Inhaling Alongside You✔️

Chapter Sixteen: Arsenic

Arsenic is the cause of a flame. Arsenic is the leader of the direction in which the flame takes. Arsenic has it's targets, as well does the flame. When both coagulate to form chaos, the ashes are far less of a step to resolution.

I've crawled. I've leaped. I've even tumbled, just to come this far. I've cried. I've sobbed, just to find my peace. I've argued. I've fought, just to be near him. Now I watch. Now I wander, was it worth it all.

I love him, with every fiber of my being. Yet, I sit and watch silently. Silently contemplating my love for him. Then I reminisce on the days leading onto the day I became his girl. The way he looked at me as if I was the only one to see him as a human. The way he charmed me with his shyness and wit

Those memories keep my sanity and reorganized my thoughts. I shouldn't feel threatened, but I do. I'm confident in Michael's love for me and I'm confident in my live for Michael, but its the confidence in myself I fear.

I have been my own worst nightmare, my own worst critic. I allow myself to deem myself unworthy of love in my past and now I deem myself unworthy of him in my present. But, like the great words of my father: "You will not fall victim to your own thoughts. Thinking is for the weak. Doubt is for the timid. You're not weak nor are you timid Jesse" I will no longer reconsider my feelings or my worth.

"Jess... I'm telling you she's not that bad. I've told her the boundaries already" Michael protests, as he slips us into the bathroom of the news room.

Michael and I have been invited to a televised, short interview with Good Morning America, a fairly popular world news show here in uptown New York. Michael firstly disagreed to do the interview, simply because he thinks it's too early to just go out and boast about our relationship.

But, of course Mister Dileo being the persuading man he is, he somehow convinced Michael to go forth with the interview. So when Michael brought this to my attention I hesitated to agree. I'm not sure how I feel about participating in an open interview about my relationship with Michael or his relationship with me.

So there we were, being loaded into the infamous midnight limousine, reluctantly preparing for a blind interview. Somehow on our ride there the subject of Tatiana emerged within our conversation. Michael was stressing how he's wish I'd give her a chance. He also assured me that I had no need to worry about her flirtatious nature, he knows to ignore it.

That's what scared me. Michael has a history of going for an easy women that he had no romantic interest in. First it was Tatum O'Neal, a pretty young actress with dark chestnut hair. She actually seemed quite classy, until she and Michael broke it off, that's when the nastiness began.

She would tell wild stories of their intimate nights. I never believed any of it, but I know they were intimate at some point in their relationship. Next, Brooke Sheilds, the "Wolfe beaut" was her nickname in the tabloids, just as Tatum O'Neal, Brooke was an equally gorgeous brunette with defined bushy eyebrows, hence her nickname.

She also leaked to the tabloids of her romance with Michael, only claiming that they had been intimate, but they were never serious. Fortunately for Michael, when he ended their relationship, she didn't retaliate, but continued on with her life and career.

I don't want the cycle to continue with me, nor Tatiana. I know Michael has noticed her beauty, she's a model for Gods sake. Undeniably gorgeous, but she's no good. It's in her strut. It's in her wicked smile. Her presence doesn't sit right with me. I wish Michael would understand that.

"Michael, baby you don't understand. The woman has it bad for you. She's not
I'm comparison to a few fan girls... She's no good" I warn, watching him pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration.