— i thought i saw your face today.
— type: one-shot, a request by an anon avid reader!
TAGLIST: @chocoloveheart @rlm-11 @daniela75201 @fanficreader33 @uknownn111 @rebelatbay
— genre: childhood friends to lovers, angst, slow burn, music industry drama, emotional romance, second chance love
— pairing: producer!reader x multiple eras of Michael Jackson
— contains: 1970s-1990s setting. reader grows up around recording studios because of her father, an old-school music producer, and meets michael jackson as children during a studio session with quincy jones. over the years, hayvenhurst becomes her second home and she slowly becomes deeply involved in michael’s creative process during off the wall and thriller. the two share an emotionally intimate bond built on music, late-night studio sessions, quiet longing, and years of almost-confessions. emotional dialogue, artistic intimacy, unresolved tension, grief, celebrity loneliness, fear of abandonment, vulnerable michael jackson characterization, late-night phone calls, rain-soaked studio scenes, emotional dependence, almost kisses, eventual confession, soft physical intimacy, and the kind of love that survives even after people ruin it the first time.
SUMMARY: two kids who once built songs together grow into strangers haunted by each other. after a cruel fallout during thriller, reader disappears from michael jackson’s life for ten years until one song drags them back together. backstage reunions, grief, old studio memories, and unresolved love force them to confront what fame destroyed and whether love can survive being left behind.
(A/N: this took so long to write because of my terrible writer’s block. i almost went insane. i also genuinely think this is one of the most painful things i’ve written because i wanted their love to feel old. like something stitched into them before they even understood what love was. i didn’t want michael to feel untouchable here, i wanted him human. awkward, scared, prideful, lonely. the kind of person who ruins things because he’s terrified they matter too much. and reader? she loved him so deeply that losing him became part of her personality for years 😭 this fic is basically about timing, grief, ego, and the tragedy of two people loving each other correctly way too late. also yes i absolutely suffered writing the grammys balcony scene thank you for noticing.)
the first time you met michael jackson , he was hiding under your father’s studio console like a stray cat.
you were ten. he was eleven. quincy jones had dropped by with the jacksons and your dad, an old-school producer with cigarette smoke permanently stitched into his sweaters was trying to keep the boys from touching expensive equipment.
michael disappeared halfway through the session. your father found him crouched beneath the mixing desk, knees to his chest, staring at the tangled wires.
“what’re you doing down there?” your father laughed.
“listening,” michael said simply.
you remembered that answer because it sounded strange coming from a kid.
“everything,” he replied. that was the beginning of it.
hayvenhurst became your second home through the seventies.
you knew which staircase creaked. you knew janet stole candy before dinner. you knew katherine would always ask if you’d eaten. you knew michael liked sitting on the kitchen counters at two in the morning while humming unfinished melodies into a tape recorder.
he was awkward before the world sharpened him into something untouchable. before the glitter jackets, before the myths. with you, he was just michael.
skinny legs folded beneath him on the carpet. curls damp after rehearsal. hands moving wildly whenever he got excited about music. and god, he loved music more than breathing.
you’d inherited the same sickness from your father.
while other kids learned algebra, you learned how to splice tape. how to layer harmonies. how to sit in a dark booth for six hours trying to make a snare sound like heartbreak.
by seventeen, you were producing demos for older artists under your father’s name because labels didn’t trust young women with control rooms.
michael trusted you anyway, he always did. during the making of off the wall, he dragged you into every late-night session.
“listen to this bassline,” he’d say, practically vibrating.
“it’s too clean,” you would say to him, and he would always respond with, “clean is good.” yet, you would then add, “clean is boring.” he’d gasp dramatically like you stabbed him.
then two hours later he’d quietly admit you were right.
you became part of the album without anyone really knowing. tiny fingerprints hidden beneath the credits. rearranged bridges. vocal layering ideas. percussion textures.
when thriller happened, it got worse. or better? depends who was telling the story.
the studio became your entire life. you and michael lived inside those recording rooms like nocturnal animals.
half-eaten takeout. synthesizers buzzing at four a.m. quincy yelling from behind the glass. michael dancing while tracking vocals because he physically couldn’t stand still.
sometimes he’d collapse beside you afterward, sweaty and breathless. “you think people are gonna like it?”
you’d stare at him like he was insane. “michael, you made billie jean.”
