Prince's POV
"What's that?" I asked as I walked back into my Mom and Dad's room. He was sitting in the bed holding a worn out book in his hand.
"Its one of your mother's old journal." he said as he played with the edges of the book.
I smiled and sat next to him. "May I see it?"
He placed ur in my hand. I opened the front page and in fancy cursive letters it said:
Property of: Leah Haughton
Below that it said:
1966, Property of: Aaliyah Dana Haughton
I looked up at my dad, there was a tear that had escaped from his eye." Why does it have both their names in it?"
He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly." After her mother died, she had full procession of all her things. Liyah, loved that journal, she always said it was like she was carrying around of piece of her mother with her."
"Didn't she write in others to?"
He only nodded.
I turned to the next page carefully and it was an entry by her mother, talking about all the first day Mom was born and how she came up with her name and how she looked. I flipped through others and most of the dates where spaced out, not many of them were close together. There was a piece of fabric stuck a little farther than the other diary entry. I closed the book and opened it to that part. The handwriting went from cursive to the printing of an eight year old child, it was dated June 24, 1966. "Here's her first entry she ever wrote." I said softly.
Dad turned his head and looked down at it. He took the book from my hand.
" June 24, 1966,
I was going through Mommy's things and found this diary. I decided to take on after her and continue writing in here. She hated wasting things. So, today is the day. The aniversary of her death, I miss her a lot but I can only remember what she used to tell me when I was little. She will always be in my heart.
-Aaliyah"
" She misspelled anniversary." I pointed out.
"She was eight." he said.
I looked through the others only skimming through them."I think this will be great to start the book off, you know with her early life. That way the readers will understand why mom was the way she was as an adult."
"Why is it so important that the first book you ever write is about your mother?"
"Because, I want to know how her life was, what made her the strong woman that she was when I came to know her."
He glanced at the book them up at me with a raised eyebrow." That's a good point."
I smiled at him."So can you use it?"
"If we use one, we may as well us all of them." He said as he pulled three more out of her night stand drawer.
This had just became easy to me. I took out my lap top and opened the first entry of the journal which was by her mother of course. I began typing the main things down: The time of birth Mom was born, her weight, eye colors, etc. Her mother was wrote every little detail of her life from the first time she held her bottle on her own to her first steps to her singing her favorite song. But I found something interesting about Grandma Leah, most of the time she talked about a drug addiction and how she struggled to become sober after mom was born. She also wrote about Uncle Keith, Mom told me the story of him and how she found out about him but I never knew that his father took him away from her. That was the cause of the drug addiction.
Grandma Leah's entry stopped a year before her death thats when the notes stopped. I looked at my father who was looking at some old movie film." Did Mom ever tell you about any events leading up to her Grandma Leah's death?" I asked.
He nodded." Yeah, Liyah didn't know much about her mother, she didn't really start finding out anything until she was eighteen. Her mother was depressed, mostly drugged up, or crying. She said that she would remember she would find her crying on the floor with a pipe lying next to her, she would clean her up and whip away her tears. Liyah, didn't like talking about it much, she only liked to remember the good times that they had in the cabin she grew up in most of her life. "
"Why didn't she know much about her?"
"Well Susanne never told her anything, mainly because she didn't know much about her neither. Her mother shut the world out from everyone. She spent most if her child hood wondering about her."
" How'd she die?" I asked." I mean, I know it was from a crash but what happened?'
" Liyah, wrote about it, she can tell you better than I can." He said." I think you should wait to add that in, just until you get to when she was eighteen.'
I thought about it for a moment." You have point there."
" Don't I always?"
I shook my head." No, Mom always had points."
He chuckled then glanced back at the TV.
I could tell he missed her, he wasn't as alert as you normally was when she was with him. It was only twelve in the afternoon and normally I would find Mom in her office doing business work or about to leave errands on a Saturday afternoon."When did you come to know Mom?" I had seen the pain in his eyes and writing this book wasn't just because I wanted go know about my mother's life, but to help him grieve.
"In 1969."
I picked up the Journal and flipped through the pages until I made out to 1969.
