softformj

January 1986

By the middle of January, the conversation should have been forgotten.

In Michael's experience, most interactions at industry events disappeared almost as quickly as they happened. Faces blurred together, conversations repeated themselves, promises were made and quietly abandoned, and people came and went from his life so frequently that he had long since stopped trying to hold onto every pleasant exchange at a gala or dinner.

And yet every now and then, he found himself thinking about you. Not constantly, not even particularly often, just enough to annoy him. It usually happened during quiet moments, while sitting at the piano searching for a melody, while staring at a page of unfinished lyrics, while lying awake after midnight when his mind refused to settle down.

If you ever want to talk to somebody who's not a reporter, or journalist, I'd be happy to listen.The strange thing was that Michael couldn't quite figure out what you were supposed to gain from that.

The two of you weren't friends. You barely knew each other beyond a handful of conversations exchanged across crowded rooms, and yet you had offered him something most people never did: your time, with no obvious expectation attached to it. There was no connection you appeared eager to make, no favor hidden beneath the offer. If anything, associating yourself too closely with him right now was probably more likely to damage your image than improve it.

Perhaps that was why the conversation kept resurfacing in his mind. Not because the offer itself had been particularly extraordinary, but because he couldn't understand why you had made it in the first place. The offer had been simple and uncomplicated, and that was precisely why it lingered.

Michael had spent enough years around people to recognize when somebody wanted something from him. Fame attracted people the way light attracted moths. Some wanted money, others wanted connections, and some simply wanted proximity to Michael Jackson because they enjoyed telling people they knew him. You hadn't seemed interested in any of that, at least not obviously, and while that should have reassured him, it mostly just made him cautious instead.

Trust had never been a simple thing for Michael.

The strange part was that despite everything, he had never actually become very good at protecting himself from the absence of it. He liked people. He always had. He wanted to believe the best in them, wanted to believe that kindness was genuine and affection was sincere and time and time again, he found himself giving people access they probably hadn't earned yet, only to discover months later that he had misjudged them entirely.

Sometimes it was friendships, sometimes business relationships, sometimes women. Almost always women, actually.

He loved love far too much for somebody who trusted so little.

Even after relationships ended badly, even after private moments somehow became public stories, even after disappointment repeated itself often enough that he should have known better by now, he never seemed capable of fully closing himself off.

Part of him suspected he never would.

Still, that didn't mean he intended to invite another person into his life simply because she had shown him kindness once, particularly when he wasn't even sure what to make of her yet. He wasn't interested in you romantically at all. What lingered wasn't attraction so much as curiosity, and perhaps, if he was being honest with himself, a small and quiet amount of gratitude.

You had approached him when everybody else seemed determined to avoid him, and that was all. Nothing more, nothing worth overthinking.

Fortunately, the past week had provided a welcome distraction. For the first time in months his schedule contained very few public appearances. No galas, no charity dinners, no endless rooms full of people pretending not to stare at him while simultaneously doing exactly that, and the break was a genuine relief. The events had become exhausting lately, and ever since the article, conversations had taken on a different quality.

People still smiled and greeted him and shook his hand, but something had shifted beneath the surface of all that politeness. Some became awkward, others distant, and a few simply avoided him altogether, and Michael found himself resenting those reactions far more than the article itself.

Not because being gay was something shameful, because it wasn't and never had been, but because of how quickly people changed the moment they decided to believe something. How easily years of familiarity could become discomfort overnight, based on nothing more than a headline somebody else had written.

The realization had left him with very little desire to attend another event anytime soon, and so instead he spent most of his days where he had always been happiest.

In the studio. Surrounded by music.

By the time the next event appeared on his calendar sometime mid-January, Michael had almost forgotten about it entirely. Almost.

His manager had mentioned a few of the people who would attend the private screening earlier that morning while going over the schedule – business executives, directors, a handful of entertainment figures – and then, almost as an afterthought, your name.

For a brief moment it resurfaced in his thoughts, and he found himself wondering whether you would actually attend, whether you'd even remember the conversation from New Year's Eve at all.

Then he shook his head.

The thoughts were becoming ridiculous.

A half-finished melody he was working on for his next album demanded his attention far more urgently than a woman he barely knew.

Michael turned back toward the keys, pressing a few experimentally while reaching for a notebook lying nearby.

The melody was beginning to take shape, slowly, piece by piece, and his concentration lasted approximately thirty seconds before a blur of dark fur launched itself directly onto his lap. Michael yelped as the notebook nearly hit the floor.

"Hey!"

The chimp responded by attempting to grab the pencil from his hand.

Michael laughed despite himself. "Bubbles, no."

Bubbles ignored him completely, and within moments the melody, the screening, the rumors, and every lingering thought about you had vanished from his mind entirely. For the next several minutes, his attention belonged exclusively to the mischievous chimp currently making a very serious attempt to steal his notebook.

–

The screening itself turned out to be considerably less interesting than Michael had anticipated.

That realization arrived approximately twenty minutes into the film, somewhere between a painfully self-important monologue and a scene that seemed determined to linger on a sunset for far longer than any sunset reasonably deserved.

Not that he disliked films, in fact, he loved films.

What he disliked were people who became so convinced they were creating art that they forgot to create something enjoyable in the process.

The private screening had attracted exactly the kind of crowd one would expect. Studio executives, producers, directors, investors. And a handful of actors and actresses whose attendance was considered useful from a publicity standpoint.

The room itself remained relatively small compared to the larger events Michael usually attended, and because of that, people seemed more relaxed. Conversations felt less rehearsed and smiles looked slightly more genuine. There was less posturing and more honesty than one typically found in a ballroom full of celebrities.

Following the screening, guests gradually filtered into an adjoining reception room where drinks and appetizers had been prepared while the filmmakers positioned themselves strategically around the space, hoping to collect praise from anyone influential enough to help the project succeed.

Michael found himself drifting toward one of the quieter corners.

Not because he disliked people. Quite the opposite. He simply preferred observing them first.

It was while doing exactly that that he spotted you.

You stood near one of the tall cocktail tables positioned along the wall, apparently under the impression that nobody was paying attention to you.

The assumption was incorrect because Michael couldn't help noticing you.

At first, he thought something might be wrong. Your expression had settled into a look of such complete and utter boredom that it bordered on impressive.

You weren't being rude or rolling your eyes or sighing dramatically. If anyone glanced your way, they would simply see a pleasant actress listening attentively to the conversation unfolding nearby.

The problem was that Michael happened to be watching when nobody else was.

And from this angle, he could clearly see that your attention had entirely abandoned the discussion several minutes ago.

Your gaze drifted briefly toward the ceiling, then toward a nearby painting, then toward a waiter carrying drinks.

Then back toward the conversation with all the enthusiasm of somebody contemplating their own funeral.

Michael immediately bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from smiling. The sight was unexpectedly funny.

A moment later, one of the executives finally stopped speaking and the small group around you dispersed while you remained where you were. Michael approached before he could overthink it.

"You look like you're having a wonderful time."

Your head snapped toward him and for a brief second, you looked caught. Then, much to his surprise, your shoulders visibly relaxed.

"Oh, thank God,” you said after a moment.

Michael blinked. "What?"

"I thought it was going to be another producer."

The answer arrived so quickly that he couldn't help laughing.

"Sorry to disappoint."

"No, this is much better."

You glanced toward the crowd gathering around the filmmakers and lowered your voice slightly.

"I've spent the last fifteen minutes pretending to care about a conversation regarding artistic symbolism in the sunset scene."

Michael immediately smiled. "The sunset scene."

"The sunset scene," you repeated with feeling. The relief in your voice was so genuine that it caught him off guard.

For a moment, he simply looked at you. At previous events you had always been pleasant. Polite. Easy to talk to. Tonight felt different.

The carefulness he'd noticed before seemed absent somehow. Not completely gone, just lowered. As if you had decided there was no reason to perform around him.

Strangely, he found himself pleased by that.

You had noticed him standing alone before he approached. Not for the first time, either. Over the last few weeks it had become increasingly obvious that the articles of the last weeks had changed something. Not in him, but in everyone else.

People still greeted him, still smiled at him, and still shook his hand. But there was a hesitation now that hadn't existed before. A distance. The kind people thought they were hiding when they absolutely were not.

You hated it. Not because you pitied him. Because it felt unfair.

Because nobody deserved to become a room's discomfort simply because a magazine decided they should. And because every time you'd seen him since the rumors started, he'd somehow ended up standing slightly apart from everyone else.

Like he was there without really being there.

So when he approached, something in you had made a decision. Because somehow, despite an entire room full of familiar faces, he had ended up standing in front of you.

If Michael was willing to take a step out of the comfort zone he had retreated into these past few weeks, then perhaps it was time you stopped being quite so careful around him too. If he wanted a conversation, he could have one. A real one.

"To be fair," you continued, more relaxed now, "I made it almost thirty minutes before my mind started wandering."

"Thirty?"

"Twenty-five."

Michael laughed. "That's a big difference."

"Fine. Twenty."

"Now we're getting somewhere."

You pointed a finger at him. "You're remarkably judgmental for somebody who watched the same movie."

"The sunset lasted six minutes."

"It lasted a childhood."

The response escaped before you could stop it. Michael immediately looked away, laughing into his glass. Not the polite laugh people usually received from him, but a real one.

The sight was unexpectedly rewarding.

"I do feel bad, though."

His laughter softened. "Why?"

You shrugged. "Because somebody probably spent years making that."

"Working hard doesn't automatically make something good."

Your eyes widened. "Exactly."

The enthusiasm in your response surprised both of you. For a moment you simply stared at each other before laughing again.

"See, I can't say things like that around directors."

"Why not?" Michael asked. "You're already pretty successful."

You turned to look at him with an amused expression, the kind of look a person gives someone who has just said something sweet but completely wrong.

"Oh, that's adorable."

Michael frowned. "What?"

"You think being successful and being taken seriously are the same thing." You said it pleasantly, without malice, the way someone states a fact they've long since made peace with, and then took a sip of your drink while he absorbed it.

He opened his mouth. Closed it again.

You glanced briefly past him toward the cluster of filmmakers holding court near the far wall, each of them radiating the specific energy of people who considered themselves visionaries and needed everyone in the room to know it.

"I would just like one role," you said, returning your attention to your drink, "where the most interesting thing about my character isn't who she ends up marrying."

Michael smiled. "That bad?"

You looked at him for a moment. Then, with complete sincerity, you said, "The last script I received gave my character three pages of wardrobe descriptions and one line of actual dialogue."

Michael stared. "Three pages."

"Three pages."

"And one line?"

You nodded. "I said 'Good morning' and then got kidnapped."

Michael stared at you for a second, genuinely uncertain whether you were joking, and then laughed before he could stop himself, the kind of laugh that arrived without permission and made several nearby guests glance over briefly before deciding nothing interesting was happening.

You looked entirely too pleased with yourself. "I'm serious," you said.

"I know, that's what makes it funny."

"It's not funny."

"It's a little funny."

"It's a tragedy," you said firmly, though the smile pulling at the corner of your mouth suggested you had at least partially made peace with it. You looked down at your glass for a moment, something quieter moving beneath the humor, and when you spoke again the lightness had softened slightly without disappearing entirely. "I know I should probably be grateful. A lot of people would genuinely kill to be where I am."

Michael said nothing, sensing without quite knowing why that this particular sentence wasn't finished yet.

It struck him suddenly how far the conversation had drifted from where it had started. A few minutes ago they had been making fun of a mediocre film and now, somehow, you were standing there offering him a glimpse of something real beneath the polished Hollywood smile he had grown accustomed to seeing at industry events.

Oddly enough, he found himself wanting to hear the rest.

"I just–" You paused, and for the first time since he'd approached you, the effortless composure slipped slightly, just enough to show something underneath it that was searching for the right words rather than the polished ones. "I don't want to spend my entire career being forgettable."

The honesty of it caught him off guard. Not because it sounded ambitious, he'd expected that much, but because it sounded genuinely vulnerable in a way that had nothing to do with the actress and everything to do with the person standing in front of him.

You seemed to catch yourself a moment later, glancing down at your drink before laughing softly at your own candor. "Listen to me."

"What?"

"Standing at a private screening, complaining about having a career." You shook your head. "Very ungrateful of me."

"You weren't complaining," Michael said.

The certainty in his voice made you pause. "No?"

Michael shrugged lightly. "You just sound like someone who cares."

Something shifted in your expression, subtle enough that he almost missed it, like the observation had landed somewhere more specific than you'd expected it to.

For a moment you simply looked at him, and then you sighed with great drama and said, "Good."

Michael raised an eyebrow. "Good?"

"If nobody cares, they end up making movies about sunsets." You took a sip of your drink. "And then innocent people are forced to sit through them."

He laughed again, and you watched him with the quiet satisfaction of someone who had filed that reaction away for later.

"There's the actress," he said.

Your finger pointed at him immediately. "See? That is exactly the problem."

"What?"

You looked genuinely exasperated. "I just poured my heart out to you about artistic fulfillment and your takeaway was actress."

For a second Michael stared at you. Then he laughed so hard he nearly lost his grip on his drink.

You looked entirely too pleased with yourself. "Thank you for proving my point."

And somewhere in the back of his mind, beneath the noise of the party and the bad movie and the self-important filmmakers, Michael thought that he genuinely could not remember the last time a conversation had felt this easy.

–

By the time Michael returned to Hayvenhurst after the screening, the evening had settled into that peculiar kind of stillness that only seemed to exist after midnight.

Most of the lights downstairs had already been switched off, leaving only a handful of lamps illuminating the hallways in soft pools of gold as he stepped through the front door and loosened the collar of his shirt.

The screening had run longer than expected, and while he wasn't particularly tired, for once he found himself unwilling to do anything productive either.

Music could wait until tomorrow. The album would still be there in the morning. For tonight, he wanted nothing more than a little peace and quiet.

The smell of food drifted faintly from the kitchen as he passed by, and a few minutes later he found himself leaning against the counter eating a small plate of leftovers he had no real appetite for. Mostly out of habit.

Marlon wandered in halfway through the meal, exchanged a few words with him about nothing important, stole one of the remaining chicken wings directly from his plate, and disappeared before Michael could properly protest.

The entire interaction lasted less than thirty seconds. For some reason, it made him smile.

Eventually he carried the empty plate to the sink and headed upstairs.

By the time he finally slipped beneath the blankets, the world outside his windows had become completely still.

Michael switched off the bedside lamp and darkness settled around him. For a few moments he simply stared at the ceiling.

Then, despite himself, he found his thoughts drifting back to the screening. The memory pulled an unexpected smile from him. The strange part wasn't that he remembered the conversation. The strange part was how easy it had felt.

Somehow the entire thing had been more refreshing than any conversation he'd had in weeks. He found himself thinking that another fifteen minutes wouldn't have been so bad.

The thought lingered for a moment before giving way to something quieter.

Gratitude.

Because you had somehow managed to pull his attention away from the negativity for a few minutes. And that was worth something. Under normal circumstances, a conversation like that would have gone differently, he knew it. His friends certainly knew it.

A beautiful woman, a private conversation, a few jokes.

Normally he would have flirted. Not aggressively, just enough to make her laugh. Just enough to see if she'd flirt back. He'd always enjoyed that game.

Tonight, however, the thought had never even crossed his mind, not once. Which felt unusual.

Not because you weren't attractive. You were, painfully so.

But because for the first time in a long while, the conversation itself had been enough. He hadn't felt any need to turn it into something else.

The realization settled comfortably in his chest.

A few days from now there was another event on his calendar. A private fundraising dinner hosted by a handful of studio executives and producers to support a children's arts program in Los Angeles. Smaller than most industry functions and certainly more intimate.

The kind of event where the guest list rarely exceeded forty or fifty people. The kind of event where conversations lasted longer.

Michael found himself wondering whether you'd be there. The thought arrived so casually that he almost missed it. You were exactly the kind of person those organizers liked inviting.

And somewhere between one thought and the next, Michael finally drifted off to sleep.

–

The drive across Los Angeles passed quietly.

Michael sat in the backseat of the car, one arm resting against the window as the city lights drifted by outside in long streaks of gold and white. The fundraising dinner was being held at a private estate in Beverly Hills, one of those sprawling properties that seemed to host a different charity function every few weeks, and under normal circumstances he probably would have spent the entire drive mentally preparing himself for several hours of small talk.

Tonight, however, he found himself oddly relaxed, and the realization must have shown on his face.

"You're in a good mood."

Michael glanced up. Bill sat next to him, flipping through a folder containing the evening's schedule.

"What makes you say that?"

Bill snorted. "Because usually by this point you've already asked me how much longer we have left at least twice."

A reluctant smile tugged at Michael's mouth. "Maybe I'm just growing as a person."

"That'd be a first."

Michael laughed, and Bill looked genuinely pleased by the reaction in a way that softened something in Michael's chest, because he knew exactly what Bill was seeing. For weeks Bill had watched him endure the aftermath of the rumors – the awkward conversations, the avoidance, the articles, the endless speculation from people who knew absolutely nothing and yet somehow felt entitled to an opinion anyway – and had spent most of that time trying to shield him from as much of it as possible. Now, seeing Michael laugh again, seeing him heading toward an event without visibly dreading it, Bill seemed quietly relieved.

"People getting back to normal?" Bill asked.

Michael looked out the window. "Something like that."

Bill nodded. "I told you it'd pass."

Michael wasn't entirely sure that it had, but he let Bill believe it anyway. A few moments later the car turned through the estate gates and rolled up the long circular driveway, and the conversation ended there.

The venue itself was elegant without being extravagant, warm lights illuminating the gardens surrounding the property while guests filtered through the entrance in small groups, exchanging greetings and handshakes beneath the soft hum of conversation. Michael was greeted almost immediately by the event organizers, and what followed was the usual ritual: introductions, pleasantries, a brief discussion about the charity, a photographer appearing as he stood by the donation ledger. He signed where he was supposed to sign, accepted several expressions of gratitude for his contribution, and smiled politely through the remainder of the exchange.

Only once he was finally released into the event itself did he allow his attention to wander, and almost immediately his eyes began searching the room. The realization arrived a fraction too late. Michael smiled quietly to himself. Apparently he wasn't even pretending anymore.

The room wasn't particularly large, which made the search easier than it should have been, and it took less than thirty seconds before his eyes found you. There you were, standing near one of the windows at the far side of the room, speaking with another guest, and relief flickered through him before he could stop it.

At larger events you almost always wore gowns, elegant ones that caught the light and suited the grandeur of whatever ballroom you happened to be standing in. Tonight was different. The dinner was smaller, more private, less performance and more conversation, and you had traded the formal gowns for a tailored ivory pantsuit that somehow managed to look just as sophisticated while appearing considerably more comfortable. The sharp lines suited you, and the absence of glitter and dramatic styling somehow made you stand out even more.

You looked relaxed, approachable, beautiful. That last thought arrived so casually he barely noticed it. And before Michael could think better of it, he found himself slowly moving in your direction.

The longer he remained at the fundraiser, the more a realization settled in that he eventually stopped trying to ignore: you were the only person in the room he actually wanted to talk to. Not because he disliked the other guests, many of whom were perfectly pleasant and some of whom were even genuinely passionate about the cause being supported that evening, which immediately made them more interesting than half the people he typically met at industry functions.

But every time a conversation ended, his attention drifted back toward you, and by the time he admitted that to himself it felt almost ridiculous. Still, it didn't stop him from gradually positioning himself closer whenever the room shifted and people moved about.

Eventually your eyes met from across the room and a smile appeared on your face immediately.

"There you are."

Michael laughed. "There I am?"

"I was beginning to think you'd gotten trapped in a conversation."

"That almost happened," Michael said, smiling, and for a while the two of you remained near one another while speaking with various guests and organizers, drifting naturally from one conversation to the next.

The fundraiser itself focused on expanding access to arts education programs for children, a cause Michael cared deeply about, and he found himself becoming genuinely engaged in several discussions regarding funding, outreach programs, and plans for future expansion.

What surprised him slightly was that you seemed equally invested. Most celebrity attendees offered a donation, smiled for photographs, and considered their obligation fulfilled, but you were asking questions about teacher shortages, program accessibility, and how organizers planned to maintain funding after the initial campaign concluded. Not performative questions, but interested ones, the kind that made the hosts pause before answering because they hadn't expected them.

Michael found himself listening more than participating for a stretch, quietly watching you speak with one of the organizers, and something about the sight of it settled warmly somewhere in his chest. You clearly cared, and unlike the conversation at the screening, this wasn't a joke or a complaint or a sharp observation. It was simply something important to you, and for some reason he liked seeing that too.

Eventually the guests were invited into the dining room, which felt considerably more intimate than most fundraising dinners Michael attended. Round tables filled the space, each seating only a handful of guests, and people chose their own seats rather than following assigned placements. Michael noticed the empty chair beside yours approximately three seconds after entering the room. The fact that he noticed at all was mildly concerning. The fact that he sat there anyway was even more so.

You glanced up as he pulled out the chair. "Fancy seeing you here."

"I know," Michael said gravely. "What are the odds?"

"Practically impossible."

Menus arrived shortly afterward, heavy cream-colored cardstock with elegant gold lettering. Michael had barely opened his before he noticed you studying yours with remarkable concentration. Not confused concentration, but determined concentration, the sort usually displayed by people attempting to look as though they knew exactly what they were doing. His suspicion grew immediately.

"Do you know what any of these are?"

Without looking up, you said, "Of course.”

The answer arrived so quickly and so confidently that his suspicion grew further still.

The waiter arrived moments later and you ordered immediately, the French pronunciation leaving your mouth with impressive authority. Michael watched the performance with quiet amusement before ordering something he actually recognized, then said nothing. The waiter departed and you looked entirely too pleased with yourself.

Conversation drifted naturally while everyone waited for the food to arrive. Nothing important or particularly memorable, the sort of small talk that somehow became enjoyable when conducted with the right person. At one point the discussion turned toward travel, and one of the other guests mentioned spending several weeks in Paris.

You immediately perked up. "I've always wanted to spend a month in France."

Michael glanced sideways. "A month?"

"At minimum."

"What would you do there for a month?"

You looked at him as though the answer should have been obvious. "Well. Eat."

A laugh escaped him. "That's your plan?"

"It's a very good plan."

Another guest asked whether you spoke French, and you straightened immediately. "Absolutely," you said, with the confidence of someone who had never once doubted this fact about themselves. Michael looked impressed, right up until you continued.

"I know at least seven words."

The table laughed. You looked offended. "Seven is plenty."

"It isn't."

"It absolutely is." You turned toward Michael with great conviction. "You ordered dinner using more than seven words," he pointed out.

"I used the same three words repeatedly."

He shook his head, and the conversation continued in much the same way, easy and comfortable and light, with you defending increasingly untenable positions while Michael found increasingly simple ways to dismantle them, neither of you particularly invested in winning.

All the while, he found himself more curious about whether your confidence regarding the menu had been genuine or entirely fabricated, and judging by the occasional glance you kept sneaking toward the kitchen doors, he was beginning to strongly suspect the latter.

The food arrived twenty minutes later. Michael looked at his plate, then at yours. Yours contained something that could generously be described as adventurous. Small, grey, glistening faintly under the candlelight in a way that suggested it was either a rare delicacy or a mistake. You stared at it for a moment without speaking.

"That's not what I thought it was," you said quietly.

"What did you think it was?"

A pause. "Something else."

"What are you going to do?"

You picked up your fork with the solemn expression of someone preparing for something unpleasant but entirely unavoidable. "I ordered it confidently. I have to eat it confidently."

Michael pressed his lips together hard to not smile.

You took one bite, chewed slowly, and set your fork down.

"How is it?" Michael asked.

"Fine," you said, in the voice of someone for whom things were very much not fine.

He slid his bread roll onto the edge of your plate without a word. You accepted it immediately.

"Thank you."

"I didn't say anything."

"Neither did I."

You still finished nearly half of it. Not because it improved with persistence, because it didn't.

If anything, each bite merely confirmed your original assessment that whatever sat on your plate had never been intended for human consumption. Unfortunately, admitting defeat felt worse than continuing, so you persevered with a strategy that emerged out of necessity: one bite of the mysterious delicacy, one bite of bread, repeat until social expectations had been sufficiently satisfied.

By the end of the evening you had consumed enough of it to avoid embarrassment while simultaneously arriving at the firm personal conclusion that you would never be ordering anything in French again.

Next to you, Michael occasionally caught sight of the increasingly complicated operation unfolding beside him and found himself quietly impressed, not entirely sure whether what he was witnessing was determination or sheer stubbornness, though he suspected it was probably both. He wisely chose not to comment.

The remainder of the evening passed pleasantly. Conversations drifted from one topic to another, coffee was served, promises were made regarding future fundraising efforts, and eventually the subtle signs of departure began appearing around the room as people checked watches, chairs scraped softly against the floor, and coats reappeared from wherever they had been stored.

You found yourself lingering near the exit for a moment after saying your goodbyes to the organizers, struck by how surprisingly enjoyable the evening had been. More enjoyable than you'd expected, though if you were being honest with yourself, that probably wasn't entirely due to the fundraiser.

You had known Michael would be attending, and the thought had crossed your mind more than once during the days leading up to the event. Not obsessively, just enough to make you curious, enough to make you quietly look forward to it in a way you hadn't quite examined yet.

The realization felt strange when you did examine it. You hadn't known him very long, only a handful of conversations across a few industry events, and yet somehow those conversations had become the ones you remembered most clearly whenever you found yourself driving home afterward. You shook the thought away and adjusted your purse on your shoulder before making your way toward the exit, the cool evening air already visible through the glass doors ahead.

You were only a few steps away when a familiar voice called after you.

"Leaving already?"

You turned. Michael was making his way toward you, having apparently abandoned whatever conversation he'd been having moments earlier, and a smile appeared on your face before you could stop it.

"Looks like it."

He stopped beside you and shook his head with exaggerated disappointment. "You know, it's very rude to leave without saying goodbye."

"Oh, I'm sorry."

"I accept your apology."

"How generous of you."

"I try."

For a moment neither of you said anything, and the silence that settled between you was the comfortable kind, not awkward or forced, just two people standing near an exit who didn't seem particularly eager for the conversation to end.

Your smile softened. "Thank you for the bread, by the way."

Michael laughed. "Did you finish it?"

"Enough of it."

"That's not an answer."

"It is if you don't ask follow-up questions." The smile that spread across his face made something warm settle quietly inside your chest.

"Goodnight, Michael."

"Goodnight."

You took a few steps toward the door before turning back. "Oh, and for the record, the menu was misleading."

A laugh escaped him at your stubbornness. "Of course it was."

"Thank you." Then, before he could argue further, you slipped through the doors and disappeared into the night.

The drive home felt shorter than usual, and by the time you arrived home the exhaustion of the day had finally begun catching up with you, the accumulated weight of filming and interviews and the fundraiser and several hours spent pretending not to be personally offended by seafood arriving all at once.

The familiar comfort of home greeted you as you abandoned your shoes near the door, set your purse on the counter, and removed your jewelry one piece at a time before standing in front of the bathroom mirror to begin the slow process of removing your makeup, watching the carefully assembled public version of yourself disappear with each swipe.

The evening replayed itself quietly in your mind while you worked. The fundraiser, the conversations, the laughter, Michael crossing the room just to say goodbye before you left. A small smile tugged at your mouth, not because it meant anything, but because it was nice. Nice to know that somewhere between the galas and charity events and carefully practiced industry smiles, something resembling an actual connection seemed to be forming, something that existed outside of networking and publicity and expectations.

The thought remained with you as you stepped beneath the hot water of the shower and allowed the stress of the day to finally melt away, standing quietly beneath the steady rush of water until your mind grew pleasantly still. By the time you finally climbed into bed, the city outside your window had long since fallen asleep. You switched off the bedside lamp, pulled the blankets up around yourself, and with one final thought about surprisingly enjoyable dinners and unexpectedly easy conversations, drifted off to sleep.

–

The meeting had already been going on for nearly an hour by the time Michael started wondering whether there was any real point in continuing it.

Frank sat across from him with a stack of newspaper clippings spread across the conference table while John Branca occupied the chair beside him, occasionally reaching for one of the articles whenever a particular headline required discussion. Unfortunately, every headline seemed to be discussing exactly the same thing.

Every article asked the same questions.

Every interviewer seemed determined to drag the conversation back toward the same subject regardless of what had been agreed upon beforehand.

"I told them not to ask about it," Michael muttered, dropping the newspaper he had been reading back onto the table.

John sighed. "They're going to ask anyway."

"They agreed not to."

"And then they realized they had Michael Jackson sitting in front of them."

Michael leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. "That's not an answer."

"No," John agreed. "It's reality."

Unfortunately, that only made it more frustrating.

For weeks now the rumors had followed him everywhere. Interviews, television appearances, industry events. People smiled to his face and then immediately tried to corner him into discussing stories that should never have existed in the first place, as though repeating a lie often enough somehow transformed it into something worthy of discussion.

The entire thing felt exhausting. No, worse than exhausting. It felt invasive.

"I should just stop doing interviews for a while."

Frank immediately shook his head. "No."

Michael lowered his gaze. "No?"

"No."

Frank folded his arms across his chest and leaned forward slightly. "If you disappear now, people are going to notice."

"They already noticed."

"Then don't give them more reasons."

Michael frowned.

"The rumors only have power if people think they're getting to you."

"They are getting to me."

"I know."

The room fell quiet. For a moment nobody spoke.

Then Frank's expression softened ever so slightly. "I know this hasn't been easy."

Michael looked away. That was putting it mildly.

"But the worst thing you can do right now is retreat."

Frank tapped one of the newspapers. "If you disappear, people start asking why."

Another tap. "If you stop attending events, people start assuming."

A third. "If you suddenly change your entire life because of some tabloid nonsense, then congratulations, you've just made the story bigger."

Michael hated how much sense that made. "So what do I do?"

Frank shrugged. "The same thing you've always done."

Michael stared. "Ignore it?"

"Ignore it."

John nodded in agreement. "Let people get bored."

Michael sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. He hated that answer. Mostly because it was probably correct.

The meeting continued for another twenty minutes before finally coming to an end, and by the time Frank gathered his papers and John packed away his notes, Michael felt even more exhausted than when it had begun.

The silence that followed their departure should have been comforting. Instead, it only left him alone with his thoughts.

For a while he wandered aimlessly through Hayvenhurst, moving from room to room without any real destination in mind before eventually ending up in the studio. Normally that would have helped. Normally work helped.

Tonight it didn't.

Every melody sounded wrong. Every lyric felt forced. Every attempt to focus eventually led his thoughts back toward interviews and rumors and questions he didn't want to answer.

After half an hour he finally abandoned the piano altogether.

As he let out a frustrated sigh and stood to leave, his eyes drifted toward the slip of paper resting near the phone.

A phone number.

One he'd acquired through Bill and some industry connections several days earlier.

Just in case.

Michael stared at it for a moment. Then at the phone. Then back at the number.

For some reason, his mind immediately supplied the image of somebody attempting to eat mystery seafood out of pure stubbornness. A reluctant smile appeared.

Before he could overthink it, he reached for the receiver and dialed.

The line rang twice before somebody picked up.

"Hello?"

The moment he heard your voice, Michael discovered with considerable annoyance that he had completely forgotten whatever it was he'd planned to say.

"Uh… hi."

A brief silence followed.

"Hi."

The silence stretched just long enough to become noticeable before you finally broke it.

"This is a very strong start."

The comment was delivered so dryly that Michael immediately laughed. "Sorry."

"No, no," you replied. "Keep going. You're doing great."

And just like that, the tension vanished.

By the time twenty minutes had passed, neither of you could have explained how the conversation had even started.

"So you've seriously never seen any of my movies?"

"No."

The accusation in your voice made him laugh. "Not one?"

"I know your name."

"You know my name."

"I know several movie titles."

"You know several movie titles."

"And that you were in them."

Your groan echoed through the receiver. "Michael."

The laugh that escaped him came easily, which felt increasingly dangerous considering how often it seemed to happen whenever the two of you spoke.

"I'll watch one."

"You said that a few weeks ago at that gala."

"I mean it."

"Forgive me if I don't immediately trust your confidence."

Michael smiled. "I don't think you're in any position to question confidence."

You scoffed. "What does that mean?"

"I sat next to you when you ordered in French."

You rolled your eyes as he laughed softly at the other end of the line.

The conversation drifted naturally after that, meandering from movies to books to filming schedules and travel plans before eventually settling on future plans neither of you had fully figured out yet.

At one point Michael found himself talking about a property he'd been considering purchasing someday.

A quiet ranch in California, removed from everything.

"I don't know," he admitted. "I just have all these ideas."

"What kind of ideas?"

"A train."

