All for One (Cool Kids vs Rydell, Taylor & Bryce)
Oct 5, 2019 20:31:13 GMT -5
Eden Morgan likes this
Post by The Circle Television Network on Oct 5, 2019 20:31:13 GMT -5
Dearest Auntie
So, how are things? Great, I hope! Like, SO MUCH has happened in the last ten months that you would be all “OMG THAT’S AMAZING, MY FAVORITE NIECE” and I’d be all “OMG I KNOW ISN’T IT CRAXY?!” and we’d totes sip some caramel macchiatos (mine’s still better, btw) and we’ll laugh at some ugly girl going by and then giggle about Kenzi’s shoes and stuff because she is abs wearing a pair of plain brown clogs right this second. It would be a KILLER afternoon!
But we can’t.
I’d like to tell you about the year I’ve had. Like, I came back full time, right? Got back off the DL WAAAAAYYYYYYY too early last year (still beat you, though!) and only had a handful of matches, remember? But after I got to feel more like myself and get off all that ring rust, I hit the ground running in 2019. Like, I entered the Global Challenge, right? Got past Cynric (you remember Cynric) and pinned this weird masked dude who likes bagels (don’t ask), but then lost to Roxy (I’ll get to her) in the final. Still, I thought it was pretty good! But then I fought Donovan (the actual one, not the cardboard) and lost to, like, one move. How did THAT happen? Did YOU ever get beat by one move? Doubt it...you’re too badass for that! N-E-Ways, I realized that, full time or not, I needed to breathe a bit outside of the Coalition, right? So I strapped on my Tournament Shoes (the cute ones with the thick red heels I was wearing back in 2017) and hit the road.
And holy craxballz! Run...of...my...LIFE! I mean, sure, my first year was only ten months before the accident, and my second year was only six months of part-time work, but still! Right this second, between the Coalition and the XWF (that’s Vinnie’s fed! You might remember that he won a match on Chill? Says “Woah!” and “Dude!” alot?), I have gone 30-3-1! LEGIT! I am SO back that its BEYOND craxy! Hmmmm….need to hook up with Angie (you remember her...you shot ink in her face that one time?) and see if we can come up with a word for “beyond crazy.” N-E-Ways, across those thirty (30!!!!!) wins in ten months, I have won FOUR tournaments and THREE championships-
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-including the big one. I won Outlast, Auntie. I focused...like a freakin’ laser...and built a team with the singular goal of winning that thing. Not just FINALLY getting into the championship round (didn’t have to fight Lucy this time! You remember Lucy...stole my aesthetic, flopped back and forth between wanting to kill you and probs to make out? Yeah, her), but to win the whole freakin’ THING. And I did! I had to take out Roxy to do it (and take back that massive L she gave me in February!), and while there WAS a very SMALL and INSIGNIFICANT amount of help from my Step-Mumsie (Remember Bordy? You guys were buds...sorta?), the ending was the fact that I was sitting in the middle of the UGWC ring as the last person in Outlast and, thus, the UGWC World Champion.
Listen, I KNOW that I didn’t do it as fast as you (you won it in your rookie year, blah blah blah, etc ect), but I hope that you are still proud. Yes yes, you and I were not on the BEST of terms when you
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when you died. But that’s okay. In my heart, I know you didn’t mean it when you called me a cancer and a locust. Just like I didn’t mean it when I likened you to Hitler when people who hated your guts somehow found themselves using tears as lube in order to make themselves look good in front of our peers. But n-e-ways, I still did it and I hope you find some pride for me as you sit at the Creator's side. I put a lot of stock in what you did, both in the business and for me personally, and I’m not afraid not to admit that I looked up to you in a LOT of ways. Like, remember how I did that whole “I WANTZ WHAT YOU HAZ” thing with Lucy? Not like that. There is so much of YOU that I want to BE. And now I have that chance.
Listen, I know you lost your way. Like, I have this tenancy to find...I don’t know...heroes? At least women in this business that I look up to. I’m sure Dr. Reznik would LOVE to unpack all of THAT and explain how its all about me trying to find a mother to replace the one I never have (please don’t mention Ava!), but its more than that. I looked up to Nikita, even IF she has turned into some Popsicle all alone in the Candaian wilderness. I looked up to Ally, even IF she became an evil bitch. I looked up to Zoe, even if her marriage was toxic. Right this second, I have found myself a kinda-sorta new person to look towards in this chick named Lisa, who is, like, the most amazeballz deathmatch fighting in the history of everything. And I think that its my job, my place, to be the YOU to another generation of girls looking to be in this business. But I want to do it in a way you couldn’t. I don’t want to lose the family and friendships I have created.
By the end, the only person you had left was Baal, and Lord only knows what happened to him after you left. I mean, I know we drifted, but I still heard. I still knew. And I don’t want to end up like that. Kenzi is the world me to (past our second anniversary! We had this CRAXY party at Disneyland!), Angie’s perspective helps me round out my own, and Roxy is a great older sister...when we aren’t trying to murder each other, that is. Which we kinda-sorta currently are. N-E-Ways, the point is that I’m going to honor you, both in body and spirit, but I am going to be MORE. I am going to PROVE that family and friendships MATTER in this business and this life.
I’ll let you go, now. I know that you have Angel things to do...though I bet you’re more shocked than anyone to find yourself at His side! Give Big G a hug for me, give the J-Man a high-five, and make sure to tussle the Spirit’s hair. He loves that, from what I’ve been told! Give Daddy and Mumsie my love, and my Godmother, if she’s around.
I promise to write more often.
Your obedient,
S.S.G-L
Beads of sweat drive trails down the heavy makeup of Sarah Grey-Lacklan as she stands before the gray tombstone. The woman’s pale face, made to seem even more so by the bright red lipstick making her lips more full than they would be naturally, seems somewhat haggard by the two deep worry lines stretching from the inside of her eyes and down to the corners of her mouth. Her eyes, flashing red in the sunlight, a rarity even in her minority albino community, are magnified by the thick glasses resting on her face, heavy black rims with tiny diamonds making spider web patterns along the temple. Her platinum hair is pulled into a tightly braided bun to rest under her wide-brimmed hat and off her neck to offer some relief from the heat, but the humidity of New Orleans still clearly affects the woman born and raised in a cooler climate.
“I’m sorry…”
A tear travels down from the outside edge of one of her eyes, adding in the carnage the sweat does to her makeup, and there is a slight quiver in her full lips.
“I’m sorry that it took so long.”
She takes a step towards the tombstone, causing the long skirt of her black dress to brush the top of the grass on the field. Conservative in cover but ornate in design, Sarah’s dress stretches from neck to wrist to ankle, tight enough to accentuate the roundness of her curves, with slashes of red along the sleeves, with their puffed shoulders, and down the bodice for relief, as well as intricate spider web designs running down the skirt. Her gloved hands match the dress, both with tiny webs on the fingertips and lines of red on top, and each holds and item. In the right, a letter made of strong alabaster paper and sealed with wax, the image of her sign within the House of Lacklan, that of a firebird spreading its wings, holding the letter closed. In her other, a pink rose, the color bright and powerful against her dark ensemble. She places both the letter and flower down in front of the stone and then takes a step back.
“I’m proud of you.”
Behind her, Kenzi Grey-Lacklan seems starkly mundane next to her spouse. Wearing a simple gray blouse and loose pants, the caramel-skinned starlet’s mass of microbraids are free to roam down her back. The California native seems to be far more adjustable to the heat than the girl from Maine, and the smile on her face speaks of the pride in her voice. Sarah gives the grave a nod, turns to Kenzi, and gives her a shrug of her puffy shoulders.
“It was only a matter of time until I caught up to you. I’m sorry that I didn’t go with you to her funeral.”
Kenzi smiles wider at Sarah and opens her mouth to respond, but then she freezes. Her dark eyes lock onto one of Sarah’s puffy shoulders as tiny movement occurs, and thin legs reach out of the pleats. Lael, the baby giant spider from Maine, skitters fully onto Sarah’s sleeve and then leaps over to Kenzi, where she quickly crawls up her neck and seems to cuddle with some of her braids. Sarah’s face turns down into a scowl at the sight and she begins to stalk off with heavy steps of her heels.
“Grrrr. I don’t understand WHY Lael likes YOU more than ME! I’m Ilhar d'Lael, damnit i! The Tresk'ri Nez'rell! It just doesn’t make any SENSE!”
Kenzi ignores Sarah’s frustration and newfound, and odd, usage of the fictional “drow” language when speaking about her hometown’s resident spider clan, and instead focuses on not vomiting from the feel of the spider on her neck. She had been successful to this point about NOT letting it slip that she had “accidentally” killed the original Lael and that this was, in reality, Lael #2, and she didn’t plan on letting her revulsion over the entire situation get the best of her. So she takes a deep breath to steel herself before following Sarah to their rental car outside of the cemetery.
“Babe? Maybe you outta...um...calm down a bit? Before you drive?”
Kenzi’s voice is filled with a hectic plea but it is lost on Sarah as she approaches the white four-door.
“Oh please. I am a PERFECT driver and you KNOW that.”
Kenzi takes another deep breath as she gets to the passenger side. She gives Lael a flat look and gets into the car, making sure to pull the seat belt as tight as possible before-
SCREEEEEEEECH!
She is thrown back against the seat as Sarah unceremoniously slams one of her heels down on the gas pedal and the car careens forward. Kenzi’s life and decisions pass before her eyes...from being raised by her grandmother in Seattle to going to live with her mother and be a part of her reality show as a teen, from becoming a wrestler instead of an actor, from “marrying” a man in a Hooters...and another in Vegas...to being left at the altar by a woman and to finally accepting the offer of a potentially psychotic albino who promised her “a lifetime of frustration and annoyance,” as the car swerves left and right several times before finding its bearings in the center of the right lane. As she pushes the car even further, Sarah finally reaches over her shoulder to pull down her own seat belt, a full thirty seconds after beginning the drive.
“Besides, Mrs. Somehow Got My License That One Day But Still Can’t Remember How to Drive, I don’t see YOU doing anything. And-”
“MUSKRAT!”
The car screeches as it swerves rapidly in time to avoid the tiny animal that had ventured onto the road.
“-I loathe, truly LOATHE, O Dearest Wife, how you hold that-”
“DEER!”
The screech from Kenzi is even louder than the tires as the car swerves the other direction to avoid the deer who had also walked into the road, unwittingly tempting the cruel hand of Death to take it away.
“-Yes! That! I didn’t MEAN to hit that deer that one time! It ran at ME!”
Kenzi’s heart beats fast as she gives Sarah a look of shock. The deer who had “ran” at Sarah had literally been in a pen at a petting zoo and it was Sarah’s “perfect” driving that had somehow caused them to leave the single-lane highway and into the green of the park in what felt had only been an instant of distraction. Caught live on a vlog...because of course she was recording a vlog for her fanbase at the time...that particular car rental establishment turned down their next request for a car and said that their money was no longer good there. They had to hunt down a less-than-reputable company, “No ???s Asked! Vehicle Rentals,” to be able to be mobile outside of California.
Kenzi’s attention turns down to her side as she feels her phone buzz in her pocket. She pulls her iPhone out of her dark pants, taking a second to grin over her decision to dress down while visiting the grave of the woman who always teased her for her fashion sense, then the grin turns wicked as she sees the response to an earlier text to Sloane Taylor asking for Sebastian Everett-Bryce’s new home address. Sloane had been a bit suspicious of Kenzi’s motivations, but after telling her that Sebbie was joining the cast of her television show, she relented.
Sarah gave Kenzi a questioning look as the wicked grin turned up into devious. She winked at her wife and made a quick phone call, deepening her voice, ever so slightly.
“Hello? Yes, I’d like to order 35 pizzas for my housewarming party; 10 pepperoni, 10 sausage, 10 combination, and 5 with pineapple...cuz...YUM, amiright?! Oh! And one with coconut, because someone I know thinks that’s a Hawaiian. No, don’t ask me to explain why she thinks that.”
Sarah listened in fascination as Kenzi bullshitted her way through not putting a credit card on file as she sent the order to the home of one of their opponents for Monday’s match. Kenzi held it together until she finally hung up the phone, then burst out laughing. Sarah shook her head as her eyes rolled so hard that they sounded like bowling balls speeding towards an untimely meeting with the gutter.
