“I told you she’d fail.”

Jason Bridges doesn’t seem to care about the subject of conversation as he goes about his business behind his desk. On the far side of the office Cherie Von Allen rubs her own injured shoulder, unsure that it’s as simple as her boss is making it sound.

“With all due respect, Mister Bridges, I wouldn’t call Maggie’s effort a failure.”

The effort in question was Magdalena Lockheart’s performance at the Championship Wrestling Federation’s Alpha and Omega Supershow event held in Cologne, Germany. She was offered an opportunity not only to represent Carnage Wrestling in an affiliate promotion, but a chance at championship gold. Maggie was one of the last two people standing in the Make Your Impact Melee event, but her hope to become the CWF Impact Champion was dashed when she was attacked from behind by a masked man with a steel chair. Maggie claimed a moral victory and had an amazing showing, but she also came away empty handed.

“Oh?” Bridges asks his secretary. “Curious. By what metric do you not consider it not a complete and utter failure?”

Since the ‘accident’ that sent her tumbling, Cherie has been extra cautious around the man who bumped into her. She’s also been extra polite and is back to wearing outfits that make her seem more like she is ready to go trick-or-treating as a sexy office employee, rather than a professional businesswoman.

Cherie had to stop her dusting… as in… literally dusting Jason Bridge’s office down with a feather duster to face her boss for her explanation.

“She had the match won,” Cherie said trying to hold back her true emotions on the matter as best she could. “Take out the interference and… Maggie comes back here a champion.”

“But she isn’t coming back here a champion, now is she?”

Bridges sat himself upright in his chair and smoothed out the wrinkles in his shirt. The security cameras picking up all of his smugness from their downward viewpoints from the corners.

“Have you forgotten already that this is a results-based industry?”

“N-no… I…”

“I mean, just look at your Father. Look at Kyra Johnson. The list does go on but the reason why I’m here and they’re not is because of what I’ve done for Carnage Wrestling…”

Cherie clearly didn’t like her father being mentioned. She lowered her head to avoid showing any bit of a scowl breaking through her cracked porcelain exterior.

“Carnage Wrestling has grown from some little podunk backyard operation in a rat-infested town to a soon-to-be fully worldwide operation all thanks to me. The Network knows that nobody else can do what I do and that’s why they trust me implicitly.”

She didn’t exactly appear to agree with him, but she nodded her head nonetheless.

“That’s true…” Cherie said with her voice trailing off into nothingness. “But maybe letting one of our future stars walk out wouldn’t look too good in their eyes. You wouldn’t want to put a blemish on your record.”

“Bah! Blemish.” He scoffed. “The only blemish here is that she didn’t win. Then he’d have to take her ass.”

“He did offer her a contract, Sir. Or did you not hear?”

Bridges adjusted his reading glasses as he turned his attention back down to the paperwork.

“Good.” He muttered. “I hope she does the first smart thing she’s ever done in her life and takes it.”

“So you’re not worried about Jaden Rishel potentially poaching our roster?”

“No, actually… when it comes to her I’m hoping for it.”

Cherie was clearly taken aback by what Bridges had just said; so much so that she felt the need to approach his desk.

“You mean to tell me that you wanted Maggie to win?”

Bridges looked up to see Cherie standing mere feet in front of him with her good arm awkwardly tucked across her chest.

“Of course I did. Why’d you think I sent her there in the first place?”

“…uhh for exposure?”

Bridges laughed.

“Exposure? Like I could give a shit about exposure. If I wanted exposure I’d run out in the middle of the street naked! Carnage Wrestling doesn’t need any more exposure right now. What it needs is the people that I hired doing their damned jobs… and that includes you! Did I specifically tell you that you could stop dusting?”

Cherie’s cheeks reddened.

“N-no Sir…”

“Well then get back to it!” He shouted. “…and make sure you’re getting all the way in the back on those shelves, too. Don’t be afraid to use a stool if you have to.”