You laughed. "Weird, but okay."

"And maybe animals."

"Reasonable."

"A lake."

"Still reasonable."

"A movie theater."

You paused. "Less reasonable."

Michael laughed. "I just want a place where people can have fun, especially children."

The words escaped before he could stop them.

A thoughtful silence followed. Not awkward. Just quiet.

"I think that sounds nice."

Something about the sincerity in your voice made him smile.

Then, a sudden beep interrupted the conversation.

"What was that?"

"The microwave."

Michael frowned. "It's ten o'clock."

"Yes."

"So haven't you had dinner yet?"

"No, I already ate."

"Then what are you heating up?"

There was a pause.

"Water."

Something about that answer immediately raised his suspicion. "Why are you heating water?"

The pause that followed lasted a fraction too long.

"…tea."

Michael blinked. "I'm sorry?"

"Tea."

"You put tea in the microwave?"

"No."

"Then why is the microwave involved?"

You sighed. "The water goes in the microwave."

Michael sat up straighter. "The water."

"Yes."

"The tea water."

"Yes."

For several seconds he simply stared at the wall while trying and failing to understand. "Do you not own a kettle?"

"I do."

"You own one."

"Yes."

"And yet you're using the microwave."

"It's faster."

Michael laughed. "No it isn't."

"It absolutely is."

"It absolutely isn't."

"It is if the kettle is in the cabinet."

For a moment he was genuinely incapable of speech. Then he said, "You ordered mystery seafood."

"That's unrelated."

"You speak seven words of French."

"Also unrelated."

"And now you're microwaving tea water rather than using a kettle that you already own for its single intended purpose. Forgive my language, but that tea is gonna be shit."

You rolled your eyes. "You sound judgmental."

Michael laughed so hard he nearly dropped the receiver. "You know what's funny?"

"What?"

"I think you're impossibly stubborn."

"That's rude."

"I mean it affectionately."

"Well that's different."

The laughter eventually faded, giving way to a comfortable silence neither of you seemed particularly eager to fill.

Only then did Michael realize something that caught him entirely off guard.

For nearly an hour he hadn't thought about Frank, or John, or interviews, or headlines, or rumors. The meeting that had occupied his thoughts for most of the afternoon had somehow disappeared completely from his mind without him even noticing, replaced instead by conversations about films, French menus, tea, and increasingly questionable household habits.

For the first time in weeks, his thoughts felt quiet. And somehow, without meaning to, you'd managed to make that happen.

By the time the conversation finally ended, it was almost midnight, and although neither of you seemed particularly eager to hang up, eventually reality won the argument.

After placing the receiver back in its cradle, Michael remained seated for a moment, staring at the phone with a faint smile still lingering at the corner of his mouth.

It wasn't a large smile. It wasn't even a particularly noticeable one. But it was genuine.

And as he finally made his way upstairs and slipped beneath the blankets, he found that falling asleep came surprisingly easily.

–

February 1986 The next four weeks settled into a rhythm neither of you had planned and yet somehow both of you seemed to quietly fall into without ever discussing it.

The calls were never scheduled and neither of you ever announced them beforehand. Sometimes Michael called. Sometimes you did. Most often they happened late in the evening after work had finally loosened its grip on both of your schedules and the rest of the world had begun winding down for the night, when the demands of the day had been dealt with and there was finally room to simply exist for a little while.

The conversations themselves rarely seemed important.

One evening you spent nearly twenty minutes arguing over whether a train belonged inside a private ranch, with Michael insisting that trains were perfectly reasonable and you insisting that they were not.

Another call somehow devolved into a discussion about which fictional characters would be the worst possible dinner guests, with both of you taking the matter far more seriously than was reasonable, while on another occasion Michael spent the better part of half an hour attempting to convince you that a kettle deserved to exist as a household appliance while you continued defending the microwave with increasingly questionable logic.

In the end he lost the argument, not because your reasoning was particularly convincing, but because you refused to surrender even when presented with overwhelming evidence.

Other conversations were quieter. More honest.

One evening, after a particularly frustrating meeting with your agent, you admitted that sometimes it felt as though nobody in Hollywood actually listened when you spoke.

"They listen," Michael said.

"No," you replied after a brief pause. "They listen to determine whether I'm useful."

The answer arrived so quickly that it was obvious you had thought about it before, perhaps many times before.

You sighed softly. "I know that sounds dramatic."

"It doesn't."

A small silence settled between you, the sort that came naturally now rather than awkwardly, and when you finally laughed it lacked most of its usual confidence.

"Well," you said, "sorry for being so depressing."

Another night you called him from your trailer after wrapping a particularly exhausting day of filming and informed him that your newest movie was finally finished.

"Congratulations."

"Thank you."

"You sound tired."

"I am tired." There was a pause. "But also happy."

Michael smiled despite himself. "Because the movie's done?"

"Because I don't have to be somebody else for a few weeks."

The comment lingered with him long after the call had ended.

By the end of the third week your newest film had officially wrapped production. Promotional appearances still waited somewhere on the horizon along with interviews, premieres, press tours, magazine features and all the other obligations that accompanied a major release, but for now there existed a rare and precious stretch of freedom between projects.

A rare thing in your profession.

By then the calls had become normal. Not daily, and certainly not expected in any formal sense, but regular enough that both of you had started anticipating them. A half-hour here. Forty-five minutes there. Occasionally longer whenever neither of you noticed the time slipping away. The awkwardness that had accompanied that first phone call had disappeared entirely, replaced by something considerably easier and infinitely more comfortable.

The conversations simply happened. And somehow, without either of you acknowledging it, a friendship had taken root.

March 1986 It happened on a Tuesday morning.

Michael came downstairs expecting breakfast and instead found Frank and John sitting in the living room, speaking in low voices over something spread across the coffee table between them. Whatever conversation had occupied them moments earlier died immediately the second they noticed him, and the abrupt silence that followed was enough to make a cold feeling settle somewhere deep in his stomach before either man had said a word.

Neither of them spoke.

Neither of them needed to.

The magazine resting on the coffee table already told him everything.

Michael crossed the room slowly, his attention fixed entirely on the publication sitting between them. Frank rose to his feet as though intending to intercept him.

"Michael–"

But Michael wasn't listening.

His eyes had already found the headline.

The article didn't speculate. It didn't imply. It didn't hide behind vague wording or anonymous sources.

It stated it outright.

MICHAEL JACKSON'S EX SPEAKS OUT: "HE WAS ALWAYS GAY."For a moment he simply stared.

The room seemed to grow strangely distant around him as he reached down, picked up the magazine, and unfolded it with hands that suddenly felt heavier than they should have.

The interview stretched across several pages, each paragraph somehow worse than the one before.

According to the article, his former girlfriend claimed she had always suspected the truth. She claimed he had never shown interest in her, claimed he had always been feminine, claimed their relationship had been little more than a performance designed for public appearances. She claimed he had openly expressed interest in men. Claimed she had witnessed things that had never happened. Claimed conversations had taken place that existed nowhere outside her imagination.

Every sentence felt more absurd than the last.

And yet there it was.

Printed.

Published.

Waiting for millions of people to read it.

Michael lowered the magazine slowly and stared at the floor.

The room felt strangely distant.

"None of this is true," Frank said immediately, as though the reassurance might somehow undo what had already been printed.

John leaned forward in his chair. "We need to talk to her first."

A laugh escaped Michael before he could stop it, though there was absolutely no amusement in the sound.

An hour later he found himself sitting in front of a telephone with a sheet of paper resting beside it. The number had already been written down for him. For several seconds he simply stared at it while Frank and John remained nearby, neither of them attempting to rush him.

Eventually he dialed.

The line rang four times before somebody answered.

"Hello?" her voice came out on speaker.

Michael closed his eyes.

"Why?"

Silence followed.

Then: "Oh."

The single syllable irritated him more than any denial possibly could have.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about."

A pause followed. Long enough to become uncomfortable.

"Michael…"

"Why?"

More silence. Then a sigh. "It wasn't supposed to become this big."

The words landed like a slap.

Not because of what they meant. Because of how casually they were delivered.

"You lied."

"It wasn't exactly lying."

Michael tightened his grip on the receiver.

"It was an interview."

"An interview where you made things up."

The silence stretched again.

Then finally: "They paid me."

The room seemed to stop moving. Even Frank and John had gone still. For a moment Michael genuinely thought he had misheard her.

"They what?"

A nervous laugh drifted through the line. The sound somehow made everything worse.

"They paid me. Money's been a little tight lately."

Michael stared at the floor. Said nothing.

"Come on, Mikey." Her voice softened. "You don't really mind, do you?"

Something inside him broke. Not dramatically, not loudly.

Just… quietly.

Because she genuinely didn't seem to understand what she'd done. Or perhaps she understood perfectly and simply didn't care. Michael wasn't entirely sure which possibility hurt more.

Without another word he lowered the receiver back into its cradle and disconnected the call.

Silence filled the room. Neither Frank nor John made any immediate move to leave.

The magazine still lay open on the table between them, its headline somehow managing to dominate the entire room despite occupying only a few inches of paper, and for several minutes the discussion continued exactly where it had left off before Michael had made the call. John was the first to speak, leaning forward slightly as he slipped back into the familiar, measured tone he always adopted whenever legal matters were involved.

"We'll start with a cease and desist. If the magazine doesn't cooperate, we'll push for a retraction, and if they refuse that, we'll discuss a settlement before taking it further."

Michael barely looked up.

Everything John was saying was sensible. Everything he was saying was necessary. In fact, it was probably exactly what should happen next, yet none of it made him feel any better. The article would still exist tomorrow. People would still read it. Reporters would still ask about it. By the time John finished outlining the next several weeks of legal strategy, Michael felt more exhausted than reassured.

Eventually he lifted his gaze from the carpet. "None of that changes anything."

The room fell quiet.

John frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"

Michael gestured vaguely toward the magazine. "The article is already out. The damage is already done."

For a moment nobody spoke. Frank shifted back in his chair and exhaled slowly through his nose, as though considering how best to respond.

"The problem isn't this article."

Michael looked at him as though he'd lost his mind.

Frank noticed. "I know how that sounds."

"It sounds ridiculous."

"It sounds accurate."

Michael said nothing.

Frank leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees.

"The problem is that every few months somebody decides they can make money from the exact same story. Today it's an ex-girlfriend. Six months from now it'll be somebody else. Then somebody after that. The names change, the details change, but the story stays exactly the same."

He pointed toward the magazine. "This isn't the problem."

Michael frowned. "It certainly looks like the problem."

"No," Frank replied quietly. "It's a symptom."

The words lingered unpleasantly in the room. Unfortunately, Michael knew he was right.

The conversation shifted after that. No longer toward punishment, but toward prevention.

John suggested handling future interviews differently. Frank floated the possibility of a carefully managed public statement. There was discussion of magazine exclusives, press conferences, controlled appearances and public relations strategies that made Michael's head hurt before they had even finished explaining them. Every suggestion felt artificial. Manufactured. Like somebody trying to solve a wound by changing the lighting around it.

Eventually Frank rubbed a hand across his face. "You know what the real issue is?"

Michael didn't answer.

Frank looked directly at him. "People stop asking questions when they think they already know the answer."

Something about the sentence lodged itself immediately in Michael's mind.

The discussion moved on, eventually drifting back toward legal matters and publicity strategies, but he found himself only half listening after that. The thought remained long after the conversation had left it behind.

By the time Frank and John finally departed, the sun had already begun sinking toward the horizon and the house felt strangely quiet in their absence.

Too quiet.

Michael tried remaining inside for a few minutes, but eventually gave up and wandered outdoors. The late afternoon air still held traces of warmth as he crossed the property toward the enclosure where his pet deers Prince and Princess were kept, and the moment Princess spotted him she lifted her head from the grass and began making her way toward him with the slow, deliberate movements that came with carrying a fawn.

The sight drew the first genuine smile from him all day.

"Hey, girl."

Princess nudged her nose against his shoulder the moment she reached him, and for several minutes he simply stood there stroking her neck while she leaned comfortably into the affection, as if she knew something heavy was weighing on his heart.

Animals were easy. Animals never cared about headlines. They never demanded explanations. They never asked questions they weren't entitled to ask.

The simplicity of it felt comforting.

Eventually he left them behind and continued walking.

The property stretched peacefully around him and by the time he reached the pool the sky had begun turning shades of gold and orange that reflected softly across the water. Michael lowered himself onto the edge and let his feet dangle above the surface, staring out across the ripples while Frank's words continued circling through his thoughts.

People stop asking questions when they think they already know the answer.

The sentence returned again and again until eventually his thoughts drifted somewhere else entirely.

Toward you.

Over the past month he had spoken to you far more than he ever would have expected. The calls had become routine in a way that felt strangely natural, appearing every few days without either of you ever discussing them beforehand, and somewhere along the way he had stopped being surprised whenever the phone rang and it was you on the other end.

What stood out most, however, wasn't what you had said.

It was what you hadn't.

Not once had you asked about the rumors. Not after the first article. Not after the second. Not after the interviews. Not after any of it.

You never pushed. Never pried. Never tried to extract information from him under the guise of concern or curiosity. Somehow you had managed to treat him exactly the same way after the rumors as you had before them, and the realization settled heavily in his chest not because it was extraordinary, but because it was rare.

Painfully rare.

Michael stared across the water. For the first time, a different thought entered his mind.

Your image was impeccable. Everyone liked you.

Critics liked you. Studios liked you. Directors liked you. Journalists liked you. Even people who rarely paid attention to movies seemed to emerge from interactions with you feeling charmed by them, and over the years Michael had noticed that people associated with you somehow always ended up viewed more favorably afterward.

It was an unusual quality. One he had quietly admired for some time.

The thought should have ended there. Instead it lingered.

Because the more he considered it, the more another realization began taking shape alongside it.

You had something he needed. And he had something you needed.

His thoughts drifted toward countless conversations about your career, about directors who refused to take you seriously and dramatic roles that somehow always ended up going to somebody else. He remembered the frustration hidden beneath your jokes and the disappointment you often tried disguising with humor, and then he found himself thinking about all the people he knew through music videos, short films and years spent working in entertainment.

Directors. Producers. Writers.

People who respected him.

People who would take a second look at somebody simply because Michael Jackson had vouched for them.

The idea didn't arrive all at once. There was no lightning strike. No revelation.

Only a possibility that appeared quietly and then refused to leave. And despite the trust he felt toward you, one uncomfortable truth remained.

If he ever did something like this, there would need to be a contract.

The thought made him wince.

Judging from everything he knew about you, he was sure he trusted you.

But experience had taught him that trust and caution were not mutually exclusive, and the simple reality was that John would never allow it otherwise.

Truthfully, neither would he.

The idea remained with him for the next two days, gradually taking shape until it occupied far more of his thoughts than he cared to admit.

Then your call came.

The moment he heard your voice, he sensed something different beneath the familiar warmth and humor that usually accompanied your conversations. It was still there, but now it shared space with something else entirely.

Concern.

The conversation wandered through familiar territory at first, drifting between movies, work, a book Michael had recently finished and a producer who had apparently irritated you beyond reason, but eventually a brief silence settled between you.

"Michael?"

"Hm?"

There was a slight hesitation.

Then: "Are you okay?"

The question caught him completely off guard.

Not because it was complicated, but because it was genuine.

You weren't asking for a statement. You weren't fishing for information. You weren't trying to satisfy curiosity or gather gossip.

You simply sounded worried.

For a moment Michael said nothing. Then, slowly, he found himself talking.

Not about everything. Not even close. But more than he normally would.

The frustration. The exhaustion. The constant feeling of being watched and judged and forced to defend himself against things that had never happened.

And throughout it all, you simply listened. Exactly as you had promised you would months ago at a New Year's gala.

By the time the conversation began winding down, the idea that had occupied his thoughts for days finally settled into place.

Not completely and not comfortably.

But enough.

Enough to act on it.

"Would you come by Hayvenhurst sometime this week?"

The question slipped out before he could second-guess it.

A brief pause followed.

Then: "Sure."

You sounded mildly surprised.

"But only if you're not planning to make me eat French food."

For the first time that evening, Michael laughed. "No French food."

"Good."

Neither of you realized it then, but the course of both your lives had just changed.

A few notes before we begin:

First of all, I want to acknowledge that this story touches on some of the rumors and tabloid speculation that surrounded Michael Jackson throughout his life, including the rumors about his sexuality. These rumors are included solely because they are relevant to the context of the story and play an important role in the development of the relationship between Michael and the reader. My intention is never to mock, diminish, or exploit the pain those rumors may have caused him. Quite the opposite, actually. Throughout this story, I try to approach that period of his life with as much empathy and respect as possible. The focus of this fic is not whether those rumors were true or false, but rather the impact that public speculation, invasive headlines, and media scrutiny can have on a person. At no point is being gay portrayed as something negative or shameful; the hurt comes from strangers feeling entitled to define somebody else's identity and private life for them.

Secondly, the reader character has intentionally been left without a defined ethnicity, skin color, eye color, hair color, body type, or other physical characteristics. I want as many people as possible to be able to imagine themselves in the story, so any details that would lock the reader into a specific appearance have been omitted on purpose.

Lastly, the first chapter is a little heavier than what some of you may be expecting. It introduces several of the personal struggles both Michael and the reader are dealing with and lays the foundation for the story going forward. Don't worry though! While those themes remain important throughout the fic, things become considerably lighter once the plot gets moving, and there will definitely be plenty of friendship, banter, humor, and softer moments along the way.

At the moment I expect this story to be around 8–10 chapters long, though that may change slightly as I write.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy this little fake dating fic! ❤️

October 1985

The drive back to Hayvenhurst had been unusually quiet.

Not uncomfortable, just quiet in the particular way long days full of meetings discussing the new album often left Michael afterward, when his mind became so crowded with melodies, rhythms, unfinished lyrics, and half-formed ideas that holding a conversation felt almost impossible because every spare corner of his attention was already occupied elsewhere.

Bill seemed to recognize the signs immediately. He didn't push for conversation while steering the car through the familiar streets toward Encino, occasionally glancing over only to find Michael staring absently through the window, one hand tapping softly against his knee to a rhythm that existed entirely inside his own head.

By the time the gates of Hayvenhurst finally came into view, Michael had already forgotten three separate ideas he desperately wanted to remember later.

The realization irritated him every single time.

Some melodies arrived fully formed, almost as if somebody whispered them directly into his ear. Others appeared only briefly before disappearing again, leaving behind nothing except the frustrating certainty that they had been good. Maybe even great.

And if he didn't get to a piano and his notepads soon, the newest one would probably vanish too.

The second Bill parked near the house, Michael was already reaching for the door handle.

"You're gonna work, aren't you?" Bill asked knowingly.

Michael paused halfway out of the car. "I have to."

Bill snorted. "That's what you said yesterday."

"And I was right yesterday too."

A reluctant smile tugged at Bill's mouth. "Go eat something first." Michael immediately pointed toward him. "That's exactly what my mother says." "Maybe she's onto something." Michael shook his head before climbing out of the car entirely. The house had already settled into its usual evening rhythm by the time he stepped inside. Lights glowed warmly through different rooms, distant voices drifted faintly from somewhere deeper within the house, and the smell of dinner still lingered softly in the air despite most of the family having already eaten hours earlier. He headed straight toward the kitchen. A few minutes later he emerged carrying a bowl of vanilla ice cream balanced carefully in one hand, absentmindedly taking small bites while continuing toward the studio. His thoughts had drifted back to the meeting earlier almost immediately, to the hours spent sitting across from executives discussing the next album, the direction they wanted, the sound they expected, the weight of everything that came with following Thriller.

That was the problem, really. Thriller hadn't just been a success. It had become something else entirely, something that existed outside the normal rules of music, and now nobody was interested in another good album. Good wasn't enough anymore. They wanted something impossible, something bigger, a phenomenon that could somehow compete the one that came before it.

Executives wanted it. The label wanted it. The media wanted it. And most frustratingly of all, Michael wanted it too. The thought followed him all the way into the studio.

The room greeted him exactly the way it always did. Comfortably cluttered.

Sheets of music rested across multiple surfaces. Notebooks filled with unfinished lyrics occupied one corner of the keyboard. Cassette tapes sat stacked near the mixing console. Several jackets had been abandoned across chairs days earlier and never moved again.

And waiting near the desk sat the weekly mail collection. Michael smiled immediately.

The fan mail alone filled an enormous sack, and beside it stood a tall pile of official correspondence that somebody had taken the time to organize neatly into folders: contracts, business proposals, legal documents, invitations, the usual avalanche of paper that came with being the most famous person on the planet.

And next to those sat a stack of magazines gathered throughout the week by the staff whenever his name appeared inside one.

He sighed dramatically. "Work before work."

Even though his manager Frank and his lawyer John handled most of the things that landed on his desk, Michael still preferred going through everything himself first. It took longer that way, but he liked knowing what required his attention and what could safely be passed along to somebody else.

Setting the ice cream down carefully, Michael settled into the chair behind the desk and pulled the official letters closer first. Those were always the least enjoyable.

Most required little more than signatures or approvals. Others contained legal language so dense that halfway through reading them Michael often found himself staring blankly at the page without absorbing a single word.

Within twenty minutes he had already created three separate piles.

One pile for things that needed immediate attention. One pile for things he intended to ignore. And a much larger pile destined for John.

"John can deal with that."

The folder joined the growing stack.

"John can definitely deal with that."

And another one.

By the time he reached the end, his enthusiasm for legal paperwork had somehow decreased even further.

The magazines looked much more appealing. Michael pushed the letters aside and reached for the first one.

The cover alone made him laugh.

TEN THINGS MICHAEL JACKSON DOESN'T WANT YOU TO KNOW. "Neither do you," he muttered.

Inside, the article somehow managed to claim that he slept with a notebook beside his bed in case melodies arrived during the night, carried candy in the pockets of nearly every jacket he owned, hated being photographed despite being one of the most photographed people on earth, and had once spent an entire afternoon arguing with a studio executive about the artistic merits of cartoon characters.

Michael laughed quietly to himself. The next magazine proved even more ridiculous. A girls' magazine. Bright colors. Heart-shaped graphics. And a giant headline reading: MICHAEL JACKSON IS SINGLE AGAIN: ARE YOU HIS TYPE? Michael nearly choked on his ice cream as he skimmed the article, which informed him with great confidence that he preferred kind women, intelligent women, and women with beautiful smiles and an appreciation for music. Very helpful. That description probably applied to every man currently breathing on the planet, which was more or less how horoscopes worked too… vague enough to feel personal, specific enough to mean absolutely nothing.

However, one paragraph boldly claimed he would probably fall in love with any girl capable of baking cookies. "Where do they get this stuff?" Despite himself, he smiled. Some articles were harmless. Funny even. It was all part of being famous.

He turned another page. Then another. The smile gradually disappeared.

The photograph caught his attention first.

A familiar, beautiful face. Someone he had once genuinely liked. Someone he hadn't spoken to in months.

For several seconds he simply stared at the article without reading it. Then his eyes slowly moved downward.

The interview began innocently enough, drifting through the usual questions about fame and Hollywood and relationships, the kind of surface-level conversation that filled magazines without really saying anything. Then came the section highlighted in bold, the one the editors had clearly decided was the reason anybody would pick up the issue in the first place. Michael felt something sink inside his stomach as he continued reading. She described him as sweet, gentle, and kind.

Then she spoke about things that had never belonged to anyone except the two of them.

Private things.

Painfully private things.

She talked about how their relationship had never become physical. How he never seemed comfortable with intimacy. How he kept emotional distance even while trying desperately not to. How she often felt shut out.

Michael stared at the page long after he finished reading. The studio had become very quiet.

The article itself wasn't particularly cruel. That somehow made it worse. Because it wasn't a lie. Not entirely.

That was the part that hurt.

Not because people now knew, but because she had told them. Because something vulnerable had been handed over so casually to strangers who would never understand it.

His eyes drifted toward the dark studio window. Outside, Hayvenhurst remained peaceful. Inside, memories surfaced one after another despite his efforts to stop them.

Not just her, either. A singer before her, an actress before that, a socialite whose name he barely let himself think about anymore. Different women, different relationships, different circumstances, and yet somehow always arriving at the same ending no matter how convinced he had been that this time would be different.

Because Michael loved beautiful women. Had always loved them, loved the flirting and the laughter and that particular electricity that lived in the early days of something new, when everything still felt like possibility and nothing had gone wrong yet. The beginning was always the easy part. The beginning was always wonderful.

But eventually the moment came when somebody wanted more than charming conversations and stolen kisses and hopeful promises about the future.

They wanted access. Not to Michael Jackson. To Michael.

And every single time he found himself standing in front of an invisible wall he never seemed capable of climbing.

Trust was such a simple thing for other people. For him it felt almost impossible.

Years of childhood had taught him lessons he still carried everywhere whether he wanted to or not. Years spent working long before any child should have been working, years spent living under Joseph's temper and impossible expectations, years spent learning that mistakes carried consequences and vulnerability rarely felt safe. Some lessons faded with time. Others buried themselves so deeply inside a person that they became part of how they saw the world.

Work came first. Always. The stage came first. Always. Success came first. Always.

Long before he understood what any of it meant.

And somewhere along the way he learned another lesson too.

People could love what you did, love what you gave them, love what you represented on a stage or a screen or a magazine cover. But trusting someone enough to hand them the ugliest and most fragile parts of yourself was an entirely different thing, and it had never felt harder than it did now, in the years after Thriller had turned him from a famous person into something closer to a symbol.

The bigger he became, the more impossible it grew to believe that anyone wanted him specifically, rather than everything that came attached to his name. And something always came attached to his name. Money, access, connections, fame, or simply a good story, a headline that would look nice above a photograph.

And every year it became more difficult to separate genuine affection from everything else.

And yet despite all of it, despite the articles and the disappointments and every relationship that had ended the same way, Michael never stopped trying. That was probably the most ridiculous part about him, if he was being honest with himself. He kept believing anyway, kept hoping, kept letting himself fall for beautiful smiles and kind voices and the particular brand of impossible possibility that arrived at the beginning of something new, long before reality had a chance to catch up.

Because somewhere beneath all the doubt, all the caution, and all the loneliness, he remained hopelessly convinced that eventually there had to be somebody out there worth trusting.

Somebody who wouldn't turn his vulnerabilities into a magazine article. Somebody who would keep them safe.

For a long moment he continued staring at the page. Then quietly closed the magazine.

The melodies he'd been so desperate to preserve earlier still lingered somewhere inside his head. But they suddenly felt much farther away than before.

–

"Cut!"

The sound of the director's voice immediately echoed across the set, followed by the familiar burst of activity that always seemed to accompany the end of a take.

Crew members moved around almost instantly. Lighting technicians adjusted equipment overhead, makeup artists appeared seemingly out of nowhere to fix minor imperfections the cameras would inevitably magnify, and production assistants hurried between different corners of the set carrying clipboards and cups of coffee as if the entire production might collapse without them.

Across from you, your co-star relaxed immediately as well, the charming smile he had worn moments earlier disappearing now that the scene was over. On-screen he played the perfect romantic lead, handsome, charismatic, endlessly devoted to the woman he loved. Off-screen he was pleasant enough, though after nearly three months of filming together, both of you had become very good at separating the romance from the work.

You stepped away from the set and made your way toward the monitors where the director already stood reviewing the footage.

"How was it?" you asked.

The director looked up briefly before offering an approving smile.

"Beautiful."

You waited. The silence stretched.

"Anything I should adjust?" you asked after a moment. "Maybe slower on the confession? I was trying to make her seem more hesitant this time."

The director barely glanced back at the monitor.

"No, no. It looked great."

Again, you waited. Nothing.

No discussion about motivation. No discussion about emotional beats. No thoughts about whether the character's grief, hope, fear, or vulnerability had translated properly.

Only "It looked great."

You nodded politely anyway.

Years in Hollywood had taught you how to recognize the difference between real feedback and compliments disguised as feedback. This was the second category.

The director pointed toward the monitor. "The lighting really catches your eyes in this scene."

You forced a smile. "Thanks."

"And that close-up is fantastic."

Another smile. Another thank you.

Neither comment had anything to do with your performance.

Before you could stop yourself, you decided to try one more thing.

"Actually, I wanted to ask you something."

The director looked up. You shifted your weight slightly.

"I heard Robert Hastings is casting his new drama next year."

His eyebrows lifted slightly in recognition. Robert Hastings. One of the most respected dramatic directors working in Hollywood.

The kind of director whose films won awards. The kind of director whose actors received Oscar nominations. The kind of director you dreamed about working with.

"I've been following the project for months," you continued. "If you happen to speak to him, I'd really appreciate an introduction. I'd love the chance to audition."

For a brief second, the director simply looked at you. Then he smiled.

Not dismissively. Worse. Patronizingly.

"Oh, sweetheart."

You hated that word immediately.

"That's a pretty heavy project."

You felt something inside your chest sink slightly. "I know."

"It's not really your type of film."

Your smile remained perfectly professional. "That's exactly why I'd like to audition."

The director chuckled softly as though you'd made an adorable joke. "Trust me. You're doing just fine where you are."

Before you could respond, another voice interrupted. Your co-star had approached the monitors. The director's entire attention shifted immediately.

"There he is!"

The difference was almost comical.

One second you barely existed. The next, the director was enthusiastically discussing performance choices.

"That scene was excellent," he said, pointing toward the monitor. "The hesitation before the kiss? That's exactly what I was looking for."

Your co-star nodded. "I thought maybe less confidence would make him more believable."

"Absolutely."

The director leaned forward. "And your emotional timing was fantastic."

For several moments they continued discussing acting. Actual acting. Character motivation. Subtext. Performance choices.

The exact conversation you had hoped to have only minutes earlier. Nobody invited you back into it.

Eventually you excused yourself quietly. Neither man seemed to notice.

The walk back to your trailer felt much longer than it actually was. Outside, the afternoon sun had begun settling lower across the lot, bathing everything in warm gold light that probably looked beautiful on camera. Somewhere nearby another production was filming entirely different scenes while extras wandered between soundstages carrying costumes and coffees.

Hollywood. The city of dreams. Or at least that was what everybody liked to call it.

You climbed the small steps leading into your trailer and closed the door behind you.

The silence arrived instantly.

For several moments you simply stood there. Then you reached for the cigarette pack sitting beside your script.

A few minutes later, smoke drifted slowly through the small open window while you sat in the chair near the vanity mirror.

You stared out toward the lot, toward the endless machinery of an industry that had given you everything you were supposed to want. Success, money, recognition, magazine covers, sold-out theaters, fans who waited outside premieres for hours just to catch a glimpse of you as you walked past.

The public adored you, journalists had collectively decided to call you America's Sweetheart, and studios fought over your availability with an enthusiasm that would have felt flattering if it hadn't come bundled with so many assumptions about what you were and weren't capable of.

Every romantic film you touched seemed destined to become a success.

And yet. The frustration remained.

Because every time you thought you were finally moving forward, somebody reminded you exactly where they believed you belonged.

Romance, pretty dresses, beautiful close-ups, handsome co-stars, smiles, kisses, happy endings.

Nobody seemed interested in what existed beyond that image, or in whether you were capable of carrying something heavier, something uglier, something that didn't resolve itself neatly in the final twenty minutes.

You wanted characters that hurt, that failed, that left audiences genuinely changed rather than simply satisfied. You wanted to make films that stayed with people long after they left the theater, that made them think and feel and question things they had never thought to question before. You wanted to create something that actually mattered, and the gap between that want and where you currently stood felt wider every time somebody complimented your close-ups instead of your performance.

And maybe, someday, you wanted to stand on a stage holding a golden statue in your hands knowing you had earned it through more than simply looking good beneath flattering lighting.

The cigarette burned slowly between your fingers.

Outside, somebody called for another setup.

You exhaled a long stream of smoke before crushing the cigarette into the ashtray beside you.

How the hell were you ever supposed to break out of this?

The question followed you as you leaned your head back against the chair until you were staring at the trailer ceiling.

With a long, dramatic sigh, you closed your eyes.

And for a moment, allowed yourself to imagine a different future entirely.

–

November 1985 The charity gala occupied one of the larger ballrooms of a luxury hotel in downtown Los Angeles, and by the time Michael arrived that evening, the event was already well underway.

Round tables filled most of the room beneath enormous crystal chandeliers, while waiters moved carefully between guests carrying trays of drinks and appetizers. The stage at the front displayed photographs of children benefiting from the foundation's programs, and although the atmosphere remained elegant enough to satisfy Hollywood's obsession with appearances, there was a sincerity to the event that Michael appreciated. Unlike many industry functions, people actually seemed interested in the cause itself rather than simply being photographed attending it.

