What have I done?

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Date April 18th 2018 / Time 2:17PM / Status Not Recording
Location The Wylde Residence – New York City, New York

“Guess it’s time to finally do this…”

I’ve been putting it off for over a month and a half now. I’ve been skirting around it, literally tiptoeing through the mess, even gone as far as avoiding the entire condo at some points.. Just to keep from having to face this mess and actually clean it up.

No, it’s not that I’m messy. No it’s not that I enjoy what Gabriel did to my place, my life… My independence.. It’s that now I know that this isn’t it. I know that this won’t be the last of it, and I guess that scares me a little.

Or a lot. But whatever.

My girlfriend hadn’t been over to my condo since the ‘attack’; it wasn’t so much her choice as it was the sheer embarrassment that I knew I’d feel if she ever got to see it like this, so I kept her away. But now I have no choice. Just a few days removed from the biggest opportunity of my lifetime and Gabriel Baal simply cannot be a distraction. He cannot even be the tiniest thought that lingers in the back of my mind. So, I let her in.

She sighs immediately at the sight of this disaster. Her emerald green eyes scan the room and it’s like I invited her over to clean up a warzone.

“This is going to take forever to clean up, Luce. Like seriously? I can understand the obsession – hell, I can even understand leaving like a box of chocolates and some flowers and stuff – because you are so totally worth it. But like a hundred-thousand rose petals? Now that’s just reaching.”

Maggie says, stepping into the apartment – looking around at all the dead flowers strewn about. Her reaction is exactly why I haven’t brought her here. It’s bad enough Rogan saw it and had a similar reaction. It’s bad enough that I’ve let everything go.

“Reaching for…?”

“For a reaction. For sport. For shits and giggles. I dunno. Stupid asshole knows that he’s growing less and less relevant by the second though… He doesn’t want to let you go on and succeed despite him because it’ll show the world the truth. Which I don’t quite understand why he’s so afraid of the truth anyway, unless he really does still care about you. But you don’t like him like that so Gabriel Baal and his little fake love-fest simply do not matter. Even after all this.”

She closes the door behind her and moves towards me. I grab a box of trash bags from the pantry and set it down on the counter. She’s right though.. This is going to take for-fucking-ever.

“This is probably going to take all day. But there’s nobody I’d rather spend my day with than you, Maggie. You’ve been the best thing that ever happened to me. But no matter what happens, I just wanted you to know-”

Suddenly my mind wanders to that day, watching him with Jase and Rogan at the old Engine of Chaos complex. Watching from Gabriel’s point of view.. Seeing that door… The same door he waltzed through, right into my privacy, the same door he exited through after he left pieces of himself behind.

She’s right though.. It doesn’t matter. Or rather, he doesn’t matter. Not anymore, anyway.

“Know what? You just kind of trailed off there. Is everything alright?”

I nod my head, pulling my eyes away from the door, pulling my mind from imagining him casually walking through here, leaving these rose petals in his wake.. Leaving those pictures after rummaging through everything of mine. Finally I bring my eyes up to Maggie’s bright green hues and I sigh heavily.

“Alright as it can be. I’ll feel better once this place is cleaned up. I can throw this trash, and any memories I have of Gabriel in the dumpster outback where trash belongs, yeah?”

“Yeah. For what it’s worth, I’m really proud of you.”

My eyebrows raise in question.

“You are? For what? For letting shit like this happen? For being so desperate and lonely that I honestly thought Gabriel Baal was my answer for happiness? I mean come on… Shits pitiful if you ask me.. And now I’m getting exactly what I wanted all along. This entire thing is my fault.”

I chuckle sarcastically as I open one of the trash bags and begin shoveling dead roses and petrified rose petals into it until the kitchen island is as clean as it was before Gabriel’s visit. Maggie grabs a bag and begins working on the dining room area. Silence settles between us for a little while until she I hear her voice speaking over the crinkling of the bags and the mummified flower remains being destroyed.

She sighs.