Cherie once again nodded her head and went back to pick up her duster, all the while hiding the obvious anger and embarrassment that she could show when Jason wasn’t looking. The entire ordeal was humiliating, and at times, painful – not to mention that Bridges was the man responsible for her one arm being in a sling in the first place. But to make matters worse, Bridges decided that he was not done with the conversation, not done talking down to Cherie about one of her personal friends. He stood up just as she began to dust again, and came over with his favorite cocktail drink in hand.

“Listen, all of these people out here, Rishel too, they’re all playing checkers… and I’m playing chess. Do you understand me?”

Cherie understood perfectly, but he made it feel as though she had to acknowledge him. He sipped his drink and moved even closer than before, coming in from behind and just short of resting his chin right on top of her injured shoulder.

“First and foremost, the decisions made in this office have got to be about business. It can never be anything emotional. And you see, going out there and getting your pal Maggie out of jail was a bad call on my part. I understand that now. I gave her one golden opportunity after another, and how has she treated me in response?”

Fearing that Jason was either asking another rhetorical question or wouldn’t like the response that she’d give, Cherie decided to clam up and try to focus more on the bookcases.

“I’ve been nothing but fair to her. Scratch that… I’ve been more than just fair… I’ve gone out of my way for her time and time again… something I should not have done and I will pay for until she’s gone. I’ve done everything I can to help her succeed and hell – even letting her go out to that CWF show was a mercy that any lesser man in my position wouldn’t have given her. God knows that retard you call a father wouldn’t have even thought of it.”

Cherie tightened her grip on the duster.

“It would have been brilliant. Maggie gets their worthless hunk of tin and then begs me to release her so that she can go defend her little pretend-championship in front of a bunch of inbred Pennsylvania idiots. We wouldn’t owe her shit, not one red cent, if she asked for her release… and now? Now what do you think is going to happen?”

Still trying to hide her anger, she dialed her voice down real low.

“She shows up on Chaos 81 like you told her to?”

Bridges advanced even closer, and smacked Cherie with an open-palm slap on her backside just beneath the frills of her tiny skirt. Cherie jumped and winced in pain.

“…and then what, smartass?”

“S-she fights Myra at Season of the Witch?”

“Exactly.”

Bridges pulled away, but not after running his hand along the spot on her ass that he just struck.

“…and given little miss Lockheart’s track record, she loses then, too. Then I not only have to deal with holding onto a loser with a contract that I’d rather not have to pay for, but we’ll have Lynwood main-eventing a pay-per-view.” Bridges shook his head in disgust. “Fucking sickening if you ask me.”

Having done the best she could to save face up until this moment, Cherie had to let a little subtlety slip from her tongue.

“I could think of worse things.”

Bridges took a big swig of his cocktail as he meandered back over to his desk.

“It’s a tough business, sweetie. Not everything one plans out comes to fruition.” He said at the height of his smugness now. “Lots of moving pieces… it’s like hitting a moving target. If there’s one thing that could be said for your girl Maggie it’s that she’s as stubborn as a cockroach during nuclear fallout-”

Cherie looked over to see Bridges staring back at her with a grin.

“Everything I do to get rid of her and that girl finds a way to fuck it all up. First that street-brawl with Steel, then Richards; and I thought after all of that she wouldn’t have had a snowballs chance in hell against Melody-”

“Wait-” Cherie froze immediately. “What about Richards?”

Bridges plopped back down in his chair and threw his feet up on his desk, cross-legged and relaxed.

“Yeah I fooled everyone with that one. Haha. Even you.” He smiled across the room at Cherie. “If Danny Richards wasn’t as worthless and as useless as the little girl I ordered him to take out, then none of this would even be an issue right now.”

“Th-that whole sneak attack…?” Cherie didn’t believe what she was hearing. Her mind shot straight back to the events of Chaos 77, the pre-and-post-match speeches that Bridges gave to Maggie on that night, and how he promised that he would punish Daniel Richards for the reprehensible sneak attack that was eerily similar to the one she just suffered again at the CWF Supershow.

“Th-that was you?”