“Wife, do you think it’s a good idea to violate ‘The’ Cutie’s confidence like that? You know she’s going to feel terrible when she finds out what you did.”
Kenzi sighed, appearing to be as nonchalant about it as she could.
“Come on! It’s a rib… ‘Your’ Cutie will be fine with it! If she’s not, she can take it out on you in the ring on Synergy!”
Sarah’s eye twitched as she raised a single finger to stop Kenzi from saying anything further.
“I said ‘THE’ Cutie! And another thing I’ve been meaning to ask...how can you allow that scoundrel on your show, knowing what he’s done to you in the past? I mean, I know your Mrs I’d Forgive the Devil, and all, but THIS makes absolutely NO sense!”
Kenzi looked away for a moment, the mirth dying down a bit as she did. Her voice dropped to a near whisper.
“...I thought that keeping your enemies close was a very ‘Lacklan thing’ to do...”
Sarah sat a bit straighter in her seat and then took her wife’s hand. It had been months since she had stopped using the Lacklan family name after losing a Chaos Title match to her step mumsie. Perhaps her finally winning it had been the catalyst that she needed to stake a claim to being Kenzi Grey-Lacklan again...thanks in no small part to Roxy granting her the opportunity.
“You ARE a Lacklan...and yes, keeping the scoundrel close by isn’t the WORST idea...just not the best I’ve ever heard. What’s next, Dave Rydell guest starring as Pan, the God of the Wild?”
Kenzi tensed at the mention of the man who had attacked Angie Vaughn, not once, but twice. Angie had talked them out of going into Outlast and making sure that he didn’t walk out...though, admittedly, driving his head into a steel chair had made her feel better...that was only the start. Angie was on the mend and she wouldn’t be at Synergy this week, and Dave was going to get everything that he had coming to him.
“The only thing that Rydell is getting is a free ambulance ride out of the UGWC Arena! We are going to make damn sure of that!”
At the mention of ‘we’ Kenzi could see some of the sparkle leave her wife’s eyes. It was clear that the events of Outlast had strained their relationship...perhaps even to the breaking point. Kenzi hated seeing her friends at odds, but that had been nothing new for them lately.
Kenzi glanced down at her phone as she received a notification. A text from Roxy Cotton. Her eyes shift to her right and lock onto the eight tiny ones of the spider, and she shivers before turning her eyes the other direction to look at Sarah.
“Hey, babe…”
“Yeah?”
“...um...you hear from Roxy, yet?”
The corners of Sarah’s mouth turn down in a grimace and her eyes narrow as she angrily swerves the car to pass another.
“Non.”
Kenzi holds her breath as she hears the subtle change of her wife’s normal English accent to that of French, a sign that she was suddenly close to bursting out in rage. Sarah raging in French was something that rarely happened in public, but was often accompanied by a shoe thrown at Kenzi, and she had cause to be worried over what would happen if that tendency manifested itself while driving. But then Sarah takes a deep breath...which unfortunately included her closing her eyes for a very scary moment...and then slowly lets it out.
“I’ve been texting like craxy. She KNOWS that I didn’t know about Step-Mumsie! She KNOWS that! But she’s still being all kinds of Broody McBroodington of the Salt Fields. Has she gotten back to you?”
Kenzi’s eyes dart down to her phone and the latest message from Roxy.
“Well...I mean…”
Sarah waves a hand...again causing a dangerous lurch from the car...and sighs.
“I knew she wouldn’t. SO selfish. And childish. And EXTRA petty.”
Kenzi breathed in relief at not having to lie.
“Not even ONE congratulations! Not even ONE ‘OMG BB YOU’RE AMAZING!’”
Kenzi’s eyes glaze over in wonder for a moment as Sarah’s ability with mimicry makes itself known.
“Not even ONE! I was, like, the FIRST person to tell her congrats when she barely scraped by Dave earlier in the year! And the FIRST person to give her a digital high five when you guys won the Trios tournament! True, I didn’t say congrats when she won the World Title...but literally no one did, so it's not like I’m alone on that, or anything...but still! I’m HER World Champion!"
“And! AND! We have a MATCH coming up! I mean, sure, she’s won some tag gold...including with you...but I’m the EXPERT at wrestling tag team matches...especially when they are cooperative matches in the UGWC...and so she should be just about BEGGING to hear MY insight on it! And ESPECIALLY yours! We’re the current Tag Team Champions in her #ForeverFiance’s fed, we have BOTH been successful UGWC Cooperative Champions...something that she HASN’T been, regardless of that whole ‘grand slam’ thing...but I’ll get to THAT un sac de noeuds another day...and she should be LEAPING to get OUR perspective! Sure, she’s basically got Rydell’s number these days...though that’s like saying you have an advantage in a swimming meet against a paraplegic...but she has ZERO experience against Team Slebby! And you and I are nearly undefeated against those two! Hell, we ARE undefeated if you blame Donovan for losing the Cooperative Titles...which I do...so she should be BLOWING UP MY PHONE WITH REQUESTS TO HANG OUT WITH ME AND I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY NOT.”
Kenzi opens her mouth to respond after the sudden tirade, but then her eyes go wide and she points out the window.
“Babe! That’s our exit!”
Sarah’s eyes narrow as she sees the freeway exit heading towards the airport less than a half mile away. They were never going to make it, not with their car in the far left lane. They had a plane to catch bound for Maine. An orthopedic specialist the House of Lacklan had always used. Meetings for Sarah with Estate business. Meetings with the current Mistress of the Manor which MUST happen. And unfortunately for the stress levels of Kenzi Grey-Lacklan, the World’s Champion of UGWC had NO intention of missing out on being in Maine for a couple of days.
“Good luck, everybody!”
Not bothering with a turn signal, Sarah twists the wheel to the right and crosses four lanes of traffic in one shot.
“You’re going to have to do something about that knee young lady. You’ve definitely got a tear and if you don’t get it repaired, it’s going to get worse…it’s going to get a lot worse.”
I took a deep breath as I let the orthopedic surgeon’s words wash over me, numbing me to my core. This wasn’t the news I wanted, but it was the news I expected. I knew I was hurt and hurt badly as soon as it happened on Day 2 of WrestleStock. The beanbag had slammed into the side of my knee and I not only heard the ‘POP’ but I felt it throughout my entire body. I should have just laid there and let someone else advance…but I had promised Roxy that I would help her retain her title. I was her friend, and even though winning that title would have been sweet validation for me…nothing was more important than my friends…NOTHING!
I fought through the pain and Roxy did retain…though, if I were being honest, it was BECAUSE of my injury. Sarah was inches away from snatching down that title, but when she saw that I was in trouble, she sacrificed herself to save me…she sacrificed her opportunity to regain the title she never lost. To be honest…I was embarrassed that my stupidity had cost her that victory…but I couldn’t say that out loud after proclaiming to the world that the #CoolKids would ensure that Roxy Cotton stayed golden.
I knew that Sarah wanted that title, and she had missed her chance to reclaim it because of me. She wouldn’t say it outright…but I wasn’t stupid. She was disappointed…and there were no two ways about it, I was the source of that disappointment. Similarly, I could have took a bit of solace in the fact that Roxy would thank me for fighting through a severe injury to help her…like a best friend would. Of course, I never got a thank you…just typical Roxy bluster about how deserving she was.
I expected that, but it would have been nice to have been thanked after I was carried out of the match. I thought that, as friends went, I was closer to Roxy than anyone else in our circle. We had done so much together that I took it for granted that I was also her very best friend. That was why I refused to believe that Roxy had been the one to shoot me at WrestleStock. Despite a mountain of evidence, I had stood firm that it couldn’t be her…until she shot Angie in the face to win the World Title. That had changed my perspective on her, to be sure. If she could do that to someone she obviously felt closer to than me...why couldn’t she shoot me in the knee and not care how badly I was hurt.
I had been extra jealous when she had been so protective of Angie, not wanting to fight her and avoiding it at every turn…even gifting me a shot at her. I was happy for the opportunity, but down deep it bothered me that she would have rather faced me for the World Title than Angie. I didn’t understand then…and I still don’t understand. Everything Roxy does is a mystery to me, which is why it had no longer seemed improbable that she WOULD shoot my knee out from under me, even knowing I was there to help her.
I thought it was her that had hurt me and I was hellbent on making her see that. I knew that apologies weren’t part of her nature, but I felt that we had a special connection…but…I guess it wasn’t special enough. Roxy never admitted to shooting me, and she never once thanked me for helping her retain her title…but she did give me a chance to win one of her vacated ones. I felt like a cheap whore for accepting the chance…but I had already lost two opportunities at a singles title, I couldn’t throw away another. I was the underachieving #CoolKid. While Angie and Roxy fought for the honor to be a triple crown winner, I had gone from the one with the WrestleStock Cup, stellar record, and the Cooperative Titles to the one who just didn’t measure up.
My career was on the line…and I could take this chance and run…or at least, hobble with it…or I could be proud and not accept the chance from the woman who had hurt me and not given a damn. In that moment I could picture the face of Kem Dynamo and how much alike the two of us were. We had won WrestleStock and we had all the momentum in the world, yet…when the time came to turn all that hype into gold, we floundered. I guess that's why I always defended Kem when Sarah and the others made fun of her…I was barely a cut above, and in that, it could be argued that I couldn’t even lace her boots. I needed this chance…I needed to win just to try to validate a fraction of the hopes that others had for me...Alan Wallace, Donovan Hastings, Johnny Bonecrusher...and of course, my wife.
Yeah…I was a whore to accept it…but being a failure seemed even more of an embarrassment. I’d win that title and then I was going to make Roxy pay for what she did…but…it wasn’t Roxy that had hurt me after all...it had been her fiancé Vinnie Lane...it had been a man I looked up to like a big brother. That had shook me to my core...but even worse, I had allowed others to turn me against Roxy after I had been right from the very start! Now…not only was I a whore, but I was a shit friend on top of it!
“So, are we going to schedule this surgery soon? I can probably have you prepped and ready to go in two weeks.”
I snapped back to reality, looking up at the doctor as he made little doodles on the screen that showed the severity of my injury. Honestly, it just looked like a whole bunch of coconut shavings. I tore my eyes away from all the scribble marks.
“What’s the recovery time? I read online, usually about two to three weeks.”
The middle-aged physician gave a shake of his head, clearly not in agreement with the information I had gotten from Digital Physician. I made a mental note to stop using all of Sarah's dumb 'digital' creations!
“Maybe for a grade one injury, which might have been what you started off with, but you’ve been going 100 miles per-hour on that thing since you screwed it up in July. You’re looking at about anywhere from three to six months…maybe you can come back sooner if you follow orders. So, can we get you scheduled?”
I saw his mouth moving, but I heard nothing after he said the words ‘three to six months.’ I couldn’t be out of action for one month…let alone three to six! I had obligations…in UGWC as the new Chaos Champion and in XWF as one-half of the new Tag Team Champions with my wife.
He could tell by my reaction that I wasn’t grasping the gravity of what he was saying. He put down his doodle pen and faced me. He took in a deep breath, knowing he had to be straight.
“I know, you’re young and you feel like you can take on the world, and maybe you have…but this injury isn’t going to be magically healed because you’re only a few years removed from being a teenager. Now…can you get by on it for a while longer? Maybe…if you rest and you rehab it properly, but in my estimation this is going to get worse if you don’t deal with it…I’m just being straight with you.”
“Can I take a day or two to talk to my family?”
He reached over and patted me on my good knee.
“Just don’t take too long.”
I walked out of the office, and the weight that was on my shoulders seemed to fall to my knee in short order. It hurt like hell and soon I was hobbling in spite of myself. I gritted my teeth and did my best to hide it…I had to. This wasn’t the time and I couldn’t let her see me hurt…not now.
My jaw tensed as I no sold the pain and walked to the long black car that was waiting for me. Over and over inside my head, I repeated the mantra; ‘pain is weakness leaving the body.’ It was becoming more and more apparent that I had a shit ton of weakness.
Right on cue, the car pulled up and waited for me. It shone in the sunlight with heavy wax and I knew that if I looked, the license would be unmarked. I didn’t know what I would say when I saw her…but I knew I couldn’t tell her just how bad the injury was…especially after becoming a champion. The door was opened for me by a handsome man in a black military uniform and I slipped inside, careful not to show how much pain I was in or how stiff my knee was getting.
