I’m sorry
Two words I always think
After you’ve gone
When I realize I was acting all wrong

 

Date October 18th 2019 / Time 9:57PM / Status RECORDING
Location The Lee/Wylde Residence – New York City, New York

I’m exhausted. I’m exhausted and I’m regretting my decision to leave UGWC and join Carnage more and more with every second. It’s not the competition. It’s not anything but the hard realization that my being there in order to be with Joe affected more than just he and I. I didn’t think.

I used my heart instead of using my brain and here I am on the cusp of a match that I don’t want to be in, with someone that I don’t want to fight. I sigh, looking around the darkened room around me as I sit on the ground in front of a camera.. Wanting to just talk… No, needing to just talk about this.. About everything that’s brought my sister and I to this point.

I just.. I don’t know where to start.

“I know you all hate me…”

I say softly, slowly turning my head away from the window and the view of the New York Skyline – and towards the lens. It makes me sad. Unbelievably so. I shrug my shoulders and tilt my head. It’s not like I don’t deserve their hatred.

It’s not like this entire thing is totally unjust.

I reach up and tuck my hair behind my ears and lean back against the couch behind me.

“And I get it. Hell, I hate myself too. No one understands what’s been going through my head for the last couple of months and I don’t expect any of you to. I don’t expect any of you to give a shit either. I hate myself for the shit I’ve done. I hate myself for the people.. No, the person that I’ve hurt.”

I reach down beside me, pulling a bottle of whiskey into my lap and twisting off the cap. I swore I’d never touch the stuff again, especially after last year… After I downed a full bottle as a chaser after a full bottle of sleeping pills. But tonight is a special occasion, I guess… At least that’s how I’m going to justify it as I put the bottle to my lips and take a healthy swig.

It’s not that I’m trying to forget. I suppose I’m just not too good at handling the guilt. I can never forget, nor would I want to. Just, I need to dull the ache, somehow.

“I’ve never claimed to be perfect. Not once. But I guess just because I’ve never said it doesn’t mean that I’ve never come off like I’m God’s gift to this industry we’re all in. Guilty as charged.. I guess.”

My voice, it doesn’t even sound like my voice anymore. I sound like I’ve been smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for about ten years. At least it matches the way I feel.. Haggard, spent.. Fatigued.

Defeated.

“I can’t blame the lot of you for feeling the way you feel about me. In your position, I’d feel the same damn way. A woman who came into this industry as someone that came from an abusive home, someone who proved that if she could get out of that environment and accomplish what she did… then anyone could do it. Someone that people honestly felt like they could believe in. That was what I was, wasn’t it?”

I shake my head and pull the bottle back into my lap again, bringing it up and taking another drink, swishing it around in my mouth before I swallow – closing my eyes as it burns all the way down my throat.

I’m not a hero. I never was.

“I never asked for that. I never asked to be anyone’s idol or hero… But I didn’t stop anyone from worshipping me when it happened, did I? No.. I loved it. I loved every, solitary fucking second of it, even if I didn’t outwardly show it. What a disappointment, huh?”

I blink back a few tears and pull the bottle back up to my lips, wiping at my face just in case any tears freed themselves from the corners of my eyes. No one cares. No one cares about how I feel.

And they shouldn’t.

“I know it. Deep down in here…”

I reach up and touch my chest, right above my heart.

“Deep down in your heart, finding out that someone like me.. Someone who was supposed to be one of the bright spots of this shitty industry full of shitty people doing shitty things.. Is just as fucked up as each and every one of them. Maybe more so. No, I’m not here to protect my ego here.. I am more fucked up than them.. By a long shot.”

I pause again and sigh, turning my head away from the camera and taking another drink of whiskey.

“I’ve called them monsters. I’ve called them evil. I’ve fought against those people, throwing myself on the side of ‘good’, standing up for those who couldn’t stand up for themselves… When I myself… Am a monster.”

 

So selfish
Two words that could describe
Oh actions of mine
When patience is in short supply

 

Date September 15th 2019 / Time 7:02AM / Status Not Recording
Location JAZ Hotel Amsterdam – Amsterdam, Holland

Sleep has been a stranger lately. Since Kyra came out on Chaos and told the world… What happened… I’ve been so caught up inside my own mind. I’ve been so caught up that I feel like I’ve slipped up on my responsibilities as a girlfriend.

