11:30 p.m. (Completed)

2: A Beautiful New Routine

The alarm rang on time the next day. Finally, the clock had learnt to keep time. Aly, shut it off and snuggled back to squeeze in just five minutes more of sleep when her phone rang. 

“Hello” the now familiar cheerful voice sounded

“Michael?”

“Good Morning, I didn’t want you to have a bad day today too because the alarm didn’t go off. So, I called you”

“that’s really sweet of you Michael, but the alarm did ring today and I was just about to catch a few minutes of sleep before I absolutely had to wake up”

“oh, bad timing?”

“yes, but good intention, so forgiven”

“phew”

“I have to go. Bye Michael” 

“bye, I’ll call you later”.

The call put a smile on Alessandra’s face that lingered on throughout the day. That day was like every other, with college and assignments and classes. But Alessandra was smiling throughout the day. 

“Who’s the mystery guy?”

Alessandra lifted her head from her book to see Jenna, her friend hovering above her. 

“What mystery guy?”

“come on Aly, look at you, you’ve been staring at blank spaces and smiling all day”

“no, I’m just smiling because I had a good morning”

“Professor Thomas said we’re all a disappointment, there’s asparagus salad for lunch today, we have an assignment submission due tomorrow what good has happened this morning?”

“well Michael Jackson announced his comeback tour”

“oh ya, can you believe it Aly, Michael Jackson is performing again. And that also in London! We should buy the tickets before they sell out”

Aly was glad she had diverted Jenna from the topic, the mystery man on the phone was not someone she wanted to talk about, not even with her closest friend Jenna. That was hers and hers alone. There’s just something sacredly beautiful about knowing someone without letting the world know about it. You think it’s just you two but there are always more than two people in any relationship, there’s a crowd of his friends, her friends, his parents, her parents, his cousins, her cousins, this crowd doesn’t understand what two hearts do and it eventually breaks up the relationship.  

“Can you believe it?”

“huh? What?” Aly suddenly snapped back to reality. 

“Michael Jackson is currently in London. He made the announcement at the O2 arena yesterday and he’s going back only day after” Jenna exclaimed staring at the headlines on the newspaper she had just taken out from her bag. 

“that’s great!” Aly asked unbelievingly

“I wish I could get to meet him just once”

“and what would you do if you met him”

“naturally I’ll kiss him, give him my cell number, he would call me then I could call him back, we would develop a friendship which would blossom into love, then I’d marry him, be a mother to his three kids, give him 7 more and live happily ever after”

“Hahaha, you’re nuts Jenna, like Michael would call you”

“well, he’s not calling you either so don’t get all cocky Aly”