Bridges didn’t nod his head, nor shake it. He neither confirmed, nor denied.

He just continued to smile in Cherie’s direction.

“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

 

 

Failure is a great teacher… and a great motivator.

So in a way, I’m thankful. Thankful to be as young as I am and to know and understand the wisdom of failure and to know that it’s not the end of everything. Enter the long hackneyed speech or, maybe, just a couple cliche lines about how life in general or more accurately a career in this business is much more a marathon and much less a sprint… yada yada. But I think the one thing that they never say (or at least say out loud) is how much accepting the responsibility of failure weighs on you…

Maybe they don’t deal with it like I do.

Maybe that’s why they point their fingers. Maybe that’s why they place blame. Maybe they’re a bit wiser than me. Maybe they feel the weight or the sheer gravity of failure after failure after failure piling up on them… maybe they’ve been to where I feel like I’m just starting to get at now. Maybe failure is an old friend to them. Maybe I’m being a little too hard on myself. But I could believe it if they’ve told me that they’ve had their fill of the lessons that failure teaches them and the motivation that they need to continue. Maybe they’ve already far-passed the point where they’re just hoping for that one lucky bounce… that one good break…

That one good thing that goes their way.

Even now, I can’t sit here and tell you that I’ve failed it all. I didn’t earn my way back to being the number-one contender to the CW UltraViolent Championship by losing my ass off. No, just getting to where I’m at now was through the sustained success of a few hard-fought battles against some really tough and fully-motivated contenders in their own right. I’ve had luck go my way on several occasions before… so…

Why can I not help that there’s something wrong with me? Why can’t I not help but feel like… that I’m not the same Magdalena Lockheart that I used to be? Why could I, last year, go through round after round, opponent after opponent, and do that which only one other person before me was capable of doing in winning the Monarchy tournament… and now I can’t even win some stupid little Make Your Impact Melee?

Am I snake-bitten? Is it only when the opportunity is real and there’s gold on the line that I suddenly freeze up?

And what about now… what about what I’ve got happening before me? I still have one more chance to right the ship, but I don’t even want to think about what would happen if I lost to Myra a second time. And again, I might not have won, but somehow and in someway, a losing effort seemed to impress the CWF people enough to offer me a contract that would finally get me out of that ratty motel. Hell, if they’re willing to help me get back onto my feet despite the way that I feel right now… wouldn’t I be wrong to turn that kind of offer down?

No. Stop it. You’re an artist, Maggie. First and foremost. You’re going to accept your failures and you’re going to continue to hold your head high regardless. You were right, what you said. And it’s not a cliche to say that Myra is going to have to kill you to beat me a second time… it’s not cliche to know and express how much you’ve improved from your own experiences. Because what you say matters, Maggie.

Because you’ve always accepted responsibility. You’ve always been honest and true.

…and that’s a lot more than most of these “champions” could say about themselves.

But at least you can say it about you.

 

 

I returned from Germany feeling pretty down and out, but I wasn’t about to let the world know it. Depression is a killer but it’s also just a little voice in the back of my mind that I can choose to ignore at will… but even that had its limits, too.

I am willing to admit that in the midst of all of this CWF business that I honestly forgot about Carnage for a little while. I’d feel guilty for saying that, but it’s not like Cologne wasn’t an amazing place that, for at least some time anyway, seemed like it was miles away from all of the bullshit that I left on the tarmac back home.

For a moment in time, I didn’t have to feel inadequate. I was in a place where I didn’t know anybody and it seemed as though nobody knew me, either… well at least not the real me. It was nice not having that uncomfortable familiarity surrounding me; haunting me like a ghost. But I knew that reality would set in soon enough so I guess I let the trip play out as long as it could. I was hoping that I could return to the states with a brand-new belt around my waist… was hoping that I could throw the achievement right up in Bridge’s snarky little face.

But I can’t… couldn’t.

