Fall Again (a Michael Jackson fanfiction)

10. Flashback

Hopes POV 🥀

It was 1998, I was 17 years old. I had a gold kimono wrapped round me, my hair tied in a ponytail with a matching gold scrunchie.

I'd heard a crash from my brothers room, it had been his 20th birthday today. He hadn't seemed happy.
"Hopey?" I spun round and Juliette was there, in the doorway of our room, white in the face with her fringe all sticking up from being asleep. "Did you hear that too?"

"Yes." I whispered. "I'm just going to check that Jamie is okay."

I rapped on his door softly, "James? Is everything okay?"

There was no answer and my heart starting to beat fast. Don't panic, don't panic, don't panic.
I pushed open the door, expecting to find him asleep in bed. WANTING to find him asleep in bed.

But he wasn't. Terror rushed through me, remembering the day mum found him in the bath. "James!" I hissed, looking round the room.

There was a moan, a groan, I don't know how to describe it. It was an animal like noise, filled with pain like I'd never heard before.

"Jammy dodger?" I used my childhood nickname for him as I entered the dark room, shivering from the cold.

"Hopey." I spun round at the sound of his muffled, tearful voice, and saw a shadow sitting behind the chest of drawers, his head on his knees, hands buried in his hair. 

"Oh Jammy dodger." I sat next to him and pulled him into my arms. He was taller but much skinnier than me, and he collapsed against me, sobbing into my shoulder.

Juliette crept over to us and sat down too, and all three of us sat together holding each other, James's sobs racking his thin, once muscled and healthy body.
Juliette was crying quietly too, and I felt my eyes sting, but I refused to cry. I never cry. NEVER.

I ignored the tear that ran down my face, swiped it away as if it never existed. I rocked James in my arms and stroked Juliette's hair, unlike me she had straight hair, cut in a long bob with a thick fringe.

It must have been hours before dawn came, and we stayed together on that floor, holding each other. James was asleep on my shoulder and Juliette was asleep against the chest of drawers, gently snoring.

I glanced at the window, a dim light came in through the curtains, it must be about 4 or 5 or maybe even 6. It was a summer night, but still cold.

There was a whine and some scratching, and I gently dislodged James, stood up and opened the door. Our dog, Sapphire Rose "Saff", (Juliette named him - yes, him. She wanted a girl dog but mum came back with a boy and so Juliette just named Sapphire Rose with the name she was planning to give the girl dog) came into the room, sniffing the carpet and laying down next to us.
He whined and I shushed him quickly, afraid of waking James and Juliette up. I went over to James bed, took a blanket and draped it over both of them, then patted Saff on the head and headed back to my room.

I slept the last few hours of the morning and got up at 11, it was Saturday thankfully so I didn't need to get up early to go to college.

I was shattered, my hair had escaped its scrunchie and was all over the place and I had dark circles under my eyes. I went to sleep practically as my head touched the pillow.