“Fault isn’t assigned just because you felt some kind of connection with someone. You didn’t know he was a manipulative, lying piece of shit. It’s not your fault that he purposefully came off to you as charming…”

I glance up and at her quasi-disgusted face and I can’t help but shake my head. Sure, Gabriel Baal is a creep. He’s a stalker and he’s a pretty masterful manipulator. That being said; he’s also handsome, and he is damn charming… But in hindsight, he reminds me a little too much of my father. That’s probably why I’ve been avoiding anything to do with him like the plague.

But after my little outburst on Saturday, can’t really do that anymore… can I?

I shrug my shoulders before getting down on the floor of the kitchen, continuing to shovel rose petals into the trash bag as I respond.

“Charming.. Yeah. I thought he was. If he hadn’t of outed himself as a member of the Court.. Who knows how deep into his web I’d be right now.”

It’s unnerving to think about, but if all that had never happened – I don’t think I’d be where I am right now. It’s a good thing he showed his true colors before anything went to far, except here I am shoveling rose petals into a trash bag…

I shake my head and continue cleaning, fully expecting some kind of humorous quip from Maggie.. But silence. After a few more minutes of nothing, I finally stick my head up and peek over the counter to see Maggie seated on the other side of it, staring down at and playing with a stray rose petal.

“Now what’s wrong babe? Everything okay?”

She nods her head, not bothering to bring her eyes up to meet mine.

“Okay… Yeah. I’m okay.”

“Okay… Come on.. What is it?”

She smashes the petal on the counter, leaving it in pieces.

“It’s just.. I don’t know how you make light of all this.”

She sits up and points around the condo, as if I needed the visual aide.

“This is ridiculous. Between your father and Gabriel… How do you focus on anything else? I mean, I haven’t been a whole lot of help lately, have I?”

I tilt my head to the side, confused at her words. Does she honestly think I’m making light of all this? I mean, I know I try to hide how I feel a lot of the time, but I didn’t think I did that good of a job. I sigh and lean against the other side of the island, reaching out and touching her hand with my fingertips.

“I don’t know what you mean. You help me more than you could ever know. I don’t think I could get by–”

“By lying to you?”

And now I know what this is really about. I can’t stop another sigh from coming out of my mouth as I shrug my shoulders.

“You were trying to help.”

She was. I know it. I see it. I still don’t like it, and I probably won’t ever like what she went out and tried to do that day… But after all of that; the fact remains that she was indeed trying to help me.

She scoffs and slides off of the stool, moving back towards the dining room to continue what she’d barely started.

“Help? I was trying to end it. I thought that I could just step in and fix everything, but a lot of damn help I was. I betrayed your trust, Luce… and I’ve got nothing to show for it.”

I don’t even know what to say to her as I stare across the open concept room at her. Everything she says is true. I can’t sugar coat it for her, I can’t lie. I don’t know. The entire thing is so messed up and scary. Scary because I don’t know what my father’s got planned now that Maggie pulled her little stunt.

And to add to it.. I’ve got two similar men, both capable of terrible things, both unpredictable, both dangerous.

And what the fuck did I do?

I spit right in both their faces.

I sigh and drop the full trash bag beside the trash can and grab a new one. Between Gabriel and my father… there are times when I feel like I should be finalizing my will and making sure that all my affairs are taken care of.

“It sucks. I can’t lie. I wish you wouldn’t have given him a reason to come after you… I could have figured all this out without you putting yourself in his–”

“His cross-hairs. Yeah, I got it.”

She comes back to the kitchen to grab a broom and heads back to the dining room, sweeping all the petals into a neat pile before kneeling down and using the broom to sweep them into the trash bag.

I stand there watching her for a little while, feeling more and more ashamed of the predicament that I’m in, and more ashamed of my life in general. How’d I let this happen?

“It.. It’s just.. Don’t you think it would be better if we could just take them to a dark place and just, I dunno, put them out of our misery or something? Then at least we’d be able to live out our lives in peace.”

“Peace is a relative term, Mags. Although I can’t say it wouldn’t be nice if they were–”

“-were dead?”

She puts it so bluntly, and she says it so matter-of-factly that it makes my stomach turn in knots.

I smirk and shake my head.