“yeah, but what if it’s not enough?” that was the terrifying thing about him. nothing was ever enough. not applause, not records, not the history itself.
he chased greatness like it owed him money and somewhere along the line, you started falling in love with him quietly enough that even you didn’t notice at first.
it happened in fragments. his hand brushing yours over a soundboard, him falling asleep on your shoulder during playback, the way he always searched for your face first after finishing a take.
everybody assumed something was happening between you two. nothing ever did.
maybe that was the problem.
hayvenhurst was loud downstairs. people celebrating and phones ringing nonstop.
thriller had become something monstrous. bigger than music. bigger than michael. upstairs, his bedroom was dark except for the television glow.
you sat cross-legged on the floor flipping through recording notes while michael paced restlessly. he’d been weird for weeks. quieter, sharper around the edges. fame looked good on him publicly, but privately it was eating him alive.
“they already want another album,” he muttered. “of course they do.”
“they want something bigger than thriller.”
you snorted. “good luck with that.” he didn’t laugh. you glanced up. “you okay?”
he kept pacing. “what if i can’t do it again?”
“yeah,” you said softly. “i do.” he stopped near the window. for a second, he looked exhausted enough to collapse. then his expression hardened.
“diana says i need to stop hiding behind people.”
“she says i rely too much on quincy. on the engineers.” he hesitated. “on you.”
the room changed temperature instantly. “okay…”
“she thinks i need to prove i can do things alone now.”
you laughed once, disbelieving. “and what exactly does that mean?”
“michael.” he rubbed his face. “it means maybe people give you too much credit sometimes.” silence. terrible silence.
he realized it immediately. you saw the regret flash across his face before pride swallowed it. “wow,” you said quietly.
“that’s not what i meant.”
“you know people talk,” he snapped suddenly. “they say i have handlers. they say i’m manufactured.”
“and somehow that became my fault?”
“i spent years helping you because i believed in you.”
his jaw tightened. “you’ve never even put your own name on anything,” he said. “maybe that bothers you more than you admit.”
that one landed hard because it was true.
you stood slowly. “you know why i never put my name on anything?” your voice shook. “because men in this industry hear one good idea from a woman and suddenly act like she stole it from somewhere.”
he looked furious now. cornered. “you think you know everything about me,” he said. “you think because you were there before all this that you somehow own part of it.”
the words hit like glass. you stared at him for a long moment then nodded once. “okay.”
his anger flickered. “okay what?”
you grabbed your jacket from the chair. finally, panic cracked through his expression. “don’t leave like this.”
“because—” he stopped. because what? because he loved you? because he needed you? because neither of you knew how to exist without the other?
and you were too angry to stay long enough to wait.“congratulations on thriller,” you said with a lump stuck on your throat.
three weeks later, your family moved to the east coast.
michael called the house for months and you never answered. eventually, the calls stopped. years passed anyway. because they always do.
by 1991, michael had become impossible to describe with ordinary language. he wasn’t a man anymore, he was an event. a religion and a spectacle. somewhere in new york, you watched him from afar while building a quiet career producing records under your own name this time.
artists loved you, and critics loved you more. the industry respected you carefully now, like people handling fire. still, you never sang. you never wanted nor intended to.
until one winter morning when you walked past a man on the street wearing the same cologne michael used in 1983. you turned so fast your neck hurt.
but it wasn’t him. just some stranger disappearing into traffic and suddenly you couldn’t breathe properly.
that night, you wrote i thought i saw your face today. not intentionally about him. that’s what you told yourself, but the lyrics betrayed you.
“your shadow still knows my name.”
“funny how time don’t forget.”
“some people leave the room.”
“some people never left.”
you recorded the vocals in one take. raw and barely polished.
when the song released in early 1992, it exploded. people became obsessed with you overnight. the mysterious producer finally stepping into the spotlight herself.
interviewers asked who the song was about constantly. you always smiled. “nobody you know.” but michael jackson himself knew.
the second he heard it on the radio in the back of a limousine somewhere in tokyo, he knew. because nobody else would’ve layered harmonies like that beneath the chorus.
nobody else would’ve hidden grief inside reverb so carefully. and nobody else had ever looked at him long enough to write lyrics like those.
the best new artist. your first major public appearance. backstage smelled like hairspray, expensive fabric, and nerves.
you stood near catering pretending to care about champagne while reporters swarmed nearby. then the room shifted. that kind of shift only happened when michael entered somewhere.
people parted automatically. you looked up before you could stop yourself. and there he was. older and sharper. beautiful in a way that almost hurt to witness.
for a second neither of you moved. all the years between you suddenly felt fake. manufactured.
his eyes found yours instantly. still the same bambi eyes that you used to adore. and that ruined you a little.
he approached slowly, like you might disappear if he walked too fast. “hi,” he said softly. your throat tightened. “hi.” ten years gone and your body still remembered him immediately.
he glanced down briefly, nervous in that old familiar way. “i like your song.” you laughed quietly. “sure you do.”
his mouth twitched. “i deserved that.”
silence settled. not awkwardness, it was just heavy. crowded with ghosts. “you look good,” he said.