Michael paused briefly near the entrance while security remained at a respectful distance behind him, taking in the room automatically the way he always did whenever he entered crowded spaces.

Actors, musicians, producers, directors, studio executives, politicians, and various socialites filled the ballroom. Most faces were familiar to some degree, either from previous events or from simply existing within the same industry long enough that everybody eventually learned everybody else's names.

His attention drifted lazily across the room until it landed on you.

He recognized you immediately.

Not because he knew you personally, but because avoiding your face in Hollywood had become nearly impossible over the past several years.

Your latest movie posters had been plastered across billboards for months. Entertainment magazines seemed determined to place you on every cover available, and nearly every interviewer in America appeared eager to ask whether the country's most beloved romantic leading lady had finally found herself a boyfriend.

You looked different in person than you did in photographs. Not drastically different. Just more real.

You stood near one of the larger tables speaking with an older woman involved with the charity, dressed in an elegant evening gown that somehow managed to appear glamorous without feeling excessive. The fabric caught the light subtly whenever you moved, while the simple jewelry you wore seemed chosen to complement the dress rather than compete with it. Your smile came easily during the conversation, though Michael noticed you spent considerably more time listening than speaking.

A photographer approached briefly. You allowed a few pictures, then immediately redirected your attention back toward the charity representative as though the cameras had never appeared at all.

Michael found himself watching for another moment before somebody called his name from across the room.

The evening progressed naturally after that. Speeches, introductions, conversations.

More photographs than any human being should reasonably have to endure.

At some point, guests began making donations to the foundation publicly, each contribution announced by the event organizers before being added to the total displayed on a large board near the stage.

Michael contributed without much thought. Charity had always been one of the few things fame allowed him to do that genuinely felt worthwhile, and helping children remained especially close to his heart.

The audience applauded politely after his donation was announced. Several contributions followed afterward. Then your name appeared.

Michael's attention lifted automatically. The amount that followed surprised him.

Not because it rivaled what some of the wealthiest people in the room could give, but because it was substantial enough to make several heads turn in genuine surprise.

A ripple of impressed murmurs spread through parts of the ballroom. Michael glanced toward you instinctively.

You looked mildly embarrassed by the attention. The organizer thanked you publicly. You smiled politely.

Then immediately lowered your gaze toward the table as though hoping the spotlight would move somewhere else.

For some reason, that detail stayed with him.

Later in the evening, seating arrangements eventually placed both of you near one another. Not directly beside each other, but close enough that conversation became inevitable.

The opportunity arrived while guests waited for dinner to be served.

Michael turned slightly toward you. "That was a very generous donation."

You looked up from your glass. For a brief moment your expression seemed surprised that he had spoken.

Then you smiled politely. "Thank you."

Your voice was warm. Pleasant. Exactly what he expected.

"I mean it," Michael continued. "A lot of people come to these things for publicity. That seemed genuine."

The smile softened slightly. "That's nice of you to say."

Michael waited. Something about the interaction felt strangely incomplete. Most conversations tended to flow naturally after introductions.

Especially with women.

Instead, you simply looked at him expectantly, as though waiting to see whether he had anything else to add.

He smiled. "You know, I think you've probably helped raise the average attractiveness of this entire fundraiser by yourself."

The compliment came easily. Playfully. The kind of thing that usually earned laughter. Or at least amusement.

You did laugh softly. A polite laugh. Then nodded. "That's very kind."

And that was it. No flirting. No lingering smile. No attempt to continue the exchange.

Michael blinked. For the first time all evening, he found himself oddly unsure what to do next. Meanwhile, you seemed completely oblivious.

"You've always been incredibly generous too," you said. "The amount of work you do for charities is honestly inspiring."

The sincerity sounded genuine. So genuine, in fact, that Michael couldn't even tell whether you had noticed his flirtation at all.

"Thank you."

You nodded.

Then your attention shifted briefly toward the stage where another speaker had begun discussing one of the foundation's programs.

And that, apparently, was that. Michael sat back in his chair as the interaction replayed itself in his head, not because it had gone badly, because it hadn't, you had been perfectly pleasant and respectful and polite, but because despite all of that he had somehow come away feeling vaguely dismissed.

The realization annoyed him immediately.

What exactly had he expected? The thought surfaced before he could stop it.

Just because your fame worldwide rivals Jesus doesn't mean every beautiful woman has to be interested in you. The internal reprimand arrived swiftly enough that he almost smiled at himself. You hadn't done anything wrong. If anything, you had probably handled the interaction better than most people would have.

Still, as the evening continued, he found his eyes drifting toward you every now and then.

Not because of your appearance. Not entirely.

Because he couldn't quite figure you out. Most people in Hollywood wanted something.

Attention, connections, recognition.

You seemed strangely uninterested in all of it. And somehow that left him with the faint impression that you were either refreshingly genuine or impossibly arrogant.

By the end of the evening, he still hadn't decided which one.

–

The remainder of 1985 passed in a blur of events neither of you particularly wanted to attend.

Award ceremonies melted into charity dinners, charity dinners became Christmas fundraisers, and Christmas fundraisers transformed into industry galas where the same familiar faces circulated endlessly through the same conversations beneath different chandeliers.

For Michael, it was simply another part of fame.

For you, it was part of the image your agency worked tirelessly to maintain.

America's Sweetheart.

The phrase followed you everywhere now.

It appeared in magazines, interviews, television segments, and newspaper articles often enough that you had grown tired of hearing it.

Still, agencies liked America's Sweetheart. Studios liked America's Sweetheart. Audiences liked America's Sweetheart.

So America's Sweetheart kept showing up wherever she was told to go.

Which was why over the following months, you and Michael found yourselves crossing paths more often than either of you expected.

Not enough to become friends or to truly know one another. Just enough to become familiar.

A polite greeting here. A brief conversation there.

Occasional smiles exchanged across crowded rooms before both of you inevitably became distracted by other people demanding your attention.

And despite Michael's initial impression of you, he slowly began noticing things.

Not dramatic things. Just… small things. The kind of details most people overlooked.

One evening in December, both of you found yourselves standing in a loose circle of celebrities and executives near the bar during another fundraising gala.

The conversation had been painfully shallow from the beginning. A wealthy producer Michael already disliked was holding court as usual, speaking loudly enough to ensure everyone nearby heard him.

The man had money. An absurd amount of it. And unfortunately, Hollywood tended to mistake wealth for wisdom.

"I watched one of your movies last week," the producer told you with an exaggerated grin.

You smiled politely. "Oh?"

"Couldn't tell you which one." Several people laughed. Michael did not.

The producer continued anyway. "They're all kinda the same, aren't they?"

You remained perfectly composed. "I suppose they might seem that way if somebody isn't paying attention."

More laughter followed. The producer laughed too despite clearly missing the implication entirely.

Michael hid a smile behind his glass. The man thought you'd agreed with him. You absolutely had not.

"You know what's funny?" the producer continued. "Most actresses spend years learning how to act. You were lucky enough to skip that step."

A few uncomfortable laughs followed. You took a slow sip of your champagne.

"Yes," you said pleasantly. "I've noticed people often mistake good fortune for work they didn't witness."

The producer blinked. Then laughed loudly. "See? That's what I like about you! Great sense of humor."

Across the circle, Michael felt the corner of his mouth twitch. The man had managed to miss the point entirely.

You simply smiled and took another sip from your champagne. The conversation moved on. But Michael found himself watching you for a moment longer.

The frustration had been there. He'd seen it, albeit briefly. It was gone almost immediately.

And for the first time, he wondered whether your problem wasn't that people failed to appreciate your movies. Maybe your problem was that people failed to appreciate you.

The realization lingered quietly in the back of his mind long after the conversation moved elsewhere.

Unfortunately, the evening wasn't finished humiliating people. A little later, the same producer somehow redirected the conversation toward Michael.

"I saw another one of those articles recently."

Michael already knew where this was going. His jaw tightened automatically. The producer either didn't notice or didn't care.

"Women keep saying the weirdest things about you."

Several people shifted uncomfortably. Michael remained silent.

"You'd think people would keep some things private." The producer laughed, then added, "Although if enough women are saying the same thing–" He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. The implication hung heavily in the air anyway. Michael felt irritation flare immediately, not because of the rumor itself but because of the casual cruelty behind it, the way people treated his personal life like entertainment, like a puzzle they had somehow earned the right to solve simply by being interested about it.

Before he could formulate a response, however, your voice entered the conversation calmly. "I always thought private relationships should remain private." The producer looked at you. You shrugged lightly. "Whether the stories are true or not." The producer scoffed. "That's just curiosity." "No," you said pleasantly. "Curiosity is wondering what somebody had for breakfast. This is strangers discussing a person's intimate life at a cocktail party."

The producer laughed awkwardly into the silence that followed, and when nobody joined him the subject died quietly and without ceremony. Michael never thanked you, and you never looked at him afterward, the whole exchange lasting less than thirty seconds from start to finish.

And yet somehow he remembered it long after the evening was over.

–

A week later, everything changed.

The article appeared on a Tuesday morning. By lunchtime, half the country seemed to be discussing it.

IS MICHAEL JACKSON HIDING A SECRET?

Michael stared at the magazine for so long that the words eventually blurred together.

The article itself wasn't particularly intelligent. It recycled the same previously made observations repeatedly. His high pitched voice, his mannerisms, his “flamboyant” clothing, his friendships. His ex-girlfriend's claims.

Each point carefully assembled into a conclusion somebody else had decided for him.

Michael read the article twice. Then a third time. Not because he enjoyed torturing himself. Because some stubborn part of him kept hoping the words might somehow change.

They didn't.

For several days afterward he largely disappeared, retreating into Hayvenhurst and the studio and himself, letting phone calls ring out unanswered and turning away visitors without much explanation or apology.

Work continued because work always continued, but the enthusiasm usually accompanying it had dulled considerably.

What hurt most wasn't the accusation itself. There was nothing wrong with being gay.

Michael knew that. Had always known that. Some of the kindest people he'd ever met were gay. Some of the most talented too.

That wasn't the issue. The issue was that once again, complete strangers had decided who he was. And somehow the entire world seemed eager to believe them.

The realization settled heavily inside him. If people could rewrite something as fundamental as his identity so easily, what chance did any truth actually have?

By the time New Year's Eve arrived, Michael wanted absolutely nothing to do with another gala.

Unfortunately, his manager disagreed. "You need to be seen."

Michael sighed. "I don't feel like being seen."

"That's exactly why you need to go."

The conversation continued for nearly twenty minutes before Michael finally surrendered. So a few hours later, he found himself attending yet another event.

At first the difference seemed subtle, something he might have imagined if he hadn't known better, but it became impossible to ignore as the evening wore on. People still greeted him and smiled and shook his hand, but something underneath all of that had shifted, some fundamental ease and comfort and familiarity that had simply stopped being there.

Conversations ended suspiciously quickly when he approached, others never started at all, and people who would ordinarily have sought him out suddenly found themselves very occupied on the other side of the room.

Michael quietly noticed everything and honestly, part of him felt relieved. The attention had always been exhausting.

But another part felt something much uglier… Anger.

Because all it took was one article. One headline. One made-up rumor.

And suddenly people behaved differently. Not because they knew anything. Because they thought they knew something.

The hypocrisy left a bitter taste in his mouth.

By the time he escaped toward one of the quieter corners of the ballroom, his patience had nearly disappeared entirely. Which was why he didn't immediately notice you approaching.

"Hi."

Michael looked up. You stood a few feet away holding a glass of champagne. The same elegant confidence you carried at every event remained intact, though tonight there was something else beneath it.

Concern. Genuine concern.

"Hi."

For a second, neither of you spoke. Then you glanced briefly toward the crowd before looking back at him.

"I wasn't sure whether I should say anything."

Michael immediately knew what you meant. You shifted your weight slightly.

"It's none of my business."

He appreciated that sentence more than he could adequately explain.

You continued. "But I wanted to tell you I felt horrible reading that article."

The ballroom noise seemed to fade slightly. Michael simply stared at you. You weren't performing. Weren't fishing for information. Weren't asking questions.

You just looked upset on his behalf.

"I know we don't really know each other," you said carefully, "and your private life is your private life. But I don't think articles like that should exist regardless of whether they're true, false, or somewhere in between."

Michael remained silent. You lowered your voice slightly. "Nobody should have their personal life dissected for entertainment."

For the first time in over a week, he felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. Not much. Just enough.

"Thank you."

The words came quieter than intended. You smiled gently. "You're welcome."

Neither of you spoke for a moment afterward. Then you glanced toward another group gathering nearby.

"I should probably go save my agent from having to make small talk alone."

That earned the faintest smile from Michael.

Before leaving, however, you hesitated. "If you ever want to talk to somebody who's not a reporter, or journalist, I'd be happy to listen."

The offer hung briefly between you. Simple and uncomplicated.

You didn't wait for an answer. Instead, you gave him one last polite smile before turning and disappearing back into the crowd.

Michael watched you go. For several seconds afterward, he remained exactly where he was, thinking.

The way you'd defended him without making a spectacle out of it. The way you'd approached him tonight when most people seemed determined to avoid him.

Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe you weren't arrogant at all.

The thought settled quietly inside him as he watched you disappear into another conversation across the ballroom.

For the first time since reading the article, Michael found himself smiling. Only slightly, but genuinely.

You were lying curled sideways against the couch cushions with the throw blanket draped carefully over you, and Michael remained sitting beside you exactly where he had been hours earlier, one arm still loosely around you while his head rested awkwardly against the back of the couch.

At some point during the night, he must have fallen asleep sitting upright beside you rather than risk moving you somewhere more comfortable and worsening your headaches.

The realization settled softly into your chest.

He stayed.

After everything, he stayed.

For a long moment you simply looked at him quietly beneath the dim television light.

His curls had fallen messily across his forehead during sleep, his face softer and more exhausted than usual now that he wasn’t consciously holding himself together anymore. One of his hands still rested carefully near your arm even in sleep, like some part of him remained worried you might disappear if he let himself drift too deeply unconscious.

Somethng about the sight made your chest ache gently.

Carefully, trying not to wake him, you slipped out from beneath the blanket and moved slowly toward the bathroom. Your headache still lingered faintly behind your eyes, though nowhere near as vicious as earlier after finally sleeping a few uninterrupted hours.

By the time you emerged again several minutes later after washing your face and changing into fresh clothes, Michael had woken up.

He was rubbing tiredly at one eye while sitting forward slightly on the couch, clearly still trying to orient himself.

“You should’ve woken me up,” he murmured hoarsely the second he saw you standing there.

A small smile pulled faintly at your mouth.

“You looked exhausted.”

Michael glanced briefly toward the clock across the room then looked mildly horrified.

“We slept through dinner.”

“You slept through dinner,” you corrected quietly while walking toward the kitchen. “I was unconscious.”

That earned the smallest tired laugh from him.

“I’m sorry you couldn’t sleep properly because of me,” you added a moment later while opening the refrigerator.

Michael immediately shook his head.

“It’s okay.”

Then, almost instinctively he said, “Did you take your medication already?”

The question softened something inside you again despite yourself.

“Yes.”

Michael visibly relaxed afterward.

You crouched slightly to pull ingredients from the lower shelf before glancing back toward him.

“I’m gonna make something quick to eat,” you said. “You can stay if you want.”

The answer came almost immediately.

“Yeah.”

Then after a small pause: “Can I help?”

You looked at him for a second before finally nodding once toward the counter.

“You can chop the vegetables.”

Michael looked surprisingly confident for somebody who had probably never chopped his own vegetables in his life.

Ten minutes later, every single piece sitting on the cutting board was a completely different size.

You stared down at the disaster quietly while Michael frowned at it with genuine concentration.

“I don’t think they’re supposed to look like that,” he admitted eventually.

You laughed softly for the first time in what felt like forever. Michael immediately looked up at the sound.

Something warm flickered briefly across his face hearing it.

“It’s fine,” you said while reaching for the knife gently. “Thank you for helping.”

The sincerity in your voice seemed to affect him more than it should have.

Dinner itself ended up simple. Nothing special.

Just something warm eaten together near midnight while the television played quietly in the background.

And somehow the normalcy of it all felt almost surreal after everything both of you had put each other through.

The conversation remained soft and cautious at first. Not uncomfortable. Just careful.

Like both of you were still slowly relearning where the emotional edges between you now existed after finally tearing down months of silence in a single devastating afternoon.

You noticed yourself still hesitating sometimes before speaking openly. Still instinctively guarding certain reactions before they fully surfaced.

Not because you doubted his feelings anymore.

That part no longer scared you.

But trust, you realized painfully, returned slower than love did.

Michael seemed to understand that without you needing to explain it aloud.

He never pushed. Never demanded reassurance. Never reached for emotional closeness faster than you could naturally give it.

And somehow that patience itself slowly became comforting.

Once dinner was finished, Michael helped wash dishes beside you despite repeatedly splashing water onto the counter accidentally enough times that you finally had to physically move him aside before he somehow flooded your entire kitchen.

“You’re terrible at domestic tasks,” you informed him dryly while wiping the counter.

“I’m talented in other areas.”

You rolled your eyes.

By the time the kitchen was finally cleaned, the clock had drifted dangerously close toward one in the morning.

Michael dried his hands slowly before glancing toward you.

“I should probably leave soon,” he said quietly.

Something small and unpleasant tightened briefly in your chest hearing it despite knowing logically that he couldn’t realistically stay forever.

Michael seemed to notice the reaction immediately.

But before the silence could settle too heavily between both of you, he spoke again.

“There’s something I wanna say first.”

You looked at him quietly.

Michael leaned back lightly against the kitchen counter afterward, visibly searching for the right words before continuing.

“I need you to know that what I said earlier…” His voice softened slightly. “I didn’t say any of it because I felt pressured or guilty or because I felt bad for you.”

Your chest tightened immediately. Michael held your gaze steadily.

“And it would hurt me if you thought that.”

The sincerity in his voice left absolutely no room for doubt.

“I meant every word.”

Silence settled quietly between both of you afterward. Michael swallowed slightly before continuing more softly.

“And I’m really sorry.”

Not rushed this time. Not panicked. Intentional.

“For the Grammys,” he said quietly. “For Brooke. For the hospital. For making you feel small.” His eyes lowered briefly. “For making you feel temporary.”

The last sentence landed especially hard.

Michael rubbed tiredly at his hands before continuing.

“I know now that even if my intentions came from wanting to protect you… I still went about everything the wrong way.” His voice weakened slightly. “And I’m glad you told me the truth earlier even if it hurt.”

Your throat tightened softly. Michael looked at you carefully afterward.

“And I know apologizing doesn’t fix all of it immediately.” A faint sadness crossed his face. “But I meant what I said. I’m gonna spend the rest of my life trying to earn your trust back if you let me.”

The honesty in the sentence softened something visibly inside you.

Not enough to erase everything. But enough that Michael could clearly see the wall around your heart no longer standing quite as high as before.

You looked down briefly before answering quietly.

“I believe your feelings are real.”

Relief flickered visibly across his face immediately.

“And that makes me happy,” you admitted softly.

Michael’s expression softened almost painfully hearing it.

But then you continued gently: “I just…” You searched briefly for the right words. “I need time.”

Michael nodded immediately before you even fully finished speaking.

“The pain doesn’t disappear overnight just because you apologized,” you whispered honestly. “And I think I need to believe all this through your actions too. Not only your words.”

Michael listened without interrupting once.

Then finally he nodded again quietly. “You’re right.”

No defensiveness. No argument.

Just acceptance.

And somehow that softened you more than another emotional speech ever could have.

For several seconds neither of you spoke afterward. Then finally Michael glanced toward the front door before looking back at you again.

“Bill’s outside already,” he said quietly. “I called him earlier.”

You nodded slowly.

Michael hesitated briefly afterward like some instinct inside him still wanted to reach for you before leaving.

But he didn’t.

Instead he gave you space exactly the way you asked him to.

“Goodnight,” he said softly.

“Goodnight.”

Michael lingered one second longer afterward before finally turning and walking slowly toward the door.

You watched quietly as he left the apartment.

And even after the door closed behind him, something inside your chest remained unexpectedly calm.

Not healed. Not fixed.

But calmer.

Because for the first time in a very long time you genuinely believed he was going to come back.

–

Over the next several days, Michael kept his word.

Not through dramatic speeches or overwhelming gestures, but through consistency.

Through showing up.

He started rearranging his schedules quietly wherever possible, stacking meetings earlier during the day and refusing anything that would take him out of California for long periods of time. There were still commitments he could not escape entirely – interviews, studio obligations, charity work – but even on evenings when work kept him away from your apartment, he always called.

Always.

Sometimes the calls only lasted ten minutes because he sounded exhausted beyond reason.

Other nights they stretched far longer while he spoke quietly to you from studio lounges, absentmindedly humming melodies into the phone while discussing work frustrations and lyric ideas in the same breath.

One evening while sitting at your kitchen counter scribbling across a yellow legal pad, Michael started talking animatedly about Frank DiLeo, the new manager he had recently hired from Epic.

“He’s loud,” Michael informed you while barely glancing up from his notes. “Like… aggressively loud.”

You laughed softly from your place on the couch.

“That sounds promising.”

“He argues with everybody.”

“That also sounds promising.”

Michael finally looked up then with the smallest reluctant smile.

“I think I like him.”

The sentence warmed you strangely because it felt so normal. So easy. The kind of conversation that once would have happened naturally between you before fear and heartbreak complicated everything.

And gradually, little pieces of him began quietly reclaiming stable places inside your apartment again.

The orange juice returned to your refrigerator.

Then his notebooks started appearing across random surfaces – your kitchen counter, the coffee table, beside the couch cushions – filled with half-finished lyrics and scattered thoughts written in hurried handwriting.

Sometimes you’d wake from accidental naps on the couch and find Michael standing near the television quietly retracing choreography counts to himself beneath his breath while trying not to make too much noise and worsen your headaches.

Other times he sat at your kitchen counter for nearly an hour straight chewing distractedly on pen caps while scribbling lyric revisions beside untouched cups of coffee growing cold.

And every single time you watched him moving through your apartment now, one realization settled deeper into your chest over and over again:

He was trying. Not perfectly. But genuinely.

One evening, several days after your confrontation, the two of you ended up watching a live boxing match together on television involving two female fighters you had previously faced yourself.

Michael sat beside you on the couch leaning forward slightly with complete concentration while the fight played.

“She keeps dropping her left when she backs up,” he muttered suddenly.

You looked toward him in surprise.

A few seconds later one of the fighters landed a clean hook through the exact opening he noticed.

Michael pointed immediately toward the television.

“See? She’s giving her that opening every time.”

You stared at him briefly before laughing softly.

“What?”

“You know you’re saying exactly everything I’m thinking in my head, right?”

Michael looked mildly pleased with himself afterward.

Several minutes later another brutal body shot landed hard enough to visibly stagger one of the fighters backward.

“Ooh,” Michael winced immediately. “That liver punch was brutal.”

You laughed harder this time.

“I’m serious,” you told him. “You’re in the wrong profession.”

Michael rolled his eyes dramatically. “Oh yeah?”

“Absolutely. We should get you into boxing commentary.”

Michael laughed quietly beside you while shaking his head.

“You’re making fun of me.”

“No,” you smiled. “You actually have a scary eye for this stuff.”

The compliment visibly pleased him more than he tried letting on.

And truthfully, he really did.

Michael had spent so many months obsessively studying your old tapes that somewhere along the way he learned to recognize patterns and openings and shifts in momentum with surprising accuracy.

Sometimes he noticed things casual viewers completely missed.

And every single time he correctly predicted combinations before they happened onscreen, he looked almost unbearably smug afterward.

“You’re annoying,” you informed him eventually.

“I’m gifted.”

“You’re insufferable.”

Michael grinned openly then before leaning back slightly against the couch.

“You can’t spend over a year pining after a gorgeous boxer and not learn a few things along the way.”

The sentence was delivered so casually that for a second you genuinely didn’t know how to react to it.

Then slowly, warmth started creeping up your neck and up to your cheeks.

Michael noticed immediately.

And the pleased little smile appearing across his face afterward only made the blush worse.

Gradually, conversations about your eventual return to boxing started appearing more naturally too.

Not immediately. Not aggressively. Carefully.

Michael came with you personally to neurological check-ins alongside Bill whenever appointments came up, refusing to hide you away now even when fans immediately recognized him the second he stepped outside buildings.

Bill had started carrying significantly more pens in his jacket pockets recently because nearly every public outing now turned into small crowds gathering around Michael asking for autographs and pictures.

But even surrounded by people, Michael stayed close to your side constantly.

Not possessive.

Protective in a quieter way now. Intentional.

And one afternoon after leaving another neurological appointment together, you found yourself watching him absentmindedly from the passenger seat while fans still lingered outside the clinic entrance pointing excitedly toward the car as Bill pulled away from the curb.

Back at your apartment, Michael immediately moved around the living room lowering the television volume and making sure the curtains remained drawn enough to protect your lingering light sensitivity before settling beside you with visible familiarity now.

You wrapped both hands around your tea quietly before finally asking: “You’re not scared of paparazzi seeing us out together like that anymore?”

Michael looked toward you immediately.

And without hesitation said, “No.”

The answer came so quickly and firmly that it surprised you slightly.

Michael leaned back against the couch afterward before continuing more quietly. “I’m done being scared.”

Something softened warmly inside your chest hearing that.

“They can print whatever they want,” he added calmly. “I don’t care anymore.”

You looked down briefly toward your tea afterward to hide the small smile threatening at your mouth.

Because for the first time since everything fell apart, Michael no longer looked like somebody trying to outrun love.

He looked like somebody finally willing to stand still long enough to keep it.

–

Over the following days, a strange softness slowly began settling back into the spaces between both of you.

Not all at once.

Not perfectly.

There were still moments where silence lingered too long or where old hurt briefly resurfaced unexpectedly across your face before disappearing again. There were still moments where Michael looked at you with visible guilt when your headaches worsened or when he caught sight of the bruising still fading slowly along your ribs and temple.

But despite everything, he stayed.

And little by little, your body began learning that his presence no longer meant impending abandonment.

Michael was spending most evenings at your apartment after work before leaving late at night only when absolutely necessary. It felt strangely domestic. Strangely normal.

Like the version of closeness both of you had almost destroyed before ever properly getting to live inside it.

That evening, after another exhausting day spent bouncing between meetings and studio work, Michael had arrived looking visibly drained already. You had immediately noticed it in the slower way he moved through your apartment and how his curls fell messily into his face more than usual, no longer held perfectly in place the way the public so often saw him.

“You look dead,” you told him dryly while taking the takeout containers from his hands.

Michael let out a tired laugh.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

The small smile he gave you afterward lingered warmly in your chest far longer than it should have.

Later that night, after forcing you to take your medication on time, Michael eventually disappeared quietly into your bedroom while you showered.

By the time you emerged from the bathroom nearly twenty minutes later wearing your loungewear and still rubbing lightly at the aching tension traveling from the base of your skull down into your neck, you found him lying diagonally across your bed on top of the covers.

One arm rested beneath his head.

The other lay loosely across his stomach.

His eyes were closed.

For a second you genuinely thought he had fallen asleep.

But then he spoke quietly without opening them.

“You got any idea how good your bed feels after fourteen hours in the studio?”

A small laugh escaped you despite yourself.

“You’re so dramatic.”

“Mhm,” he murmured tiredly.

You continued massaging absentmindedly at the soreness in your neck while moving carefully toward the bed before climbing onto it beside him.

Not too close. Just near enough.

You settled sideways against the mattress with one leg bent slightly upward while your elbow supported your weight, your head resting against your hand as you looked down toward him beneath the soft dim lighting filling the room.

Michael finally opened his eyes fully then.

For several quiet seconds neither of you spoke.

His gaze drifted slowly across your face before softening almost immediately.

“You feeling okay?” he asked gently.

“My head hurts less than earlier.”

“That’s good.”

“You look more exhausted than I do.”

Michael let out another tired laugh at that before rubbing briefly at one eye.

“I’m stuck.”

“On what?”

“Everything.” He stared upward toward the ceiling again afterward. “Lyrics. Choreo. Quincy wants changes on one thing and the label wants something else and everybody keeps talking at me all day long. Plus, I have to prepare for the Victory tour as well.”

You smiled faintly.

“That sounds awful.”

“It is awful.”

The room settled back into comfortable quiet afterward while Michael continued talking intermittently about his day, rambling softly through exhaustion about the tour’s setlist, how many cities they were gonna perform in and which venues were the biggest even when half the details blurred together inside your tired concussion-fogged brain.

But somewhere during his rambling, your focus drifted away from the actual words themselves.

Instead you found yourself simply watching him.

The softness in his face while he relaxed.

The exhaustion pulling at his features.

The curl that kept falling stubbornly into his eyes every few minutes.

And more than anything else– the gentleness.

The patience.

The way he no longer reached for you automatically anymore unless he knew you wanted him to.

At some point over the past several days, you realized Michael had started moving around your pain carefully instead of trying to control it.

He asked before touching you.

Asked before helping.

Asked before staying.

And somehow those small hesitations meant more to you than all the grand gestures in the world.

Michael was still talking quietly about some choreography issue when your free hand lifted almost absentmindedly toward his face.

His voice faded immediately the second your fingers touched the curl hanging near his eyes.

The room fell completely silent.

Slowly, carefully, you brushed the strand of hair back away from his face.

“You’re so beautiful,” you whispered softly before you could stop yourself.

The faintest blush immediately crept across Michael’s cheeks beneath your hand as neither of you moved for several seconds.

Michael looked almost afraid to breathe too loudly.

And looking down at him like this – tired and vulnerable and real beneath the soft bedroom lighting instead of hidden behind stages and cameras and fear – something inside your chest softened completely.

Then slowly, before you could lose courage, you leaned down toward him.

Michael’s eyes widened slightly in surprise.

But he still didn’t move first.

Didn’t rush toward you.

Didn’t assume.

He simply looked at you quietly while you closed the remaining distance yourself and pressed your lips softly against his.

The kiss was impossibly gentle. Tentative at first.

Almost disbelieving.

For one tiny suspended second Michael seemed too stunned to even react at all.

Then finally he kissed you back.

Softly. Carefully.

Like he was terrified this might somehow disappear if he moved too fast.

Warmth flooded painfully through your chest immediately.

Not excitement. Not adrenaline.

Something far deeper.

Relief.

The kiss lingered only a few seconds before you slowly pulled back again, your forehead remaining close enough to his that your breaths still mixed softly between you afterward.

Michael stared up at you looking completely overwhelmed.

“You kissed me,” he whispered softly.

A small smile finally pulled at your mouth then.

And after a second, you nodded once.

Michael looked at you like the gesture alone might undo him emotionally all over again.

Then slowly, almost reverently, he reached up and rested his hand carefully against the side of your face.

Not holding. Just touching.

Like he still could not fully believe you were real beneath his fingertips at all.

–

Over the following couple of weeks, recovery finally stopped feeling like survival and slowly began feeling like living again.

The headaches that had once left you curled silently beneath blankets for hours gradually lessened in severity until they became manageable instead of consuming, and eventually even the light sensitivity faded enough that you no longer instinctively flinched whenever sunlight touched your eyes.

The first morning you realized you had opened the curtains without thinking about it first, you stood there quietly for several seconds staring at the sunlight pouring through your apartment windows almost in disbelief.

It felt strangely symbolic somehow. Like your world had finally stopped hurting to look at.

A few days later, after another round of neurological examinations and follow-up tests, your doctor finally leaned back in his chair with the first genuinely reassuring expression you had seen from him since the knockout.

“Well,” he said while setting paperwork down onto the desk, “everything looks very good.”

Relief immediately tightened inside your chest.

“You’re officially cleared neurologically.”

Beside you, Michael visibly exhaled too.

The doctor still warned against immediately throwing yourself back into full-contact training again and emphasized easing slowly back into athletic activity, but for the first time since the accident, the future no longer felt uncertain and frightening sitting in front of you.

It felt reachable again.

Outside the clinic afterward, fans immediately recognized Michael the second he stepped through the doors alongside you.

Bill barely had enough time to reach into his jacket before several people were already crowding politely toward Michael asking for autographs and pictures once again.

You instinctively slowed slightly to give him space the way you always used to when public attention swarmed him.

But Michael immediately stayed beside you anyway. Like standing beside you openly no longer frightened him enough to make him step away.

And later that same evening while sitting curled beneath blankets on your couch with the television playing softly in the background, you caught sight of one of the entertainment programs discussing recent photographs of Michael accompanying you to multiple appointments around Los Angeles.

The interviewer sitting across from Michael during some red carpet event smiled knowingly.

“So what’s your relationship with Y/N?”

Months ago, Michael probably would have looked visibly uncomfortable beneath the question. Would have tried too hard either denying or hiding or awkwardly escaping it.

