Stuck in the Upside Down

when you left for work this morning, it was snowing, but not nearly as much as it is now that you’re walking to your car, about to go home.

you’re practically blown away by the wind the second you walk out of your office building, no doubt from the blizzard that started just a few hours ago, and you’re already ankle deep in snow as you get out onto the street.

just as you’re about to turn the corner and finally get to your area of the parking garage, you see it. a small cardboard box just… sitting against the concrete wall. and, over the sounds of the wind thrashing in your ears, you hear the tiniest little meow.

immediately, you run over to find a small orange kitten staring up at you from the box, looking like sunshine but shivering as it’s wriggled its way out of the blankets it was wrapped in.

“oh, oh no!” you gasp, kneeling down to get to the kitten’s level, seeing its obvious distress. “awh, poor baby…”

frowning, you lift it into your arms. it’s so tiny, you can tell barely a month old. you know you need to take it home, who else will take care of it?

“okay, you’re coming home with me, kitty!” you decide triumphantly. you start to carry it to your car, but then you remember your boyfriend, jack, isn’t as easy as you are. you have no idea how he’ll react, but you decide you’ll just see when you get home.

the sky is dark now as you step out of your car, and jack is surprisingly home for once, his lucky day off. you walk into the house and kick your shoes off, calling out, “love, i’m home!” and making no mention of the tiny bundle of fur in your arms.

“in here, babe!” jack calls out from the living room, where he usually waits for you to get home.

you walk into the room to greet him and he gets up from the couch to meet you in the middle, kissing your cheek before noticing the blankets you have balled up in your arms. “what’s this, honey?

“you have to promise you won’t get mad, okay?” you hold out your free hand for him, already intending to make him pinky promise.

apprehensively, he agrees, “alright, what is it?” wc stops here

you unwrap the blankets to reveal the small, auburn-colored kitten in your arms, already noticing the surprised look on his face. “you promised you wouldn’t get mad!”

“i’m not mad, im just…” he sighs, “love, what is this? where did it even come from?”

“i found her outside my office! in the parking garage, someone just left her there!” you look so sad when you say it, devastated by the idea that someone could do such a thing. “there’s a storm out there, jack! i couldn’t just let her freeze! she looked so cold, oh, poor thing…” you coo at her while she just stares up at you with wide eyes. you think she’s the most adorable thing.

jack thinks otherwise, though. “look, i get it, but we can’t keep it. you know that. with the holidays coming up and everything… do you even know how much it would cost to take it to the vet?” 

desperately, you answer, “i know! i’ll pay for it! i’ll get my bonus in a few weeks, you know i’ll pay it all back. please, jack, she needs a home. look how tiny she is!”

the kitten just stares up at him and gives a pathetic little meow, practically begging him to give in.

he sighs again and rubs a hand over his face, “just… for now. we’ll take her in for a night or two and see how it goes.”

you squeal and hug him, “oh, thank you! i knew you’d give in, you’re the best! come on, i wanna give it a warm bath…”

he smiles softly and shakes his head, watching you run towards the bathroom, and follows you in there. he can’t deny you anything, really.

once the bath is done, jack presses you to get in yourself. “i know you’ve had a long day, love, and you were freezing when you walked in. the cat’s fine, its asleep in the living room.”

you frown, “i know, but i’m worried about it. what if it gets hurt while i’m in there?”

he gently wraps his arms around your waist, “i’ll watch over it. you just take care of yourself for now, alright?”

it doesn’t take long for you to give in, you’re exhausted. “alright, just… make sure the cat is fine.”

with a kiss on the cheek and an encouraging smile, he sends you off, “i will, i will. go shower, i promise it’s okay.”

an hour later, you return to the living room in a pair of his sweatpants and one of his old t-shirts from his military days; both of which are too big for you, but it’s not like you mind.

you’re surprised to find that he isn’t in there anymore, and you hear quiet murmuring from the kitchen instead.

following the sound, you walk in there to find him knelt down in the corner, feeding the kitten out of his hand and quietly cooing at it, “good girl! you’re hungry, aren’t you? that’s good…”

you giggle and walk over to him, “are you playing, tough mr. abbot?” kneeling down next to him to watch the kitten eat.

jack shrugs, “not playing, just… y’know, she needed to be fed, so i ordered some food to the house.” but he’s petting her while he says it.

“i think we should name her paprika,” he muses, prompting you to laugh.

“paprika? why’s that?”

he’s still just watching her, “because of her color. it’s a cute name, i don’t know.”

you suddenly grin, realizing he’s already trying to name her. “oh, so we’re naming her now? does that mean we can keep her?”

“no, no, no. don’t start getting ideas. i just meant… if we were to keep her.” he’s defensive, but you can tell he’s really starting to consider it.

smiling, you kiss his cheek, “sure, sure. we’ll just see about that.” you let the cat settle into your lap, “i’m tired from work, honestly all i really want is to lay down on the couch… it’s not too bad if we just let her roam for a bit, right?”

he softens, “no, of course not. let’s go relax, she’ll be alright.”

with that, the two of you walk back to the couch, settling in with your head in his lap while he picks some shitty movie for you to watch. it’s not long until you drift off, exhausted from the day and the warmth of his skin on yours.

a few hours later, you wake again, rubbing the sleep from your eyes and murmuring, “sorry, babe, did i fall asleep on you…?”

there’s no answer, though. you open your eyes and look up at him to find him asleep as well, but now with the cat safely curled up against his arm. he fell asleep petting her.

“Don’t forget, Cassie’s birthday is Friday and we said we’d go,” you remind him, and it takes him a second to digest the information because the way you said ‘we’ makes him feel a little dizzy with affection for you.

“How old is she again?” He asks, racking his brain for which one of your friends you’re talking about. You seem to exist in the liminal space of friendships that plagues all recent college graduates. There are your friends from childhood, from your years in college, your neighbors, and work friends from your first ‘real’ job who range in age from twenty one, like you, to almost sixty. So you can’t blame Jaafar for struggling to keep it all straight, to keep names connected to ages and faces of people he barely knows.

“She’s turning twenty three,” you say, glancing down at your phone as a text comes through, “she’s the oldest out of that little group, from that apartment I used to live in.”

You’re still looking down, responding to your text with rapid typing, so you don’t realize the hesitation that flashes in Jaafar’s eyes. Your comment was just a throwaway, a statement to provide context to who Cassie is, and yet, it seems to start Jaafar on a downward, internal spiral.

He knows, in the grand scheme of things, that he’s not old. He hasn’t even turned thirty yet, he’s got his whole life in front of him. And while the gap between you isn’t so severe, sometimes it hits him just how young you are.

Most of the time, it’s never anything major. He’ll ask if you’ve seen a childhood show and you’d shake your head, and he’d remember how it had gone off the air before you were born. He’ll make an outdated pop culture reference, and you’ll look at him blankly because when it was popular on the internet, you were playing with dolls.

“You’re makin’ me feel old,” he’ll tease sometimes, as you get ready for a night out with your friends or you make a reference he doesn’t quite understand.

“But you’re my baby,” you tell him in a sugary sweet voice that makes everything else fade away, “‘my pretty boy.” And he’d grin all boyishly, doe-eyed with affection for you, and the moment passes into something all sweet and soft.

And Jaafar always feels lucky to have you by his side, like you’re the greatest gift the universe has ever given him. The two of you met over a year ago, a few weeks after your twentieth birthday. He’d been enamoured with you from the get go, and things between you just seemed to click. At the start of your second date, you were absolutely certain that Jaafar was your soulmate.

To you, the difference in your ages wasn’t a factor in any way, it didn’t draw you to him or push you away. You made a teasing comment every once in a while, just to see Jaafar get all flustered, but that was the extent of it to you.

And while Jaafar didn’t disagree, and he’d been absolutely smitten with you from the moment you said hello, sometimes he managed to get in his own head about how much younger you were. 

It wasn’t because he didn’t love you, body and soul, or that he found you immature or somehow lacking. He just didn’t want you to waste your youth on him, to spend your early twenties tethered to someone almost a decade older than you, for you to live to regret your time together. It certainly didn’t help that he trended towards introversion on the best of days, never wanting you to feel forced to stay in with him when you could be out at a bar or a club having the time of your life.

And it wasn’t as if he was overly clingy or controlling either. You still went out with your friends when you felt like it, Jaafar watching you get ready with a fondness in his eyes, telling you to call him when you needed to come home and kissing you before you went out the door. You always did call him, and he always arrived with a fond, sleepy smile.