“thanks, you too.” that was a lie. he looked tired beneath the glamour. lonely in a way cameras would never catch.
he shoved his hands into his pockets. “i almost called you a thousand times.”
his eyes dropped. “i figured you hated me.”
you thought about that night constantly for years. every sentence dissected to death in your head.
but standing here now, looking at him older and quieter and painfully human beneath all the fame, hatred suddenly felt too simple.
“i tried to,” you admitted. something fragile crossed his face.
the announcer called people toward the stage area. neither of you moved.
“when i heard the song,” he said carefully, “i kept wondering if you missed me or if you missed who i used to be.”
you looked at him for a long moment then smiled sadly. “i don’t think there’s a difference.”
his eyes closed briefly like the answer wounded him or relieved him. maybe both.
somewhere beyond the curtains, the audience erupted into applause. your category approaching. the world waiting.
but for one suspended moment backstage, it was just two former kids from recording studios again. just you and michael. and the unbearable ache of almost.
the presenter was still talking when your name echoed through the auditorium. applause crashed around you and camera flashes burst like lightning.
you barely heard any of it because michael jackson was still standing in front of you, looking at you like he’d uncovered something he lost years ago beneath floorboards.
“you should go,” he murmured. his voice sounded strangely small.
you nodded automatically, but neither of you moved right away. it was ridiculous, honestly.
millions of records sold. world tours. screaming crowds. and somehow michael still looked terrified over simple things. like eye contact, like regret, or like you.
finally, he stepped aside. his hand brushed lightly against your back as you passed. the touch was brief enough to be accidental. it still nearly stopped your heart.
you lost. some nineteen-year-old with a guitar and tragic cheekbones won best new artist instead. the audience applauded politely while cameras caught your gracious smile.
you didn’t care. not really.
because the entire time the winner gave his speech, you could feel michael watching from somewhere offstage. and somehow that felt more depressing than losing.
after the ceremony, the industry dissolved into one of those massive afterparties where nobody actually relaxed. producers pretending not to network. actors pretending not to do cocaine in bathrooms. everybody pretending not to stare at michael whenever he walked by.
you escaped to the balcony for air, and los angeles glittered beneath you. all the gold lights, smog, and ghosts. the city looked exactly the same as it did when you left it.
that annoyed you. the balcony door slid open behind you. you already knew who it was.
“you disappeared fast,” michael said. you leaned against the railing without turning around. “occupational hazard.”
he laughed softly. damn. you forgot how warm his laugh used to feel. for a minute, neither of you spoke. traffic hummed below. inside, bass thudded faintly through the walls.
you finally looked at him. he’d removed the suit jacket. loosened the tie. curls falling slightly into his face now. less michael jackson. more michael.
it made your chest ache unexpectedly. “you really listened to the song?” you asked.
his expression turned almost offended. “i listened to it thirty-seven times.”
you stared. “thirty-seven?”
a smile threatened at the corner of your mouth before you stopped it. he noticed anyway. he always noticed everything about you. “there you are,” he said quietly.
you looked away immediately. fuck ass territory. always dangerous with him. “don’t,” you muttered.
“talk to me like nothing happened.”
his face shifted. the softness disappeared beneath something heavier. “i know what happened.”
“i said terrible things.” you crossed your arms tighter against yourself. “yeah.”
he swallowed. “i was angry.”
“you were cruel.” that one hit him. you saw it physically as michael looked down at the city lights below the balcony.
“thriller scared me,” he admitted after a while.
you frowned slightly. “what?”
“everybody thinks success feels good all the time.” he gave a humorless laugh. “it doesn’t. sometimes it feels like standing in front of a train.”
you stayed quiet because nobody ever talked about michael like this publicly. they talked about genius, they talked about fame, they talked about madness, but never fear.
“people kept telling me i was untouchable,” he said softly. “and all i could think was… what happens when they realize i’m not?”
you remembered those years too well. the insomnia, the pressure, and mostly the way he kept chasing perfection until his hands shook from exhaustion.
“diana kept saying i needed to separate myself from everybody,” he continued. “make people see me as… singular.”
“so you pushed everyone away.”
his eyes flicked to yours. “mostly just you.” that hurt more than you expected because it was true.
you remembered the months after the fight vividly now. how every song on the radio sounded wrong, how studios suddenly felt cold, and how you kept reaching for the phone before remembering there was nobody left to call.
you’d lost more than a friend that night. you’d lost your home inside another person. and the worst part? you never stopped understanding him even while hating him. especially then.
“you know what the stupidest part was?” you said finally.
he shook his head slightly.
“i kept waiting for you to come after me.”
his expression cracked instantly. raw enough that you almost regretted saying it. “i wanted to.”
“i didn’t know if i deserved to.”
