Kristina involuntarily yawned at the same time her professor finished the class in the evening. She was really tired and couldn't bear to think that she now had to go and work more with Michael, alone with Michael, instead of making money or studying. She gathered her things and was ready to rush out to her car to make it to Hollywood Hills, when her professor reached her.
'Kristina, could I see you in my office for a moment?'
Kristinas heart leaped at the professors look. She already knew what this was going to be about.
'Um, actually, I have to be somewhere soon, and-'
'This won't take long,' the professor said. Kristina agreed, and walked into the office and sat down across from her teacher, who folded her hands and looked at Kristina with a sad look.
'Kristina, you are one of my best students. Or, you used to be. But these past few months your scores have gotten lower and lower, you've skipped classes, come unprepared several times and you've missed deadlines repeatedly. Not to mention that you show up in class looking like you haven't slept or had a decent meal for weeks. I even think you've lost weight, which is disturbing to me, considering how skinny you already are. Is there something you'd like to talk about?'
Kristina felt like crying. She knew she wasn't doing well in school at the moment, but she didn't know it was that bad, or that her professors had noticed it that much.
'Uh... No. I'm fine, professor, I really am. I've just been stressed out.'
'By what? I know you're not allowed to have a job outside of school. Are things okay at home?'
'Yes, they are. It's just... Uhm... I'm sorry, professor. I promise I'll do better on my schoolwork, okay?'
The professor sighed and lowered her shoulders.
'I'm afraid that's not going to be enough, Kristina. You are here on a scholarship, and as your grades are now, I can't let you continue on that. And, I'm really sorry to tell you this, but unless you ace that test tomorrow, I'm going to have to fail you.'
Kristinas heart dropped.
'But then I won't get to graduate. I'll lose my scholarship, I'll lose everything,' she whispered, the tears prickling in her eyes.
The professor shook her head.
'I know. I really am sorry. I want you to graduate as much as you do. I know you're going to be a great journalist. That's why I need you to go home and study hard for this test. Alright? Because if you do not pass this with a minimum of 90%, I'm afraid the board will decide to cut your scholarship and then you are out of this school. They have already had one meeting about you and your situation, and it was hard for me to convince them to let you continue out the semester. So please, for your own sake? You have left than six months left. This is your last exam before your big thesis. It would be a shame to lose it all now.'
Kristina just looked at her dumbfounded, and nodded. The tears were starting to slowly emerge from her eyes as she got up and left the office, leaving the professor in her chair with a worried look. She went to the girls' bathroom and gathered her thoughts. To distract herself from the bad news she took out her phone and went to Facebook. But that didn't exactly help. A picture of her three best friends from Denmark, Joanna, Sabrina and Mary, appeared. They were all smiling. They had just graduated from university earlier that day with top grades. Kristina had known this of course, but she had completely forgot the date and forgot about contacting them. They would be sleeping now, or be out partying, all happy with no worries and a fresh degree. Much different than her own situation. A few months ago she had been in the top ten of this school, and she had had everything under control. What the hell had happened in that short time? She let out a frustrated cry and banged her hand against the wall, before leaving the lavatory and walking towards her car, trying to conceal her tears.
Thirty minutes later she arrived at Michaels place. She turned off her car and saw, that she would barely have gas to make it back to her apartment. Once again she cursed her current situation, gathered her strength and went up to knock on the door. Rosita, the maid, opened and smiled at her.
'Hello, miss Jensen. Mr. Jackson is in the music room,' pointing her in the right direction.
Kristina smiled and headed for the room, checking the clock. She was 15 minutes late, he was not going to be happy about that. He was pacing around the room when she entered, and she could tell he was in a bad mood.
'Do you not own a watch?' he asked angrily.
'I'm sorry,' she whispered, looking towards the floor, not really in the mood to listen to him or defend herself.
'You know, I'm trying to make a show here, and you're really not making it easier for me. It's really disrespectful of you to just drop in whenever you feel like it. And by the way, you haven't exactly been performing to a very good standard these last few days, and...'
Michael kept going on and on criticizing her, and Kristina was just looking at the ground, fiddling with her guitar and trying to hold back the tears.
'Do you even want to be here?' Michael then asked, standing next to her with his hands on his hips. That question made Kristina snap. She looked at him with an angry look. Michael was surprised to see tears in her eyes. She wasn't exactly the kind of girl you expected to cry.