Often, though, you preferred to stay in, the thought of socializing any more after the work week was done feeling the pure torture most of the time. As much as you enjoyed going out with your friends, a calmer night was just as fun to you.

It didn’t seem to click for him that you wouldn’t have the time of your life if he wasn’t right by your side.

Those doubts weren’t constant, and a majority of your time together the age gap never seemed to cross his mind. It certainly helped that you seemed perfectly content to constantly heap affection on him. You know he gets all shy whenever you remind him just how incredibly attractive he was, and that was part of the draw for you, watching the way he struggled to make eye contact as you continually showered him with compliments. 

And it wasn’t only that he was unfairly good looking. Jaafar’s caring and sweet and funny, he’d move heaven and earth for you. He loves you in ways you never thought possible, so the years between you never seem to cross your mind.

Most of the time, when you catch him making comments about his age that he thinks you won’t take to heart, you’re able to remind him just how much you love him. You’ll list your favorite things about him until he’s giggling and pushing you away, all of the negative thoughts dispelled and replaced with affection, with desire, with need.

No matter how often you assuage his fears, though, they always seem to reappear.

For the rest of the week, Jaafar seems weighed down by insecurities. As much as he wants to tell you about it, he doesn’t want you to feel like you’d done something wrong or that you’d made him feel less than. At the end of the day, it was all in his own head, and he knew that. Still, that knowledge didn’t always make him feel better.

Even your own birthday a few months earlier hadn’t sent him into such a spiral. Sure, he had plenty of other things to focus on with planning and making sure everything went smoothly, and after that, all he was focused on was you and ensuring that you had the best time possible. A day centered around how old you are, and the gap between you didn’t cross his mind once.

Now, though, it’s all he can seem to think about. You can tell something’s bothering him, because of course you do, you know him better than he knows himself sometimes. It’s like a pressure nagging at the back of your head, something you can’t seem to ignore but something you can’t really address either. You decide to let it play out, knowing that Jaafar would come to you when he’s ready.

Or that it would all tumble out in the middle of your friend’s birthday.

Your friend, always extravagant, had decided that everyone needed to wear her favorite color for her party, so everyone got dressed up in various shades of pink and her apartment looked like a bubblegum factory explosion. You were dressed in something simple and silky, long enough to avoid any outfit mishaps while dancing even as it accentuated your features.

You looked good, and better yet, you felt good, holding yourself in a way that seemed to radiate confidence and Jaafar felt overjoyed to be by your side. And it certainly helped that you only had eyes for him, pressing yourself against his side as you found a relatively empty area to stand and talk with your friends. 

With the noise levels constantly increasing as guests continued to arrive, Jaafar couldn’t hear a word you said even as you talked right beside him. You were in the middle of telling some of your friends, a pair of girls who lived in the same dorm as you during your freshman year of college that you barely got to see anymore, about the trip you and Jaafar were planning. 

Positively gushing about it, you went on and on about the hotel he’d found, and how you were planning on buying the two of you matching swimsuits from a website you’d found. As always, you couldn’t seem to stop raving about him, even when he was right beside you. It was just as easy as breathing, the praise spilling from your lips for the man you loved more than anything. You could talk for hours if it meant talking about him, or talking to him, and really, you were just perfectly content to think about him.

Here, you seemed to be in your element. You were laughing and talking with all of your friends, accepting every shot glass pushed into your hand or red solo cup passed your way. Beside you, Jaafar felt out of place, even with his hand resting on your hip. You loved the feeling of his warm, solid body beside you, the constant reminder of his presence.

But then he’d whispered something about needing some air for a second, before slipping away. When he didn’t return as soon as you’d expected, worry cleaved through you and you weren’t able to focus on anything besides Jaafar, embarking on a mission to find him and bring him back to your side.

It didn’t take long, pushing through the small, crowded apartment until you found him on the little balcony, elbows resting on the guardrail as he looked over the city. You felt yourself flood with relief, before you took in his hunched stance and the tension in his shoulders. Sliding the door shut behind you, the sounds of the party fade away.

“Hey,” you say softly, ears still ringing from the room you’d just left, the thumping music muffled by the closed door.

“Hey,” Jaafar looks at you over his shoulder before turning back towards the city skyline.

“You wanna go?” You ask as you cross over to him, leaning beside him and pressing your arm against his. “I don’t think Cassie would notice if we slipped away.”

“Not if you’re having fun.” Even wrapped up in his own head, Jaafar thinks of you first. You and your happiness are always his priority, no matter what. 

“I barely ever have fun without you,” you lean into him farther, and just as you’d hoped, he straightens up to wrap his arms around you. You let out a contented little noise, and Jaafar smiles softly as he rests his head atop of yours.

The silence that washes over you isn’t tense, exactly, but you’re waiting for Jaafar to speak. You know something’s been bothering him, and you’re hoping that he’s finally going to get it off his chest. You don’t want to have to pry it out of him, but you will if you have to. His burdens are yours, just as the same is true for him with you.

“I think I’m the oldest person in there,” he says quietly, as if he doesn’t quite want to speak those words out loud. It’s like he’s worried that you hadn’t noticed, that if he brings it to your attention it’s going to ruin everything.

Instead, you just scoff, as if he’s talking crazy.

“So what?” You ask, failing to see how that could possibly be a problem.

“I’m older than you,” he adds, like it’s such a big deal, like the realization has never hit you before.

“By a few years,” you counter, finally turning in his hold to face him. You look at him the way you always have, with love and fierce adoration for everything he is.

“Eight and a half years,” he retorts, and you roll your eyes, a smile playing on your lips at the same time.

“I refer you to my earlier question,” you say lightly, “so what?”

“Doesn’t it ever bother you?” Jaafar asks the question like he’s afraid of the answer. You simply stare up at him, blinking as you formulate your answer, and he practically squirms under the force of your gaze.

“It bothers me that you were too old to watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse when it came out, since I can quote episodes from memory,” you tease, “and that you don’t understand all of my awesome references to Disney Channel shows and shitty teen movies from 2016.”

You settle your hands on his chest, feeling his heart beating beneath your palm. For the most part, his worries have dissipated, the residual anxiety leaving him feeling exhausted for no reason. Deep down, he always knew what your answer would be, but he’d managed to convince himself otherwise.

“Well, you don’t get my references either,” he jokes, finally cracking a smile that makes his whole face light up. You resist the urge to press your palms to his cheeks, to squeeze his face together the way you would to a baby because you’re simply overwhelmed with affection.

“That’s because you're old and your jokes are outdated,” you tease, and Jaafar stares at you in shocked silence for a moment before the laughter takes over, and he’s practically doubled-over on top of you.

“You’re so mean to me,” he says after he controls his laughter, with so much softness in his words they have no bite.

“Alright, I’ll make it up to you.” You clear your throat aggressively, and Jaafar rolls his eyes. “I think you’re super sweet, and very attractive, and you’re the nicest boy ever. And you’re really talented, and you’re pretty alright at cooking. And you’re super sexy, I mean wow, am I lucky or what?.”

Jaafar gets bashful then, even though it’s just the two of you. He looks like he wants to hide his face, even as he smiles down at you.

“Alright, you can stop, you’ve made your point.” He squeezes your hips in another bid to get you to stop, but you don’t relent.

“Nope, I’ve gotta make my point.” You press yourself closer to him, crowding into his space even more so he couldn’t possibly hide from you and your unending compliments. “I mean seriously, have you seen yourself? It’s a miracle I can get anything done, I just wanna sit around and stare at you all day.”

“Are you done?” Jaafar asks as you slide your hands up from his chest to loop around his neck.

“And you take such good care of me,” your voice gets soft, gently before it grows silky smooth, “really, really good care of me.”

Slowly, Jaafar wets his bottom lip with his tongue, and you watch the motion with unwavering attention. He’s not sure what to do with himself, torn between wanting to kiss you and wanting to bury his face in his hands and hide away.

You decide for him, leaning up to kiss him softly. It’s all loving affection, even though there’s a heat and a keen sense of desire beneath it, because really your goal was just to remind him that there’s nowhere else you’d rather be.

“Wanna go, or wanna get back inside?” You ask as you pull back, moving to rest your hands on either side of his face, thumbs moving in gentle arches along his cheeks.

“Let’s stay,” he says, turning his face to kiss the inside of your wrist. The gesture flusters you, and Jaafar can tell. It makes him grin, even as you shake your head at him.

“You’re trouble, baby,” you tease, and Jaafar laughs softly, dipping down to press a kiss to your forehead.

