As my shame ran down my throat into the sink, I felt him right behind me. He was muttering things I didn't understand and holding my hair back, and as I continued to vomit, I felt acidic tears well up in my eyes. That this had to happen now, I thought, is enough shame and humiliation to kill me. The very act of having one's soul purged from one's throat is so mercilessly awful that for a moment after the flow stopped, I didn't know what to do with myself. I washed my mouth and face, grabbed a towel and pressed it against me.

"I might be pregnant."

It wasn't until I said it that I realized it. Folding the towel back, I felt drops still dripping down my temples - I put my hand on my stomach and looked straight at Michael, my damp hair sticking to my face.

"I didn't mean for it to happen."

Michael's face was dark. For a moment I didn't know if he wanted to hear more, but he remained silent, so I continued.

"I was drunk and I couldn't help it."

He shook his head, grabbed my elbow with light fingers and led me outside.

"Let's take a walk, huh?"

The bright light outside was invigorating. We walked along the flowerbeds of our property and beyond in silence, neither of us knowing what to say after such a heavy piece of information. I wondered if I was wrong in sharing it, that I shouldn't burden him when he had worries and issues enough to worry about. Then again, the panic I had suddenly experienced over the potential child in my belly required an outlet. As we walked and walked, I became, oddly enough, more and more aware; that there was a possibility of life within me that had begun to form on that terrible May night. The silence became increasingly fraught after ten minutes, when he finally stopped in front of me at the beginning of a narrow path, where more forestation began. He kept his lips together until he spoke.

"I'm trying to think of the right words to say."

I frowned and pushed my hair back and felt where his hands had been, then shook my head, willfully. The sun burned into his face from this point, but it didn't seem to bother him. then he gently took my hand, holding it between his.

"But you have my hand. And my ear, if you need it."

I nodded and tried to put on a brave face, but my bottom lip trembled like a small child about to burst into tears. I tried to avoid his dark gaze, but he bent his head to see me better, and when he saw my watery eyes, he said "come here," and I wondered what I could do without him. My darling! He pulled me against his chest like a protégé. Silently, my tears slid down my cheeks onto his red blouse, and I couldn't help myself. How many times had I been like this in his arms? I was so embarrassed, and yet I couldn't help wrapping my arms tighter around his waist and taking his breath away. I had thought, after Lionel, that I would have an abhorrence of men: I pictured myself as a tragic girl who could never love again and would suffer caresses like torture. But right now, all I wanted was to feel his breath in my ear, his lips on my tear-stained cheeks and his hands stroking my hair out of my face.

"It's alright, Bethel. You're alright."

Gently he pushed me off him, leading me to a bench. As we sat there like that, looking at the horizon from the small height, I wondered in my mind what I should do if I were indeed pregnant. I felt him looking at me, and I looked the other way. He seemed to have guessed my thoughts.

"You're not pregnant. At least, I don't think you are."

"You don't know that. You can't say that."

"Let that rest for a moment," he took my hand again, "Bethel.... look at me for a minute."

"I can't."

He sighed.

"Okay... I understand," he said, as if aware of his wonderfully beautiful eyes, "but the important thing, Bethel, is you must know that you are bigger than what happened. You are infinitely worth more than what this ... this ... what he thought you to be. And whatever happens: you're alright. Okay? You're alright. And you'll get through this."

I nodded and was grateful for his words. But it would take a lifetime to understand their meaning properly. The silence returned, but this time it was not so heavy: we welcomed it with sad but quiet hearts. I closed my eyes and felt the sun on my face, the tears still on my cheeks dried up with warmth, and for the first time in those weeks I felt my yoke lighten slightly. Minutes slipped by like rippling water in a narrow stream. Occasionally, in the distance, cars flew by and cyclists cycled by, but no one noticed our presence. I prayed to God that He would freeze this moment for an eternity, because despite the excruciating pain I was still experiencing, I didn't know how it would measure up to my inevitable goodbye to Michael.

"Michael?"

"Hm?"