“Dead… Yeah”

I reply, my voice dripping with sarcasm as I move into the dining room with her, grabbing rose petals off of the table from around all the paperwork I’ve accumulated from lawyers and such – corresponding to the pending court date.

The court date… Another fucking thorn in my side. The day I got the call about the trial being moved to another date, I knew for sure my dad was fucking with me. Before, I was mostly sure, but a part of me honestly thought he was out for money. But now? He just wants to ruin me. That I’m sure of.

Well Daddy dearest is gonna have to stand in line.

After a few seconds, I realize that Maggie is simply standing at the other end of the table, staring a hole through me, her eyes wide and her face serious.

“Yeah..”

She says softly, pulling out the chair and sitting down – her eyes staring somewhere behind me; I’m not one hundred percent sure where… but she’s staring off into some kind of space.

“Yeah! There’s gotta be a place we can take people like your dad and like Baal… Maybe like to the old docks or something? I can buy them both a fresh pair of cement shoes. They can go swimming together. It’ll be fun. I’ll make sandwiches. It’ll put them out of our misery AND it’ll put them out of their own misery, too. No?”

She finally looks up into my eyes. Again, she’s left me speechless as I stand there with a handful of dead rose petals, trying to figure out whether or not my girlfriend is truly serious about double homicide. She is. She’s gotta be.

“No, Mags. We can’t take them to the docks. That’s called murder… and that’s illegal… unfortunately. Although it does make me wish I’d of let JC do what he wanted to do that morning though.. At least one problem would have been taken care of.”

“Of course, but then your best friend would be in jail for murder instead of your girlfriend and you’d be living with that guilt.”

Little does she know that I’m dealing with guilt anyway. His wife left him because I came into his home acting like a psychopath. It’s not my fault he didn’t tell his wife that he was in Baltimore to maim and possibly murder my father. Sometimes I think that man has never truly felt fear… Fear like I felt that morning, standing in the driveway of the home I grew up in – hoping and praying not to be seen. He wouldn’t understand why I showed up that day the way I did, needing his reassurance.

But he didn’t mince words the other day when he told me that he basically blamed me for Stacy leaving with Lizzie. Because I’m toxic. Because I’m not good for anyone.

Maybe he was right.

But, that doesn’t negate his psychopath tendencies, but it does call into question my own mental health – Well, that and everything else.

“Guilt. Yep. That one’s already on the list.”

“List?”

I nod my head and drag myself from the dining room into the living room, trying to focus my mind back onto cleaning up this pigsty. And that’s where my eyes fall on the shelves, and the pictures. The different views of a kiss that should have never happened. The other pictures, the other memories that have been turned face down in favor of something I’d rather not remember.

I roll my eyes and drop the trash bag, opting to get those fucking things out of my face and out of my mind. I grab a few of the frames and hold them in one arm while I put the other pictures back up into their rightful places. I stop and look at each one, the picture I took of CJ and Riko at the children’s hospital in Tokyo, the picture I took of Joe, Stacy and Lizzie at Christmas last year.. And so many other great moments that were ignored in favor of something tailor made to hurt me.

My life lately, in a nutshell.

“List of what, Luce?”

Her voice rips me from my thoughts and my unintentional walk down memory lane. I turn to her, my arms full of heavy black picture frames and shrug my shoulders.

“Luce? You okay?”

“Okay? Yeah, I’m fine. I was just saying.. The list of emotions that I’m already dealing with.”

I nod my head, as if to put a period on the point I was trying to make before I move past her and toss the pictures in my hands down onto the couch before returning to the task of cleaning up the petals still covering the entirety of the floor in the living room.

“With everything going on, I’m sure it’s a lot to deal with, Luce. I understand. I can’t–”

My phone starts ringing, interrupting her. I can’t help but roll my eyes as I look down at my screen and see the name ‘JC’ staring back at me. He’s called at least twenty times this week and I haven’t answered one of them. He’s texted twice as many times.. I’ve ignored them too.

Maggie walks over and peers down at the screen, giving me a sideways glance as I watch the screen until it inevitably goes off. A few seconds later the phone beeps again, indicating that he’s left me another voicemail.

