The Teacher's Pet | Slowburn MJ FanFic

• | Chapter Sixty-Nine | •

"I got shot." He laughed even though both he and his mother didn't find the situation funny at all, especially when the pain would start to come back in full force once the pain meds wore off.

"You could've been killed." Katherine chastised him as she shook her head. "But it's more than that. Something else is eating at you."

"It's nothing." He abruptly said, not really wanting to talk about Riley. Just thinking of her caused him to sink further into depression.

"It's something. I know my son, and you're acting the opposite of him. It's like losing Jor—"

"Mother, please don't bring her up." Michael quietly begged, not wanting to be reminded of her either. "It's still a sensitive subject for me."

She nodded with a heavy sigh, feeling a pang of guilt for causing him more distress on top of everything else. "I don't mean to upset you, honey. But how you're acting now, is how you were acting then. You're locking yourself in your room, tuning the world out by listening to loud music; you're just not yourself."

"I'm sorry." He said almost like a whisper, massaging both of his temples and staring down at the steaming food. "It's not something I'd really like to talk about right now."

"Okay." Katherine gently dropped the subject and watched silently as he grabbed a fork.

He still didn't eat and couldn't bring himself to, so he picked over his food as he got lost in his thoughts again.

"You're not hungry?" She asked after a minute of silence.

"Not really, no." He frowned, stabbing at his scrambled eggs in boredom. A part of him wished it was Javen he was driving his fork into for daring to lay his hands on Riley in the first place, then causing a rift between them that broke their relationship apart.

Katherine reached across the counter to take both the plate and fork from him. "I suppose you can go back upstairs, then. I just wanted you to get out of the room at least once. Maybe even go out to the store or something to get some fresh air."

"Maybe when I'm feeling better." He gave a weak, small smile as he prepared to slide himself off the counter stool. He suddenly paused when he heard several car doors slam and voices outside the house.

"Ah, shit." He cursed in utter annoyance, then he glanced up at his mother and smiled sheepishly at her disapproving glare.

"Michael Joseph Jackson, I've told you about using foul language." She scolded him.

"I know, I'm sorry. It slipped." He quickly apologized and stood from the stool, unable to walk out the kitchen fast enough before the front door flew open and Janet was the first to race down the hall towards him.

"Be gentle!" Michael screeched in time just as Janet suddenly stopped running to warmly embrace her big brother. He smiled, wrapping his arm around her and resting his chip atop her head. "Hey, Dunk. How was your vacation in Miami?"

"It was fine. But I didn't stop by to talk about me, I wanna talk about you." She said, pulling away as La Toya headed straight toward them with the rest of their siblings beginning to file inside behind her.

"What about me?" He asked, dreading any questions regarding the shooting and the girl he took two bullets for.

"Don't play dumb, you know what I want to talk about." She said, crossing her arms over chest and pursing her lips.

La Toya immediately butted in as she stood next to her younger sister. "Mhmm. Like why was there a school shooting, who was doing the shooting, how'd you end up taking two bullets to the body, et cetera."