“What did they say?”
“I’ll be fine…”
“Bonne fille. My legacy is in fine hands! Il est ressuscité et il est fier!”
I turned to Ava Quinn, a woman I had learned to despise above all others for what she had done in an effort to tear Sarah and I apart. Things had changed now…things had changed a lot now. Ava had changed as well. She was gaunt and her eyes were a bit sunken, and she was wearing a scarf that only showed her face; she looked tired, and yet, somehow seemed all the more happy for it.
I didn’t know if Sarah’s family doctor had her on some kind of cocktail to make her less crazy, but whatever it was...it was working. That was the only way that a meeting like this could have ever taken place after all that Sarah and I had been put through with her. But, actions spoke louder than words and Ava’s actions had certainly been telling the last few weeks; encouraging me as part of the family...helping Sarah achieve her dream of becoming a World Champion...then, there was the revelation about Angie that I still had not been able to process.
I turned to her, finally ready to speak civilly, as we hadn’t done in a very long time.
“I want to know why you told me about Angie and not Sarah. I mean, obviously you don’t mean for me to tell her...so I don’t know why you did it.”
Ava was quiet as she considered my words. When she spoke, her tone was measured and practiced. I could tell that she had prepared for this question, but now that it was finally asked, she wanted to answer it very carefully.
“My treatment of you has been, harsh. To be fair, I did not see you as worthy of being part of my husband’s House. In choosing you, I doubted my step-daughter’s fitness...but, in this I have come to see that perhaps I was incorrect, about a great many things...”
Ava took care to remove one of the gloves she wore, then reach over and took my hand in her own. It was a small gesture that might not have held any importance for anyone else...but I knew that this had real weight and meaning, and I appreciated it...though I resisted the urge to pull away.
The large brown spider moved down my arm and perched itself on our joined hands, adding to the weirdness of this entire situation. Ava gave my hand a gentle squeeze and continued on.
“...I told you about my husband’s other child to show you that I trusted you. We have been on opposite sides for far too long. When you first came to me and offered me a chance to be part of this new family, my actions were regrettable...now I hope that you will give me that second chance.”
It wasn’t that easy, and I pulled my hand away..
“I appreciate that Ava, but trust isn’t something I am just going to give you because you tell me some big secret that you should have told Sarah a long fucking time ago! Instead, you share this with me...and now I’m shitty for not telling her what I know! The only thing that might be worse is that Angie knows and hasn’t said anything! I don’t get you people...I don’t get you people at all!”
Ava cackled at this as she held up her ungloved hand with the spider crawling around as she talked to it like a person.
“You see, bébé araignée? That is why she will be good for the family...I didn’t see it before.”
Ava turned her eyes on me again.
“You’re a Lacklan, just as surely as the rest of them. The blood may not be the same, but the heart...that is what she saw in you and that is what I see now.”
“So? When are you going to tell Sarah?!”
Ava took a deep breath.
“Soon...”
She put her hand on my knee and that fucking spider made a run for me like a goddamn olympic sprinter. I would have jumped out of my skin, as she not squeezed my knee and damn near made me piss myself.
I grimaced and she gave a curt nod of her head, as if she had known it all along.
“You’re just as stubborn as the two of them as well! You’re lying about how badly you’re injured. Tell me why.”
I didn’t want to tell her a damn thing, but before I could stop myself, I was sharing things that I hadn’t even shared with Sarah...yet.
“Look! Right now...things are going well for us...HELL, they are going GREAT! Sarah has everything she’s ever wanted...and while I didn’t help her get there...I’m here now and I can be part of it. There’s no way that I am going to just call for a timeout...not now! We are a team...in all things. I haven’t held up my end of things...but I will, I have to!”
Ava sat in silent contemplation of this. I could see her turning my words over and over inside that crazy head of hers. There was no telling how she would process any of what I said.
“You are doing the same thing that you’re accusing me of, mon enfant. As I said, you’re a true Lacklan...I hope you decide to carry the name once again…Je sais qu'il serait fier”
The air left my chest as I sat there, turning and casting my gaze out the window at the passing Maine landscape. I didn’t want her looking at me and seeing the hypocrite that she had uncovered. Yes, I wanted her to tell Sarah about Angie...regardless of whatever stupid reason she was hiding it...but I had my own dumb secrets that I was keeping as well. That whole, people in glass houses bullshit.
It was ironic that Ava was now telling me that I was a Lacklan, when it was my failure against her that made me feel like I was anything but that! In spite of what I had told her about all of the success we had been having in ‘God’s Favorite Sport’ the fact of the matter was that I felt I was falling further and further behind by the second. This injury had only made it much more apparent. Angie and Roxy were battling it out for the honor of being triple crown champions...all this after I had pitched a fit when they had both told me that I wasn’t on that level yet. Outlast had come and I thought I would have a chance to be part of getting Sarah to the place I always knew she belonged...but I wasn’t even a part of that either. So...what was I? They said that I was a Lacklan...but I was just coming up short when it really mattered.
Hell...Roxy was more of a Lacklan than I was at this point!
I was UGWC Chaos Champion...I was XWF Tag Team Champion, and that was something, but I needed to be more. I couldn’t quit...not when Sarah was back and in the midst of being everything that her father had raised her to be. Injury, be damned! I would fight through it and I would earn that name....
Roxy Cotton had been uncharacteristically quiet. The championship loss had curtailed her bombastic personality, which so often was reminiscent of a firecracker going off in a quiet room, and made her retreat inward. She’d canceled all of her appearances, her potential endorsements. Everything. Even though people were clearly still interested in having her on their screens or on their airwaves, she’d simply closed a door on all of them.
Vinnie Lane wasn’t much of an exception. He’d spent the few days following Outlast doing his best to console her in the ways he knew would get through. He was well aware she wouldn’t want overt sympathy or pity. She never liked being treated like she was wounded or frail, even when she was. Vinnie was dumb in a lot of ways, but he knew that much to be true. So he’d stayed close to her, quietly rescheduling appointments to be by her side and handle the little things for her. Refilling her glass, taking care of her laundry, maintaining her schedule with various spas and salons. But she didn’t have much to say.
“You hungry babe?”
“No thank you.”
“Did you eat at all today?”
“I’m fine, bb.”
Little interactions were all he could pull from her. But Vinnie knew she was a strong person, and that although her heart was aching it wouldn’t be long before she shrugged it off and went back to the life she’d created for herself. A bombshell. A walking standing ovation. After all, in barely two years she’d made herself a star out of virtually nothing. She didn’t do that by staying down.
“Hey babe, you need anything from the store?”
“No. I’m fine, thank you.”
“You sure? You want to come with? We could swing by Rodeo?”
“No, it’s okay.”
“All right… I’ll be back.”
“Vinnie?”
“Yeah baby?”
“Don’t be gone too long.”
She was out of bed every morning before he was, and she stayed up later also. Vinnie didn’t have the ability to pull all nighters anymore now that he was a bit long in the tooth, and Roxy had always been an early riser. Her morning constitutionals of running on the beach or swimming in the pool or spending time in the yoga studio were often all completed before Vinnie even blinked away the sleep from the night before.
But usually Roxy stayed busy in between, too. In the week after Outlast she’d stopped doing much of anything. She got out of bed, and stayed out of bed until late hours, but throughout the day Vinnie would find her lying down, napping in a dark room. At times when she’d typically be running her errands or making sure the paparazzi were watching her walk down Sunset Boulevard, she was instead staying indoors. Her tanning bed was going unused. Her stylist had called Vinnie asking if she was feeling well after she’d canceled an appointment and never rescheduled. But Vinnie didn’t push it. He just stayed in her orbit.
“You ready for Relentless babe?”
Vinnie had been excited, reveling in the fact that Roxy would be coming along with him to one of the bigger XWF pay per view events of the year. He knew she loved Miami. Loved things like being out on the water. And he knew she loved the spotlight. He couldn’t wait to have her there by his side as the company he ran, the company that brought them together years ago to begin with, put on a spectacle.
“Are you sure we have to go?”
“What? Babe, of course. I have to be there, you know that.”
“Can’t we just stay in? I don’t want to go out.”
“I have to… Rox, it’s our business. It’s what paid for this house. And they love you, they don’t get to see enough of you anymore.”
“I know, but…”
“Come on. We’ll have a good time. You’ll look amazing. Your friends will be there…”
She’d shot him an icy glare when he said it, the words running out of his mouth before he could tackle them and drag them back into his brain. Stupid. He knew better than to bring them up right now.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Fine. Let’s go.”
And so they’d gone to Florida for the three day event. Vinnie got the most expensive hotel room available and made sure Roxy never had to leave it for food or drink. He’d gotten them massages and even had a dress tailored to match his custom suit. He knew every inch of her, after all, carved into his memory was every curve and swell of her body. Her measurements, her preferences, her colors… he knew her as well as she did.
But he wasn’t prepared for the events of night three of Relentless. The two of them had been having a good time, watching the matches unfold from their executive suite. When he’d gone to the ring with Kenzi Grey he’d thought they were just going to have some fun goofing around with each other and that maybe Roxy would get a chuckle from it. He knew that she needed to break the tension between her and her #CoolKid friends, especially Sarah. Roxy’s phone had been flashing almost nonstop from ignored text messages, and Vinnie knew it had to be handled sooner than later. So maybe having a laugh in the ring with Roxy’s best friend could get the healing started, he’d thought.
Then the footage began to roll, and he saw what he’d hoped he’d made sure would never be exposed. Himself at WrestleStock, holding one of those high powered bean bag rifles during Roxy’s Cross-Semicircle Title defense match. Himself, lining up a deliberate shot to Kenzi’s knee. Himself, dropping and injuring someone he considered a friend. And although he was in the ring and Roxy was in the back, he knew exactly what her face must have looked like at that moment.
The next couple of minutes were a blur of pain and noise as Kenzi had assaulted him, justifiably, and sent him limping to the back with his tail between his legs in shame. Roxy had to come out and help him, and in so doing had to come face to face with Sarah Lacklan for the first time since Outlast.
He’d fucked it all up.
“You just don’t get it, do you?”
It was the most she’d said to him in nearly a week. After they’d returned to Malibu following Relentless, she’d locked herself away in a wing of the Palisades, relying only on Maxine and a handful of estate employees to take care of her. She wouldn’t let him in, no matter what.
But this morning, when Vinnie had groggily stumbled into the kitchen to pour himself a bowl of Ruby-Ohs… she was there waiting for him.
“Rox! Hey babe, I… I guess I should explain…”
“No. I don’t need you to explain. I know why you did what you did. That’s what makes it all hurt so bad, Vinnie.”
“Babe I just wanted to help, I know how much it means to you…”
“I didn’t NEED your help, Vinnie! God damn it, don’t you get it? You RUINED one of the biggest moments of my career! Of my life! WrestleStock was where I proved I was at another level, and now the only thing anyone is going to take away from it is that my own BOYFRIEND didn’t think I could do it without his help.”
“Fiance…”
“Whatever.”
Vinnie felt his insides go cold. She wasn’t yelling at him. She wasn’t animated and gesticulating with her usual dose of melodrama. She was calm. She was relaxed. And every word she said came out of her mouth with measured calculation. Roxy wasn’t speaking from emotion, although she was describing it. She was speaking as someone who’d decided on what she wanted to say, and practiced it.
Roxy was her scariest incarnation. She wasn’t irrational and overheated with passion… she was cold with determination.
“Vinnie, you ruined the highest point of my career. You. The person I trust more than I’ve ever trusted, loved more than I’ve ever loved. You hurt my friend. You hurt my reputation. And you hurt ME, Vinnie. Why didn’t you think I could do it on my own?”
“I DID babe, I just wanted to help… look, the sniper guns weren’t my idea, that was all Donovan. I just brought one that was a little better than what they had.”
“You could have ended Kenzi’s career, Vinnie. I know she’s been looking for an excuse to do that on her own anyway, but that doesn’t give you the right. And Sarah spent the whole match looking after her instead of trying to really win. Don’t you see how that made me look? Like an opportunist. Like someone who needed to take a shortcut. I didn’t build my brand on taking shortcuts… I built my brand, my image, on being BETTER. And when I thought I’d proved my point to the world, all I’d really done is showed everyone that I didn’t think I could beat Sarah or Kenzi. And then? At Outlast? Sarah proved it true.”
