ᴏɴᴇ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ʟᴏᴏᴋ ᴀɴᴅ ɪ ꜰᴏʀɢᴇᴛ ᴇᴠᴇʀʏᴛʜɪɴɢ
ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: Some people leave scars because they hurt us. Others leave scars because they were the only ones who ever knew how to reach us. And sometimes the hardest thing to accept is that the person who broke your heart was also the person who once made it feel whole.
ᴀ/ɴ: Hiiii soooo I've had this on my mind for a reallyyyyy long time honestly, I just needed to get it out of my system honestly. I just kept on listening to Mamma Mia by ABBA, and let me tell you I love that song and I hadn't realized how sad the song was until I heard someone cover it on tiktok as they played the piano. Man that destroyed me. So hopefully this won't destroy you all as much as it did to me.
The bright stadium lights hit your eyes as you can hear the excited chants of the crowds as you near the piano on the center of the stage. As the crowd held their breath the moment you sat down on the piano stool. Michael observed you from the tent in which he was watching the show, holding his breath far longer than needed. The anticipation to the song you were gonna sing was thrumming through his veins, the feeling leaving a coldness in him he had never experienced every time he heard you sing. He knew. He knew what you were gonna sing. He knew what you felt when you wrote the song. He knew what feelings resurfaced every time you sang it.
“I've been cheated by you since I don't know when” you sang softly to the mic hearing the crowd erupt into screams the moment they heard you sing. The first notes of the song resonated throughout the stadium as your fingers pushed the piano’s keys. Your eyes glued to the piano not wanting to look into the crowd because you knew he was there somewhere. “So I made up my mind, it must come to an end,” the words dripped out of your mouth like sweet honey, closing your eyes for a brief moment trying to regulate yourself and not cry in front of the crowd.
“Look at me now, will I ever learn?” You opened your eyes, looking at the piano’s keys asking yourself the same question over and over again. The reminder of her and him in your mind is what made you question every little thing. When will you truly learn?
The desperation hit Michael hard in the chest, he knew that you knew he was here. He wanted you to look at him, to face him. At the same time he didn’t want it anymore, he didn’t want to keep on hurting you more than he already has. Each time every verse of the song left your lips the agony kept on growing, the internal conflict in his mind was even greater than before. Despite it all, he couldn't look away. His eyes followed every movement of your hands across the piano keys, every breath you took between verses, every slight tremble in your voice. The need to see your face became unbearable.He wanted to know what you were hiding from everyone in the crowd, including him. The anger. The hurt.. He wanted to know if there was anything left of the woman who once looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. Yet you never looked up. Not once.
As your finger touched the next key you finally looked up to the crowd. “Mamma mia, here I go again.” In that millisecond Michael saw the smile filled with pain in your face, your eyes filled with tears that threatened to fall. You saw him looking at you, even from a distance you could recognize the look in his eyes. The eyes don’t lie. His never did at least to you.
You turn your face towards the piano once again still smiling a tear falls softly from your eye leaving a wet trail against your cheek. “My, my, how can I resist you?”
Michael’s breath caught up in his throat and he still kept on looking at you. The crowd surrounding him and you became silent to him as if they had disappeared. The cameras disappeared. The stage, gone. All that remained was you in that forsaken piano with him miles away from you. Smiling through tears, not even bearing to look at him from a distance. Suddenly the song didn't sound playful or upbeat anymore. More than a confession. It was a story.
“I've been angry and sad about things that you do,” the line dripped into Michael’s ears, making breathing seem impossible, he knows what he has done and he is doing. You were aware of everything. It hurt him more than it hurt you.
Every tear you shed becomes two new wounds. One for you. One for Michael. All of it was his doing. “One more look” You look up again, looking at him directly and to Michael it felt as if you had reached within his soul and being. “And I forget everything, whoa,” he felt as if he could forget what he had done and bask in the moment with you despite the pain inflicted by his own hand, but what he couldn’t erase was the pain he caused you. He tightened his hands into fists and bit the inside of his cheek trying not to let out any emotion, despite the fact that Michael knew that you could read every little thing of him even from a distance.