But now he only smiled politely before adjusting the microphone in his hand.

“I’m just focused on work right now,” he answered smoothly. “We’re finishing a lot of exciting projects.”

Then almost effortlessly, he redirected the conversation entirely toward music and touring and upcoming plans without giving tabloids anything emotionally personal to grab onto.

The transition was so subtle and controlled that the interviewer followed him there naturally without resistance.

You stared quietly at the television afterward while something emotional tightened unexpectedly inside your chest.

Because suddenly you remembered those early phone calls again.

Michael quietly admitting how much he admired the way you protected your private life during interviews.

How fascinated he seemed by your refusal to feed personal details to strangers.

How wistfully he once admitted: “I wish I knew how to do that.”

And now he did.

Not because fame scared him less.

But because somewhere along the way, he finally learned that privacy did not have to come from fear and isolation.

It could come from peace too.

The realization made your chest ache warmly.

By the time Michael arrived at your apartment later that evening using the key you had finally given him several days earlier, you had already gone to sleep.

He stepped inside quietly and locked the door behind himself before noticing you were asleep in your bed.

For several long seconds he simply stood there looking at you.

The exhaustion pulling through him tonight felt bone-deep after another endless day of interviews and meetings and cameras constantly demanding pieces of him from every direction.

But somehow the second he stepped inside your apartment, all that noise seemed to disappear.

You felt safe to him now in a way nothing else in his life really did.

Carefully, trying not to wake you, Michael kicked off his shoes before moving toward the bed and lowering himself quietly beside you.

Then, without even bothering pretending he intended staying awake, he turned instinctively toward you and curled against your side almost immediately, one arm loosely pulling your blanket with him as he settled his back with tired familiarity against your chest and stomach.

The movement stirred you only slightly from sleep.

Your eyes barely opened before your arms immediately wrapped sleepily around his middle on instinct.

Michael visibly melted the second you pulled him closer.

“I’m glad you’re here,” you murmured drowsily against his curls.

The sentence settled somewhere painfully soft inside his chest.

Michael closed his eyes afterward while your fingers drifted absentmindedly into his hair.

And for the first time in a very long while, neither of you felt afraid of tomorrow anymore.

–

A little over two weeks after receiving neurological clearance, life slowly began settling into movement again.

Not the frantic chaos it once was before the concussion. Just rhythm.

Your agency started easing you carefully back into professional obligations, beginning with meetings alongside your trainers and manager to discuss what your eventual return to boxing would realistically look like.

The first meeting took place in a quiet office conference room where your trainers immediately began speaking strategy before you had even fully sat down.

“No sparring yet,” one of them warned immediately while pointing at paperwork spread across the table. “Conditioning first. Cardio. Light technical work. We rebuild gradually.”

You nodded without argument. For once.

Your manager looked visibly relieved by that alone.

“We’ll probably arrange an interview soon too,” he added afterward while flipping through notes. “People are gonna ask questions before your return either way, so we’d rather control the narrative ourselves.”

“Questions about what?” you asked dryly.

“Your physical state. The concussion. Whether you’re medically safe to fight again.” He paused briefly. “And probably questions about Michael Jackson too.”

That earned the smallest exhausted sigh from you.

Your manager immediately laughed.

“Welcome to America.”

Gradually your days started becoming fuller afterward.

Workouts returned first. Then scheduling meetings. Then media preparation.

And slowly, your world began opening outward again beyond the walls of your apartment and recovery.

But despite both your schedules becoming busier now, somehow you and Michael still found ways to keep folding yourselves naturally into each other’s days.

Sometimes he visited your apartment after long work days and immediately fell asleep against you before even finishing conversations.

Other times you found yourself sprawled somewhere inside Hayvenhurst for hours while Michael worked nearby, the simple comfort of existing in the same room becoming enough all on its own now. And every single time you walked through those familiar doors again, Katherine welcomed you warmly into her arms while the rest of the family slowly slipped back into treating your presence there like something natural and expected, as though the painful distance of the past few months had finally stopped haunting the house too.

And gradually, almost without either of you consciously discussing it, physical affection stopped feeling uncertain too.

Michael no longer hesitated quite so visibly before touching you.

He hugged you naturally now when arriving places.

Reached for your hand absentmindedly while talking.

Kissed your forehead softly whenever headaches returned.

And every single time he touched you now, there was still something almost reverent in the gentleness of it.

Like some part of him still could not fully believe he had been given another chance at loving you openly.

That evening, you found yourself curled sideways across one of the studio couches at Hayvenhurst while Michael worked nearby surrounded by lyric sheets and scattered cassette tapes.

He sat cross-legged on the floor beside the couch with his notebook balanced against one knee, occasionally muttering half-finished lyrics beneath his breath while scribbling corrections into margins.

The room smelled faintly like coffee and paper and the expensive studio equipment humming softly around you.

Your eyes drifted absentmindedly across the shelves nearby before suddenly catching on something familiar sitting tucked carefully beside a stack of tapes.

The small Peter Pan music box.

Your chest softened immediately.

Slowly, you reached toward the shelf before lifting it carefully into your hands and winding the mechanism gently.

The soft melody filled the room almost immediately.

Michael’s pen stopped moving the second he heard it.

For several quiet seconds neither of you spoke.

Then Michael looked up toward you.

Your eyes met across the dim studio lighting.

“You still have this?” you asked softly while turning the little music box carefully in your hands.

Michael’s expression softened instantly.

“Be careful with it,” he murmured quietly.

You smiled faintly. “Why?”

Michael leaned back slightly against the couch beside you before answering without hesitation: “Because somebody very important gave it to me.”

Your teasing smile widened slightly.

“Oh yeah?” you asked lightly. “Who?”

Michael looked at you for one long quiet second afterward.

Then softly: “Someone I saw on a television screen once and never quite recovered from.”

A small smile immediately pulled at your mouth.

Your fingers tightened slightly around the little music box in your hands while you looked at him, and suddenly the entire room felt unbearably soft around the edges.

Michael must have noticed the shift too because his own face softened instantly afterward while the music box melody continued quietly between both of you.

You stared at him for several seconds without speaking.

Then slowly, your hand reached downward toward him almost instinctively, your fingers slipping gently into his curls near his temple.

Michael visibly melted beneath the touch immediately.

The affection in your gaze became almost unbearable for him to look at directly.

And for the first time since everything between you finally became real, Michael no longer looked frightened by that love looking back at him. He looked overwhelmed by it.

Carefully, almost cautiously despite everything, Michael rose slightly from where he sat on the floor until his face hovered closer to yours.

His eyes flickered briefly toward your lips.

Then back to your eyes. Still asking silently. Still making sure.

And when you didn’t pull away, Michael finally closed the distance himself.

The kiss was impossibly soft.

Slow enough that you could feel the slight tremble in his breathing the second your lips touched.

For several suspended seconds nothing else inside the room seemed to exist except warmth and closeness and relief.

Michael kissed you like somebody who was still astonished he was allowed to.

And when he pulled back slightly afterward, his forehead resting lightly against yours, the look in his eyes nearly shattered your heart all over again.

Without thinking, your fingers slid more fully into his curls as you smiled softly against his mouth.

Then suddenly, with a tiny burst of confidence you hadn’t expected from him, Michael’s hands settled carefully at your waist before he gently tugged you forward off the couch entirely.

A startled laugh escaped you as you nearly tumbled directly into his lap.

Michael immediately steadied you with quiet laughter of his own.

And before either of you could fully say anything else, you had already buried your face instinctively against his neck while his arms wrapped around you securely.

The embrace felt warm in a way that reached deeper than physical comfort alone.

Safe.

Michael inhaled softly against your hair afterward like your presence itself calmed something restless inside him.

And suddenly sitting there in his lap beneath the soft studio lighting while his arms remained wrapped around you so naturally, happiness swelled painfully inside your chest almost strong enough to overwhelm you.

Slowly you lifted your head again afterward until your forehead rested gently against his.

Michael’s eyes remained half-lidded and soft while looking at you.

Then quietly, finally without fear anymore: “Michael,” you whispered, “I love you.”

The words visibly hit him just as hard this time as the first time you said them. Maybe harder.

Because now there was no grief or anger surrounding them anymore. Only truth.

Emotion immediately flooded his face again while his hands tightened almost imperceptibly at your waist.

“I love you too,” he whispered back shakily.

Neither of you spoke again for a very long time.

You simply stayed there together tangled quietly in each other’s arms while the tiny Neverland music box melody continued softly in the background beside you. -FIN-

Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed the ending!

A few things I wanted to say:

I don't care what anyone says, Michael Jackson is canonically a little spoon 😭❤️

It took me a while to figure out how to wrap this story up and I'm still not sure if I'm completely satisfied with it. Every dialogue and every sentence started sounding weird the more I re-read it (and I re-read it like fifty times) so I re-wrote quite a lot of it until I was happy, so I really hope the ending landed for you. Especially with the shorter sentences I decided to write to give the reader a more emotional, impactful writing (usually I write longer paragraphs rather than short sentences), so I'm really curious if all of this worked out 🌸

I didn't write anything beyond this because I believe stories should end when they feel complete, and personally I don't think adding smut would have suited this story anyway (not to mention I've never written smut in my life and I'd probably be bad at it lol)

Thank you for sticking with this story until the very end. Every like and comment genuinely meant so much to me!!

Chapter 7: Nothing Left To Hide

Consciousness returned in fragments rather than anything recognizable as waking.

At first there was only light.

Harsh white light shifting strangely behind your eyelids while movement pulled unevenly beneath your body somewhere far away, accompanied by voices that sounded distorted and unreachable no matter how hard you tried to focus on them. Something pressed tightly against your face. Someone kept speaking nearby in calm urgent tones you could not fully understand. The sensation of your own body felt wrong somehow, distant and disconnected, as though you were trapped several feet beneath yourself trying unsuccessfully to claw your way upward through heavy water.

You tried to move. Nothing happened.

Then even the light disappeared again.

–

By the time Bill arrived at the hospital, the building had already settled into the strange hollow quietness that only existed after midnight, when visiting hours ended and exhaustion began overtaking panic in the hallways. The bright fluorescent lighting inside the ICU corridor made everyone standing there look unnaturally pale, including the trainers still lingering outside the secured ward entrance.

They recognized Bill immediately the second he approached.

They had already met him months earlier during Michael’s visit to the training center, when Bill introduced himself politely as Michael’s security while quietly keeping watch near the ring throughout sparring sessions and workouts. Since then, most of the trainers had simply come to associate him naturally with Michael whenever his name came up around you, which was why none of them questioned Bill’s presence now as he approached them in the ICU hallway asking how you were doing.

One of the trainers rubbed tiredly at his face before filling him in quietly while the other stood nearby looking equally worried.

“Severe concussion,” he explained clinically, exhaustion flattening his voice. “No bleeding thankfully. No brain damage from what they can tell so far.”

Bill nodded once without interrupting.

“She woke briefly in the ambulance,” another trainer added. “Then lost consciousness again. Same thing during examination. They’re monitoring her closely now.”

“And her emergency contact?” Bill asked.

“Her mother’s flying in from Phoenix tonight.”

For several seconds afterward, nobody spoke.

The trainers eventually muttered something about finding coffee before disappearing farther down the hallway together, leaving Bill standing alone outside the closed ICU doors in complete silence.

He simply remained there motionless for a while beneath the fluorescent lights with his hands buried inside his jacket pockets, staring quietly at the closed door behind which your unconscious body lay somewhere.

When Bill finally returned to Hayvenhurst sometime later into the night, he found Michael exactly where he already expected him to be.

The studio remained dimly lit and unnaturally quiet now, the television finally switched off. Michael sat completely still near the mixing console with his elbows resting against his knees and his hands clasped tightly together, staring somewhere unfocused toward the floor in a way that immediately told Bill he had not moved much since he left.

The second the door opened, Michael looked up.

“How is she?”

The question came instantly.

Bill removed his jacket slowly before answering.

“Severe concussion,” he said quietly. “No brain damage or bleeding, thankfully.”

Michael shut his eyes briefly.

Still breathing. Still alive.Bill noticed the relief immediately anyway.

“She was still unconscious when I left,” he continued. “Her mother’s there now. Flew in from Phoenix.”

Michael absorbed the information in silence afterward.

And for perhaps the first time since Bill started working for him all those years ago, there was something noticeably absent from Bill’s tone while speaking to him now. He was not openly cruel. Not angry anymore in the explosive way he had been earlier.

But the warmth he usually carried around Michael so naturally had withdrawn somewhere behind exhaustion and disappointment instead.

And Michael felt that absence immediately.

For several long moments, neither of them spoke again.

Then finally Bill glanced toward him quietly.

“If you need somebody to talk to,” he said simply, “I’m here.”

Not judgment. Not permission to justify himself.

Just a door left open anyway.

Michael swallowed once before nodding faintly. “I know.”

Bill studied him for another second before accepting the answer for what it was.

Then quietly left him alone.

Meanwhile, several states away from Hayvenhurst and only minutes after landing in California, your mother arrived at the hospital still wearing the same clothes she had thrown on hurriedly after receiving the phone call earlier that evening.

Exhaustion and fear lingered plainly across her face while she hurried through the hospital corridors carrying only her purse and the terrible panic of a mother who had boarded the first available plane without fully knowing whether her daughter would wake up again by the time she arrived.

At the ICU desk, she immediately identified herself as your mother and emergency contact.

The staff explained your condition carefully while leading her through the secured ward afterward, speaking in measured clinical tones about the concussion, the monitoring, the lack of brain damage, the periods of unconsciousness.

She listened to every word. But none of it truly settled inside her chest until she finally stepped through the doorway into your room and saw you.

For the first time since you were a child, you suddenly looked painfully small to her again lying motionless beneath white hospital blankets surrounded by monitors and dim machine lights that beeped softly into the silence around you.

Nothing about you resembled the fierce fighter who stood beneath arena lights commanding entire crowds only hours earlier.

You just looked like her daughter.

Your mother crossed the room immediately afterward and sat down beside the bed before taking your hand carefully between both of hers.

Then she never let go again.

She simply settled into the chair quietly beneath the dim ICU lighting prepared to stay there for however long it took.

Sometime around three in the morning, consciousness returned properly for the first time.

Pain reached you before awareness did.

A crushing ache spread violently through your head the moment your eyes tried opening, sharp enough that even breathing too deeply suddenly felt unbearable. For several disoriented seconds, you could not understand where you were or why everything smelled faintly sterile around you while machines beeped softly nearby through the darkness.

Then slowly, gradually, your vision focused enough to recognize the familiar shape sitting beside the bed.

Your mother. Still holding your hand.

She had fallen asleep sitting upright in the chair sometime during the night, exhaustion visible plainly across her face even while sleeping.

You stared at her quietly for several long seconds without speaking. And despite the pain splitting through your skull, relief still settled weakly through your chest anyway simply from knowing she was there.

The slight movement of your hand waking beneath hers was enough to stir her almost instantly.

Her eyes opened immediately.

And the second she realized you were awake, relief flooded across her exhausted face so powerfully it nearly looked painful.

“Hey,” she whispered softly while tightening her grip around your hand. “You’re okay. You’re in the hospital, sweetheart, but you’re okay. I’m right here.”

You tried to speak. Your throat hurt.

“What–”

Your mother immediately shook her head gently before you could push further.

“Not tonight,” she murmured quietly while brushing your hair back carefully from your forehead. “Rest now. We’ll talk later.”

Your head hurt too badly to argue.

And the feeling of her hand still wrapped around yours somehow made everything else feel distant enough not to matter for the moment.

So you obeyed.

Your eyes slowly closed again beneath the dim hospital lighting while your mother remained beside you exactly where she promised she would be.

–

The next time you woke properly, pale morning light had already begun filtering faintly through the narrow gaps between the hospital curtains, though even that dimness felt painfully sharp against your eyes the moment consciousness fully returned.

The headache arrived instantly again too.

Not the dull soreness of normal exhaustion, but a deep crushing pain behind your forehead and eyes severe enough that even opening your eyelids completely made nausea stir faintly through your stomach. For several long moments you simply lay still trying to orient yourself while machines beeped softly nearby and the sterile smell of the ICU slowly settled back into your awareness piece by piece.

You remembered the fight. At least the beginning of it.

The crowd. Your opponent. The lights.

Then nothing.

A horrible blank space swallowed the rest entirely.

Your mother noticed you stirring almost immediately from the chair beside your bed and leaned forward carefully, relief softening her exhausted face once she realized you were awake properly this time.

“How bad?” you whispered hoarsely after several seconds, your voice rough from sleep and disuse.

Your mother reached immediately for the cup of water beside the bed before helping you drink carefully.

“Don’t think too hard right now,” she said gently instead of answering directly. “The doctors said it’ll make your head worse.”

Unfortunately, even trying not to think still hurt.

By noon, your trainers were briefly allowed inside the ICU room carrying flowers and expressions that looked equal parts relieved and guilty in the particular way coaches always did after watching one of their athletes get seriously hurt under their supervision.

The moment they saw you awake, both visibly relaxed.

“Jesus Christ,” one muttered quietly while setting the flowers carefully near the window. “You scared the hell out of everybody.”

You tried managing a small smile despite the pain radiating violently through your skull.

“What happened?”

The trainers exchanged a glance first before one finally explained the match slowly and carefully enough not to overwhelm you.

You had technically been ahead on points during the earlier rounds.

Then the body shots started wearing you down. Then the knockout.

You remembered none of it. Not even the final punch.

“Doctors said you’ve got a severe concussion,” your head trainer explained while rubbing tiredly at the back of his neck. “No brain damage, thankfully. But they’re taking this really seriously.”

The second trainer motioned toward one of the bouquets they brought afterward.

“That one’s from your opponent.”

You blinked slightly. “She sent flowers?”

“And a card.”

He handed it carefully toward you before continuing. “She wanted to come herself, actually. They wouldn’t let her into ICU.”

The handwritten note attached to the bouquet apologized repeatedly for the severity of the knockout, wished you a healthy recovery, and explained that she never intended for the fight to end the way it did.

Somehow, reading genuine concern from the woman who knocked you unconscious only made your chest ache more.

You thanked your trainers quietly afterward, though even speaking too much started worsening the pounding pain behind your eyes almost immediately.

Thankfully, they noticed.

“You don’t need to think about boxing right now,” one of them said firmly before standing again. “Or training. Or schedules. Or anything.”

“You’re not stepping back into a ring for a while anyway,” the other added more gently. “Your only job right now is getting better.”

Shortly after they left, the doctor arrived accompanied by another nurse while your mother remained seated quietly beside the bed.

He explained your condition calmly and professionally, though even listening to him for too long began exhausting you almost immediately.

The concussion had been severe enough to require intensive overnight neurological monitoring inside the ICU, particularly because of the periods where you repeatedly lost consciousness after the knockout. Thankfully there appeared to be no bleeding or structural damage to the brain itself, but the next few days remained extremely important regardless because complications could still develop later.

“You’ll likely remain in ICU for another day or two minimum,” he explained carefully while reviewing charts beside the bed. “If your neurological monitoring remains stable, we can move you to a regular room afterward.”

He also stressed repeatedly that your recovery would require strict cognitive rest.

Minimal noise. Minimal stimulation. Limited visitors. Limited light.

“You’ll probably notice significant sensitivity to brightness for a while,” he added while glancing toward your mother. “Please keep the curtains mostly drawn during the daytime. Even normal light exposure may worsen symptoms right now.”

Your mother nodded immediately.

“And absolutely no athletic activity,” the doctor continued firmly before looking directly at you now. “You will need full neurological clearance before returning to training or competition.”

The thought alone made frustration twist faintly inside your chest.

Your entire life had suddenly narrowed down to lying still inside a dim hospital room trying not to think too hard.

After the doctor finally left, your mother gently stroked your hair back from your forehead in the same soothing way she used to when you were much younger and sick.

And for the first time since waking up properly, exhaustion overtook frustration long enough that you simply closed your eyes beneath her touch without fighting it.

Later that afternoon, Bill arrived.

The nurses only allowed him inside briefly because of ICU restrictions and because your mother allowed it, but even the sight of him stepping carefully through the doorway carrying flowers and a teddy bear somehow softened something painful inside your chest instantly.

Your mother thanked him for coming last night to initially check on you, then quietly excused herself soon afterward under the pretense of calling your brothers and getting coffee, leaving both of you alone together.

Bill looked strangely out of place beside the ICU bed somehow, his large frame moving with the awkward gentleness of somebody terrified of accidentally worsening fragile things simply by existing too heavily around them.

“How you feeling?” he asked quietly while sitting down beside the bed.

You stared vaguely toward the dim ceiling for several seconds before answering honestly.

“My head feels horrible.”

Bill nodded sympathetically.

“And I’m already tired of lying still,” you admitted weakly. “Thinking hurts too much. Looking at lights hurts too much. Everything hurts too much.”

A faint smile briefly crossed Bill’s face at the irritation in your voice.

“That sounds more like you.”

You exhaled quietly through your nose before shifting slightly against the pillow and immediately regretting it when pain stabbed behind your eyes again.

“Feels like somebody split my skull open.”

Bill’s expression softened immediately.

For a little while afterward, the conversation stayed gentle and quiet, mostly revolving around recovery timelines and your mother terrorizing nurses with questions all morning.

Then eventually, carefully, you asked the question both of you knew had been sitting unspoken between you from the second he entered the room.

“How’s Michael?”

Bill hesitated almost imperceptibly.

Then answered quietly: “He couldn’t come.”

That was all.

No explanation. No elaboration.

And somehow those three words alone told you everything you needed to know.

You nodded once afterward while turning your gaze slowly toward the dim hospital window.

The pain inside your chest arrived instantly.

Heavy. Sharp.

Worse somehow because part of you already knew before asking. Still, you said nothing else about him afterward.

Because if you opened your mouth now, anger might spill out alongside the heartbreak, and you were suddenly too exhausted to untangle the difference between them properly anymore.

After several quiet minutes passed, you finally looked back toward Bill again.

“Thank you for coming,” you said softly. “It means a lot.”

Bill’s eyes softened immediately. He reached carefully for your hand resting above the blanket and squeezed it gently once.

“Get some rest, sweetheart.”

Then he quietly left you alone again.

Over the next two days, your condition stabilized enough that the doctors finally transferred you out of ICU into a regular hospital room.

More visitors came afterward once restrictions loosened slightly.

Your opponent visited personally carrying another bouquet of flowers and enough visible guilt that you ended up comforting her almost as much as she comforted you. The conversation between you unexpectedly flowed naturally despite the strange circumstances, and by the time she left, something resembling the beginning of an unlikely friendship had quietly formed between both of you.

Several athletes and colleagues from your agency visited too and even David Keller, the young singer you went to the Grammys with paid you a visit, though thankfully none stayed very long because everyone understood quickly that too much stimulation still exhausted you badly. Your trainers and manager returned repeatedly as well, each visit ending with the exact same instructions over and over again.

Rest. Recover. Do not think about boxing.

And through all of it, one absence remained painfully constant.

Michael never came. Not once.

At first you tried excusing it internally.

Maybe he was busy. Maybe security made things difficult. Maybe the hospital attention would create chaos.

Maybe–

But eventually the excuses stopped working.

Because no matter how hard you tried rationalizing it, one fact remained impossible to ignore:

You had sat outside his room for days after the Pepsi accident.

You had comforted his mother. Held his hand. Read him letters.

Promised him he would never have to go through terrible things alone.

And now, lying injured beneath sterile hospital lighting with your head pounding violently every time you tried to think too hard, Michael had left you entirely alone anyway.

The realization hurt far worse than the physical pain ever did.

And slowly, underneath the heartbreak and humiliation and lingering love still poisoning your chest no matter how badly you wished otherwise, anger finally began growing there too.

Real anger.

Not because he didn’t love you back.

But because after everything the two of you survived together, after everything you gave him freely without ever demanding anything in return, Michael had still somehow decided you were only worth abandoning when things became difficult.

And for the first time since this entire nightmare began, part of you no longer wanted to forgive him for it.

–

A few days into your hospital stay, life at Hayvenhurst continued almost strangely normally on the surface.

The Jackson family gathered for dinner the way they often did whenever enough schedules aligned for everyone to end up home at the same time, the large dining table crowded with familiar conversation, dishes constantly being passed around, and Katherine moving between her children with the same quiet attentiveness she always carried no matter how famous or grown they became.

Michael sat quieter than usual throughout most of it.

Not visibly upset.

Not withdrawn enough for strangers to notice.

But his siblings knew him too well by now not to recognize the heaviness sitting over him these past days.

At one point while serving food onto Janet’s plate, Katherine casually mentioned hearing from Bill earlier that afternoon about your condition improving steadily over the past days.

“I think La Toya and I are gonna visit her tomorrow,” Janet said softly. “If she’s feeling up to visitors.”

“That would be nice,” Katherine agreed warmly before turning toward Michael almost absentmindedly while continuing to pass dishes around the table. “How’s she doing today, baby?”

Michael’s fork paused briefly against his plate.

And when he answered quietly: “I don’t know.”

The entire table went silent.

Not dramatic silence.

Just immediate confusion.

Katherine looked at him properly for the first time all evening.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

Michael kept his eyes lowered toward his plate.

“I haven’t been there.”

For several long seconds, nobody spoke at all.

Because apparently every single person sitting at that table had naturally assumed he already visited you days ago.

Jackie stared at him first, genuine disbelief written plainly across his face.

“You haven’t gone to see her yet?”

Michael visibly tensed beneath the attention suddenly directed toward him from every side of the table.

“I–”

Even Joseph looked confused now.

Not angry. Just honestly unable to understand it.

“She was there every day when you got burned,” he pointed out bluntly.

That sentence landed harder than anything else somehow.

Michael immediately pushed his chair back afterward. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

Nobody stopped him as he left the dining room.

But Katherine watched him go with quiet concern lingering heavily in her expression long after he disappeared upstairs.

–

Later that night, after most of the house had settled into silence, Katherine eventually found Michael sitting alone inside his room with music sheets scattered loosely nearby that he clearly had not truly been working on.

She entered quietly carrying two bowls of ice cream balanced carefully in her hands.

Michael glanced up immediately.

“Mama, I’m okay.”

“Mhm,” Katherine answered softly as she handed him one of the bowls before sitting down beside him anyway. “And I’m the Queen of England.”

Despite everything, the corner of Michael’s mouth twitched faintly at that.

For several minutes, neither of them spoke much while eating quietly together in the dimness of the room.

Then eventually Katherine asked gently:

“You wanna talk about it?”

Michael immediately shook his head.

“No.”

He set the bowl aside afterward and made a small motion to stand up.

“I should go work.”

But before he could fully rise from the bed, Katherine reached gently for his wrist.

“Michael.”

Something in her voice made him pause.

“Sit down, baby.”

And despite everything, Michael still obeyed immediately when his mother spoke to him like that.

He sat back down quietly.

At first the conversation moved slowly.

Carefully.

Katherine never pushed too hard all at once. She simply asked small questions about you, about the tabloids, about the distance that suddenly formed between both of you over the past year.

And gradually, piece by piece, Michael started unraveling.

He told her about the first magazine article showing photographs outside your apartment.

About how the paparazzi started following you afterward.

About the bruises increasing during training because you became distracted and overwhelmed by the attention surrounding his name.

About the guilt that settled inside him after realizing he had brought all of it into your life.

And then once he truly started speaking, the words almost stopped sounding controlled anymore.

Everything poured out.

The fear. The panic. The obsessive conviction growing inside him for months now that proximity to him damaged people he loved eventually.

How he genuinely believed distancing himself from you would protect you.

How every cruel decision afterward somehow felt necessary at the time even while it destroyed him too.

How seeing you with him at events suddenly terrified him instead of making him happy.

How the Grammys nearly killed him emotionally because you looked so beautiful standing there while he intentionally tried making you feel small enough to leave him willingly.

And finally, quietly breaking apart completely now: “I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t bring myself to visit.”

His voice cracked hard on the last sentence. And suddenly all the control disappeared afterward.

Because once the first tears came, they did not stop.

Michael bent forward with both hands covering his face while months of pressure and fear and guilt finally collapsed outward all at once so violently it almost seemed to physically shake him apart.

Katherine immediately moved closer beside him. “Oh, baby.”

The second her arms wrapped around him, Michael completely broke.

He curled instinctively against his mother’s side the exact same way he used to after Joseph beat him as a child, burying his face against her shoulder while sobs tore out of him so painfully that Katherine’s own eyes immediately filled with tears too.

For several long minutes, she simply held him.

Stroked his curls gently away from his face.

Let him cry.

And slowly, gradually, the storm eased enough for Michael to breathe properly again.

Eventually he pulled back slightly, embarrassed now in the way he often became after emotional vulnerability overtook him too openly.

But before he could fully retreat away emotionally again, Katherine gently cupped his face between both hands and made him look directly at her.

“Michael,” she said softly, “I love you more than anything in this world.”

Fresh tears welled instantly in his eyes again.

“But baby… you did that girl very wrong.”

The words visibly crushed him. And Katherine continued anyway because she loved him too much not to tell him the truth.

“I understand why you got scared,” she told him gently. “I understand you wanted to protect her. But the way you went about it…” She shook her head slowly. “No, baby. No.”

She paused before continuing. “You don’t come up with cruel ways to make somebody leave you because you’re frightened of losing them. That’s not how I raised you.”

Each sentence seemed to sink deeper into him than the last.

Katherine’s voice never became harsh. And somehow that softness hurt him worse.

“You decided what she could and couldn’t survive without ever asking her what she wanted,” she continued quietly while stroking tears carefully from beneath his eyes with her thumbs. “You made choices for her life all by yourself because you thought you knew better. She moved to a whole new state where she knew nobody, left her family behind,” Katherine whispered. “And that girl leaned on you because you became the only person making California feel like home to her.”

Katherine could see the guilt physically twisting across his face.

“And instead of explaining your fear to her honestly, you left her alone trying to understand why the person she trusted most suddenly started treating her like she meant less and less.”

Michael started crying again silently now.

Katherine’s own voice softened further.

“The woman who walked into our home and thanked every single person working here by name…” she murmured quietly. “The woman who sat outside your hospital room for days waiting for you to let her in…”

She brushed his hair back gently again. “That is not somebody who needs protecting from her own feelings.”

And deep down, somewhere beneath all the fear and panic and self-destruction, he knew every single word she said was true.

Katherine’s expression softened painfully while looking at him afterward.

“Oh, my sweet boy,” she whispered quietly before pulling him into another embrace again.

This time Michael did not sob loudly. He just clung to her silently while she stroked his hair the same way she always had when he was little and frightened and hurting.

Eventually, once his breathing steadied enough again, Katherine kissed his forehead softly before standing from the bed.

“You need to fix this,” she told him gently before leaving the room. “And you need to stop deciding for her what kind of life she’s allowed to choose.”

Then she quietly left him alone.

And long after the door closed behind her, Michael remained sitting motionless in the dim silence of his room with tears still drying against his face and the unbearable weight of everything he had done finally settling fully over him at last.

–

You were finally discharged from the hospital a little over a week after the fight.

The doctors seemed pleased enough with your recovery progress to allow you home, though not without an exhausting list of restrictions and follow-up appointments scheduled over the coming weeks. Neurological monitoring would continue for a while before anybody even considered clearing you for athletic activity again, and every single medical professional who spoke to you repeated the exact same instructions firmly enough that eventually you stopped trying to argue with them altogether.

Minimal stimulation. Minimal noise. Minimal light exposure.

Complete rest. No training. No sparring. No physical strain whatsoever.

By the time your mother carefully helped settle you back into your apartment in Burbank, you could already walk and move around independently again without assistance, though the headaches still arrived unpredictably and viciously enough that sometimes even standing too quickly made the room tilt unpleasantly around you. Bright sunlight remained especially unbearable, sharp enough to stab behind your eyes until nausea followed soon afterward, which meant most of the apartment stayed dimly lit throughout the day with curtains drawn carefully shut across the windows.

Still, despite the discomfort and frustration of recovery, having your mother there softened the loneliness enough to make the days feel survivable.

She cooked for you constantly.

Soup. Rice. Comfort food from home.

Things you barely had energy to ask for before she already placed them in front of you anyway.

And although your brothers remained back in Phoenix under the care of the oldest sibling, your mother checked on them constantly through phone calls while moving naturally around your apartment as though she had lived there for years instead of days.

“They’re perfectly fine,” she reassured you every time guilt crept into your chest over her leaving them behind temporarily. “Stop worrying about everybody else and focus on getting better.”

One evening while both of you sat quietly together in the dim kitchen beneath the soft yellow light above the island counter, your mother finally brought up the subject she had clearly been circling around carefully for days now.