“Babe come on, you know you can…”
“NO. I DON’T know that I can. I know that I have, I know that I thought I proved it, but I was wrong and it’s YOUR FAULT, Vinnie. And all this time that’s gone by, and Sarah’s just been simmering, angry, vengeful… and SHE WAS RIGHT TO BE. Because Vinnie if anyone had done to you what you did to Sarah’s beloved? I’d have done absolutely anything to take away what mattered to them.”
“I don’t understand…”
“Of course you don’t! You don’t think things through! You don’t PLAN Vinnie! You just think everything will always be fine, but it WON’T be fine! Not this time. Sarah took my title away from me because she wanted to avenge what happened to Kenzi. She knew I had something to do with it even though I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW I DID. If not for YOU, Vinnie, I could have proved I belonged in that main event picture without the whispers of what if Kenzi hadn’t gotten hurt. I could have celebrated my UGWC Championship with my FRIENDS instead of them all wanting nothing to do with me. I could have had Sarah and Kenzi supporting and loving me instead of them talking about me behind my back and plotting to ruin it all.”
A horn honked from outside, catching Vinnie’s attention. It sounded like it was inside the gate, but that wasn’t possible without someone letting them in.
It was only then that Vinnie, still struggling to fight off a bad night’s sleep, noticed that Roxy wasn’t in the kitchen to eat breakfast. She was fully dressed and made up. Heels, jewelry, sunglasses. And next to her long legs, lined up on the floor, were three roller suitcases.
“That’s my ride.”
“Where are you… who’s here?”
“It’s just an Uber.”
“But babe… hold on… babe…”
Roxy headed for the hallway towards the front door and Vinnie moved to follow, but a thick hand on the center of his chest stopped him. Maxine had entered the room for Roxy’s bags, and she’d batted Vinnie aside into the kitchen cabinets like a cat playing with a captured moth.
“Roxy, please…”
“You ruined my life, Vinnie. I’ve got to go.”
Vinnie could only stand and watch as the two women made their way out of the front of the Pink Palisades, the estate he and Roxy had designed and lived in together. Their own version of the Coral Castle. A physical embodiment of the love they shared together.
The door slammed shut and Vinnie watched through the glass as Roxy and Maxine both got into the back of the Lincoln Town Car. And then they drove away.
“And as you can see on Slide #54, in the case of Sloane being taken out by a Shining Wizard...which, you will remember from Slide #4 of the Rules of #CoolKids Cooperative Engagement, Roxy is NOT allowed to use while I am the World’s Champion...or a wayward Supergirl Punch, we are then to enact Plan Q (ver. 3.51) in which we pull Dave by his stringy goat beard and-”
The slide on the screen changes to show a poorly-drawn comic of Dave Rydell being pulled into the ring by the #CoolKids, each wearing matching gear for the match, and Sarah’s eyes fill with glee. Behind her and the projector, three desks are lined up in a row, filled with the rest of the stable. Roxy Cotton has her sunglasses on her face to hide her eyes as they look down at her lap, where she is ignoring the unending presentation by playing Disney’s Emoji Blitz on her phone, trying VERY hard to get this week’s exclusive, Witch Minnie. Next to her, Kenzi is facedown on her desk, her braids flopping over the side like the tentacles of some Lovecraftian horror, the shine of drool and the even movement of her body telling the tale of her slumber. The final desk features a laptop resting on the surface, with Angie dutifully taking notes of the presentation via Skype, still dressed in pink kitten pajamas, her rest in Texas important but not TOO important as to miss Sarah’s latest presentation.
“-and then if the match goes past the 20 minute mark, we skip Plan Double D², which would be Rox and I doing a tandem chest bump, obvs, and go straight to Plan Codeword Excelsior (!!) and-”
Behind her, Roxy clenches her fist in glee as she successfully gets the Witch Minnie emoji, Kenzi snorts in her sleep, and Angie moves to a fresh piece of paper after filling yet another with her detailed notes.
“-and in conclusion-”
Roxy slips her phone into her purse and elbows Kenzi, who snaps awake. She is able to wipe the drool from her chin and toss her braids back just in time before Sarah turns around to face them.
“So! Any questions?”
Kenzi rubs her eyes in an attempt to clear them, lapping at the drool from the corner of her mouth.
“Yeah...can you repeat the part where we kill Dave Rydell? I want to make sure that we are all on the same page with that. I don’t want you getting distracted by ‘Your Cutie’ and we end up missing a chance to euthanize that goat!”
Sarah turns back to the large screen, clicking back several slides, bringing up a cartoon of all three #CoolKids surrounding Sebastian in the corner and the laptop with a cartoon image of Angie with a blindfold is sitting on the turnbuckle.
“Back on slide 8 you can see during plan 18b, once we have eliminated the goat and effectively isolated ‘THE’ Cutie, we can focus our attack on the scoundrel, we will converge in a classic #CoolKids pincer movement and then-”
Roxy gives a bored sigh. She had only come to this meeting because of the match on Monday. She thought she was ready to face Kenzi and Sarah again, but the longer she sat there the more she felt the walls closing in on her. The stuff between Vinnie and Kenzi and now having to sit and listen to Sarah, as if she were now the leader?
“Are we done here? I have a 3 o’clock Brazilian scheduled.”
She didn’t have anything at all scheduled, but she needed an excuse to leave, and as it turned out, no one ever questioned vagina maintenance. Unfortunately, Sarah wasn’t so eager to give up.
“This is a TEAM meeting! If we are going to win the match, we are going to-”
“Need your step-mom?”
Roxy knew it was a low blow, but it was true…whether she asked for help or not. It was the one thing she had to hang her hat on…since vagina maintenance hadn’t successfully rescued her from this situation.
Sarah’s cheeks flushed and she narrowed her red hued eyes on the former UGWC World Champion.
“We have gone over this! Or, at least we WOULD have if you’d answered your phone! I had no idea that Step-Mumsie would be there! I wouldn’t have taken advantage if I’d seen what she did!”
Kenzi muttered under her breath.
“...I would have...”
Roxy was quick to turn on the starlet.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me at all Kenz, especially after the way you attacked Vinnie?! Yeah, maybe he deserved what he got, but what you did was cruel and unusual! That night, he was upstairs in bed ringing that stupid little bell every time he wanted something! I had to go all the way outside to the pool house so I didn’t have to listen to it anymore!”
“So, you just left him in the house by himself?! What if there was an emergency?!”
“DUH! Vinnie knows the number to 911, thank you very much!!”
“He better start dialing as soon as he sees me again!”
Roxy and Kenzi face off, glaring at one another. Sarah claps her hands loudly to get their attention before they can start bickering.
“Hello! Eyes on me! This is a promotional video about the UGWC where I am EVERYONE’S World Champion! No need to talk about some Chill superstar...and I use that term loosely...who should be thanking his LUCKY STARS that he has the 5’2” Mafia as his Tag Team Champions!”
Roxy turns her glare at Sarah and Kenzi rolls her eyes.
”The FACT is that we are going into Synergy on Monday as a UNIT and are facing at team who is NOT. Sure, Seb-”
”The third!” comes the cry from the laptop sitting on the desk. [/Font]
”-and Sloane-”
Kenzi added, with a bit of jealous malice.
“...your cutie…”
”-THE cutie...are the Cooperative Champions right now, which means that THEY know how to function as a duo, but they are teamed with freakin’ Rydell, someone who they currently LOATHE due to what they did to dear, sweet Angelica-”
”#TeamJelllyBeanToes4Life!!”
”-and there is NOW WAY that they will be able to work the way WE can. In fact, as you will remember from Slide 14...that was the one where I exhaustively broke down his 33% win rate over the last two years and how each and every one of his 35 Ls in that time matter specifically to THIS match...he has less chance of being a factor in this match than-
“UGH!” screams out Roxy. “No! I am not going to sit here while you come up with another STUPID analogy that no one understands! We don’t need slides, graphs, or any of this other crap to beat them! You’re the World Champion …I should still be World Champion…and Kenzi is here! That should be MORE than enough to get through this match, okay?”
Roxy pushed away from her desk and got up.
“I have to go!”
Kenzi got to her feet, her eyes burning a hole right through Roxy.
“What in the hell do you mean-“ Kenzi did a spot on imitation of Roxy; ‘and Kenzi is here!’”
Roxy threw up her hand and gave a huge sigh of frustration.
“No offense Kenz, but look around the room…everyone here has been the UGWC World Champion…even though one of us had to have help to do it…but you’re a little light in the category…that’s all I’m saying!”
”ROXY!!”
Sarah stamped her foot defiantly, but Roxy whirled on her next.
“DON’T GET ALL HIGH AND MIGHTY! YOU DIDN’T EVEN WANT TO PICK HER FOR YOUR OUTLAST TEAM!!”
“PROBABLY BECAUSE YOUR FUCKING BOYFRIEND CRIPPLED ME!!”
Sarah, Roxy, and Kenzi were ready to come to blows, all three women screaming at one another. The trio that supposedly had the distinct teamwork advantage was coming apart at the seams before the bell even rang. It was the voice of the one #CoolKid that wasn’t even in the room that cut through the noise and stopped them all.
“…guys…Guys…GUYS!!! STOP IT!! STOP FIGHTING!!”
The three of them stopped as Angie raised her voice, uncharacteristically. Sarah, Roxy, and Kenzi all looked at one another, then to their tall stablemate on the tiny laptop.
“You know, the reason you guys will win isn’t because you’re a team, because cheese and crackers, you certainly aren’t acting like it right now!”
The trio looked at one another, just a bit of shame in their eyes.
“Sarah…you’re my sister…”
Kenzi’s mouth fell open…
“Roxy…Kenz…all three of you, we are all sisters!”
Kenzi lowered her head, looking from Angie to Sarah.
“We are all family and sometimes that means that we don’t always get along. Roxy is mad at Sarah for winning her title, Sarah is mad at Roxy because Vinnie hurt Kenzi, Kenzi is mad at Sarah for not picking her first for Outlast, but in spite of all that, the three of you are all here because of what Dave did to me! We have a LOT differences and problems…and sometimes they are with each other, but we all come together for one another, regardless of our issues. That is what makes the #CoolKids family…that is why all of those issues and problems won’t matter when the bell rings, amiright?”
The three women looked at one another, then slowly they are nodded in unison. Angie smiled brightly as she wiped at a tear forming in the corner of her eyes.
“Uhhhh! ADORBS! Now, get it here and give me a digital hug!”
Sarah could be seen making a mental note of yet another application to invent for her growing collection. The three of them gathered around the laptop for the virtual hug…until Angie added…
“…this is probably the only thing that Dave needs right now…”
Kenzi reached over and slammed the laptop shut and the three remaining #CoolKids stood around looking at one another.
“Angie is right…we are all sisters…we are all a family. We all have our problems. Roxy is right, Sarah didn’t pick me for her team…and the reason doesn’t matter because she won Outlast anyway…it hurts, but I’m happy for her! Roxy, you’re not happy about how you lost, and I don’t blame you…no one blames you, but you know in your heart of hearts that if anyone will make it right, Sarah will…because we are family!”
The three are all silent for a moment.
“…but…I don’t give a shit what Angie says…that goat-faced fuckboy is getting his shit pushed in on Monday night for what he did to OUR sister! I know SEB feels the same way, but I can’t trust his ass further than I can throw him!”
She pulls out her phone and shows them a picture of his office with Dave Rydell action figures super glued all over her desk and the walls. Sarah and Roxy stifled a laugh, but Kenzi was pissed.
“Dave FUCKING Rydell is public enemy #1…but SEB is pretty high in the goddamn list as well, and Sarah…don’t you even THINK of taking up for Sloane in all of this! She still thinks that this is just some regular old match that we are all supposed to just show of for and do our ‘darn tootin’ best!’ No…HELL NO! This is the match where The #CoolKids show why when you mess with one of us…you get your ass beat down by ALL of us!”
Kenzi put her arm around Sarah and Roxy.
“We don’t all see eye to eye…but I think the three of us see pretty damn clear when it comes to this match and who we are all facing! So…let’s put our trouble in our hip pockets for now and go out there and do what we do…murder a fucking goat and anyone else that gets in our way!”
The three of them looked at one another, then without a word they all opened the laptop, where Angie was there tapping on the screen.
“OH! There you guys are! The connection dropped! Did you guys hear what I said Dave needed?”