You saw every little thing of him, and the more you saw the more it tore you apart, it was torture having him so close but oh so far. Even with the crowd chanting and singing along it felt as if you had been left alone with him. And you so desperately wanted it to be like that. “Yes, I've been brokenhearted,” you kept on singing, hitting the piano’s keys harder as you proceeded with the song, your own emotions kept on betraying you. Michael saw it from afar as his chest kept on constricting against his beating heart. “Blue since the day we parted,” the line leaves your lips as a few tears fall down your cheeks, hitting each key in the piano with more force than necessary. With each passing line of the verse the more force you added, your team watching from backstage swallowing hard as they’ve seen you in every stage of grief trying to go through it alone.
Michael saw every little movement of yours. He saw your frustration. He saw the pain. He saw the heartbreak. He saw it all. He closed his eyes for a brief second not waiting to miss a thing, taking a shaky deep breath in and out. All of it in an attempt to regulate his emotions, from not breaking down and shattering before hitting the backstage and trying to talk to you.
It was selfish. More than selfish, truly. Michael wanted, no needed to talk to you for at least a second. When will he truly learn?
“Why, why did I ever let you go?” Michael kept looking at you as you kept on spilling every little feeling and pain into the song and it was hitting him harder than ever. It was shattering every little wall and façade he had built up that no one could get past, not even his wife. The feeling was consuming every little part of him, every question that his brain had been repeating each day for months were now screaming at him.
“Mamma mia, now I really know,” you felt trapped by the lyrics as you kept on singing the final parts of the song, wanting the torture to be finally over. It was destroying you internally. Every little thing you had healed was gone. Every little stitch in your heart, ripped out. You were the one breaking every little thing you had built, it was a glorious feeling that would leave you stranded when the next came.
“My, my, I could never let you go” you sang the last line with a shaky voice, your breath leaving you as you stood up from the piano. The crowd returned to you with the loud chanting and applause, it made you feel high for a moment. Looking over at the tent in which Michael was in, you saw Bill escorting him out. Making you swallow hard as you kept on saying your thank you’s and goodbye’s to your fans.
The second you had ended the last line Michael felt the tears he had fought so hard to keep in fall as he motioned Bill to take him backstage. The dam had broken. Every little thing he had kept and piled up had broken out and started to flood every little thing in him, mind to body and body to soul. It felt like relief but God did it burn.
Your crew was scared that you were gonna break the mic as you held it in a steel grip, but they were more scared for the fact that Michael was backstage and you were walking over there to meet him.
The force in your walk as you swayed your hips, shoulders straight, steps steady and the soft delicate movement of your arms felt like an armour that hid every little thing that had come undone on that stage. You swallowed hard because despite that the armor that you had built in a few seconds would come undone the second you were in front of him. Michael saw the way you moved, he watched every little movement of yours, he saw the shield you had put on.
As you stopped right in front of him, you observed him, head to toe. You saw how he was unshielded, guard down, nothing to cover him. He was vulnerable unlike you. You swallowed hard as you kept eyeing him. “How’s the wife?” You didn't regret the words that left you, you were unapologetic of every little thing you were gonna say or had said, it was his fault afterall. Michael couldn't help the tiny flinch that left him when he heard your cold words directed at him. "Don't do that." He whispered, taking a tentative step forward, not wanting to move further as if you were a scared animal.
"Do what, huh?" You couldn’t help the scoff that left your lips when you said it. Michael frowned at your scoff, not because he was offended but because it hurt him. He flexed his hand for a second wanting to move his arm and reach out but deciding not to do so. "Talk like that." You shook your head at the audacity this man had to utter of his mouth as you kept looking at him, you knew he was being vulnerable at the fullest but you didn’t want to let your guard down. Not again. "Like what?" You asked, wanting to keep playing whatever this was.
"Like I don't care." The disbelief showed instantly in your face as you let out a bitter laugh. Unbelievable.
