on the entire time."

"Michael, it's fine," you'd assured him, even as he looked at you with those worried eyes. "The baby's not due for another week and a half. I'll be okay for a few hours."

He'd kissed you then, long and slow, before moving down to press his lips to your stomach. "You stay put, little one," he'd whispered to your belly. "Don't even think about making an appearance until Daddy gets home."

Now, as you slowly maneuver yourself out of beda process that's become increasingly complicated as your due date approaches, you smile at the memory. Michael has been impossibly attentive these past few weeks, barely letting you out of his sight. He's rearranged his entire schedule, turned down interviews, postponed recording sessions. The nursery is complete, painted in soft cream and pale yellow with hand-painted musical notes dancing across one wall. A beautiful white crib sits in the corner, already filled with stuffed animals and soft blankets. Everything is ready.

You're ready

You make your way downstairs, one hand on the railing, the other supporting your lower back. The house is quiet but not empty, you can hear Maria, the housekeeper, moving around in the kitchen, and the faint sound of the gardener working outside drifts through the open windows. Michael made sure you wouldn't be alone today, even if he couldn't be here himself.

"Good morning, Mrs. Jackson," Maria greets you warmly as you enter the kitchen. She's already preparing breakfast, scrambled eggs, toast, fresh fruit. "How are you feeling today?"

"Like I swallowed a basketball," you joke, easing yourself into a chair at the kitchen table. "But otherwise good."

Maria smiles, setting a plate in front of you. "Mr. Jackson called already this morning. Twice, he wanted to make sure you were okay."

You can't help but laugh "Of course he did."

"He said to tell you he'll be home by noon at the latest, and that you should call him if you need anything at all."

"I know," you say softly, warmth spreading through your chest. "He told me the same thing before he left."

You eat slowly, enjoying the quiet morning. After breakfast, you move to the living room, settling onto the couch with a book you've been trying to finish for weeks. But concentration is difficult when you're this pregnant. Your back aches, your feet are swollen, and Aliana, because you've both been calling her that since the morning Michael chose the name, seems determined to use your ribs as a personal jungle gym.

Around ten-thirty, you decide to get up and move around. Sitting too long makes everything worse. You're standing in the hallway, one hand pressed to your lower back, when you feel it.

A strange sensation, like something shifting deep inside you. Then a sudden release, and warmth spreading down your legs.

You look down

There's water pooling on the hardwood floor beneath you, soaking through your dress, and for a moment your brain simply refuses to process what's happening. This can't be happening. It's too early. Michael isn't here. This isn't how it's supposed to—

Another sensation, this one unmistakable. A tightening across your entire stomach, a pressure that builds and builds until you have to brace yourself against the wall, breathing through it.

A contraction

"Oh God," you whisper. "Oh God, no, not now—"

"Mrs. Jackson?" Maria's voice, suddenly sharp with concern. She must have heard something, or maybe she just has that sixth sense that comes from years of taking care of people. She appears in the hallway, takes one look at you and the puddle on the floor, and her eyes go wide. "Your water, did your water just break?"

You nod, unable to speak as another contraction begins building. They're not supposed to come this fast, are they? You're supposed to have time, hours of early labor at home before things get serious. But this, this feels serious already.

"Okay, okay, it's okay," Maria says, but you can hear the slight panic in her voice even as she tries to stay calm. "Let me help you to the couch. Carlos!" she calls out loudly. "Carlos, I need you inside, now!"

The next few minutes are a blur. Carlos, the groundskeeper, appears and immediately pulls out his phone to call 911. Maria helps you to the couch, bringing towels, talking to you in soothing tones even though her hands are shaking slightly. You try to focus on breathing, on staying calm, but all you can think is that Michael isn't here.

"I need to call Michael," you gasp between contractions. "I need—where's my phone?"

"I'll get it," Maria promises, rushing off.

She returns with your phone, and with trembling fingers you pull up Michael's contact. It rings. And rings. And rings. Then goes to voicemail.

"No," you whisper. "No, no, no—"

You try again. Same result. He's in the meeting. His phone is probably on silent. He has no idea what's happening.

"The ambulance is on its way," Carlos says, kneeling beside the couch. "They said ten minutes, maybe less."

Ten minutes. You can do ten minutes. You have to do ten minutes.

But the contractions are coming faster now, harder, each one stealing your breath and making you grip the couch cushions until your knuckles turn white. This isn't how first labors are supposed to go. Everyone said you'd have hours, that first babies take their time. But Aliana, it seems, has other plans.

"Try calling the meeting location," you manage to say to Maria between contractions. "The studio, the number should be in Michael's office—"

Maria nods and rushes off again. You hear her on the phone in the other room, her voice urgent, and then the sound of sirens in the distance, getting closer.

The paramedics arrive in a flurry of professional efficiency. They assess you quickly, ask questions you barely register, and before you know it you're being loaded onto a stretcher. The movement jostles you and another contraction hits, this one so intense you cry out.

"It's okay, Mrs. Jackson," one of the paramedics a kind faced woman with gentle hands says soothingly. "We're going to take good care of you. How far apart are the contractions?"

"I don't—I don't know," you gasp. "Close. They're close."

"Okay. We're going to get you to the hospital. Is there someone we should call?"

"My husband," you say desperately. "Michael, he's in a meeting, he doesn't know—"

"We'll make sure he's contacted," she promises.

The ambulance ride is a nightmare of pain and fear and overwhelming worry. You keep trying Michael's phone, but it goes straight to voicemail every time. Where is he? Why isn't he answering? He promised he'd keep his phone on. He promised.

By the time you reach the hospital, the contractions are coming every few minutes, each one more intense than the last. You're rushed through the emergency entrance, through hallways that blur together, into a labor and delivery room where nurses swarm around you, hooking you up to monitors, checking your vitals, asking more questions.

"How far along are you?"

"Thirty-eight weeks and four days."

"Is this your first baby?"

"Yes."

"When did your water break?"

"I don't know—maybe forty five minutes ago? An hour?"

A doctor appears, Dr. Matthews, thank God, your actual doctor, and she gives you a reassuring smile even as she snaps on gloves to examine you.

"Let's see where we are," she says calmly. The examination is uncomfortable, and you grip the bed rails, trying to breathe through it. When Dr. Matthews looks up, her expression is surprised.

"You're at seven centimeters already," she says. "This baby is coming fast."

Seven centimeters. You're at seven centimeters, and Michael still isn't here.

"My husband," you say, and you hate how your voice breaks. "I need my husband. Please, someone needs to call him—"

"We have his contact information," a nurse, her name tag says Elena, assures you. "We're calling right now."

But will he answer? Will he get the message in time?

Another contraction hits, and this time you can't hold back the cry of pain. It feels like your entire body is being squeezed in a vice, pressure building and building with nowhere to go. Elena is beside you immediately, taking your hand.

"Breathe with me," she instructs. "In through your nose, out through your mouth. That's it. You're doing great."

But you don't feel like you're doing great. You feel like you're falling apart, like everything is happening too fast, like the one person you need most in the world isn't here and might not make it in time.

"Please," you whisper when the contraction finally eases. "Please find my husband."

-——————————————-

Michael's phone buzzes in his pocket for the third time in ten minutes, but he ignores it.

He's trying to pay attention to the choreographer demonstrating a new routine, trying to focus on the counts and the movements, but his mind keeps drifting. Back home. To you. He shouldn't have come to this meeting. He should have canceled it, should have stayed home where he could keep an eye on you, make sure you were okay.

The baby's not due for another week and a half, he reminds himself…..you’re fine….everything’s fine, but the uneasy feeling in his gut won't go away.

"Michael? What do you think?"

He blinks, realizing everyone in the room is looking at him expectantly. "Sorry, what?"

"The transition in the second verse," the choreographer repeats patiently. "Do you want to keep it sharp or smooth it out?"

"Uh—sharp," Michael says, though he honestly has no idea what they're talking about. "Keep it sharp."

His phone buzzes again. And again.

"I'm sorry," he says, pulling it out of his pocket. "I need to check this—"

He has seven missed calls. Three from home, two from a number he doesn't recognize, and two from the hospital.

The hospital…..

His blood turns to ice

"I have to go," he says, already standing, already moving toward the door. "I'm sorry, I have to—"

The phone rings in his hand. The hospital number. He answers before the first ring finishes.

"Hello?"

"Mr. Jackson?" A professional female voice. "This is Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Your wife was brought in about thirty minutes ago. She's in labor—"

The rest of the words fade into white noise. Labor. You're in labor and your at the hospital…..and he's not there.

"I'm on my way," he interrupts, his voice coming out strangled. "I'm coming right now. Is she okay? Is the baby—"

"Both mother and baby are doing well, but labor is progressing quickly. You should get here as soon as possible."

"I'm coming," he repeats, and he's already running.

He doesn't remember saying goodbye to anyone in the meeting. Doesn't remember getting to his car or starting the engine. All he knows is that he's driving, faster than he should, weaving through traffic with his heart pounding so hard he can feel it in his throat.

You're in labor. You're having the baby. And he wasn't there when your water broke, wasn't there to hold your hand or drive you to the hospital or tell you everything would be okay.

He promised he'd be there for everything.

His hands grip the steering wheel so tight his knuckles are white. The drive to the hospital normally takes twenty five minutes. He makes it in fourteen, pulling into the parking lot with tires squealing and abandoning his car in the first spot he sees. The automatic doors seem to move in slow motion as he runs through them. The receptionist at the front desk looks up, startled, as he skids to a stop in front of her.

"My wife," he gasps out. "She's in labor, she was brought in, her name is—"

"Mr. Jackson?" The receptionist's eyes widen in recognition. "Yes, she's in Labor and Delivery, third floor. The elevators are—"

But he's already running again, heading for the stairs because he can't wait for an elevator. He takes them two at a time, his breath coming in harsh pants, and bursts through the door on the third floor. A nurse at the station looks up, and he must look completely wild because she stands immediately.

"My wife," he says again. "Please, I need to—"

"Room 312," she says, pointing down the hall. "But you'll need to—"

He's already moving. Room 312. He finds it, pushes through the door, and the sight that greets him makes his heart clench painfully in his chest.

You're in the hospital bed, your face flushed and damp with sweat, your hair plastered to your forehead. You're in the middle of a contraction, your entire body tense, one hand gripping the bed rail so hard it's shaking. A nurse is beside you, coaching you through breathing, and Dr. Matthews is at the foot of the bed.

"Michael—" Your voice breaks on his name, and then you see him, and the relief that floods your face is so profound it nearly brings him to his knees.

"I'm here," he says, rushing to your side. "Baby, I'm here, I'm so sorry—"

"You're here," you gasp, reaching for him, and he takes your hand in both of his, bringing it to his lips.

"I'm here," he repeats. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here."

The contraction peaks and you cry out, squeezing his hand with surprising strength. He leans close, pressing his forehead to your temple, murmuring words he's not even sure make sense.

"Breathe, baby. Just breathe. I've got you. You're doing so good. So good."

When the contraction finally eases, you collapse back against the pillows, panting. Your eyes find his, and they're filled with tears.

"I tried to call you," you whisper. "I tried so many times—"

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He cups your face with his free hand, his thumb brushing away the tears on your cheek. "But I'm here now. I'm not leaving. I promise."

"Mr. Jackson," Dr. Matthews says from the foot of the bed, and he looks over to see her smiling. "Glad you could make it. Your wife is doing beautifully, but we're moving fast. She's at nine centimeters now. It won't be long before it's time to push."

Nine centimeters. The baby is coming. His daughter is coming. The reality of it hits him all at once, and suddenly he can't breathe. This is happening. This is really happening.

"Michael?" Your voice pulls him back, and he looks down at you. "Stay with me."

"Always," he promises, and he means it with every fiber of his being.

The next hour is the longest and shortest of his life. The contractions come relentlessly, each one making you grip his hand and cry out in pain, and every sound you make feels like a knife to his heart. He stays right beside you, never letting go, whispering encouragement and love and promises.

"You're so strong," he tells you. "So incredibly strong. I'm in awe of you, baby. Completely in awe."

"I can't," you gasp at one point, tears streaming down your face. "Michael, I can't do this—"

"Yes, you can," he says firmly, leaning close so you can see nothing but his eyes. "Yes, you can. You're already doing it. You're bringing our daughter into the world, and you're amazing."

"It hurts—"

"I know, baby. I know. But you're so close. So close. And I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

You nod, drawing strength from his presence, and when the next contraction comes you breathe through it with him, your eyes locked on his.

Finally, finally Dr. Matthews looks up from where she's been monitoring everything and smiles.

"Alright, Miss Jackson," she says. "It's time. On the next contraction, I want you to push."

Terror and determination flash across your face in equal measure. Michael leans down, pressing his lips to your forehead.

"You can do this," he whispers. "I believe in you. I love you so much."

"I love you too," you breathe, and then the contraction comes and you're pushing.

Michael has never felt more helpless or more amazed in his entire life. He holds your hand, supports your back, whispers encouragement, but there's nothing he can actually do except be there, be present and be your anchor.

"That's it," Dr. Matthews encourages. "Good push. Rest now, and we'll go again with the next one."

You collapse back, panting, and Michael wipes your forehead with a cool cloth the nurse hands him.

"You're doing so good," he tells you. "So, so good."

"I can't—I need—"

"What do you need, baby? Tell me what you need."

"Just you," you whisper. "Just you."

His heart clenches. "You have me. You'll always have me."

The next contraction comes, and you push again. And again. And again. Time loses all meaning. There's only this room, this moment, your hand in his and the sound of your breathing and the encouraging words from Dr. Matthews.

"I can see the head," Dr. Matthews says suddenly, and Michael's breath catches. "One more big push, mama. One more and you'll meet your baby."

You look at Michael, and despite the exhaustion and pain written all over your face, there's determination there too. He nods, squeezing your hand.

"One more," he echoes. "You can do this. One more, baby."

The next contraction builds, and you push with everything you have left. Michael watches your face, sees the effort, the strength, the absolute warrior that you are, and he's never loved you more than he does in this moment.

And then—

A cry…

A tiny, indignant, absolutely perfect cry fills the room, and Michael's entire world stops.

"There we go!" Dr. Matthews said

There's movement, quick and efficient, and then Dr. Matthews is lifting a tiny, squirming bundle, and Michael can't breathe, can't think, can't do anything but stare.

His daughter……That's his daughter.

She's tiny and red and covered in vernix and absolutely the most beautiful thing he's ever seen in his entire life. Her little face is scrunched up, her mouth open in another cry, and she has dark hair….so much dark hair, plastered to her head.

"Would you like to cut the cord, Mr Jackson?" Dr. Matthews asks, and Michael nods numbly.

His hands are shaking so badly he's not sure he can do it, but the nurse guides him, and then he's cutting the cord that connected his daughter to you for nine months, officially bringing her into the world as her own person.

"Here she is," Dr. Matthews says, and then she's placing the baby on your chest, and you're crying and laughing and looking down at your daughter with so much love it radiates from you. Michael can't move, he can't breathe, he can only stand there, tears streaming down his face, staring at the two people who mean more to him than anything else in the universe.

"Michael," you say softly, looking up at him with tears in your eyes. "Look at her. Look at our daughter."

He finally moves, leaning down to get a closer look. The baby, Aliana, has stopped crying, her little eyes trying to open, her tiny hand curling into a fist against your chest. She's perfect. Absolutely perfect.

"Hi, baby girl," he whispers, his voice breaking. "Hi, Aliana. I'm your daddy."

As if she recognizes his voice, Aliana turns her head slightly toward him, and Michael loses it completely. He buries his face against your shoulder, sobbing, overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of what just happened. You're crying too, one hand on Aliana, the other reaching up to run through Michael's hair.

"We did it," you whisper. "We have a daughter."

"We have a daughter," he repeats, lifting his head to look at both of you. "God, baby, you were incredible. You're incredible."

He kisses you then, soft and reverent, tasting salt from both your tears and his. When he pulls back, he looks down at Aliana again, and his hand, still trembling, reaches out to gently touch her tiny head.

"She has your hair," you say with a watery laugh.

And she does. Even wet and matted, Michael can see the curls already forming. His curls. On his daughter.

"She's perfect," he breathes. "You're both perfect."

The nurses bustle around, doing whatever medical things they need to do, but Michael barely notices. His entire world has narrowed to this bed, to you and Aliana, to this moment that he knows he'll remember for the rest of his life.