“i know.” the honesty startled you. old michael would’ve defended himself for hours before admitting fault. this michael just looked tired. humane.
“my father got sick right after we moved,” you said suddenly. he blinked. “what?”
you hadn’t told anyone this part before. not interviewers, not friends, nobody. “lung cancer,” you murmured. “two years after we left california.”
michael went completely still. you stared out at the skyline because looking directly at him felt impossible now. “he died in ‘87.”
silence settled until, “why didn’t anybody tell me?”his voice sounded devastated.
you laughed quietly without humor. “would it have mattered?”
“of course, it would have!”
you looked at him finally. absolutely looked. and there it was, the guilt. real guilt. not celebrity guilt. not performance. actual grief.
“i called your old number after bad came out,” he admitted shakily. “i wanted to fix things.”
your chest tightened painfully.
“a woman answered and said your family was gone.”
“we moved around a lot after my dad got sick.”
“i tried asking people where you went.”
you stared at him. “you looked for me?”
“of course i did.” his answer came so fast it almost knocked the air from your lungs, he sounded so despaired.
like the question itself offended him. of course he looked. of course, as always. suddenly you remembered something stupid from childhood.
you were thirteen, sitting on the hayvenhurst roof together after sneaking out a window. you’d asked michael what scared him most. without hesitation, he answered: “being forgotten.”
back then, you thought he meant by the world. now you realized he only meant by people he loved. the balcony suddenly felt too small. too crowded with memory.
“i hated hearing your music after we stopped talking,” he confessed quietly. you raised an eyebrow. “that seems dramatic.”
despite yourself, you laughed. he smiled immediately at the sound like sunlight hit him directly.
“seriously,” he continued. “i’d hear songs you worked on and know exactly which parts were yours.”
“you can’t possibly know that.”
“the vocal stacking. the synth textures. you always leave space before the final chorus because you like tension.” your breath caught because he was right.
he stepped closer carefully. “i heard you everywhere for years.” the air changed again. you hated how easy it still was between you.
how naturally your body remembered standing close to his. you hated how one conversation threatened to unravel a decade’s worth of anger.
“you broke my heart,” you said before thinking.
his face fell instantly. and there it was finally. the truth neither of you ever said aloud. not in 1984. not now.
his voice dropped almost to a whisper. “i know.”
your eyes burned unexpectedly. damn him. damn this entire night.
“i loved you,” you admitted quietly. “and you made me feel disposable because of that stupid diana!”
michael looked like you’d struck him across the face. for a second he genuinely couldn’t speak. then finally, “you were the least disposable thing in my life.”
your breath hitched. too late. that was the tragedy of it.
he should’ve said that ten years ago in a dark bedroom at hayvenhurst before pride ruined everything.
inside, applause erupted again from another award announcement. the world kept moving always, but neither of you did.
michael stared at you with something unbearably fragile in his eyes now. not fame, and just grief.
just love with nowhere left to go. “i don’t know what happens now,” he confessed softly. you looked at him for a very long time. then answered honestly. “me neither.”
the balcony had gotten colder, or maybe it was just the conversation finally stripping everything down to the bone.
inside, somebody started laughing too loudly. glasses clinked. another celebrity made their entrance to applause that sounded rehearsed.
out here, it felt like the entire world narrowed into the space between you and michael jackson. he leaned back against the railing beside you, shoulders slumped in a way cameras never captured.
you realized something then. michael had spent so many years becoming larger than life that people forgot he actually had one. “you know what’s funny?” he murmured.
“when we were kids, i thought success meant eventually getting everything you wanted.” you looked down at the city lights. “and?” his laugh came out hollow. “turns out you can get almost everything except the right things.”
that sentence sat heavily between you because both of you knew what he meant. you remembered watching him during the thriller era when the world practically worshipped the ground he walked on.
girls crying outside studio gates, bodyguards everywhere, and the magazines treating him like he descended from another planet. still, at three in the morning, he’d sit beside you in oversized sweaters asking impossible questions in a tiny voice.
“what if people stop loving me?” you used to answer immediately back then. ‘they won’t’
but somewhere over the years, you realized that wasn’t the point. the real tragedy was that michael never learned how to believe love could survive imperfection. one mistake, one argument, and one wound.
and suddenly he’d rather burn the entire bridge down than risk standing vulnerable on it. you understood that now because, truthfully, you weren’t much different.
“i almost wrote you letters,” you admitted quietly. he turned toward you instantly. “what?”
you shrugged slightly, embarrassed suddenly. “after we moved. sometimes i’d start writing and then…” you shook your head. “i never knew how to finish them.”
his expression softened painfully. “what’d they say?” you laughed once under your breath. “mostly angry things.”