“Can’t you just talk to him, Luce?”

As she asks, I dial the voicemail and put it on speaker.

“Luce.. Why don’t you just pick up? I know you’re there. You never leave without your phone. Uh… Anyway…. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times. I apologize. I’m sorry. Can we just talk about it? I probably shouldn’t have said the things I said. You’ve been a great friend to me… Just talk to me Lucy.. Please? Ugh… I’ll try back again later. I’m sorry.”

I roll my eyes and delete the message.

“Sorry.. But he does sound really sorry Luce. Why don’t just you just like give him a chance?”

I slide the phone back in my pocket and go back to what I was doing before.

“Chance to what? Tell me I’m a piece of shit when goes psycho again? I’m sorry too, but I’ve got other shit to focus on, especially this week. I don’t have time for this shit.”

I see her nod her head out the corner of my eye.

“Shit Luce, I know. But he’s one of your closest friends.”

“Friends don’t act like that.”

I set my jaw and move across the room, having cleared the immediate floor of rose petals. I don’t really even want to think about it right now. It hurts.

“That and friends don’t make things worse when friends have the biggest opportunity of their career coming up. I mean, that’s why we’re here right now.. I’m trying to clear my head both physically and mentally. If you’re thinking that I don’t care.. That’s not the case at all. I just can’t afford to lose my focus on Monday. You know that.”

I lower myself onto the floor and cross my legs, letting the trash bag in my hand fall down beside me. A few petals fall back out and onto the floor, I sigh and gather them back up. Maggie moves to the couch and sits down in front of me, leaning her elbows on her knees.

“That’s true. No one wants you to win more than me. Just promise me you’ll talk to him when you’re ready?”

“Ready to what? Kick his ass?”

I chuckle softly and run my hands through my hair.

“Ass kicking, or actual conversation.. Either way… You promise?”

“Promise. Now, back to de-Gabrieling my life.”

“Life de-Gabrieling… Got it.”

Pause II
Rewind <<

Date April 16th 2018 / Time Unknown / Status RECORDING
Location UGWC Synergy – Chicago, Illinois

Nothing is sweeter than watching Jet Somers throw a temper tantrum because someone did to him what he enjoys doing to others. I guess even sweeter than that is knowing that I was the bitch that did it to him.

“It… It’s Lucy! Hey, Lucy!”

Just as I turn the corner to head back to my locker room, Roxy Malone catches sight of me. She rushes over and stops me, an smile on her face even bigger than mine.. I don’t even know how that’s possible right now.

“Lucy! Mind if we have a word with you? We’d love to talk to you about your match tonight!”

“Tonight? Sure. Tonight was great, wasn’t it?”

She nods eagerly and turns towards the cameraman standing conveniently beside her, nodding her head.

“It was! Tell me, how’d you feel out there? Do you feel good about your chances next week at No Hold–”

I put my hands up, and she closes her mouth. Once she’s quiet, I laugh and shake my head.

“Hold on there, Roxy… One question at a time there, sweetie. Now, how’d I feel out there tonight? I feel like that one’s an obvious answer… I felt fantastic. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I don’t like going up against people that I’m going to be facing a week later – but it was pretty damn sweet to show everyone, especially two of my opponents for that world title, exactly what I’m about.”

She nods her head.

“About that… We all saw how you won the match. Why take that route? Why do the same thing that Jet was trying to do to you?”

“You know… That’s a great question. Everyone knows that I’m not the type of person to cheat to win.. But I have no problem giving people like Jet Somers a taste of his own medicine. He wants to do shit like he did last week? He wants to be a so-called badass, then allow me to show him that he’s not the only one capable of the same childish shit that he’s been pulling lately.”

I glance over at the camera and wink.

“Lately… Lately you’ve been on a tear through UGWC, Lucy. Do you think you can take that momentum into No Holds Barred and–”

“And become the new World Heavyweight Champion? What do you think I’m gonna say, Roxy? No?”