For the rest of the night, Jaafar stays glued to your side, watching you in your element with your friends and feeling like the luckiest person in the world. You have the same thought whenever you feel his palm at your waist or when he dips to kiss the top of your head, just because he can, because he’s got the most perfect girl in the universe by his side and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t show it.

babe this request was perfecttttttttt <3 literally so me, i turn 21 in like 3 weeks hehehe this was right up my alley!! if you want any more of these two (maybe something smutty perhaps or litterally anything) let me know, this was so fun to write <3

Somehow, Paris managed to wander off, the game of tag long abandoned in her eyes as she stood at the gates that separated the home from the outside world. There stood a dog, growling, its teeth bared, its tail stiff, showing that it was clearly not friendly and not wanting to play, its body leaning forward on stiff legs, trying to make itself look bigger than it really was.

“Paris! Get back!” you yelled, spotting the heated, one-sided rivalry between the dog and your younger sister as you gently pushed her back, getting between her and the dog.

Michael was seemingly in his own world, basking in the sun's rays before your tiny yells snapped him out of his thoughts, his heart sinking, his chest tightening as he leaped from his seat, nearly knocking the chair over.

“Angel, what are you doing? That's dangerous!” He scooped you into his arms, his heart rate through the roof as he held you, bouncing you lightly on his hip.

“I wanted to help Paris, to protect her,” you pouted, looking down at the grass.

“I know, and I'm very proud that you have such a big heart and you care for your siblings.” He pointed right at your heart, making you giggle.

“But next time, come to me, okay?” he started, the worry disappearing slowly from his face. “You could've gotten very hurt.” He used his usual sweet tone when he tried to scold you without making you cry.

“But Dad, I'm a big girl,” you whined, playfully wiggling out of his grasp as you laughed.

"Sure, you're my oldest, but you're still so small," he cooed, tickling your sides, as you let out another fit of laughter.

“I still remember when you were so tiny,” he watched as you squirmed, before placing you back down.

Paris had long discarded the conversation, running off to play with her other siblings.

“Alright, let's get you guys cleaned up,” he spoke, watching as you gripped onto his rough, calloused fingers, Prince still running around like his energy was completely unlimited, Paris running to tug on his pant legs.

"Come on, Prince, stop running around!”

©angelfacediary

The first thing you need to understand about wanting Jack Abbott to love you is that he was never really there to want you back.

Not in the way that matters.

Not in the way that leaves fingerprints.

He was there in photographs, standing beside your mother at your baptism in dress blues, jaw tight, eyes forward, looking more like someone assigned to guard the room than someone celebrating a new baby. He was there at Christmas some years, filling doorways and making everyone speak a little softer, like his presence required people to behave. He was there for your sixth birthday, technically, though he left before cake because something came up.

Something always came up.

But he was never there when you needed him.

You spent your childhood waiting for Jack the way some kids waited for snow days. With unreasonable hope. With your face pressed to the window when his truck pulled into the driveway. With stories rehearsed in your head because maybe this time you’d say the right thing and he’d stay in the room long enough to hear you.

He never did.

Your mother called you her miracle. Your father called you his surprise.

Jack called you nothing at all.

Somehow, that felt worse than any name he could’ve chosen.

You were six the first time you tried to make him see you.

You drew him a picture with crayons and construction paper, the kind of lopsided thing only a child could believe was beautiful. Two stick figures stood in front of a house with a crooked roof. One was tall, one was small. They were holding hands.

“That’s you,” you told him, pointing to the tall figure. You’d given him yellow hair even though Jack’s was more brown than blond. “And that’s me. We’re at home.”

Jack looked at the picture for a long time.

Long enough for hope to start blooming in your chest.

Then he folded it in half. Then in half again. He tucked it into the side pocket of his duffel bag without a word.

You told yourself that meant he loved it.

That night, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling, you imagined him looking at it when he was far away. You imagined him missing you.

That was the first lie you ever told yourself about Jack Abbott.

It wouldn’t be the last.

When you were eight, he taught you a card trick.

It was summer. The air was thick, the porch boards were warm under your bare feet, and lightning bugs blinked in the yard like tiny signals. Jack had been home for three days. In two more, he’d be gone again.

He sat on the porch steps, shuffling a deck of cards with the kind of focus that made everything he did look serious.

You watched him through the screen door for almost twenty minutes before you got brave enough to push it open.

“Can you teach me?”

Your voice came out smaller than you wanted it to.

Jack’s hands stilled. He looked up at you, and for one horrible second you thought he was going to tell you to go inside.

Instead, he said, “Sit.”

You sat so fast you almost missed the step.

He taught you a false shuffle. Nothing fancy. Just a way to make the deck look mixed while keeping the cards exactly where you wanted them.

“You have to commit,” he said, showing you again. “If you hesitate, everyone sees it.”

Your hands were too small. The cards kept slipping. They scattered across the porch again and again, and every time, your stomach clenched because you were sure he’d get tired of you.

But Jack didn’t sigh. He didn’t snap.

He just gathered the cards, placed them back in your hands, and said, “Again.”

You lived on that word for months.

Again.

Like he believed you could get it right.

By the end of the hour, you could do it badly enough that it almost looked real.

“Not bad,” he said.

Something in your chest lit up so fast it hurt.

You grinned at him. “I’m like you.”

His face changed.

Not enough that anyone else would’ve noticed. But you noticed. You noticed everything about Jack.

A door closed behind his eyes.

“You should go in,” he said. “It’s late.”

He left the deck on the porch.

You told yourself he’d meant to.

Another lie.

You were ten when Jack finally said the thing you were afraid he’d been thinking.

It was raining hard enough to make the windows shake. You were sitting at the kitchen table, crying over fractions because the numbers wouldn’t make sense, no matter how long you stared at them.

Your mother sat beside you with one hand on your shoulder.

Your father stood at the stove, pretending to make tea because that was what he did when feelings got too large. He became useful.

Jack leaned against the counter in his jacket, fresh off a hospital shift, quiet in that way that made quiet feel dangerous.

“I don’t understand,” you sobbed. “I don’t understand why I can’t do this.”

“You can,” your mother said. “You’re just worked up, sweetheart.”

“I’m stupid.”

“You’re not stupid,” your father said automatically, still not turning around.

“She’s ten,” Jack said.

The room went still.

You looked up at him through tears.

“She’s ten years old and having a breakdown over fractions,” he said, voice flat and clinical. “You two keep calling her a miracle like that makes it true.”

“Jack,” your mother said.

He didn’t stop.

“She wasn’t a miracle,” Jack said. “She was a mistake you dressed up in pretty words because you didn’t want to admit what she actually was.”

The world didn’t end.

That was the part you remembered most clearly.

The rain kept hitting the windows. The kitchen light kept buzzing. The kettle started to scream on the stove.

Your father turned it off.

He didn’t say anything.

That was what broke you.

Not just Jack’s words, though those tore through you clean. It was your father’s silence. The way he stood there holding the kettle and looking at the floor.

He didn’t say, “That’s not true.”

He didn’t say, “Don’t talk to her like that.”

He didn’t say, “She belongs here.”

Your mother’s hand tightened on your shoulder.

“Get out,” she said.

Jack left.

The door clicked shut behind him, quiet and final.

You stared at the fractions until they blurred.

“Dad,” you whispered. “Did he mean it?”

Your father opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“You were a surprise,” he said finally. “But never a mistake.”

He said it too late.

And he said it to the floor.

After that, you became very good at being easy to love.

You got straight A’s. You joined clubs. You volunteered at the hospital and pushed gurneys and restocked gloves and watched doctors move like they knew what they were for.

You wanted that.

Purpose.

Certainty.

A reason no one could regret you.

If you were a mistake, maybe you could become a useful one. Maybe you could save enough people to justify the space you took up.

By sixteen, you knew you were going to be a doctor.

You told yourself it wasn’t because of Jack.

You lied.

You applied to college under the name Hale.

Your mother’s maiden name.

Your father looked hurt when you told him, which made guilt twist hard in your stomach, which made you angry because you were tired of carrying everyone else’s feelings about your existence.

“Why?” he asked.

“Because I want to,” you said.

What you meant was, “Because every time someone calls me Abbott, I hear Jack calling me a mistake.”

Your mother understood.

She didn’t try to talk you out of it. She just hugged you for a long time and cried into your hair.

You became Dr. Hale in your head before you ever became Dr. Hale on paper.

It felt like building a door between yourself and every room Jack had ever walked out of.

Medical school stripped you down to the bones.

You could handle the academics. You could handle anatomy practicals, overnight studying, and the awful intimacy of learning what the body looked like when it stopped being a person and became a lesson.

