Smile

Chapter 9

February 15th 1986

The tears were hot in Mariah's eyes as she silently put a bandage over her deep wound. She knew she'd better wipe the blood off of the floor unless she wanted Marvin to unleash his wrath again.

"when you look behind you there's no open doors, what are you hoping for do you know?" She softly sung to herself while she used the tight light gray shirt that she had on to wipe up the blood.

In her mind she was reliving the previous events in a endless loop. She still felt the large knife cutting into her skin and all the way across her forearm, she still heard the loud shouting of Marvin and her mother screaming in fear.

Mariah didn't understand why her mother was still with Marvin and often questioned it. Why would she continue to put her own daughter, her own flesh and blood through that horror?

If Mariah was being honest she didn't think she'd make it this far, she thought eventually Marvin would kill her or she'd starve to death.

She watched as her blood bled into the bandage, she slowly took off the bandage and put it down.

The cut was deep and it was from her elbow to her wrist.

April 22nd 1988 (3:34 pm)

"Really?" Mariah asked excitedly.

Michael smiled and nodded at her assuringly. "Yeah let's be together." He replied.

Knowing that Mariah was so young he decided to hold off on the obvious romance between the two. Now since she was eighteen Michael could finally be with her without feeling like a creep.

Mariah pulled him into a hug and tears started pouring down her face. "Why are you crying?" Michael questioned.

Mariah took a few steps away from him. "I don't know I just-" She interrupted herself. "I just never thought I'd make it out of there and it's almost like you saved me."

Michael looked at her
sympathetically. "You were way more then I expected, when I told my crew to pick some random girl out of the audience I was honestly just looking for someone to settle down and have kids with... I wanted somebody to love me and it didn't matter if I loved them back but you... well I do love you and I know how young you are and I know this relationship might not be right to some people but I love you." He confessed.

She flashed a bright smile at him. "I love you too... and not just because your Michael Jackson but because of who you are as a person." Mariah explained.

April 25th 1988 (8:23 pm)

"Alright Mariah, just signs here and you're road to stardom will begin." The chairman on Sony Columbia Tommy Mottola told her. Michael had pulled a few strings and Mariah got a record deal within a few days.

She smiled feeling uneasy, something about this man Tommy was off.

She grabbed the pen and slowly signed her name on the piece of paper, trying to make it perfect.

"Alright!" Tommy smiled. "I'll set up a studio session and you can bring in some of your songs, preferably that one song what was it called? Prayed Through The Nights right?"

What the hell is this old man so excited about? She wondered.

"It's called Vision Of Love but yeah I'll bring it in." Mariah replied, she wanted to slap him for some reason but she didn't know why. He just had a very annoying face and it irritated her. She was grateful to be given this contract but she couldn't help if she didn't particularly like the guy that was giving it to her.