Her eyes widen and she shakes her head. I hear something fall to the ground near me and I turn my head to see what it was.. spotting something small laying near my feet. I try to lean down and take a closer look and I nearly choke on the air I’m breathing when I realize it’s a small needle…

What kind of fucking games is he playing?

“No…”

I look back up into the camera, trying to ignore the fact that someone was taunting me. Taunting me with what The Court did to Zane last week.. No doubt telling me that the same fate could befall me at anytime… Fuck… I shake my head, regaining my composure.

“No. Of course I think my momentum will play a part in our match at No Holds Barred. But do I think it’ll make a huge difference? Hell no. The difference maker is going to be who wants it more… Who wants to do whatever it takes to come out as the face of the UGWC? You wanna guess who I think that is?”

“Is it–”

“It might be Jet, it might be Zane.. Hell it might even be Phrixus. But it’s not. It’s me.”

I turn back to the camera and force a smile.

“Me. But I’ll just let that sink in for now. I’ll be seeing you next week.. Boys. Roxy, good talk. Later.”

She looks almost stunned as I blow her a kiss and turn to walk away, spotting Maggie standing by the door of my locker room. She’s just going to love what just happened…

“Later.. Lucy.”

Fast Forward >>
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Date April 18th 2018 / Time 4:59PM / Status Not Recording
Location The Wylde Residence – New York City, New York

“Lucy… I think we deserve pizza after we’re done.”

Maggie says, garnering a smile and a nod from me as we trudge up the stairs and towards the bedroom – the room I’ve been dreading all day long. I mean, why wouldn’t I? My most private possessions are up here, and knowing that Gabriel was here, on my bed, in my closet… Makes me want to just throw everything out and start over.

“Done. If we ever get done. You know… I think we deserve a lot more than pizza though. Maybe bread sticks and cheesecake?”

“Cheesecake… Can we just go now?”

Yeah, I’m hungry.. But I really don’t want to do this either. I think I can just leave the bedroom for another day and enjoy the rest of my night with my lady… No harm no foul, right?”

“Now? Um, no. We’ve gotten this much done. We’re gonna finish the rest of it.”

She gives me a stern look as we stop just inside the doorway to the bedroom. I sigh and nod my head.

“It was worth a shot. Ugh. Look at this place…”

She shakes her head and starts picking up petals in the doorway.

“Place is a mess. It’s ridiculous.”

I cackle as I move past her and approach the bed, grabbing the blanket and drawing her attention.

“Ridiculous doesn’t even cover it Mags. I mean come on, he put thorns all over my bed and in my blanket and everything. Last time I was here I didn’t even sit on my bed. Didn’t want to get a little prick in my ass.”

I pull the blanket off the bed and shake it, watching all the thorns fall out onto the floor. Knowing Gabriel, there’s some kind of symbolism here but God knows that I’m too tired of cleaning up his shit to figure it out.

“Ass hat probably wanted to put his little prick in your ass. Okay, that’s terrible.”

I look up from the blanket and shake my head, feigning sickness.

“Terrible. Jesus, Maggie. I was trying to figure out the reason he did that, and now I can’t unthink that.”

“That is probably what he wanted… Who knows, really.”

I sigh and fold the blanket up, wanting to take it downstairs and throw it in the wash along with every other bed linen, because why not.. I have no way of knowing what he touched and what he didn’t.. So I’d rather just wash everything. I throw it towards the door, and turn back towards the bed, putting my hands on my hips as I look around at everything still left to do.

This sucks. The entire thing sucks, but I have to admit that it’s nice to have her here with me. I wish she didn’t have to take part in any of the fucked up shit I have to deal with, namely this and the hell my father is putting me through, but it is nice to not go through it alone.

As I work on the bed, Maggie moves in behind me, continuing the clean up on the floor. It’s nice to actually see my floor again.

“Really, if he’d of done this shit months ago, I probably would have fallen pretty hard.. I mean, except the thorns in my bed. I’m not into that kinky shit.”

Maggie snaps her fingers and sighs.

“Shit. If I’d of known that, I might have–”

I roll my eyes and turn around as her voice fades out to see her shrugging her shoulders and grinning.