What you couldn’t handle was the quiet.

The way failure sounded like Jack.

The way every missed answer became mistake.

The way every attending’s correction felt like proof.

You started therapy your second year after a panic attack in the middle of a gross anatomy practical.

Your therapist, Dr. Reeves, asked about your family in the first session.

“No,” you said.

She waited.

You lasted fifteen minutes.

“I have a brother,” you said. “He’s twenty years older than me. He’s a trauma surgeon. He told me I was a mistake when I was ten, and I’ve been trying to prove him wrong ever since.”

Dr. Reeves looked at you for a long moment.

“How’s that working out?”

You laughed because the alternative was crying.

“I’m in medical school.”

“That wasn’t what I asked.”

You didn’t answer.

Because you didn’t know how.

You met Mara during your third year.

She was a nurse practitioner with dark hair, darker eyes, and a laugh that made you feel like the room had opened a window. She liked you without making you earn it, which made you suspicious at first.

Then it made you fall in love.

Mara knew about Jack. You told her one night after too much wine, the whole story spilling out of you in pieces.

When you finished, she said, “He sounds like an asshole.”

You laughed so hard you cried.

She stayed for almost two years.

Then she left in an Ikea parking lot while holding a box of wine glasses you’d picked out together.

“I love you,” she said, eyes wet. “But I can’t compete with a ghost.”

“He’s not a ghost.”

“Then why does he take up so much room?”

You didn’t have an answer.

After she left, you threw the wine glasses away without opening the box.

You matched at Pittsburgh Trauma Medical Center for emergency medicine.

The Pitt.

The ER everyone talked about like it was a living thing with teeth.

You told yourself you chose it because it was a good program. Because it would make you sharp. Because the patient volume was unmatched and the trauma exposure was exactly what you needed.

You didn’t let yourself think about Jack working there.

You didn’t let yourself think about how he’d been an attending in the trauma department for years.

Your mother asked if you were sure.

“I’m sure.”

“You don’t have to do this because of him.”

“I’m not.”

She looked at you like she loved you too much to call you a liar.

You were grateful for that.

The night before your first shift, you sat in your car outside your new apartment, a one-bedroom above a bakery with a yellow kitchen you’d painted yourself because you wanted something bright.

Something that didn’t feel like the house you grew up in.

You played “Willing and Able” on repeat until the song stopped feeling like music and started feeling like a diagnosis.

You’d been willing your whole life.

Willing to be loved.

Willing to be seen.

Willing to be enough.

You didn’t know if Jack would ever be able.

You didn’t know if you’d survive finding out he wasn’t.

Finally, you turned off the car and went inside.

The kitchen still smelled like paint.

You slept on the floor because your bed hadn’t been delivered yet.

Your first shift at the Pitt started with Dana Evans handing you a tablet and a look that could’ve sedated a lesser resident.

Dana was the charge nurse, which meant she ran the ER more than anyone with an office would ever admit. She knew every bed, every nurse, every patient, and every disaster before it had fully formed.

“You’re Hale,” she said.

“Yes.”

“Emergency medicine intern?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Try not to make me regret learning your name.”

You blinked.

Dana pointed across the nurses’ station. “Robby’s over there. Chief of Emergency Medicine. If he tells you to move, move. If I tell you to move faster, listen to me instead.”

Dr. Michael “Robby” Robinavitch stood near the trauma board, already surrounded by three people asking him three different questions. He looked tired in a permanent way, but his voice stayed even as he sorted through all of it.

Beside him, Dr. Melissa King, a resident everyone called Mel, was explaining a medication interaction to a nurse with careful precision. She spoke fast, then caught herself, then repeated it more slowly, like she was translating her own brain for the room.

Near the supply carts, Dr. Trinity Santos was arguing with a printer.

Not metaphorically.

Actually arguing.

“You are a medical device in a hospital,” Trinity snapped, slapping the side panel. “Act like you’ve seen urgency before.”

Dana sighed. “That’s Santos. Resident. Smart. Loud. Usually right, which is very annoying.”

A young doctor with anxious eyes and a badge that looked too new hurried past carrying three urine cups and a stack of discharge papers.

“That’s Dennis Whitaker,” Dana continued. “First-year resident. Farm boy. Good heart. Questionable survival instincts.”

Dennis almost walked into a curtain.

Dana didn’t even blink. “See?”

You laughed before you could stop yourself.

Then you heard Jack’s voice.

“Need CT results on bed six. Someone call ortho about the tib-fib in three.”

Your body knew him before your mind caught up.

You looked over.

Jack stood ten feet away in navy scrubs, older than the version lodged in your childhood but still unmistakably himself. Gray at his temples. Same controlled expression. Same way of taking up space like the room had already made room for him.

He turned.

Saw you.

For one second, something flickered across his face.

Then it was gone.

“Morning,” he said.

Not “What are you doing here?”

Not “You matched here?”

Not “It’s good to see you.”

Just morning.

Like you were any other resident.

Like you were no one.

“Morning, Dr. Abbott,” you said.

His jaw tightened.

Then he walked past you.

Dana looked between you and Jack, eyes narrowing slightly.

You logged into the computer before she could ask anything.

For three weeks, you and Jack became very good at being strangers.

Professional strangers.

Polite strangers.

The kind of strangers who could stand on opposite sides of the same trauma bay and pass instruments without touching fingers.

The kind who could discuss a patient’s collapsed lung, blood pressure, and airway with perfect focus, then turn away without asking how the other slept.

Robby noticed. Of course he did.

Robby noticed everything.

“You and Abbott got history?” he asked one night while you were restocking suture kits.

You didn’t look up. “Everyone has history.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I’ve got.”

Robby studied you for a second, then nodded like he knew better than to pry in the middle of a shift.

Across the room, Trinity watched the exchange with open curiosity.

“What was that?” she asked when Robby walked away.

“What was what?”

“That thing where Robby asked one question and you answered like a locked filing cabinet.”

“I’m private.”

“You’re weird.”

“You’re rude.”

“I’m efficient.”

Despite yourself, you smiled.

Trinity saw it and looked satisfied, like she’d won something.

Everything changed because of a seven-year-old named Theo.

He came in crying, clutching a towel to his forehead, his mother pale and apologizing to everyone she passed. Playground accident. Scalp laceration. Needed staples.

You got the chart.

Jack supervised because the ER had fallen into one of its brief, suspicious quiet spells, and attendings got restless when there wasn’t enough chaos.

Theo didn’t want anyone touching him.

“I don’t want staples,” he cried. “I don’t want the thing. I saw the thing.”

You crouched so you were level with him.

“I get that,” you said. “The thing looks scary.”

Jack stood by the doorway, arms crossed, watching.

You ignored him.

“But I’m going to tell you everything before I do it,” you told Theo. “No surprises. You get to ask questions, and I’ll answer them.”

Theo sniffled. “Will it hurt?”

“A little. Like a hard pinch. But it’ll be fast.”

“I don’t want to be brave.”

“You don’t have to feel brave,” you said. “You just have to let me help you while you’re scared.”

His lip trembled.

You reached for a piece of scrap paper from the counter and folded it while the nurse set up. Your fingers moved on instinct, creasing, tucking, shaping until a tiny paper star sat in your palm.

“My mom taught me these during storms,” you said. “You make a wish on them.”

Theo took it carefully.

“Does it work?”

“Sometimes,” you said. “If you believe hard enough.”

He held the star through the staples.

When it was over, he looked shocked to still be alive.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

He touched the paper star like it had done the work.

After he left, you cleaned the room slowly, giving yourself something to do with your hands.

Jack appeared in the doorway.

“You’re good with kids,” he said.

You froze.

It was such a small thing.

A normal compliment.

A thing an attending might say to any resident after a good patient interaction.

But from Jack, it landed somewhere old and bruised.

“Thanks,” you said.

“The paper stars,” he said. “You still make them.”

You turned to face him.

His expression was softer than you were used to. Almost careful.

“Mom used to make those,” he said. “During storms. She’d sit with me until I calmed down.”

“I know.”

“You know?”

“She told me. That’s why she taught me.”

Jack looked down.

You hated that it hurt him. You hated more that you cared.

“They’re just paper,” you said.

“No,” Jack said quietly. “They’re not.”

Something inside you snapped.

“You don’t know anything about me.”

He looked up. “What?”

“You don’t know anything about me,” you repeated. “You don’t know that I’m good with kids. You don’t know that I make paper stars. You don’t know why I do anything.”