So instead I had to take a step back. Take a deep breath. Take a good, long look at my options. I had to think about, I mean really stop and think hard about what I could do moving forward. It sounds easy, but with my brains being freshly scrambled it took all that I could just to consider what I was able and capable of doing… much less what I actually wanted to do.

After a while I settled on this brilliant idea. Why couldn’t I have both? If I was willing to compromise a little here and a little there… and if I was willing to bite the bullet… I could get my broke ass out of a crappy Baltimore motel. Maybe even find and put a down payment on a slightly-less-crappy Baltimore home.

I was convinced that what I needed was stability. I needed a roof over my head that I could call mine. I needed a bed of my own. And yeah, Baltimore was not the place that I wanted to call home initially, but if I look on the bright side here, Charm City has an upside too. Old Bay is nice. The seafood is pretty great. The people here aren’t as bad as the news would make them out to be. I just knew that I didn’t have enough cash to afford anything that wasn’t in an already sketchy neighborhood. But there was definitely no chance in hell that I’d be able to afford to go back to New York…

Speaking of New York.

I hadn’t heard from Amber Caldwell in a while so I decided to reach out to her. Not really sure why, I guess I needed a friend or at least some company. I knew that she’d be disappointed when I broke the news to her that I decided to pitch my tent in Baltimore. (I guess she’s still holding out hope that I’d go back up to Paper Street and try to make amends.) But as down as I had been feeling as of late, coupled with the fact that I’d be (once again) pitted against my ex-girlfriend, ex-childhood hero in Lucy Wylde at the upcoming Chaos… I needed to get my mind back where it was before the CWF show in Germany.

I didn’t want to think about wrestling right now. I wanted to treat it like a job… just a job, if I could. I wanted to do something that, at the very least, I thought would be fun… and I was already half-way there when I visited State College, Pennsylvania…

So I asked if I could meet up with her somewhere.

Amber was too kind when she decided to meet with me in Allentown on very short notice. Right away I noticed that she was dressed a little too nicely for the occasion. Here I was thinking that I looked half-way decent as at least I had just finished a meeting over a potential contract, and she had blown me away. But I guess her attractiveness and attention to detail was something that I found particularly… attractive about her. We could go to an art museum, or a gala, or hell even just stare at some spray-paint graffiti on a brick wall and she didn’t have to know that I was really being distracted by her three-quarters of the time anyway.

If she only knew.

We agreed to meet at a little hole-in-the-wall place, which had started to become a routine for us back when she was still coming down to Baltimore for the Carnage shows. Whichever eatery we’ve never heard of before that had excellent reviews and was affordable; these were are main go-tos. Like always we sat down and took our time to look over the menu before ordering, but something seemed a little different this time. Everything was just slightly off. I wasn’t sure if I had caused it or if there was something going on that I didn’t know about… but I was worried because besides her and Cherie, I didn’t really have any friends.

“Everything alright?” I asked as casually as I could. I was feeling a bit uncomfortable, but only because that was the way that she was coming off to me at the time.

I must’ve surprised her, the way she glanced up from the menu at me.

“Yeah, I’m great actually. It’s nice to see you.”

“It’s nice to see you too,” I replied with a half-smile. “I honestly missed our little get-togethers like this.”

She grinned and said, “Me too.. I’m sorry I didn’t come down for that last show.” Though after she finished, the grin turned downward into a bit of a frown.

“The way the Carnage people have treated you? Nah. I can’t blame you for not wanting to.”

She shrugged her shoulders, “I mean yeah.. That was the pits but… It wasn’t that that kept me away..” She sighed and set the menu down to give me her full attention. “I just had to figure something out.”

I didn’t understand what she meant at first, but I didn’t think that it was much of my business, either.

“Yeah, well, to be honest, I’m getting pretty sick of their crap, too…” I replied in an attempt to get the ball rolling a bit. “…but I’ve got some good news at least. I won’t have to put up with it for too much longer, anyway… if I don’t want to.”

She raised her eyebrows in question.

“Oh yeah? Well I was going to cheer you up by telling you that I was gonna come down for the next show but this… this I gotta hear. What’s going on?”