“Has Michael called?”

The question landed softly.

Gently.

But it still tightened something painful immediately inside your chest.

You stared down at the tea between your hands for several long seconds before answering quietly.

“No.”

Your mother remained silent afterward, allowing space for you to continue if you wanted to.

And eventually, slowly, you did.

You told her about the distance that started months ago.

About the shorter calls. The canceled plans. The growing coldness.

The Grammys. Brooke.

The feeling that somehow, somewhere along the way, you had misunderstood what you meant to him completely.

“I think…” you started quietly before stopping to swallow hard against the pressure building in your throat. “I think maybe I just considered him a closer friend than he considered me.”

The words hurt more spoken aloud somehow.

None of this was truly new information to your mother. She already knew about the distance between you and Michael from the honest conversation both of you had shared months earlier in Phoenix, and by now she had quietly pieced together far more than you realized on her own. Still, she let you speak without interrupting once because she understood that sometimes pain needed to be spoken aloud before it could begin settling somewhere less heavy inside the chest.

You never mentioned loving him. Not directly.

Partly because saying it out loud would suddenly make the heartbreak too real to escape from anymore, and partly because you did not want your mother worrying about you more than she already clearly did.

But mothers noticed things anyway. Especially your mother.

By the time you finished speaking, she looked at you with an expression so knowing and heartbreakingly gentle that it almost made fresh tears rise behind your eyes instantly.

“Oh, sweetheart.”

She moved around the counter afterward and wrapped both arms around you carefully, still mindful of your aching body while pulling you gently against her chest.

“It’s gonna be okay.”

You wanted desperately to believe her.

And for a little while while she held you there inside the quiet apartment, you almost managed to.

A few days later, once she felt comfortable enough leaving you alone safely, your mother finally returned home to Phoenix after nearly two weeks spent entirely by your side between the hospital and recovery afterward.

You hugged her tightly before she left despite the lingering soreness still threading through your body.

“Call me if you need absolutely anything,” she warned firmly before leaving for the airport. “I don’t care what time it is.”

You promised you would.

Then suddenly the apartment became quiet again.

Too quiet.

And once the comforting presence of your mother disappeared from the rooms around you, the heartbreak waiting beneath the surface returned almost immediately in full force.

Two entire weeks had passed since the knockout now.

One week in the hospital. One week recovering at home.

Because you still remained sensitive to daylight and overstimulation, your agency arranged grocery deliveries and occasional takeout meals so you would not need to leave the apartment unnecessarily. Thankfully, nobody pressured you about weight management or strict diet plans during recovery. If anything, your trainers and management became almost aggressively protective regarding your health now, repeatedly emphasizing that healing mattered infinitely more than appearance or competition schedules.

So your days blurred together quietly instead.

Sleeping. Watching television with the brightness turned painfully low. Rewatching old VHS movies whenever your headaches allowed it. Resting endlessly.

And thinking far too much.

Especially about Michael.

Because once anger finally settled inside your chest properly, it began growing steadily in the silence afterward.

Not explosive anger. Not screaming hatred. Something quieter. Heavier.

The kind of hurt that settled deep enough to become difficult separating from grief anymore.

Meanwhile, miles away at Hayvenhurst, Michael spent those same weeks unraveling slowly beneath the weight of Katherine’s words.

He found himself returning over and over again toward the collection of boxing tapes he once obsessively gathered after first discovering you on television nearly one and a half years earlier now. Late at night, unable to focus properly on music or writing or anything else, he would sit alone in the dim studio rewatching match after match while the television glow flickered softly across the dark room around him.

And eventually, one night, he replayed the very first fight again.

The staredown.

The moment that started everything.

Michael watched you standing across from your opponent with that same calm fierceness still burning visibly inside your eyes, your expression unreadable and composed no matter how aggressively the other fighter attempted intimidating you beforehand. Even through old television footage, your willpower remained almost frighteningly visible somehow, steady and immovable in ways Michael now realized he had loved from the very beginning without fully understanding why at the time.

And sitting there alone beneath the dim studio lights, something painful finally settled fully into place inside him.

How could he possibly have looked at somebody like you and convinced himself you were fragile?

You had never been weak. Not once.

The realization followed him relentlessly afterward while he continued watching older fights.

He started noticing things differently now.

Not your technique. Not the choreography of movement that fascinated him initially.

Your character.

The way you got knocked down hard and still rose calmly without dramatics.

The way you never taunted opponents even after winning.

The discipline you carried beneath pressure.

The stubborn steadiness of somebody who kept moving forward even exhausted, bruised, or hurting.

And gradually Michael realized something that nearly shattered him emotionally once it fully formed inside his chest.

You fought exactly how you loved.

Steadily.

Faithfully.

Without quitting.

Even after he hurt you.

You still called him.

Still showed up after the distance.

Still cared after the Grammys.

Still sat beside his hospital bed for days after he pushed you away over and over again.

And suddenly Michael understood with devastating clarity that you had never been somebody needing protection from difficult things.

You had simply wanted to face difficult things with him.

As his friend.

As somebody who loved him deeply long before either of you properly understood it.

And he denied you that choice entirely.

The realization physically hurt.

Because now he saw the tragedy clearly enough to understand it fully: the exact qualities that made him fall in love with you were the same qualities he stopped trusting the moment his fear took control of him.

Your strength.

Your steadiness.

Your resilience.

His love twisted them into fragility inside his mind because loving somebody had always meant fearing their loss so intensely that eventually he started handling them as though they might break beneath his hands at any moment.

But you were never fragile. You were the strongest person he knew.

And sitting alone in the dark studio while your old fights continued flickering silently across the screen in front of him, Michael finally understood that the damage between both of you would only grow worse the longer he stayed away now.

For the first time in months, the answer suddenly became painfully simple.

He needed to see you.

Not eventually.

Not after another excuse.

Now.

Without giving himself enough time to lose courage again, he stood up, grabbed his jacket from the back of the chair and left the studio.

Outside, Hayvenhurst had already settled into late evening quietness. The property lights glowed softly against the darkness while the night air carried that still calmness that only came after most of the house had gone to sleep. Bill sat outside near the car beneath one of the lamp posts with a folded newspaper resting loosely in his hands, the warm light casting soft shadows across his face while he read in silence.

The second the studio door opened, Bill looked up automatically.

And immediately noticed something had changed.

Not panic this time. Not spiraling guilt.

Decision.

Bill lowered the newspaper slowly before standing up the moment Michael started walking toward him with visible determination written across his face for the first time in weeks.

Michael stopped beside him.

“Let’s go.”

That was all.

No explanation followed afterward because none was necessary anymore.

Bill already understood.

He folded the newspaper quietly, tossed it onto the bench beside him, and reached immediately for the car keys before both of them climbed into the vehicle without another word.

The drive toward your apartment passed almost entirely in silence.

Meanwhile, several miles away, you remained curled tiredly beneath a blanket on the couch while waiting for the takeout you ordered earlier because even standing long enough to cook still exhausted you more quickly than you wanted admitting aloud. The apartment remained dim as always now, curtains drawn tightly shut against the evening light while the television murmured softly in the background more for company than actual entertainment.

So when a knock finally came at the door, you assumed immediately it was the delivery driver.

You stood carefully afterward, slower than you used to move before the concussion, and crossed the apartment while rubbing tiredly at one eye.

Then opened the door.

And froze instantly.

Michael stood there.

For several horrible seconds, neither of you spoke at all.

Michael felt the breath leave his lungs the moment he saw you properly for the first time since the Grammys.

You looked exhausted. Painfully exhausted.

The dim apartment lighting behind you only emphasized the paleness in your face and the shadows sitting heavily beneath your eyes now. Your movements carried a slight carefulness to them as though your body still hurt in places he could not fully see, and something about the overall thinness and drained quietness surrounding you made guilt slam into his chest so violently he almost physically staggered beneath it.

But worse than any of that was the absence of warmth in your expression.

Not hatred. Not even visible anger.

Just guarded pain.

Michael realized immediately that your instinct toward him had changed.

Once upon a time, opening the door and seeing him standing there would have brought immediate softness into your eyes before either of you even spoke.

Now your entire body looked guarded instead. Protecting itself from him automatically.

And Michael understood with devastating clarity that he caused that change.

The silence stretched so long afterward that it almost became unbearable.

Finally, quietly, Michael asked: “Can I come in?”

Your answer came immediately.

“No.”

Your voice sounded hoarse from disuse, rough in a way that made Michael realize suddenly how alone you must have been these past days without even basic conversation filling the apartment anymore.

And standing there in the doorway looking at him with that controlled unreadable expression, you reminded him painfully of your old staredowns before fights, all instinctive emotional armor and discipline wrapped tightly around hurt.

Michael felt his throat tighten almost painfully.

Then finally, softly, you said: “You should go home, Michael.”

And before he could answer, you closed the door gently in his face.

Not slammed. Not angrily. Just quietly.

The same way he emotionally closed doors on you over and over again for months.

–

When Michael returned to the car several moments later, Bill looked at him once and immediately understood what happened without needing explanation.

He did not say he blamed you. Because he couldn’t.

So instead both of them simply drove back toward Hayvenhurst in silence.

That night, Michael never truly slept.

He lay awake for hours replaying the image of your face standing in the doorway over and over again inside his mind, thinking about the exhaustion in your eyes and the absence of trust where it used to live so naturally before. Every time he closed his eyes, he heard your voice again telling him quietly to go home.

But strangely enough, the rejection did not destroy the determination that finally pushed him toward your apartment in the first place.

If anything, it only made him realize how badly he needed to try again.

So the next day around noon, Michael found Bill again and quietly asked him to drive back to your apartment once more.

This time when he knocked, it took longer before the door opened.

And the second you finally pulled it open slightly, sunlight spilling faintly into the apartment from behind him made you flinch visibly before instinctively raising a hand toward your eyes.

Pain crossed your face immediately afterward.

A real physical pain sharp enough that Michael felt something twist violently inside his chest before either of you even spoke.

You stepped automatically backward afterward until the shadow of the doorway shielded your eyes properly from the brightness outside, and Michael unconsciously took a small step forward simply to keep you fully within his line of vision again.

You looked exhausted all over again.

Not only emotionally this time. Physically too.

The headaches. The light sensitivity. The lingering recovery.

Everything he abandoned you to endure alone suddenly stood directly in front of him impossible to ignore anymore.

This time when Michael spoke, his voice sounded softer.

Almost desperate.

“Please don’t shut the door again.”

For a moment, you genuinely considered doing exactly that. Michael could see it happening inside your expression.

The hesitation. The instinctive self-protection.

But then something else overtook it.

Anger.

Not explosive anger.

Something colder.

Heavier.

And finally, after several long unbearable seconds, you stepped backward from the doorway without speaking another word and left the door standing open behind you before slowly walking back into the apartment.

Michael understood immediately what that meant.

This was not forgiveness. This was confrontation.

So he stepped inside carefully and quietly closed the door behind himself.

The apartment felt different from the last time he had been there.

Not because the furniture changed.

Because loneliness lived there now.

The curtains remained tightly drawn shut against the daylight. Medicine bottles and painkillers sat scattered across the kitchen counter beside untouched grocery deliveries and half-finished cups of water. The silence inside the apartment felt stale somehow, heavy with the stillness of somebody recovering alone for too many days with nothing except television noise and their own thoughts for company.

And for the first time since he started visiting this apartment months ago, Michael no longer felt naturally welcome inside it.

Once upon a time, he sprawled comfortably across your couch laughing at movies while eating food straight from your kitchen counter. He wandered freely through every room without hesitation because your home gradually became one of the few places in the world where he felt normal.

Now he stood near the entrance almost afraid to move too much.

His hands kept shifting restlessly against each other before going still again. He avoided holding eye contact too long because guilt made it difficult to survive your gaze directly now, yet he still found himself glancing toward you constantly in small almost involuntary looks just to reassure himself you were still there. And most importantly: Michael did not try controlling the conversation anymore. Not after months spent dictating the emotional direction between both of you through distance and silence and withdrawal. Now he understood that surrendering control had to begin with listening. So he waited quietly while you lowered yourself carefully onto the couch, slower than normal because your body still hurt. Michael remained standing. The silence stretched heavily between both of you for several long moments afterward before finally you spoke first. “You should’ve come when I was still expecting you to.” The sentence landed softly. But Michael felt it like physical impact anyway. Because what hurt most was not the anger hidden inside the words. It was the quiet implication underneath them. At some point during the weeks he stayed away from you, you stopped believing he would come at all.

For several long seconds afterward, neither of you spoke.

Michael stood motionless in the living room while you sat curled carefully into the corner of the couch beneath the dim apartment lighting, one arm wrapped loosely around yourself as though even sitting upright still required effort now. The television continued playing softly somewhere in the background, though neither of you paid attention to it anymore. Finally, quietly, Michael said: “I know.” A humorless breath escaped you afterward that almost resembled a laugh. Not because anything felt funny. Because the exhaustion inside you no longer even had enough energy left for proper anger all the time. “You know,” you repeated softly while staring somewhere unfocused toward the dark television screen. “That’s all you keep saying lately.” Michael lowered his eyes briefly. Your voice remained flat afterward. Not emotional in the way he remembered from months ago. Just tired. “Do you know how humiliating this has been for me?” That made him look up immediately.

Because somehow, through all the guilt and fear and panic consuming him these past months, humiliation had never once crossed his mind. And you could tell by the expression on his face that he had never even considered it. You swallowed hard before continuing quietly. “Everybody came.”

The apartment remained painfully silent around your voice.

“My trainers came. My manager came. Girls from the agency came. Even the woman who knocked me unconscious showed up to apologize.”

Michael felt his chest tightening harder with every sentence.

“Bill came,” you continued softly. “Your mother and sisters wanted to visit me.”

The next words came quieter still.

“And I still kept waiting for my best friend anyway.”

That one nearly physically shattered him.

Because despite everything he had done to push you away, despite the Grammys and the distance and the silence and the hospital–

you still waited for him.

Michael opened his mouth finally.

“I’m sorry.”

“No.”

The word came immediately.

Not loud. Not cruel.

But firm enough that Michael stopped speaking instantly.

You finally looked at him properly afterward, and the exhaustion sitting behind your eyes hurt worse than if you had screamed at him instead.

“No,” you repeated more quietly now. “Don’t do that.”

Michael’s throat tightened.

“I don’t want another apology unless you actually tell me why.”

The silence afterward stretched unbearably long.

Michael looked suddenly trapped inside himself, restless hands flexing once before going still again while he searched desperately for words that sounded impossible to arrange correctly now that he finally stood in front of you again.

Because somewhere over the past months, the logic that once felt necessary had started sounding insane even inside his own head.

“I thought…” he started quietly before stopping completely.

You waited.

Michael swallowed hard and tried again.

“I thought if I stayed away long enough… you’d stop…”

His voice weakened near the end of the sentence.

You stared at him. “Stop what?”

Michael shut his eyes briefly.

“Needing me.”

The answer settled heavily into the room afterward.

And for several seconds, you only stared at him with something almost resembling disbelief breaking through the exhaustion in your expression.

“You think that’s what this was?” you asked quietly.

Michael immediately looked like he regretted the words the moment they left his mouth.

But you kept going before he could correct himself.

“You think I got hurt because I needed too much from you?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

Your voice finally sharpened slightly now for the first time since he arrived, frustration cracking through the exhaustion underneath.

“Because from where I was standing, Michael, it just looked like you kept deciding over and over again that I mattered less than I thought I did.”

The words hit him visibly. You could actually see it happen.

“I sat outside your hospital room for days,” you continued more quietly now. “You wouldn’t even let me in. You kept sending Bill out to tell me to go home and I still stayed there anyway because I thought–”

Your voice broke briefly for the first time. You looked away immediately afterward.

“Because I thought you’d do the same for me.”

And suddenly the room became too quiet again except for the faint noise of the television still playing pointlessly in the background.

“I wanted to,” he said softly.

You laughed bitterly this time.

“But you didn’t.”

No defense existed against that.

Michael lowered his head briefly while both hands pressed hard against his mouth for a moment as though physically trying to hold himself together.

Then finally, quietly: “I saw what happened to you after the tabloids started.”

You remained silent.

“The bruises got worse. You stopped sleeping properly. You kept getting distracted during training.” His voice grew rougher with every sentence. “People followed you everywhere because of me.”

Michael looked up finally, eyes glassy already.

“And all I could think about was that I was ruining your life.”

The anger inside you hesitated slightly then.

Not disappearing. Complicating.

Because for the first time since all of this began, you could hear plainly that he genuinely believed every word coming out of his mouth.

Michael continued before you could respond.

“I thought if I made enough distance between us, eventually things would calm down around you again.” He swallowed hard. “And they did.”

The sentence hurt both of you immediately.

Because it was true.

The tabloids eventually stopped. The paparazzi disappeared. The scrutiny faded.

And all it cost both of you was each other.

“But that’s not what broke me,” you whispered finally.

Michael went still.

You looked down at your hands resting together in your lap before continuing quietly.

“The articles weren’t what hurt the most.”

Your throat tightened painfully around the next words.

“It was not understanding why the person I trusted most suddenly started acting like I meant nothing to him anymore.”

Michael’s entire expression crumpled.

Immediately. Completely.

“No,” he said quickly, almost desperately now. “No, don’t say that.”

“But that’s how it felt.”

His breathing became uneven.

“You don’t get to decide when people stop caring about you, Michael.”

The room fell silent again.

“And you don’t get to decide for other people what they can survive without even asking them first.”

That one hit deepest. Because Katherine said almost the exact same thing. And now hearing it from you too finally forced the truth into something undeniable.

The room fell silent afterward except for the faint static humming from the television in the background.

Michael stared downward for several long seconds while your words settled heavily over him one after another, each sentence stripping away another piece of the logic he spent months desperately clinging to in order to justify hurting both of you this badly.

Finally, quietly, he said: “I know that now.”

You looked at him tiredly. “Then why didn’t you before?”

Michael rubbed shakily at his face before answering.

“Because somewhere along the way…” His voice weakened slightly. “I stopped seeing you clearly.”

Confusion flickered briefly across your expression.

Michael let out a small broken breath afterward that almost resembled a laugh.

“When I first saw you on television…” He swallowed hard. “You scared me.”

You frowned faintly.

“Not in a bad way,” he added quickly. “You just looked so… unshakable.”

The memory hit both of you immediately.

The staredown. The tape that started everything. “The way you looked at people before fights,” Michael continued quietly while his eyes remained fixed somewhere toward the floor now. “The way nothing got reactions out of you. You looked stronger than everybody else in the room.” Your anger loosened slightly despite yourself hearing him describe you like that again. “That’s what made me notice you,” he whispered. The room softened painfully afterward beneath the weight of old memories neither of you wanted hurting this much now. “And after I got to know you…” Michael continued slowly. “You were still strong. But I started seeing the softer parts too.” Your eyes lowered briefly. The scar conversation. Your father. Phoenix. The loneliness. The nights spent talking until sunrise. Michael’s voice roughened more with every sentence afterward.

“And I think me being close to you made me afraid of everything that could hurt you.” Your head lifted immediately. “And eventually I got so scared that I started treating you like you were fragile.” His eyes filled visibly now. “Even though you never were.” For several seconds neither of you spoke. Then finally Michael whispered: “I rewatched your old fights.” You blinked slightly in surprise.

“All of them,” he admitted quietly. “Again.”

His hands tightened together shakily afterward.

“You keep getting back up. You never stop. Even when you’re hurt. Even exhausted.” His voice cracked softly. “You did the same thing with me.”

The sentence hit you hard enough that you physically looked away.

“You kept showing up for me even after I hurt you,” he continued brokenly. “And somehow I convinced myself you were too weak to survive being close to me when you’re probably the strongest person I’ve ever known.”

Your throat tightened painfully.

“You really thought I would break that easily?” you asked quietly.

Michael shut his eyes briefly.

“No,” he whispered. “I think I was the one breaking.”

Something inside you cracked completely then.

Not the anger.

Something underneath it.

Something far more raw and exhausted and unbearable.

And suddenly the pressure inside your chest that you spent weeks trying to contain became impossible holding back anymore.

Your breathing started trembling unevenly before tears even fully formed.

Michael immediately looked panicked seeing them.

But before he could speak, the words finally started pouring out of you all at once.

“Do you know what the cruelest part of all this was?” Your voice shook violently now. “While you were trying to push me away and make me stop needing you…”

You laughed shakily through tears.

“All I did was fall in love with you harder.”

Michael froze completely.

You saw the exact second the words hit him.

But now that the truth finally started spilling out, you could not stop talking anymore.

Because if you stopped now, if you swallowed the words back down again after carrying them alone for so long, you genuinely felt like the weight of them would crush you from the inside.

So you kept going.

“At first I thought I just missed my best friend,” you whispered through tears. “That’s what I kept telling myself because I didn’t understand why everything hurt so much all the time.” Your breathing became shakier. “I kept trying to understand why seeing you with other women made me feel sick. Why every time you stopped calling me it felt like somebody ripped something out of my chest.”

Michael’s eyes filled instantly.

“And then the Grammys happened.” Your voice cracked harder now. “And I remember standing there watching you with Brooke and thinking I was losing my mind because none of it should’ve hurt me that badly if you were just my friend.”

You paused, letting out a shaky breath.

“You were holding her hand,” you whispered brokenly. “And you looked so far away from me suddenly. Like I had imagined all of it. All the phone calls and everything you told me and all those nights at Hayvenhurst and every stupid little thing between us.”

He lowered his head briefly while tears slipped silently down his face now too.

“And the worst part is that I still kept trying to excuse you.” You laughed bitterly through tears. “Even after you ignored me. Even after the hospital. Even after you didn’t come see me once.” Your voice finally rose shakily. “I still sat there making excuses for you because I loved you so much that I couldn’t make myself stop understanding you.”

Michael physically flinched hearing it said aloud.

“I loved you so much that even when you hurt me I still kept thinking about how scared you must’ve been.” Tears streamed uncontrollably down your face now. “Do you understand how humiliating that feels? You were the one who approached me first,” you cried. “You were the one who kept calling me. You were the one who showed up everywhere in my life until suddenly one day you started acting like I had imagined my importance to you.”

“No–”

“You did,” you cried immediately. “You made me feel stupid, Michael.”

The word destroyed him visibly.

“I kept sitting there wondering how I could’ve misunderstood everything this badly. Wondering how embarrassing it must look that I thought I actually occupied some permanent place in your life.”

Your breathing broke unevenly now beneath the force of everything finally leaving your chest after months trapped there.

“And I know you don’t love me back,” you whispered quickly afterward before courage could leave you now. “I know that. I know who you are. I know eventually you’re gonna end up with somebody who belongs in your world and understands your life and all of this–”

“Stop,” Michael whispered brokenly.

But you kept going because now there was no stopping anymore.

“I just…” Your voice collapsed completely for a moment before continuing shakily. “I just needed to say it before I let you go because if I kept carrying this around pretending I was okay, I think eventually it would’ve destroyed me.”

Michael’s face crumpled completely.

“I needed you to know that while you were trying to make me stop loving you…” Tears streamed endlessly down your face now. “All you did was make me realize that somewhere along the way you became the most important person in my life.”

The room fell silent except for your uneven breathing afterward.

And Michael sat frozen across from you looking like every single thing holding him together had finally broken apart completely beneath the full realization that every attempt he made to protect you had only wounded you infinitely worse while you loved him all along.

Then finally, once every last word emptied itself from your chest, you buried your face in your hands and cried openly in front of him because there was nothing left inside you to hide anymore.

For several long seconds afterward, the only sound filling the apartment was your uneven crying and the faint static humming from the television somewhere behind both of you.

Michael sat completely frozen across from you.

Not speaking. Not moving.

Just staring at you with an expression so shattered that it almost no longer looked human.

Because suddenly every single thing he spent months convincing himself of had collapsed all at once.

You loved him.

You loved him while he ignored your calls.

You loved him while he walked into the Grammys with Brooke on his arm.

You loved him while he stayed away from your hospital room.

And somehow the realization hurt infinitely worse than anything he imagined before because every cruel decision he made believing he was saving you had instead wounded someone who loved him deeply enough to sit there apologizing for burdening him with her feelings.

The thought physically hollowed him out from the inside.

Your breathing remained uneven while you wiped at your face shakily with both hands, clearly trying to regain some sort of composure now that everything inside your chest had finally spilled out beyond repair.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered eventually through the remnants of tears. “I didn’t mean to dump all of that on you.”

Michael immediately shook his head.

“No–”

But you kept going quietly before he could interrupt properly because now that the words were spoken aloud, you felt almost desperate to finish what you started before courage left you entirely.

“I just…” Your voice cracked again briefly. “I just needed you to know before I finally let this go.”

The sentence nearly stopped Michael’s heart entirely.

You swallowed hard afterward while pressing trembling fingers briefly against your forehead as another wave of pain pulsed visibly behind your eyes from crying this hard.

“If I kept pretending I was okay with this,” you whispered shakily, “if I kept pretending I could lose you and still carry all of this around without saying it…” Tears slipped down your face again. “I think eventually it would’ve crushed me.”

You let out a single sob.

“So this was my closure,” you finished softly.

Closure.

The word hit him with enough force that for a second he genuinely stopped breathing.

Because sitting there across from him, exhausted and crying and physically hurting while still apologizing to him somehow, you truly believed this conversation was goodbye.

You genuinely believed you had just confessed your love to a man who could never possibly love you back.

And suddenly Michael understood with devastating clarity that every second he remained silent now only confirmed that belief further inside your head.

You lowered your face briefly into your hands again before whispering weakly: “You should go now.”

Michael still could not move.

You pressed harder against your forehead afterward as though the stress and tears were making the concussion split your skull apart from the inside now.

“Please,” you whispered tiredly. “My head hurts too bad for this anymore.”

Something inside Michael finally broke completely then.

Not quietly. Not elegantly. Completely.

A sharp uneven breath left him before he suddenly covered his face briefly with one shaking hand as tears spilled uncontrollably down his cheeks now too.

And when he finally spoke, his voice sounded wrecked beyond recognition.

“How could you possibly think I don’t love you?”

The words hit the room so abruptly that you froze completely.

Slowly, your hands lowered away from your face.

Michael looked absolutely destroyed now.

Tears streamed openly down his face while he stared at you like the thought itself physically pained him.

“How could you think that after all this?” he whispered brokenly. “After everything between us?”

You stared at him in complete stunned silence.

Because the possibility genuinely had not existed in your mind anymore.

Not after the distance. Not after Brooke. Not after the hospital.

Not after all the ways he pushed you away.

Michael shook his head shakily while tears continued falling faster now.

“I’ve been in love with you since the beginning,” he admitted through an uneven breath. “That’s why I got so scared.”

Your entire body went still.

Michael looked down briefly while trying unsuccessfully to steady himself enough to continue.

“You really thought I could spend all this time around you and not love you?” His voice cracked violently. “You really thought any of this would’ve destroyed me this badly if you were just my friend?”

Fresh tears burned instantly behind your eyes again.

Michael stood abruptly then before immediately slowing himself again the second he noticed your flinch from the sudden movement.

Even now he still looked terrified of overwhelming you further.

So instead of rushing toward you, he moved closer slowly and carefully before lowering himself down onto his knees near the couch, leaving enough distance between both of you for you to pull away if you wanted to.

“You were never temporary to me,” he whispered.

The sentence shattered something inside your chest instantly.

“All those months…” Michael’s voice trembled harder now. “I kept trying to convince myself that if I pushed you away hard enough eventually you’d hate me enough to leave safely.”

He laughed brokenly through tears afterward.

“And all it did was break both of us.”

You stared at him speechlessly while your entire understanding of the past year rearranged itself painfully in real time.

Michael looked wrecked.

Not polished. Not composed. Just emotionally ruined.

“I thought I was protecting you,” he whispered. “But really I was just too afraid to let myself believe somebody like you could actually love somebody like me back.”

Your breathing became uneven all over again.

“And the worst part,” Michael whispered shakily, “is that you were brave enough to tell me the truth while I spent months hiding from mine.”

The room fell silent again afterward except for both of your uneven breathing.

Then finally, quietly: “I’m so sorry.”

This time the apology sounded different.

Not like an escape. Not like guilt.

Like somebody laying their entire soul at another person’s feet and knowing fully that whether it gets accepted or destroyed is no longer their decision anymore.

For several long seconds afterward, neither of you moved.

The apartment remained swallowed in dimness and silence while the weight of everything finally spoken aloud settled heavily between both of you like the aftermath of some terrible storm neither of you knew how to survive yet.

You stared at Michael in complete disbelief.

Not because you thought he was lying.

Because your mind genuinely could not catch up fast enough to process what had just happened.

For weeks you had mourned him.

For weeks you convinced yourself that you misunderstood everything between you.

For weeks you forced yourself to accept that you had somehow foolishly fallen in love with somebody who could never possibly love you back the same way.

And now the same man sat kneeling in front of you crying openly while telling you he had loved you since the beginning too.

The emotional whiplash felt almost unbearable.

Fresh tears slipped down your face immediately afterward.

Harder this time.

Not from heartbreak alone anymore.

Relief and grief and anger and exhaustion collided violently inside your chest until suddenly you could barely breathe through any of it.

Michael looked devastated seeing you cry harder.

“You can’t say things like that now,” you whispered shakily through tears while pressing trembling fingers against your forehead as another pulse of pain shot viciously behind your eyes. “You can’t just say all of that now after everything–”

Your voice broke completely again.

Michael shut his eyes briefly like the pain in your voice physically wounded him.

“I know,” he whispered hoarsely afterward. “I know I don’t deserve for you to believe me right away.”

You lowered your face briefly into your hands again while your shoulders shook unevenly.

The headache pounding behind your eyes had become almost unbearable now after crying this hard for so long, making your entire body feel exhausted and overstimulated all over again.

But even through the pain, your chest still ached harder from the realization that somewhere beneath all this suffering, none of it had ever truly been unrequited.

Michael watched you carefully for several seconds before speaking again.

“But I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it if you let me.”

The sentence shattered whatever fragile composure remained holding you together.

A broken sound escaped your throat afterward while fresh tears spilled down your face again and you pressed harder against your forehead trying unsuccessfully to dull the pain building there now.

Michael immediately looked panicked.

“Your head hurts,” he said quietly.

You laughed weakly through tears.

“Everything hurts.”

The honesty in the sentence nearly destroyed him all over again.

For several seconds Michael stayed completely still afterward before finally asking softly: “Can I help you?”

The question hit you strangely hard.

Because months ago Michael would have simply acted without asking.

Not cruelly. Just instinctively.

He would have crossed the room automatically, reached for you automatically, taken care of you automatically.

Now he asked permission.

And somehow that hurt and healed something inside you at the same time.

You hesitated briefly before finally nodding once.

Small. Exhausted. But real.

Michael moved carefully afterward like he was terrified sudden movement might scare you away again. He stood slowly before grabbing the bottle of water sitting abandoned near the couch alongside your medication bottles, then brought both back toward you quietly before kneeling beside the coffee table again.

“You need to take this,” he said softly while handing you the painkillers.

Your fingers brushed his briefly when taking it from him.

The contact felt almost overwhelming after so many months spent forcing distance between yourselves.

Michael noticed the slight tremble in your hands immediately afterward and quietly unscrewed the water bottle for you without comment before placing it gently into your hands too.

You swallowed the medication slowly while he reached toward the television remote nearby and muted the static humming entirely, leaving the apartment wrapped in softer silence afterward.

Neither of you spoke for several minutes after that.

The emotional exhaustion settling over both of you now felt too heavy for more words immediately.

Eventually you leaned your head back carefully against the couch cushions while closing your eyes briefly from the persistent throbbing behind them.

Michael remained sitting nearby quietly.

Not touching you. Not pushing. Just staying.

And somehow the simple presence of him there after weeks spent aching from his absence nearly made you cry again.

“You really love me?” you whispered eventually without opening your eyes.

The question sounded so fragile that Michael felt his chest physically ache hearing it.

“Yes,” he answered immediately.

No hesitation. No fear. Just truth.

Your breathing became uneven again afterward.

For several seconds you stayed silent while trying to process the reality of hearing the words you had spent months convincing yourself you would never hear from him.

Then finally you whispered quietly: “I don’t know what to do with that.”

Michael’s expression softened painfully.

“You don’t have to do anything right now,” he said gently.

You laughed weakly through the remnants of tears, though the sound carried no real humor behind it.

“That’s easy for you to say.” Your fingers tightened slightly against the sleeve of your sweater. “I spent weeks trying to force myself to get over you because I thought I had no choice.”

The confession made something twist visibly across Michael’s face.

“Every day you didn’t come,” you continued more quietly, “I kept telling myself that eventually I’d stop waiting for you. That eventually I’d stop hoping every knock at the door was you finally changing your mind.”