“I was trying to say you did well.”

“And I’m saying you don’t get to sound surprised.”

Jack flinched.

Good, you thought.

Then immediately hated yourself for thinking it.

You walked past him before either of you could say anything else.

You avoided him for two days.

It was difficult in an ER where everyone lived on top of each other. You timed your breaks around his. You traded procedures with Dennis, who looked so grateful for the extra experience that you almost felt guilty.

Almost.

Then, just after midnight on a slow night, you walked into the break room and found Jack pouring coffee.

He looked up.

“I can go,” he said.

“It’s fine.”

You moved to the vending machine and bought crackers you didn’t want.

Jack stayed by the coffee maker.

For a while, neither of you spoke.

Then he said, “I was angry when you were born.”

Your hands went still around the plastic wrapper.

“What?”

“I was nineteen,” he said. “Barely an adult. I didn’t know how to be part of a family that was starting over. You showed up and everyone acted like it was this gift, and all I could see was proof that nothing in that house fit me anymore.”

You stared at him.

He wasn’t looking at you. He was looking at the coffee like it could protect him.

“That’s not fair,” he said. “I know that. You were a baby. You didn’t do anything wrong. But I was angry, and I didn’t know what to do with it, so I left. Then every time I came back, you were there, wanting something from me that I didn’t know how to give.”

“Love?” you asked.

His face tightened.

“Yeah,” he said. “That.”

The cracker wrapper crinkled in your fist.

“You punished me for being born.”

Jack closed his eyes.

“Yes.”

It was the first honest thing he’d ever given you.

You hated how badly you’d needed it.

“You called me a mistake,” you said.

“I know.”

“No. I need you to hear it.” Your voice shook. “I was ten. I was crying over fractions, Jack. Fractions. And you looked at our parents and told them I wasn’t a miracle. I was a mistake dressed up in pretty words.”

“I shouldn’t have said that.”

“I don’t care what you shouldn’t have done. You did it.”

He nodded once, like he deserved that.

“You know what the worst part was?” you asked. “Dad didn’t defend me. He just stood there. Mom told you to leave, but Dad stood there, and that silence told me everything.”

Jack looked sick.

“I believed you,” you said. “I spent my whole life believing you. I got perfect grades. I volunteered. I became a doctor because I thought maybe if I saved enough people, my existence would balance out.”

“Hey,” Jack said, voice breaking. “No.”

“Yes.”

“No,” he said again, but softer now. “You didn’t have to earn anything.”

“You don’t get to tell me that now.”

“I know.”

“You don’t know anything. You don’t know where I went to college. You don’t know why I changed my name. You don’t know I had a girlfriend named Mara for two years, or that she left me in an Ikea parking lot because I couldn’t let anyone close without waiting for them to decide I wasn’t worth the trouble.”

Jack’s eyes shone.

“You don’t know me,” you said. “Because you never tried.”

“I’m trying now.”

“Trying isn’t enough.”

“I know.”

You laughed once, sharp and miserable.

“Do you? Because you’ve been treating me like a stranger since I got here.”

“I thought that was what you wanted.”

“You never asked what I wanted.”

That shut him up.

You wiped at your face with the heel of your hand.

“I don’t know how to be your sister,” you said. “I don’t even know if I want to be.”

Jack nodded slowly.

“What do you need?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay.”

“No, not okay. Stop making it sound simple.”

“It’s not simple,” he said. “I just don’t want to make you do the work for both of us anymore.”

That hurt worse than anything else he could’ve said.

Because it sounded like he meant it.

Because you wanted him to.

“You can start by being someone I can trust in a trauma bay,” you said. “That’s it. That’s all I have right now.”

“I can do that.”

“We’ll see.”

Three days later, you got a stabbing.

Twenty-three-year-old male. Multiple wounds to the chest and abdomen. Blood everywhere. Too much of it. The kind of case that swallowed the room whole and left no space for old grief.

Jack was the attending.

You were the resident.

And for the first time, you worked together without the past standing between every movement.

He didn’t crowd you. He didn’t take over. When you called for pressure, he handed you gauze. When you asked for another set of hands, his were there. When your voice sharpened around an order, he didn’t correct your tone.

He trusted you.

The patient survived.

Barely.

But he survived.

Afterward, you stood outside Trauma Two, both of you streaked with blood and sweat.

Jack leaned back against the wall.

“You’re a good doctor,” he said.

You looked at him, waiting for the old ache to swallow you.

It didn’t.

Not all the way.

“Thanks.”

“I mean it,” he said. “You’re steady. You don’t panic. You see the whole room.”

You swallowed.

A younger version of you would’ve lived on that compliment for years.

The version of you standing in the hallway just nodded.

“Learned from good people,” you said.

Jack’s mouth twitched.

“Not me.”

“No,” you said. “Not you.”

He took it.

That mattered too.

The sibling reveal happened because of Mr. Cavanaugh and his kidney stone.

He was loud, sweaty, miserable, and convinced suffering made him an expert in hospital hierarchy.

You did his intake. You ordered his labs. You diagnosed the stone. You managed his pain. You explained the plan twice.

He glared at you from the bed.

“I want Dr. Abbott.”

You kept your voice even. “Dr. Abbott is with another patient. I’m managing your care.”

“I want a real doctor.”

Your face went hot.

From behind the curtain, Dennis made a small, wounded noise. Dennis Whitaker, first-year resident and human alarm bell, had been watching you handle the case because he still liked seeing how other doctors talked to difficult patients.

You gave him a look that clearly said do not.

Dennis closed his mouth.

You found Jack at the nurses’ station beside Dana.

“Mr. Cavanaugh wants you,” you said.

Jack looked up from the chart. “Why?”

“He wants a real doctor.”

Dana’s eyes narrowed.

Jack’s expression went cold.

He stood and walked to the room. You followed because Mr. Cavanaugh was still your patient, even if he was currently being a nightmare about it.

Jack stepped inside.

“Mr. Cavanaugh, I understand you asked for me.”

“Yes,” the patient said. “I want you to take over. I don’t want her.”

Jack looked at you.

Then back at him.

“No.”

Mr. Cavanaugh blinked. “No?”

“No. Dr. Hale is your physician. She diagnosed you, treated you, and kept you from needing emergency surgery tonight. You don’t have to like her, but you do have to respect the fact that she’s the doctor taking care of you.”

The room went very quiet.

Jack’s voice sharpened.

“And for the record, she’s not a little girl. She’s my sister.”

Your breath caught.

Behind you, Dennis whispered, “What?”

Jack didn’t look away from the patient.

“So your choices are simple. You let Dr. Hale do her job, or you sign out against medical advice and take your kidney stone somewhere else.”

Mr. Cavanaugh stared at him.

Then at you.

Then he muttered, “Fine.”

Jack nodded once.

“Good.”

He turned to you in the doorway.

“Let me know if you need anything, Dr. Hale.”

Then he left.

You stood there with your heart in your throat.

Dennis was still frozen behind you.

“Your sister?” he mouthed.

You pointed at the chart.

“Vitals, Whitaker.”

He scrambled.

“Right. Yes. Vitals. Absolutely. Normal thing to do after learning impossible information.”

Within an hour, everyone knew.

That was how the Pitt worked. Trauma could happen in secret, but gossip moved faster than radiology.

Dennis cornered you at the nurses’ station first.

He had abandoned subtlety immediately.

“Since when are you Jack Abbott’s sister?”

Dana looked up from the bed board. “Since birth, I imagine.”

You didn’t look away from your chart. “Thank you, Dana.”

Dana professional destroyer of nonsense, gave Dennis a flat look. “Do not make this weird.”

“It’s already weird,” Dennis said. “They’ve been acting like divorced coworkers fighting over a printer.”

Trinity appeared at his shoulder like she’d smelled drama from across the department.

“No,” she said.

You sighed. “No what?”

“No, I reject this.”

“That seems to be the general consensus.”

“You and Abbott?” Trinity asked. “Siblings?”

“Yes.”

“Blood siblings?”

“Usually what siblings means.”

Mel joined them with a tablet tucked against her chest. 

“You have different last names,” Mel said.

“I changed mine.”

Her expression softened immediately. “Oh.”

Trinity caught that and, to her credit, didn’t push there.

Dennis still looked betrayed by the universe.

“But you don’t act like siblings.”

“What should siblings act like?” you asked.

Dennis opened his mouth.

Closed it.

“I don’t know. More yelling about childhood snacks? Shared weird family habits? Something.”

Dana snorted.

From the other side of the station, Robby looked up. “Are we processing family trauma at the nurses’ station?”