Eventually, they need to take Aliana to clean her up and do the newborn checks. Michael watches like a hawk as they weigh her and he takes notes seven pounds, three ounces, and her height nineteen inches, and wrap her in a soft pink blanket. The moment they're done, he's there, and when the nurse asks if he'd like to hold her, he nods eagerly.

She places Aliana in his arms, and Michael's breath catches all over again.

She's so small. So impossibly small. Her entire body fits in his arms, her head cradled in the crook of his elbow, and she's looking up at him with dark, unfocused eyes that will probably change color but right now look just like his.

"Hi, princess," he whispers, and his voice is thick with emotion. "Hi, my beautiful girl. I'm your daddy, and I love you so much already. So, so much."

Aliana makes a small sound, her little mouth moving, and Michael laughs through his tears.

"Yeah? You have something to say already?" He looks over at you, and you're watching them with such love and tenderness that it makes his heart ache. "She's perfect, baby. She's absolutely perfect."

"She is," you agree softly. "Bring her here?"

Michael carefully walks over to the bed, mindful of every step, and sits down beside you. Together, you both look down at your daughter, at this tiny person you created together, and the moment feels sacred.

"Aliana Grace Jackson," you say softly, testing out the full name you'd decided on weeks ago.

"Our little light," Michael adds, remembering the meaning of her name. He leans down and presses the softest kiss to Aliana's forehead. "Welcome to the world, baby girl. We've been waiting for you."

-——————————————-

~ Three Days Later ~

The house has never felt more like a home than it does right now.

Michael carries the car seat through the front door with the kind of careful precision usually reserved for handling priceless artifacts. You follow slowly, still sore and moving carefully, one hand pressed to your stomach. The past three days in the hospital were a blur of feeding schedules, diaper changes, nurses checking vitals, and very little sleep. But now you're home. Your family is home.

"Careful on the step," Michael says for the third time, even though you've lived in this house for years and know exactly where the step is.

"I've got it," you assure him, but you're smiling. His overprotectiveness, which ramped up considerably during pregnancy, has reached new heights since Aliana's birth.

He sets the car seat down in the living room with exaggerated gentleness, then immediately kneels beside it to check on Aliana. She's fast asleep, her tiny face peaceful, her little chest rising and falling with each breath. Michael just stares at her, that look of absolute wonder on his face that hasn't faded since the moment she was born.

"I can't believe she's really here," he murmurs, reaching in to adjust her blanket even though it doesn't need adjusting. "I can't believe she's ours."

"Believe it," you say, easing yourself onto the couch with a slight wince. Everything still hurts, but it's a good hurt. A reminder of what your body accomplished.

Michael notices the wince immediately and is at your side in an instant. "Are you okay? Do you need your pain medication? Should you be sitting? Maybe you should lie down—"

"Michael," you interrupt gently, taking his hand. "I'm okay. Just a little sore."

"You should be in bed," he insists. "You just had a baby three days ago. You should be resting."

"I've been in bed for three days," you point out. "I want to sit on my own couch in my own house."

He looks like he wants to argue, but then Aliana makes a small sound in her sleep and both of you immediately turn to look at her. She settles again without waking, and Michael lets out a breath.

"She's so small," he says, not for the first time. "How is she so small?"

"She's actually pretty average sized," you remind him with amusement. "Seven pounds is normal."

"She's tiny," he insists. "She's the tiniest thing I've ever seen."

You watch as he carefully unbuckles her from the car seat and lifts her out, cradling her against his chest with practiced ease. For someone who was terrified of holding her wrong in the hospital, he's taken to fatherhood with remarkable natural skill. He's changed diapers, done skin to skin contact, learned to swaddle, and mastered the art of the gentle bounce that seems to soothe her when she's fussy.

"I canceled everything for the next month," he announces, settling into the armchair with Aliana still sleeping peacefully against him.

You blink, "Everything?"

"Everything," he confirms. "All the meetings, the rehearsals, the studio sessions. I told them I'm not available."

"Michael, you can't just—"

"Yes, I can," he interrupts firmly. "And I did. My family is more important than any meeting or recording session. You need help, and I'm going to be here to help you. End of discussion."

There's no point arguing when he gets that stubborn set to his jaw. Besides, you'd be lying if you said you weren't relieved. The thought of him leaving, of being alone with a newborn when you're still recovering, was terrifying even if you hadn't wanted to admit it.

"Okay," you say softly. "Thank you."

His expression softens. "You don't need to thank me. This is exactly where I want to be."

And he means it. Over the next few days, Michael proves just how serious he was about being present. He barely leaves your side, anticipating your needs before you even voice them. When Aliana wakes crying in the middle of the night, he's up immediately, changing her diaper and bringing her to you for feeding before you've even fully woken up. He makes sure you're eating enough, drinking enough water, taking your medications on time. He does laundry, tidies the nursery, and somehow manages to make the house run smoothly while also being completely devoted to you and Aliana.

But it's more than just practical help. It's the way he looks at you.

You catch him staring sometimes, when he thinks you're not paying attention. There's something in his eyes that wasn't there before, a deeper appreciation, a profound respect, an attraction that seems to have intensified rather than diminished after watching you give birth.

"You're beautiful," he tells you one evening, and you actually laugh.

"Michael, I haven't showered in two days, I'm wearing a milk-stained shirt, and I'm pretty sure there's spit-up in my hair."

"You're beautiful," he repeats firmly. "You're the mother of my child. You're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen."

The way he says it, the way he looks at you, makes you believe him.

It's late one night, or early one morning, time has lost all meaning in the newborn haze, when you're sitting in the nursery's rocking chair, nursing Aliana. She's feeding contentedly, her little hand resting against your breast, her eyes closed in that blissful state babies get when they're eating.

You hear soft footsteps and look up to see Michael in the doorway. He's wearing pajama pants and nothing else, his hair mussed from sleep, and he's looking at you with such tenderness it makes your breath catch.

"Hey," you whisper. "Did we wake you?"

"No," he says quietly, moving into the room. "I just... I woke up and you weren't there, and I wanted to check on you."

He pulls the ottoman over and sits down in front of you, close enough that his knees bracket yours. For a moment, he just watches Aliana nurse, that look of wonder still on his face.

"I love watching you do this," he admits softly.

"Yeah?" You smile, running your fingers through Aliana's soft curls, just like his.

"Yeah." He reaches out, his hand settling on your thigh, thumb stroking back and forth in a soothing rhythm. "There's something about it. Seeing you feed her, knowing you're giving her everything she needs... I don't know. It does something to me."

There's nothing suggestive in his tone or his gaze. It's pure, this feeling was reverent. He's not looking at you with lust but with something deeper, admiration, love, a bone deep appreciation for what your body can do.

"Come here," you say softly, and he looks up questioningly. "Behind me."

Understanding dawns in his eyes, and he moves carefully, settling onto the rocking chair behind you. It's a tight fit, but he manages, his legs on either side of yours, his chest against your back. His arms come around you, one hand resting on your hip, the other gently covering yours where it supports Aliana.

"Is this okay?" he murmurs against your ear.

"Perfect," you breathe, leaning back against him.

And it is perfect. The three of you together in the quiet darkness, the only sound Aliana's soft suckling and the gentle creak of the rocking chair. Michael's warmth surrounds you, his chin resting on your shoulder so he can watch your daughter nurse.

"I never knew I could feel like this," he whispers. "This complete. Like everything I've ever done, everywhere I've ever been, was leading to this moment. To you…..to her and…..to us."

Tears prick your eyes. "Michael..."

"I mean it." His arms tighten around you slightly. "I've performed for millions of people. I've traveled the world. I've done things most people only dream about. But nothing, nothing, compares to this. To sitting here with you while you feed our daughter. This is everything."

You turn your head slightly, enough to press a kiss to his jaw. "I love you."

"I love you too," he says. "Both of you. So much it scares me sometimes."

Aliana finishes nursing and you carefully adjust your clothing before lifting her to your shoulder to burp her. Michael's hand immediately comes up to support her back, and together you gently pat and rub until she lets out a tiny burp that makes you both smile.

"Good girl," Michael coos softly. "That's our good girl."

He takes her from you, cradling her against his bare chest, and stands to walk her around the nursery. You watch as he sways gently, murmuring to her in that soft voice he reserves just for her, and your heart feels so full it might burst.

"You're a natural at this," you tell him.

He looks over, smiling. "You think so?"

"I know so. You're an amazing father, Michael."

His eyes get suspiciously shiny. "I'm trying. I want to be everything she needs. Everything you both need."

"You already are," you assure him.

He walks back over, and you stand carefully, your body still protesting the movement. Michael notices immediately, his free hand coming to steady you.

"You okay baby?" he asks.

"Yeah…this is okay, let’s go," you confirm.

Together, you walk back to the bedroom. Michael lays Aliana in the bassinet beside your bed, tucking her in with infinite care. She's already asleep again, her little face peaceful, and you both stand there for a moment just watching her breathe.

"I can't stop looking at her," Michael admits. "Every time I think I've memorized every detail, I find something new. Like this little freckle on her ear, or the way her eyebrows furrow when she's dreaming."

"I know," you say softly. "I do the same thing."

He turns to you, cupping your face in his hands. "Thank you," he whispers. "Thank you for her. Thank you for making me a father. Thank you for everything."

You kiss him, slow and sweet, and when you pull back you're both smiling.

"Come on," you say. "Let's try to get a couple hours of sleep before she wakes up again."

You climb into bed carefully, and Michael immediately pulls you close, arranging you so your head is on his chest, his arm around you, his hand resting on your hip. It's how you've slept for years, but it feels different now it’s more precious and more meaningful.

"Michael?" you murmur, already half asleep.

"Hmm?"

"I'm really glad you're here."

His arm tightens around you. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

And as you drift off to sleep, surrounded by the warmth of your husband and the soft sounds of your daughter breathing nearby, you think that this quiet, ordinary, extraordinary moment, is what happiness really means.

-——————————————-

The days blur together in the most beautiful way.

Michael keeps his promise about not leaving. He's there for every feeding, every diaper change, every moment of fussiness and every peaceful sleep. He learns Aliana's different cries, the hungry cry versus the tired cry versus the "I just want to be held" cry.

He discovers that she loves being sung to, that his voice soothes her better than anything else, and you frequently find him walking around the house with her in his arms, singing softly.

Sometimes it's lullabies, sometimes it's songs he's working on and sometimes it's just nonsense melodies he makes up on the spot. Aliana doesn't care, She just loves hearing her daddy's voice.

You're sitting on the couch one afternoon, finally feeling a bit more like yourself, when Michael comes downstairs with Aliana. She's awake and alert, her dark eyes, which are definitely staying dark, just like his, looking around with that unfocused curiosity of newborns.

"Someone wanted to see Mama," Michael says, settling beside you on the couch.

"Oh, did she?" You smile, reaching for her, but Michael shifts slightly.

"Actually, I was thinking..." He looks almost shy. "Could we just... sit like this for a bit? The three of us?"

"Of course."

He arranges you so you're tucked against his side, and he cradles Aliana so she's resting against both of you. His free arm comes around your shoulders, holding you close, and you rest your head on his shoulder.

"This is my favorite thing," he admits quietly. "Just holding both of you. Having you close."

"You're very clingy lately," you tease gently.

"Is it too much?" He sounds genuinely concerned. "I don't want to smother you, I just—"

"It's not too much," you interrupt, tilting your head to kiss his jaw. "I love it. I love having you here, having you close. Don't stop."

He relaxes, pressing a kiss to your forehead. "Good. Because I don't think I could stop even if I wanted to."

Aliana makes a small sound, and you both look down at her. She's looking up at Michael, and slowly, so slowly, her little mouth curves into what might be a smile. It's probably gas, you know that, but Michael gasps like he's just witnessed a miracle.

"Did you see that?" he whispers urgently. "She smiled at me. Baby, she smiled!"

"I saw," you say, even though you're pretty sure it was just a reflex. But the joy on Michael's face is too precious to diminish with facts about infant development.

"Hi, princess," he coos, his voice going soft and high in that way people's voices do around babies. "Are you smiling at daddy? Are you happy?"

Aliana makes another sound, and Michael looks at you with such pride and happiness that you can't help but laugh.

"She knows you," you tell him. "She knows her daddy's voice."

"Yeah?" He looks back down at Aliana, his finger gently stroking her cheek. "You know me, baby girl? you know daddy loves you more than anything in the whole world?"

Watching them together never gets old. The way Michael looks at Aliana, the gentleness in his touch, the absolute devotion in every interaction it's everything you dreamed of and more.

"I want more," Michael says suddenly, and you blink.

"More what?"

"More of this." He gestures vaguely at the three of you. "More babies, more moments like this. I know we should probably wait, and we haven't even discussed it, but I just... I want a big family with you. I want our house full of kids and laughter and chaos."

Your heart swells. "How many are we talking?"

"I don't know. Four? Five? However many you're willing to give me." He looks at you, and there's hope and love and a little bit of fear in his eyes. "Is that crazy?"

"A little," you admit, but you're smiling. "But I love it. I love the idea of more babies with you. Of giving Aliana siblings and….filling this house with our family."

"Yeah?" His face lights up.

"Yeah. But maybe let's get through the newborn stage first before we start planning the next one."

He laughs, pulling you closer. "Deal."

Aliana starts fussing, and you recognize the signs she's getting hungry again. Michael hands her over reluctantly, and you get situated to nurse her. He watches for a moment, that look on his face again, then stands.

"I'm going to make you a snack," he announces. "You need to keep your strength up."

"Michael, I'm fine—"

"Humor me," he says, already heading to the kitchen.

He returns a few minutes later with fruit, cheese, crackers, and a large glass of water. He sets it all on the coffee table within easy reach, then settles beside you again, his hand automatically coming to rest on your thigh.

"Thank you," you say softly.

"Always," he replies, and you know he means it.

This is your life now. This beautiful, exhausting, overwhelming, perfect life. Late night feedings and early morning wake ups. Spit up on your clothes and the constant smell of baby lotion. Michael's arms around you and Aliana's soft weight in your arms. The three of you together, learning and growing and becoming a family.

And you wouldn't change a single thing

Later that night, after Aliana is asleep in her bassinet and you're both finally in bed, Michael pulls you close. His hand slides under your shirt, resting on the soft skin of your stomach, still rounded, still healing, marked now with the evidence of what your body accomplished.

"I love you," he whispers into the darkness. "I love you so much. Thank you for giving me everything."

@michaelswife-jackson @devynrulesboisdrool

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ January, 1994.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ╰ㅤ An Undisclosed Location - Los Angeles, California.

Two weeks after the divorce papers arrived, (Name) found herself standing in the back corner of a Rite Aid, lingering near the pharmacy counter with a basket hanging loosely from one arm. Nothing particularly special in it; a little bottle of ibuprofen and some pads. Things that made this visit feel a little more normal. She was wearing a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes and a pair of oversized sunglasses, and scarf wrapped loosely around the lower half of her face.

It was funny. She’d become strangely good at blending in during the years she was with him. Michael had turned disappearing into an art form: fake noses, oversized jackets, wigs, and absurd disguises that left them both giggling in parking lots of a grocery store. She indulged him in all of it—somehow beneath all of it, they felt freer than they ever did as themselves at times. It was nice. But this visit didn’t feel that way.

Her managers would’ve insisted on sending an assistant if they’d known where she’d gone. Security would’ve cleared the counter and surrounding areas before she ever reached the pharmacy. Hell, someone else would’ve picked up the prescription, tucked it into a brown bag, and spared her the errand entirely.

But no one knew the perscription existed, and she intended to keep it that way.

Two weeks ago, a stranger in a suit had handed her a stack of papers and it felt as though something had climbed off the page, and directly into her body the moment she’d touched them. It burrowed through her the way an illness does, until it had rooted itself in places she couldn’t reach. It seeped into her bloodstream, threaded itself through her nerves, and nested behind her ribs.

The symptoms hadn’t arrived all at time, they spread slowly.

It fed on sleep and turned the simple act of hearing her own phone ring into something her heart interpreted as danger, taking several minutes to recover. Her appetite disappeared. Her pulse developed a mind of its own even when she was resting. She’d lie awake convinced something terrible was about to happen, only to realize the terrible thing already had.

It was astonishing how quickly grief could colonize a body.

