It all started in Gary (Indiana) with a letter letf on the sidewalk by a girl with long hair and the most beautiful eyes.
"For Michael, the show business wasn't boring or scary anymore because everywhere he went, Aria was with him. She was in every...
Hey everyone!! I finally came up with a new chapter, I hope you enjoy. I also want to thank you all for reading, really. BUT I have some news ehehhe, I recently started a Youtube channel and my first video is a cover of I Just Can't Stop Loving You! (of course I would have to cover a Michael Jackson song!). It would mean the world to me if you could check it out, here's the link:
Thank you ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️
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Here's the chapter, enjoy 🤗
Eventually, the band ignored the brief drama and continued to play. Katherine, though, couldn't help but go check on them.
"Is everything alright?" She asks.
"Yes, mother," Aria pauses. It's like all of a sudden calling Katherine 'mother' is weird. "I ate too many chicken wings." She lies and Michael grins.
"I noticed that. I keep telling you to stop eating that kind of... nasty food." Katherine sighs.
"It's only the best food in the world." Michael is always ready to defend his favorite chicken wings. "Don't get me started on KFC, mother." He warns, playfully.
As they walk to the outside, Michael whispers in Aria's ear. "What was your father's name?"
Aria takes a few seconds to answer. "Brandon... His name was Brandon. Why?"
"I'm going to talk to him."
"What?" She whispers back. "Are you insane?"
"Calm down, I won't talk about you or any of this." Michael walks away not giving Aria any chance to tell him not to go. "Brandon?" He calls and the man turns around.
"Michael!" They shake hands. At least he's Brandon, Michael thinks. "I can't believe it! I met you when you were just a baby boy! Look at you!" Brandon says and smiles.
"I guess time flies." Michael replies and Brandon lays his hand on Michael's shoulder.
"You've been doing great, Michael! You're living the dream your father and I once had." Michael smiles and thanks him. "Is your friend alright?" Brandon asks and points at Aria who's discretly observing them.
"She just felt sick." Brandon nods. "Why don't you sit over there with us?" Michael suggests all of a sudden. Of course Brandon accepted and he's now sitting next to Joseph.
"Why did you bring him here?" Aria asks quietly.
"You need to be around him." Michael takes another bite of a chicken wing. "He asked if you were okay." He stares at her. "You're not going to throw up, are you?" If Aria's eyes could kill he would be dead now.
"Michael, this isn't funny." She replies feeling irritated.
Aria spent the next two hours sitting at the table, watching Brandon and every single move he made. She couldn't be more sure that it was him when she saw the birthmark on his left hand. His voice wasn't the same though: it was softer, friendlier in some way.
"I would love to spend the rest of the day here with you all, but I should be going now." Brandon stands up and puts his coat on. "It was good seeing you man." He approaches Joseph, starts saying goodbye to everyone and then makes his way to Aria.
"Aria," he says. They had a little chat at the table earlier but she never said her name. How could he know? It's him, she thinks to herself. "Goodbye." Brandon places his hand around her arm and his touch takes her back to 1968.
~FlashBack~
"Why is mother crying?" Aria asks for the 100th time. Once more, Brandon arrived home drunk and he literally went off beating on his wife. "Daddy? Daddy!"
"STOP ASKING QUESTIONS. DON'T ASK ANY QUESTIONS." He screamed and Aria shivered. Brandon grabbed her arm and squeezed it hard but it wasn't painful to Aria. "I don't like when you question me. Don't ask me anything." He repeated.
~EndOfFlashBack~
Brandon's voice echoed in her head as soon as he gently grabbed her arm. "Don't ask me anything." She hears again.
"I hope you had a great time." Aria speaks and her mouth goes dry. Brandon doesn't reply, he just looks at his daughter and it's like they're communicating through their brown eyes. He soon lowers his head before giving her a reassuring glare and walking away.
Aria feels that he was apologizing to her, she understood every single word even though they didn't talk at all.
"Are you going to let him go?" Michael comes near her. "Aria, he's going away... Hello?"
"Yeah." She smiles.
"Then you should go after him." Michael is not understanding anything right now.
"I don't need to." Aria answers and sits down under The Giving Tree.
"I thought you had lots of questions to ask him. I thought you wanted to know him." He sits down as well.
"I did," she sighs. "He recognized me, he knows who I am."
"You're not making any sense."
"It just felt right this way. I had billions of questions," Aria looks up at the sky. "Like why did you leave me?, why weren't you a good parent?, why didn't you look out for me?" Michael gently grabs her hand and rubs it with his cold fingers. "But when he stood in front of me and I looked into his eyes I realized that it doesn't matter." She stares at Michael. "It's not important anymore, it's all in the past and I can't change what happened and I wouldn't. Thankfully I found all of you. Joseph accepted me, he's my father. Those over there," she points at Joseph and Katherine who are dancing to the sound of James Brown. "Those are my parents."
Michael smiles after hearing her speak. He thinks that this situation shows a lot of who she is - she's tough, she's a Jackson, as Joseph would say.
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