Just another thing to feel guilty about.

Not to mention that Joe left the room last night, I don’t know where he went.. I just know that he left to keep the CWF camera people away from me and he didn’t come back.

I just.. I feel so God damned guilty. He’s had to deal with so much stuff, outside of his own things.. Things that he shouldn’t have to deal with. I’m just a shitstorm of bullshit and now he’s caught up in it. It’s not right and it’s not fair to him. And to top it off, I haven’t even talked to him about it.

I just don’t know if I can.

So many thoughts going through my head, and I can’t make sense of them all. How do I look Joe in the eye and tell him my side of what Kyra said? What is my side? How do I tell him that she’s right?

She’s fucking right.

I throw myself back in the bed and cover my face with the pillow. Fuck. I don’t want to cry. I don’t want to lay here acting like I’m some kind of victim in all this because she’s right and I’ve spent all these years trying to move on from that… mistake and I should have known that coming to Carnage was going to end up this way.

As I’m laying here, I hear a faint knock on the door. All I can think of is ‘what now’ as I drag myself off of the bed and head to the door, looking through the peep hole to see Joe standing just outside the door. I open it up just a crack, wondering if he’s accompanied by an unwelcome visitor.

“Cameraman outside?”

“Cameraman outside.”

I close my eyes and grit my teeth.

“Fuck.”

“Yep.”

I sigh and put my head against the door. I can’t very well keep Joe out of our room, but I sure as hell don’t want the CWF cameramen recording the entirety of anything to do with me. Not right now. I didn’t sign up for this. He did.

But I know I need to talk to him.

Might as well get all this shit out in the open now…

“I really don’t want to talk about this in front of the camera.”

“You haven’t wanted to talk about it all week. You need to tell me what’s going on.”

I nod my head. He can’t see it but I guess it’s more just me accepting that fact even more than I already have.

“Make him wait.”

I take a few steps back from the door and a few seconds later Joe walks through the door, closing it behind him. I retire back to the bed, sitting on the edge as I watch him take a seat in the chair across from me, his eyes flickering up at me expectantly.

He’s been absurdly patient with me through all of this, he deserves an explanation.. Even if it’s not the one he thinks he’s going to get.

I sigh and lay my hands on my thighs.

“I don’t even know where to start..”

I look back up at him and he’s still just sitting there, staring at me. A few seconds of silence tells me that he’s not going to respond so I sigh again, running my hands through my hair.

“I don’t know. I had had enough… Laying there every night, listening to Kyra cry herself to sleep. I wanted to find a way of getting both of us out.”

“Okay..”

I know he doesn’t understand what I’m saying… He wasn’t there.

“What you gotta understand is… When we were younger, Kyra was always the one telling me that we had to get out… and I.. I was always too scared to try. What if he found us? What if we couldn’t get far enough away?”

I close my eyes and shake my head. I sound so fucking stupid right now and I know it. I don’t even want to look at him right now.

“..And I know it sounds so ridiculous. At least now I do.. Back then I honestly thought there wasn’t a place I could run away to that he couldn’t find us.”

“You’re father was a horrible person. It’s not ridiculous to think that way as a child.”

“I guess not. I don’t know.. But anyway, that night I had enough and I was finally ready to… grow a set and get us the hell out of there.”

I shrug my shoulders and look up again to see him intently listening to me. The obvious question that lingers in the air is.. So what happened?

“And obviously… I got out and I left.”

His eyebrows raise.

“There’s more to it than that, Luce.”

“I got out of the house and when I went to Kyra’s window.. An animal jumped out of the trashcan and knocked it to the ground… It woke our father up.”

He nods his head.

“So you left.”

I don’t know if it’s real but I feel the judgments flying across the room at me.

“I knew you’d take their side..”

“I’m not taking anyone’s side!”

He says, raising his voice, his eyebrows furrowing with anger.

We sit there in silence for a few minutes. I listen to him breathe as I put my head down in my hands, trying to keep myself from crying.