The three nodded in unison…broad and devious smiles spreading across their faces…
So, how are things? Great, I hope! Like, SO MUCH has happened in the last ten months that you would be all “OMG THAT’S AMAZING, MY FAVORITE NIECE” and I’d be all “OMG I KNOW ISN’T IT CRAXY?!” and we’d totes sip some caramel macchiatos (mine’s still better, btw) and we’ll laugh at some ugly girl going by and then giggle about Kenzi’s shoes and stuff because she is abs wearing a pair of plain brown clogs right this second. It would be a KILLER afternoon!
But we can’t.
I’d like to tell you about the year I’ve had. Like, I came back full time, right? Got back off the DL WAAAAAYYYYYYY too early last year (still beat you, though!) and only had a handful of matches, remember? But after I got to feel more like myself and get off all that ring rust, I hit the ground running in 2019. Like, I entered the Global Challenge, right? Got past Cynric (you remember Cynric) and pinned this weird masked dude who likes bagels (don’t ask), but then lost to Roxy (I’ll get to her) in the final. Still, I thought it was pretty good! But then I fought Donovan (the actual one, not the cardboard) and lost to, like, one move. How did THAT happen? Did YOU ever get beat by one move? Doubt it...you’re too badass for that! N-E-Ways, I realized that, full time or not, I needed to breathe a bit outside of the Coalition, right? So I strapped on my Tournament Shoes (the cute ones with the thick red heels I was wearing back in 2017) and hit the road.
And holy craxballz! Run...of...my...LIFE! I mean, sure, my first year was only ten months before the accident, and my second year was only six months of part-time work, but still! Right this second, between the Coalition and the XWF (that’s Vinnie’s fed! You might remember that he won a match on Chill? Says “Woah!” and “Dude!” alot?), I have gone 30-3-1! LEGIT! I am SO back that its BEYOND craxy! Hmmmm….need to hook up with Angie (you remember her...you shot ink in her face that one time?) and see if we can come up with a word for “beyond crazy.” N-E-Ways, across those thirty (30!!!!!) wins in ten months, I have won FOUR tournaments and THREE championships-
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-including the big one. I won Outlast, Auntie. I focused...like a freakin’ laser...and built a team with the singular goal of winning that thing. Not just FINALLY getting into the championship round (didn’t have to fight Lucy this time! You remember Lucy...stole my aesthetic, flopped back and forth between wanting to kill you and probs to make out? Yeah, her), but to win the whole freakin’ THING. And I did! I had to take out Roxy to do it (and take back that massive L she gave me in February!), and while there WAS a very SMALL and INSIGNIFICANT amount of help from my Step-Mumsie (Remember Bordy? You guys were buds...sorta?), the ending was the fact that I was sitting in the middle of the UGWC ring as the last person in Outlast and, thus, the UGWC World Champion.
Listen, I KNOW that I didn’t do it as fast as you (you won it in your rookie year, blah blah blah, etc ect), but I hope that you are still proud. Yes yes, you and I were not on the BEST of terms when you
……………
………………………..
when you died. But that’s okay. In my heart, I know you didn’t mean it when you called me a cancer and a locust. Just like I didn’t mean it when I likened you to Hitler when people who hated your guts somehow found themselves using tears as lube in order to make themselves look good in front of our peers. But n-e-ways, I still did it and I hope you find some pride for me as you sit at the Creator's side. I put a lot of stock in what you did, both in the business and for me personally, and I’m not afraid not to admit that I looked up to you in a LOT of ways. Like, remember how I did that whole “I WANTZ WHAT YOU HAZ” thing with Lucy? Not like that. There is so much of YOU that I want to BE. And now I have that chance.
Listen, I know you lost your way. Like, I have this tenancy to find...I don’t know...heroes? At least women in this business that I look up to. I’m sure Dr. Reznik would LOVE to unpack all of THAT and explain how its all about me trying to find a mother to replace the one I never have (please don’t mention Ava!), but its more than that. I looked up to Nikita, even IF she has turned into some Popsicle all alone in the Candaian wilderness. I looked up to Ally, even IF she became an evil bitch. I looked up to Zoe, even if her marriage was toxic. Right this second, I have found myself a kinda-sorta new person to look towards in this chick named Lisa, who is, like, the most amazeballz deathmatch fighting in the history of everything. And I think that its my job, my place, to be the YOU to another generation of girls looking to be in this business. But I want to do it in a way you couldn’t. I don’t want to lose the family and friendships I have created.
By the end, the only person you had left was Baal, and Lord only knows what happened to him after you left. I mean, I know we drifted, but I still heard. I still knew. And I don’t want to end up like that. Kenzi is the world me to (past our second anniversary! We had this CRAXY party at Disneyland!), Angie’s perspective helps me round out my own, and Roxy is a great older sister...when we aren’t trying to murder each other, that is. Which we kinda-sorta currently are. N-E-Ways, the point is that I’m going to honor you, both in body and spirit, but I am going to be MORE. I am going to PROVE that family and friendships MATTER in this business and this life.
I’ll let you go, now. I know that you have Angel things to do...though I bet you’re more shocked than anyone to find yourself at His side! Give Big G a hug for me, give the J-Man a high-five, and make sure to tussle the Spirit’s hair. He loves that, from what I’ve been told! Give Daddy and Mumsie my love, and my Godmother, if she’s around.
I promise to write more often.
Your obedient,
S.S.G-L
Beads of sweat drive trails down the heavy makeup of Sarah Grey-Lacklan as she stands before the gray tombstone. The woman’s pale face, made to seem even more so by the bright red lipstick making her lips more full than they would be naturally, seems somewhat haggard by the two deep worry lines stretching from the inside of her eyes and down to the corners of her mouth. Her eyes, flashing red in the sunlight, a rarity even in her minority albino community, are magnified by the thick glasses resting on her face, heavy black rims with tiny diamonds making spider web patterns along the temple. Her platinum hair is pulled into a tightly braided bun to rest under her wide-brimmed hat and off her neck to offer some relief from the heat, but the humidity of New Orleans still clearly affects the woman born and raised in a cooler climate.
“I’m sorry…”
A tear travels down from the outside edge of one of her eyes, adding in the carnage the sweat does to her makeup, and there is a slight quiver in her full lips.
“I’m sorry that it took so long.”
She takes a step towards the tombstone, causing the long skirt of her black dress to brush the top of the grass on the field. Conservative in cover but ornate in design, Sarah’s dress stretches from neck to wrist to ankle, tight enough to accentuate the roundness of her curves, with slashes of red along the sleeves, with their puffed shoulders, and down the bodice for relief, as well as intricate spider web designs running down the skirt. Her gloved hands match the dress, both with tiny webs on the fingertips and lines of red on top, and each holds and item. In the right, a letter made of strong alabaster paper and sealed with wax, the image of her sign within the House of Lacklan, that of a firebird spreading its wings, holding the letter closed. In her other, a pink rose, the color bright and powerful against her dark ensemble. She places both the letter and flower down in front of the stone and then takes a step back.
“I’m proud of you.”
Behind her, Kenzi Grey-Lacklan seems starkly mundane next to her spouse. Wearing a simple gray blouse and loose pants, the caramel-skinned starlet’s mass of microbraids are free to roam down her back. The California native seems to be far more adjustable to the heat than the girl from Maine, and the smile on her face speaks of the pride in her voice. Sarah gives the grave a nod, turns to Kenzi, and gives her a shrug of her puffy shoulders.
“It was only a matter of time until I caught up to you. I’m sorry that I didn’t go with you to her funeral.”
Kenzi smiles wider at Sarah and opens her mouth to respond, but then she freezes. Her dark eyes lock onto one of Sarah’s puffy shoulders as tiny movement occurs, and thin legs reach out of the pleats. Lael, the baby giant spider from Maine, skitters fully onto Sarah’s sleeve and then leaps over to Kenzi, where she quickly crawls up her neck and seems to cuddle with some of her braids. Sarah’s face turns down into a scowl at the sight and she begins to stalk off with heavy steps of her heels.
“Grrrr. I don’t understand WHY Lael likes YOU more than ME! I’m Ilhar d'Lael, damnit i! The Tresk'ri Nez'rell! It just doesn’t make any SENSE!”
Kenzi ignores Sarah’s frustration and newfound, and odd, usage of the fictional “drow” language when speaking about her hometown’s resident spider clan, and instead focuses on not vomiting from the feel of the spider on her neck. She had been successful to this point about NOT letting it slip that she had “accidentally” killed the original Lael and that this was, in reality, Lael #2, and she didn’t plan on letting her revulsion over the entire situation get the best of her. So she takes a deep breath to steel herself before following Sarah to their rental car outside of the cemetery.
“Babe? Maybe you outta...um...calm down a bit? Before you drive?”
Kenzi’s voice is filled with a hectic plea but it is lost on Sarah as she approaches the white four-door.
“Oh please. I am a PERFECT driver and you KNOW that.”
Kenzi takes another deep breath as she gets to the passenger side. She gives Lael a flat look and gets into the car, making sure to pull the seat belt as tight as possible before-
SCREEEEEEEECH!
She is thrown back against the seat as Sarah unceremoniously slams one of her heels down on the gas pedal and the car careens forward. Kenzi’s life and decisions pass before her eyes...from being raised by her grandmother in Seattle to going to live with her mother and be a part of her reality show as a teen, from becoming a wrestler instead of an actor, from “marrying” a man in a Hooters...and another in Vegas...to being left at the altar by a woman and to finally accepting the offer of a potentially psychotic albino who promised her “a lifetime of frustration and annoyance,” as the car swerves left and right several times before finding its bearings in the center of the right lane. As she pushes the car even further, Sarah finally reaches over her shoulder to pull down her own seat belt, a full thirty seconds after beginning the drive.
“Besides, Mrs. Somehow Got My License That One Day But Still Can’t Remember How to Drive, I don’t see YOU doing anything. And-”
“MUSKRAT!”
The car screeches as it swerves rapidly in time to avoid the tiny animal that had ventured onto the road.
“-I loathe, truly LOATHE, O Dearest Wife, how you hold that-”
“DEER!”
The screech from Kenzi is even louder than the tires as the car swerves the other direction to avoid the deer who had also walked into the road, unwittingly tempting the cruel hand of Death to take it away.
“-Yes! That! I didn’t MEAN to hit that deer that one time! It ran at ME!”
Kenzi’s heart beats fast as she gives Sarah a look of shock. The deer who had “ran” at Sarah had literally been in a pen at a petting zoo and it was Sarah’s “perfect” driving that had somehow caused them to leave the single-lane highway and into the green of the park in what felt had only been an instant of distraction. Caught live on a vlog...because of course she was recording a vlog for her fanbase at the time...that particular car rental establishment turned down their next request for a car and said that their money was no longer good there. They had to hunt down a less-than-reputable company, “No ???s Asked! Vehicle Rentals,” to be able to be mobile outside of California.
Kenzi’s attention turns down to her side as she feels her phone buzz in her pocket. She pulls her iPhone out of her dark pants, taking a second to grin over her decision to dress down while visiting the grave of the woman who always teased her for her fashion sense, then the grin turns wicked as she sees the response to an earlier text to Sloane Taylor asking for Sebastian Everett-Bryce’s new home address. Sloane had been a bit suspicious of Kenzi’s motivations, but after telling her that Sebbie was joining the cast of her television show, she relented.
Sarah gave Kenzi a questioning look as the wicked grin turned up into devious. She winked at her wife and made a quick phone call, deepening her voice, ever so slightly.
“Hello? Yes, I’d like to order 35 pizzas for my housewarming party; 10 pepperoni, 10 sausage, 10 combination, and 5 with pineapple...cuz...YUM, amiright?! Oh! And one with coconut, because someone I know thinks that’s a Hawaiian. No, don’t ask me to explain why she thinks that.”
Sarah listened in fascination as Kenzi bullshitted her way through not putting a credit card on file as she sent the order to the home of one of their opponents for Monday’s match. Kenzi held it together until she finally hung up the phone, then burst out laughing. Sarah shook her head as her eyes rolled so hard that they sounded like bowling balls speeding towards an untimely meeting with the gutter.
“Wife, do you think it’s a good idea to violate ‘The’ Cutie’s confidence like that? You know she’s going to feel terrible when she finds out what you did.”