Michael lowered his eyes briefly.

“But I never really stopped.”

The room fell silent again afterward.

“You have no idea how many times I tried to convince myself that I imagined everything between us,” you admitted softly. “Because that hurt less than believing you cared about me and still chose to stay away.”

Michael shut his eyes briefly at that. “I never stopped caring about you,” he whispered hoarsely.

Fresh tears burned behind your closed eyes again, though this time the ache inside your chest felt different now. Not gone. Not healed. Just no longer entirely hopeless anymore.

At some point during the silence afterward, the exhaustion finally began overtaking you completely.

The emotional release.

The crying.

The concussion.

Everything combined into a heaviness your body could no longer properly fight through.

Michael noticed it immediately in the slower way you moved and the increasingly unfocused look in your eyes whenever you opened them briefly.

“You should sleep,” he said quietly.

You nodded tiredly.

But when you tried pushing yourself upright afterward, another sharp wave of dizziness hit immediately hard enough that you winced softly.

Without thinking this time, Michael moved closer instinctively before stopping himself halfway.

Your eyes lifted toward him. For one terrible second both of you froze there again.

Then quietly, exhausted beyond pride anymore, you leaned toward him first.

Michael caught you carefully.

Like something sacred.

Like something breakable only because he knew now how badly he had already hurt it once before.

The second your weight settled hesitantly against him, Michael shut his eyes briefly as emotion nearly overwhelmed him completely all over again.

Because after everything– after the distance and silence and heartbreak and destruction– you still chose him.

Not blindly this time.

Not because you misunderstood him.

Not because you imagined feelings that were never there.

Choice. Real and conscious and terrifying.

Michael wrapped one arm around you carefully afterward while the other moved gently into your hair, holding you close without tightening his grip too much in case your head still hurt.

And for the first time in months, neither of you pulled away.

The apartment remained silent around both of you while exhaustion slowly overtook the pain enough for your breathing to finally begin evening out against his chest.

Michael stayed completely motionless afterward.

Afraid to move.

Afraid even breathing too hard might somehow break the fragile reality of this moment apart.

Because after spending months convincing himself he had lost you forever, you were finally back in his arms willingly again.

Just to be clear: Reader didn't forgive him yet! I know it may come off that way cause she fell asleep in his arms, but that man's gotta gain back her trust first.

Also, I've written lots of fanfics over the years and I usually always write in long paragraphs, but my other fics, unlike this one, aren't usually super emotional. For this one, I do use longer paragraphs too, but I mix it with a lot of shorter sentences for more dramatic impact and I hope it's working? Also, I'm super nervous about the conversations, I've never been good at writing natural human conversations lol, so some things might sound repetitive in the confrontation dialogue, but I really wanted reader to let out all her emotions and her anger toward him, I hope I could convey her feelings this way? I really liked doing it.

Also I know absolutely nothing about concussions lol, I know a bit about boxing as I have some professional athlete friends, so I was able to portray that somehow, but for the concussion parts I had to Google so much lol, I hope I didn't write some medical nonsense 😭

You sat on one of the benches near the gym wall still wrapping ice against your knuckles after sparring when he approached holding a folder beneath one arm.

“You got a minute?”

You already narrowed your eyes suspiciously at the tone alone.

“That depends.”

He laughed quietly before sitting down beside you.

“So,” he began carefully, “the agency’s been discussing some visibility opportunities for you.”

The second he used the word visibility, you already looked exhausted.

“Oh no.”

“Don’t make that face yet.”

“I know that word means publicity.”

“It means networking.”

“It means photographs.”

“It means sponsors,” he corrected immediately. “And right now sponsors are exactly what female boxing needs if we want people to start taking it seriously.”

You sighed heavily while removing the hand wraps from one wrist slowly.

Your manager continued anyway.

“The Grammys are at the end of the month. We’ve been invited through a sponsor partnership and they want a few athletes attending as industry guests. Mostly people with crossover potential. Rising names. Good public image.”

You stared at him flatly.

“You want me at the Grammys.”

“I want you visible.”

“Again, as I said many times, I punch people for a living.”

“And you’re good at it,” he answered easily. “Which is exactly why we need people seeing you outside the ring too.”

You leaned back against the wall behind the bench while rubbing tiredly at your forehead already feeling the social exhaustion before the event had even happened.

“I hate these things.”

“I know.”

“I don’t know anything about networking.”

“You don’t have to. Half the room won’t either.”

Despite yourself, that pulled a reluctant snort out of you. Your manager smiled slightly at the reaction before continuing more seriously.

“Listen. Female boxing isn’t mainstream yet. We both know that. So we have to do some unconventional stuff sometimes to elevate the athletes people actually connect with. And right now, whether you like it or not, you’re becoming one of the faces people are paying attention to.”

The words settled heavily inside your chest afterward. Not because of ego, but because you understood he was right. Every match you won now carried a little more attention than the one before. More interviews. More requests for appearances. More sports magazines calling. More young girls showing up at matches asking for photographs or autographs afterward.

You had wanted this for years.

Not the fame itself. But the visibility.

The possibility that female boxing could eventually become something people respected properly.

Your manager seemed to recognize the exact moment your resistance weakened slightly.

“You won’t be there alone,” he added. “One of the artists attending through the same sponsor group is supposed to help introduce you around afterward.”

You frowned lightly.

“What artist?”

“A younger singer. Newer guy. Doing pretty well lately.” He flipped casually through the folder before reading the name aloud. “David Keller.”

You vaguely recognized the name from radio interviews and magazine covers lately. Young. Attractive. Popular with teenage girls from what little you knew.

Your manager continued explaining the arrangement while you listened quietly.

Nothing too excessive. A stylist would help prepare you for the event. You’d attend the ceremony itself. Some photographs on the carpet. Some introductions at the after party. Some networking with potential sponsors and sports executives.

It all sounded harmless enough logically.

Still exhausting.

But eventually, after several more minutes of discussion, you finally nodded once.

“Fine.”

Your manager grinned immediately.

“You’ll thank me later.”

“I seriously doubt that.”

The following weeks passed strangely softly compared to the chaos of the previous months.

After Michael’s release from the hospital, the two of you gradually slipped back into speaking more regularly again, though never quite with the same ease that existed before everything fell apart between you.

The calls happened more often now, always initiated by you, never by him, usually later in the evenings after training or rehearsals, but there was still something restrained lingering quietly underneath them that neither of you directly acknowledged aloud.

Or rather, something restrained on Michael’s side. You noticed it constantly.

Not cruelty. Never cruelty.

He still sounded soft-spoken with you. Still laughed quietly at your jokes sometimes. Still asked about your matches and whether you were eating properly during stricter weight-control periods.

But the conversations never lasted very long anymore.

Whenever silences stretched too comfortably between both of you, Michael always seemed to gently pull away first before things could settle too deeply into familiarity again.

“I should get some rest.”

“I got rehearsals early.”

“Pain meds are making me tired.”

“There’s people here waiting for me.”

Always soft. Always polite. Always leaving before you wanted him to.

And although part of you occasionally felt a faint ache from it, you convinced yourself repeatedly that it made sense.

He was recovering. He was exhausted. He was overwhelmed.

His life had become chaos after the accident. So instead of questioning it too deeply, you simply kept calling anyway.

Meanwhile, somewhere during one of those conversations, you casually mentioned the Grammys.

Your agency’s involvement.

The networking arrangements.

The fact you would attend mostly for publicity reasons despite hating every second of the idea.

Michael went unusually quiet afterward for several seconds.

“The Grammys?”

“Unfortunately.”

A quieter laugh escaped him then.

“You’ll probably have fun.”

“I absolutely won’t.”

“You say that now.”

“I’m serious. Those events make me nervous.”

“Why would you be nervous around people you know you can beat up?”

“That has nothing to do with standing in a room full of celebrities pretending to know how to socialize.”

Michael laughed softly again at that.

God, you missed hearing that sound more often.

Eventually the conversation drifted elsewhere naturally after that.

What you didn’t know, however, was that the moment the call ended, Michael sat alone in the Hayvenhurst studio for nearly ten full minutes staring silently at the receiver in his hand afterward.

Then later that same night, he quietly asked somebody else to contact Brooke Shields.

Over the following weeks, tabloids gradually started printing more photographs of Michael alongside Brooke at dinners, events, and public outings. Nothing excessively intimate. Nothing official.

Still close enough that gossip magazines immediately started speculating anyway.

You noticed the articles every single time despite trying not to. And although you never mentioned them directly to Michael during your calls, each new photograph left behind that same uncomfortable tightening somewhere inside your chest that you still couldn’t fully explain to yourself.

By the time the Grammys finally approached near the end of February, however, you pushed most of those uncomfortable feelings aside again whenever Michael mentioned the ceremony during your phone calls. Even though he would only attend as a guest and not a performer because he was still recovering from the accident, the weeks leading up to the event remained overwhelmingly busy for him regardless. Between interviews, press attention surrounding Thriller, endless meetings, photographers, and preparations for what everyone already expected to become one of the biggest nights of his career, it sometimes felt as though the entire music industry had attached itself to him all at once.

“You’re gonna win everything,” you told him honestly one evening while curled sideways against your apartment couch with the phone balanced between your shoulder and cheek. “Thriller is the best album in the world.”

Michael laughed softly under his breath.

“You sound biased.”

“I’m objectively correct.”

“You can’t say that without having heard every album in the world.”

“Don’t care.”

The quiet amusement in his voice lingered for a moment afterward before fading slightly again into something more restrained.

Still, despite the distance that continued existing quietly between both of you, excitement warmed naturally inside your chest at the thought of finally seeing him again properly at the Grammys after everything that had happened over the previous months.

And somewhere beneath all the exhaustion, confusion, and hurt lingering unresolved between you, part of you genuinely believed maybe things would finally start feeling normal again once you were standing in the same room together.

–

The evening of the Grammys began hours before the ceremony itself for you.

By late afternoon, your apartment had already been overtaken by garment bags, makeup cases, stylists, curling irons, perfume samples, and far more people than you usually allowed inside your personal space at once. Your agency had arranged everything down to the smallest details, determined to present you not simply as an athlete, but as somebody polished enough to comfortably exist inside rooms usually reserved for Hollywood stars and music executives.

You hated almost every second of the preparation process.

Not because you disliked looking nice, but because sitting still for hours while strangers adjusted your appearance made you feel strangely detached from yourself. Usually your evenings involved training gloves, cooking for the next day, oversized sweatshirts, and exhausted phone calls from the couch, not stylists discussing jewelry pairings under bright vanity lights while makeup artists dabbed carefully around your eyes.

Still, by the time they finally finished, even you had to admit the result startled you slightly when you stood in front of the mirror afterward.

The gown the stylist selected was elegant without trying too aggressively to compete with the actresses and singers who would dominate the evening. The dark satin fabric hugged your waist closely before falling more softly along your figure, accentuating the athletic curves and strength earned through years of training without overwhelming them beneath excessive glamour. The neckline left your shoulders exposed enough to highlight the toned definition there, while delicate jewelry added enough sparkle to soften the overall look without making it feel theatrical.

Your hair remained loose, styled into glossy waves that fell over your bare shoulders almost to your waist, and the makeup artist had wisely chosen not to erase your natural features beneath heavy cosmetics, instead focusing mostly on emphasizing your eyes and warming your complexion beneath the lights.

You still looked like yourself.

Just like a version of yourself designed for cameras.

One of the stylists smiled proudly behind you through the mirror.

“See? We didn’t turn you into somebody else.”

You looked at your reflection for another moment before smiling softly yourself, gently adjusting one of the earrings.

“No,” you admitted quietly. “You actually made me feel really beautiful.”

The woman’s expression warmed instantly at that.

“Well,” she said while stepping back to admire the final result properly, “that part was easy.”

A little later that evening, the limousine arrived downstairs to pick you up alongside David Keller, the young singer your agency had partnered you with for the event.

You recognized him immediately the moment he stepped out of the car to greet you properly. He looked even better in person somehow, dressed sharply enough for the occasion without appearing overly polished, his expression immediately brightening the second he saw you approaching.

Then he stopped walking entirely for a moment and simply stared.

“Well,” he said after several seconds with complete honesty, “I’m officially the luckiest guy at the Grammys tonight.”

You laughed immediately at the ridiculousness of the statement.

“That’s dramatic.”

“No, seriously.”

He opened the limousine door for you while still looking faintly stunned. “You look incredible.”

Warm embarrassment crept faintly across your face despite yourself.

“You’re actually doing me a favor tonight,” you admitted while settling into the seat beside him once the car started moving again. “My agency basically shoved me into this whole thing.”

David grinned.

“Then your agency’s smart.”

“I hate networking.”

“You hide it well.”

“I’m not hiding it.”

“You are a little.”

The conversation flowed surprisingly easily after that during the drive toward the ceremony. David turned out far less arrogant than you initially expected from somebody already climbing steadily through the music industry, and within twenty minutes he had somehow managed to make you laugh hard enough that most of your nervousness faded naturally.

By the time the limousine finally approached the Grammy venue itself, the atmosphere outside already looked almost surreal.

Flashing cameras illuminated the entire entrance in waves of white light while crowds gathered behind barricades screaming names toward every arriving celebrity stepping onto the carpet. Limousines lined the street endlessly while reporters shouted rapid-fire questions toward actors, musicians, producers, and executives entering the building beneath massive golden Grammy signage.

Your stomach tightened instantly.

David noticed immediately.

“Hey,” he said more gently now while offering you his arm before the car door even fully opened. “You’ll be fine.”

You exhaled once before nodding.

Then stepped out into the lights.

The photographs themselves happened quickly. Nothing too overwhelming compared to the true A-list celebrities farther down the carpet, but still enough flashes and shouted questions to make your head spin slightly. David remained beside you the entire time introducing you casually to photographers and reporters while keeping the atmosphere light enough that you slowly relaxed into the process despite yourself.

Still, the moment you finally entered the actual venue afterward, your eyes immediately began searching for only one person.

Michael.

The ceremony itself had not started yet, meaning the venue buzzed loudly with conversations, greetings, producers moving between sections, artists embracing each other near tables, and cameras constantly repositioning throughout the massive auditorium before the televised broadcast officially began.

And somewhere across all of it, you spotted him almost immediately.

Or rather, you spotted the crowd surrounding him first.

Michael stood near one of the front sections wearing a deep blue sequined military-style jacket that already seemed to glitter beneath every movement of the lights around him, the gold detailing along the shoulders and sleeves catching flashes from cameras constantly pointed in his direction. One rhinestone-covered glove sparkled against his hand whenever he gestured during conversations, and even from far away, the energy surrounding him felt entirely different from everyone else in the room somehow. Larger. Louder. More consuming. Executives, artists, photographers, journalists, and fellow celebrities seemed to orbit around him endlessly, drawn toward him almost instinctively while he smiled politely through the overwhelming attention.

And for a brief moment while watching him laugh politely at something Quincy Jones said beside him, your chest tightened unexpectedly at how different he suddenly seemed standing there beneath all the lights and attention surrounding him. The crowd around him barely seemed to thin for even a second, and after hesitating briefly, you decided against trying to approach him before the ceremony began at all, figuring the last thing he probably needed tonight was yet another person pulling at his attention while the entire room already seemed determined to claim pieces of him for themselves.

The moment you drifted your eyes away from him, Michael looked up.

And saw you.

Everything around him seemed to blur instantly afterward.

Because he had never seen you look like this before.

He had seen you beautiful countless times already over the past year, in oversized training clothes with loose hair and bruised knuckles and sleepy late-night smiles from apartment couches and grocery store aisles.

But this. This nearly stole the air directly out of his lungs.

The dark satin dress accentuated every graceful line of your figure while the exposed curve of your shoulders highlighted the athletic strength he had always secretly adored about you. Your hair fell around you in soft waves beneath the lights, and the elegant makeup only sharpened features Michael already knew by heart.

For several dangerous seconds, he genuinely stopped hearing the conversation happening around him entirely.

Then he noticed the man standing beside you.

David’s hand rested lightly near your back while he leaned closer to say something into your ear that immediately made you laugh.

And suddenly Michael’s stomach twisted sharply enough to irritate him instantly.

By the time everyone finally moved toward their assigned seating for the televised ceremony, you and David ended up seated relatively close toward the front sections, though still several rows behind the true industry giants dominating the first rows.

The lights dimmed gradually afterward while the ceremony officially began.

Awards, performances, speeches, applause – the evening moved with carefully orchestrated glamour while cameras swept repeatedly across the audience capturing reactions from every recognizable face in the room.

At one point during a performance break, David leaned slightly toward you while glancing around the venue curiously.

“You think Michael Jackson’s performing tonight?”

You shook your head lightly.

“No. He’s still recovering from the accident.”

David looked surprised.

“How do you know that?”

“We’re friends,” you answered casually without thinking much of it.

The word itself felt strangely warm leaving your mouth.

Meanwhile, several sections ahead, Michael watched the interaction more closely than he should have.

He saw the ease between both of you immediately.

The way David kept leaning toward you during conversations. The way you laughed more openly around him than Michael had heard in months.

And despite knowing rationally that none of it probably meant anything serious at all, irritation still settled heavily inside his chest anyway while cameras flashed endlessly around the room and applause thundered through the auditorium around him.

Because for the first time since beginning this whole stupid attempt at distancing himself from you, Michael suddenly found himself forced to watch somebody else occupy the exact space beside you that he had once filled so naturally himself.

As the ceremony progressed deeper into the evening, it slowly became apparent to everyone inside the auditorium that they were witnessing something historic unfold in real time.

Every time Michael Jackson’s name was announced, the room erupted again.

And again. And again.

By the fourth award, people had already started exchanging stunned looks throughout the audience. By the sixth, even seasoned industry executives seemed openly astonished. By the eighth, the entire atmosphere inside the Grammys no longer felt like a normal awards ceremony at all, but something closer to collective realization settling over the room all at once.

You found yourself clapping so often your palms genuinely started hurting.

Best Pop Vocal Performance. Record of the Year. Album of the Year. Producer of the Year alongside Quincy Jones.

Every single time Michael walked toward the stage beneath the roaring applause, the room somehow seemed to brighten around him beneath the lights and cameras, his blue sequined jacket glittering brilliantly while the rhinestone glove flashed every time he accepted another gramophone trophy into his hands.

At one point, the camera caught him cradling several of the awards awkwardly against his chest while smiling almost shyly despite the overwhelming chaos around him, and the image alone made the audience erupt all over again.

Beside you, even David looked completely stunned. “This is insane,” he muttered at one point while shaking his head in disbelief as Michael accepted yet another award. “Nobody’s ever done this before.”

You couldn’t stop smiling yourself. Not because of the spectacle. Because of him.

Because somewhere in the middle of all the applause and flashing lights and standing ovations, you suddenly remembered yourself sitting curled sideways on your apartment couch weeks earlier telling him he would sweep the entire ceremony.

And now he actually was.

Every acceptance speech he gave only seemed to make the room adore him more. Sometimes he sounded overwhelmed and soft-spoken, thanking Quincy Jones, his family, and God with almost boyish sincerity despite standing at the center of the biggest night of his career. Other times he made the audience laugh unexpectedly with nervous little comments under his breath that cameras barely caught properly.

But regardless of what he said, nobody inside the building could look away from him for very long.

Not even you. Especially not you.

The ceremony eventually transitioned afterward into the sprawling chaos of the after-parties and industry gatherings that followed every major awards show, and suddenly the entire night shifted from formal performances and applause into crowded conversations, champagne glasses, laughter, cameras, introductions, and endless networking.

This part exhausted you almost immediately. Still, you forced yourself through it anyway.

Your agency had not brought you here merely to admire celebrities from afar. They wanted people remembering your name after tonight. They wanted sponsors recognizing your face. They wanted industry executives connecting “female boxing” with somebody charismatic, approachable, marketable, and memorable enough to build around publicly.

So despite how unnatural the whole thing felt initially, you gave it everything you had.

David helped enormously.

He moved easily through conversations and introductions while subtly pulling you into circles of producers, athletes and sports sponsors without ever making you feel abandoned or overwhelmed inside them. And once your initial nervousness faded, your natural humor gradually started carrying you through interactions more smoothly than expected.

People liked you.

You realized that slowly throughout the evening. Not because you behaved like a celebrity. But because you didn’t.

You laughed easily once relaxed, spoke honestly instead of trying too hard to impress anyone, and answered questions about boxing with enough passion that people listened despite themselves even if they knew almost nothing about the sport beforehand.

Still, despite trying your best to focus on the purpose of the evening, your eyes searched for Michael constantly without you even realizing you were doing it.

Unfortunately, approaching him proved nearly impossible.

After winning eight Grammys in one night, Michael had become the undeniable center of the entire event. Everywhere he moved, crowds formed instantly around him. Reporters stopped him constantly. Famous actors congratulated him. Producers wanted photographs. Singers wanted introductions. Executives wanted conversations.

Even from across the room, his presence seemed larger than everyone else’s somehow.

And for a while, you simply watched him from afar while trying not to think too deeply about the strange ache sitting quietly inside your chest all evening.

Eventually, however, sometime later into the night, the crowds surrounding both of you finally loosened enough for him to approach you first.

You noticed him coming toward you almost immediately.

And God.

Even after watching him all evening, the sight of him up close again still stole the air briefly from your lungs.

The blue sequined jacket shimmered beneath the warm party lighting. His curls framed his face messily now after hours beneath hot lights and cameras, and despite the exhaustion visible around his eyes, he still somehow carried that same impossible energy that made entire rooms revolve around him naturally.

But the second he reached you, his expression softened instantly into something more familiar. More Michael.

“You look beautiful,” he told you quietly before pulling you into a hug.

The warmth of his arms around you after months of distance nearly hurt. You hugged him back immediately anyway.

“So do you,” you answered honestly after pulling away slightly, smiling despite yourself. “Well. Maybe not beautiful.”

Michael laughed softly.

“You sure?”

“Debatable.”

That laugh again. God, you missed it.

And despite everything, despite the distance and confusion and lingering hurt of the previous months, genuine happiness still flooded through you seeing him standing there healthy and smiling after everything that had happened since the accident.

“I told you you would sweep,” you told him, unable to hide your excitement.

Michael smiled more softly at that.

“I remembered.”

The sincerity in his voice warmed your chest unexpectedly.

Then, before the moment could settle too deeply into familiarity again, Michael glanced over his shoulder briefly.

“Brooke,” he called gently.

And suddenly everything shifted.

You saw her approaching before Michael even fully turned back toward you.

Beautiful. Elegant. Effortlessly fitting beside him in a way that immediately made something painful tighten sharply inside your chest before you could stop it.

Michael reached for her hand automatically the moment she stepped beside him, intertwining their fingers naturally while introducing both of you.

“This is Brooke.”

Brooke smiled warmly toward you immediately, completely kind and graceful in a way that somehow made the entire situation hurt worse instead of better.

“I’ve heard so much about you,” she said sincerely.

You forced yourself to smile politely despite the uncomfortable pressure building slowly beneath your ribs now.

“Hopefully good things.”

“Only good things.”

Beside Brooke, Michael watched your reaction far more closely than anyone around him realized.

Not because he wanted to hurt you for the sake of hurting you.

God, never that.

But because somewhere after the hospital, after the distance failed to loosen his feelings for you even slightly, Michael had slowly convinced himself that he needed to do something harsher if he truly wanted to protect you from the life surrounding him now.

The quieter distance had not worked.

You still called him.

Still smiled at him like nothing between you had fundamentally changed. Still looked genuinely happy simply standing beside him again tonight after months of confusion and hurt.

And Michael knew with terrifying certainty that if he allowed things to continue slipping naturally back toward what they used to be, he would never find the strength to pull away from you again afterward.

So now, standing beneath the glittering lights of the biggest night of his career with Brooke’s hand intertwined through his fingers, he found himself doing something that felt deeply wrong even while convincing himself it was necessary.

He was trying to emotionally reframe himself inside your life.

Not as the person who spent hours on the phone with you late into the night.

Not as the man who knew your training schedules by heart, who watched your matches obsessively, who once wandered grocery store aisles beside you in disguise just because hearing you laugh made his entire week feel lighter.

Not as the person who loved you so deeply it had already started ruining him quietly from the inside out.

Instead, Michael wanted you to see him as temporary. Somebody passing through your life rather than somebody rooted permanently inside it.

He wanted you to look around this room and finally understand that there were entire parts of his world you did not belong to and perhaps never truly could. Famous actresses resting comfortably against his shoulder. Producers greeting him like family. Artists, executives, photographers, celebrities, musicians – people who had existed inside this overwhelming orbit of fame long before you entered his life at all.

He wanted you to believe that while your friendship mattered to him, it had never occupied the same emotional importance you secretly gave it yourself.

And worst of all, Michael knew exactly how cruel that was. Because until now, he had never truly been cruel to you before.

Even during the months of distance, he had only withdrawn softly. Shorter phone calls. Missed visits. Long silences. Physical absence disguised as exhaustion and busy schedules.

But tonight was different.

Tonight he was standing directly in front of you smiling warmly while intentionally trying to make you feel emotionally small beside him.

And although he hated himself for it, the horrifying part was that he genuinely believed he was doing the right thing. Because in Michael’s mind, temporary heartbreak now still seemed kinder than eventually destroying you completely later.

He knew what fame did to people.

He had watched it consume privacy, relationships, trust, identity – entire lives.

And if merely being associated with him for several months had already dragged your name into tabloids badly enough to affect your focus and leave bruises scattered more frequently across your body during training, then Michael genuinely could not bear imagining what would happen to you if he ever allowed you closer than this.

What he failed to understand, however, was the depth of the feelings already living inside you that you hadn’t even noticed yourself yet. Michael still believed you loved him only as a friend. A deeply cherished friend, perhaps.

But still only that.

So while he carefully watched those tiny flickers of discomfort pass briefly across your face whenever Brooke leaned closer against him or whenever another celebrity interrupted the conversation to congratulate him loudly, Michael assumed the hurt he caused would remain survivable.

Manageable. Temporary.

He never realized he was unknowingly pressing directly against feelings far deeper and far more fragile than friendship.

And so when several major celebrities stopped beside him moments later for congratulations and conversation, Michael leaned into those interactions more deliberately than he normally would have. He greeted famous actors warmly, exchanged familiar laughs with producers and musicians, allowed photographers to pull him briefly into conversations and introductions while Brooke remained effortlessly at his side through all of it.

From the outside, it looked completely natural.

But standing there watching it unfold, you suddenly felt the distance between your world and his widening almost physically in real time.

Not because Michael ignored you. That would have hurt less.

Instead, he remained perfectly kind throughout all of it, which somehow made the ache inside your chest even more unbearable because it forced you to slowly confront something you had desperately avoided acknowledging for months now.

You had started believing you occupied a permanent place in his life. And standing there beneath the overwhelming glamour of the Grammys while cameras flashed endlessly around him and some of the most famous people in the world moved through conversations at his side so naturally, you suddenly felt painfully foolish for ever thinking somebody like Michael Jackson could truly belong to somebody like you in the first place.

Brooke remained perfectly kind to you. David returned eventually and introduced himself enthusiastically to Michael, openly admitting how much he admired him musically and how inspired he felt watching his career.

Michael treated David politely too.

Friendly. Generous.

Everything about the interaction remained pleasant on the surface. And somehow that almost made it worse.

Because standing there watching Michael laugh quietly while Brooke remained tucked comfortably against his side beneath the glittering lights of the biggest night of his career, you suddenly became painfully aware of how temporary your own place inside Michael’s life suddenly felt.

You stayed only a few more minutes afterward out of politeness before finally excusing yourself quietly.

The moment the restroom door closed behind you several minutes later, the noise of the party dulled instantly into distant muffled echoes.

You stepped into one of the empty stalls almost automatically afterward before sitting down slowly against the closed lid, suddenly overwhelmed by emotions you couldn’t fully organize inside your own chest anymore.

Your throat burned painfully.

Because the worst part was that Michael technically had done absolutely nothing wrong.

He had never promised you anything.

Never flirted openly. Never implied romance directly.

And yet somehow, somewhere throughout the past year, you had still allowed yourself to start believing you occupied a place in his heart more important than you apparently actually did.

The realization hurt far more than you wanted to admit.

Especially because now, sitting alone in the stall while muffled music echoed faintly through the walls outside, you finally began understanding why seeing him with other women in magazines had always hurt so badly in the first place.

Why his distance had affected you this deeply.

Why losing him had started feeling unbearable long before tonight.

And slowly, horrifyingly, you realized the answer had never been friendship at all.

–

By the time you finally stepped back out of the restroom several minutes later, the noise of the after-party felt strangely muffled around you, as though some invisible layer now existed between yourself and the rest of the room.

The music still played softly beneath conversations and laughter. Champagne glasses still clinked somewhere nearby. Celebrities still moved through the enormous ballroom exchanging introductions and congratulations.

But something inside you had shifted too deeply now for any of it to feel exciting anymore.

You found David near one of the tables speaking with a producer you vaguely recognized from earlier introductions, and the moment he noticed your expression, his face softened immediately with concern.

“You okay?”

You forced a small smile onto your face automatically.

“Yeah,” you lied gently. “I’m just… really tired all of a sudden.”

David studied you for another moment before nodding.

“You wanna head out?”

Relief flooded through you so intensely it almost embarrassed you.

“You can stay if you want,” you told him quickly. “Seriously. You don’t have to leave because of me.”

But David only shook his head lightly. “I’ve done enough networking for one lifetime tonight.”

That finally pulled a small genuine laugh out of you.

And somehow, after the emotional suffocation of the past hour, even that tiny bit of kindness nearly made your throat tighten again.

The two of you quietly made your way back through the crowded ballroom afterward, and before leaving entirely, you glanced instinctively toward where Michael still stood surrounded by people.

He remained the center of the entire room even now.

Still, despite everything twisting painfully inside your chest now, you knew leaving without saying goodbye would feel wrong after everything the two of you had survived together over the past year.

So you approached anyway.

Michael noticed you immediately.

And the second he truly looked at your face this time, something inside his chest dropped heavily. Because even though you smiled politely, he could see the difference instantly.

The warmth from earlier had faded.

Not anger. Not bitterness.

Something quieter.

Sadness.

And Michael hated himself for recognizing immediately that he had caused it, even though it had been his intention to do so.

Still, despite the guilt clawing viciously at his chest now, he forced his expression to remain carefully composed.

“You leaving already?” he asked gently.

“Yeah,” you answered softly. “I’m exhausted.”

Michael nodded slowly and simply stepped closer to wrap his arms around you in a soft goodbye hug.

The moment you hugged him back, he was overcome with guilt.

Because despite everything, despite the distance and Brooke and the deliberate emotional wall he had tried building between you tonight, your body still melted instinctively against his with the same trust and familiarity as always.

And somehow that hurt worse than your sadness did.

“You looked beautiful tonight,” he murmured quietly near your ear before pulling back slightly.

The words only made your chest ache harder.

“So did you,” you answered honestly despite yourself.

Then, before the silence between both of you could become too dangerous, you stepped back gently and excused yourself politely from Brooke and the surrounding crowd as David approached again beside you.

Michael watched the two of you walk away afterward side by side through the ballroom together while cameras still flashed endlessly around him.

And despite everything he had convinced himself tonight was necessary, all he could think while watching you disappear through the crowd was that you looked heartbreakingly small leaving him behind.

The limousine ride back felt infinitely quieter than the drive to the Grammys earlier that evening.

David remained kind enough not to overwhelm you with conversation, though every so often he still tried gently steering the atmosphere back toward something lighter by joking quietly about ridiculous celebrity interactions from the evening or the sheer insanity of watching Michael Jackson casually make Grammy history in real time.

You smiled when appropriate. Laughed softly when expected.

But most of your thoughts remained trapped somewhere else entirely.

When the limousine finally stopped outside your apartment building, David stepped out with you and walked you toward the entrance beneath the cool February night air.

“I had a really good time tonight,” he told you honestly once you reached the doorway. “Even if you kinda disappeared emotionally halfway through.”

Embarrassment warmed your face slightly.

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.”

He smiled softly before hugging you briefly.

“Thanks for surviving the Grammys with me.”

That finally made you laugh quietly again.

“Thank you for helping me survive them.”

“You kidding?” David grinned. “Half the room wanted to know who you were by the end of the night.”

You shook your head lightly while smiling despite yourself.

“Goodnight, David.”

“Goodnight.”

You watched the limousine disappear down the street several moments later before finally heading upstairs toward your apartment alone.

The silence inside immediately swallowed you the second the door closed behind you.

Slowly, mechanically, you began undoing the entire evening piece by piece.

