𝙽𝚘𝚝 𝚅𝚊𝚗𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚊

𝚁𝚎𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚌𝚒𝚕𝚎

*Requested jacksongroupie *

★
1988
New York City
Word Count: 13.5k

It had been four agonizing days since you'd last spoken to him, since you'd even allowed yourself to think of him. His presence, once so comforting, now felt like a jagged wound. Each memory of him was another shard of glass piercing through you. The betrayal, the heartbreak—it felt like your chest had been crushed, shattered into a million tiny fragments, impossible to piece back together. He had called you "My Girl," made you believe you were his everything, but after that night, everything was tainted. What once felt like a dream was now an unrelenting nightmare, one that played on repeat in your mind, tormenting you with every passing moment.

That night was plastered everywhere—on television screens, across newspaper headlines, whispered about in conversations you couldn't escape. That kiss, her kiss, replayed over and over in your mind, like a cruel loop. The sight of her lips on his still burned into your vision, making you nauseous with every flash of recollection.

Why did she kiss him? And why did he just stand there, unmoving, as if her lips on his meant nothing? A thousand questions raced through your mind, all of them worse than the last. Had he been cheating on you this whole time? Was every sweet word, every whispered promise, a lie? Had the love you thought was so real never even existed at all?

Now, you sat stiffly at the dinner in his honor, your presence at the event feeling like a punishment. It was being hosted by the United Negro College Fund, an evening meant to celebrate his success, but for you, it felt like your heart was being laid bare before a crowd. His mother, Katherine, had insisted you attend, had even personally invited you. She held your hand now, her fingers warm and gentle, silently acknowledging the depth of your pain. She knew. She understood what it felt like to see the man you loved kiss someone else in front of thousands of people at Madison Square Garden, to have that image seared into your memory. It was unbearable.

Every second in that room felt suffocating. It was as if his eyes were always on you, watching, piercing through you with a burning intensity that made you sick. You could feel your pulse racing, the bile rising in your throat as you fought back the urge to scream, to cry, to demand answers from the man who had shattered your heart. The weight of your grief was suffocating, and it sat heavy on your chest, trapping you in place.

You hadn't spoken to him since that night. You couldn't. The moment the scene had unfolded in front of you—her lips pressed against his, his frozen reaction—you'd fled. Your heart pounding, your vision blurred with tears, you'd rushed back to the hotel, barely registering your surroundings as you packed your bags with shaking hands. The ache in your chest was unbearable, suffocating, and the thought of being near him, breathing the same air as him, felt like it would destroy you. So you ran, found another hotel, anywhere that offered an escape from the tormenting replay of that kiss.