Kenzi sighed, appearing to be as nonchalant about it as she could.
“Come on! It’s a rib… ‘Your’ Cutie will be fine with it! If she’s not, she can take it out on you in the ring on Synergy!”
Sarah’s eye twitched as she raised a single finger to stop Kenzi from saying anything further.
“I said ‘THE’ Cutie! And another thing I’ve been meaning to ask...how can you allow that scoundrel on your show, knowing what he’s done to you in the past? I mean, I know your Mrs I’d Forgive the Devil, and all, but THIS makes absolutely NO sense!”
Kenzi looked away for a moment, the mirth dying down a bit as she did. Her voice dropped to a near whisper.
“...I thought that keeping your enemies close was a very ‘Lacklan thing’ to do...”
Sarah sat a bit straighter in her seat and then took her wife’s hand. It had been months since she had stopped using the Lacklan family name after losing a Chaos Title match to her step mumsie. Perhaps her finally winning it had been the catalyst that she needed to stake a claim to being Kenzi Grey-Lacklan again...thanks in no small part to Roxy granting her the opportunity.
“You ARE a Lacklan...and yes, keeping the scoundrel close by isn’t the WORST idea...just not the best I’ve ever heard. What’s next, Dave Rydell guest starring as Pan, the God of the Wild?”
Kenzi tensed at the mention of the man who had attacked Angie Vaughn, not once, but twice. Angie had talked them out of going into Outlast and making sure that he didn’t walk out...though, admittedly, driving his head into a steel chair had made her feel better...that was only the start. Angie was on the mend and she wouldn’t be at Synergy this week, and Dave was going to get everything that he had coming to him.
“The only thing that Rydell is getting is a free ambulance ride out of the UGWC Arena! We are going to make damn sure of that!”
At the mention of ‘we’ Kenzi could see some of the sparkle leave her wife’s eyes. It was clear that the events of Outlast had strained their relationship...perhaps even to the breaking point. Kenzi hated seeing her friends at odds, but that had been nothing new for them lately.
Kenzi glanced down at her phone as she received a notification. A text from Roxy Cotton. Her eyes shift to her right and lock onto the eight tiny ones of the spider, and she shivers before turning her eyes the other direction to look at Sarah.
“Hey, babe…”
“Yeah?”
“...um...you hear from Roxy, yet?”
The corners of Sarah’s mouth turn down in a grimace and her eyes narrow as she angrily swerves the car to pass another.
“Non.”
Kenzi holds her breath as she hears the subtle change of her wife’s normal English accent to that of French, a sign that she was suddenly close to bursting out in rage. Sarah raging in French was something that rarely happened in public, but was often accompanied by a shoe thrown at Kenzi, and she had cause to be worried over what would happen if that tendency manifested itself while driving. But then Sarah takes a deep breath...which unfortunately included her closing her eyes for a very scary moment...and then slowly lets it out.
“I’ve been texting like craxy. She KNOWS that I didn’t know about Step-Mumsie! She KNOWS that! But she’s still being all kinds of Broody McBroodington of the Salt Fields. Has she gotten back to you?”
Kenzi’s eyes dart down to her phone and the latest message from Roxy.
“Well...I mean…”
Sarah waves a hand...again causing a dangerous lurch from the car...and sighs.
“I knew she wouldn’t. SO selfish. And childish. And EXTRA petty.”
Kenzi breathed in relief at not having to lie.
“Not even ONE congratulations! Not even ONE ‘OMG BB YOU’RE AMAZING!’”
Kenzi’s eyes glaze over in wonder for a moment as Sarah’s ability with mimicry makes itself known.
“Not even ONE! I was, like, the FIRST person to tell her congrats when she barely scraped by Dave earlier in the year! And the FIRST person to give her a digital high five when you guys won the Trios tournament! True, I didn’t say congrats when she won the World Title...but literally no one did, so it's not like I’m alone on that, or anything...but still! I’m HER World Champion!"
“And! AND! We have a MATCH coming up! I mean, sure, she’s won some tag gold...including with you...but I’m the EXPERT at wrestling tag team matches...especially when they are cooperative matches in the UGWC...and so she should be just about BEGGING to hear MY insight on it! And ESPECIALLY yours! We’re the current Tag Team Champions in her #ForeverFiance’s fed, we have BOTH been successful UGWC Cooperative Champions...something that she HASN’T been, regardless of that whole ‘grand slam’ thing...but I’ll get to THAT un sac de noeuds another day...and she should be LEAPING to get OUR perspective! Sure, she’s basically got Rydell’s number these days...though that’s like saying you have an advantage in a swimming meet against a paraplegic...but she has ZERO experience against Team Slebby! And you and I are nearly undefeated against those two! Hell, we ARE undefeated if you blame Donovan for losing the Cooperative Titles...which I do...so she should be BLOWING UP MY PHONE WITH REQUESTS TO HANG OUT WITH ME AND I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY NOT.”
Kenzi opens her mouth to respond after the sudden tirade, but then her eyes go wide and she points out the window.
“Babe! That’s our exit!”
Sarah’s eyes narrow as she sees the freeway exit heading towards the airport less than a half mile away. They were never going to make it, not with their car in the far left lane. They had a plane to catch bound for Maine. An orthopedic specialist the House of Lacklan had always used. Meetings for Sarah with Estate business. Meetings with the current Mistress of the Manor which MUST happen. And unfortunately for the stress levels of Kenzi Grey-Lacklan, the World’s Champion of UGWC had NO intention of missing out on being in Maine for a couple of days.
“Good luck, everybody!”
Not bothering with a turn signal, Sarah twists the wheel to the right and crosses four lanes of traffic in one shot.
“You’re going to have to do something about that knee young lady. You’ve definitely got a tear and if you don’t get it repaired, it’s going to get worse…it’s going to get a lot worse.”
I took a deep breath as I let the orthopedic surgeon’s words wash over me, numbing me to my core. This wasn’t the news I wanted, but it was the news I expected. I knew I was hurt and hurt badly as soon as it happened on Day 2 of WrestleStock. The beanbag had slammed into the side of my knee and I not only heard the ‘POP’ but I felt it throughout my entire body. I should have just laid there and let someone else advance…but I had promised Roxy that I would help her retain her title. I was her friend, and even though winning that title would have been sweet validation for me…nothing was more important than my friends…NOTHING!
I fought through the pain and Roxy did retain…though, if I were being honest, it was BECAUSE of my injury. Sarah was inches away from snatching down that title, but when she saw that I was in trouble, she sacrificed herself to save me…she sacrificed her opportunity to regain the title she never lost. To be honest…I was embarrassed that my stupidity had cost her that victory…but I couldn’t say that out loud after proclaiming to the world that the #CoolKids would ensure that Roxy Cotton stayed golden.
I knew that Sarah wanted that title, and she had missed her chance to reclaim it because of me. She wouldn’t say it outright…but I wasn’t stupid. She was disappointed…and there were no two ways about it, I was the source of that disappointment. Similarly, I could have took a bit of solace in the fact that Roxy would thank me for fighting through a severe injury to help her…like a best friend would. Of course, I never got a thank you…just typical Roxy bluster about how deserving she was.
I expected that, but it would have been nice to have been thanked after I was carried out of the match. I thought that, as friends went, I was closer to Roxy than anyone else in our circle. We had done so much together that I took it for granted that I was also her very best friend. That was why I refused to believe that Roxy had been the one to shoot me at WrestleStock. Despite a mountain of evidence, I had stood firm that it couldn’t be her…until she shot Angie in the face to win the World Title. That had changed my perspective on her, to be sure. If she could do that to someone she obviously felt closer to than me...why couldn’t she shoot me in the knee and not care how badly I was hurt.
I had been extra jealous when she had been so protective of Angie, not wanting to fight her and avoiding it at every turn…even gifting me a shot at her. I was happy for the opportunity, but down deep it bothered me that she would have rather faced me for the World Title than Angie. I didn’t understand then…and I still don’t understand. Everything Roxy does is a mystery to me, which is why it had no longer seemed improbable that she WOULD shoot my knee out from under me, even knowing I was there to help her.
I thought it was her that had hurt me and I was hellbent on making her see that. I knew that apologies weren’t part of her nature, but I felt that we had a special connection…but…I guess it wasn’t special enough. Roxy never admitted to shooting me, and she never once thanked me for helping her retain her title…but she did give me a chance to win one of her vacated ones. I felt like a cheap whore for accepting the chance…but I had already lost two opportunities at a singles title, I couldn’t throw away another. I was the underachieving #CoolKid. While Angie and Roxy fought for the honor to be a triple crown winner, I had gone from the one with the WrestleStock Cup, stellar record, and the Cooperative Titles to the one who just didn’t measure up.
My career was on the line…and I could take this chance and run…or at least, hobble with it…or I could be proud and not accept the chance from the woman who had hurt me and not given a damn. In that moment I could picture the face of Kem Dynamo and how much alike the two of us were. We had won WrestleStock and we had all the momentum in the world, yet…when the time came to turn all that hype into gold, we floundered. I guess that's why I always defended Kem when Sarah and the others made fun of her…I was barely a cut above, and in that, it could be argued that I couldn’t even lace her boots. I needed this chance…I needed to win just to try to validate a fraction of the hopes that others had for me...Alan Wallace, Donovan Hastings, Johnny Bonecrusher...and of course, my wife.
Yeah…I was a whore to accept it…but being a failure seemed even more of an embarrassment. I’d win that title and then I was going to make Roxy pay for what she did…but…it wasn’t Roxy that had hurt me after all...it had been her fiancé Vinnie Lane...it had been a man I looked up to like a big brother. That had shook me to my core...but even worse, I had allowed others to turn me against Roxy after I had been right from the very start! Now…not only was I a whore, but I was a shit friend on top of it!
“So, are we going to schedule this surgery soon? I can probably have you prepped and ready to go in two weeks.”
I snapped back to reality, looking up at the doctor as he made little doodles on the screen that showed the severity of my injury. Honestly, it just looked like a whole bunch of coconut shavings. I tore my eyes away from all the scribble marks.
“What’s the recovery time? I read online, usually about two to three weeks.”
The middle-aged physician gave a shake of his head, clearly not in agreement with the information I had gotten from Digital Physician. I made a mental note to stop using all of Sarah's dumb 'digital' creations!
“Maybe for a grade one injury, which might have been what you started off with, but you’ve been going 100 miles per-hour on that thing since you screwed it up in July. You’re looking at about anywhere from three to six months…maybe you can come back sooner if you follow orders. So, can we get you scheduled?”
I saw his mouth moving, but I heard nothing after he said the words ‘three to six months.’ I couldn’t be out of action for one month…let alone three to six! I had obligations…in UGWC as the new Chaos Champion and in XWF as one-half of the new Tag Team Champions with my wife.
He could tell by my reaction that I wasn’t grasping the gravity of what he was saying. He put down his doodle pen and faced me. He took in a deep breath, knowing he had to be straight.
“I know, you’re young and you feel like you can take on the world, and maybe you have…but this injury isn’t going to be magically healed because you’re only a few years removed from being a teenager. Now…can you get by on it for a while longer? Maybe…if you rest and you rehab it properly, but in my estimation this is going to get worse if you don’t deal with it…I’m just being straight with you.”
“Can I take a day or two to talk to my family?”
He reached over and patted me on my good knee.
“Just don’t take too long.”
I walked out of the office, and the weight that was on my shoulders seemed to fall to my knee in short order. It hurt like hell and soon I was hobbling in spite of myself. I gritted my teeth and did my best to hide it…I had to. This wasn’t the time and I couldn’t let her see me hurt…not now.
My jaw tensed as I no sold the pain and walked to the long black car that was waiting for me. Over and over inside my head, I repeated the mantra; ‘pain is weakness leaving the body.’ It was becoming more and more apparent that I had a shit ton of weakness.
Right on cue, the car pulled up and waited for me. It shone in the sunlight with heavy wax and I knew that if I looked, the license would be unmarked. I didn’t know what I would say when I saw her…but I knew I couldn’t tell her just how bad the injury was…especially after becoming a champion. The door was opened for me by a handsome man in a black military uniform and I slipped inside, careful not to show how much pain I was in or how stiff my knee was getting.
“What did they say?”
“I’ll be fine…”
“Bonne fille. My legacy is in fine hands! Il est ressuscité et il est fier!”