The sound so bitter it almost made Michael cringe from it, never have heard a sound like that come out of you. Your expression turned sour and Michael saw your armour cracking every second of him standing right there in front of you. "You married another woman, Michael." The words hitting Michael like venom he looked down at the ground for a second trying not to cry in front of your very much present crew. He looked at you again. "I know."
“No, Michael. I don’t think you do.” You crossed your arms in front of your chest as if they were to create a barrier between the both of you, almost as if your arms were protecting you from a harsh truth. A harsh truth that sooner or later would destroy everything in its path.
"Did she make you happy?" The question leaving your mouth before you could stop it, it was blunt, no preparation for it. Michael stood there a few seconds that felt like ages, he was watching his next words, it felt like his life depended on them. "I thought she would." Michael whispered loud enough for you to hear, as shame hit him from every angle. His hands had become fists trying to stop them from completely reaching out as you nod looking at everything and everyone around you except him.
In that instant Michael looked at you, really looked at you. For the first time since you had stepped backstage, the anger was gone, the armour protecting you decaying slowly. Between the cracks he could see you, the one he had hurt and broken out of selfishness.
"I thought she would," Michael repeated softly, words barely a whisper, taking another tentative step towards you. Hands flexing again as his arms start to ache from the need to reach you. "But I kept looking for you anyway."
You look away from him, the sight of him has become poisonous. You wanted to run from the truth that you so deeply knew in your heart. You saw it in his eyes, in the way he would talk to the press, and the way he looked at her. "Do you hear yourself, Michael?" You scoff biting your tongue not wanting to continue spitting out venom. As you turned to look at Michael again you noticed the way he had frozen in his spot. "You kept looking for me?" You raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Michael, you married her. You don't get points for missing me while you were with somebody else."
Michael looked at the floor again, he wanted to back down a second, because he was hearing the truth of what he had done. All of it laced up in venomous words, hitting the right spot that would leave him hurting for weeks. As Michael briefly looked up to look at you again he saw the shield was gone, the broken pieces and bits of you were dangling by threads so thin that he thought would break any moment now. "Then why?" The question hung in the air breaking every bit of silence between the two of you.
Michael’s breath caught up in his throat, his chest hurting more every passing second, fists tightening beside him and the ache in his arms grew. "Why her?" You hated how small you sounded when the question left you, it felt like a reminder of when he left you. When Michael didn’t answer you let out a breakthrough your nose that you didn’t know were holding. "Why wasn't I enough?"
“You were. It was me who wasn’t.” Michael whispered out the words looking at you dead in the eye, facing the reality that had haunted him. Your eyes widened a fraction, your hands turned clammy and a frown appeared on your face. Michael noticed it all. You shook your head taking a step back from him, unspoilt tears forming in your eyes. “You knew me.” Michael said all of a sudden in a desperate attempt to keep you beside him longer. “What?” You mumbled out as you turned your head sharply to look at him.
"You saw everything of me." His voice cracked slightly, he took another step forward. The distance between you both didn't feel like miles anymore; it felt like centimeters away. "The good parts. The ugly parts. The parts I spent my whole life trying to hide from everyone." Michael’s dark brown eyes found yours again, he kept holding on, not letting go. “I was afraid. Afraid that you leave, that-that I you wouldn’t be here with me no more.” The frown in your face long gone as you heard him. "So you married somebody else?" Michael nodded, shame taking over him as he admitted to it. "I thought if I started over, if I built something different..." He shook his head in disbelief before looking at you again. “So that maybe I wouldn't keep ruining the only thing that ever felt real." You looked away again, staring at your feet.
“You know you don’t get to come back just because you realized what you left behind.” You shook your head slightly and the grip in your microphone had become even stronger than before, as if that was possible. You looked up, you saw him dead in the eye. “The worst of it all is that I believe you.”
Your crew and Bill trying to disappear as they look at Michael and you interact after the concert. They do not want to be part of that combo.