"She talked about that year a lot. She had her first album out and went on her first tour at just eleven years old. All she remembered was working, always being in the studio. She would always say ' You can say Motown killed my child hood, it was already killed the moment I came into this world.'"
"Because of her mother?"
"Yeah, and Susanne."
I looked at him confusingly." Why Aunt Susanne?"
"Susanne was only eighteen when she Gained custody of Liyah, she didn't know how to take care of a child properly so she had her sign to Motown, that way she could be under her supervision. Susanne wasn't thinking about what was best for Liyah, she was thinking about what was best for her."
"So your saying that she was selfish?"
He cocked his head to the side thinking of a better word to use."In a way, yes. But keep in mind, she was an eighteen year old taking in a feisty confused six year old."
"Okay can we talk about your first impression on her?" I asked
Michael's POV
As he soon as he said the words I was reliving the moment. I could remember all the noises all the voices that was all around me. The laughter of my brothers and the producers and the directors of the Ed Sullivan Show. I sat there on couch feeling a bit out of place. I never felt comfortable off stage, it was on stage that I could be myself. My brothers was laughing talking about girls, it was a subject that they had talked about a lot. It was just never a subject that I ever got on.
My oldest brother Jermain tapped me on my shoulder." Hey Mike, there's that Aaliyah girl over there, man." he said, teasingly. " She's pretty cute, don't you think?"
I blushed shyly as I glanced over at the little girl who stood across the room. She was standing next to Susanne and my father. I watched as she threw a facial expression as if she was questioning them in her head. My father had a worried look on his face. "She's pretty cute, I guess." I said uneasily.
"Oh, come on Mike,"Tito placed his arm around me. "Look she's got long hair. gray eyes, and she can sing!"
I shook my head."That doesn't mean anything."
"Man its rare to find a black girl with gray eyes and long hair!!!!" Jermain laughed. "Michael go talk to her." He was pushing me up off my seat.
"No."
"If you don't go I will tell Joseph what you did last night."
"Man, I didn't do anything!!!"
He gave me a devilish smile." He doesn't know that."
My face fell and I glanced over at her, she was now sitting on the bench with a book in her hand. I bit my bottom lip for a moment, hesitating.
"Go on, Mike." Jermaine gave me a a little push forward.
I sighed and began walking across the room. I could hear them giggling behind me. When I finally reached her I stood there not knowing what to say. She didn't even notice I was there."Who are you?" I wanted to lunch myself for sounding so rude.
She glanced up at me, her light gray eyes meeting mine. There was something about those eyes that caught my full attention something that made use instantly connect, almost ad if they were calling out to me, reaching out to me.
Her eyebrow was raised and her mouth partially open."I'm Aaliyah, who are you?"
"I'm Michael Jackson."
Prince was typing when I stopped and pulled out of my flashback. I couldn't go on with it, it only made me miss her more.
He stopped and glanced up at me. " Is that all?"
I shook my head." You have to understand that this is hard for me, son. So just give me a moment so I can continue."
He nodded." So her eyes, did she ever explain to you why her eyes changed colors the way they did."
"Prince, you know the answer to that question."
" I know but I want to know what she told you."
I sighed." I had only known her for two weeks when I had noticed. I only saw her on Saturday's and any other days I would see her she would be heading home with Susanne. On day we were in the studio together because we were sharing then hours. She had came up to me and the first thing that I noticed was that her eyes were green. I-"
"It had to have been a Friday?" he smiled, cutting me off.
I nodded." Her eyes were only green on Fridays."I said as I removed the pieces of hair from my forehead" Anyways, I asked her if she had contacts or something and she gave me that same look that she would usually give me when someone asked her a question that caught her off guard. She explained to me that her grandmother had an eye condition that caused her eyes to change four different shades of brown, green, and and two shades of gray. It was hereditary. It skipped her mother but it was passed on to her."
"Did she ever tell you what the condition was?"
I shook my head." I don't even think she knew. She used to be real insecure about because kids in school would call her freaky eyed or rainbow eyes." Then the corners of my lips pulled up into a smoke against my will." I thought they were beautiful, it fascinated me some how."
"What was your favorite color for them to change to?"
"Green."