I looked at him and my cheeks glowed. My heart soared and I felt more than ever his grip on my hand, simultaneously encumbering and easing me. His sweet hands, with which he had comforted me since the beginning of our friendship, his hands that had embraced me so many times, his hands that by their own act had loved me on a Saturday morning. I had turned to God before, but in my mind I now turned to Michael: hold me forever, like this, this way, or if you can't, fold me up and put me in your breast pocket, carry me against your heart for the rest of your life until it stops beating. I looked at him, saw his handsome and sweet face and I thought, heavens, I am completely, unavoidably, sickeningly and obsessively in love with Michael Jackson! And he gently squeezed my hand to remind me that I was going to say something. I sighed and smiled.

"I love you."

But the words carried nowhere near the weight I felt with them. He didn't bat an eyelid: that I loved him everyone knew, though no one knew in what way. How could I ever love anyone else after him? Others from our village, from my family, would marry, have children, remember Michael as a beautiful prince from a fairy tale in which they happened to get a supporting role. They would celebrate, baptize their children and grow old, they would tell stories of the past, and Michael would be nothing more than a fantastic legend. But I would sit here, on this bench, petrified because I had asked God, and in everything I would do I would actually sit here beside him. If I would walk down the street, I would do it to the rhythm of his music, if I would eat, I would eat to remember him better, if I would love, it would be only because of him, and if I would make love, I would do it not with the fear of May night but in the desire that it would be him, Michael, and he would never know, because after July 2, 1990, the day I would move, I would never see him again.

I know, dear reader, this sounds impossibly dramatic. But I write this in truth. I know, very well now, that had I indeed broken contact with him like I was convinced I would do, I would have eventually gotten over him. Such is life. I could've had a perfectly calm life, fulfil my timid dreams.The thing is: I did not want to, never wanted to, not then and not now. Besides, of course I was dramatic. After what happened it was my first love who sat there comforting me. I am so glad to say he is also my last.

And here he sat, smiling, and he kissed the back of my hand and held it to his lips for a moment. My body tensed, I felt like I was floating, and my heart was working overtime. How badly did I not want to kiss him? He looked at me expectantly with his dark eyes, they peered over the back of my hand, and as I bent toward him to indeed kiss him, he suddenly seemed to collapse. He let go of my hand and stood up, grasping his chest. With a hand on his knee, he remained bent over, and for a moment I was perplexed. I had seen a heart attack once before: I was only seven when my grandfather collapsed before my eyes. He had gone white, had stretched out his arms to get rid of the pain. Even before he realized it himself, my mother knew what was going on, for she had such a razor-sharp sense of medical conditions that it sometimes seemed she was clairvoyant. She had put her coffee away and had walked over to him, all the while asking him questions that I could now hear myself saying, "Where does it hurt? Your arms, too? What about your jaw, and neck?" But while my grandfather meekly answered her, Michael was too perplexed by his own pain to answer, and meek as a child he allowed himself to be guided back to our house - and the ten minutes seemed an eternity.

"Don't stress out, okay? We might need to call an ambulance."

"God. Please don't."

"Should I just let you starve of a heart attack, then?"

"No."

And his pale face showed a faint smile. His poor hand gave me a telling squeeze on my shoulder, "the blind leading the blind, right?"

But before we got home, he was walking upright, his color had recovered and laughing loudly, he greeted Elijah, who had just come home on his bike and greeted him back with a handshake, specially curated for the two of them. By now Mother was busy in the kitchen, I smelled it from here, Elijah ran into the hallway of our beautiful chalet - Michael behind him, but then he lingered behind in the hallway. He turned around, waited for me to come in and smiling said he was fine now. I sighed deeply and not knowing what to say, I just looked at him, and he me. We stood close together, just short of feeling his breathing against my chest, just short of the hint of his fingers stroking mine. A moment ago he had taken me in his arms, and my tears had only just dried from his blouse, but it was different now, and I wondered what would have happened if his heart had almost not given out. Both of us frowned, and almost bent toward each other, purely to see what would happen, until we were shaken from our curious euphoria by the sounds from inside the house. He left my side and walked into the living room, and I wondered what on earth had just happened.

Four days later, on Monday, June 4, Michael was hospitalized in Santa Barbara.