“Have… seduced another aging wrestler to steal all her secrets?”

“Secrets, huh? You have secrets? I wasn’t aware there were any secrets to your success.”

I move around the bed, grabbing the bed sheet and pulling it off the mattress, letting the thorns and the pillows fall onto the floor where Maggie had just cleaned. I grab it all up and toss it on top of the blanket.

“Success is a relative term. I just work my ass off. Doesn’t stop me from losing the big matches to Sarah Lacklan or Jet.. or Zane most recently.”

I move back to the bed and sit down, happy to not have to sit on the floor anymore. The feeling of accomplishment is short-lived as I look down beside the nightstand to see the note that Gabriel had left for me still sitting there where I left it the day that Rogan dropped by. I reach down and grab it, reading it again for shits and giggles.

“Recently you beat Jet and Phrixus… In a pretty big match… So I don’t know what you’re talking about… Wait, what are you reading now?”

I feel her sit down beside me and I give the paper over to her, trying to act like cleaning off the nightstand has suddenly taken priority over seeing her reaction to the note that I forgot to show her after I got it. I knew I forgot something after Rogan dropped me off. Shit.

“Now, I wonder if he got into my toys…”

I say to myself, feeling her body tense up beside me. But after I close my mouth, my heart suddenly drops down into my stomach and I look up and over at her.

“Toys…”

“Toys.. Oh my God…”

We both get up from the bed and walk to the closet where I go for the only drawer that matters… And when I open it, at first I breathe a sigh of relief, seeing that nothing appeared to be moved around. When I go to close it up though, Maggie sees something and reaches in, pulling one of my collars out of it, her eyes trained on the heart shaped tag on the front.

“God damnit! Look!”

“Look at what?”

She shoves it in my direction and I instantly see it… a horrifically done, letter ‘G’ engraved in the center of the heart shaped tag. In this moment I feel sick, I feel tired, I feel absolutely disgusted and most importantly I feel like just selling this place and finding another one somewhere else.. Somewhere where he can’t fucking find me.

“What the… I can’t even. I’m done for today. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

I turn to walk out of the closet, but Maggie grabs my arm.

“Anymore than I want to keep doing this, right? But we’re not leaving until we’re done Lucy. We can’t.”

“Can’t do it.”

“It isn’t about what you can’t do.. It’s about what you will do. Listen to me, okay?”

I just keep staring at the collar in my hands, and how much it means to me. To have it defaced by someone who’s using it to fuck with my head is all too much.

“Okay, but then we’re–”

She reaches out and grabs me by the collar that’s around my neck and tugs it so that I’m face to face with her, her bright green eyes practically boring holes into mine. I try to blink and look away but she reaches her other hand up and holds my cheek so that I can’t.

Any other time this would be sexy…

Fuck I hate Gabriel Baal.

“We’re not going anywhere until this condo is back to the way it was before. It’s going to be okay, but you have to do this. I can’t do it for you. I can only keep you on the right path, Lucy. I can only make sure you do what you need to do so that you walk into that arena on Monday and you walk out with exactly what you want. Got it?”

I nod my head and she lets go. I step backwards, out into the main bedroom again and I look around. Without another word, I drop the tainted piece of leather on the bed and I get down on the floor, gathering up rose petals.

She’s right.

She normally is in moments like this.

Doesn’t mean I have to like it.

A little while later the bedroom is clean, and two trash bags are sitting by the door. The bed is fresh with new linens, and everything is back to normal.

I should feel good about it. I should feel like it’s over, but deep down I know it’s not. Not when Gabriel is involved.

“It looks great in here, right?”

Maggie says brightly, picking up the trash bags and navigating past the dirty linens to get through the doorway and downstairs. I follow behind, grabbing everything else and lugging it downstairs behind her.

“Right. All thanks to you. If it were up to me, we’d of been gone hours ago. Sorry about that.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

As I’m dropping the linens in the washer, the doorbell rings.

“For Christ’s sake… Who in the hell could that be? I’ll get it.”

I say, dragging my tired body towards the front door. I open it to a large bouquet of roses. I gasp and step back, not wanting anything more to do with roses for the rest of my life. Maggie steps in beside me and groans.