“i probably deserved them.”
“yeah.” a small smile touched his mouth then faded again.
“i used to keep expecting you at sessions,” he confessed. “like muscle memory.”
you frowned slightly. “what do you mean?”
“i’d play something new and automatically look behind the glass for your reaction.” his eyes lowered. “every time.”
that hurt because you knew exactly what he meant. for years after leaving california, you kept instinctively reaching for the phone whenever you finished producing a track.
wanting to call michael first, wanting to hear him say: play it again. you never told anybody that. never would.
the silence stretched long enough to become intimate. scarily intimate. then michael asked quietly, “why didn’t you sing sooner?”
you looked away. “didn’t think i had anything worth saying.”
he studied your face carefully, you could feel it without even looking at him. michael always watched people intensely when he cared about them. like he was trying to memorize something before it disappeared. “that song sounded like you were finally talking,” he said softly.
your throat tightened because he understood the song better than anyone else had. critics called it haunting, romantic, and more on nostalgic.
but none of them understood what it actually was. it was grief. the specific grief of becoming strangers with someone who once knew your soul by memory.
“you know the weird part?” you said after a while. “i didn’t even realize i was writing about you until halfway through recording it.”
he smiled faintly. “i knew immediately.”
you rolled your eyes automatically. and suddenly there it was again. that old rhythm between you two. easy one and instinctive.
michael noticed it too. you could tell by the way his expression shifted, softer now, almost disbelieving.
like he forgot this was possible. “i missed making you laugh,” he admitted. your chest ached.
you looked at him finally and saw it all at once: the exhaustion beneath his eyes, the loneliness tucked carefully under fame, and the unbearable pressure of existing as michael jackson every second of every day.
people thought they knew him because they knew the image. they didn’t know the real michael hated silence because his thoughts got too loud in it.
they didn’t know he loved terrible horror movies and cried whenever animals got hurt onscreen.
they didn’t know he rehearsed compliments before giving them because he worried constantly about saying the wrong thing. you knew all of it. or at least you used to. “does it ever get easier?” you asked quietly.
he understood immediately. fame, expectation, and being consumed alive by the world. his answer came after a long pause. “no.” honest. “you just get better at pretending.”
you swallowed hard. for a second he looked less like the biggest star on earth and more like the boy under the studio console all those years ago. just listening and just wanting to be understood.
inside the ballroom, slow music began drifting through the doors now. people transitioning from awards to dancing and drinking and pretending they weren’t all deeply miserable.
michael glanced toward the sound briefly. then back at you. “dance with me.”
you stared at him like he’d lost his mind.
“because this is already emotionally catastrophic enough.”
he laughed unexpectedly loud at that. real laughter with head tipping back slightly. and suddenly you were nineteen again sitting cross-legged on studio floors making him laugh between takes.
it hit both of you at the same time. the laughter faded slowly. his eyes stayed on yours afterward for too long. way too long.
your stomach twisted painfully. there were things here neither of you were saying yet. big things. scary things.
michael stepped closer before he seemed to realize he was doing it. close enough now that you caught the faint scent of his cologne beneath the cold night air. your heartbeat stumbled traitorously.
“you know,” he said softly, “all these years i kept thinking if i saw you again, i’d know exactly what to say.”
his gaze dropped briefly to your mouth before returning upward. that tiny movement nearly destroyed your composure. “turns out i still don’t know.”
your breath caught because suddenly the space between you felt incredibly fragile. one wrong movement from collapsing completely. and the terrifying part? you weren’t sure you wanted to stop it anymore.
not after ten years, not after writing songs about ghosts, and not after spending a decade pretending he didn’t still exist somewhere inside you. “michael,” you whispered carefully. the way his name sounded in your mouth visibly affected him. you saw it.
his entire expression softened into something almost aching. then, “there you are!” the balcony doors burst open. both of you jolted apart instinctively.
a producer stumbled outside holding two champagne glasses. he froze immediately upon seeing the two of you standing there together. his eyes widened with the exact expression of a man realizing he accidentally interrupted history. “oh,” he said weakly.
you stepped back fast, pulse hammering now. the moment shattered instantly. michael looked irritated enough to kill someone. you almost laughed at it.
instead, you smoothed your dress nervously. “i should go.” his attention snapped back to you immediately. “wait.” that fucking word.
you hesitated anyway. he looked suddenly unsure again, vulnerability flickering beneath the surface. “can i see you tomorrow?”
your chest tightened. because there it was. not nostalgia, not apology, and something real. more like something present. you should’ve said no probably. instead, after far too long, you answered quietly, “okay.”
you spent the entire drive home wondering if agreeing to see michael jackson again counted as bravery or self-destruction. maybe both.
los angeles blurred past the taxi window in streaks of neon and exhaustion. billboards. palm trees. strangers smoking outside clubs at one in the morning. the city looked exactly like it did the night you left it. that realization made you nauseous for reasons you couldn’t explain.
back at your hotel, you kicked your heels off immediately and sat on the edge of the bed in silence. then you laughed once into your hands. because this was insane. absolutely insane.
ten years, ten absolute years without him and all it took was one conversation for your entire nervous system to start acting like it belonged to somebody else. you hated that. do you know what was worse? you missed it.
the phone rang around two-thirty in the morning. you stared at it suspiciously before answering. “..hello?” silence. just breathing. you closed your eyes immediately. “michael.”