“I’m just trying to understand, Luce.”

He finally says softly. I look back up and sigh, nodding my head. Of course he is.. Everyone is against me right now.. Everyone sees me as this terrible person and it’s hard not to look at him and worry that he’s going to hear all of this and realize that I’m as bad as she said I was and I’m going to lose him too.

“I know. I know… I’m sorry. But yeah, I left. I saw the bedroom light come on and I bolted. She was right about me. I abandoned her.”

“You were scared.”

“Is that really an excuse?”

He sighs and shakes his head.

“No, I guess it’s not. But you couldn’t help what happened either.”

Instead of responding right away, I just shrug my shoulders and look down – wiping at my eyes. Maybe I couldn’t help what happened. I couldn’t have known that animal was going to be there or knock over that trash can.

Doesn’t change the guilt though.

After a few minutes he gets up from the chair. I look up as he walks towards me and leans down, kissing me softly.

“I gotta go.. Take these camera people somewhere. Thank you for telling me, Luce. I love you.”

“I love you.”

He looks at me for a couple more seconds before he turns and leaves the room. Once I hear the door click closed behind him, I lay back again and shake my head – I feel like I should feel like a weight has been lifted but all I feel is more guilt.

 

We don’t need to say goodbye
We don’t need to fight and cry
Oh we, we could hold each other tight tonight

 

Date October 18th 2019 / Time 10:22PM / Status RECORDING
Location The Lee/Wylde Residence – New York City, New York

I look downwards as I let the bottle rest in my lap, shaking my head.

“I fucked up. I fucked up big. I was young. I was just a child. I was a fucking kid who was scared out of her mind every single fucking day. But you don’t wanna hear that, I know.. Hell I know you don’t even wanna hear about what happened that night. Everyone has done made up their minds about me but I need to tell you all that everything Kyra said… Everything she said was true.”

I pull in a shaky breath and exhale deeply as I force my eyes back up into the camera.

Here goes nothing…

“The night she was talking about… I had had enough. Kyra and I… We grew up in a home where there was no love. Only anger and hatred. For what? I guess I’ll never truly know. Our father was a bad man and our mother.. She never lifted a finger in defense of her daughters. Well..”

Except when she kept him from killing me in that warehouse just over a year ago. I grimace and shake my head.

“Except for when it was almost too late… But that’s not the point here. The point is… I got to a point where I couldn’t handle it anymore. I knew that if I didn’t find a way out, I was going to die in that house. Kyra and I both. I was always too terrified of our father to do anything about it though. I was always the one reigning Kyra back in, telling her that we couldn’t get out of there.. That he’d find us and make our lives even worse.”

“But I’d finally reached my tipping point… That night. I waited until the early hours of the morning, until I knew that he’d be dead asleep. It wasn’t easy but I’d found a way to pry the lock on my window open. To this day, I still don’t know how I managed it, but I did. The window was open, the curtain blowing in the breeze.. And just beyond it was freedom. I just had to get out there and get Kyra out too, so I packed a bag with whatever I could fit into it and I climbed out.”

I close my eyes and relive those moments in my mind, and for a fleeting moment, I remember the euphoria I felt when I landed on the ground outside my window… Almost forgetting what came after..

Almost.

Finally, I open my eyes and focus on the camera.

“I was out.. I did it. But I wasn’t done.. I was going to get Kyra out of there too. I just had to get her attention. I had to show her how to pry the lock off and get us both away from that hell hole. For once, I had to be the brave one…”

I let out a laugh, my chest tightening as I bring the bottle back up to my mouth and take another drink. And here comes the worst part…

“But my 15 or 16 year old self… I honestly don’t remember anymore… I didn’t watch where I was going and as I navigated the flower bed in front of the house, I must have startled an animal going through the trash can out front and before I could do anything, the can fell over and the thud of metal hitting concrete echoed through the neighborhood. The animal scurried away but I stopped in my tracks, my entire body frozen as I stared at Kyra’s window and back at the window to my parents bedroom… Praying that that didn’t wake him up.”