“It is Lucy Wylde, correct?”

The man behind the flowers says, lowering the flowers and showing his face.

“Correct… But I don’t want them. I’m sorry… If they’re from a Gabriel–”

I reply, panicking. This has got to be a sick joke from Gabriel. It’s got to be.

“Gabriel? No, no Miss… These are from a Mister Gary Johnson. He asked me to tell you that specifically when I delivered them. Here you go. Have a nice day you two.”

He hands the flowers over and he’s gone before I have a chance to shove them back into his arms. We pull the flowers inside and throw them in another trash bag.

“Two dozen fucking roses… from my father? Why?”

“Why… Well this might help…”

Maggie walks over and hands me a small card that must have been attached to the flowers. I can feel all the color draining from my face as I open the small envelope to see the card inside.

-I heard from a little birdie that you liked roses. You disappoint me, girl. Come to the Dashwood bookstore on Bond Street tomorrow at 6… We need to have a talk. Don’t bring that faggot girl with you.-

His words enrage me as I throw the card on the couch beside me.

“Help me? Not so much. Piss me off? Yeah.”

She sits down and grabs the card, reading it.

“Yeah… Wow. I can see why.”

Fast Forward >>
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Date April 19th 2018 / Time 6:02PM / Status Not Recording
Location The Dashwood Bookstore – New York City, New York

I can see why he picked this little hole in the wall bookstore. Hell, I wouldn’t have known it even existed if he hadn’t of forced me to have to look it up on google maps. It’s quiet, but there’s just enough people here to witness anything if things go south.

I guess he’s expecting some kind of trouble from me? I don’t know.

The bell on the door rings as I step inside and before the door closes behind me, I see him. He’s seated in a chair in the corner of the store, reading a book.. I can’t really see the title, but that doesn’t really matter right now. What matters is that my heart is about to bust out through the front of my chest as I stand still as a statue at the entrance of the store.

I can feel the eyes of the store clerk staring at me as I in turn stare at him. He doesn’t look up, he doesn’t even make any note of my entrance into the store. Typical.

Finally, I smile over at the clerk, nodding my head in greeting before forcing myself to take a few steps in his direction.

“Why.. Why is it so hard for you be here when I tell you to be?”

He says softly, closing the book in his lap and raising his head so that he’s looking at me. I shake my head and cross my arms, my eyes never leaving his. He sighs and lays the book on the small table in front of him.

“Be a little bitch, I don’t care. You know why you’re here, don’t you?”

“You tell me. Enlighten me, Dad.”

He takes his glasses off and lays them down beside the book and leans back in the chair with his arms crossed over his chest. In all the times I’ve seen him in these last few months, I’ve never taken the chance to really look at the man. I’ve honestly been too damn scared to do so. But now I notice the age lines in his face, the tired look in his eyes.. He looks old.

But that doesn’t change the hatred deep down within those blue eyes that match my own. The seething, consuming hatred.. All directed at me.

He’s told me many times in my life that he never wanted Kyra and I. He’s told both of us that he wished we were boys, he wished he had boys that would make him proud. He wished that neither of us existed and he made it his mission to make sure that we both wish we’d never existed either. The worst part is, he succeeded.

“Dad, huh? Your loving words really warm my heart, Lucille. Your little stunt at that radio station in Chicago. What were you hoping to accomplish with that, little girl?”

My eyebrows raise and my arms drop to my sides.

“Girl? I’ll show you a girl, you son of a–”

“A coffee, I’d like a coffee. Get one for me, now.”

He interrupts me, motioning dismissively towards the little coffee bar in the other corner of the shop. I shake my head and sit down in the chair to my side, directly across from him.

“Now you can go get it your damn self. You want to know what I wanted to accomplish, Gary? You want to know what I–”

“I will not have you calling me by my given name, ever… you worthless little–”

“Little what? Bitch? Cunt? Pussy with legs? Come on, Gary… gotta do better than that if you want to truly insult me. I wanted to show you that I’m not taking your shit lying down anymore. You aren’t going to win.”