The earrings first. Then the necklace. Then the heels that had started hurting hours ago.

You carefully slipped the satin gown from your body afterward and hung it delicately inside the garment bag because it needed to be returned to the stylist untouched the following morning.

For several seconds, you simply stood there afterward staring at it hanging neatly against the closet door.

The same dress Michael had looked at you in tonight.

The same dress Brooke had seen you wearing while standing comfortably at Michael’s side holding his hand.

The thought alone made your throat tighten painfully all over again.

You quickly turned away before your thoughts could spiral deeper and moved toward the bathroom instead, washing away the carefully applied makeup slowly beneath warm water while exhaustion settled heavier into your bones with every passing minute.

By the time you finally changed into pajamas and crawled into bed sometime past two in the morning, your entire body felt emotionally hollowed out.

But sleep never came.

Because now that the truth had finally surfaced fully inside your own mind, you suddenly could not stop tracing it backward through every memory you had of him.

Every phone call. Every late-night conversation. Every laugh. Every moment sitting side by side in apartment kitchens or Hayvenhurst hallways. Every tiny detail that once felt so natural and harmless now returned carrying a completely different meaning.

And slowly, lying awake in the darkness while tears burned hotter and hotter against your eyes, you finally understood why you had never recognized the feelings sooner.

Because loving Michael had never felt dramatic. It had never arrived suddenly.

It had simply woven itself quietly into your life so naturally that you stopped noticing where friendship ended and something far more dangerous began.

Somewhere through all those months, Michael had become your safest person. Your first thought during good days. Your comfort during bad ones. Your best friend.

And maybe your mother had been right all along when she once told you that real love never truly felt separate from friendship at all.

Maybe that was exactly why you missed it.

Because nothing between you and Michael had ever felt forced.

Until tonight. Until standing there watching him hold another woman’s hand while realizing with horrifying clarity that you loved him enough for it to physically hurt.

Tears finally slipped silently down your face afterward while you stared up at the dark ceiling above your bed.

And the cruelest part of all was that Michael had not even been unkind to you tonight.

He had smiled warmly. Hugged you gently. Complimented you softly. Treated you exactly the same way a close friend would.

Which only made you feel more foolish for ever allowing yourself to imagine that perhaps you occupied a more important place in his heart than you actually did.

Because now, replaying the evening endlessly through your head while crying quietly into your pillow long after the city outside finally went silent, all you could think about was how impossible it had felt standing beside him tonight.

How naturally Brooke fit against his side. How easily she belonged inside his world.

And how stupid you suddenly felt for ever believing somebody like you could someday stand there instead.

–

The two weeks following the Grammys passed with a strange kind of emotional numbness that made every day feel both unbearably heavy and frighteningly repetitive at the same time.

By the time March settled over California fully, it had officially been a year since you moved away from Phoenix and started building a life for yourself in Burbank, though lately the city no longer felt new enough to distract you from your own thoughts anymore. Your routines remained as disciplined and structured as ever on the surface. Early morning runs. Strict meal preparation. Endless sparring sessions. Recovery work. Meetings with trainers. Footage analysis late into the evening while replaying your upcoming opponent’s habits and weaknesses over and over until your eyes burned from exhaustion.

And somehow, despite the emotional chaos quietly consuming you underneath all of it, you still managed to force your body through every part of the schedule with almost mechanical precision.

You had to.

Because your next match was approaching quickly now, and unlike some of your earlier fights after moving to California, this opponent was not somebody you could afford to underestimate even slightly. She was one of the bigger names in female boxing already, known for fighting brutally and aggressively enough to intimidate most opponents before matches even began, and every trainer around you made it painfully clear from day one that this would easily become one of the hardest fights of your career so far.

So you trained relentlessly. Almost obsessively.

And during the daytime, at least, it worked.

Inside the gym, your focus remained sharp enough to convince even yourself temporarily that maybe you had finally regained control over your emotions again. You forced yourself to concentrate on footwork, reaction timing, combinations, defense, breathing – anything concrete enough to keep your mind from drifting elsewhere for too long. Whenever thoughts of Michael threatened to surface unexpectedly during training, you shoved them down immediately with almost frightening discipline, tightening your grip mentally until the distraction disappeared again beneath sheer force of will.

Your trainers praised you repeatedly throughout those two weeks for how focused you seemed lately.

And maybe that was why part of you genuinely started believing you would be okay.

Because during training, you could still outrun the feelings.

It was only at night that everything collapsed again.

The silence between you and Michael stretched endlessly after the Grammys.

You didn’t call him anymore. He didn’t call you either.

And somehow the absence itself hurt almost worse than the distance had before.

Still, despite the heartbreak clawing steadily through your chest every evening once the distractions of training disappeared, another quieter part of you also felt relieved by the silence at the same time, because you genuinely no longer knew how you would even react if Michael suddenly called you again now.

What would you say to him?

How were you supposed to pretend nothing had changed after finally understanding the truth about your feelings?

How were you supposed to hear his voice and continue acting like you did not love him?

So instead, you allowed the silence to continue even while it slowly destroyed you.

Most nights, sleep became almost impossible.

You would lie awake for hours staring at the ceiling of your apartment while memories replayed endlessly through your head with painful clarity now that your feelings finally had a name attached to them.

And somehow, looking backward, all the signs suddenly felt so obvious that you almost hated yourself for not understanding sooner.

You thought about the endless phone calls first.

Not even the dramatic ones. The stupid ones. The pointless ones.

The nights Michael called simply because he felt stuck creatively and wanted to hear your voice while scribbling unfinished lyrics in the studio. The evenings you called him complaining about eating too much cake during stricter weight-control phases and panicking dramatically over gaining weight overnight while he laughed softly at you through the receiver. The ridiculous conversations about anything and everything that once felt so harmless at the time.

Then your mind would drift farther backward.

To Hayvenhurst.

To the first time he introduced you to Katherine so naturally, as though bringing you into his home already felt instinctive to him somehow.

To the afternoon you wandered through shops together before buying him the Peter Pan music box because you saw the way his entire face softened when he looked at it.

To the way he later gave you the framed Muhammad Ali interview and poster after remembering a conversation you yourself had nearly forgotten having.

To him quietly opening up to you about his vitiligo while sitting beside you during movie night conversations that now replayed through your chest painfully enough to make your eyes burn.

To the insecurity surrounding his surgeries.

To Joseph.

To the pressure of the Jacksons.

To childhood loneliness.

To things Michael Jackson did not seem to tell the rest of the world easily at all.

And that part confused you more than anything else.

Because no matter how many times you replayed the past year inside your head now, you still could not fully understand how someone could let another person this deeply into their private fears and vulnerabilities while apparently never truly intending for them to stay permanently afterward.

That was the thought that hurt most.

Not Brooke. Not even the Grammys themselves.

It was the realization that somewhere throughout all those months, you had quietly started believing you occupied a permanent place inside Michael’s life too.

Not because he explicitly promised it.

But because he made it feel natural. Because he called constantly. Because he showed up.

Because he sought you out whenever he felt lonely or exhausted or overwhelmed.

Because he made you feel needed.

And now, lying awake alone in your apartment night after night while the city outside gradually fell silent toward morning, shame slowly started mixing itself into the heartbreak more and more each day.

You felt embarrassed for misunderstanding things so badly. Embarrassed for believing that perhaps you mattered to him with the same permanence that he mattered to you.

Embarrassed for thinking you had become his best friend too.

And yet despite all of that humiliation, despite how deeply the realization hurt, your love for him still refused to lessen even slightly.

If anything, finally recognizing the feelings fully only made them feel more suffocating.

By the second week after the Grammys, your upcoming fight had completely overtaken your schedule. Training sessions stretched longer. Sparring became harsher. Your trainers pushed you relentlessly because everyone understood how important this match could become for your career if you won against somebody with your opponent’s reputation.

And to your own relief, you handled the pressure well.

At least outwardly.

Inside the ring during sparring, your instincts remained sharp. Your reaction times stayed quick. Your footwork stayed controlled. You listened carefully during strategy meetings and studied footage with enough discipline that even your head trainer commented approvingly one afternoon that you looked “locked in again.”

You clung desperately to that sentence afterward.

Locked in again.

Because if you could survive training without losing focus now, then maybe you could survive the actual match too.

And for a while, forcing yourself through each exhausting day with iron discipline and sheer stubbornness, you genuinely believed that might still be possible.

–

By the time the night of the match finally arrived, you had convinced yourself you were ready.

The arena buzzed loudly around you while trainers, officials, commentators, and fighters moved through the organized chaos surrounding the event, but inside your corner everything felt strangely focused and controlled compared to the noise outside the ropes. Your hands were already wrapped tightly beneath the gloves while your trainers continued giving final instructions between stretches and warm-ups, reminding you repeatedly to stay disciplined, stay mobile, and never let your opponent drag you into reckless exchanges where brute force mattered more than technique.

“She’s gonna come at your body early,” your head trainer warned while adjusting the towel around his neck. “Don’t let her pressure you backward.”

You nodded immediately.

“I know.”

“And keep your damn head in this fight,” another trainer added more sharply while pointing toward you. “You’re faster than her. Smarter than her. But none of that matters if you start drifting mentally.”

That sentence lingered unpleasantly inside your chest for reasons you tried very hard not to examine too closely.

Because despite the confidence you projected outwardly, despite how disciplined and focused you had forced yourself to become throughout training camp, part of you still feared exactly that.

Not your opponent.

Your own mind.

Still, once the introductions began and the bright arena lights settled over the ring while the crowd roared around you, instinct gradually started taking over the way it always did once a fight truly began.

And early on, it worked.

Your footwork stayed sharp during the opening rounds while you controlled distance effectively enough to frustrate your opponent repeatedly. You landed cleaner combinations. Moved better. Read her timing more accurately. Even the commentators acknowledged it quickly, praising your speed and defensive control against a fighter known specifically for overwhelming opponents physically.

From the outside, you looked composed.

Locked in.

But miles away, sitting in front of the television with Bill standing nearby, Michael noticed almost immediately that something was wrong anyway.

Not dramatic.

Not obvious enough for casual viewers to recognize.

Just small things.

Tiny hesitations.

Moments where your reactions arrived a fraction too slow compared to normal.

And nobody on earth besides perhaps your trainers had studied your movements long enough to recognize those differences the way Michael did.

Over the past year, he had watched your matches obsessively enough to memorize your rhythms almost unconsciously. He knew the way you reset your stance after combinations. The way you usually recovered after hard hits. The way your shoulders moved whenever your focus sharpened fully inside the ring.

And tonight, something felt slightly off.

Not enough to panic him yet. But enough to make his stomach tighten gradually with unease while he remained sitting forward on the couch watching the broadcast too intently to blink properly.

Back inside the ring, you tried desperately to keep your concentration from slipping.

You really did.

But every time the pace slowed even briefly between exchanges, your thoughts betrayed you again before you could stop them.

A look Michael gave you at the Grammys while complimenting you.

The warmth of his hug goodbye.

The sight of Brooke’s hand intertwined through his fingers.

The horrible realization waiting for you afterward alone in your apartment.

You shoved the thoughts down violently each time they surfaced, immediately forcing your attention back toward the fight before your opponent could capitalize on the distraction.

Still, the effort of controlling your own mind started exhausting you faster than the physical fight itself.

By the fourth round, your corner noticed it too.

The second you sat back down between rounds, your trainer crouched directly in front of you looking angrier than before.

“Where are you right now?” he snapped while pressing the water bottle toward your mouth. “Get your head in this damn fight.”

“I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

You wiped sweat quickly from your face while forcing yourself to breathe steadily.

“She’s reading you now,” another trainer warned. “You keep dropping focus after exchanges.”

Across the ring, your opponent looked energized now in a way she hadn’t earlier. Because brutal fighters always sensed hesitation eventually.

And once she recognized even tiny fractures in your concentration, she started exploiting them mercilessly.

Michael saw it immediately from the television screen.

The pressure increased round by round afterward.

Your opponent stopped chasing your head constantly and instead began targeting your body with horrifying precision, landing vicious hooks against your ribs and liver whenever she cornered you long enough to trap your movement. The force behind each shot visibly slowed you more every round, and Michael found himself unconsciously gripping the edge of the couch harder every time another brutal hit landed cleanly against your side.

Still, you kept fighting back.

Still stayed standing.

Still moved well enough that part of Michael continued desperately convincing himself you would stabilize eventually the way you always did.

Then came the body shot.

A vicious hook buried directly beneath your ribs hard enough that pain exploded violently through your entire torso before you could brace properly for it.

Your guard dropped for only a second.

One second.

That was all your opponent needed.

Michael saw the finishing punch unfolding almost before it fully happened.

The overhand right came fast and brutal directly toward your temple while your balance still struggled recovering from the body shot beneath your ribs.

And suddenly everything seemed to slow.

The impact snapped your head sideways violently enough that the entire arena gasped almost in unison.

Then your body collapsed toward the canvas.

At first, Michael didn’t panic.

Knockdowns happened. You had gone down before. He had seen you recover before.

But then the referee started counting. And you didn’t move.

Inside your own mind, the world had already started dissolving strangely around the edges.

You could hear the referee counting somewhere nearby, but the sound felt warped and distant, as though someone had submerged the entire arena underwater while your body floated somewhere far beneath it.

“…four…”

The canvas beneath your cheek felt strangely distant, like your body no longer fully belonged to you anymore.

You tried to move instinctively through the ringing in your ears, but nothing responded.

Not your arms.

Not your legs.

Not even your fingers.

It felt as though your brain kept screaming commands into empty space while the rest of your body remained horrifyingly still beneath you, trapped somewhere you suddenly could no longer reach.

The arena lights above you blurred and pulsed violently against your vision while nausea rolled suddenly through your stomach hard enough to make breathing difficult.

“…seven…”

Somewhere nearby, voices shouted your name.

Your trainers.

The referee.

The crowd.

But everything sounded stretched and distorted now, like hearing the world through thick walls.

Then suddenly Michael’s panic truly hit.

Because the count reached eight.

Then nine.

And you still had not moved.

Not even slightly.

Bill had already stepped closer toward the television by then while Michael slowly stood from the couch without fully realizing he was doing it.

“No…” he whispered quietly beneath his breath.

The referee reached ten. Immediately waved it off.

And instead of stepping back normally afterward, he instantly motioned aggressively toward the medical staff rushing into the ring.

Michael’s chest tightened so violently it physically hurt.

Because now he understood.

This wasn’t routine.

This wasn’t normal.

Your body twitched suddenly against the canvas in a way Michael had never seen before in all the footage and matches he had watched over the past year, the movement sharp and involuntary enough that fear shot straight through him instantly.

The arena itself had gone eerily quiet now.

Even the commentators sounded shaken.

“We’re going to pause here for a moment, folks,” one voice said tensely over the broadcast while cameras avoided showing too much directly. “Medical staff are attending to Y/N ringside now and… this doesn’t appear to be a routine stoppage.”

More people crowded around you.

Nobody moved away.

Then Michael saw the stretcher.

And beside him, Bill swore quietly under his breath.

Both of them stood fully now watching helplessly while the broadcast captured only brief flashes of medics surrounding your unmoving body before cutting back toward the commentators again.

Michael felt physically sick. Not because you lost. Because he knew you.

He knew your body. He knew how you fought.

And nothing about this looked normal. Nothing.

Bill moved first.

“We gotta go,” he said immediately while reaching for his jacket nearby. “I know how to reach her trainers, I’ll find out where she’s taken to and get the car ready.”

But Michael didn’t move.

He remained standing frozen in front of the television while panic tore violently through his chest so hard he could barely think properly anymore.

Because every instinct inside him screamed to go to you immediately.

Every part of him wanted to run straight to the hospital and make sure you were alive and breathing and okay.

But the other part –

The terrified, obsessive part that had controlled him for months now –

still clung desperately to the conviction that anything he touched eventually got destroyed.

That getting closer to you again would only drag you deeper into the chaos surrounding him.

That loving you openly would ruin your life completely.

So instead he stood there motionless while the paramedics wheeled your unconscious body from the ring.

Bill stared at him in complete disbelief.

“Michael.”

Still no response.

And suddenly, for the first time in years, Bill’s patience finally snapped completely.

“What the hell is wrong with you, son?” he barked furiously, the anger in his voice sharp enough to make Michael physically flinch. “You see her laying there like that and you’re still standing here?”

Michael looked devastated.

Terrified.

But still frozen.

Bill shook his head incredulously.

“She needs you right now.”

Michael swallowed hard but still couldn’t force his feet to move.

And somehow that only made Bill angrier.

“You think staying away is helping her?” he demanded. “Look at her! Look what’s happening to both of you!”

Michael finally shut his burning eyes briefly like the words physically hurt.

But Bill wasn’t finished.

“Don’t you love her?”

The question landed between them brutally.

Michael opened his mouth slightly afterward.

Then closed it again.

Because there was no answer left anymore that mattered.

Bill looked at him for several long seconds before grabbing his jacket angrily from the chair nearby.

“Fine,” he snapped while striding toward the door. “I’ll go myself.”

Then he stopped briefly before leaving completely, looking back toward Michael one final time with disappointment written plainly across his face.

“She came running the second she heard about your accident,” Bill said more quietly now, though somehow the softer tone hurt worse. “She spent every day sitting outside your hospital room until they discharged you.”

Michael looked completely shattered.

Bill opened the door.

“You think about that while I’m gone, son.”

And then he left, abandoning Michael alone in the deafening silence of the room while the television still replayed footage of medics wheeling you away beneath the flashing arena lights.

The taping for Motown 25 had already happened weeks earlier, but because the broadcast itself would not air until May, the world still had no idea what was coming. Michael remained famous, obviously – impossibly famous by most standards already – but there were still stretches of time where he could breathe normally between obligations, spend evenings in the studio experimenting with ideas, disappear into rehearsal rooms for hours, or make room in his schedule for quieter personal things that had started mattering to him far more than he usually admitted aloud.

One afternoon early in April, he called while you were finishing meal prep for the week.

“You haven’t been to Hayvenhurst in a while.”

You glanced up briefly from the cutting board.

“That your way of inviting me over?”

“…Maybe.”

The faint awkwardness in his voice made you smile despite yourself.

A few evenings later, Bill picked you up shortly before sunset and drove you toward Encino while Michael waited at Hayvenhurst already pacing through the living room pretending not to check the driveway every five minutes.

The second you stepped through the front doors, the difference from your first visit months earlier became immediately obvious.

Nothing felt formal anymore.

Michael introduced you to Katherine who greeted you warmly like she had known you for years already, Jackie yelled hello from another room before immediately getting distracted by something else entirely, and Bubbles nearly launched himself into your arms so enthusiastically that Michael had to physically pull him back before the chimp knocked you over completely.

“I think he likes you more than me now,” Michael complained while watching Bubbles cling happily to your side.

“He has excellent taste.”

Michael laughed softly under his breath while leading you further inside.

The evening unfolded comfortably after that.

Michael showed you newer rehearsal ideas casually from the dance studio, dragged you into the music room to play unfinished melodies he’d been working on recently, and spent nearly twenty minutes complaining dramatically about one choreography sequence refusing to cooperate properly.

At some point during the evening, while both of you sat cross-legged on the studio floor surrounded by scattered lyric sheets and rehearsal notes, Michael suddenly disappeared briefly before returning carrying a carefully wrapped rectangular package.

You blinked in surprise.

“What’s that?”

Michael tried and failed to look nonchalant.

“A thing.”

“That explains nothing.”

“It’s a gift.”

Your expression shifted immediately.

“You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“Well,” he said while sitting back down beside you, “you brought me a gift before, so…”

The sentence trailed off awkwardly.

Something unexpectedly warm settled quietly in your chest as you took the package from him carefully.

Inside sat an older framed boxing poster from one of Muhammad Ali’s earlier fights alongside a rare magazine clipping featuring a long interview you had once mentioned wanting to read but never being able to find anywhere.

For several seconds, you genuinely didn’t know what to say.

“You remembered that?”

Michael smiled at you.

“Of course I remembered.”

The sincerity in his voice hit you strangely hard.

Because it wasn’t only the fact that he bought the gift.

It was that he had listened carefully enough months ago to remember something you yourself had only mentioned casually once during a late-night phone call.

Your fingers brushed carefully across the edge of the framed poster while Michael watched your reaction almost nervously.

“This is… really thoughtful.”

The visible relief crossing his face afterward made you smile faintly.

“You like it?”

“I love it.”

And although neither of you lingered too long on the moment afterward, something about the exchange quietly shifted the atmosphere between you again into something softer and more personal than before.

A week later, after several more calls and one dinner together at Hayvenhurst, you finally invited Michael to your apartment for the first time.

Bill dropped him off shortly after sunset carrying an unnecessarily dramatic amount of warnings about “not getting kidnapped by civilians” before driving away while Michael rolled his eyes.

Compared to Hayvenhurst, your apartment looked almost painfully modest.

The furniture remained simple, practical, and slightly mismatched in places, your boxing gear occupied one entire corner of the living room beside stacks of training tapes and magazines, and family photographs filled nearly every available shelf space throughout the apartment.

And Michael loved it almost immediately.

Not despite the simplicity. Because of it.

The place felt lived in, even only after a month of you being there.

Real.

Warm in ways celebrity houses often weren’t.

Your kitchen especially fascinated him.

“You really cook this much?”

You looked over from the stove.

“What’d you think meal prep meant?”

“I thought maybe… less containers.”

You stared at him.

“There are gonna be more containers tomorrow.”

Michael laughed quietly while leaning against the kitchen island watching you move around the apartment comfortably.

And more than once that evening, he caught himself realizing how strangely peaceful it felt being there with you while ordinary life unfolded around him naturally for once.

Over the following weeks, the apartment slowly started collecting traces of Michael’s presence unintentionally too. One of his jackets ended up forgotten over the back of a kitchen chair after a late movie night, several cassette tapes he brought over occasionally stayed stacked beside your television between boxing magazines and training notes, and eventually even his preferred orange juice brand permanently claimed space inside your refrigerator next to protein drinks and aggressively organized meal prep containers.

And more than once during those quieter evenings together, while watching him move comfortably through your kitchen or ramble absentmindedly about music from the couch like he had always belonged there, you found yourself realizing with faint disbelief that somewhere over the past half year, Michael had quietly become your best friend.

The realization should probably have unsettled you more than it did.

For most of your life, trust had never come easily to you, and letting people too close emotionally had always felt dangerous in ways you understood instinctively from childhood onward. Yet with Michael, the walls had lowered so gradually that you barely noticed it happening until it was already done. Somewhere between the late-night phone calls, the training camp visits, Hayvenhurst, studio conversations, and all the countless smaller moments in between, you had simply stopped guarding yourself around him so carefully because, at some point, you realized with complete certainty that he would never intentionally hurt you.

One night sometime in mid-April, Michael ended up at your apartment carrying two VHS tapes beneath one arm and a carton of orange juice under the other like he had personally arrived prepared for survival.

“You brought your own drink?”

“It’s important.”

You stared at him flatly while letting him inside, waving goodbye to Bill who’d dropped him off and would return later.

“It’s orange juice.”

Michael looked mildly offended.

“It’s excellent orange juice.”

You rolled your eyes. “Jokes on you, I had already stocked it up for you in the fridge.”

The evening itself unfolded lazily afterward. The movie barely held either of your attention after the first half hour, eventually dissolving into long conversations interrupted occasionally by handfuls of popcorn or Michael reaching across the coffee table for more strawberry ice cream while you complained halfheartedly that he was stealing most of it.

“Aren’t you supposed to be on weight control?” he asked at one point while watching you scoop another spoonful from the container.

“I’m in a less strict phase right now.”

“That sounds fake.”

“It’s not fake.”

“You said last month you’d cry if somebody even looked at bread near you.”

“That was before weigh-ins.”

Michael laughed softly into his glass.

The conversation drifted more seriously later that night while the movie continued playing, mostly ignored in the background.

It started because one actor on screen made an offhand joke about cosmetic surgery.

Michael had laughed at it initially.

Then gone strangely quiet afterward.

You noticed immediately.

“What?”

For several seconds he didn’t answer, staring instead toward the television without really watching it anymore and absentmindedly touching the small, fresh bandage on his nose.

Then finally he sighed quietly.

“My father used to call me big nose.”

Your expression softened almost instantly.

Michael shrugged lightly afterward like he regretted saying it aloud already.

“When I was younger, my brothers used to tease me sometimes too,” he admitted. “Mostly when things with the group started changing.”

“The Jackson 5?”

He nodded.

“I think some of it came from jealousy back then,” he said honestly. “Especially once more attention started shifting toward me. But they stopped eventually. My father did too.”

The silence that followed lasted briefly.

“But it stayed with you anyway,” you said quietly.

Michael looked toward you then.

And the thing that struck him hardest was the complete absence of judgment on your face.

Only understanding.

That made continuing easier somehow.

Eventually the conversation drifted further into subjects Michael rarely discussed openly with people outside family.

The vitiligo.

The pressure of constantly being photographed.

The impossible standards surrounding appearance once fame reached a certain level.

You listened quietly throughout all of it, occasionally asking smaller questions but never in ways that felt invasive, and Michael realized halfway through explaining one of his frustrations that he had stopped filtering himself around you almost entirely.

“You know,” you said eventually while resting your spoon against the empty ice cream carton, “I don’t think I’ve ever looked at you once and thought about your nose.”

Michael looked unconvinced.

“I’m serious.”

“And the vitiligo?”

You shrugged slightly. “It’s part of you.”

The simplicity of the answer visibly affected him more than you intended.

Nobody ever spoke about those things around Michael simply.

There was always pity.

Or fascination.

Or scrutiny.

But never simplicity.

Later that evening, while you were rinsing dishes in your kitchen, you mentioned needing groceries soon because your meal prep supplies were running low again.

Michael immediately looked up.

“…Wait.”

You blinked.

“What?”

“The grocery store thing.”

You laughed softly almost immediately.

“What about it?”

“You said you were gonna take me.”

“You actually remembered that?”

“Of course I remembered.”

The next evening, after checking with Michael’s manager obsessively to make sure he had no other obligations, Bill eventually managed to locate a larger grocery store in a quieter area outside the busiest parts of Los Angeles that stayed open late enough to remain mostly empty after midnight.

Michael arrived wearing oversized clothes, sunglasses, and a baseball cap pulled low enough that Bill spent nearly ten full minutes beforehand informing him that he looked “less like a normal person and more like a criminal trying to evade federal charges”.

Still, somehow, it worked well enough.

The store itself fascinated Michael almost immediately.

Not in a glamorous way either.

Genuinely fascinated.

He kept stopping to stare at random products like somebody visiting another planet.

At one point he picked up a packaged loaf of bread, turned it over thoughtfully, looked at the price tag, and casually announced:

“That’s cheap.”

You stared at him in disbelief.

“Michael.”

“What?”

“That is not cheap.”

“It’s only–”

“No.”

You grabbed the bread directly out of his hands and put it back on the shelf.

“That is expensive bread.”

Michael looked genuinely confused.

Bill, lingering several feet behind the cart pretending not to monitor the entire situation, physically covered part of his face to hide his laughter.

“You are unbelievably out of touch,” you informed Michael while steering the cart further down the aisle.

“I’m not out of touch.”

“You thought eight dollars for bread was cheap.”

“It looked fancy.”

“It’s bread.”

Michael continued defending himself while following behind you pushing his shopping cart badly enough that he nearly clipped one of the aisle displays.

Over the next hour, you walked him through grocery shopping like he had somehow skipped the entire concept growing up.

You showed him the cereal your brothers always begged your mother to buy when you were younger, your favorite candies during less strict training phases, the ingredients you used most for meal prep, protein-heavy snacks, vegetables, rice brands, frozen fruit, and the aggressively specific seasonings you insisted made all the difference while cooking.

Meanwhile Michael wandered around the store with the curiosity of somebody discovering ordinary life for the first time.

“You actually compare prices?” he asked while watching you choose between two brands.

“Yes.”

“Every time?”

“Yes.”

“That sounds exhausting.”

“You have no survival instincts.”

Bill stayed behind the two of you most of the evening, keeping enough distance to remain unobtrusive while still quietly observing the bizarre domesticity unfolding in front of him.

And somewhere between the cereal aisle, Michael arguing passionately about orange juice brands, and the two of you bickering over whether generic pasta tasted different from expensive pasta, Bill found himself smiling faintly to himself again.

Because whatever this thing between the two of you had become over the past half year, it was obvious by now that neither of you really knew how to function normally without the other anymore.

–

May arrived quietly at first.

For you, life continued almost exactly as it had throughout April. Your days remained structured around the same familiar rhythm of promotional obligations, sparring sessions and long hours at the training facility in Burbank. California itself had stopped feeling temporary by then, and although you still missed Phoenix and your family constantly, the homesickness had settled into something softer and more manageable over time.

Michael remained woven naturally into your routine too.

The phone calls still happened regularly, though now they often had to be planned more carefully around increasingly crowded schedules. Some evenings he still came by your apartment after studio sessions or rehearsals, collapsing dramatically onto your couch complaining about choreography or producers while stealing food directly from your refrigerator despite pretending he hated your aggressively healthy meal-prep lifestyle.

Other nights you went to Hayvenhurst instead, where the atmosphere had gradually become so familiar to you that security guards already greeted you by name before opening the gates.

And for a while, despite everything surrounding him professionally becoming bigger and louder by the week, your friendship itself still felt strangely untouched by all of it.

Then May 16th happened.

The night Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever finally aired on television, something shifted permanently in Michael’s life.

Before that night, he had already been enormously famous.

After that night, he became something else entirely.

The reaction across the globe happened almost immediately.

Every television station replayed clips from the performance nonstop. Newspapers printed still images from the stage the next morning. Radio hosts talked about nothing else. People who had never cared about pop music suddenly knew Michael Jackson’s name, and within days it genuinely felt impossible to walk through public spaces anywhere in America without hearing somebody discussing the performance, the dancing, the glove, or the impossible backward gliding step from Billie Jean, which was soon named “the moonwalk”.

And with that explosion came something far uglier too.

The crowds around Hayvenhurst tripled within weeks.

Fans camped outside the gates for hours, sometimes days. Security around Michael became tighter almost overnight, and Bill suddenly found himself physically fighting through swarms of people nearly every time Michael stepped outside somewhere publicly.

Even short walks from hotel entrances to waiting cars only a few feet away became exhausting productions involving security teams forcing pathways through screaming crowds while photographers shoved cameras into Michael’s face from every angle possible.

The lack of normalcy disappeared frighteningly fast.

And the contrast between your lives became sharper than ever before.

Because while Michael’s world spiraled into complete chaos almost overnight, yours remained painfully steady in comparison.

You still woke up before sunrise.

Still wrapped your hands every morning.

Still grocery shopped.

Still meal prepped.

Still moved through the world largely unnoticed.

At least initially.

One evening toward the end of May, you had a match scheduled in California and invited Michael weeks beforehand hoping he might be able to attend.

Under normal circumstances, he would have come immediately.

But by then, even disguised outings had become increasingly difficult.

“I’m sorry,” he admitted quietly over the phone the night before. “I really wanted to come.”

You sat cross-legged on your couch while loosely taping one wrist for the next morning’s training session, the receiver held between your shoulder and ear.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

You could hear genuine frustration underneath his voice.

“I can barely get into places right now without people losing their minds.”

“I know.”

And you did know.

Not fully perhaps.

Nobody outside Michael’s life truly could.

But you had seen enough already to understand that things around him had become frighteningly intense lately.

A few nights later, however, after several especially overwhelming days filled with interviews, rehearsals, and public appearances, Michael ended up at your apartment again needing quiet more than anything else.

You welcomed him inside immediately the moment he knocked.

“You look exhausted.”

“I am exhausted.”

He hugged you briefly in greeting, longer than usual without either of you really noticing it, while Bill lingered near the car watching the street automatically out of habit.

Neither of you, not even Bill, noticed the photographer parked farther down the block.

Inside, Michael spent nearly half an hour pacing slowly through your apartment ranting about the insanity surrounding him lately while you listened from the kitchen island preparing tea.

“I can’t go anywhere anymore,” he muttered while dragging both hands through his curls in frustration. “Everywhere I go now there’s cameras and screaming and people trying to grab me and–”

He stopped himself abruptly before exhaling heavily.

You slid a mug toward him quietly.

“It’ll calm down eventually.”

Michael laughed once at that.

The sound carried no humor whatsoever.

Neither of you realized until two mornings later that the paparazzi had photographed him hugging you in your apartment doorway that night.

Bill discovered the article first.

Michael arrived at the studio one afternoon to find both his manager and Bill standing near the mixing console with expressions serious enough to immediately make his stomach tighten.

“What happened?”

Bill wordlessly tossed a magazine onto the table in front of him.