Prince wrote it down in his note book and then looked back up me." So do you want to continue with the story of how you guys met, or..."
I pressed my lips into a line and held breath for a moment. I looked over at a picture of her that sat on the side of my bed, exhaling slowly." Where did I leave off?"
"You were introducing yourself to Mom."
"Oh, yeah." I tried not to pull myself into that moment and to just tell the story the way it was. " Well, I was joking with her, pretending like I didn't know who she was, but I don't think she got it. I found out that she was Susanne's God daughter-"
"Huh?" A rush of confusion came over her.
"I'll explain as we get farther into her life story."
He rose his eyebrow at me And continued typing."Continue."
"We instantly connected, I could feel whenever I was in her presence, we were meant to be best friends. After the Ed Sullivan show I only saw her every other weekend, like I said. Then she went off on tour again. Susanne had to leave her with one of the nanny's while she stayed behind with my brothers and I. Liyah hated that, she never felt comfortable with nanny's even as a grown woman. She would complain about it all the time to Susanne so Susanne had arranged with Berry to have us travel the same states same countries all at the same time, release albums all at the same time that Susanne could be with her. It worked for the best of her benefit."
"Wouldn't that effect with the album sales?"
"We thought that at first but it seems to me that her fans was my fans and my fans was hers, there only a small percentage of the fan base who only liked me and your uncles, or her."
"So no one lost any sales in tickets or records?"
I shook my head." Not that I can remember."
"When you guys started touring what was one of the first things that made you guys connect?"
I glanced up at the ceiling trying to remember." The first tour we had ever done together was in 1970, I believe. She was twelve and I was eleven. It was then first tour I had ever done I was constantly asking her questions about the tours, what was going to happen, even though we wasn't going to be in the same stadium." I felt myself pulling into another flashback.
I was standing in the hotel room getting ready to head to the stadium when there was a small knock on the door. I walked to it and opened it. She was standing there in a pink dress with little socks and white shows; she looked as if she was heading to a Baptist Church or something. Her face was creased in utter frustration. Her eyebrows pulled together, her hazel brown eyes almost glaring. I thought for a moment that I had done something wrong.
"Can I come in?" She asked.
I opened the door a little wider." Come in?" I said. "Are you okay?" I asked as I closed the door back.
"Huh?" she turned, her eyebrows raised now. " Oh, nothing."
"Are you sure, you look really mad."
She shook her head." No, I'm not, I just hate wearing these dresses." She held her arms out with a disgusted look on her face.
"Why?"
"I feel highly uncomfortable. Susanne says it makes me look 'Cute'."She rolled her eyes and plopped down on the bed." Whatever." She then rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "Besides, when I'm mad, you would know."
I cocked my head to the sigh." What do you mean?"
"My eyes changes this weird reddish brown color when I get mad, its really creepy."
"Really?!?" I said awe. "That's cool."
She looked up at me, with another disgusted look on her face." No its not."
"Yes it is, its so different, I like it."
She raised her eyebrow at me, her mouth slowly pulling into a smirk." Oh really?"
I only nodded.
"Well, thanks." I could tell that she wasn't sure if I was telling the truth or not. But she kept smiling, showing each dimple on both sides of her cheeks.
There was one of those weird awkward moment of silence. But then it was interrupted by Jermaine when he came out of the bathroom and stopped short." What's going on in here?"
Liyah looked up at him." I just wanted to wish you guys good luck on your first show. I won't be able to see you until tomorrow so Susanne thought I should be nice and show some gratitude."For twelve year old she was over mature, very mature. She had always told me that she had an old soul and I kind of believe that that was true.
Jermaine looked at her then looked at me then back at her, a crooked smile spread across his face."Aliyah-"
"Its Ah-Lee-yah, how many times I have to tell you that?"
"Oh Potato, patah-toe."
Liyah walked up to me."I have to go, good luck." she said then gave me a hug. She smelled the way she has always smelled to me. But that first hug she gave me was something that I can't explain, I felt something there. And it was then I knew, we were connected.
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A/N: Next part will be in a POV I think you've all been waiting for. Alyssa's POV.
Peace and love,
Kay.