She couldn’t scrub it off in the shower or outrun it. It had settled into the wiring beneath her skin, quietly rewriting instincts she’d trusted her entire life. Silence became suspicious. Even breathing sometimes felt like work.

The prescription was proof that whatever had entered her that afternoon had progressed far beyond heartbreak. A doctor had looked at her and seen something treatable. The shock of the impending divorce had lingered long enough to leave a trace in her nervous system and soil it, leaving behind disorder that wasn’t there previously.

The papers were still sitting somewhere in a drawer, she hadn’t signed a single one or read even a page. Yet somehow they were already changing her from the inside out. Truth be told, she physically couldn’t look at, touch or even be in the vicinity of the documents. Staff handled them that afternoon, locking them in a secure room because they seemed to be a trigger. Understandably so.

The woman beside her was buying children’s cough medicine and cartoon bandages. An older man stood quietly comparing two different bottles of vitamins before deciding on one. Somewhere near the greeting cards, a little girl begged her mother for a chocolate bar while the cashier laughed and told her she’d have to ask permission first. It was painfully, offensively ordinary. The world had gone on with its errands and grocery lists, with all the beautifully mundane rituals of ordinary life, as though her life hadn’t split neatly in half just fourteen days earlier.

(Name) stood among strangers holding the little numbered ticket she’d been handed at the counter and when her name was finally called, she walked forward on legs that didn’t quite feel like her own.

The pharmacist never looked up long enough to recognize her. He simply asked for her date of birth, confirmed her address, and then disappeared briefly before returning with a small amber bottle sealed inside a white paper bag. The exchange lasted less than two minutes. He explained the directions carefully, his voice slightly deadpan from saying the same sentences hundreds of times a day. Take one as needed. It may cause drowsiness. Avoid alcohol while taking this medication. Contact your physician if symptoms worsen. She nodded at all the appropriate moments, signed where he pointed, thanked him with a smile and accepted the bag with both hands.

As she turned toward the exit, her eyes drifted down to the bottle visible through the folded paper.

Twenty seven.

Twenty seven years old, and she was walking out of a pharmacy with medication because she could no longer convince her own body that it was safe. How pathetic is that? Because somewhere between her husband’s legal troubles, hospital visits, rehabilitation, to weeks upon weeks of silence, Lisa Maria, and an envelope full of legal documents meant to separate her from the love of her life, her hands shook for no reason at all. Sometimes she forgot to breathe until her lungs forced her to remember. The physician had called them panic attacks in the same exactly manner someone might use to diagnose seasonal allergies. He’d spoken gently, kindly even, explaining that her nervous system had been under extraordinary strain for a very long time. There was no shame in needing help, he’d said. Plenty of people needed help. She’d nodded then, too.

But there wasn’t a dosage for losing your husband.

There wasn’t a pill that could make her forget the sound of his laugh echoing through hallways he no longer walked. Nothing printed on that prescription label could explain how to wake up in a bed built for two people and remember, every single morning, that only one of the was laying in it. No pharmacist could fold that kind of grief into an amber bottle and slide it across a counter.

She placed the paper bag on the passenger seat beside her and drove home in silence.

That evening, after Aladdin had finally fallen asleep and the house settled into the stillness she had grown to despise, she wandered into the living room carrying a dusty cardboard box she’d pulled from the back of a closet. Inside were home videos she hadn’t touched in ages, each cassette labeled in her own pretty handwriting. Christmas. Aladdin’s birthday. Neverland. 1990. Valentine’s day. Paris. Wedding. Her fingers lingered over the last one before she carefully slid it into the VCR. The mechanical click sounded into the room, followed by the soft hiss of static before the image steadied into brilliant color.

There he was.

Happy. Smiling. Alive in a way that had nothing to do with breathing at all—it feels like watching a dream.

He turned toward the camera for only a second before looking back at her, his entire face brightening with that shy little smile she’d once believed she would spend the rest of her life watching. She saw herself laughing beside him, adjusting the sleeve of his tuxedo before he leaned down to whisper something that made her throw her head back with another laugh. The footage wobbled as the cameraman moved, catching fleeting moments no photographer ever could. His hand finding hers beneath the table. The sweet way he looked at her when he thought no one else was paying attention. The gentle brush of his thumb across her knuckles while guests applauded somewhere in the background.

On the coffee table sat three things.

The remote.

The small amber prescription bottle.

A bottle of vodka.

She stared at them as the television continued playing. Michael fed her a bite of wedding cake before laughing at something she couldn’t hear over the music. She remembered exactly how it had tasted. Sweet vanilla. Buttercream. The kiss they’d shared afterward, both of them giggling because they could still taste the frosting. She remembered believing with complete certainty that this was what her forever looked like.

Her thumb found the rewind button.

The tape whirred backwards.

She watched it again.

Then again.

Every replay felt less like remembering.. and more like searching. She thought that if she studied his face closely enough she’d find the exact frame where everything that came afterward had already been waiting. Some tiny hesitation. Some shadow behind his eyes. Some warning she’d somehow missed.

There wasn’t one.

Only a man hopelessly in love with his wife.

Only a woman who looked back at him as though nothing in the world could ever separate them.

The room grew darker as the evening wore on, lit only by the glow of the television. The prescription bottle opened, as well as the bottle of vodka. They sat side by side beneath the flickering light like two different promises, both offering relief in their own quiet, dangerous way. (Name) rested her elbows on her knees, her tired eyes fixed on the screen as tears slipped silently down her face.

She pressed rewind one more time.

Inside the television, Michael smiled at her as though he still couldn’t believe she’d said yes.

Outside of it, she couldn’t remember the last time he’d looked at her that way at all.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ February, 1994.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ╰ㅤ Spago Restaurant - West Hollywood, California.

It had taken nearly three weeks before anyone managed to convince (Name) to leave the house. Not for a recording session, an interview or for a rehearsal. Just lunch. Her manager had called it a ‘change of scenery’, speaking as though she were balanced on the outside of a twenty story window ledge, and they were all desperately pretending the conversation was about the weather. He’d gently suggested that four walls and perpetually drawn curtains weren’t doing her any favors anymore. Elizabeth had agreed immediately, squeezing her hand across the kitchen table and telling her that the world hadn’t ended just because it felt like it had. A few other members of her team quietly echoed the sentiment, though no one pushed very hard. They’d all learned over the past few weeks that this situation had made her extremely fragile. One wrong sentence and she’d retreat upstairs for the rest of the day, emerging only to check on Aladdin before disappearing behind another closed door. Eventually, more out of exhaustion than willingness, she’d nodded. Arguing required energy she simply didn’t have anymore.

Getting dressed felt very odd considering for the past few weeks, she’d only changed clothes out of basic necessity, and even then, it usually took gentle encouragement from one of the older women on the Neverland staff. She’d knock softly before letting herself in, lay out fresh clothes, and patiently coax (Name) through the motions of showering and getting dressed. The same woman reminded her to eat most days, lingering at the kitchen table until she’d managed at least half of whatever meal had been placed in front of her. Somewhere along the way, she’d stopped feeling like an employee and started feeling more like the maternal presence everyone assumed was needed due to the situation at hand.

(Name) stood in front of her closet for several minutes before reaching for an oversized cream sweater that used to fit comfortably, only to watch it slip a little loosely over her shoulders now. The sleeves swallowed part of her hands which was the normal fit but the neckline rested lower against her collarbone than she remembered. She caught sight of herself in the mirror for only a second before looking away again. Her cheekbones had become a bit more angular. The gentle fullness that had always softened her face had disappeared a bit, replaced by a hollowness she hadn’t noticed was there. Makeup covered the worst of the dark circles beneath her eyes, but it couldn’t disguise the fatigue settled deep behind them. She tucked loose strands of hair beneath a baseball cap, slipped on oversized sunglasses despite the gray afternoon sky, and reached for a scarf.

As she stepped downstairs, someone offered a gentle, well meaning, ”Miss! You’re getting out? You look nice.” Someone else remarked without thinking, “Oh! ..You’ve lost a little weight..” And the room fell awkwardly silent. (Name) only smiled politely, adjusted the strap of her handbag and pretended she hadn’t heard the comment. She would be back later she said.

The restaurant had been chosen carefully, tucked away from the busiest streets behind rows of old palm trees and expensive storefronts where celebrities occasionally managed an uninterrupted meal if they were lucky. It wasn’t impossible to find, just inconvenient enough that most photographers didn’t bother waiting outside on speculation alone. For a little while, the plan actually worked. Warm afternoon light spilling across white tablecloths through tall windows, silverware clinked softly against porcelain plates and conversations drifted lazily between nearby tables without anyone paying them much attention.

It felt ordinary, getting out like this. She.. she enjoyed it admittedly. Her team made a conscious effort to avoid the subjects hanging over everyone’s heads. They talked about work, albums other artists were releasing, Aladdin’s newest words, and whether he was going to inherit her stubbornness or her sweetness—perhaps even both, he’s a taurus after all. Elizabeth carried most of the conversation herself, launching into one of her wonderfully meandering stories that somehow involved three countries, two dogs, and an actor whose name she’d completely forgotten before arriving at an absurd punchline that made the entire table laugh. Against her own expectations, (Name) laughed too. It startled her more than anyone else. The sound felt rusty, like something her body remembered doing even if her heart hadn’t caught up yet.

For one fleeting hour, she almost believed she’d survive this.

Then somebody recognized her.

She never found out who it was. Perhaps another customer quietly excused themselves to make a phone call. Perhaps a waiter mentioned her name to someone outside. Perhaps word simply spread the way it always seemed to whenever famous people tried to exist in public. It hardly mattered anymore. Fame had long since taught her that privacy leaked away in tiny, ordinary moments exactly like this one until suddenly there was nothing left.

(Name) noticed the shift before anyone said a word. Her head of security, who until then had been standing comfortably near the entrance pretending not to watch the room, suddenly pressed two fingers against the earpiece hidden beneath his jacket. His expression tightened imperceptibly as he listened, eyes drifting toward the front windows where flashes of movement had begun gathering beyond the glass. Another member of security quietly stepped away from the wall to reposition himself closer to the table. Her manager stopped mid sentence, following their line of sight without turning his head too obviously. Even Elizabeth noticed, her smile fading as she reached instinctively for (Name)’s hand beneath the table, giving it one reassuring squeeze.

“They’re outside,” The head of security said quietly.

The words settled over the table like the forecast of an approaching storm everyone had secretly been hoping would pass them by. Conversation dissolved almost immediately. Chairs slid softly across the floor as everyone rose, years of navigating celebrity life taking over without discussion. (Name) lowered her gaze, adjusted her sunglasses with fingers that suddenly felt clumsy, and drew a slow breath that caught somewhere halfway inside her chest. The scarf was pulled a little higher. Her baseball cap lowered a little further. None of it would matter. It never really did. She fell naturally into the middle of the group as they began walking toward the entrance, surrounded by security without feeling particularly protected.

The restaurant door hadn’t even finished opening before the noise—her name hit her before she even saw the cameras.

It came from every direction at once, shouted over itself until it no longer sounded like her name at all, just noise. The moment her foot crossed the threshold, the sidewalk erupted into movement. Photographers surged forward as one body, camera shutters firing in relentless bursts that sounded almost mechanical, flashes exploding even beneath the overcast sky until the world dissolved into violent pulses of white. For a split second she couldn’t properly see where the curb ended or where her security team began. People jostled shoulders, stepping into one another’s paths in a frantic effort to get closer, lenses stretching over heads, microphones thrust forward like weapons. The air itself felt crowded.

“(Name)! Over here!”

“(Name), is it true Michael left you?”

“Were you blindsided by the divorce?”

“Is the marriage beyond saving?”

“Who’s getting custody of Aladdin?”

“Are the reports about your health true?”

“Did Michael cheat on you?”

“Do you still love him?”

The questions were invasive. One voice crashed into the next before she’d even understood the first, each reporter trying to shout just a little louder than everyone else, convinced theirs would be the question that finally cracked her open. Camera lenses crowded so close she could see her own distorted reflection staring back at her through polished glass, sallow beneath oversized sunglasses and thinner than she remembered. Someone stumbled against her shoulder. Another photographer leaned so far over the security barricade he nearly fell. Hands reached into her path holding tape recorders, notepads, microphones bearing television station logos.

Somewhere beside her, one of the security guards repeated, “Back up. Give her room. Back up,” in the same firm voice over and over until it blended into the rest of the chaos.

Nobody listened, but nobody ever did. There was money to be made from other people’s misery, and her nightmare had become one of the biggest stories in the world.

Her heartbreak had stopped belonging to her weeks ago. Every grocery store checkout aisle carried another magazine promising the “truth” behind the separation, each issue displaying a different photograph beneath another confident headline written by someone who had never once stepped inside their home. Anonymous friends appeared everywhere, speaking in quotations she’d never heard before, somehow claiming to know exactly what had been said behind closed bedroom doors, exactly how she’d cried, exactly why her marriage had failed.

Daytime television hosts dissected their relationship between celebrity gossip segments and cooking demonstrations, nodding thoughtfully as if they had been invited to the wedding themselves. Entertainment programs replayed years of interviews, slowing footage to half speed in search of glances that supposedly predicted the divorce all along. Fans filled call in shows arguing over which one of them deserved sympathy. Radio hosts joked about whose breakup album would sell more records. Newspapers printed diagrams of their relationship like timelines from a criminal investigation, reducing years of shared memories into neat columns of dates and speculation. Complete strangers debated custody arrangements over breakfast. Opinion columnists confidently explained why the marriage had collapsed despite never having spent a single minute inside it. Every person with a newspaper, a television, or a microphone suddenly believed they understood the most intimate years of her life better than she did.

Everyone had an answer, but no one had been there.

She kept walking because there was nothing else she knew how to do. Her shoulders curled inward beneath the oversized sweater, she thought that making herself physically smaller might somehow lessen the attention. One hand clung so tightly to the strap of her handbag that her fingers had begun to ache, while the other remained tucked close against her body, hidden beneath the loose knit of her sleeve. She didn’t lift her head. She couldn’t. Looking at them felt too.. it was just humiliating. So instead, she fixed her eyes on the black sedan waiting just beyond the crowd, wishing that they parked closer. Every step seemed to take forever.

The flashes refused to stop. They illuminated every new hollow beneath her cheekbones, every collarbone now visible beneath the sweater she’d chosen specifically because it hid how much weight she’d lost in such a short period of time—the difference was noticeable considering where she was before, to where she is now. Tomorrow those photographs would be everywhere. Side by side comparisons from six months earlier. Headlines asking whether she was eating enough. Television doctors offering diagnoses they’d invented from still images.

HEARTBROKEN STAR SPARKS HEALTH CONCERNS. FRIENDS FEAR SHE’S WASTING AWAY. THE PRICE OF DIVORCE?

They would speculate about stress, exhaustion, dieting, overwork. Nobody would write that she’d begun measuring her nights by how many drinks it took to fall asleep. Nobody would know about the little amber prescription bottle tucked inside the kitchen cabinet behind the coffee mugs, or how some evenings she’d stand in front of it with a bottle of vodka in one hand, trying to decide which one might finally quiet her mind. Nobody would know she’d stopped looking into mirrors for more than a few seconds because the woman staring back looked unrecognizable every single morning.

A security guard opened the car door just as the crowd pressed forward again. She slipped inside without speaking, her manager climbing in behind her before another photographer managed to wedge a camera between the narrowing gap. The door slammed shut with a heavy thud, muffling the shouting almost instantly. For one second, there was silence. She let out a shaky breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and leaned her head back against the leather seat, closing her eyes as if the darkness behind them might finally offer somewhere to hide.

Another flash burst through the tinted window.

Then another.

Even with the door closed, even with the engine starting, even as the car slowly pulled away from the curb, they were still taking pictures.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ Early March, 1994.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ╰ㅤ The Valley - Los Angeles, California.

The strangest part about looking for a house was that she had no idea what she was supposed to be looking for.

She knew how to stand beneath stage lights and deliver a performance perfectly timed down to the second. She knew how to walk into a room full of executives and hold her ground. She knew how to negotiate contracts, handle interviews, memorize choreography, and carry an entire career on her shoulders without letting anyone see how heavy it became. She had spent years making decisions that affected millions of people.

But standing inside a potential home with a realtor asking her what she wanted, she felt completely lost.

The woman showing her around was kind it was sickening. She had the bright, professional warmth of someone who had done this hundreds of times before, moving through each property with an enthusiasm that felt untouched by the fact that this was not an exciting new beginning for her. This was something else entirely.