My mind immediately derailed from its current thought.

“You were?” It took me a moment to figure out that she was still waiting for my answer to her question first. “I… uhm… well, that trip to Germany I just took for that other company? Well yeah ummm… Seems they’d like to keep me around a bit longer… be willing to pay enough for me to actually get a place, too.”

“That’s amazing! I mean, if that’s what you want of course..” She replied, tilting her head to the side.

“Ehh… I’m not so sure anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well first off, it’s not like Carnage. There’d be lots of travel involved and I’m not quite sure that’s the kind of stability that I’m looking for. But with the money they’re offering, I could at least get the place. After working a year or two, then I could settle back down and figure out what I’d need to focus on in order to take that next step.”

She nodded her head as she took in every word that I said.

“That’s true.. But is the money worth giving up the stability that you want?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.” I said while turning my attention back to the menu. “Ehh when I really think about it, the last bed that I had that I could truly call my own was back in that prison cell… and that’s pretty sad if you ask me. Shit, before that, I had the condo above the old shop but I was too busy traveling to ever really spend time there. God, that used to piss Nadette off so bad.”

She pursed her lips together and nodded her head before placing her elbows on the table and resting her chin on her hands.

“I can imagine…”

“But at least back then I had Lucy to travel with, too…” My voice trailed off as I once again found myself reminding me of things that I was also actively trying to forget about, or at least avoid for the time being.

“It’s always easier when you have someone to go with.. I guess. I mean I would have died to have seen Germany in person… It looked so beautiful…”

“Yeah… Nadette would have been so helpful over there...” I said with a wink as a nod to my obvious sarcasm. “Actually, if it were in any way possible, I would have loved for you to have gone.”

A soft smile crossed her lips and she nodded her head.

“Yeah.. That would have been…” Her voice trails off and the expression on her face changes as if she’s thinking about something. “I gotta be honest with you.. I.. Nadette got a call at the shop from some wrestling website thing, asking about me and long story short..”

And before I could even begin to process what she was telling me, I could already feel my jaw start to drop. Whatever this was surely wasn’t going to make me feel any better about my string of bad luck lately.

“She’s not an idiot and she figured out where I’ve been going on my days off. That’s why I didn’t come to the last show… That’s why I had to figure shit out. She told me to stop and I… Well I like you too much to let her tell me who I could and couldn’t see.”

She put her hands over her mouth almost as if she were trying to catch the words before they slipped off of her tongue.

“Oh God, that was-”

“Hold on-”

“That was just… way too much information. It’s been bugging me. I’m sorry.”

“You mean to tell me that Nadette found out that you’ve been coming to my shows… and she told you to stop meeting me?”

She nodded her head, “I love Nadette and all, but fuck that nonsense. I can’t control what happened between the two of you, but I like you. I’m so happy I came down and met you.. And frankly I’ve missed seeing you. You’re great.”

Amber was trying to explain to me that she decided against Nadettes orders, but as the conversation went on, I knew that the more she explained what happened the worse my eyes would glow. I wasn’t just gripping the menu at my hands, I could literally feel my fingernails digging into it as I squeezed the life out of it.

“Maggie?”

I shook my head. My jaw was so tight, teeth gritted behind the tightest lips.

“Well… It’s a good thing I’ve decided to live in Baltimore, then…” I said trying not to spew my venom out here in front of Amber and in full view of the public.

“Why?”

“Because if I went back up to New York with you, I’d probably end up right back in jail.”

Amber frowned.

“I’m sorry I put all of that on you.. God knows you’ve got enough shit going on. But hey..” She reached out and gripped my hand softly, “Don’t worry about it. I’m not. Whatever happens, happens.. You don’t get many chances in life to meet someone who really gets you, you know?”

…and in perhaps one of my biggest moments of weakness, I looked down on her hands and back up at her and said…

“Yeah, but I’m getting too many chances to meet those who want to run my life… and I’m getting pretty sick and tired of letting them feel in control.”