I turned to Ava Quinn, a woman I had learned to despise above all others for what she had done in an effort to tear Sarah and I apart. Things had changed now…things had changed a lot now. Ava had changed as well. She was gaunt and her eyes were a bit sunken, and she was wearing a scarf that only showed her face; she looked tired, and yet, somehow seemed all the more happy for it.
I didn’t know if Sarah’s family doctor had her on some kind of cocktail to make her less crazy, but whatever it was...it was working. That was the only way that a meeting like this could have ever taken place after all that Sarah and I had been put through with her. But, actions spoke louder than words and Ava’s actions had certainly been telling the last few weeks; encouraging me as part of the family...helping Sarah achieve her dream of becoming a World Champion...then, there was the revelation about Angie that I still had not been able to process.
I turned to her, finally ready to speak civilly, as we hadn’t done in a very long time.
“I want to know why you told me about Angie and not Sarah. I mean, obviously you don’t mean for me to tell her...so I don’t know why you did it.”
Ava was quiet as she considered my words. When she spoke, her tone was measured and practiced. I could tell that she had prepared for this question, but now that it was finally asked, she wanted to answer it very carefully.
“My treatment of you has been, harsh. To be fair, I did not see you as worthy of being part of my husband’s House. In choosing you, I doubted my step-daughter’s fitness...but, in this I have come to see that perhaps I was incorrect, about a great many things...”
Ava took care to remove one of the gloves she wore, then reach over and took my hand in her own. It was a small gesture that might not have held any importance for anyone else...but I knew that this had real weight and meaning, and I appreciated it...though I resisted the urge to pull away.
The large brown spider moved down my arm and perched itself on our joined hands, adding to the weirdness of this entire situation. Ava gave my hand a gentle squeeze and continued on.
“...I told you about my husband’s other child to show you that I trusted you. We have been on opposite sides for far too long. When you first came to me and offered me a chance to be part of this new family, my actions were regrettable...now I hope that you will give me that second chance.”
It wasn’t that easy, and I pulled my hand away..
“I appreciate that Ava, but trust isn’t something I am just going to give you because you tell me some big secret that you should have told Sarah a long fucking time ago! Instead, you share this with me...and now I’m shitty for not telling her what I know! The only thing that might be worse is that Angie knows and hasn’t said anything! I don’t get you people...I don’t get you people at all!”
Ava cackled at this as she held up her ungloved hand with the spider crawling around as she talked to it like a person.
“You see, bébé araignée? That is why she will be good for the family...I didn’t see it before.”
Ava turned her eyes on me again.
“You’re a Lacklan, just as surely as the rest of them. The blood may not be the same, but the heart...that is what she saw in you and that is what I see now.”
“So? When are you going to tell Sarah?!”
Ava took a deep breath.
“Soon...”
She put her hand on my knee and that fucking spider made a run for me like a goddamn olympic sprinter. I would have jumped out of my skin, as she not squeezed my knee and damn near made me piss myself.
I grimaced and she gave a curt nod of her head, as if she had known it all along.
“You’re just as stubborn as the two of them as well! You’re lying about how badly you’re injured. Tell me why.”
I didn’t want to tell her a damn thing, but before I could stop myself, I was sharing things that I hadn’t even shared with Sarah...yet.
“Look! Right now...things are going well for us...HELL, they are going GREAT! Sarah has everything she’s ever wanted...and while I didn’t help her get there...I’m here now and I can be part of it. There’s no way that I am going to just call for a timeout...not now! We are a team...in all things. I haven’t held up my end of things...but I will, I have to!”
Ava sat in silent contemplation of this. I could see her turning my words over and over inside that crazy head of hers. There was no telling how she would process any of what I said.
“You are doing the same thing that you’re accusing me of, mon enfant. As I said, you’re a true Lacklan...I hope you decide to carry the name once again…Je sais qu'il serait fier”
The air left my chest as I sat there, turning and casting my gaze out the window at the passing Maine landscape. I didn’t want her looking at me and seeing the hypocrite that she had uncovered. Yes, I wanted her to tell Sarah about Angie...regardless of whatever stupid reason she was hiding it...but I had my own dumb secrets that I was keeping as well. That whole, people in glass houses bullshit.
It was ironic that Ava was now telling me that I was a Lacklan, when it was my failure against her that made me feel like I was anything but that! In spite of what I had told her about all of the success we had been having in ‘God’s Favorite Sport’ the fact of the matter was that I felt I was falling further and further behind by the second. This injury had only made it much more apparent. Angie and Roxy were battling it out for the honor of being triple crown champions...all this after I had pitched a fit when they had both told me that I wasn’t on that level yet. Outlast had come and I thought I would have a chance to be part of getting Sarah to the place I always knew she belonged...but I wasn’t even a part of that either. So...what was I? They said that I was a Lacklan...but I was just coming up short when it really mattered.
Hell...Roxy was more of a Lacklan than I was at this point!
I was UGWC Chaos Champion...I was XWF Tag Team Champion, and that was something, but I needed to be more. I couldn’t quit...not when Sarah was back and in the midst of being everything that her father had raised her to be. Injury, be damned! I would fight through it and I would earn that name....
Roxy Cotton had been uncharacteristically quiet. The championship loss had curtailed her bombastic personality, which so often was reminiscent of a firecracker going off in a quiet room, and made her retreat inward. She’d canceled all of her appearances, her potential endorsements. Everything. Even though people were clearly still interested in having her on their screens or on their airwaves, she’d simply closed a door on all of them.
Vinnie Lane wasn’t much of an exception. He’d spent the few days following Outlast doing his best to console her in the ways he knew would get through. He was well aware she wouldn’t want overt sympathy or pity. She never liked being treated like she was wounded or frail, even when she was. Vinnie was dumb in a lot of ways, but he knew that much to be true. So he’d stayed close to her, quietly rescheduling appointments to be by her side and handle the little things for her. Refilling her glass, taking care of her laundry, maintaining her schedule with various spas and salons. But she didn’t have much to say.
“You hungry babe?”
“No thank you.”
“Did you eat at all today?”
“I’m fine, bb.”
Little interactions were all he could pull from her. But Vinnie knew she was a strong person, and that although her heart was aching it wouldn’t be long before she shrugged it off and went back to the life she’d created for herself. A bombshell. A walking standing ovation. After all, in barely two years she’d made herself a star out of virtually nothing. She didn’t do that by staying down.
“Hey babe, you need anything from the store?”
“No. I’m fine, thank you.”
“You sure? You want to come with? We could swing by Rodeo?”
“No, it’s okay.”
“All right… I’ll be back.”
“Vinnie?”
“Yeah baby?”
“Don’t be gone too long.”
She was out of bed every morning before he was, and she stayed up later also. Vinnie didn’t have the ability to pull all nighters anymore now that he was a bit long in the tooth, and Roxy had always been an early riser. Her morning constitutionals of running on the beach or swimming in the pool or spending time in the yoga studio were often all completed before Vinnie even blinked away the sleep from the night before.
But usually Roxy stayed busy in between, too. In the week after Outlast she’d stopped doing much of anything. She got out of bed, and stayed out of bed until late hours, but throughout the day Vinnie would find her lying down, napping in a dark room. At times when she’d typically be running her errands or making sure the paparazzi were watching her walk down Sunset Boulevard, she was instead staying indoors. Her tanning bed was going unused. Her stylist had called Vinnie asking if she was feeling well after she’d canceled an appointment and never rescheduled. But Vinnie didn’t push it. He just stayed in her orbit.
“You ready for Relentless babe?”
Vinnie had been excited, reveling in the fact that Roxy would be coming along with him to one of the bigger XWF pay per view events of the year. He knew she loved Miami. Loved things like being out on the water. And he knew she loved the spotlight. He couldn’t wait to have her there by his side as the company he ran, the company that brought them together years ago to begin with, put on a spectacle.
“Are you sure we have to go?”
“What? Babe, of course. I have to be there, you know that.”
“Can’t we just stay in? I don’t want to go out.”
“I have to… Rox, it’s our business. It’s what paid for this house. And they love you, they don’t get to see enough of you anymore.”
“I know, but…”
“Come on. We’ll have a good time. You’ll look amazing. Your friends will be there…”
She’d shot him an icy glare when he said it, the words running out of his mouth before he could tackle them and drag them back into his brain. Stupid. He knew better than to bring them up right now.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Fine. Let’s go.”
And so they’d gone to Florida for the three day event. Vinnie got the most expensive hotel room available and made sure Roxy never had to leave it for food or drink. He’d gotten them massages and even had a dress tailored to match his custom suit. He knew every inch of her, after all, carved into his memory was every curve and swell of her body. Her measurements, her preferences, her colors… he knew her as well as she did.
But he wasn’t prepared for the events of night three of Relentless. The two of them had been having a good time, watching the matches unfold from their executive suite. When he’d gone to the ring with Kenzi Grey he’d thought they were just going to have some fun goofing around with each other and that maybe Roxy would get a chuckle from it. He knew that she needed to break the tension between her and her #CoolKid friends, especially Sarah. Roxy’s phone had been flashing almost nonstop from ignored text messages, and Vinnie knew it had to be handled sooner than later. So maybe having a laugh in the ring with Roxy’s best friend could get the healing started, he’d thought.
Then the footage began to roll, and he saw what he’d hoped he’d made sure would never be exposed. Himself at WrestleStock, holding one of those high powered bean bag rifles during Roxy’s Cross-Semicircle Title defense match. Himself, lining up a deliberate shot to Kenzi’s knee. Himself, dropping and injuring someone he considered a friend. And although he was in the ring and Roxy was in the back, he knew exactly what her face must have looked like at that moment.
The next couple of minutes were a blur of pain and noise as Kenzi had assaulted him, justifiably, and sent him limping to the back with his tail between his legs in shame. Roxy had to come out and help him, and in so doing had to come face to face with Sarah Lacklan for the first time since Outlast.
He’d fucked it all up.
“You just don’t get it, do you?”
It was the most she’d said to him in nearly a week. After they’d returned to Malibu following Relentless, she’d locked herself away in a wing of the Palisades, relying only on Maxine and a handful of estate employees to take care of her. She wouldn’t let him in, no matter what.
But this morning, when Vinnie had groggily stumbled into the kitchen to pour himself a bowl of Ruby-Ohs… she was there waiting for him.
“Rox! Hey babe, I… I guess I should explain…”
“No. I don’t need you to explain. I know why you did what you did. That’s what makes it all hurt so bad, Vinnie.”
“Babe I just wanted to help, I know how much it means to you…”
“I didn’t NEED your help, Vinnie! God damn it, don’t you get it? You RUINED one of the biggest moments of my career! Of my life! WrestleStock was where I proved I was at another level, and now the only thing anyone is going to take away from it is that my own BOYFRIEND didn’t think I could do it without his help.”
“Fiance…”
“Whatever.”
Vinnie felt his insides go cold. She wasn’t yelling at him. She wasn’t animated and gesticulating with her usual dose of melodrama. She was calm. She was relaxed. And every word she said came out of her mouth with measured calculation. Roxy wasn’t speaking from emotion, although she was describing it. She was speaking as someone who’d decided on what she wanted to say, and practiced it.
Roxy was her scariest incarnation. She wasn’t irrational and overheated with passion… she was cold with determination.
“Vinnie, you ruined the highest point of my career. You. The person I trust more than I’ve ever trusted, loved more than I’ve ever loved. You hurt my friend. You hurt my reputation. And you hurt ME, Vinnie. Why didn’t you think I could do it on my own?”
“I DID babe, I just wanted to help… look, the sniper guns weren’t my idea, that was all Donovan. I just brought one that was a little better than what they had.”
“You could have ended Kenzi’s career, Vinnie. I know she’s been looking for an excuse to do that on her own anyway, but that doesn’t give you the right. And Sarah spent the whole match looking after her instead of trying to really win. Don’t you see how that made me look? Like an opportunist. Like someone who needed to take a shortcut. I didn’t build my brand on taking shortcuts… I built my brand, my image, on being BETTER. And when I thought I’d proved my point to the world, all I’d really done is showed everyone that I didn’t think I could beat Sarah or Kenzi. And then? At Outlast? Sarah proved it true.”