“This room would be perfect for entertaining,” The realtor said, opening the doors to a wide living space with tall windows overlooking the backyard. “I can already picture family gatherings here. Holidays, birthdays…”

(Name) smiled politely.

She could picture them too.

That was the problem.

She could picture Aladdin running through the room. She could picture toys scattered across the floor, little shoes abandoned by the doorway, Christmas decorations covering every surface. She could picture a piano sitting somewhere near the windows, music filling the house in the evenings.

She could picture a life, but she just couldn’t picture herself living it.

The first house was beautiful.

So was the second.

The third had a kitchen larger than her first apartment and a backyard big enough for Aladdin to spend entire afternoons outside. The fourth had everything people dreamed about when they imagined a perfect home: marble floors, a sweeping staircase, a pool that reflected the sky like glass. A tuscan estate, she called it.

Every realtor’s dream.

Every magazine’s dream.

None of them were hers. Because she wasn’t really looking for a house, she was looking for something that didn’t exist—the life she had lost.

The realization came quietly, somewhere between one perfectly decorated room and another. She stood in a bedroom listening as the realtor explained closet space and bathroom renovations, but all she could think about was how, when she was twenty and signing the lease for her first apartment, Michael had been there.

He had known what questions to ask.

He had noticed things she hadn’t.

He checked the cabinets. The windows. The water pressure. The little details she never would have considered because she had been too young and too excited to care about anything except making the place feel beautiful.

He had laughed gently when she admitted she hadn’t even looked at the lease terms before signing. The whole time he had sat beside her, patiently explaining everything.

Now she was twenty seven, standing in a big empty house with a stack of paperwork, realizing she had no idea what she was supposed to be looking for. It unsettled her more than she wanted to admit.

For as long as she could remember, there had always been a man standing beside her when life asked for grown up decisions. First her father, patiently explaining mortgages, insurance, and contracts but she was too young to care about. Then Michael, who she’d fallen in love with. From then on, the practical parts of life had become shared things.

And neither man believed she was incapable of these things, but they loved taking care of her. And she’d loved letting them.

Now, for the first time in her adult life, no one was reading the fine print before she signed it. No one was pointing out what she’d overlooked or assuring her she was making the right decision. Every choice landed squarely in her lap, and she found herself staring at them longer than she should have because she’d never had to make quite so many of them alone.

It wasn’t dependence she was grieving. It was the absence of the person she’d always instinctively turned toward whenever life became too large to carry by herself. No one warned her that the hardest decisions wouldn’t be the ones in front of cameras. They wouldn’t be the interviews or the performances or the moments where millions of people watched her and expected her to be perfect.

It would be this; mortgages. Insurance. Paperwork.

Choosing where her son would sleep.

The small, ordinary things that somehow felt more terrifying than standing in front of thousands of screaming fans.

After the fourth house, the realtor finally turned to her with a hopeful smile. “Would you like to make an offer?”

(Name) looked around the room. It really was beautiful. Perfect, even. She could imagine Aladdin growing up here. She could imagine birthday parties in the backyard. Christmas mornings. Family dinners. A piano in the corner.

Everything.

Everything except herself.

Her fingers tightened slightly around the folder in her hands.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. The realtor’s expression shifted, waiting. (Name) looked once more around the room before lowering her gaze. “I think..” Her voice caught for just a moment. “I’d like to keep looking.”

And the heartbreaking part was that she didn’t know what she was waiting to find.

Because no house was going to feel like home when the person who had made it one was the very person she was trying to learn how to live without.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ Late March, 1994.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ╰ㅤ Neverland Ranch, Los Olivos, California.

The closet was the worst.

She had avoided it for days, finding reasons to be anywhere else in the house whenever she walked past it. The kitchen needed organizing. Aladdin’s things needed sorting. There were phone calls she needed to make. Meetings. Interviews. A thousand little responsibilities that were easier than standing in front of the closet they had shared.

Because the closet didn’t look like their marriage that had ended. It looked almost exactly as they’d left it. As though they had simply stepped out for dinner and forgotten to come back.

His clothes were still there—jackets arranged by color because he’d insisted it somehow made getting dressed easier (a majority of his clothing was either red or black). A few empty hangers interrupted the line where assistants had quietly removed some of his things weeks earlier, but enough remained that her eyes continued filling in the gaps automatically. Her mind refused to accept absence. It kept correcting it. He’ll need that tomorrow. He always wears that one when it rains. That sweater belongs in the wash. It was astonishing how stubborn memory could be, continuing to perform little acts of love long after there was nowhere left to put them.

Those were the things that hurt the most.

She stood there for several minutes holding a sweater in her hands without realizing she had stopped moving. It still carried the faintest trace of him, his skin, his favorite perfume. It wasn’t strong enough that anyone else would notice—but she did. She had spent years knowing him in ways nobody else did. The smallest details had become part of her understanding of him. The way he smelled after a shower. The way his clothes felt softer after being washed too many times. The way he would leave things in places without realizing it because he always assumed he would come back to them.

Because he always had.

Until he didn’t.

She reached for one of his long sleeves almost without thinking. The fabric slipped easily between her fingers. Time had already begun doing what time always did, stealing little pieces first. But there was still something there. Something warm and familiar that immediately transported her to sleepy mornings where he’d wander into the kitchen wearing this exact shirt, his hair a complete mess, asking if she’d already made coffee before remembering he didn’t actually drink it. The memory arrived so vividly she had to close her eyes. When she opened them again, she caressed the material gently, honestly too tenderly. As if being gentle with it somehow meant she was being gentle with him. Even after all of this, she couldn’t help but to enately want to be careful with him.

She sat down on the floor beside the open boxes, surrounded by pieces of a life she had never imagined having to separate. Photographs. Letters. Small gifts. Things that had once represented years of love and now felt like evidence from another lifetime.

The strangest part was that she didn't know what she was supposed to take.

What belonged to her? What belonged to him?

At some point, there stopped being a difference. That was the entire point of marriage. You stopped keeping score. You stopped remembering who bought what, who brought what, who contributed which piece. Everything became theirs.

Packing was supposed to feel productive.

People packed because they were moving. Because they had accepted that one chapter had ended and another was waiting somewhere ahead of them. There was supposed to be a rhythm to it. Empty the drawers. Fold the clothes. Tape the boxes shut. Write a label. Carry them to the front door. Repeat until the room no longer belonged to you.

It wasn’t that simple with her.

By the afternoon, boxes had begun appearing throughout the bedroom in uneven little clusters. Some were half full. Others still sat open and untouched because she kept finding reasons not to decide what belonged inside them. Marriage had a funny way of blurring ownership until it barely existed. Nobody warned you about that part when you said your vows. They told you everything became ours and they neglected to mention what happened if one day someone asked you to separate it all again.

She knelt beside a lower cabinet near the back of the closet, reaching into the corner where they had spent years absentmindedly shoving things they didn’t know what to do with.

Old photographs. Ticket stubs. A disposable camera neither of them had ever developed. Then her fingers brushed against something soft.

She frowned and pulled it free.

It was a plush frog. A ridiculously oversized frog wearing a tiny sequined tuxedo and an equally ridiculous little top hat that sat crooked over one stitched eye. One arm had gone limp where the stuffing had shifted over the years, giving it the permanently exhausted appearance of someone who had simply accepted life was happening to them.

For a long moment she just stared at it. Then a giggle escaped her lips. Small. Breathless.

“Oh, my goodness..” She pressed her fingertips against her mouth, shaking her head as another quiet laugh slipped out before she could stop it.

She remembered.

They’d been wandering through a carnival years ago after insisting they were “just going to walk around.” He’d spotted the frog hanging from the top row of prizes and become completely determined to win it for her despite the teenage employee repeatedly explaining the game was nearly impossible.

Michael refused to believe him.

Twenty dollars later he’d won exactly nothing.

Forty dollars later he’d accused the game of being rigged.

Sixty dollars later she’d been laughing so hard she’d nearly fallen over.

Eventually, the poor teenager had sighed, looked around to make sure his manager wasn’t watching, quietly taken the frog down himself and handed it across the counter.

“I can’t watch this anymore,” He’d whispered.

Michael had accepted it with complete seriousness before turning to her as though he’d conquered Everest.

“For my beautiful lady,” He announced, presenting the frog with both hands.

She’d looked between him and the absurd stuffed animal. “You spent sixty dollars on this thing.”

“It was an investment.”

“In what?”

“Our future.”

Now she sat alone on the closet floor with the same ridiculous frog resting in her lap. The laughter disappeared almost as quickly as it had come. Her thumb absentmindedly brushed over the crooked little hat.

“You were so stupid, kind of looks like you too..” (Name) whispered affectionately with the kind of fondness reserved for memories that hurt because they had once been so wonderfully ordinary. She smiled through tears that had begun gathering without permission.

The smile trembled, then it broke as she folded forward slowly, hugging the ridiculous frog against her chest hoping that a hug might somehow fix the pieces of her that had been broken for months.

The gift itself was absurd.

Cheap.

Completely impractical.

By every reasonable standard, it should have been one of the easiest things in the room to throw away. Instead, she reached for an empty box, placed the frog gently inside by itself, and wrote only one word across the lid.

KEEP.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ April, 1994.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ╰ㅤ Ashford Mediation Group, Beverly Hills, California.

The drive there felt like purgatory, honestly. The engine hummed beneath them, steady and smooth as it carried the car through late morning traffics. Buildings drifted past the window in slow succession, interrupted every so often by a red light or a pedestrian crossing. Somewhere in the front, her manager kept his voice low over the phone, discussing arrival times, entrances, making sure the press hadn’t caught wind of the meeting.

Beside her, her attorney rested a leather portfolio across his lap, turning over neatly tabbed pages as he reviewed everything one final time. Custody. Financial agreements. Property. Confidentiality. His voice remained calm and almost comforting in its neutrality, pausing now and then to reassure her that nothing unexpected would happen today. They had prepared for this. They had been over every document until he could practically recite them from memory.

She should have been listening. Instead, the words dissolved somewhere between his mouth and her ears, losing their shape before they ever reached her. She answered where she thought she was supposed to, nodding faintly, murmuring quiet acknowledgments she wasn’t entirely aware of making, her eyes fixed on the stitching of the seat in front of her until it blurred into a single uninterrupted line. Her hands rested in her lap, fingers woven together so tightly the joints had begun to ache. She loosened them forcibly and a minute later they were locked together again without her realizing.

Outside, the world continued. A florist arranged fresh bouquets beneath a striped awning. Two businessmen laughed together over paper cups of coffee as they crossed the street. A young mother stopped to kneel in front of her little girl, zipping her jacket before taking her hand and disappearing around the corner. Everyone seemed to know exactly where they were headed. Everyone still belonged to someone or something. The thought settled somewhere beneath her ribs before she could stop it. Once upon a time, she would’ve been driving toward Michael. Toward home. Toward the man who reached for the door handle before the car had even come to a complete stop because he couldn’t seem to wait the extra few seconds. Now she was driving toward paperwork that would ask her to untangle years of her life into paragraphs and signatures.

A quiet pressure began blooming beneath her sternum. It was so faint at first she mistook it for hunger. She straightened in her seat and drew in a deeper breath, holding it for a second before letting it out slowly. It helped, until it didn’t. The feeling returned, just a little heavier this time, spreading through her chest like something patiently unfolding. She swallowed against the sudden dryness in her throat and reached for the bottle of water beside her, taking two careful sips before placing it back exactly where she’d found it. The relief lasted only a moment before her coat suddenly felt heavier than it had when she’d put it on that morning. She slipped the top button loose then adjusted the scarf at her neck. The air conditioning whispered steadily through the vents, yet warmth had begun creeping beneath her collar, collecting behind her ears and along the back of her neck until she wondered if she was getting sick. She crossed one leg over the other. Uncrossed it. Pressed both feet firmly against the floor instead. Nothing seemed to settle the strange discomfort growing quietly inside her.

Her attorney had stopped speaking. “...Mrs. Jackson?”

“Of course.” He offered her an understanding smile, glancing back down at the papers. “I was just saying that, if at any point you need a break, Mrs. Jackson, we can—”

She blinked. “I’m sorry,” She said, her voice quieter than she’d intended. “Could you.. could you repeat that?”

For a second, she simply stared at her own hands.

“Don’t call me that, please.” The words came out and silence settled over the car. She hadn’t raised her voice. She hadn’t snapped, really. But the sentence landed with enough uncomfort that even her manager looked back over his shoulder.

Then, softer this time, embarrassed by how quickly the words had escaped her, she whispered, “Please.”

No one corrected her.

Her attorney gave a small nod, closed the folder for a moment, and apologized before continuing, avoiding the title altogether. She wanted to thank him, but the lump in her throat had grown too large to speak around. She hadn’t realized how much those two words still belonged to him until hearing someone else use them.

Mrs. Jackson.

A name she’d once worn with so much pride it hardly felt borrowed anymore. A name that had come to mean waking up beside him, dancing barefoot through the kitchen with a baby balanced on one hip, signing birthday cards together, whispered “I love yous” after midnight when the house had finally gone quiet. Now it sounded like someone describing a woman who no longer existed.

Not on a television screen.

The realization struck her so suddenly it stole the breath she’d only just managed to steady: in a matter of minutes, she was going to see him.

Not in photographs.

Not through lawyers.

Not through headlines.

Him.

The pressure beneath her ribs tightened and she inhaled, the breath stopped halfway down. She frowned and tried again, slower this time, but it still wasn’t enough. Her lungs worked. She knew they did. They simply refused to feel full. Without thinking, she lowered the window an inch, letting cool air drift against her face. It should have helped, but it didn’t. And she kept her eyes fixed on the road ahead, willing the sensation to pass if she ignored it long enough. It had to pass. She wasn’t going to lose herself in the backseat of a car. Not before she’d even laid eyes on him. Not before she had to sit across from the man she’d loved since she was twenty years old and somehow pretend she knew how to discuss the end of him in legal terms.

The realization struck her all over again, fresh enough to steal the air from her lungs.

She wasn’t driving to see her husband.

She was driving to negotiate the end of him.

Her breathing changed before she realized it had.

It came shorter now, each inhale still stopping halfway down her chest like there simply wasn’t room for the rest of it. She swallowed once. Then again. The knot in her throat refused to move as more heat crept up the back of her neck despite the air conditioning humming quietly through the car, settling beneath her collar and behind her ears until she felt almost feverish.

She cracked the window some more but the rush of outside air hit her face wasn’t enough.

Her attorney noticed first, lowering the papers into his lap and studying her for a moment before speaking carefully. “Are you alright?”

The car slowed for another light and she stared straight ahead. The nausea arrived sudden without a kind warning—not the vague discomfort she’d been sitting with all morning but something imminent and violent. Her stomach lurched so suddenly she jerked forward in her seat, one hand flying instinctively to her mouth because she could physically hold herself together.

She nodded before he’d even finished asking, too quickly that movement made her dizzy. “I’m fine.” The lie came. She’d become frighteningly good at saying it these days.

“I..” She swallowed hard. “Could we..” Her voice disappeared. She tried again. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

The conversation in the front stopped immediately and her manager turned around so fast his seatbelt caught against his shoulder. “Pull over,” He told the driver.

The car eased toward the curb and before it had even come to a complete stop, she was already reaching for the handle with shaking hands.

The cool morning air hit her the second she stepped onto the sidewalk, but it did nothing to steady the awful rolling in her stomach. She bent forward, one hand braced against her knee, the other pressed flat against her chest somehow attempting to slow the frantic pounding beneath it.

Nothing came up. Only dry heaves.

Again.

Again.

Her body kept trying to rid itself of something that wasn’t there. Tears burned behind her eyes from the force of it. She hated this. Because she knew exactly why. She knew. It wasn’t the meeting. It wasn’t the lawyers. It wasn’t even the divorce.

It was him.

In a matter of minutes she would be in the same building as the man she’d spent the better part of six years loving with everything she had, and she had no idea which version of him would be waiting on the other side of that door.

The husband who used to kiss her forehead before leaving for rehearsals. Or the stranger who had disappeared without saying goodbye. For the first time since leaving the house that morning, she allowed herself to think the one thought she’d been avoiding.

What if I look at him.. and I don't recognize him anymore?

The possibility frightened her more than the divorce itself.