“It felt like an eternity as I stood there, when in reality it was only a few seconds – watching that window and when that light did come on… my heart sank and I realized how fucked I really was. Could I have gotten to Kyra’s window anyway and somehow gotten her out? Maybe.. But I’ll never truly know because that moment…”

My voice trails off as I laugh again, shaking my head in disgust.

“..The fear took over and instead of doing what I knew Kyra would have done… I turned and I ran. I ran for my life as I heard a door slam within the house, and his bellowing scream follow not to long after. I ran until my feet burned and my legs felt like jello… And I didn’t look back.”

I swallow those words, trying to force them around the lump in my throat as I stared into the camera.

“I couldn’t.”

I manage to squeak out, my disgust at an all time high. I know Joe told me that I’m not a coward.. Even after telling him this exact story… But how am I not? I let my words linger in the air for a few moments, putting my face down into my hands – trying to think.. Breathe… anything…

I’m a fucking coward.

I have to own it. I can’t rest on the reassurances of the man I love… Because even as his words told me I wasn’t a bad person, my heart told me that I was the worst type of person. No excuse, no explanation can just whisk that away.

Finally, after a few moments, I bring my face back up and wipe my face off again – shrugging my shoulders.

“I couldn’t look back. I couldn’t risk it. I was absolutely terrified, I didn’t know what to do. I had no idea where to go. I was free, but I was lost and I was scared that no matter where I went or what I did… Someone would find out where I came from and they’d take me right back to him… And I couldn’t let that happen.”

I drop my hands to my sides, resigned to letting the tears fall down my face. Who cares anymore?

“And that… That’s what makes me a monster. Should I have gone to the police? Looking back now as a thirty five year old woman.. Absolutely. Any person in their right mind would have done exactly that. I should have run straight to the police station, told them my story.. Made them go back to that house and rescue my sister from anymore harm. But I didn’t. End of story. I didn’t do the right thing. I didn’t do the moral thing. I saved my own skin. Yeah, I was young, I was scared and I was fucking stupid…”

“But more than that, I was selfish and nothing I can ever say or do will ever change that fact.”

 

We’re so helpless
We’re slaves to our impulses
We’re afraid of our emotions
And no one knows where the shore is

 

Date September 23rd 2019 / Time 11:49PM / Status Not Recording
Location Omni Atlanta Hotel at CNN Center – Atlanta, Georgia

It’s almost a blessing I didn’t have to go to Chaos tonight. After what happened two weeks ago, I really, really didn’t want to face everyone in Baltimore after what Kyra said. I mean what the fuck would I even say?

Instead, I’m here in Georgia. Outlast was tonight and I got the chance to focus on something else for a night, of course it would have been even better had I actually made the finals. Instead I didn’t and here I sit, getting ready to watch a replay of Chaos because why not?

Of course I’m filled with a combination of dread and fear as the show opens on my sister as she walks through the backstage, the look on her face one I’ve seen many times before.

“What are you doing, Kyra….”

She’s got something up her sleeve.

As to what… That’s what worries me.

And then she stops at the door to Bridges office and the bad feeling in the pit of my stomach gets worse.

She walks in and within a few seconds she’s sitting on the other side of his desk like they’re old buddies. I lean forward and turn the TV up even though everything is telling me to just turn it off..

“I must. Listen, I want to ask you for… A favor.”

Bridges scoffs and I almost understand his disbelief.

“You? Ask ME.. For a favor? Hell must be freezing over.”

“It really must be..”

I say, shaking my head as Kyra chuckles on the screen.

“Listen, I know you and I haven’t always seen eye to eye… but in light of recent… admissions… I’d like to extend an olive branch.”

”Admissions?”

I roll my eyes. Always playing stupid that one is. As if none of us heard him basically siding with Paragon.

“Don’t act like you didn’t side with Paragon the other week when Jack was about to murder JC out there in the arena. We all heard it. Doesn’t mean we necessarily like you anymore than we did before.. But I don’t know about the rest of my teammates but I’m willing to let our issues go for the moment until our mutual enemies are out of the picture.”

Her voice trails off and she gives Bridges a look. I sigh and immediately know that look is about Joe and I. This isn’t good.

”What do you have in mind?”