 

 

The Diary of Magdalena Lockheart
10/06/2019
Finding Myself – In Stability
Part 2

I didn’t want to get dragged into this.

Carnage Wrestling is in deep trouble… with Paragon and the Override set to destroy everything. I have had my opinions, sure… But I’ve mainly kept them to myself. I know how dangerous this situation is… I know how vicious these two men can be. I understand the pitfalls of extremism and the unintended consequence of believing that your way is right above everybody else. I’ve taken that fall before. The only thing I ever did was hurt myself in the end.

Or should I say that’s what I allowed them to do.

I don’t want to get into this mess, so why should I? Because Bridges says that I have to? Maybe that’s my problem lately. Maybe I’ve been too focused on trying to be what everyone thinks I should be… by trying to do everything the right way. But granted, this is the path that I’ve chosen, and besides, I’m not choosing it for anyone else, by anyone else, or because of anyone else. But for once, and maybe just this one time, I’m going to be honest in the fact that I’m not really feeling this whole professionalism shit when it comes to tagging with my ex’s sister to go up against my ex and Myra. Maybe this one time I owe myself the benefit of the doubt to admit that I have the strongest of desires to just walk away.

Does anyone honestly think that anything between Myra and I will change depending on the outcome of this match? No, barring injury or an unexpected death, I seriously doubt it. And even as unintelligent as she is, she’s not going to let me hurt her two weeks before I’m going to hurt her anyway… that much I’ll give the bitch credit for. But as far as Lucy and Kyra are concerned, does anyone honestly think that I’m going to take a stand or choose a side in that one? Because if you do, then you probably don’t remember that I was there for all of the shit that went down between Lucy and her Father the last time. Oh right, we were still dating back then. I remember. At the point where he kidnapped her and no one knew where she was for a week… and Kyra wouldn’t even attempt to help find her.

As a matter of fact, it was that whole series of events that lead to me telling JC that he obviously loved Lucy… yep. And where did that get me exactly? If my memory serves me correctly, I’m pretty much the reason that JC and Lucy are together right now, living together right now, tweeting together right now, saying I love you and sending little memes and hashtags like crazy… and what thanks did I get? Besides getting thrown off of a balcony, I also live with the knowledge that my ex, who always claims to speak the truth, who always told me that she still cares about me and still thinks of me as a friend, is one of the ones who didn’t give a shit where I was when I went missing… who was another one content with leaving me rot in jail…

So there’s that.

And then there’s the whole shit with the truth being revealed between Kyra and Lucy and why Kyra can’t stand Lucy’s guts and why nobody should really blame her.

Look, the point I’m getting at here is that there comes a point in life where you learn when and where to pick your battles. There’s a point where you have to tell the people who think they run your life “no”… and you simply up and walk away. And as an example of that, that’s what I’m gonna do right now. Not because I don’t have an opinion that I’m sure wouldn’t earn me the exact opposite of brownie points on both sides of this little w-g-a-f tag match, but the last time I fell into this trap, the same trap that my tag team partner for the week now finds herself in, I was chucked off of a fucking balcony.

Long story short… If I do show up and fight, it’s only to get paid.

Other than that, the shit between Kyra and Lucy can stay between Kyra and Lucy. They’re grown ass women. My sincerest hope is that they can settle it out before too much unnecessary blood is shed. But if there’s one thing Jason Bridges loves for the sake of ratings, its unnecessary bloodshed.

Right now my focus is on Season of the Witch and staying true to my word. Lynwood, if you want to fight two weeks before the gold is on the line, so be it. You’re going to need all of the momentum you can possibly get going into that match. Because the message hasn’t changed, the words have remained the same. If you want to beat me at Season of the Witch, you’re going to have to kill me to do it. Because nothing less will matter. Nothing less will do.

She wants. He wants. Everybody wants. Everybody wants something.

But everyone is about to find out that there’s nothing that they want as badly as what I want for me.

…and if violence is the ultimate solution to my dilemma…

Then it’s violence I’ll bring.