Her manager was beside her before she even realized the car door had opened. “Easy,” He murmured, one hand settling carefully between her shoulder blades. “Easy, sweetheart. Don’t fight it, alright? That’s it..”

She wanted to tell him she wasn’t, wanted to tell him she had stopped fighting weeks ago. Instead another dry heave bent her nearly in half, her fingers curling tighter against her knee as tears sprang unwillingly to her eyes. Still, nothing came. Nothing except the violent ache in her stomach and the humiliating sound of her own body insisting it had something left to give.

His hand never left her back. Slow, steady circles the same pace every time. He didn’t rush her. Didn’t tell her to breathe like people always did when they had no idea what breathing felt like anymore. He simply stayed there, letting her have.. whatever this was without making it feel like a spectacle.

The attorney lingered a respectful distance away, quietly telling the driver they’d need another few minutes. Traffic continued behind them. Cars rolled past. People walked by without sparing more than a curious glance. The world refused to stop.

“That's it,” Her manager said softly. “You’re alright.”

She laughed, or tried to. It came out broken, somewhere between a cough and a sob. “No,” She whispered hoarsely. “I’m really... really not.”

“I know.” Those two words nearly undid her. Because no one had said them. Everyone else had spent months asking if she was alright, telling her she’d get through it, reminding her how strong she was.

He simply acknowledged the truth.

She wasn’t.

Her breathing refused to settle. Every inhale felt jagged, stopping halfway before she had to pull another after it, her chest tightening with each attempt until it became difficult to tell whether she was breathing too much or not enough.

“I can’t..” She swallowed hard. “I don’t think I can do this.”

He waited. “I can’t look at him.” The words came quietly. So quietly she almost wasn’t sure she’d spoken them aloud.

“I know,” He repeated. “But you have to.”

“What if..” She stopped, squeezing her eyes shut. “What if he looks at me like I’m just..” She couldn’tfinish.

Just someone else.

Just another meeting.

Just another signature.

Just another chapter he’d already closed.

Her manager stepped a little closer, careful not to crowd her, his hand still resting reassuringly between her shoulders. “Listen to me.” He started, she kept staring at the pavement as he spoke. “You don’t have to be brave in there.”

She frowned. “I feel—“

“No.” His voice remained calm, unwavering. “You just have to get through today. That’s all anyone is asking of you.”

Fresh tears slipped down before she realized they had. “I don’t know who I’m walking in to see.”

His expression softened. “Yeah, I understand that. Trust me, I do..”

“The man I married wouldn’t..” Her voice broke. “He wouldn’t have let it get here.”

Silence settled between them.

After a long moment he reached into his pocket, withdrew a neatly folded handkerchief, and held it out without a word. She took it with trembling fingers.

“I keep thinking..” She whispered, dabbing uselessly at her face, “That maybe he’ll walk in and it’ll be him again.” She hated how childish it sounded. As though the husband she’d fallen asleep beside for years had simply gotten lost and might suddenly find his way back.

Her manager looked at her for a long moment before speaking. “You’re young.” Her eyes lifted. “But.. don’t walk in there expecting the past to meet you halfway.” He gently squeezed her shoulder. “You’ve already survived every day that brought you here.”

She let out a slow, trembling breath, the first one that felt as though it reached the bottom of her lungs.

“I’l walk in with you,” He said gently. “I’ll stay until I can’t. Your attorney will handle the rest. And if you need a break, you stand up. I don’t care who’s talking. I don’t care what's being discussed. You stand up, and we’ll take one.”

She nodded faintly. And no matter how desperately she wished the car would simply turn around and take her home, there was no road left that led back to the life she’d been trying so hard to keep.

He waited until the trembling in her hands had eased enough that she could uncurl her fingers.

“Come on,” He said quietly, offering his hand instead of reaching for her. “Let’s get you sitting down.”

She looked at it for a second before slipping her own into his. Her grip was weaker than usual, cold despite the warmth lingering beneath her skin. He steadied her as she climbed back into the car, one hand lightly supporting her elbow until she settled against the leather seat once more. Before closing the door, he leaned down just enough to meet her eyes.

“You don’t have to say anything in there until you’re ready—or anything at all for that matter.”

She nodded, the door clicked shut and no one spoke for the rest of the drive. The attorney quietly returned the papers to his portfolio, deciding against continuing whatever explanation he’d been giving before they stopped. Her manager remained turned slightly toward the window in the front seat, giving her the rare kindness of not watching her every few seconds to make sure she was still holding together. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was respectful, really.

She kept her eyes on the city as it slipped past. Every block carried them closer. Every red light felt shorter than the last. She found herself counting them without realizing she was doing it.

One.

Two.

Three.

Anything to keep from counting the minutes instead.

By the time the car slowed for the final turn, the nausea had settled into something quieter. It hadn’t gone away. It had simply become part of her, resting heavily beneath her ribs like a stone she’d accepted wasn’t moving anytime soon.

The building came into view through the windshield.

Large. Modern. Too much glass. It reflected the gray afternoon sky so perfectly it almost disappeared into it. The driver eased to a stop beneath the covered entrance and for a moment, no one moved.

Her manager glanced back. “We’re here.”

The words hung in the air as she stared through the windshield at the revolving glass doors ahead of them, watching strangers pass effortlessly through them. A man in a navy suit exited while adjusting his tie. A woman carrying a briefcase disappeared inside without slowing her pace. Her attorney stepped out first. Her manager followed, circling around to open her door before she had the chance.

When she didn’t move immediately, he crouched slightly beside the car. “You alright?”

She swallowed. “Yeah.” Another deep breath, this one reached a little farther just before she stepped onto the pavement. The cool air kissed her face, carrying with it the faint scent of rain that hadn’t quite arrived yet. She smoothed invisible wrinkles from the front of her coat and adjusted her heel.

Her manager gently rested a hand on the small of her back. Together, they crossed beneath the overhang and approached the entrance. The glass doors slid open with a mechanical hum, revealing a lobby that was painfully pristine. Marble floors reflected the overhead lights in muted pools across the room. Everything smelled like polished wood, fresh coffee, and expensive cleaning products. It was immaculate in the sort of way places often were when difficult conversations happened inside them every day.

The receptionist looked up almost immediately. “Good afternoon.”

Her attorney quietly introduced them, speaking in the same composed voice he’d maintained all morning. The receptionist nodded once after checking a schedule on her desk, offering a polite smile that stopped well short of familiar.

“They’re expecting you.”

Of course they were. She hadn’t.. considered the possibility that they could had already arrived. She was under the impression that they would have been there first and she could at least prepare herself before..

The thought tightened something in her chest again.

“This way.” The receptionist stepped out from behind the desk and led them across the lobby toward a bank of elevators tucked against the far wall. The walk wasn’t long, but it felt endless, their footsteps echoing softly against the marble with each measured step. No one spoke. The only sounds came from the gentle chime announcing the elevator’s arrival and the muted conversation of strangers somewhere deeper inside the building.

The doors slid open and they stepped inside, the receptionist pressing a button near the top of the panel.

As the doors closed, the lobby disappeared behind brushed steel, leaving only the gentle vibration of the elevator climbing floor by floor. She watched the numbers illuminate one after another above the door, each soft chime settling lower in her stomach than the last. When the elevator finally came to a stop, the receptionist led them down a corridor lined with frosted glass offices and framed artwork she couldn’t have described a second later. The hallway seemed impossibly quiet, the thick carpeting swallowing almost every footstep until the only thing she could hear with any clarity was the steady beating of her own heart.

They stopped outside a closed wooden door and the rreceptionist turned toward them, offering another small, professional smile.

“They’re ready for you.” Then she stepped aside.

The hallway fell silent.

(Name) couldn’t move.

At some point it stopped being hesitation. It stopped being indecision, grief, fear, or any emotion she could neatly identify and tuck away beneath a sensible name. It became something far older than that. It was instinctive. Something buried so deep inside the part of the human body that recognized danger long before the mind had time to reason with it. Every muscle seemed to arrive at the same conclusion without consulting her first. Don’t go in there. Don’t open that door. Turn around. Leave. Run if you have to. It wasn’t a thought she was having anymore. It was a command her body had already obeyed, planting her feet so firmly into the carpet that it almost felt as though the floor itself had grown around them.

The trembling began again, just the faintest vibration in her fingertips where they’d been laced together in front of her and subtle enough that no one walking past would’ve noticed unless they were looking for it. She wasn’t herself, even. Not until she felt the tiny, involuntary quiver travel into her knuckles. She instinctively pressed one hand over the other, squeezing hard enough to leave crescent shaped marks in her skin, hoping the pressure might somehow force the shaking to stop.

It didn’t—it spread. Slowly, with nowhere else to be. From her fingers into her wrists. From her wrists into her forearms. Tiny muscles fluttered beneath her skin without permission, a low, constant vibration that made her feel strangely disconnected from her own body. Her body had long since decided it was no longer taking instructions from her and she stared at her hands with detached confusion, willing them to be still.

They refused.

A careful breath caught somewhere halfway down her chest. She frowned. Tried again. Another shallow inhale. Another unfinished exhale.

It still felt like her lungs had abruptly forgotten how much air they were supposed to hold, every breath stopping just before it became satisfying, forcing another after it and another after that, until she couldn’t tell whether she was breathing too much or not nearly enough. A dull pressure settled beneath her sternum, expanding outward until it wrapped itself around her ribs like tightening wire. She swallowed hard against the dryness gathering in her throat, but even that simple movement felt strangely difficult, like something invisible had lodged itself there.

Then came the heat but not the ordinary warmth of nerves. It crept upward beneath the collar of her blouse in slow waves, spreading across her chest before climbing her neck with alarming speed. She shifted uncomfortably, fingers instinctively reaching toward the irritated skin just beneath her throat. It felt hot to the touch. Too hot.

She looked down.

Angry red blotches had already begun surfacing across her collarbone, blooming beneath her skin in uneven patches that spread almost as she watched them, climbing toward her neck like watercolor bleeding through paper. Another appeared just below her jaw, then another.

Stress hives.

She hadn’t broken out like this since she was nineteen, and she could only stare at them strangely fascinated by hrr own body was rejecting this.

Not even metaphorically but,

Literally.

Every system inside her had reached the same conclusion at once. Her pulse had accelerated. Her breathing had shortened. Her muscles had begun shaking. Her skin was erupting in protest. She felt like an animal standing at the edge of a forest fire, every instinct screaming to flee before she could even see the flames.

Run.

The word echoed somewhere deep inside her.

Run.

Her manager noticed before she managed to hide it. His eyes drifted from her face to the spreading rash creeping over her neck, then softened almost immediately with the concern of someone watching another person come apart in slow motion.

“..Hey.”

She didn’t answer but she wasn’t sure she could.

He stepped closer, careful not to crowd her, lowering his voice until it barely carried beyond the space between them. “Look at me, (Name).”

She tried.

God, she tried. But every time she lifted her head, her eyes found the door instead.

It seemed to pull at her attention with force, everything inside her understood that on the other side of it sat the dividing line between the life she’d had and the one she would be forced to live afterward.

“I can’t,” She whispered, voice distant.

“You can.”

She shook her head before she realized she’d moved. “No..” The word barely escaped her lips. “I can’t.”

Fresh tremors rippled through her arms. She tucked them tightly against herself, folding one over the other in a futile attempt to hide the shaking, but it only made it more obvious. Her shoulders had begun trembling too.

“I can’t go in there—I can’t even..” A breathless, broken laugh escaped her, so close to becoming a sob it frightened her. “I can’t even stop shaking.”

He reached up with careful hands, gently smoothing a loose strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was so grounding it nearly undid her. “Just stay with me for a second.”

She nodded and his voice remained slow. “Can you feel your feet?”

She blinked at him, confused. “..What?”

“Your feet.”

She frowned, attention reluctantly leaving the door. “..Yes.”

“The floor underneath them?”

Another swallow. “Yes..”

“Good.” His hand rested lightly against her upper arm. “You’re here.”

Fresh tears blurred her vision almost immediately. “I don’t want to be. I want to go home.” The confession escaped before she could stop it. Raw. Childlike. Entirely honest. “I just..” Her voice cracked so completely she had to press her lips together before trying again. “I want to go home.”

His expression shifted—a flicker. Gone as quickly as it appeared. Because they both understood the thing she’d just said was nonexistent. There wasn’t a “home” waiting for her anymore. Not the one she meant. Not the one built around shared mornings and baby giggles and a man whose absence had hollowed every room he’d once occupied. There was only whatever came next.

“I wish I could come in with you,” He admitted quietly.

Her head snapped toward him so quickly the movement made her dizzy. “What! You can’t?” The panic returned with astonishing speed. Her knees threatened to give beneath her.

“No. Sweetheart, I told you that.” He hated the answer as much as she did. “They’ve only approved legal representation.”

She stared at him. “No..”

“But I’m staying right here.”

“No..”

“You’ll walk back through these doors, and I’ll still be here.”

“No!” Her voice rose just enough to tremble around the edges. "Please.. please don’t make me go in there.”

For the first time all morning, he looked completely helpless.

Helpless.

If there had been any way to walk through that door instead of her, he would’ve done it without hesitation. She knew that, and he knew she knew it. Which somehow made standing there feel even lonelier. Before either of them could speak again, her attorney’s voice drifted gently down the hallway.

“(Name).”

Neither of them turned.

“It’s time.”

The hallway seemed to narrow around her and air felt heavier. Even the lights overhead appeared suddenly too bright. Her manager’s hand squeezed her arm once, a reminder that when she came back through those doors, someone would still be waiting to catch whatever pieces remained.

She closed her eyes and drew in the deepest breath her body was willing to give her but it still wasn’t enough. Then, with legs that felt borrowed from someone else and a heart that seemed determined to escape her chest before she reached the handle—she took the first step toward the door.

One moment she was standing in the hallway, every muscle in her body pleading with her to turn around, and the next the door had already begun to swing inward beneath the quiet push of a palm.

The room was larger than she’d imagined—too bright from the large floor to ceiling windows and so sterile. A long conference table stretched through the center, polished to the point it reflected the overhead lights in muted streaks across its surface. Leather chairs sat neatly arranged around it, folders already opened, glasses of water placed with almost mathematical precision. Everything had been prepared hours before she arrived, every seat assigned, every document waiting patiently for signatures that would dismantle a life.

She felt them before she saw them.

Eyes.

They settled over her the instant she crossed the threshold, not invasive, not intentionally cruel she thinks, but impossible to ignore all the same. His team was.. ridiculously large: Lawyers who paused mid conversation. Assistants quietly setting down pens. People who had been expecting her arrival and now watched it happen in real time, each carrying the uncomfortable awareness that they were about to witness something far more intimate than legal.

She kept her gaze lowered.

One step.

Then another.

The carpet swallowed the sound of her heels, leaving only the dull rush of blood filling her ears. Halfway across the room, another sensation reached her.

Familiar.

Warm.

The faint trace of cedarwood, bergamot, and something softer she had once associated so instinctively with home that she’d stopped noticing it years ago.

His cologne.

It hung lightly in the room, barely perceptible to anyone else. But to her, it was overwhelming. The smell struck with such force that her stomach lurched before she could brace for it. Every memory attached to it arrived all at once, uninvited. Jackets borrowed on cold nights. Sleepy embraces before dawn. The hollow of his neck beneath her cheek. She had spent years breathing it in without thought.

Now it made her feel violently ill.

She swallowed hard as the nausea climbed steadily into her throat.

Don’t look up.

The thought repeated itself with quiet desperation.

Don’t look.

If she looked too soon, she was afraid everything holding her upright would simply.. stop. So she fixed her eyes on the table instead. On the grain of the wood. On the edge of an unopened folder. On her own hands, clasped together tightly enough that the faint tremor running through them almost disappeared beneath the pressure.

Someone quietly pulled out a chair for her and she thanked them automatically, though she couldn’t have said who it was.

The leather creaked softly as she sat. Her knees felt a sense of reliving beneath the table, bouncing once before she forced them still. She rested both palms against her thighs, pressing down as though she could anchor herself.

A glass of her favorite juice had already been placed in front of her and she stared at it. The condensation gathered in tiny droplets along the outside, slowly slipping toward the polished wood beneath.

It was something to look at.

Something that wasn’t.. him.

Silence settled over the room for one lingering moment, heavy enough that even the quiet rustling of paper sounded intrusive.