Michael looked down.

And instantly felt something cold settle violently in his chest.

The article stretched across nearly two full pages beneath grainy photographs of the two of you outside your apartment building.

The headlines themselves were bad enough already.

But the language underneath made Michael physically angry.

The tabloids speculated relentlessly about your relationship to him, bringing up previous sightings at sports charity events, backstage appearances, training facilities, and public outings while inventing entire narratives around the two of you.

Worse still were the insults directed toward you specifically.

Several articles mocked your boxing career openly while making cruel comments about female athletes and your muscular body, twisting your strength into something masculine and aggressive for cheap entertainment value. One tabloid had even slapped the phrase “The King of Pop’s Knockout Girl” across its front page beside a grainy photograph of the two of you hugging outside your apartment building, while another article made several cheap comments implying that a woman who boxed professionally could never possibly be “soft” or feminine enough for somebody like Michael. The cruelty of it made Bill visibly uncomfortable just reading parts of the articles aloud.

Michael looked furious by the second paragraph.

By the end of it, he slammed the magazine shut so hard the sound echoed through the studio.

“They know where she lives now.”

The realization hit him harder than anything else in the article.

Not the rumors.

Not the gossip.

That.

For the first time since meeting you, genuine panic started creeping into his thoughts.

Because now the world had found you too.

He called your apartment almost immediately afterward.

You answered sounding tired.

“Hey.”

Michael gripped the receiver tighter.

“I’m sorry.”

The apology came so quickly and so sincerely that you immediately understood why he was calling.

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yes it is.”

You leaned quietly against the kitchen counter while staring toward one of the magazines someone from training camp had already dropped off at your apartment earlier that morning.

“I knew eventually people would start talking.”

“But not like this.”

No.

Not like this.

The tabloids bothered you more than you admitted aloud to Michael.

For your entire career, you had protected your private life aggressively, keeping your family entirely outside public attention while refusing interviews that became too personal or invasive. Now suddenly strangers were printing stories about you nationwide, inventing relationships, discussing your body publicly, and waiting outside training facilities hoping to photograph you.

And unfortunately, the attention didn’t stay limited to magazines.

The following days at training camp, you heard people whispering as soon as you walked in.

Some fighters and trainers who had actually met Michael that one time he visited remained sympathetic and understood the friendship for what it was. Others, especially people who barely knew you personally, treated the rumors like entertainment.

One fighter jokingly asked if Michael wrote love songs for you now.

Another asked if he wears the glittery glove in bed with you too.

Normally those comments would have rolled directly off your shoulders.

Lately, however, you found yourself distracted more often during sparring sessions.

Your focus slipped at moments it normally never would have before.

And gradually, more bruises started appearing afterward because of it.

Nothing catastrophic.

Just enough mistakes to notice.

Your mother called after seeing one of the articles too.

“So this Michael boy is causing trouble now?”

You laughed tiredly while sitting on your kitchen floor late one night after training.

“He’s not causing trouble.”

“But you are friends?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

And for the first time, you finally explained everything properly.

The backstage visit after your match.

The signed glove.

The phone calls.

Hayvenhurst.

California.

The friendship itself.

Your mother listened quietly throughout all of it before sighing softly.

“Well… he sounds lonely.”

The observation caught you off guard slightly.

“…Yeah,” you admitted after a moment. “I think he is.”

Meanwhile, Michael’s guilt kept growing heavier every single day.

Especially once he started noticing the effects physically.

One evening sometime in June, he visited your apartment again after nearly a week apart due to schedules, only to notice the deep cut on your lip, your bruised chin and the large, dark bruising near your ribs almost immediately as your shirt lifted slightly while you reached upward into one of the kitchen cabinets.

His expression changed instantly.

“What happened there?”

You glanced down briefly.

“Oh. Sparring.”

Michael frowned.

“That looks bad.”

“It’s normal.”

But it wasn’t only the bruise.

It was the exhaustion underneath your eyes lately.

The distraction.

The tension.

The smaller pauses before answering questions.

The way reporters and photographers now occasionally waited near your gym.

And standing there inside your apartment while the reality of all of it finally settled fully into his chest, Michael realized something that made him feel sick with guilt.

Every single part of this had started because of him.

He was the one who discovered you on television that night.

The one who replayed your fights obsessively afterward.

The one who became fascinated by your discipline, your control, your strength.

The one who insisted on visiting backstage.

The one who called first.

The one who kept calling.

The one who invented lies just to see you at stupid events he’d usually hate going to.

The one who pushed himself into your life so persistently and so willingly that eventually you had trusted him enough to let him stay there.

And now the consequences of Michael Jackson’s fame were crashing directly into your life too.

You might have grown close to him willingly over time.

You might have trusted him completely.

But none of this would have happened if Michael had simply left you alone from the beginning.

That thought stayed with Michael long after he left your apartment that night.

And unfortunately, it stayed long enough to slowly start changing the way he moved through your life afterward.

At first, the difference was subtle enough that you barely questioned it.

The phone calls became slightly shorter.

Not cold.

Never openly cold.

Michael still sounded like himself whenever you heard his voice – still soft-spoken, still gentle, still asking about your training schedule or whether you were eating properly or how your shoulder was healing after a difficult sparring session. But increasingly, somewhere in the middle of conversations that once stretched late into the night without effort, he would suddenly apologize quietly and mention needing to leave for another meeting, another rehearsal, another interview, another event.

The first few times, you thought nothing of it.

Of course he was busy.

After Motown 25 aired, the entire world suddenly seemed to revolve around Michael Jackson in ways even you struggled to fully comprehend sometimes.

Still, over the following weeks, the pattern became harder to ignore.

One evening in June, you had barely been speaking to him for fifteen minutes before you heard voices calling for him somewhere farther away from the receiver.

“I gotta go,” he said quickly afterward.

You paused slightly while leaning against your kitchen counter with the phone pressed between your shoulder and cheek.

“Oh. Okay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

And at the time, it genuinely was.

But then it happened again two days later.

And again the following week.

Another night, you called him after an especially difficult sparring session only for Bill to answer first before eventually passing the phone over.

Michael sounded exhausted.

You immediately softened your tone.

“Bad day?”

“Long day.”

You hesitated briefly before smiling faintly to yourself anyway.

“I made that chicken recipe you liked.”

“That’s good.”

The answer came distractedly, like his attention sat somewhere else entirely.

For several seconds, silence stretched awkwardly between both of you in a way it never used to.

Then finally: “Hey… don’t keep calling the house so much right now, okay?”

The sentence landed gently.

Too gently.

Almost careful.

You blinked in surprise.

“…What?”

“It’s just busy lately,” Michael explained quietly. “There’s always people around and calls getting picked up and reporters trying stuff. I’ll call you when I can.”

Your grip tightened slightly around the receiver.

“Oh.”

Immediately afterward, Michael sounded guilty.

“I just mean until things calm down a little.”

“No, it’s okay.”

But after hanging up that night, you found yourself sitting alone in your apartment staring at the silent phone much longer than necessary while something unfamiliar tightened painfully in the center of your chest.

Because for the first time since meeting Michael, speaking to him suddenly felt like you were bothering him.

And once that feeling entered your mind, it became impossible to fully shake afterward.

Meanwhile, Michael filled every empty part of his schedule aggressively enough that even Bill started noticing it.

Before May, Michael used to reject invitations constantly whenever managers or publicists pushed too many appearances onto him. He hated endless celebrity events, hated being dragged across the country for meaningless publicity, hated interviews and industry parties and cameras flashing endlessly in his face.

Now suddenly he accepted almost everything.

Award shows.

Charity events.

Industry dinners.

Television appearances.

Trips to New York.

Trips to Chicago.

Trips to London.

Anything that kept him busy enough to stop himself from thinking too hard.

And somewhere deep down, Michael understood exactly what he was doing.

If he stayed moving constantly, maybe it would become easier to create distance between himself and the one person he wanted to run back to every single night.

The cruelest part was that none of it actually made him feel better.

If anything, the distance only made him miss you more violently than before.

More than once, after exhausting public appearances surrounded by hundreds of screaming people, Michael still found himself instinctively reaching for the phone in hotel rooms before stopping himself halfway through dialing your number.

Because every time he heard your voice, he immediately wanted to undo all of it.

Meanwhile, your own life slowly became quieter again.

The tabloids still reused the same old photographs of Michael hugging you outside your apartment building for several weeks afterward, but eventually newer stories replaced them. Photographers stopped waiting outside your training facility. Reporters gradually lost interest once Michael began appearing publicly beside actresses, models, singers, and celebrity women whose names shifted constantly from one magazine cover to the next.

Part of you felt relieved by that.

The pressure around training eased noticeably once the attention faded.

You could focus properly again during sparring sessions without constantly feeling watched, and gradually your bruises stopped coming from distraction and started coming only from actual training again.

Still, the relief came with another feeling you hated acknowledging.

Because as the photographers disappeared, Michael seemed to disappear with them too.

And somehow, seeing him everywhere while simultaneously losing access to him felt worse than not seeing him at all.

Every grocery store checkout line carried newer magazine covers with Michael smiling brightly beside beautiful women whose names you barely recognized. Sometimes actresses leaned against him laughing for cameras outside restaurants. Other times models clung to his arm while photographers shouted questions from behind barricades. The images themselves were harmless enough, yet every time your eyes landed on them unexpectedly, something unpleasant twisted sharply inside your chest before you could stop it.

You never fully understood why.

It wasn’t jealousy.

At least, you didn’t think it was.

Michael was free to spend time with whoever he wanted.

Still, occasionally while standing in line paying for groceries or walking past magazine stands outside gas stations, you caught yourself staring a little too long at photographs of him smiling beside somebody else while a strange heaviness settled low in your chest afterward.

Especially because now, he hardly smiled like that with you anymore.

By mid-July, Human Nature was released as another single from Thriller, continuing the endless wave of success surrounding the album while more and more songs slowly climbed charts individually throughout the year.

One evening after training, you sat alone in your apartment listening to Human Nature playing softly through the speakers while meal prep containers cooled beside the stove.

And without meaning to, your thoughts drifted immediately back toward Michael.

Back toward the night months earlier when he had asked about your favorite song on the album and looked so genuinely pleased when you admitted Human Nature had become the one you replayed most often.

Now the song only made your chest ache.

Especially when you realized you hadn’t heard his voice in nearly two weeks.

Meanwhile, every magazine stand in California seemed filled with newer photographs of Michael beside different women.

Actresses.

Models.

Singers.

Socialites.

None of the headlines stayed consistent long enough to form anything believable, yet seeing him constantly photographed smiling beside other people still left something painful sitting heavily in your chest afterward.

Sometimes you found yourself irrationally analyzing tiny details in those photographs afterward.

The way he leaned toward them.

The way he smiled.

Whether the expression looked genuine.

And every single time you caught yourself doing it, embarrassment immediately followed.

Because what exactly were you even looking for?

Not because you thought Michael owed you anything.

But because somewhere over the past year, without fully realizing it, you had started associating him with safety.

Home.

And now increasingly, he felt farther away every time you looked at him.

You stopped inviting him to matches sometime months ago.

Stopped inviting him to your home too.

At first you told yourself it was because his schedule had become impossible lately and you didn’t want to overwhelm him further by demanding too much of his already limited free time.

Eventually, however, the invitations stopped simply because rejection hurt more than silence did.

And privately, you started blaming yourself for more of it than Michael ever realized.

Maybe you had expected too much from him.

Maybe you forgot how enormous his life had become now.

Maybe friendships simply changed once somebody reached a level of fame that made normal life impossible.

The worst part was that whenever Michael did call – the last time being over two weeks ago – he still sounded like himself.

Still soft.

Still warm.

Still careful with you.

Which somehow made everything more confusing instead of less.

One evening sometime in August, he called from London after spending days recording another single with Paul McCartney.

Another time he briefly mentioned Freddie Mercury visiting Hayvenhurst to work on music together.

You listened quietly to all of it while sitting alone in your apartment after training, increasingly aware of how enormous and unreachable Michael’s world had become compared to your own.

And after every phone call ended, the silence inside your apartment somehow felt worse than before he called at all.

Weeks occasionally passed without hearing from him.

During those stretches, you threw yourself harder into work instead.

And professionally, things improved rapidly.

Your focus returned completely inside the ring.

You kept winning your fights.

Your punches landed perfectly.

Your reaction times improved.

Your trainers praised your discipline constantly.

From the outside, your California relocation looked increasingly successful.

But privately, you still felt like something important had been carved painfully out of your life without explanation.

More than once, usually late at night after especially difficult days, you ended up calling Bill instead.

Mostly just for updates when you couldn’t get through to Michael, or didn’t want to overwhelm him.

Bill always sounded sympathetic immediately.

“How’s he doing?”

“Tired,” Bill admitted once quietly. “Real tired lately.”

You hesitated briefly.

“…Is he okay?”

“He’s okay.”

But Bill never gave away more than that.

Never explained why Michael had changed so suddenly.

And despite how kind Bill remained toward you throughout all of it, every call still ended leaving you feeling emptier afterward.

Slowly, summer disappeared almost without notice.

August became September.

And by September, the loneliness inside California had settled heavily enough into your chest that even your family noticed it immediately when you finally returned to Phoenix for a few days off.

Your mother watched you carefully almost the entire first evening home.

Eventually, late at night after your brothers had gone to sleep, she found you sitting alone at the kitchen table staring absentmindedly into untouched tea.

“You miss him.”

The observation landed softly enough that you didn’t even try denying it.

For several seconds you simply stared downward at your hands before exhaling shakily.

“I think I lost my best friend.”

Your mother’s expression softened immediately.

And somehow hearing the words aloud for the first time made the ache inside your chest crack open completely.

“He was the only person out there who made California not feel lonely anymore,” you admitted quietly, voice beginning to break despite your efforts to stay composed. “And now it’s like he just… disappeared.”

The tears embarrassed you almost instantly.

You hated crying.

Hated feeling this emotionally exposed.

But your mother only pulled you into her arms without hesitation while you buried your face against her shoulder like you hadn’t done since childhood.

And for the first time since Michael started slipping away from you, you finally allowed yourself to grieve how much losing him actually hurt.

–

Bill already knew who it was before he even picked up the phone.

By that point, your calls had become familiar enough over the past months that he recognized the timing instinctively. Usually late evenings. Usually after training. Usually hesitant at first, like you were debating whether you should call at all before finally deciding to do it anyway.

And every single time, Bill found himself feeling worse afterward.

“She’s okay,” he told Michael quietly after hanging up one evening. “Asked how you were.”

Michael barely looked up from where he sat curled sideways on the studio couch with a notebook resting against one knee.

“Mm.”

Bill watched him for several seconds.

Even now, months into this whole miserable self-inflicted distancing act, Michael still reacted every single time your name came up. Sometimes subtly. Sometimes painfully obviously. A small pause in movement. A distant look settling briefly into his face. His attention disappearing halfway through conversations because his mind had wandered somewhere else entirely.

Usually toward you.

Bill had started recognizing it almost immediately.

Especially during meetings.

More than once lately, he’d watched Michael sit silently through scheduling discussions while staring absently into space with the exact same expression on his face every time, distant enough that Bill knew he wasn’t listening to a single word being said around him.

And somehow Bill always knew who he was thinking about.

“She misses you, you know.”

Michael finally looked up then.

Only briefly.

The guilt in his eyes appeared so quickly that Bill almost regretted saying it aloud.

But then Michael looked away again just as fast.

“This is better for her.”

Bill sighed quietly.

“Son… aren’t you being a little harsh on her?”

Michael’s jaw tightened faintly.

“You’ve seen what this is like now,” he said softly. “You know better than anybody what happens to people around me.”

And unfortunately, Bill did know.

Michael’s fame had become something almost frightening to witness up close. Crowds no longer behaved rationally around him. Fans cried, screamed, fainted, grabbed at him through security barriers hard enough to leave bruises on his arms afterward. Photographers camped outside hotels for hours hoping for one blurry picture.

The pressure around Michael had stopped resembling normal celebrity long ago.

And Bill understood why Michael was terrified of dragging somebody he loved into the middle of it. Especially after watching what the tabloids and attention had already done to you once before. The distraction during training, the worsening bruises, the exhaustion settling behind your eyes whenever your private life got pulled unwillingly into Michael’s world.

Still.

Watching him suffer through this self-imposed distance had become painful too.

Because despite everything, Michael had never actually stopped loving you for even a second.

If anything, Bill suspected the distance only made it worse.

Michael talked about you less now, but the silence around your name somehow felt louder than the conversations ever had before. Still, Bill noticed that despite all the distance Michael tried so hard to create, he continued following every one of your matches and every small article mentioning your name almost obsessively, quietly collecting updates about your career from a distance he clearly hated maintaining.

A few weeks later, sometime at the end of September, the phone rang in your apartment late enough at night that you almost ignored it initially.

Then you heard Michael’s voice the second you picked up.

And for a brief moment, your chest tightened so hard from relief that it physically hurt.

“Hey.”

The greeting came quieter than you remembered.

You sat up straighter immediately against the couch cushions.

“Michael?”

“Yeah.”

For several seconds, neither of you spoke.

It had been weeks.

Almost two months since your last proper conversation.

You hated how quickly hearing his voice still affected you.

“How are you?” you asked carefully.

Michael exhaled heavily somewhere on the other end of the line.

“Not great.”

Something in his tone made your expression soften instantly.

“What happened?”

Another pause.

Then finally: “Joseph’s forcing us into a tour next year.”

You frowned slightly.

“A Jacksons tour?”

“Victory Tour.”

The irritation underneath his voice became sharper now.

“North America. Stadiums. Endless dates. Endless rehearsals.” He laughed once bitterly afterward. “I don’t even wanna do it.”

You listened quietly while he continued venting, and gradually you realized with growing sadness that this was probably the first truly honest conversation you’d had with him in months.

“He already signed Pepsi deals too,” Michael continued tiredly. “Now I gotta record some stupid Pepsi version of Billie Jean and shoot commercials and all this other stuff.”

“You hate commercials.”

“I hate all of it.”

The frustration in his voice sounded genuine enough that for a moment, hearing him like this again almost made the past months disappear entirely.

Almost.

You leaned back against the couch more comfortably while twisting the phone cord loosely around your fingers.

“I’m sorry.”

Michael went quiet.

Then softer: “Yeah.”

The silence afterward stretched strangely intimate despite everything sitting unresolved between both of you.

And before you could stop yourself, the words slipped out naturally.

“I miss you.”

The line became completely silent.

So silent that for one horrible second, you wondered whether the call had disconnected entirely.

Then finally Michael spoke again, his voice noticeably quieter now.

“I miss you too.”

The answer hit your chest with enough force that you had to close your eyes briefly afterward.

But almost immediately after saying it, Michael seemed to pull himself back emotionally again.

You could hear it happen in real time.

His posture returning.

His distance rebuilding.

“I should go,” he said quietly.

The familiar ache returned almost instantly.

“Oh.”

“I just… got a lot going on right now.”

“Right.”

Another silence.

Then finally: “Take care of yourself, okay?”

“You too.”

And before you could say anything else, he hung up.

You remained sitting there afterward staring down at the silent receiver in your hand while your chest hurt in ways you still didn’t fully understand.

Because despite how much those calls kept hurting lately, hearing his voice after weeks without it still somehow felt worse to lose all over again.

A few days later, Say Say Say released alongside its music video.

You ended up watching it alone late at night after training, sitting cross-legged on your couch while your half-finished meal lay forgotten on the couch table.

And despite yourself, somewhere in the middle of the video, you found yourself smiling faintly at the screen.

Michael looked happy in it.

Playful.

Sweet in ways he rarely allowed himself to appear publicly anymore.

The expression lingered on your face for several seconds before fading slowly afterward into something sadder.

Because seeing him through television screens and magazines had somehow become easier than speaking to him directly now.

Over the following months, the distance between both of you never fully closed again.

Michael called occasionally.

Never often enough.

Never long enough.

And although the conversations became slightly more frequent again after that night in September, they never returned to what they used to be.

Not really.

He still never invited you to the set of the Thriller short film despite knowing how much you loved watching him work.

Never invited you to the premiere either.

Meanwhile, sometime in October, Michael found himself sitting alone in the Hayvenhurst studio long after midnight realizing something that unsettled him more than he expected.

It had been exactly a full year since he first saw you on television.

A full year since one random boxing match somehow changed the entire direction of his emotional life without warning.

And sitting there alone now surrounded by unfinished lyrics and scattered rehearsal notes while the house slept around him quietly, Michael found himself thinking back toward those first months with painful clarity.

The late-night calls.

Hayvenhurst.

The grocery store.

The apartment in Burbank.

The way hearing your laugh used to immediately improve even his worst days.

For the first half of the year, everything between the two of you had felt effortless.

Safe.

And now somehow, despite trying so hard to protect you from his world, Michael increasingly felt like he had only succeeded in destroying the best thing he’d had in it.

–

The Pepsi commercial set felt strangely tense even before the accident happened.

Maybe it was because by that point, everything surrounding Michael had grown too large too quickly. Too many people. Too many cameras. Too many expectations layered onto every single thing he did now. Crew members moved constantly across the set adjusting lights, discussing pyrotechnics, repositioning cameras while executives hovered nearby obsessing over schedules and timing.

Michael hated commercials already.

He hated how artificial all of it felt.

The earlier Pepsi short film had already drained him enough, especially having to rerecord a modified version of Billie Jean for the campaign, but now the second commercial required even more rehearsals, more effects, more noise, more pressure.

And despite the exhaustion sitting visibly beneath his eyes lately, Michael still pushed himself through the choreography with the same perfectionism he applied to everything else in his life.

By the time the cameras rolled again that evening, the set had grown unbearably hot from lighting and pyrotechnics.

Michael barely noticed.

The music started.

The crowd of staged fans screamed on cue.

Michael moved automatically through the choreography while fireworks exploded behind him in carefully timed bursts of sparks and light.

Then suddenly something went wrong.

At first, almost nobody understood what had happened.

One second the performance continued normally.

The next, several crew members started shouting.

The pyrotechnics behind Michael had ignited too close.

And within seconds, flames caught violently against his hair and scalp.

The panic afterward exploded instantly.

People screamed.

Crew members rushed forward frantically.

Michael’s brothers physically lunged toward him while security and production staff tried desperately to put out the fire.

Bill later wouldn’t even remember crossing half the set.

Only the horrifying smell.

The shouting.

Michael collapsing to the floor while people surrounded him in complete chaos.

Katherine arrived at the hospital crying before doctors had even fully evaluated the burns.

Joseph looked furious and terrified in equal measure.

Janet clung tightly to La Toya in one corner of the waiting area while Jackie paced endlessly through the hallway, unable to sit still for more than thirty seconds.

Meanwhile outside the hospital, crowds of fans had already started gathering after news stations picked up reports of the accident.

Bill and Michael’s manager spent nearly the entire night moving between doctors, security, reporters, and the Jackson family while trying to keep the situation under control.

Then sometime close to midnight, Bill finally picked up the phone and called you.

By then, you had already fallen asleep on your couch after training earlier that evening.

The second you heard Bill’s voice, however, every trace of sleep disappeared immediately.

“There’s been an accident.”

Your stomach dropped so violently you physically sat upright.

“What?”

Bill sounded exhausted.

“It’s Michael.”

The drive to the hospital afterward became almost a blur.

Bill had specifically told you not to come.

Told you Michael was still in intensive care and nobody knew anything yet.

You ignored him completely.

By the time you arrived, the hospital entrance had already become chaos itself. Fans crowded behind barricades while reporters shouted questions toward anybody entering or exiting the building. Security struggled to hold people back as cameras flashed endlessly against the dark parking lot.

You eventually spotted Bill standing farther away from the crowd near one side entrance.

The second he saw you approaching, his expression softened immediately into something tired and sympathetic.

“You shouldn’t have come.”

“How bad is it?”

Bill hesitated.

That alone terrified you more than anything else.

“Bill.”

“He’s still unconscious.”

The words hollowed something painfully inside your chest.

You tried moving toward the entrance immediately afterward, but Bill gently stopped you first.

“You can’t see him.”

“I need to.”

“He’s still in ICU.”

“I don’t care.”

Your voice cracked harder than intended.

Bill looked genuinely torn for several seconds before finally exhaling quietly and guiding you inside anyway.

The waiting area felt heavy with exhaustion and panic.

Katherine sat curled into herself crying softly while Michael’s sisters stayed close beside her. Joseph argued quietly with doctors farther down the hallway while Jackie and the others paced restlessly nearby with visible anger written all over his face.

The moment Katherine saw you approaching, she immediately stood and pulled you into a tight embrace.

“Oh, sweetheart…”

You held her carefully while she cried against your shoulder, and for the next several hours, that was mostly what you did.

You comforted Michael’s family.

Sat beside his sisters.

Brought water nobody remembered to drink.

Stayed quietly present while everyone waited helplessly for updates.

And despite everything, the Jackson family seemed genuinely grateful you were there.

Especially Katherine.

Sometime early the next morning, after spending nearly the entire night at the hospital, you finally went home briefly only to return again a few hours later after barely sleeping at all.

By then security already recognized you enough to let you through.

Still, nobody allowed visitors into intensive care.

So you waited again.

Hour after hour sitting outside the ICU doors listening to distant conversations from doctors and nurses passing through the hallway.

Eventually, sometime later that afternoon, movement suddenly erupted near the nurses’ station.

Michael had finally regained consciousness.

Relief hit you so hard your knees nearly gave out from underneath you.

Almost immediately afterward, his family was allowed inside one by one.

You stood instinctively when Bill finally stepped back out into the hallway.

“Can I see him?”

The expression on Bill’s face changed instantly.

And something inside your chest tightened painfully again.

“He doesn’t want visitors right now.”

For several seconds, you genuinely thought you misunderstood him.

“…What?”

Bill looked miserable saying it.

“He just needs rest.”

You stared at him in stunned silence.

Because none of this made sense.

Not after everything.

Not after months of distance already.

Not now.

Still, despite the hurt settling visibly across your face afterward, you stayed anyway.

Long after visiting hours ended. Long after most people left.

Only finally returning home once exhaustion physically forced you to.

Then the next morning, you came back again.

And the next day after that.

Every single day afterward, you returned carrying something small for him.

Sometimes comic books he once mentioned liking casually during older conversations. Sometimes little Peter Pan trinkets. Sometimes short handwritten notes simply reminding him you were there.

You never stopped coming.

And every single day, Bill felt worse watching it happen.

Because Michael read every note.

Kept every gift.

Asked about you constantly the second nobody else remained in the room.

Yet still refused to let you inside.

Meanwhile, sitting endlessly in hospital waiting rooms left you overhearing more conversations than doctors probably realized.

You learned quietly that Michael’s burns were serious.

That recovery would take time.

That the pain management afterward might become lifelong.

One conversation between nurses mentioning dependency risks regarding medication left you sitting frozen in your chair long after they walked away.

Helplessness settled heavily inside your chest afterward.

Because for the first time since meeting Michael, there was absolutely nothing you could do for him.

Then finally, several days after the accident, Bill handed Michael another one of your letters while visiting him late in the evening.

Michael looked exhausted.

The bandages around his scalp and head still covered much of the burns while flowers, cards, stuffed animals, gifts, and fan letters crowded almost every available surface in the hospital room.

Quietly, Michael unfolded your note.

And somewhere halfway through reading it, his expression finally cracked.

The letter itself wasn’t dramatic.

That somehow made it worse.

You had simply written that you knew he was hurting, that you hoped he was resting properly, and that regardless of whether he wanted to see you right now or not, you weren’t going anywhere.

By the time Michael lowered the paper again, his eyes had grown visibly glassy.

Bill watched him quietly from the corner of the room.

Then finally:

“…She’s still here?”

Bill nodded once.

“Every day.”

Michael closed his eyes briefly.

The guilt on his face looked unbearable.

“…Let her in.”

Bill found you sitting in the waiting area less than ten minutes later.

The second you entered the hospital room afterward, relief crashed through you so strongly that for a moment you almost forgot how to breathe.

Michael looked smaller somehow lying there surrounded by flowers, cards, balloons, and endless supportive messages from fans around the room.

The bandages around his head made your chest ache instantly.

Without even thinking, you crossed the room quickly and wrapped your arms around him carefully, terrified of hurting him while hugging him at the same time.

Michael inhaled sharply the moment you touched him.

Then slowly relaxed against you.

And somehow that alone nearly made you cry already.

When you finally pulled back enough to look at him properly, emotion hit you all at once.

“You scared me so bad.”

Your voice broke completely halfway through the sentence.

Michael’s expression softened immediately.

“I’m sorry.”

The apology only made tears spill harder afterward.

You sat beside the hospital bed for hours after that, holding his hand carefully between both of yours while talking quietly about everything and nothing at the same time.

Training.

Movies.

Your brothers.

Bubbles.

Anything except the terrifying reality sitting around both of you inside the hospital room.

Eventually, however, sometime in the middle of one quieter conversation, your composure finally cracked completely.

You looked down at his bandaged hand inside yours while tears slipped silently down your face.

And for the first time since the accident, Michael fully realized just how deeply this had affected you too.

Not because of fame.

Not because he was Michael Jackson.

But because you genuinely cared for him enough to sit outside intensive care for days simply hoping he would wake up.

–

By the time you visited him again near the end of his hospital stay, the chaos surrounding the room had calmed noticeably compared to those first terrifying days after the accident.

The endless stream of doctors had slowed. Most of the Jackson family had finally gone home to rest properly after practically living inside the hospital for over a week. Even the crowds outside seemed slightly smaller now, though reporters still lingered constantly near the entrance hoping for updates.

Inside the room, however, the atmosphere had softened into something quieter.

Something strangely intimate.

Flowers still occupied almost every available surface near the windows and counters. Cards from fans sat stacked in careful piles beside balloons, stuffed animals, and gifts sent from all over the country. Some messages were handwritten shakily in bright ink while others came from children who had drawn little hearts or sketches beside his name.

Michael sat propped comfortably against the hospital pillows wearing a loose button-up shirt while the bandages around his scalp remained partially visible beneath softer lighting.

And for the first time in months, being around you no longer felt strained.

No awkward silences.

No carefully shortened conversations.

No emotional distance sitting stiffly between both of you.

You simply walked into the room and smiled at him the same way you used to before everything became complicated.

The sight alone nearly hurt him.

Not because it was painful.

Because it felt too much like home.

“You look better,” you told him gently after setting your bag down near the chair.

Michael huffed quietly. “That’s generous.”

“It’s true.”

You still approached him carefully whenever you touched him, like part of you remained terrified of hurting him accidentally. Even now, over a week later, Michael noticed the hesitation in your movements whenever your hands brushed too close to the bandages near his scalp.

And somehow, instead of frustrating him, it only made his chest ache more.

Because after months of him pushing you away, after all the ignored calls and shortened conversations and carefully maintained distance, you had still come back immediately the second you learned he was hurt.

Not once asking for explanations.

Not once demanding anything from him.

You had simply stayed.

Every day.

Michael watched quietly while the painkillers made him sleepy. You settled beside the hospital bed before picking up one of the fan letters resting near the tray table.

“Can I read this one?”

He nodded slightly.

Honestly, he would have agreed to almost anything you asked right then.

Your voice filled the room softly afterward while you read through the letter from a young girl who wrote about how Michael’s music helped her through chemotherapy treatments. Toward the end, the child had drawn a crooked little moon and stars around his name.

Michael barely even focused on the actual words.

Instead, he watched you.

The way your expression softened while reading.

The care you handled every single card and gift with, no matter how small or silly it seemed.

The quiet little smile tugging briefly at your mouth whenever fan letters became especially sweet.

At one point you laughed softly under your breath while opening another envelope.

“What?”

“She says your curls are prettier than hers.”

Michael smiled faintly for the first time that day.

“She ain’t wrong.”

You snorted quietly at that before continuing to read.

And God.

The distance had done absolutely nothing.

That realization settled heavier inside Michael’s chest with every passing minute he spent watching you move comfortably around the room like you belonged there naturally.

Because the months apart had helped you.

He could see that clearly now.

The bruises from stress and distraction had faded. Your focus had returned. Your career was stronger again. You looked healthier than you had during those awful weeks when tabloids followed you constantly because of him.

The distance had protected you exactly the way he wanted it to.

But it had done absolutely nothing to protect him.

If anything, losing you slowly over those months had only made the feelings worse.

Stronger. Deeper. More unbearable.

And now here you were again sitting beside him reading Peter Pan aloud quietly because the pain medication made his head hurt too much to focus properly himself.

Like none of the hurt between you had ever happened at all.

Michael realized then that he had completely lost this fight months ago.

You finished another chapter before finally closing the book gently against your lap.