Imagines of Michael Jackson

Memories (Bad Era)

"Leave me alone!!!" you screamed as Jayla, the girl you thought was your best friend, kicked you to the ground.

"Ha ha ha, look how weak she is!" Jayla teased.

"Of course she's weak! She's so fat!" laughed another girl in your class.

All of your classmates were standing around you on the playground, pointing and laughing. 

"Why are you doing this? I thought you were my friend!" you said, trying not to cry.

"I found better friends," Jayla said coldly.

You felt a tear running down your cheek, You just wanted to know what you had done to make her hate you. Yesterday, you two had been chasing boys around on the playground.

"Is she crying?" you heard one boy ask.

"Cry baby!" Jayla laughed.

"What a freak!" said one boy. 

This made you cry even more.

"This is why no one likes you, weirdo!" Jayla said before she led her new friends away giggling, leaving you alone with your low self-esteem.

"Hey, y/n, are you there?" Michael snapped his fingers in front of your face.

You snapped out of your daydream to see his gorgeous face smiling at you.

"Baby, are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking." But in reality, you were far from okay. Memories of the bullying you had faced in school before you had left to work as a stylist for the Jacksons had been haunting you for the past week. You had suppressed the trauma for years because you desperately wanted to put that behind you when you started working and being homeschooled with Michael. For some reason, it was becoming harder each day to forget what those kids had done to you. You were afraid to tell Michael now because he would wonder why you waited so long to say anything. 

"Sweetheart, you looked really upset."

"Sometimes I look like that when I'm thinking," you defended yourself.

"You've been acting different all week. You always watch rehearsals, but lately you've been hiding in the dressing rooms by yourself."

"I'm fine, Mikey. Now go back to rehearsal. You need to prepare for this tour."

"Are you absolutely sure you're okay?"

"Yes," you lied. "Now go." You wanted to cry in his arms more than anything, but that would mean explaining what happened and reliving the painful memories even more than you already were. You waited until Michael reluctantly left and was far away from the room to start crying. You looked at yourself in the mirror. You stood there for about three minutes staring at yourself as the memories came back.

"You're so fat!" Jayla's voice played in your head. "What a freak! I hate you!"

So much anger built up inside of you that you couldn't take it anymore. You picked up a chair and threw it at the mirror, breaking it into several shards of glass. The glass scattered everywhere, and one piece fell to the ground and cut your foot. You instantly felt the sharp pain and remembered one incident where Jayla intentionally stepped on your foot and said your feet were giant and ugly. Without thinking, you let out a scream. You looked down at your foot and panicked when you saw how much it was bleeding. Your anger with yourself caused you to kick the chair you had just thrown, making the pain even worse. You screamed even louder.

About six people rushed into the room: two security guards, a few of the tour staff, and Michael.

Michael looked around the room for a bit before looking at your foot which was now pretty bruised up and swollen in addition to being covered with blood. "Y/n...what happened in here?" He picked you up and helped you lay down on the couch. You couldn't even speak because you were still sobbing.

The tour doctor cleaned up your wound and put bandages and an ice pack on your foot while Michael had his arms wrapped around you. You noticed that everyone else in the room was just staring at you and stayed a few feet away as if they were scared of you. One security guard was sweeping up the mirror shards.

The tour staff were quietly talking amongst themselves. You could barely hear someone whisper "I always knew she was crazy. Why did Mike marry her?"

"Whoever that was, I heard that!" Michael snapped as he gave the staff a cold stare.

Everyone in the room fell silent.

"She's not crazy. She's clearly just upset about something. I'll talk to her." Michael got everyone else to leave the room so the two of you could talk alone.

You didn't want to tell him what was going on, but you couldn't think of anything else that could possibly explain what you had done, so you were forced to tell the truth about the flashbacks you had been having.

"Aww, I'm so sorry about that, baby." Michael gently caressed your head.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I just wanted to put that all behind me."

"It's okay."

"I just don't understand why it's been affecting me so much lately," you said.

"You've been suppressing the memories for so long. That's not very good for your mental health. You need to start taking care of yourself."

That last sentence was something you had often told Michael when he was working himself too hard. It was shocking to hear him say the same thing to you.

"You've been taking all of your anger out on yourself." Michael looked at your injured foot. "The next time you feel upset, let me know so I can help you."

"Okay. I'm sorry about what I did," you said as you glanced over at the chair on the floor.

"Don't worry about that, baby. The crew can fix everything. I'm sorry you had to keep all this pain inside of you for so long. I used to do that all the time before we started dating."

"I bet everyone else on this tour is going to stay far away from me," you cried.

"I'll talk to them. I'll make sure no one hurts you like Jayla did."

"Thank you, baby." You snuggled up in Michael's embrace.