Then a chair shifted, a folder opened and the mediator cleared his throat: “Thank you all for coming.” His voice was carefully emptied of emotion. “We’re here today to discuss the terms that remain outstanding and, if possible, reach an agreement that serves the best interests of everyone involved.”

The words floated somewhere above her. Professional. Orderly. Clean. She heard every one of them but none of them felt real. Because all she could think was how absurd it was that the end of seven years could fit inside a folder no thicker than an inch.

The attorney on Michael’s side spoke first, sliding one of the folders forward.

“On the matter of custody,” He began, voice even and courteous almost, “Our client is requesting a standard shared arrangement. Equal time. A fifty-fifty split, alternating weeks, with flexibility for travel schedules given both parties’ professional commitments.”

The words landed in the center of the table, balanced and reasonable on paper—designed to sound like cooperation.

She kept her ⁠eyes fixed on the edge of her glass.

Fifty-fifty? As though fathers simply disappeared for weeks at a time, served their wives divorce papers through attorneys, built new lives somewhere else, and then returned expecting to divide a child neatly down the middle. Like time with a child could be weighed out evenly, as though it was something that could be portioned and exchanged without consequence. She never thought her own child would be subject to this kind of thing—life was cruel.

He wanted equal time. Equal responsibility. Equal claim. After everything he’s done.

Her own attorney shifted beside her, glancing once in her direction before responding. “We’ve reviewed that proposal,” He said calmly, “And at this stage our client is not in agreement.”

A pause.

The room tightened slightly.

Then he continued. “Given the current circumstances, she is requesting primary custody, with structured and supervised visitation.”

There it was, out in the open. Her stomach twisted again slower this time, bracing for impact long after the words had already been spoken. But she still didn’t look up—didn’t trust herself to see him yet. She wondered what his expression was..

Across from her, pens stopped moving. Someone exhaled quietly, the kind of sound people make when they’re pretending not to react.

Michael’s attorney adjusted his posture. “Supervised visitation is a.. significant limitation,” Je said, carefully choosing each word, “Especially in cases where both parties have been primary caregivers. On what basis is that being requested?”

Her pulse ticked harder beneath her skin.

Her attorney didn’t look at her, only answering immediately. “Stability,” He said. “And continuity of care during a period of documented instability.”

Documented instability.

A clinical phrase for something that felt anything but clinical when it lived inside her.

The silence that followed wasn’t empty. It was dense. Heavy with everything no one wanted to say directly in front of everyone else. She could feel it then, faintly, the shift in the room’s attention. Not hostility but something more complicated. Assessment. Quiet recalculation. The way people looked at decisions when they realized they were about to become precedent.

Her fingers tightened under the table again.

Fifty-fifty.

Supervised visits.

The phrases repeated in her mind without sound, colliding against each other until they stopped meaning anything at all except conflict.

Michael’s attorney spoke again, softer this time, “Our client has no intention of being removed from his child’s life. If anything, he is requesting increased consistency. Predictability. Equal access to daily care, schooling routines, and—”

“He’s not being removed,” Her attorney interrupted gently. A pause followed by: “He’s being structured.”

She felt the nausea return in a slow wave, not as sharp as before, but deeper. More settled. Something that sat under her ribs and refused to move.

Across the table, paper turned softly. Someone marked a note. Another cleared their throat. And the discussion continued anyway, the shape of their child’s life simply another item to be negotiated between professionals who had never once had to hold him when he cried.

The attorney on his side spoke first, sliding a neatly tabbed folder toward the center of the table with practiced ease.

Her attorney shifted almost imperceptibly beside her.

“As stated before, we reviewed the proposal,” He said. “My client cannot agree to that arrangement.” The room remained silent as he continued. “She is requesting sole physical custody, with supervised visitation until a consistent pattern of stability has been established.”

Across the table, Michael’s attorney folded his hands together. “Could you clarify the basis for supervised visitation?”

Her attorney answered without hesitation. “The events of the past year.”

“I’m going to need something more specific than that.”

“As documented,” Her attorney replied evenly, “Mr. Jackson entered treatment following prolonged substance dependency. There were also extended periods of physical absence from the child, interrupted communication, and the abrupt dissolution of the marriage.”

His attorney gave a small nod.

“We don’t dispute treatment. In fact, your client voluntarily sought it. Rehabilitation is generally viewed as evidence of recovery rather than evidence of parental unfitness, that isn’t a factor in this.”

Michael attorney spoke again. “Our position is that whatever difficulties existed between husband and wife should remain separate from the child’s relationship with his father.”

Husband and wife.

As though those were just words.

As though the marriage had ended because two people had simply grown apart.

As though she hadn’t spent months bathing him when he couldn’t stand long enough to bathe himself. Feeding him because he forgot to eat. Sleeping beside him through endless nights when every phone call brought another problem. Holding together a household, a career, a child, and a man who no longer had the strength to hold himself together.

As though she’d stayed through every unbearable moment only to be discarded the second he was strong enough to leave.

And now..

Now he wanted fifty fucking percent.

(Name) didn’t want to keep a father from his son. But somewhere in the midst of disappearing, serving her with divorce papers through strangers, and forcing every conversation to happen through attorneys, he had somehow convinced himself he was entitled to walk back into fatherhood like nothing had broken in between? The thought was so staggering she wasn’t sure whether she wanted to cry.. Or stand up and leave because she felt offended.

Her attorney let the silence settle for a moment before folding his hands neatly atop the folder in front of him.

“We appreciate the sentiment,” He said, his tone remaining unfailingly courteous. “But respectfully.. we find that position difficult to reconcile with the circumstances that brought us here.”

Across the table, no one interrupted.

He continued. “My client has been the child’s primary source of consistency throughout the better part of the last year. She has maintained his routines, his medical appointments, his education, his home, and his day-to-day care while simultaneously managing an unprecedented level of public scrutiny surrounding the dissolution of this marriage.”

He glanced briefly toward the documents. “During that same period, your client voluntarily entered treatment, ceased regular communication for an extended length of time, and elected to initiate divorce proceedings through legal counsel rather than direct communication with his wife with another woman in his life.”

His voice never rose. “Against that backdrop, requesting an immediate fifty-fifty custodial arrangement is, ridiculous and not a proposal we consider realistic.”

The discussion continued for another two hours.

Nothing changed. Every proposal was met with another counterproposal. Every compromise unraveled the moment someone followed it with, “However..” Custody schedules became calendars spread across polished wood. Holidays were divided before they had even happened. Birthdays were discussed in alternating years. Christmases became odd numbered and even numbered. Every sentence sounded perfectly reasonable on its own.

Together, they sounded grotesque.

The conversation had long since stopped being productive. It was two immovable objects politely colliding with one another over and over again, dressed up in professional language and careful tones.

Finally, her attorney closed his folder, “I don't believe we’re making meaningful progress.”

No one disagreed. Across the table, opposing counsel gave a small nod. “I think a brief recess would be appropriate.”

“Perhaps twenty minutes,” Another someone added. “Give everyone a chance to speak with their clients privately and reassess before continuing.”

There was a quiet chorus of agreement.

Pens were capped. Legal pads were gathered. Someone reached across the table to collect a stack of exhibits that had slowly migrated into the center during the discussion. Chairs eased backward with soft scrapes against the floor, the room immediately feeling larger now that everyone had permission to move.

(Name) didn’t Her hands remained folded tightly in her lap. Her eyes stayed fixed on the untouched glass of water in front of her, the same glass she’d been staring at for nearly two hours. She heard the rustle of jackets, the quiet exchange of voices, the metallic click of briefcases closing. The meeting was ending, at least for now.

Then, for the first time since she had walked through the door.. Michael spoke: “..One moment.”

The room stilled.

It wasn’t that his voice was loud. It was almost the opposite. It was quiet enough that everyone instinctively stopped moving to hear him.

“I have a request.” Every eye shifted toward him and he wasn't looking at the attorneys. He was looking at her. “If everyone is comfortable with it..” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “I’d like a few minutes alone with my wife.”

Silence settled over the room.

One attorney glanced toward another and (Name)’s attorney looked toward her, saying nothing as he wasn’t answering for her this time. He was waiting for her to speak while the request lingered between them.

Finally, opposing counsel spoke. “Well.. provided both parties consent, I don’t have an objection.”

Her attorney remained still for another moment before turning slightly toward her. “You don’t have to.”

She swallowed. Her throat felt painfully dry. “I know.”

"If you’d rather I stay, I stay.”

She closed her eyes briefly. This was the conversation she’d spent weeks dreading. It had been waiting for her whether there were lawyers in the room or not.

Slowly, she nodded. “It’s okay, Mark.”

Her attorney studied her face carefully, making sure she wasn’t agreeing out of pressure or obligation. Then he gave a small nod. “We’ll be right outside.”

One by one, the attorneys gathered their files and made their way toward the door. Their footsteps were quieter than before, everyone understood they were leaving behind something no legal training could prepare them to witness.

The door opened, then closed and the latch clicked softly.

And for the first time in months, there was no one left in the room except the two people whose names had been written across every page of the divorce file.

The silence that followed was worse than the situation at hand had been. At least that had given them something to hide behind: numbers, schedules, legal terms, the careful language of attorneys who could take something unbearably personal and reshape it into something that fit neatly inside a folder. Now there was nothing between them. No one interrupting. No one redirecting. No one stepping in when the weight of everything they had avoided finally settled into the room. For several moments, neither of them moved. (Name) remained exactly where she was, her posture still rigid from the hours she had spent forcing herself to stay composed. She didn’t need to look at him to know he was there, and that was the part she hated most. After months of distance, after everything that had happened, some part of her still recognized his presence before she ever saw him.

The quiet scrape of his chair shifting made her body react before her mind could. Her shoulders tensed, her fingers tightening together in her lap, her breath catching slightly. She wasn’t afraid of him, but some part of her was afraid of what would happen if she finally allowed herself to see him. The anger she had carried from a distance felt much easier to hold than the reality of having him sitting only a few feet away. Anger did not remember the good mornings, the private jokes, the years of knowing someone so completely that their absence felt like a missing piece of your own body.

“Can you..” His voice stopped.

An uncertain pause.

Her eyes remained fixed on the untouched glass in front of her, watching the faint reflection of the room distort across the surface.

“Can you look at me?”

The request was painfully simple. Almost too simple for everything that existed underneath it. Her fingers tightened further, but she didn’t answer. For a moment, neither did he. He didn’t push. He didn’t repeat himself. He simply waited.

That somehow made it harder.

“Please.” The word was quiet. Not a demand or even an expectation. A simple request of her.

She hated that he still had the ability to reach the parts of her that wanted to soften. She hated that one small word could pull at years of memories she had spent so long trying to bury beneath anger, paperwork, and silence. She had convinced herself that enough distance would make him easier to face, that time would turn him into someone she could look at without feeling everything at once.

But she was still sitting there, unable to lift her eyes. Because looking at him meant admitting he was real—that this was real. That the person who had once felt like home was sitting across from her, and she had no idea what to do with that anymore.

Her silence stretched for several seconds longer, but it wasn’t peaceful. It was the kind of silence that came when too many things were being held back at once, when every sentence she wanted to say had been swallowed before it could reach her mouth because none of them felt big enough to contain what she was actually feeling.

Her hands had started shaking again and she noticed it before he did. A faint tremor at first, barely visible beneath the table, her fingers twisting together. She pressed her thumb against the side of her hand, grounding herself, reminding herself that she was sitting in a room, that she was safe, that she was not back in those months of waiting for a phone call that never came.

It didn’t work, because the truth was she wasn't afraid of the room. She was afraid of the answers.

She finally lifted her eyes, but only for a moment. Long enough to see his face. Long enough for the anger and hurt she’d been carefully organizing for months to collide with the reality of him sitting there.

And then the question came out before she could stop it.

“Did you sleep with her?” Her expression changed the moment the question left her mouth, she looked exhaustion and wounded—the question itself had reached a place he had been desperately trying not to confront. For a moment, he simply stared at her, and when he finally spoke his voice was quiet enough that it almost disappeared beneath the weight of the room.

“(Name).. oh, God, please.” He looked down, his fingers shifting slightly against the edge of the table as he was searching for the right words and finding none of them. There was no defensiveness in him, no attempt to turn the question back on her. Somehow, that made it worse. She had prepared herself for anger. She had prepared herself for him to tell her she was being unfair or emotional or that she didn’t understand. She had prepared herself for a fight because a fight would have been easier than this careful, painful silence.

“Why are you asking me this?” The softness of it made something inside her crack. Her hands tightened together in her lap, feeling the frustration building beneath her ribs-she couldn’t.. she couldn’t fucking believe he didn’t understand why she needed to know. After months of unanswered questions, after watching her entire life collapse through headlines and whispers and conversations she wasn’t invited into, hearing him ask why felt unbearable.

“..Why am I asking you?” Her voice came out quieter at first, almost disbelieving. She looked at him for a moment, tears already gathering in her eyes, before shaking her head. “Why am I asking you?!”

“You know why I'm asking you, Michael!”

“(Name), please..”

“No!” The word came quickly, sharper than she intended. She swallowed, trying to steady herself, but the effort was useless. The control she had walked into the room with was gone, stripped away piece by piece until there was nothing left but the person underneath it.

“No, no, nonononono! Don’t do that!” She stood suddenly, a detached smile pulling at her lips. “I thought this was going to be an honest conversation! Don’t say my name like I’m the one being unreasonable!”

He went quiet and looked away as she pressed her lips together, she trying to keep herself from falling apart in front of him. It was almost humiliating how much she was still affected by him. How after everything, she was still sitting across from him hoping he would say something that made any of it make sense.

“I spent months trying to figure out what happened—look at me!” She snapped, her voice shaking as she watched him reluctantly look. “I spent months wondering if you were okay, wondering if you hated me, wondering if I did something wrong. I was trying to understand how we went from what we were to this, and then suddenly everyone else seemed to know things I didn’t!”

Her fingers curled against the table. “So yes, I am asking you.” She looked back at him. “Because I deserve to know!”

He inhaled quietly, but before he could respond, she continued.

“Tell me.” Her voice rose, the restraint finally snapping under the weight of everything she had been carrying. “Tell me!”

Her palm struck the table before she even realized she had moved. The sound startled even her, echoing through the empty conference room. Aggression and rage, yes. It was desperation. The kind that came from someone who had spent too long swallowing every question because she was afraid of what the answer might be.

“You at least owe me that much.”

The anger vanished as quickly as it appeared, leaving only the grief underneath. Her shoulders shook, tears spilling freely now as she looked at him. “You owe me the truth.”

Michael didn’t say anything. Then his expression shifted, and when he finally answered, his voice was barely above a whisper.

“No.”

She blinked. “What?”

“No.” He shook his head slightly. “Nothing happened.”

The answer should have relieved her. It didn’t. Instead, it created an entirely new kind of confusion. She stared at him, almost unable to process the words. “Nothing?”

“Nothing happened between us.”

Her brows furrowed as she searched his face, waiting for the rest of the explanation. Waiting for the part that would make everything fit together again. But there wasn’t one.

A small, broken laugh escaped her. “What the fuck? Then what am I supposed to do with that, Michael?”

He didn’t answer. Because that was the question neither of them wanted to confront.

If nothing happened, then why?

Why had everything changed?

Why had she been left behind?

Why had another woman become the center of every conversation surrounding the end of their marriage?

Her breathing became uneven as she looked at him, her anger slowly shifting into something much more painful. “What does she have?”

His expression changed slightly. “(Name), please don’t do this right now..”

“Shut up!” She shook her head, tears continuing to fall.What does she have?” She pressed. “What has she done for you that I haven’t!”

He looked away.

That movement broke something in her. “I was there! I was there!” Her voice cracked. “I was there when things were difficult! I was there when nobody else understood what was happening! I stayed when it was hard—I stayed when it wasn’t convenient! I stayed when I had every reason to walk away! I love you!”

She wiped at her face, but it did nothing. “Tell me what I didn't give you!” He remained silent. “Tell me what I wasn’t!” The room seemed to shrink around them. "m”What did she have that I don't, Mikey? Please!”

Michael couldn’t look at her. And that silence was its own answer. Not the answer she had been expecting. Her expression slowly changed as another realization began settling into place. It wasn’t sudden but a quiet, horrible understanding that arrived piece by piece.

If nothing happened between them.. then something else had.

Something before.