“Babe come on, you know you can…”
“NO. I DON’T know that I can. I know that I have, I know that I thought I proved it, but I was wrong and it’s YOUR FAULT, Vinnie. And all this time that’s gone by, and Sarah’s just been simmering, angry, vengeful… and SHE WAS RIGHT TO BE. Because Vinnie if anyone had done to you what you did to Sarah’s beloved? I’d have done absolutely anything to take away what mattered to them.”
“I don’t understand…”
“Of course you don’t! You don’t think things through! You don’t PLAN Vinnie! You just think everything will always be fine, but it WON’T be fine! Not this time. Sarah took my title away from me because she wanted to avenge what happened to Kenzi. She knew I had something to do with it even though I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW I DID. If not for YOU, Vinnie, I could have proved I belonged in that main event picture without the whispers of what if Kenzi hadn’t gotten hurt. I could have celebrated my UGWC Championship with my FRIENDS instead of them all wanting nothing to do with me. I could have had Sarah and Kenzi supporting and loving me instead of them talking about me behind my back and plotting to ruin it all.”
A horn honked from outside, catching Vinnie’s attention. It sounded like it was inside the gate, but that wasn’t possible without someone letting them in.
It was only then that Vinnie, still struggling to fight off a bad night’s sleep, noticed that Roxy wasn’t in the kitchen to eat breakfast. She was fully dressed and made up. Heels, jewelry, sunglasses. And next to her long legs, lined up on the floor, were three roller suitcases.
“That’s my ride.”
“Where are you… who’s here?”
“It’s just an Uber.”
“But babe… hold on… babe…”
Roxy headed for the hallway towards the front door and Vinnie moved to follow, but a thick hand on the center of his chest stopped him. Maxine had entered the room for Roxy’s bags, and she’d batted Vinnie aside into the kitchen cabinets like a cat playing with a captured moth.
“Roxy, please…”
“You ruined my life, Vinnie. I’ve got to go.”
Vinnie could only stand and watch as the two women made their way out of the front of the Pink Palisades, the estate he and Roxy had designed and lived in together. Their own version of the Coral Castle. A physical embodiment of the love they shared together.
The door slammed shut and Vinnie watched through the glass as Roxy and Maxine both got into the back of the Lincoln Town Car. And then they drove away.
“And as you can see on Slide #54, in the case of Sloane being taken out by a Shining Wizard...which, you will remember from Slide #4 of the Rules of #CoolKids Cooperative Engagement, Roxy is NOT allowed to use while I am the World’s Champion...or a wayward Supergirl Punch, we are then to enact Plan Q (ver. 3.51) in which we pull Dave by his stringy goat beard and-”
The slide on the screen changes to show a poorly-drawn comic of Dave Rydell being pulled into the ring by the #CoolKids, each wearing matching gear for the match, and Sarah’s eyes fill with glee. Behind her and the projector, three desks are lined up in a row, filled with the rest of the stable. Roxy Cotton has her sunglasses on her face to hide her eyes as they look down at her lap, where she is ignoring the unending presentation by playing Disney’s Emoji Blitz on her phone, trying VERY hard to get this week’s exclusive, Witch Minnie. Next to her, Kenzi is facedown on her desk, her braids flopping over the side like the tentacles of some Lovecraftian horror, the shine of drool and the even movement of her body telling the tale of her slumber. The final desk features a laptop resting on the surface, with Angie dutifully taking notes of the presentation via Skype, still dressed in pink kitten pajamas, her rest in Texas important but not TOO important as to miss Sarah’s latest presentation.
“-and then if the match goes past the 20 minute mark, we skip Plan Double D², which would be Rox and I doing a tandem chest bump, obvs, and go straight to Plan Codeword Excelsior (!!) and-”
Behind her, Roxy clenches her fist in glee as she successfully gets the Witch Minnie emoji, Kenzi snorts in her sleep, and Angie moves to a fresh piece of paper after filling yet another with her detailed notes.
“-and in conclusion-”
Roxy slips her phone into her purse and elbows Kenzi, who snaps awake. She is able to wipe the drool from her chin and toss her braids back just in time before Sarah turns around to face them.
“So! Any questions?”
Kenzi rubs her eyes in an attempt to clear them, lapping at the drool from the corner of her mouth.
“Yeah...can you repeat the part where we kill Dave Rydell? I want to make sure that we are all on the same page with that. I don’t want you getting distracted by ‘Your Cutie’ and we end up missing a chance to euthanize that goat!”
Sarah turns back to the large screen, clicking back several slides, bringing up a cartoon of all three #CoolKids surrounding Sebastian in the corner and the laptop with a cartoon image of Angie with a blindfold is sitting on the turnbuckle.
“Back on slide 8 you can see during plan 18b, once we have eliminated the goat and effectively isolated ‘THE’ Cutie, we can focus our attack on the scoundrel, we will converge in a classic #CoolKids pincer movement and then-”
Roxy gives a bored sigh. She had only come to this meeting because of the match on Monday. She thought she was ready to face Kenzi and Sarah again, but the longer she sat there the more she felt the walls closing in on her. The stuff between Vinnie and Kenzi and now having to sit and listen to Sarah, as if she were now the leader?
“Are we done here? I have a 3 o’clock Brazilian scheduled.”
She didn’t have anything at all scheduled, but she needed an excuse to leave, and as it turned out, no one ever questioned vagina maintenance. Unfortunately, Sarah wasn’t so eager to give up.
“This is a TEAM meeting! If we are going to win the match, we are going to-”
“Need your step-mom?”
Roxy knew it was a low blow, but it was true…whether she asked for help or not. It was the one thing she had to hang her hat on…since vagina maintenance hadn’t successfully rescued her from this situation.
Sarah’s cheeks flushed and she narrowed her red hued eyes on the former UGWC World Champion.
“We have gone over this! Or, at least we WOULD have if you’d answered your phone! I had no idea that Step-Mumsie would be there! I wouldn’t have taken advantage if I’d seen what she did!”
Kenzi muttered under her breath.
“...I would have...”
Roxy was quick to turn on the starlet.
“Why doesn’t that surprise me at all Kenz, especially after the way you attacked Vinnie?! Yeah, maybe he deserved what he got, but what you did was cruel and unusual! That night, he was upstairs in bed ringing that stupid little bell every time he wanted something! I had to go all the way outside to the pool house so I didn’t have to listen to it anymore!”
“So, you just left him in the house by himself?! What if there was an emergency?!”
“DUH! Vinnie knows the number to 911, thank you very much!!”
“He better start dialing as soon as he sees me again!”
Roxy and Kenzi face off, glaring at one another. Sarah claps her hands loudly to get their attention before they can start bickering.
“Hello! Eyes on me! This is a promotional video about the UGWC where I am EVERYONE’S World Champion! No need to talk about some Chill superstar...and I use that term loosely...who should be thanking his LUCKY STARS that he has the 5’2” Mafia as his Tag Team Champions!”
Roxy turns her glare at Sarah and Kenzi rolls her eyes.
”The FACT is that we are going into Synergy on Monday as a UNIT and are facing at team who is NOT. Sure, Seb-”
”The third!” comes the cry from the laptop sitting on the desk. [/Font]
”-and Sloane-”
Kenzi added, with a bit of jealous malice.
“...your cutie…”
”-THE cutie...are the Cooperative Champions right now, which means that THEY know how to function as a duo, but they are teamed with freakin’ Rydell, someone who they currently LOATHE due to what they did to dear, sweet Angelica-”
”#TeamJelllyBeanToes4Life!!”
”-and there is NOW WAY that they will be able to work the way WE can. In fact, as you will remember from Slide 14...that was the one where I exhaustively broke down his 33% win rate over the last two years and how each and every one of his 35 Ls in that time matter specifically to THIS match...he has less chance of being a factor in this match than-
“UGH!” screams out Roxy. “No! I am not going to sit here while you come up with another STUPID analogy that no one understands! We don’t need slides, graphs, or any of this other crap to beat them! You’re the World Champion …I should still be World Champion…and Kenzi is here! That should be MORE than enough to get through this match, okay?”
Roxy pushed away from her desk and got up.
“I have to go!”
Kenzi got to her feet, her eyes burning a hole right through Roxy.
“What in the hell do you mean-“ Kenzi did a spot on imitation of Roxy; ‘and Kenzi is here!’”
Roxy threw up her hand and gave a huge sigh of frustration.
“No offense Kenz, but look around the room…everyone here has been the UGWC World Champion…even though one of us had to have help to do it…but you’re a little light in the category…that’s all I’m saying!”
”ROXY!!”
Sarah stamped her foot defiantly, but Roxy whirled on her next.
“DON’T GET ALL HIGH AND MIGHTY! YOU DIDN’T EVEN WANT TO PICK HER FOR YOUR OUTLAST TEAM!!”
“PROBABLY BECAUSE YOUR FUCKING BOYFRIEND CRIPPLED ME!!”
Sarah, Roxy, and Kenzi were ready to come to blows, all three women screaming at one another. The trio that supposedly had the distinct teamwork advantage was coming apart at the seams before the bell even rang. It was the voice of the one #CoolKid that wasn’t even in the room that cut through the noise and stopped them all.
“…guys…Guys…GUYS!!! STOP IT!! STOP FIGHTING!!”
The three of them stopped as Angie raised her voice, uncharacteristically. Sarah, Roxy, and Kenzi all looked at one another, then to their tall stablemate on the tiny laptop.
“You know, the reason you guys will win isn’t because you’re a team, because cheese and crackers, you certainly aren’t acting like it right now!”
The trio looked at one another, just a bit of shame in their eyes.
“Sarah…you’re my sister…”
Kenzi’s mouth fell open…
“Roxy…Kenz…all three of you, we are all sisters!”
Kenzi lowered her head, looking from Angie to Sarah.
“We are all family and sometimes that means that we don’t always get along. Roxy is mad at Sarah for winning her title, Sarah is mad at Roxy because Vinnie hurt Kenzi, Kenzi is mad at Sarah for not picking her first for Outlast, but in spite of all that, the three of you are all here because of what Dave did to me! We have a LOT differences and problems…and sometimes they are with each other, but we all come together for one another, regardless of our issues. That is what makes the #CoolKids family…that is why all of those issues and problems won’t matter when the bell rings, amiright?”
The three women looked at one another, then slowly they are nodded in unison. Angie smiled brightly as she wiped at a tear forming in the corner of her eyes.
“Uhhhh! ADORBS! Now, get it here and give me a digital hug!”
Sarah could be seen making a mental note of yet another application to invent for her growing collection. The three of them gathered around the laptop for the virtual hug…until Angie added…
“…this is probably the only thing that Dave needs right now…”
Kenzi reached over and slammed the laptop shut and the three remaining #CoolKids stood around looking at one another.
“Angie is right…we are all sisters…we are all a family. We all have our problems. Roxy is right, Sarah didn’t pick me for her team…and the reason doesn’t matter because she won Outlast anyway…it hurts, but I’m happy for her! Roxy, you’re not happy about how you lost, and I don’t blame you…no one blames you, but you know in your heart of hearts that if anyone will make it right, Sarah will…because we are family!”
The three are all silent for a moment.
“…but…I don’t give a shit what Angie says…that goat-faced fuckboy is getting his shit pushed in on Monday night for what he did to OUR sister! I know SEB feels the same way, but I can’t trust his ass further than I can throw him!”
She pulls out her phone and shows them a picture of his office with Dave Rydell action figures super glued all over her desk and the walls. Sarah and Roxy stifled a laugh, but Kenzi was pissed.
“Dave FUCKING Rydell is public enemy #1…but SEB is pretty high in the goddamn list as well, and Sarah…don’t you even THINK of taking up for Sloane in all of this! She still thinks that this is just some regular old match that we are all supposed to just show of for and do our ‘darn tootin’ best!’ No…HELL NO! This is the match where The #CoolKids show why when you mess with one of us…you get your ass beat down by ALL of us!”
Kenzi put her arm around Sarah and Roxy.
“We don’t all see eye to eye…but I think the three of us see pretty damn clear when it comes to this match and who we are all facing! So…let’s put our trouble in our hip pockets for now and go out there and do what we do…murder a fucking goat and anyone else that gets in our way!”
The three of them looked at one another, then without a word they all opened the laptop, where Angie was there tapping on the screen.
“OH! There you guys are! The connection dropped! Did you guys hear what I said Dave needed?”
The three nodded in unison…broad and devious smiles spreading across their faces…