“No,” you said.

“Yes,” Dennis said at the same time.

Robby looked at Dennis. “Do it while updating your charts.”

Dennis deflated. “Yes, Dr. Robby.”

Trinity leaned closer to you.

“For what it’s worth, I never would’ve guessed.”

“I know.”

“No, I mean it. You’re competent and emotionally repressed in a productive way. Abbott’s competent and emotionally repressed in a haunted lighthouse way. Different categories.”

You stared at her.

Mel nodded slowly. “That’s actually accurate.”

You laughed before you could stop yourself.

It surprised everyone.

It surprised you most.

That night, you found Jack outside near the ambulance bay.

It was raining, but not like the night in the kitchen. This rain was softer. Steadier. It blurred the lights and made the pavement shine.

Jack sat on the bench under the overhang, elbows on his knees.

You sat beside him.

Neither of you spoke for a while.

Inside, the ER kept moving. Monitors beeped. Doors opened. Dana probably yelled at someone for blocking the hallway. Trinity probably insulted the printer again. Dennis probably apologized to a chair.

Out here, it was just rain.

Finally, Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a playing card.

The queen of hearts.

You stared at it.

“It’s not the same deck,” he said. “I know that.”

The corner was bent, like he’d been carrying it around.

“I bought one after you told me you kept the cards,” he continued. “I don’t know why. It felt stupid.”

“It is stupid,” you said.

He huffed a small laugh. “Yeah.”

But he didn’t put it away.

“I didn’t keep your picture,” he said quietly. “The one you drew. I should’ve. I wish I had. But I didn’t.”

You looked at the card in his hand.

For once, he didn’t try to make it better than it was.

“I can’t fix it,” he said. “I know that. I can’t go back and be who you needed.”

“No.”

“But I want to be here now. Not because I think I deserve it. Because you deserved it then, and you deserve it now.”

Your throat tightened.

You pulled a scrap of paper from your pocket. A discharge instruction sheet you’d accidentally printed twice.

Jack watched your hands as you folded it.

Crease. Turn. Tuck. Shape.

A paper star sat in your palm.

You handed it to him.

He took it carefully, like it might bruise.

“You make a wish on it,” you said.

His eyes lifted to yours.

“Does it work?”

You looked out at the rain.

“Sometimes.”

Jack slipped the star into his pocket beside the queen of hearts.

“If you believe hard enough?” he asked.

You breathed out.

“Something like that.”

You walked back into the ER together.

Not healed.

Not fixed.

Not suddenly siblings in the easy way Dennis seemed to think siblings were supposed to be.

But side by side.

That was new.

At the nurses’ station, Dennis saw you first.

He nudged Mel. “Still can’t believe they’re siblings.”

Mel looked up from her tablet. “You’ve said that seven times.”

“It remains true seven times.”

Trinity glanced at you, then Jack.

“Honestly, I see it now.”

You frowned. “See what?”

“The matching emotionally constipated posture.”

Jack blinked.

Dana pointed at Trinity without looking up. “Do not start.”

Robby passed behind the desk with a chart in one hand and coffee in the other.

“If anyone’s done with the family reunion, bed twelve needs a lac repair.”

You took the chart from him.

Jack reached for gloves.

For a second, your hands brushed.

Neither of you pulled away like it burned.

It wasn’t enough.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

But willingness had to start somewhere.

Ability too.

So you walked into the room.

you bounced evelyn gently as you walked into the living room, mourning soothing words into her small head of hair. the tv was on in the background, providing some noise to keep you from feeling completely isolated in this quiet house.

you sank into the plush beige sofa, adjusting your position to support evelyn’s head. the rhythmic drone of the entertainment news was the only other sound in the room besides your daughters soft breathing.

you rubbed your tired eyes with your free hand, feeling the weight of the last few weeks pressing down on your shoulders.

the news ticker scrolled across the bottom of the screen, but your mind was too focused on getting evelyn to finally drift off to pay it any attention. you hummed a quiet melody, one of michael’s songs actually, gently patting her back. just as her eyelids began to flutter shut, the anchorman’s tone shifted dramatically, cutting into the entertainment segment.

“michael jackson spotted getting cozy with a mystery woman at an LA club!” the headline flashed on the screen, and a photo appeared showing michael in a dark club, his arms around some beautiful woman who was definitely not you.

your heart stopped for a moment, your arms tightening protectively around evelyn.

the camera zoomed in on the grainy photo—michael’s face was unmistakable, that signature curly hair, those sharp cheekbones, his lips pressed against the strangers in what looked like a passionate kiss. the woman was stunning, blonde and wearing a red dress that hugged every curve. your stomach dropped, a cold emptiness spreading through your chest as the reporter continued talking.

“—the relationship drama brewing behind the scenes of the bad tour. security footage shows jackson sneaking out of the stage door around 2am. fans are devastated, but jackson’s reps claim this is just a close friend…”

your vision blurred as evelyn started fussing again, sensing the shift in your energy. the remote slipped from your numb fingers, hitting the floor with a thud.

you stared at the tv, disbelief and hurt warring in your mind. evelyn’s cries grew louder, pulling you back to reality. you rocked her frantically, tears pricking at the corners of your eyes as you tried to soothe her and yourself. “shh, baby…shh…”

you managed to quiet evelyn down and settled her in her bassinet, her tiny chest rising and falling as she finally drifted off to sleep. the quiet of the house pressed in on you now, the silence deafening. you walked back to the living room on unsteady legs, your eyes glued to the tv screen even though they’d moved on to the next story.

your hands trembled as you picked up the remote, your thumb pressing the button to rewind the news segment. you couldn’t stop watching that photo—michael’s face, his smile, his arms around that woman, his lips on hers. the denial that started in your gut slowly turned to ash as you replayed the footage over and over.

tears finally spilled over, streaming down your cheeks silently. you pressed a hand over your mouth to muffle your sobs, not wanting to wake evelyn.

how could he do this when you were home alone with his baby?

anger started to mix with the hurt, burning in your chest.

you grabbed your phone with shaking hands, your first instinct to call him and demand an explanation. but then you saw the time—it was 3am in LA. he was probably sleeping, or worse, out with her. the thought made you feel sick.

you set the phone down, your jaw clenching. you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of hearing you cry over the phone. not when he was out there living his best life while you were drowning in diapers and sleepless nights.

your stomach growled, reminding you that you hadn’t eaten all day. but the thought of food made you nauseous.

the hours ticked by slowly as you sat there in the dark, the only sound being the soft hum of the tv. you couldn’t stop staring at that photo, your mind racing with questions and accusations. when dawn finally broke, you were a mess—red eyes, pale face, unbrushed hair.

you heard evelyn stirring in her bassinet and mechanically got up to check on her. she was awake and hungry, her tiny mouth sucking on her fist. you changed her diaper and sat down to feed her, your eyes still welling up with tears every time you looked at her perfect little face.

the days blurred together after that. you told no one—not your family, not your friends. you couldn’t bare the thought of them seeing you as pathetic for staying with a man who clearly didn’t value you. even though you were emotionally exhausted and drained, you still fed evelyn, changed her, sang to her, all while feeling completely hollow inside.

you didn’t eat much, just forced down crackers and water when your body demanded it.

every morning, you’d wake up and immediately check the entertainment news, dreading what you might find out. there were more photos of michael out partying, sometimes with different women but always looking carefree and happy. it was like he didn’t care if you saw these photos, like he was doing it on purpose.

two weeks passed like this—a lonely, miserable existence revolving around evelyn’s needs. you barely recognised yourself in the mirror—pale skin, dark circles, lifeless eyes. but you kept going for her sake. she was innocent in all this, dependant on you completely.

then, one evening, the front door opened. it was michael, standing in the doorway with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and that dimpled smile you once found so charming. “baby, i’m home!” he announced cheerfully, stepping inside without waiting for your response.

your body went rigid. evelyn was in her bassinet, cooing softly.

“god, i missed you so much.” he breathed into your neck, holding you tightly. “i missed my girls.” he pulled back, looking at you with those mesmerising eyes. “you look tired, baby.” he frowned slightly, noticing the changes in your appearance. “have you been eating enough?”

you couldn’t speak, couldn’t move. all the pain and anger from the past two weeks boiled over, but you kept it inside. evelyn started to fuss, saving you from having to respond. michael went to her, picking her up and nuzzling her cheeks. “my little angel,”

“daddy missed you,” he cooed, bouncing her gently, his face lighting up with pure adoration. the contrast was sickening—this loving father who had abandoned his family for two weeks to party with strangers. you stood frozen in the middle of the living room, watching him play the doting dad while your heart shattered all over again.