Her voice lowered. “Were you were talking to her before all this? Is that why you were coming home late?” He went still as she stared at him, watching his reaction. “You were.”

A pause. “You had to have been.” The tears blurred her vision, but she didn’t look away. “Because people don’t just wake up one day and end up here.”

Her voice trembled. “She didn’t just appear outta nowhere.” And for the first time, the thought that had been circling her mind for months finally became something she could say aloud. “You—you were already letting her into your life while I was still trying to save ours! To fix you!”

He was quiet for so long that she felt the answer before he ever spoke it. She searched his face desperately for the instinctive denial that never came, for the immediate shake of his head that would let her believe she had spent months torturing herself over nothing. Instead, he lowered his eyes, his jaw tightening subtly as though the effort of choosing his next words had become physically painful. It was such a small movement, so insignificant to anyone else, but to her it felt catastrophic. She had spent the better part of eight weeks replaying every conversation, every silence, every headline, trying to identify the exact moment she’d stopped being enough. Now she was watching it happen in real time, watching the man who had once answered every fear before she could even voice it suddenly become incapable of giving her the one reassurance she needed most.

“Yes.” The word landed with almost no force at all and her expression didn’t change. He swallowed before continuing, unable to meet her eyes for more than a second at a time. “Yes.. we were spending time together. We were friends.” He said it carefully, almost cautiously like there was a version of those words that existed without causing harm. “It wasn’t..” He paused, rubbing absently at his thumb with the opposite hand. “It wasn’t anything you’re making it out to be, honestly.”

She stared at him for several long seconds, trying to reconcile what he’d just said with the reality she’d been living. Friends. Such an ordinary word. Such an innocent word. It almost made her laugh. Months of silence. Months of unanswered phone calls. Months of waking up alone, wondering whether her husband still remembered she existed, only to discover that while she’d been clinging to the ruins of their marriage, he’d been building a “friendship” with another woman. The same friendship he and her once shared seven years ago? Oh, she bets, Whether he believed it had been innocent no longer mattered. Innocent things didn’t grow in secret. Innocent things didn’dmt survive only because one person had been left completely in the dark.

“It wasn’t anything I’m making it out to be?” She repeated quietly, her voice trembling with anger and disbelief. “Michael, I’m your wife!” The last word nearly caught in her throat. “I was sitting at home wondering why you wouldn’t speak to me while you were talking to somebody else, and you’re telling me I'm making something out of nothing?” She laughed then, but it was a broken sound, one born entirely out of exhaustion. “Do you even hear yourself?”

He opened his mouth to answer, but she was already shaking her head.

“No, no, don’t explain it away. Just answer me.” She leaned forward slightly, “Are you planning to be with her?”

The question lingered between them.

He didn’t answer, of course.

He tried. She could see him trying. His lips parted, his chest rose with a slow breath, and for one impossible second she thought he was finally going to give her something, anything, that she could survive. Instead, nothing came. His eyes drifted away from hers again, settling somewhere over her shoulder, as though even the possibility of speaking the truth aloud was more than he could bear.

She felt the air leave her lungs.

“If the answer was no,” She whispered, “You would’ve said no—is that what you do, Michael? You fuck all your girl friends?”

Still nothing.

The room seemed to tilt around her. She could hear the faint hum of the air conditioner somewhere overhead, the muffled footsteps of people passing outside the conference room, the sound of her own heartbeat pounding so violently in her ears that it drowned out almost everything else. It was astonishing, she thought, how quickly a person’s entire world could be rearranged by someone refusing to answer a single question.

“Do you love her?” She hadn’t meant to ask it.

It escaped her the way all the worst truths did, before pride had the chance to stop them. There was no anger left in her voice now, only desperation. It was the question beneath every other question she’d asked since sitting down. Not whether he’d betrayed her. Not whether he’d lied. Simply whether there was still anything left of the man who had once loved her so completely she had built her entire life around it.

Michael couldn’t answer that one either. His eyes closed for the briefest moment, and when he opened them again, they still wouldn’t meet hers. “I..” He stopped, swallowing hard. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

(Name) simply stared at him, then something inside her gave way. A short, breathless laugh escaped her, so hollow it barely sounded human. She sat back in her chair as tears spilled unchecked down her face, looking at him not with hatred but with a kind of horrified disbelief, as though she no longer recognized the person sitting across from her.

“You don’t know?” She repeated, almost whispering. “After everything.. after seven years.. after everything I gave you, everything we survived together, you don’t know?” She shook her head slowly, wiping at tears that refused to stop falling. “You’re a psychopath.”

“I have spent so long convincing myself that I missed something. That I wasn’t enough. That maybe there was something she could give you that I couldn’t.” Her breathing had become ragged now, every sentence interrupted by the effort of trying not to break completely. “So tell me.” She looked at him then, really looked at him, her eyes red and glistening with grief. “What has she done for you that I haven’t? What does she have that I don’t? I stood beside you through everything. I loved you when the rest of the world decided you weren’t worth loving. I built my life around yours because I believed we were building something together.”

Her voice cracked so sharply she had to stop and swallow before continuing. “And now you’re sitting across from me telling me you don’t know if you love this bitch?”

The realization arrived almost imperceptibly, settling over her in slow, unbearable pieces. If nothing physical had happened, if he was telling the truth about that much, then there had still been something. Something that had begun long before the divorce papers arrived, long before the headlines, long before she had any reason to suspect another name belonged in the story of her marriage. She lowered her eyes for only a moment before lifting them again, and when she spoke this time, her voice had become frighteningly calm.

Neither of them spoke after that.

The silence that settled over the room no longer felt tense. It felt exhausted. There was nothing left to argue about, nothing left to explain. Every question she had carried into that building had either been answered or answered by omission, and somehow the omissions hurt more. She sat motionless in her chair, staring at nothing in particular as tears continued slipping down her face, too emotionally spent to wipe them away anymore. Across the table, he remained just as still, his hands folded together in front of him, his gaze lowered to the polished wood between them. Whatever words either of them might have found earlier had long since abandoned the room.

A soft knock broke the silence.

Neither of them responded.

Another knock followed, more tentative this time, before the conference room door opened just enough for one of the attorneys to lean his head inside.

“I’m sorry,” He said carefully, his eyes moving between the two of them almost immediately. It didn’t take legal training to recognize that whatever had happened during the recess had not gone well. “(Name).. Michael.. are we interrupting something?”

She blinked once, she’d forgotten where she was. The conference room slowly came back into focus. The legal folders. The glasses of water. The yellow legal pads scattered across the table. Her attorney stood just beyond the doorway with her manager beside him, both of them studying her face with immediate concern. She could almost watch the realization spread across their expressions as they took in her swollen eyes, the mascara beginning to gather beneath them despite every attempt she’d made to hold herself together.

Her manager instinctively took a half-step forward. “(Name)..”

She lifted a hand before he could come any closer.

It wasn’t to stop him. It was because she couldn’t bear for anyone to fuss over her right now. She drew a slow, uneven breath that caught halfway through her chest before finally managing to speak.

“..Could I..” Her voice disappeared as she swallowed hard and tried again, this time barely above a whisper. “Could I have.. just a few minutes?”

Everyone remained still.

She looked toward her attorney, unable to quite meet anyone’s eyes for more than a second. I just..” She pressed trembling fingertips against the corner of one eye, frustrated when another tear escaped anyway. “I need to.. get away from him.”

No one said anything immediately.

There wasn’t anything to say.

Her attorney gave a small nod first. “Of course.”

She pushed her chair back carefully, surprised that her legs still worked beneath her. They felt disconnected from the rest of her body, numb, and she had to steady herself against the edge of the conference table before taking her first step. No one tried to stop her as she crossed the room, though she could feel every pair of eyes following her. Her manager instinctively moved as though to accompany her, but she offered him the smallest shake of her head.

“I’ll be alright,” She lied quietly.

He knew it was a lie.

She knew he knew.

Still, he respected it.

The receptionist looked up from her desk just in time to see her emerge, immediately rising from her chair with the professionalism of someone accustomed to recognizing distress without drawing attention to it.

“The ladies' room is just around the corner,” She said gently, gesturing toward the end of the hall.

(Name) managed a faint nod. “Thank you.”

Her heels echoed softly against the marble floor as she walked away. She kept her chin lifted until she rounded the corner and disappeared from everyone’s view.

Only then did she let herself unravel.

The hotel suite was unnaturally quiet.

Michael hadn’t spoken once during the drive back. His attorney had attempted conversation exactly twice before recognizing the futility of it, and the remainder of the ride had passed in silence, broken only by the dull rhythm of tires against pavement and the occasional crackle of the radio that nobody bothered to turn off. By the time he let himself into the room, the exhaustion settling over him wasn’t physical. It lived somewhere much deeper, clinging stubbornly beneath his ribs. Lisa looked up from the sofa when she heard the door open, quietly closing the magazine resting in her lap the moment she saw his face.

“How’d it go?” she asked softly as he slipped his jacket from his shoulders without answering, hanging it carefully over the back of a chair before rubbing both hands over his face. Every muscle in his body felt tight.

“..I don’t wanna talk about it.” There was no irritation in his voice. Just fatigue. A kind of emptiness. She watched him for a moment before giving a small nod.

“Okay.” That was all. No questions. No, What happened? No, What did she say? No, attempt to coax the conversation out of him. She simply returned the magazine to her lap, allowing the silence to settle naturally between them. And somehow… that had become unhealthy for him.

Michael lowered himself onto the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees as he stared absently at the carpet. He wasn’t thinking about the meeting anymore. Not entirely. He was thinking about everything that had happened before it, about the strange way memory had begun rearranging itself somewhere between the intervention and the weeks he spent in rehabilitation. Rationally, he knew the people around him had been trying to save his life. The doctors. His attorneys. His family. Even (Name). She had wanted him sober, healthy, present, alive. He knew that. He truly did. But memory was rarely interested in fairness. But looking back, he didn’t remember feeling protected. He remembered feeling cornered. Every concerned expression had become another reminder that something was wrong with him. Every difficult conversation became another decision someone else was making on his behalf. Doctors telling him what he needed. Lawyers explaining what was best. Friends watching him with careful eyes, silently evaluating whether today was a good day or a bad one. Even the woman he loved most had slowly become another voice asking him to stop, to change, to get help, to fight harder. She hadn’t been wrong. That wasn’t the point. Pain had a remarkable way of convincing people that love and pressure were the same thing, and by the time he left rehabilitation, he could no longer separate the two.

Then Lisa had called. She hadn’t asked whether he’d been taking his medication. She hadn’t questioned the decisions he’d made or reminded him what his doctors wanted. She never looked at him with that quiet mixture of hope and worry everyone else seemed unable to hide, as though they were all waiting for him to fall apart again. When he complained, she listened. When he sat in silence for minutes at a time, she never rushed to fill it. When he admitted he was tired, she didn’t tell him how to fix himself. She simply stayed. Around her, he didn’t feel like a patient. He didn’t feel like someone everyone was desperately trying to repair before he broke again. He didn’t feel like the center of another intervention. He felt like himself. Or at least, the version of himself he had been before every conversation became about what was wrong with him. He could breathe. The realization should have frightened him. It didn’t. Because nowhere in his mind had he labeled it betrayal.

When (Name) had looked across the conference table that afternoon, tears streaming down her face as she asked, Did you sleep with her? the answer had come effortlessly. No. Nothing happened. He believed it. He still believed it. There had been no affair. No kiss. No stolen night hidden from the world. Nothing physical had crossed the line his conscience had always considered unforgivable. To him, fidelity had always lived in actions that could be seen, touched, named. By that definition, he had remained faithful until the end. What he refused to examine were the things that couldn’t be photographed.

The phone calls that gradually became longer than the conversations he had with his own wife. The fears he confessed to another woman because they somehow felt easier to say aloud there. The loneliness. The frustration. The parts of himself that had once belonged inside his marriage but had quietly migrated somewhere else. He hadn’t chosen another woman in one catastrophic moment. He had simply stopped choosing the first one in hundreds of tiny, forgettable ones, each decision so insignificant on its own that none of them had felt capable of ending a marriage until they had all accumulated into exactly that.

His jaw tightened as her voice returned to him with startling clarity.

“What has she done for you that I haven’t?”

He closed his eyes.

Because there wasn’t an answer. Not an honest one.

Lisa hadn’t sacrificed more. She hadn’t stood beside him through years of scrutiny, impossible expectations, and relentless public judgment. She hadn’t watched him crumble and stayed anyway. She hadn’t built a home with him, celebrated birthdays with him, learned the invisible ways he unraveled when the world became too loud, or spent years believing in him when believing had become difficult. (Name) had done all of that. She had given him years. Lisa had given him relief. Those were not the same thing. Yet somewhere inside him, relief had quietly begun masquerading as understanding. It had become easier to sit beside someone who expected nothing from him than to face the woman whose expectations existed only because she had spent years believing he could survive. He had mistaken the absence of conflict for peace, the absence of accountability for acceptance, and by the time he understood the difference, it was too late to explain it without sounding like he was searching for excuses.

He leaned back against the headboard, staring blankly toward the ceiling as the room settled once again into silence. For the first time since leaving the conference room, he allowed himself to hear her final words exactly as she’d spoken them.

“You don’t even know if you love her.”

He wanted to tell himself she was wrong. He wanted to believe the distinction mattered. That friendship was friendship. That nothing physical had happened. That he hadn’t crossed the line she believed he had. But lying alone in the quiet, stripped of attorneys, explanations, and carefully chosen language, he found himself confronting a possibility he had spent months avoiding. Perhaps the cruelest betrayals were never the obvious ones. Perhaps they happened so gradually they were almost impossible to notice while they were occurring. Conversation by conversation. Confidence by confidence. One ordinary day after another, until the person who had once known you better than anyone else slowly became the last person you allowed inside your heart.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ㅤㅤ⋆ㅤㅤ June, 1994.

⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ╰ㅤ 1994 MTV Video Music Awards.

It hadn’t been one thing that made her spiral. If it had been one thing, maybe she could’ve gotten through the night.

But walking into her first award show since the divorce and realizing every hallway, every dressing room, every stretch of red carpet carried memories she hadn’t asked to revisit, was a lot. It was seeing him again for the first time not as her husband, not even as someone she could still pretend belonged somewhere in her future, but as another woman’s husband. It was watching them move through the room together with the kind of love she remembered once belonging to her. Then came them taking the stage. The applause. The cameras. And when they kissed beneath the lights, the room erupted around them as if the entire world had collectively decided to celebrate the life she’d spent months grieving.

That was her melting point.

Her manicured nails fumbled with the tiny bottle in her clutch, the bathroom lights too bright as they glinted off the pill caps. The celebrity style mirror mocks her—this is supposed to be a night of rebirth for her, and yet here she is squeezing five little white lies into her palm like they’re candy. A shaky breath hitches in her throat as she dry swallows them one by one, tasting salt and dissolving on the back of her tongue.

She stares at herself in horror through the mirror because who would cry for someone else’s husband? He wasn’t hers anymore. Her reflection wavers when a knock sounds at the door: “Two minutes ‘til hair and makeup, Miss (Name)!” calls an assistant whose name tag she didn’t remember reading.

There was a point where she stopped feeling like she was in the room at all, like her attention had slipped a few inches behind her actual body and was now watching everything happen from slightly off angle, delayed just enough that nothing lined up cleanly anymore. Voices reached her, but they didn’t land where they were supposed to. They skimmed across the surface of her awareness and kept going.

Someone said her name and she thought she answered, but she wasn’t entirely sure she had.

Her hands were being touched, adjusted, moved into place. Nothing aggressive, just corrective like she was a product on a conveyor belt that needed alignment before being sent forward. The feeling that accompanied it wasn’t panic yet. It was something flatter and an uncomfortable absence of ownership, because her body was no longer something she was directly responsible for managing.

There was a mirror somewhere near her, and she caught herself in it without meaning to. The reflection looked correct in the way costumes look correct on mannequins, everything in place without necessarily belonging to anything living. She stared at it for a second too long, waiting for recognition to catch up, but it never came.

There was just a murmur of thought forming underneath everything else.

I don’t feel well enough to be perceived right now.

But there was no space to say it out loud, and even if there had been, it felt like the kind of statement that wouldn’t change anything. The show would still happen. The lights would still open. The audience would still exist on the other side of whatever threshold she was being pushed toward.