“how’d you know it was me?”
“you breathe dramatically into telephones.” a quiet laugh crackled through the line. that sound still traveled straight through your ribcage.
“sorry,” he murmured. “i didn’t mean to wake you.”
“me neither.” of course not. you pictured him somewhere in a giant hotel suite unable to sit still. pacing. thinking too much. probably still halfway dressed from the party. some things never changed.
“this is probably a bad idea,” you said softly.
he went quiet for a second. “yeah,” he admitted. that honesty again. it kept throwing you off balance. old michael would’ve flirted around the truth. dodged it. turned things charming before they got too real. this michael sounded tired of pretending.
“i kept thinking about your dad tonight,” he said suddenly. your chest tightened. “yeah?”
“he used to yell at us for touching the mixing boards.” you snorted softly. “you did keep touching them.”
“don’t rewrite history.” he laughed under his breath again. then his voice gentled. “he believed in me before a lot of people did.”
you swallowed hard. “he believed in you more than anybody.” and it was true. your father adored michael. used to call him lightning in a bottle. used to say: “that kid’s gonna spend his whole life trying to outrun himself.”
you didn’t understand what he meant back then. you did now.
“i was scared to come to the funeral,” michael admitted quietly. your grip tightened on the receiver. “what?”
“i found out too late. by then i thought…” he exhaled shakily. “i thought seeing me would make things worse for you.” you leaned back slowly against the headboard. “you really thought i hated you that much?”
you opened your mouth then stopped. because the answer wasn’t simple. you had hated him. for a while. hated the arrogance. hated the silence afterward. hated how easy it was for him to wound you because he knew you so well.
but underneath all of that was something uglier. you missed him so violently it turned into anger just to survive it. “i think,” you said carefully, “i hated that losing you felt worse than losing people i was actually supposed to lose.”
silence filled the phone.
the kind where you could practically hear another person breathing through memory itself. when michael finally spoke again, his voice sounded wrecked. “don’t say things like that unless you mean them.”
your heartbeat stumbled. “i do mean them.” another pause. then softly, “me too.” you covered your eyes with your hand immediately. this was scary. you needed to be cautious. because suddenly all those years apart started feeling thin and fragile. like something that could dissolve completely if either of you reached too hard.
“what are we doing?” you whispered. he answered honestly. “i don’t know.” you laughed weakly. “great.”
“i just…” he stopped himself. “what?” his voice lowered. “i don’t wanna lose you again.” and there it was. not romance, not nostalgia, just fear.
it hit you harder than any love confession could’ve because michael jackson feared almost nothing publicly. but abandonment? that haunted him.
you remembered nights in the eighties when he’d ask bizarre questions out of nowhere. “if somebody leaves once, do they usually leave again?”
you used to tease him for thinking too much. now you realized he’d been asking for reassurance all along. your throat tightened painfully. “you already lost me once,” you said quietly.
“barely.” the word slipped out before he could stop it. raw and true. you stared at the dark hotel ceiling while your pulse hammered unevenly. you were in trouble because no matter how much time passed, michael still knew exactly how to reach the softest parts of you.
“what time tomorrow?” you asked finally. you heard the tiny shift in his breathing immediately. hope. “lunch?”
“that sounds terrifying.” he laughed softly. “please?” that nearly undid you because suddenly he sounded young again. not the king of pop, and not the global phenomenon. just michael.
the boy who used to sit beside you at studio pianos begging you to stay another hour. “okay,” you whispered.
“okay.” the relief in his exhale made your chest ache.
“because i enjoy arriving places without causing traffic accidents.”
“that happened one time.”
“fine,” he grumbled dramatically.
you smiled despite yourself and he heard it. of course he always did, and it felt good for once.
