Collide

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX - FAMILY THING

A/N: here's a long chapter for you guys! I spent literally all night long writing this one, from midnight to 7am. No need to say I'm b e a t. Anyway, enjoy :)

______________

I woke up to the sound of the coffee machine downstairs, and a smile spread across my face as the smell invaded my nostrils. I stirred a little, and felt something on my shoulder. I opened my eyes lazily only to see my phone there. It seemed like a habit of mine to fall asleep on Michael, so it didn't surprise me much, I just felt sorry to always fall asleep on him this way. Naturally, I put the phone over my ear, and to my biggest surprise, the line wasn't dead, meaning Michael didn't hang up the phone as well.

"Michael?" I asked through the receiver, but of course he didn't answer. I looked at the clock on my nightstand: 07:30AM, which meant  10:30AM in New York. I understood that Michael was probably still sleeping since his end of the phone was quiet. I thought that he might have worked all night long again, which made me smile slightly. "Sleep tight, Maestro."

Reluctantly, I hung up the phone, and let myself fall back onto the mattress with a heavy sigh. I knew this day was going to be long and stressful for me. After Michael's revelations about Hayden the night prior, it was hard for me to catch any sleep because of the never-ending questioning that was going on in my head. Michael noticed how much this situation made me nervous, so he decided to sing to me and crack jokes every chance he got, and it helped me sleep. His ability to make me feel better never failed to amaze me. He was the cure to my miseries, and it was becoming more and more obvious as days went by.

As I didn't work until seven in the evening, I decided to take the time I needed to get out of bed. Of course I could have slept much longer, but once I was awake, it was hard for me to go back to sleep. I knew that Carl was the one to be in the kitchen, since Alice didn't wake up until ten when she had a day off. What I also knew was that I needed to talk to him about Michael's offer, and it somehow frightened me. I didn't want him to think that I was using his friendship in any way.

I sighed once again, brushing my hands over my tired face. I somehow unplugged my brain for half a second, and got out of bed steadily. I buttoned Michael's shirt from bottom to top and put my hair in a high bun before I came downstairs. I spotted Carl around the kitchen island with a cup of coffee in his hands, and another thing in his other hand that I couldn't quite identify from where I was standing. I walked closer, and finally entered the kitchen area.

"Good morning," I greeted him with a little smile.

"Oh—hey, Brit! D—Did I wake you?" he asked, as he closed the book he was reading. It was Michael's Moonwalk.

"No, you didn't," I half lied. The coffee machine did, and he was the one who turned it on, so... he technically did. "You found Michael's book, huh?" I asked, as I passed behind him to get to the refrigerator.

"I—I'm sorry, I should have asked you if I could borrow it," he apologized, as I came back to the kitchen island with a bottle of milk. I sat down across from him after I poured myself a cup of coffee. "It was there on the table, so I just got curious and started reading a few days ago."

"It's alright, I don't mind," I reassured with a little smile. "If Michael released this book, it's for people to read it. Plus, I'm almost done with it."

"Is he okay with that? The fact that you read it?" Carl curiously asked me. "I mean, it's pretty personal. It's quite brave to release something like that when you're Michael Jackson."

"I think he is quite embarrassed knowing I know him better than he knows me because of it," I said with a little laugh. "But yeah, it is personal. He told me how scared he was a few days before the release. He didn't want to publish it anymore at some point. He was frightened that people would see him differently, in a bad way," I let him know, shaking my head. "He did the right choice by releasing it. It's a way for his fans to feel closer to him, you know?"