A sinister grin crosses Kyra’s lips as she pulls her legs off of the desk and leans forward.

“Well since Jack is going to be taking care of one half of Carnage’s wannabe Power couple at Season of the Witch.. Why don’t you let me dispose of the other half?”

“No.. No… Come on Bridges..”

Jesus Christ.. I can’t believe she’s actually… No, I can definitely believe she’s doing this. I shouldn’t be surprised by anything she does.. Especially when I know how much she hates me.. She was just getting started back at We Are Relentless.

I don’t want to fight her.

“You got it.”

“Fucks sake…”

No… No… This can’t be happening. But he’s pulling the papers out of his desk, he’s picking up a pen.. This is going to happen. But Kyra puts her hand over the papers and he stops.

What now?

”But I want her the same way her little boyfriend wanted me. Steel Cage. Anything goes. I want free reign to beat that bitch until–”

”Done.”

She gets up from the desk, a satisfied smile on her face.

“Much appreciated.”

The television screen changes to the Chaos logo and then to black as I turn it off and throw the controller down on the bed. Fuck.

“FUCK!”

I don’t want this. I don’t fucking want this.

But…

I deserve this..

It doesn’t matter what I want. She feels like I abandoned her and if she wants to beat the hell out of me, who the fuck am I to deny it?

 

We’re divided by the ocean
And the only thing I know is
That the answer isn’t for us
No the answer isn’t for us

 

Date October 18th 2019 / Time 10:45PM / Status RECORDING
Location The Lee/Wylde Residence – New York City, New York

I bring the bottle back up to my mouth and polish it off with a few more gulps, letting a little bit drip from the corners of my mouth as I let the bottle drop to the ground beside me with a dull thud. I’d give anything to feel the least bit drunk right now.

Anything to forget everything that I just said and sleep myself into oblivion.

But now it’s out there for everyone to see. If they had the slightest doubt about my being a coward before… Now they know the truth. The real truth behind the infamous Lucy Wylde.

I sigh and press forward though, this isn’t over. I just don’t know if there’s enough time to say everything that I need to say. Would there ever be?

“That’s why I know I deserve this, Kyra.”

Joe wants me to handle my business. He wants me to handle this the way he thinks I should… by fighting her for my pride and my name… but what does any of it mean anymore? The truth is, and it always will be that I deserted her and she has every right to be angry about that. She has every right to want to hurt me… Who am I to take that from her?

I already costed her enough.

“I’ve had this coming for a long, long time now. Everything you said was right. Everything you said was undeniable. You told the world your story, you might not have known why things happened the way they did.. You do now.. But that doesn’t change your truth and how you experienced that night and every agonizing day afterwards. You let the world know who I really am. I have no excuses. I have no explanations that could take away the years of physical and psychological torture that I’m sure Gary Johnson put you through after I left.”

I nod my head.

“Did I think about it.. About you? Of course I did. Little comfort that is now, I know. There’s nothing virtuous about what I did, nothing heroic in getting out of that house and leaving you there. Maybe there was nothing I could have done to prevent the actual events.. Or maybe I should have gone about the entire thing differently.. I don’t know. But at the end of the day, I abandoned you. You trusted me, and I let you down. I tried to tell myself so many times that in that same situation.. You’d of done the same thing. You’d of left too. I guess I was trying to quell the guilt I felt over it.. Trying to justify everything I did from that point forward.. Finishing school, getting into wrestling school, making it in the wrestling industry… I tried to make it all okay because ‘If Kyra was in that same position that morning on the front lawn.. She’d of left me there too. She’d of ran away and forgotten about me too.”

“But you wouldn’t have. You fucking wouldn’t have. You’d of found a way of trying to get me out, you’d of risked him catching you and beating you to within an inch of your life for getting out, all to try and get me out too. You’re not a coward, Kyra. You never have been.”

“And this?”

I reach out, flipping a switch – turning the lights back on in the living room. The bright lights make me squint for a moment before II motion towards myself, focusing back into the camera.

“This is the real Lucy Wylde.”

I sit back against the couch and look down at my hands, bringing them up off of my lap just enough so I can see them shake.

