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Author's Chapter Notes:

Had a lot of fun writing this cheesy pointless story. Thanks for reading this far. Sorry the ending is sad.

The words flew from him so fast that Carolyn nearly flinched.

Michael rubbed his neck. "I didn't find out until yesterday night. We are living with a family friend here, just for a little while. Until my mom got back on her feet. Now we're movin' back, in another city close to good work." A sad smile swelled on his face, then left. He continued. "My parents don't get a long too well, you see." He mumbled.

Michael clasped Carolyn's hand, but her head wouldn't lift. "Don't cry." Michael's gentle voice said above her head. Carolyn pressed her fingers to her dripping eyes.

Michael's mind thought about it. When his mother turned down a dirt road to enter this honky tonk in the middle of nowhere, the last thing he expected was a white girl to be clinging around his shoulders like this. It was a feeling of guilt that bothered him. He would have to leave something behind when he had never meant to be noticed here, or even meant to be wanted here.

A long, long walk had to be done before Michael could finally fill up his Bentley with the can of gas that only Carolyn could go in to buy--with Michael's own pocket change. He and Carolyn filed into the car and Michael started the engine.

"C'mon, I'll take you home." Carolyn's date stated, saying the obvious with an expressionless face. The mood had soured, oddly, after they finally got what they needed. Michael gripped both of his hands on his steering wheel and didn't press the gas.

Carolyn interjected his thoughts. "I wish I could go with you." She muttered.

"No, you don't." Michael countered.

Carolyn stiffened. His irritated tone stung her.

"Stop playing these little games!" He went on. "You know you don't belong someplace, but you stay anyway! You weren't meant for that gang and you aren't meant for me." He huffed at her silence. "You aren't supposed to be with me. This wasn't supposed t'happen." The truck grumbled underneath them like a volcano.

"But it did." Carolyn defended.

Michael met her eyes and shrank back inwardly. If there was a steelier look from a woman, only his own mother could give it.

"I know who I really am now, because you came here, Michael. Before that day, I--" Carolyn swallowed the lump in her throat. "I didn't know who I was. I just wanted to be somebody other than...." Carolyn fumed in place. "So, I ain't gonna sit here an' pretend like you never existed. But that's what you wanna do, ain't it? Ain't it?!"

Michael stared.

"Well, once I get out of this...pocket'a hell, I'm takin' the first bus to Indiana and I am comin' to see you whether you like it or not!!"

Michael put two hands on Carolyn's shaking shoulders. "OK! Oh-Kay." He had to giggle a little. This side to Carolyn was more than a little scary. "Calm down. Lemme get you home."

Some tears wiggled down Carolyn's cheeks as she caught her breath.

Michael finally parked in the deserted back lot of Bigg's Diner, a few blocks from Carolyn's neighborhood. He turned off the truck and pulled Carolyn into him to straddle his slacks. Their noses almost touched and they looked right into each others' eyes.

"I promise. I'm gonna write you. It might take a little while for it to get down here...." Michael began.

Carolyn's lips twitched.

"...but you just wait. Alright?" Michael Jackson finished.

"Alright." Carolyn Hill echoed.

The couple shared a little smile. Carolyn looked down, suddenly coy. Michael touched her chin, ready to wipe away any more tears.


"You're making it real hard to forget you." Carolyn remembered Michael's voice breathing between them. Michael lengthened their kiss, letting her know that, at least for tonight, he wasn't going anywhere.


Epilogue

Carolyn walked into her morning class with her flowery smile. In the last six months of high school, the student body could still say with complete certainty that Carolyn Hill was innocent to a fault. Only some things had changed. Now, Carolyn seemed to smile more and talk more, and her cinnamon-brown hair had grown to the middle of her back. It was a mystery, though, why she took so many trips to the hardware store these days.

Jason, who was now a regular face after-school at the SGA meetings and who was the re-instated treasurer of the math team and chess club, had been working himself up to ask Carolyn out for weeks. He had missed his chance for homecoming, and swore not to let other people control his life as much as Dick had done ever again.

As students poured out from the front doors after the dismissal bell, Jason's eyes volleyed through the crowd. Carol Jean descended briskly down the stair s and was about to start on her way home until Jason lightly took hold of her arm. Carolyn spun around to see Jason. She still couldn't get used to seeing his hair combed neatly instead of gelled into a flashy pomp. She accepted his odd request to walk her home.

When it was just the two of them in front of the reverend's house, Jason started, "I don't wanna bug you, but I was just wondering. " Jason pushed himself to go on, wondering more about why it was so hard to ask her to lunch. It was Carol-Jean for Pete's sake! "Do you wanna go grab something after school tomorrow?"

Carolyn shook her head. "No, thank you. But, I'll see you tomorrow." She continued down the sidewalk, her brown curls bouncing behind her.

Jason blew, out of disappointment and enchantment. Maybe next time.

When Carolyn hurriedly filed through the mail in her mailbox, she deflated. There was still nothing from Indiana.

Later, when Carolyn went to start dinner for herself, her father, and her uncle that now worked in the nearby cornfields, she noticed a package on the kitchen table. The label was from Cambridge University Press in Boston, Massachusetts.

Carolyn opened the box. The smell of fresh ink floated to her nose. Gilded on a plain volume was Society and Law.

"I hope you like them." Reverend Hill called from the study. "They're brand new, and they will prepare you for college. So be careful with them. And there's a letter for you on the counter. Remember Michael Jackson?"

Carolyn gushed with excitement. As much as she wanted to squeeze her father in a hug, she knew that he didn't like to be disturbed when writing holiday sermons, especially for Easter. Carolyn held the yellowed envelope in her fingers. It wasn't Lemuel's perfect cursive. This handwriting was boyish. The sight of the address was already making her knees weak.

Carolyn retreated to her room and locked the door, leaving the stove untouched. Pages and pages and pages and pages of smokey-scented paper piled at her sides, waiting to be read next. She devoured Michael's penciled words, alone.

Michael's news was good. He was working a steady job to help out his family now that his father wasn't the breadwinner anymore. He wrote that he still found time to dance, and had thought about saving up for some real classes, but that wasn't too serious of a thought at the time. More tender words were saved to explain exactly how much time he had spent thinking about her. Her vision became teary as she read on, but a hopeful smile grew on her face when Michael wrote how he dreamed of the day that he would see her again.

Chapter End Notes:

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