“come here, baby.” he looked at you over evelyn’s head, his smile softening. “come give me a kiss.” he moved towards you, expecting you to melt into him like before. but you stepped back instinctively, your arms wrapping protectively around your waist.

the smile faltered on michael’s face, confusion flickering in his eyes. he stopped, his brow furrowing. “baby? what’s wrong?” he adjusted evelyn in his arms, stepping forward again, completely oblivious to the storm raging inside you. “i’m home…aren’t you happy to see me?”

a bitter, broken laugh escaped your throat before you could stop it. “happy?” you whispered, the word tasting like ash. you turned away, walking to the tv stand and picking up the stack of tabloids you’d hidden there. you threw them onto the coffee table; the glossy covers stared back—photos of michael with different women, smiling, laughing, partying, cheating.

michaels expression turned to shock as he looked down at the magazines, then back up at you. evelyn whimpered softly, sensing the tension. his jaw tightened, and for a moment he just stood there, silent. then he sat evelyn down gently in her bassinet before turning to face you fully.

“baby, i can explain,” he started, his voice wavering slightly. he reached out towards you, but you stepped back again, your eyes blazing with hurt and fury. “explain what, michael? that you couldn’t keep your hands off every woman in LA while i was home alone with our daughter?” your voice cracked on the last word, tears spilling freely now.

“it wasn’t like that…” he pleaded, his hands raising defensively. “i was working! the tour—it was stressful, i was just…blowing off steam. that’s all it was.” he tried to touch your arm, but you flinched away violently. “blowing off steam?” you screamed, your voice echoing through the quiet house. “you were humiliating me!”

“you left me here with nothing but a newborn and a credit card! and a promise that you’d be home in two weeks! do you know what i went through? do you even care?!” you gestured wildly at evelyn, who was now crying properly, her tiny face screwed up in distress. michael rushed to pick her up, rocking her frantically, whispering soothing words.

“baby, listen, i was an idiot,” he said desperately, bouncing evelyn in his arms. “i got carried away, i didnt think about how it would look…i wasn’t actually sleeping with anyone, i swear.”

lies. all lies.

“i wasn’t actually sleeping with anyone, i swear.” the words hung in the air between you like a bad joke. you stared at him, at the man you once adored, now reduced to pitiful excuses. your gaze drifted to evelyn in his arms, her cries finally calming as she snuggled into her fathers chest, trusting him completely.

“that’s funny. because it sure looked like you were fucking half of hollywood,” you spat, your voice cold and bitter. michael flinches as if he was physically slapped. he opened his mouth to argue, but no words came out. instead, he just stood there, holding evelyn tightly, looking lost and guilty.

the room was silent except for evelyn’s soft babbling as she played with michael’s hair. the contrast between her innocence and the toxic atmosphere was stark. michael’s eyes searched yours desperately, but you just felt numb. no anger, no sadness, just nothing.

“i don’t even know who you are anymore.” your voice was flat, drained of all emotion. michael looked like he’d been punched in the gut, his confident persona crumbling. “i thought you were different. i thought you loved me.” he stepped closer, reaching for your hand. “baby, please—“ you pulled your hand away. “don’t.”

“don’t touch me. don’t call me baby. you lost that privilege when you decided to break my trust and kiss every gold digger in los angeles.” your words were like knives, cutting deep into michael’s already wounded ego. he staggered back slightly, holding evelyn tighter as if seeking comfort from his innocent daughter.

“i’m not staying,” you said clearly, picking up your phone and purse. “i’m going to my moms. i need air. i need space. i need to not look at you for twenty four hours.” you couldn’t breathe in this house anymore, not with him pretending everything was okay. evelyn whimpered, reaching for you. the sound shattered your soul.

as you turned to leave, michael suddenly grabbed your waist from behind, spinning you around. you gasped in surprise, finding yourself trapped against his chest, his arms wrapped tightly around your waist. evelyn cried louder from her bassinet, sensing the sudden tension again. “no,” michael said firmly, his voice low and commanding.

“you’re not leaving,” he stated, his fingers digging into your hips. his breath was hot against your neck as he held you against him. “not like this. we’re not done talking.” you struggled against his grip, your heart racing with fear and anger, but he was too strong. evelyn’s cries grew louder, more frantic.

“shh, baby, it’s okay,” michael murmured soothingly, his forehead pressing against your shoulder as he tried to calm you and the baby down. but his arms remained locked around your waist, preventing you from leaving. evelyn’s screams reaching a piercing peak, breaking your heart and making michael wince.

“let me go, michael!” you hissed trying to wiggle free. your struggle only made him tighten his grip, he wasn’t letting you leave like this. evelyn’s cries reached a shrill pitch, her little face turning red with frustration.

“no,” michael repeated stubbornly. he was not letting you go, not now, not when you were this upset. not when evelyn needed you. he moved his hands to grip your arms, “look at me.”

you glared at him, tears streaming down your face. “i hate you!” you shouted at him, shoving at his chest with all your might. but he didn’t budge, his grip on your arms tightening. evelyn was hysterical now, her tiny fists waving in the air as she wailed for you.

michaels eyes flickered with pain at your words but he didn’t release you. “you don’t mean that,” he whispered, his thumb stroking your arms gently despite him not letting you go. “you love me. you’ve always loved me.”

“did,” you corrected coldly, wrenching one arm free. “past tense, michael.”

“you don’t mean that,” he repeated, his voice breaking slightly. his eyes searched yours desperately, trying to find any sign of the love you once had for him. evelyn’s cries grew weaker, her son’s turning into hiccups as she ran out of breath. “baby, please…”

“don’t ‘baby’ me!” you spat, wiping your tears aggressively. “you ruined everything. you ruined us. you ruined our family!” the words hung heavy in the air. michael froze, his face crumbling. the grip on your remaining arm loosened, his shoulders sagging under the weight of four devastation. in the bassinet, evelyn whimpered softly, exhausted from crying.

for a long moment, michael just stood there, his hand still resting on your arm, not gripping anymore. his jaw worked slightly before finally breaking. “what do you want from me?” he asked hoarsely, his voice barely above a whisper. “tell me what to do to fix this,” tears spilled over his lash line.

“you can’t fix this,” you whispered back, your voice breaking. “actions have consequences, michael. you slept with other women, you destroyed our relationship, and you broke our family.”

your resolve crumbled at the sight of your baby. you gently pulled away from michael, rushing to the bassinet and scooping evelyn into your arms. she immediately calmed in your arms, feeling safe. you rocked her gently, tears streaming down your face as you held your baby close. michael watched you both, his expression raw and broken.

“i’m sorry,” michael whispered, his voice cracking. he took a tentative step towards you both, reaching out to touch evelyn’s tiny hand. “i’ll do anything,” he pleaded, tears streaming down his face now.

“anything isn’t enough,” you said softly, pressing a kiss to evelyn’s forehead while rocking her. you looked at michael, your eyes cold and void of the love that used to reside there. “some things can’t be unfucked, michael. our relationship is one of them.”

“our relationship?” he repeated, horror evident in his voice. “you’re…you’re leaving me? ending this?” he looked at you both—his crying daughter clinging to you, his girlfriend looking at him like he was a stranger. “i can change,” he begged, stepping forward again.

“no, michael. you can’t change. not enough to fix this,” you said firmly, though your voice shook slightly. evelyn looked up at you, her big eyes filled with trust and love. you knew you’d do anything to protect her from the pain her father had caused. “you cheated on me.”

michael flinched like you’d slapped him, his face paling. “i know,” he whispered, looking away. “i know i did.” he ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands in frustration. “but it didn’t mean anything!” he turned back to you, desperation in his eyes. “you’re my girlfriend.”

“girlfriend?” you repeated, the word tasting bitter on your tongue. you held evelyn closer, turning your back on michael slightly to shield her from the toxic energy. “a girlfriend you cheated on, michael. a girlfriend you humiliated. a girlfriend you betrayed.” your voice cracked, and you had to swallow hard to keep from breaking down completely.

michael was silent, his shoulders slumping in defeat. he knew you were right. he’s screwed up. big time. he watched as you turned away from him, cradling his daughter like she was the only thing that mattered. and maybe she was.