“The woman who a lot of you looked up to as your beacon of light? The woman who prided herself on becoming something after living a life of abuse and torture? She’s not real. She’s just a little bitch underneath it all who couldn’t even stand up for her own sister… Someone who abandoned that young girl with a rapist and an abuser after listening to her be abused night after unmerciful night… You know how I said Lucy Wylde never runs from anything?”

I raise my eyebrows, flickering my eyes back up at the camera.

“That’s because I never really stopped running from the first thing… And for that.. I’m sorry Kyra.”

I shake my head.

“I’m so fucking sorry. But I know, sorry doesn’t cut it. Not even close. My selfishness caused you so much pain and suffering. My cowardice left you in a world of horror that only I would truly understand.. And it kills me inside. It cuts me right down to my core to look at you now, knowing that if I’d of tried… Maybe things wouldn’t be like this right now.”

Words couldn’t possibly describe the regret and the guilt that I brought onto myself with a single decision.

“I know that our father had his part in what happened. I know that if he wouldn’t have been such a terrible, miserable person that we wouldn’t even be having this discussion, let alone this match. But he was and it did. While he had his part… I could have stopped it. I could have saved us both from what happened… and from what’s about to happen… But I didn’t. And I won’t.”

“All the regret in the world won’t change any of it. It won’t change anything that you went through, it won’t change anything you had to endure… and it sure as hell won’t change what’s going to happen in just a few days time. I brought this all on myself and I accept that. Not because I want anyone to see me as a martyr… But because it’s the right God damned thing to do Kyra and for once.. I’m going to do right by you.”

I suck in a short breath.

“Even if that means you ending my career.”

I sigh and run my hands over my head. There’s nothing good coming from this.. Nothing that I can look at and say, ‘yeah.. This is going to end well.’ It’s not. I know that it’s not, but that doesn’t make it any easier to admit.

If anything, it makes it harder.

I’m not walking out of this.

“You want to hurt me. You want me to pay for what I put you through. We always had each other, and we always took solace in that fact – even when things were at their worst… And then I left. I was wrong. I was so God damned wrong and that’s something I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life… And that scares me, as it should. But you know what scares me more?”

I pause, mulling over my next words.. Trying to figure out how to say them. There’s no easy way. Not after being held captive by our father for a week, not after our childhood… Not after seeing what she’s capable of now…

“Looking into your eyes, Kyra… and seeing him. I see our father staring back at me with all of the same anger and malice that he always directed at us. You’re cold. You’re relentless and you’re merciless… And that terrifies me. I could say that he made you this way… And I might be partially right but I think we both know that I made you this way. I robbed you of the only love that you had when we were kids. I took that from you and I can never undo that.”

“I never wanted any of this for you. Never. But it’s my fault that you are this way and I know that I have to step into that cage with you on Sunday and I have to take whatever you’re going to give me and I’ll do it willingly. Not because I want your forgiveness, or your understanding… I know those things are out the window now and they’ll never be a remote possibility in our future. I just want to do what’s right.”

I know that doesn’t help. But it’s the truth. Joe won’t like it… But honestly, I don’t care in this moment. This isn’t about me anymore. It never was.

It never fucking was.

“I don’t blame you for hating me. I don’t blame any of you for hating me.. For wanting Kyra to beat my ass, hell possibly even end my career out there in that cage. Maybe some of you even want her to end my life… And I don’t blame you for that either. I brought all of this on myself… And whatever happens on Sunday…”

I look up into the camera once more, sitting up straight. Staring into the lens as if I’m looking at Kyra herself.

“My only hope is that you can heal from this, Kyra. I mean truly heal. I hope that whatever you do.. It brings you the closure that you need because you deserve more than what you’ve been given in this life, sister… and I know for a fact that you’ll go out there and you’ll do what you need to in order to move on, and you won’t think twice.”

I nod my head again.

“And that’s okay. I’ve accepted my fate and I welcome it with open arms. I love you Kyra. Regardless of what happens, I love you and I’m sorry.”

 

I’m sorry
Two words I always think
Oh after you’ve gone
When I realize I was acting all wrong

OOC: JC Used with Permission. Lyrics from: “I’m Sorry” By Feist