He laughs. Right in my face.

“Win? Who said I wanted to win, Lucille? You ran away all those years ago, and somehow you thought that you’d honestly gotten away from me.”

The stern look on my face drops, as does my stomach. What in the hell does he mean I thought I’d gotten away? I did.

“Me? Do you even know who your father is, Lucille? You never got away. I always knew precisely where you were. Canada.. CWA. That’s where you got your start in wrestling, no? Philadelphia.. EWF, where you went after you got fired from CWA. Am I right? NLW.. Where you went after you forced EWF out of business. And then.. Then you and your beloved Charles went into hiding, decided to leave the public eye… Right? Henry Lesher’s prized pupil and Gary Johnson’s worthless daughter decided to have a life together…”

I can’t comprehend the words that are coming out of his mouth right now. The places I’ve wrestled, sure… Anyone would know that. Anyone could have watched television back then and of seen me on TV in any of those promotions. But when he said the name Henry Lesher… The man who imprisoned CJ, tried to turn him into a monster back when we wrestled together in CWA… That makes my blood run cold. No one knew about that.

No one except me.

“Together at last, right Lucille? But where did it go wrong? Was it that–”

“That’s none of your damn business.”

“Business is what I do, Lucille. Now shut up and listen to me. If you don’t believe that I’ve kept track of you all these years, fine. But I will not have you besmirching my good name for the sake of your petty lies.”

It’s my turn to laugh.

“Lies? Lies? You beat us, daily. You made us wish you’d of killed us on a daily basis. I was scared of you, Gary.. But that stops now.”

“Now, don’t get ahead of yourself. You only think that I cannot scare you, but I know the look of fear when I see it. You looked the same exact way the day you came back to your home after your little friend Gabriel left you those tokens of his affection for you. Yes, Gabriel and I have spoken. Charming fellow. He wanted to buy information about you.. He wanted to buy whatever I had on you… And my was he willing to pay good money for it.”

I shake my head. I cannot believe what I’m hearing. Gabriel found my father and they struck up a deal?

“It just wasn’t good enough. I don’t really care about the money, but you know that Lucille, don’t you?”

I set my jaw and nod my head.

“You just want to ruin my life.”

“Life is an interesting word to use for what you’re currently… living, isn’t it? But yes… I hate that you two mongrels are running about the world with my DNA, ruining everything you touch. But more importantly… I hate that you’re happy whilst doing it.”

I stand up from the chair and begin pacing. I don’t get it. I just don’t fucking get it. If he hated us so much, then why not just kill us? Why not just end his misery and put us down like the dogs he compares us to?

“It doesn’t make sense… Why didn’t you just kill us when we were kids then? Why torture us? Why abuse–”

“Abuse and torture.. they’re such strong words. I much prefer to use the phrase behavior correction.”

He stands up and approaches me. Every fiber in my being wants to take a step back, but I stand my ground.

“Correction is what you girls needed… I–”

“I was abused. I was tortured. Using fancy words won’t change that–”

He lashes out and grabs my wrist, his fingernails digging into my flesh as he jerks me closer – our faces nearly touching.

“That you two were terrible children and your mother and I had to punish you? Over and over again we had to punish you, but there was no taming you two. You both ran away, you both rebelled against our authority, you both shamed us and the entire Johnson family by becoming what you two have become… And I’m here now to make sure we get… compensated for our hardships.”

“Hardships? Because beating us into bloody pulps was so hard on you, wasn’t it, Gary? I bet like hell it was so fucking hard to throw your children against the wall and punch them until you heard bones break, until their cries stopped… Or how about the nights you spent in Kyra’s room? I–”

He clenches into my wrist harder and brings his other hand up to my face, but I catch it with my free hand, stopping him from hitting me.

“I won’t be your fucking punching bag… NO!”

Before I know it… before I realize it, I’ve let go of his hand and just as quickly he’s on the ground bleeding profusely from his nose. I stumble backwards as the store clerk rushes over to see what the commotion is, and I look down at my closed fist, watching it shake with rage… his blood on my knuckles.