“there you are again,” he murmured sleepily, and he didn’t have to finish the sentence. you closed your eyes. “goodnight, michael.” there was a pause. then, very softly, “goodnight.”
neither of you hung up immediately. just stayed there breathing into the silence like two people afraid the other might disappear again the second the line went dead. eventually, you forced yourself to pull the receiver away. the click echoed loudly in the quiet room. and suddenly the loneliness returned full force.
because now you remembered what life felt like with him inside it which somehow made the years without him hurt all over again.
the restaurant michael picked the next afternoon was hidden in malibu somewhere along the coast. private and quiet.
the kind of place celebrities used when they wanted to pretend they weren’t celebrities, you arrived first on purpose. mostly because you needed time to prepare yourself.
the ocean stretched endlessly beyond the windows, silver beneath the cloudy afternoon sky. waves crashed softly against the cliffs below.
you kept rehearsing different versions of this meeting in your head. none of them ended well. either you forgave him too easily. or you left angry again. or worse? you fell back into him completely.
which felt that you needed to be cautious of it all.
when michael jackson finally arrived, the entire room shifted subtly despite the privacy heads turned and conversations paused.
he noticed none of it as his eyes found yours immediately. always yours first. that realization still ruined you a little. he slid into the seat across from you looking strangely nervous for a man who performed in front of stadiums. “hi.”
“hi.” for a second, neither of you touched the menus. you just looked at each other properly in daylight for the first time in years. and there it was again, time folding strangely. because older michael still carried pieces of the boy you knew. still tucked his hands into his sleeves when anxious, glanced away first during serious moments, and looked at you like your reactions mattered more than anything else in the room.
“you cut your hair,” he said quietly. you blinked. “that’s your opening line?”
“i panicked.” you laughed despite yourself. his shoulders loosened instantly at the sound. you forgot how much he loved making you laugh. lunch stretched longer than either of you intended. three hours, then four.
you talked carefully at first. cautiously circling old wounds like people walking across thin ice. music, new artists, and bad producers. tour horror stories. your father. hayvenhurst.
eventually the harder things surfaced naturally. the fight, the silence afterward, all the years in between. “i kept your demos,” michael admitted at one point, staring down into his coffee.
“the old cassette tapes.” a small shrug. “couldn’t throw them away.” your chest tightened painfully. “michael…”
“sometimes when i couldn’t sleep, i’d play them.” you looked out toward the ocean quickly before he could see your expression break.
because suddenly you pictured him alone somewhere enormous and expensive and empty, listening to old recordings of your voice between songs. the image nearly shattered you. “why didn’t you ever hate me enough to move on?” you asked quietly.
he looked genuinely confused by the question.“because it was you?” simple as breathing.
you laughed weakly, eyes burning now. “that’s not an answer.”
“it is for me.” silence settled over the table. outside, waves rolled endlessly against the shore. you studied him carefully then.
the fame sat differently on him now than it did in the eighties, back then it looked electric. now it looked heavy. beautiful, but heavy.
and beneath all of it was still the same lonely boy who hid under recording consoles listening to the world too closely. “you know,” you said softly, “i spent years trying to convince myself i only missed the past.”
he stayed very still. “and?”
you swallowed hard. then answered honestly. “i think i just really did missed you.”
his eyes closed briefly like the confession physically hurt or healed something. maybe both. when he looked at you again, there was no performance left in his face anymore.
no celebrity shit, just michael. “i loved you for a very long time,” he said quietly. the words landed gently which somehow made them devastating.
you stared at him across the table, heartbeat loud enough to drown the ocean outside. because deep down, part of you always knew.
you knew in recording studios at two in the morning, you knew every time his eyes searched for yours first, and you knew the night everything fell apart.
the tragedy wasn’t that the love wasn’t there. the tragedy was timing. two people too young to understand that love sometimes required staying through ugly things too. your voice came out barely above a whisper. “i loved you too.”
his breath caught sharply and for a moment neither of you moved. the years between you suddenly felt visible somehow. all ten of them sitting there at the table. all the missed birthdays. unanswered calls. songs written instead of conversations.
grief had wasted so much time.
finally, michael laughed softly to himself, shaking his head. “we’re really good at making things difficult, huh?” you smiled through wet eyes. “unbelievably.”
he looked at you for a long moment afterward. then reached across the table slowly and carefully. like he was giving you every opportunity to pull away.
you didn’t. his hand slid into yours. you stared at your intertwined fingers and suddenly thought about that stupid song again.
‘i thought i saw your face today.’ all those years, you wrote about him like a ghost, someone lost and someone unreachable.
but ghosts weren’t supposed to hold your hand under cloudy california skies. ghosts weren’t supposed to look at you like surviving finally meant something.
“i can’t promise i won’t mess things up again,” michael admitted softly. you laughed quietly. “that’d actually be more concerning.” his smile widened. real.
bright enough that for one fleeting second you saw the nineteen-year-old boy from studio sessions again. the one who danced while recording vocals, the one who laughed with his entire chest, and the one you fell in love with before the world got its hands on him.