'Excuse me?' she asked, walking towards him with a rage, that made Michael take a step back.
'Do I want to be here? Do I fucking want to be here? Hell no, I don't! You wanna know where I want to be? I want to be at home studying. Or at the beach, making money. Or at school, actually participating in my education. Or in my bed, getting some actual sleep for once. I do NOT want to be here, where I spend every single fucking day of the week, rehearsing and working for a man whom I do NOT understand, who acts like an asshole and who is being mean and rude to me every chance he gets. And I do NOT want to spend my time failing classes and being hungry because I spend all my time working for a man who in no way appreciates it! That's for sure!'
Michael looked at her, shocked, for a moment. Then Kristina couldn't contain herself anymore, and she hid her face in her hands as she started crying, letting all her frustrations out.
'Are you failing your classes because of this tour?' Michael asked gently, not sure what to do. He wanted to hug her and comfort her, but he wasn't sure she'd let him.
'Yes I am! And I'm also barely scraping by because of this tour. My credit card got shut off last week, and I don't have anymore money. I really try to make everything work, but my professor said today that if I don't ace a test tomorrow I'm going to be kicked out, and in Denmark all of my friends graduated today with high remarks and I just don't know what I'm going to do or what happened!' she cried, completely letting her guard down. She didn't know what else to do.
Michael sighed, gathered up his courage and hugged her. He felt her body stiffen at first, but then she relaxed more. They just stood there for a while. Michael let her cry all the pain out in his arms, whispering comforting words in her ears, rubbing her back. When he felt that she was emptied out, so to speak, he held her out in his arms, lowered his head to her level and smiled at her.
'We don't need to rehearse today.'
'No, it's okay, I can do it. I just-'
'No, listen to me. I'm sorry I've given you such a hard time these past few weeks. I'm a perfectionist, it's a gift and a curse, so I tend to get worked up in my own little world where everything is about my current project, and I forget that people have lives outside of it. I'm really impressed you've been able to do both all of this work and school for so long, and I really appreciate it. I'm so sorry I didn't realize you were being worked too hard. Will you let me make it up to you now?'
'What do you mean?' Kristina said, trying to fix her eyes.
Michael just smiled at her, and took her by the hand.
'Come on,' he answered. They walked towards the exit, and as Michael held the door for Kristina he shouted to Rosita, who was in the kitchen.
'Rosita! Could you call Thomas and Rosmerta and tell them we are coming?'
'Yes sir, right away!'
'Thanks. Call me Michael!' he said before he shut the door.
'Where are we going?' Kristina tried again.
'I'm taking you to be cheered up. Now sit down and relax,' Michael said as he opened the door to a big SUV with tinted glass.
'It's going to take a few hours.'
Michael was driving on the freeway about an hour away from their destination when he noticed that Kristina had, once again, fallen asleep. Before that, they had talked about her current situation, and he decided to let her sleep for as long as possible. She needed it. Michael couldn't believe she had emptied out her savings and gone as far as she had for the tour. Honestly, he had thought she didn't want to be there and that she was getting sick of him, but she was obviously a fighter. And a very pretty one at that. He felt really bad that he had driven her too hard. Maybe he had gone a little overboard in making his plan come true. But even though he didn't like seeing Kristina like that, he had felt kind of good about the fact that she had cried in front of him and had let him comfort her. To him it felt like she was starting to let her guard down. Just a little bit. And that was a good sign. He had never met anyone who intrigued him as much as she did, or anyone who was harder to approach than her. Even when she was sleeping in a car she looked pretty.
Shortly after that, Michael parked the car and turned towards Kristina. He touched her cheek and whispered her name.
'Kristina, we're here.'
She opened her eyes slowly.
'Where are we?' she asked sleepily.
'Neverland,' Michael answered smiling.
Kristina didn't really react to it.
'But you live in the Hollywood Hills.'
Michael chuckled.
'Only temporarily. Neverland is my real home. Now come on, I want you to see it. It's beautiful in the moonlight.' He helped her out of the car and Kristina slowly woke up little after little. When she got out and opened her eyes for real, she saw the big shining Neverland-sign. Her eyes widened. Michael chuckled at her reaction.
'We're at Neverland!' she pointed out.
'I know. I drove the car,' he answered smiling. Kristina just looked at him surprised.
'Come on. Let's go,' he said as he took her hand and let her inside the gates.