Forever and a Half || Michael Jackson

Chapter Twenty - Berries

Chapter twenty – Berries

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-The following day-

Well, after yesterday, I think today will be a little more positive. After coming home from the graveyard yesterday, Michael decided that he wanted to use his family's remaining ashes as part of a necklace – the pendant containing a small amount of them all. The rest of the ashes that aren't used are going to be scattered at his old home.

At the moment, it is around 3:30pm. Michael and I have been outside in my garden, just relaxing a little to pass the time. It's been nice, to be honest – and it's certainly taken our minds off of real life.

"Hey, Cit?" Michael calls me by my nickname to catch my attention, so I turn my head to look at him, nodding for him to continue speaking, "Uhm ... is this what we'll be doing all afternoon?" he questions.

I shrug, "I don't know. I guess it's up to you on what we do." My eyes look up at the tree's branches; I'm leaning against the trunk, "I don't mind."

"Surely you mind." He frowns in confusion, "Like ... everything we do seems to be my choice – and if it's your choice, you make your decision based on what you think I would want to do. You never seem to decide for yourself, yet it's your house."

"I really don't mind," I assure him, "I'm easy; anything we do is okay to me."

"Okay, you win." He pouts and folds his arms, "So I decide that ... we do whatever you decide. That's my decision; take it or leave it, Miss Espinosa." A smirk rises onto his face at his clever answer, causing me to laugh.

"Oh, well played there, Michael, very well played!" I remark sarcastically, trying to seem serious after my mini outburst of laughter, "Seriously ... you make deciding what to do so difficult!"

"Then you decide what we do for the afternoon. If you make me decide, I will refuse to ... to ... " He tries to think of an ending to his sentence, "I'll refuse to talk to you and I'll refuse to choose forever." He almost laughs, but with a hard bite on his lip, he stops himself.

A sigh of defeat passes my lips, "Fine, you win Michael. How about we go to the fields for a while? Every time we've tried to go so far, we've always ended the trip on a low. Let's make this one happy – third time lucky," I tease.

Michael nods in agreement, "Alright, that sounds fair. Let's go," he says, standing up from the grass, brushing himself down.

He opens my garden gate, allowing me to go out first. After thanking him, he exits my garden himself. Before you say it, my front door is already locked – I did it this morning when we came out into the garden in the first place.

We take the quick walk to the fields, and once we're there, we walk to the top of the hill, sitting down together. From here, we can see everything – the rest of the fields, along with the group of trees that lead to the river – the river where Michael almost attempted suicide. But let's not walk on old tracks.

"It's so beautiful up here," I breathe, taking in the wonderful views. One of the perks of living in the middle of nowhere is the views you get. They're absolutely stunning.

Michael presses his hands against the grass, leaning back slightly on them, "Yeah, I agree," he says. He averts his eyes to mine, just as I turn to look at him, so we end up making eye contact, "It is really beautiful."

Words try to come from my mouth, but somehow no noise accompanies them. Why am I suddenly so speechless? Maybe it's because the sudden eye contact has surprised me, and now I can't ... think straight, I guess.