“i love you,” michael said quietly, his voice raw. “i still love you.” he took a shaky breath, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “evelyn…she needs both of us. i need both of you.” he reached out hesitantly, his fingers hovering near your shoulder but not quite touching. “please…”

you exhaled sharply, ignoring his outstretched hand. “love?” you scoffed, a bitter laugh escaping you. “your definition of love seems to include fucking other women.” evelyn stirred in your arms, sensing the tension, her little fingers curling into your shirt. you kissed her head softly, whispering reassurance to her, “she needs stability, michael.”

“i can give her that,” michael insisted, stepping closer despite your coldness. “i’ll be better. i’ll prove it to you both.” his eyes were red and puffy, desperation for redemption. “just give me a chance to fix this.” you looked at him, really looked at him—the man you’d fallen in love with, now broken and pleading.

“no,” you said flatly, the single word cutting through his desperation like glass. “i don’t forgive you.” you adjusted evelyn in your arms, her tiny face peeking at michael—she didn’t understand why her father was crying, why her mother was holding her so tightly. “love isn’t enough when trust is gone, michael. you killed that.”

the reality of your words settled over him—he wasn’t just losing an argument, he was losing his family. “please…” he choked out, sinking onto the sofa, burying his face in his hands. “don’t do this…”

the room was deafeningly quiet, save for michael’s ragged sobbing and evelyn’s soft breathing against your neck. you looked down at your boyfriend, truly seeing him as the man who had shattered your world—not as the king of pop, not as the father of your child, but as a stranger who had betrayed you. you turned away walking toward the door.

“where are you going?” michaels voice was muffled through his hands, but the panic was clear. “don’t leave…” he looked up, his face streaked with tears, eyes bloodshot and pleading.

you paused at the doorway, glancing over your shoulder with a cold expression. “i’m going to my moms,” you stared calmly, as if discussing the weather. “i need some time away from…this.” you gestured vaguely towards michael, your voice dripping with disdain.

michaels heart shrank at your cold tone. he remembered how you used to laugh with him, argue with him, make love with him. now, your voice was like ice—hard and unyielding. “for how long?” he asked hoarsely, already knowing the answer would hurt.

“i don’t know,” you said, your hand on the doorknob. you didn’t look at him. “until i figure out what happens next.” evelyn cooed softly, turning her head to look towards michaels voice, reaching out her tiny fingers instinctively toward her father. michael let out a broken sob. “don’t take her,” he whispered.

“i’m not taking her from you, michael.” you said, finally turning to face him. your eyes were red-rimmed but determined. “she’s my daughter too. but she deserves a mother who isn’t falling apart, and she deserves to grow up in a home without lies and betrayal.” you adjusted evenly carefully in your arms.

michael watched you helplessly as you bent to grab evelyn’s diaper bag, packing it meticulously with her favourite toys, clothes, extra diapers, and bottles of formula. the room was quiet expect for evelyn’s babbling and michael’s silent weeping. as you zipped up the bag, you finally looked at him, tears in your eyes.

“i’ll call you,” you said quietly, though you both knew it was a lie. you walked past him, your shoulder brushing his as you headed for the door. michael reached out, his fingers grazing your arm one last time. “i love you,” he whispered brokenly. you didn’t respond, you just kept walking until the front door clicked shut behind you.

once you strapped evelyn into her car seat, you settled into the drivers seat. the reality of the situation finally hit you. you started to shake uncontrollably, tears streaming down your face.

you broke down completely, sobbing into your hands as you stared at the steering wheel. your chest heaved with grief—for the relationship you thought would last forever, for the trust you’d placed in michael, for the family you were now tearing apart.

you took a deep shuddering breath, trying to compose yourself for your babies sake. she needed you to be strong now. wiping your tears away, you managed a small smile at her through the rear mirror. “it’s okay, baby girl, we’ll see daddy soon.” you started the car and backed out the driveway, looking at the manson one last time in the rear view mirror.

You were always there for Michael, and he was always there for you. Through thick and thin, that never changed.

When The Jackson 5 started to become more famous, people often insinuated that Michael would eventually forget about you. They said success would change him and that as he got older, with fans and girls throwing themselves at him, there wouldn't be room in his life for an old childhood friend. But you knew better than to listen to them.

Your friendship with Michael was more than just a friendship—it was a real, deep, and honest connection, the kind of bond many people never manage to find in friendships or relationships. And besides, those people didn’t know Michael the way you did.

All that "you're going to be forgotten" speech stopped when you started traveling with them to shows.

At first, because you were still young, your mom would travel with you or drive you herself. But as you got older, you began traveling with them instead.

Michael was your best friend, but you were close with all of his brothers. You cared about them as much as they cared about you, including Jermaine who could definitely be a pain in the ass sometimes.

What neither of you ever said out loud was that, somewhere between the lines, the friendship had shifted into something deeper. Michael cared for you in a way he couldn’t quite explain, a way he had never cared for anyone else.

He always noticed the small things. He always wanted you close, and when you were with others, like his brothers, it bothered him—without him really understanding why. You felt the same way, but neither of you was brave enough to take that leap of faith.

So you both stayed silent, convincing yourselves it was only friendship, while missing the obvious truth sitting right in front of you.

That is how, once again, you found yourself getting ready for yet another adventure with the Jacksons.

You had been staying at the Hayvenhurst house for a couple of days so the whole packing process wouldn't be such a turmoil. That, and because, as always, Michael needed help packing. Well, he didn't really need help, he just "liked the way you pack things more," his own words.

You made your way out of the house and sat beside Michael, who, like you, was waiting for Jermaine to give the word that it was time to leave.

"Why does he always take so long? He's worse than me, and I'm a girl. I am allowed to be late." You rolled your eyes as you adjusted your tucked-in T-shirt.

"You take long because you want to. He takes long because he needs to." He placed a soft kiss on your cheek.

"I heard that." Jermaine's voice came from inside the house before he finally walked out.

Tito and Jackie finished loading the luggage into the trunk, giving Jermaine a thumbs up. Marlon and Randy, who had done absolutely nothing, gave him a thumbs up too.

"Time to go." You stood up, and Michael followed.

Tito sat in the front with Jermaine. Then Jackie, Marlon, and Randy exchanged a look. Michael frowned, confused about what that was supposed to mean.

"Uh... so..." Randy started. "We won't all fit." Marlon continued. "You are going to have to sit in someone's lap." Jackie finished as he looked at you. Tito and Jermaine tried not to laugh.

"Why?" Michael was the first to ask. "Blame Jackie, he keeps getting bigger." Randy pointed at Jackie. "Guys, it's fine. Really." You said. "So, on whose lap are you sitting?" Jermaine looked back from the driver's seat.

The four brothers looked at Michael.

For some reason, Michael went silent. He wanted to tell you to sit on his lap, but the words wouldn’t come out.

"She can sit on mine, it's no biggie." Marlon broke the silence. "It's only a three-hour drive. We'll be fine." You nodded and waited for everyone to get into the van.

You got in and sat on Marlon’s lap, and he wrapped one arm around your waist. Michael, sitting next to both of you, shot him a glare. Jackie and Randy found the scene extremely amusing.

Thirty minutes in, you started feeling sleepy. Both Marlon and Michael noticed. The problem was that you were sitting on Marlon’s lap—not Michael’s.

"You can lie on me. I don’t bite." Marlon said, looking at you. "Besides, you look like you could use a nap."

Michael, who was reading a book, looked up quickly.

"Thanks." You gave him a soft smile as you started leaning into him.

Michael felt his heart sink. It was now or never, he thought. Nervously closing his book, his gaze found yours.

"No!" He blurted out, making everyone’s heads snap toward him. "I mean, come here. Marlon doesn’t know how to hold your neck so it doesn’t hurt."

Your heart fluttered as warmth rushed to your cheeks.

"I’ll let you rest." You patted Marlon’s chest and carefully moved over to Michael’s lap, making Marlon roll his eyes.

"Hey," Michael finally whispered, a big smile spreading across his face. "Hey." You snuggled into his chest, resting your head on his shoulder while his hand found the back of your neck, supporting it gently.

"I’m glad you switched. Marlon doesn’t know anything about your sleeping habits and needs." He pressed a kiss to your forehead, his free hand resting on your knee.

"Mhm. You’re cute when you’re jealous." You closed your eyes. "I have the right to be. You're my girl." You opened one eye. "But I'm not..." You started before he interrupted. "Yet."

"Let me take you out on a date." He said, playing with your hair. "Let me take a nap." Jackie scoffed. "Y'all aren't even whispering."

You let out a soft chuckle as you snuggled closer into Michael. He hugged you closer and looked down at you.

"The answer is yes." You gave his lips a soft peck, making Michael smile.

"How come I didn't get one?"

"Marlon, shut up."

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