The Girl is Mine • MJ Fanfic • COMPLETED

Nineteen: Everything's Not Okay

A Month and a Half Later - November, 1988

"These are gonna be great," Benji said to me as he stood beside me during the shoot. During this past month, I've been working with Benji a lot on different shoots. I've definitely made a lot of connections in this past month and I couldn't be happier.

"I agree," I replied after I finished up with the shoot.

We were currently shooting for a magazine spread. Benji let me take the lead on this one, which I was grateful for. He'd been letting me takeover these past few shoots. He would just stand to the side and watch me work. He never really put much input in anything, allowing me to have full creative control.

After we finished up, they began taking down the set, as Benji and I went and looked over everything from today. While he was going over everything with me, I placed the back of my hand over my mouth feeling the sudden urge to throw up. I was confused because this was random as hell.

"You okay?" Benji asked as he looked me over.

I closed my eyes keeping my hand on my mouth until the feeling went away. I took a deep breath as I nodded my head. He had a look of concern on his face, but I didn't blame him.

"I'm fine, thank you. I just feel a little sick." I told him. "It's probably because I didn't eat breakfast this morning," I added. That was the only logical reason for me feeling like this. Not to mention the headache and dizziness that came along with the sick feeling.

"You gotta eat Lauren. Can't have my best shooter passing out mid-shot," he joked as he laughed. I laughed as well. "Imma go get you a bottle of water," he told me and I nodded as he walked away. A few minutes later he came back with a bottle of water, and a muffin from the food table.

"Thank you," I told him as I took a bite out of the muffin. I chewed the muffin slowly before taking a sip of water to wash it all down. The muffin didn't really help with much except the lingering feeling of hunger. I still felt sick, but I tried my best to play it off so I could get through the rest of this shoot.

After going over everything, we had to move to a different set in the other room. This time we were shooting promo posters for an upcoming movie. I wanted to be excited so bad, but I just didn't have the energy. I did the best I could to be energetic. Not only did I want everyone to know I was fine, I didn't want to seem like a party pooper or anything. Despite how I felt, it was still important that I made these damn connections.

Luckily everything went well for the remainder of the shoot. We were there for about three or four more hours. I was tired as hell and wanted to get in the damn bed.

Thankfully, the sick feeling I had was finally gone. Maybe it was breakfast. I gotta make sure that I eat more often. Lately I've been skipping breakfast because I haven't had much of an appetite. I guess it was all starting to catch up with me now.

. . .

I sighed in relief as I reached my apartment. I pulled my key out of my purse and unlocked it before walking in and closing the door behind me. I let out a breath as I sat my purse on the rack. I walked over to my answering machine and pressed it seeing I had a couple of messages.

After listening to the first two messages from my siblings and the other from Ashlyn, I couldn't help the smile that appeared on my face when listening to the third.

It was Michael, he was telling me that he was checking on me and that he missed me. He also told me where he was and where he was headed next. After rambling on the voicemail, he ended it telling me that he loved me and couldn't wait to see me, and that he'd call me later.