A voice near her said something about timing, something about cues, something about being ready, and she tried to attach meaning to it, but the words kept arriving too late, like subtitles out of sync with dialogue. She focused instead on breathing, because breathing was still something she could technically confirm was happening. In and out. In and out. A system she didn’t have to negotiate with. But even that started to feel slightly detached, like it was happening near her rather than inside her.

From somewhere beyond the curtain there was applause again. It didn’t feel like it belonged to her world anymore. It felt like it belonged to people who still had consistent access to themselves. She wondered, distantly, what that must be like. To be fully inside your own life while it was happening.

A curtain shifted.

Someone said her name again, closer this time, like they were trying to bring her back into range. She tried to respond properly. Tried to find the version of herself that was supposed to be here, ready, contained, professional, whatever word people used for being intact in public.

But she’s not there tonight. The fact is, she’s fucked up on medication no one even knows she’s taking.

The backstage corridor felt so congested, everything moved in a delay. Voices came through water. Hands touched her arm and didn’t fully register as contact until after they had already let go. Someone said her name more than once before she realized it was directed at her and not the general atmosphere of panic forming quietly around her.

She was sitting, or maybe she had been sitting and was no longer, it was hard to tell where one state ended and the next began. The dress was already on. Hair fixed. Makeup finished in a way that looked correct under stage lighting and slightly unfamiliar up close, but it belonged to someone she had seen before but didn’t fully recognize as herself. The award show monitor down the hall flickered with rehearsals, applause, other people’s certainty.

There were voices around her that had shifted from instruction to hesitation.

“She’s not—” Someone started.

“She can’t go out like that,” Someone else said, lower.

A hand adjusted something on her shoulder. Another voice asked if she could hear them. She could hear them. She just couldn’t decide what hearing meant anymore. Words arrived, stayed for a moment, then dissolved before they could attach themselves to meaning. Everything felt slightly out of sync with itself, her body had agreed to show up but her awareness had not signed the same contract.

Someone was talking about timing.

Someone else was talking about canceling.

Her name again, more urgent this time. She blinked slowly at the floor as if it might offer instructions. The thing was, no one was really looking at her like she was a person anymore. That was the first thought that came through clearly enough to hurt— a distant, clinical recognition that she had become a variable in a situation that needed to be resolved.

Another mirror caught her reflection when she turned her head slightly. It looked like her. That was the most confusing part. Everything was correct but nothing matched.

Someone said, “We can push it. We can stall—”

Another voice cut in, “No, she’s on next.”

And that was when the room changed shape again. A stage manager appeared at the edge of her vision, speaking carefully, like approaching something that might break or bite or simply stop responding if handled too quickly.

“You’re up in a minute.” … “Do you understand?”

She tried to answer again. The attempt happened somewhere between thought and speech and didn’t fully complete as either. Instead, she nodded, or thought she did, or maybe just moved her head in a way that could be interpreted as agreement.

The corridor tightened around that decision immediately.

Someone stepped closer, checking her posture, adjusting her position like she was something that needed alignment rather than reassurance. There were words about marks on stage, about timing cues, about breathing. None of it landed in sequence. It came in fragments that refused to assemble into instruction.

Then there was the sound of applause from beyond the curtain. Not for her but for whoever had just finished.

A hand touched her back lightly.

“You go when it opens,” Someone said. “Just follow the light.”

The stage manager looked at her for a long moment longer than necessary, like there was still time to reverse something if enough certainty was introduced quickly enough.

There wasn’t.

The curtain up ahead shifted.

And her body, whether she agreed with it or not, began to move.

Michael almost didn’t attend.

The invitation had been sitting on his desk for weeks, accepted more out of obligation than enthusiasm. Industry events had become exercises in endurance lately. Smile when expected. Shake hands. Congratulate people whose names blurred together before the conversation had even ended. He had become remarkably good at appearing present while feeling entirely elsewhere. Lisa sat beside him as the lights dimmed, the auditorium gradually sinking into darkness as conversations softened into scattered murmurs. Applause rippled through the crowd when someone stepped onto the stage to introduce the next act.

Then her name echoed through the theater, carried through the speakers with practiced enthusiasm. Michael felt his stomach tighten before she had even appeared. He hadn’t seen her since the mediation. Not really. Not outside the memories that seemed determined to replay themselves whenever the world became quiet enough for him to hear them. He still heard her voice sometimes with startling clarity, still heard the accusation she had leveled at him across that conference table.

You dont even know if you love her.

It had followed him home. Followed him to bed. Followed him into every quiet moment since. The curtains parted. She stepped into the spotlight. For one fleeting second, she looked exactly as she always had. Beautiful. Poised. Elegant. Untouchable. The kind of performer capable of commanding an arena simply by standing still. Then the music began, and almost immediately something felt wrong.

Not obvious. Not enough that anyone unfamiliar with her would have noticed. The audience certainly didn’t. To them she was mesmerizing. Magnetic. Yet Michael found himself sitting forward almost instantly. She missed a mark by half a step. Barely noticeable. The kind of mistake most people would never catch. But he did. Then she remained still during a transition where choreography should have carried her across the stage. Her eyes drifted beyond the audience for a fraction of a second too long, lingering somewhere far away before she seemed to remember where she was and continued. Even her smile appeared delayed, arriving a beat late before disappearing altogether. Around him, thousands of people watched in complete silence, captivated by what they believed was an extraordinarily emotional performance.

Michael knew better. This wasn’t artistry. This wasn’t a creative choice. Every movement felt detached from her body, it looked like she was remembering the cues rather than inhabiting it. There were moments where she seemed–drunk. This was not a part of the performance. The realization settled heavily in his chest as the song continued, growing more devastating with every passing verse. Her voice never faltered. If anything, it became stronger. But strength wasn’t what made it unbearable. It was the rawness beneath it. The feeling that every note carried something she had never managed to say aloud. For the first time since the divorce meeting, he wasn’t hearing lyrics. He was hearing everything she’d swallowed. Every unanswered phone call. Every night she’d spent waiting. Every apology he had never given her. Every question he’d never truly answered.

By the middle of the performance, unease had settled so deeply beneath his skin that it became impossible to ignore. He shifted forward in his seat without realizing he’d done it. Beside him, Lisa noticed immediately.

“You okay?” she asked quietly. He didn’t answer right away. His eyes remained fixed on the stage. Something was wrong. The sensation crawled through him with growing certainty.

“I’m gonna go backstage for a minute.” Lisa frowned slightly, glancing toward the stage before looking back at him.

“Michael..”

“I’ll be right back.” He was already standing, beneath reason and logic, an older instinct had begun sounding an alarm he couldn’t ignore. He had spent years beside her. Years learning the subtle signs most people never noticed. The shorter breaths. The thousand yard stare. The way she’d lock her knees when she was trying not to collapse. The tiny changes that happened before panic arrived. Before exhaustion arrived. Before she admitted she wasn’t okay. He knew them all. His body recognized them before his mind could fully process what he was seeing.

The applause erupted behind him as he slipped through the auditorium doors. The sound followed him down a maze of unfamiliar hallways lined with security personnel, production staff, equipment cases, and cables taped neatly across the floor. He walked quickly at first, then faster. The muffled sound of the performance echoed through the walls until, somewhere near the dressing room corridor, the music stopped altogether. Then came shouting. Panicked. Urgent. Sharp. The kind of voices people used when something had gone wrong and everyone was trying not to make it worse. Someone yelled for a medic. Another voice shouted for space. Footsteps thundered down the hallway as crew members rushed past carrying equipment, forcing him against the wall. Security began converging toward a dressing room farther ahead. Michael’s stomach dropped instantly. He didn’t think. He started moving faster. Then running. By the time he reached the doorway, a crowd had already formed. Security personnel. Production assistants. Crew members speaking rapidly into radios. Two medics knelt somewhere beyond the bodies he couldn’t see through. He caught only the briefest glimpse of her sequined fabric disappearing beneath someone’s shoulder before another person stepped into his line of sight.

“What happened?” he asked.

Nobody answered.

The hallway was chaos. People moving in every direction. Radios crackling. Equipment being carried inside.

“What happened?” he repeated, louder this time.

A production assistant glanced toward him only long enough to recognize who had spoken.

“She collapsed.”

The words struck him with almost physical force.

“What?”

“She passed out after she came offstage.”

For a moment everything else seemed to disappear. The hallway. The noise. The people. His feet were moving before he’d consciously decided to move.

“I need to see her.” He barely managed three steps before someone intercepted him. Her manager stepped directly into his path firmly enough to make it clear he wasn’t getting through.

“I’m sorry.”

Michael stared at him in disbelief. “I need to see her.”

“I can’t let you in.” The words sounded unreal. His voice cracked despite himself. “Please.”

For the briefest second, sympathy flickered across the other man’s face. Sympathy. Regret. Understanding. Then it vanished. “She doesn’t need this right now.”

The sentence landed harder than anything that had been said during the divorce meeting. Because for years, he had been the first person people called when something went wrong. The first person through the door. The one sitting beside hospital beds. The one holding her hand. The one making decisions. The one people automatically looked toward in a crisis. Now he wasn’t even allowed inside the room. His gaze drifted instinctively past her manager’s shoulder, searching desperately for some glimpse of her through the crowd moving around the doorway. He saw nothing. Only medics. Only crew members. Only a closed circle of people trying to help her. A circle that no longer included him. His hands hung uselessly at his sides. There was nothing to argue. No legal language to hide behind. No compromise to negotiate. No loophole to exploit. The divorce had quietly altered something he hadn’t fully understood until this exact moment. He still possessed every instinct that had once made him her husband. Every urge to protect her. To sit beside her. To make sure she was okay. But instincts and rights were not the same thing. He no longer had the right. After a long moment, his shoulders sagged.

He lowered his eyes. “..Okay.” The word barely escaped him. Then he turned and walked away, each step feeling disconnected from the last. Behind him, the dressing room door remained closed. The people inside continued working.

“Fuck…you take me so—so well baby, such a good fucking girl…” He pushed one leg back, practically forcing you to put it on his shoulder so he could reach deeper—as if possible. “Perfect fucking pussy…love fucking you so much baby…” He panted out, looking down at you with his lip trapped between his perfect teeth. “you take it so good…so good…” A chill ran up his spine, his breathing became uneven and shallow as you turned your head away and gripped the pillows and covers—anything to ground yourself as he fucked you through the mattress.

“Ja—Jaafar! Jaafar ple—please! Please! I can’t—can’t take it! Oh God!” His moans grew louder, something between a grunt and a whimper leaves his mouth as he fucks you harder. Making you see stars. “J-Just…Just like that! Oh Jaafar!” While your mind is too hazy for you to notice, Jaafar does. The jarring—annoying—sound of his phone ringing again. It didn’t even take a second for him to know it was her and he couldn’t care enough to answer. He let it ring as he grabbed your face and forced you to look up at him.

“Keep your eyes on me baby, don’t look away…okay? Don’t look away…hm…” Your whimpers were pretty enough to block out the sound, perfect enough to drown out the thought of her. The way your pretty eyes fluttered and rolled, doing your best to hold eye contact, made his thick length throb inside of you. “Good girl…such a good girl, whos my pretty girl? Hm?” He slowed down just a bit, but rammed into you harder—rendering you breathless and speechless as chills cascaded down from your brain to the very tip of your spine. “Whos my pretty—pretty girl? Hm?” He leaned down and kissed your face, forcing your body in an almost uncomfortable position before you slipped your leg off his shoulder and wrapped them both around his waist. “Whos—Wh-Who’s my pretty…b-baby?”

You whimpered quietly, wrapped your arms around him and dug your nails into his shoulders.

“Fuck…” He cursed lowly and kissed you hard, tongue in your mouth with his eyes closed. His tongue rolled around with yours, hot and wet as he moaned loudly into your mouth in a sloppy and lustful manner. “S-Stick your tongue out for me.” You obeyed without a second thought—let alone a first—and moaned loudly as he licked your tongue before sucking it. He was so lost in the pleasure of fucking you that he almost didn’t hear his phone ring again, but the soind was just too loud. It cut through your voice and makes him groan loudly in irritation as he pulls away. He stops abruptly and kisses your forehead. “I need you to stay quiet, ‘kay?”

Your eyes are glazed over and your pupils are blown wide, you nod your empty head with a fucked out expression that makes him smile. “You can be quiet for me, pretty girl?” You hum and rock your hips, too needy to focus on anything other than the feeling of him deep inside of you and his voice. “Such a needy girl…” Jaafar watched for a moment, allowing it to ring a second longer before covering your mouth with his big hand. Ring discarded as he pressed another kiss against your forehead before answering. “Hello?” He rolls his eyes as she complains, whining in his ear about wanting him and thinking of him all night long. As if anything but pleasing you is on his mind. “I know honey, just wait okay? They need me to stay a little later, honestly, I don’t know when I’ll be back home…”

As he looked down at you he swore he could’ve hung up on her right there without even the slightest care. You looked so pretty, batting your pretty eyes—lashes clumpy with tears—as you tried to satisfy the urge he had left you with. Grinding your hips against him for even the slightest bit of friction. “I’ll call you back when I’m all done, okay?” She had said something, maybe sighed a desperate moan in his ear or a plea for his touch. Jaafar didn’t care. His focus was completely on you and how pretty you looked silently begging for him. “Love you, bye.” Before she could even respond he hung up, tossing his phone aside as he smiled at you—big and wide showing off his perfect, pearly whites. “So cute…all needy for daddy to fuck you…” his voice is so much softer, so genuine and so full of passion. “Did I make you wait too long? Hm?” He asks with a pout, mimicking you as you nod. “I knoooww baby, I know…I’m sorry…” He cooed as he began rocking back and forth, fucking you with long, deep and slow strokes. “Daddy’s sorry baby…no more distracts, mhm’kay?”

Your voice breaks into a beautiful sob, between a moan and a cry for him as you pout. “just…just gonna—gonna focus-fuck…focus on you…only you baby, just you.” As he spoke he went faster, already getting close again as your voice grows louder. Your walls flutter around him and your legs tremble around his waist.

“Ja-Jaafar…feels—oh God! It feels so good feels so good!” Your words slur together, blinded by the pleasure of his dick hitting that soft spongy spot over and over again. Your words turn into a slur of praises and pleading, spouting his name in between a mixture of moans and gasps for air.

“That’s right baby…it’s all for you…just for you baby…just—haaa—fuck…” His voice cracks as the muscles in his stomach tighten, “just for you…mhmm…” he whispered as he began drilling into you with enough force to rock the entire bed. He was so close, the frantic beating inside of you—the pulsing of your walls as you clenched down on him, was making it impossible to breathe. He slipped a hand down between your body’s and began rubbing messy circles against your clit, applying enough pressure to make your eyes roll back to your skull as he fucked you as deep as he possibly could. He was turning your brain into mush-, complete stew as you pushed against his shoulder and shook your head. “Cum for me baby…be-be a good girl…show me just how much you love it…how-haa…how much you—Oh God…mmhmmm, oh fuck…” his words turned into loud panting as he closed his eyes, fucking you wildly as he quietly moaned, grunting as you tightened even more around him. Your voice pushed him over the edge, feeling you cumming around him as you whimpered his name loudly and clung to him.

“Jaafar! Jaafar!” You cried out. He buried his face in the side of your neck and called out your name as he stilled his hips and came deep inside of you. Filling you so much that it dribbles out, flooding you completely with the hot and sticky substance.

“F-Fuck! S-So good…so-Haa…haaa…” Both your bodies are spent, he pumps just a few more times before slowly and carefully pulling out, watching your eyes flutter closed as you settle into the buzzing feeling. As he slowly comes down a warm feeling spreads in his chest, blooming inside of him as he smiles and strokes your face. “You did such a good job for me, love.” He kissed your eyelids, stroking your cheek as a weak smile spreading across your face. “Did you enjoy yourself?” You nodded, too tired to speak. “That’s good baby, get some rest. I’ll clean you up, okay? Just lay here for me.” His next goal was to make sure you were okay, after care being a top priority after making you feel good.

“Jaafar…” You whined when he left the bed, pouting as you opened your eyes and looked at him. “You aren’t leaving tonight, right?” His smile grew, sweat still beading on his forehead as he chuckled and slipped on a robe.

“Of course not, I’ll stay for as long as you need me.” The last thing on his mind was getting back home to her with you looking so pretty and so sleepy after he made you feel that good.