MichaeLuna - I'm Not Like Other Girls - Part 6 - Michael Remembers

Days passed that seemed like years to Luna. Years passed that felt like days to Michael.

Suddenly his world was upside down. His reputation had come under fire. He was reeling from the shock. The more lies that threatened to bury him, the more he immersed himself in his music. No matter what the world thought of him, he was determined to give, to make the world better for those in need.

He tried not to think of how much he longed for the gentle touch of a loving woman who would understand his childlike heart. Did she exist anywhere? This sensitive being, a child/woman herself, who would have the courage of a warrior? Where was the one who would stick by his side, caring for the world's plight as deeply as he did?

When she could bear to look into his life, Luna was devastated that there was no one to answer his heart's plea. Maybe her passion for him could not have withstood that, but she was willing to try. There must be someone in his world that could wash away his sadness. Maybe that would make her feel less empty too.

"I was trying to protect you, my darling boy," Luna whispered to no one. She sat alone in her angelically adorned room. The heavenly decor could not have mattered less. She might as well have been sitting on top of a garbage heap.The splendor was gray and unsatisfying like the years without her love.

With her crossed arms wrapped tightly around her, her hands grasped at her shoulders in despair. Shaking and angry, with nowhere for her sadness to go but out, Luna willed her surroundings to match her emotions. She uttered a low scream that gained momentum, finally piercing through the atmosphere...

...still wide awake at 3 a.m., Michael clutched at his chest and bent over the piano keys. The physical pain lasted only a few seconds, but the memory of it lingered for months. It felt oddly familiar.

He tried to escape the haunting loneliness in another's arms. She was beautiful. She was passionate, but she wasn't Luna. Though he consciously remembered nothing of his muse or their whispered promises, something deep in his soul could not forget.

The more he tried to make it work, the more the ache of feeling alone while in the arms of another became too much for him. What was this longing? Why couldn't he shake it?

Found love - lost love - his heart craved a way to fill the void. The only lasting comfort was in the invisible embrace of the music. He returned to her in the music again and again, not realizing it was her, not remembering her name...until the dream.

She was there, this beautiful creature, not a woman, not an angel. Michael dreamily reached for her. They knelt beneath an amethyst sky. It felt so real and so gloriously unreal.

He heard laughter and music all around them. The image of his favorite childhood "flower" came to mind, and it was there in his hand.

A bouquet of dandelions, like the ones he had naively presented to his mother years ago, filled his hand.

Strangely morphing, as dreams will do, the dandelions became one stem graced by tiny feathery seeds. They begged him to blow them into the night breeze, but the breeze caught them first, taking them in the opposite direction.

He reached for her tenderly, longing to trace her lovely face with his fingers...

...when suddenly his hand slipped out from under his cheek. His elbow slid from the place where it had been resting on the piano keyboard. The abrupt awakening was maddening. He had almost touched her!

He remembered the dream vividly, to the finest detail. Michael breathed in deeply and blew the air out in a gust of frustration. His body shook. His fists clenched against the sides of his forehead, as he looked toward the ceiling and let out an angry yell all his own.

"Lunaaaaaaaaaaaa!"