“but,” he continued carefully, thumb brushing against your knuckles, “i think maybe we wasted enough time already.” you looked at him then you squeezed his hand once.
outside, the tide kept rolling toward shore like it always had. like it always would. and for the first time in a decade, neither of you let go.
weeks passed before either of you said the word relationship. not because it wasn’t obvious. it absolutely was.
but you and michael had always existed in that strange space between friendship and something far more dangerous. labels felt too small for it. too neat.
still, suddenly he was everywhere in your life again. phone calls at two in the morning. flowers arriving at studios with ridiculous handwritten notes attached. “heard this song and hated the drum machine. call me immediately.” you laughed the first time you got one.
the assistant delivering them looked terrified. “is he always like this?” she asked carefully.
“unfortunately.” michael started showing up during your recording sessions too. sometimes quietly sitting behind the mixing desk for hours without interrupting once.
other times dramatically throwing himself onto the studio couch claiming your artist was “emotionally avoiding the bridge.” which, annoyingly, he was usually right about.
one night after a session, you found michael asleep in the corner chair with headphones half-slipping off his curls. the studio lights were low. rain tapped softly against the windows.
for a moment you just stood there looking at him because even after all these years, there was something deeply lonely about the way he slept. like resting never came naturally to him. you crouched beside him carefully. his eyes opened almost instantly. always a light sleeper.
for one disoriented second, he just stared at you softly and unguarded. then he smiled sleepily. “hey.”
your chest tightened embarrassingly fast. “you were snoring.”
“devastatingly loud lies.” he laughed quietly and reached for your wrist without thinking. that simple and that automatic.
his fingers wrapped loosely around your hand like muscle memory returning home. you looked down at it then back at him. “you do that a lot now.”
michael blinked slightly, almost startled by his own behavior. then his gaze softened. “sorry.”
“i didn’t say stop.” the room went quiet. oddly comforting quiet-ness. rain humming outside. tape machines buzzing softly somewhere behind you.
michael’s thumb brushed slowly against the inside of your wrist before he seemed to realize what he was doing. his eyes lifted to yours. that damn look.
that unbearable look like he still couldn’t believe you were real and here and touching him back after all those lost years.
“i think,” he said softly, “i spent so long trying not to miss you that now i don’t really know how to act normal around you.”
you laughed under your breath. “you’ve never acted normal a day in your life.”
“true.” but neither of you moved away.
instead he slowly sat forward in the chair until your knees brushed close. close enough now that you caught the warmth of his skin beneath the cold studio air. there were moments with michael where the world seemed to pause around him. this was one of them.
you remembered suddenly being seventeen in another studio entirely, watching him sing a demo under dim lights while thinking: this is gonna ruin me one day. you were right. just not in the way you expected.
“can i ask you something?” he murmured.
“did you ever almost come back?” your breath caught. because yes. absolutely, yes. more times than he’d ever know.
you remembered sitting in airports with plane tickets to california you never used. remembered dialing hayvenhurst numbers before hanging up.
remembered hearing man in the mirror for the first time alone in your apartment and crying so hard you got angry at yourself afterward.
“once,” you admitted quietly. his expression shifted immediately. “when?”
“1988.” he stared at you. “what happened?” you smiled sadly. “fear.” honesty hung between you. heavy and intimate.
michael nodded slowly like he understood that answer better than anybody else could. because fear had stolen years from both of you. fear of rejection, fear of vulnerability, and fear that maybe the love mattered less than the damage.
“i used to think if i saw you again,” he confessed softly, “i’d either hate you or love you worse.” you exhaled shakily. “which one is it?”
his eyes held yours completely steady. “you know which one.”
the air changed instantly and your heartbeat stumbled hard against your ribs. michael’s gaze flicked briefly to your mouth before returning upward again, slower this time. asking. always asking with you now. never assuming.
your voice came out quieter than intended. “come here.”
he inhaled sharply then moved carefully at first like he still couldn’t quite believe this was allowed.
his hand slid against your jaw gently enough to break your heart all over again. and when he kissed you it wasn’t dramatic, wasn’t cinematic, it was worse because it felt familiar like something interrupted finally finding its way back.
his mouth was warm and trembling slightly against yours, years of restrained grief and affection tucked into the softness of it. you felt him exhale shakily the second you kissed him back. like relief or like survival.
his forehead rested against yours afterward, both of you breathing unevenly in the dim studio light. “wow,” he whispered weakly.
you laughed breathlessly. “real smooth, jackson.”
“sorry, i had a better speech planned in my head.”
“i’m sure.” he smiled then. small and beautiful.
and suddenly you understood something that took both of you ten years to learn: love was never the difficult part.
and suddenly, your lyrics meant everything real again.
you really couldn’t help but fall in love again.
