Post by Admin on Sept 4, 2016 17:22:38 GMT -5
Purity, Louisiana || Saturday, August 27, 2016, 3:33 PM (OFF CAMERA)
She knew it was raining before she even opened her eyes, feeling the throb in her temples that she told herself was just a bit of a hangover from last night’s excess. Had nothing to do with that tender spot she still had on the back of her head. Nope. Nothing at all to do with that. Pushing up with a groan, she reached for her phone, hesitating even though the desire to reach out into that void and connect with someone was stronger than ever. Vinny Jarrett was probably doing something more important than waiting for a little notification from her anyhow.
The park will be deserted in weather like this, the voice in her head insisted, making her nod as the rumble of thunder rattled the windows in their frames. With her vision blurred, she stared across the room. It was easy to mistake that pile of things on the chair in the corner for Ak's slumped form, as if he'd fallen asleep while watching over her. She wanted it to be true so badly that she thought she could smell him for a moment on the damp breeze coming in from the window she'd left open. The soap he used, that faint hint of aftershave – so perfectly male that she had to close her eyes against the sudden stabbing ache in her chest. Blindly, she groped for her glasses on the nightstand, hesitating before putting them on. Just a few more seconds of pretending the sound of the cat snoring was something else.
"Hey," she whispered, "I thought maybe we could go down to the park and... uhm... remember when you took me to Disneyland? I thought we could do that. Total tourists. Sounds like fun, right?"
A car passed outside, the hiss of tires on the wet pavement her only answer. Sighing, she put her glasses on and looked, reasserting reality. She was alone. The pile on the chair was like that Beyoncé song, everything she'd found that he left behind stacked up so she could put it in a box. The hoodie had been in the trunk of the car. The baseball cap was the one with strips of bacon on it, the one from the UK that they'd bought from a sidewalk vendor – breakfast foods had become this sort of inside joke because of that very first morning after. She didn't want to look at it now.
She was no fortune-teller, no seer like Kassandrah supposedly was, but she'd felt this inevitable outcome in her bones the moment they'd left Boston. BFW had been an anchor to him – she knew that now. For her it had been a soft landing. Tepid water to get her back into the swing of things. Just a toe dipped in, two matches won against women she could barely remember and wouldn't have recognized on the street if there'd been a gun to her head. She'd been looking forward to a third match against Scarlett Silver. She'd been excited about that, thrilled about the change in the tag team rules and how maybe, just maybe, she could end up representing The Order and getting back that small measure of respect that had been stolen from them. Flash forward, and somehow she'd ended up signing with PAW. It seemed logical because he was here. Now he wasn't.
Nothing made sense anymore.
[REC.]
The view opened with an extreme close-up of rainbow-striped toe socks; the little piggies clad in them twiddled in a sort of wave. "Where's there's smoke, there's fire. And where there's fire, there's probably some sadist roasting marshmallows," the soft-spoken voice accompanied the blindingly bright socks before panning up shapely bare legs to a pair of blue wrestling hot pants. "Hey!" The voice snapped, a bit more sharply, "yeah, uh, hi? Face is up here."
She waited while the camera settled in on her features, a look of annoyance there before she sighed, shaking her head.
"Okay, so I figure we need to do this before things go completely off the rails. And I figured the easiest way to get it out there is to just bite the bullet – no more farting around with the kiddie pool, water wings bullshit – I'm gonna get up on the high board and I'm gonna dive and if I hit that water like it's cement and split wide open for your amusement... well..." the redhead shrugged, "so be it. The world loves a spectacle. Gawkers at a train wreck. A crowd on the street when there's a guy up there on the ledge about to jump and you have to stop and wonder what's brought them to that point. Why'd they come so unglued that they thought standing on some tiny little ledge above it all was gonna be the way to go. I mean, if I was going to snuff that candle? Probably do it privately so there's not a whole gaggle of jerkwads out there judging me. Just sayin'."
She pushed her glasses back up her nose, bringing her knees up before resting her chin on them.
"So. Hi. I guess."
Her arms wrapped around her knees.
"I'm Kasey. Out there, between the ropes, they call me Summer. Blah blah blah... introductory stuff aside, I know I shoulda done this like way before I had that first match here in Pure Amusement against Hunter Storms. This is why I used to have a manager – reminders of these sort of things are sorta... ennngh, well..." she made a face, nose wrinkling as she pursed her lips.
"I guess I kinda space on the little things sometimes and that's fine when you're someone like Flaming Youth and Press – The Bombtrax or Nova Wonder and you've got this whole reputation that follows you around, like this whole larger than life thing where people who barely even like wrestling in a passing way have kinda heard your name around the office water cooler or on social media trending topics or the BookOfFace sidebar ads or whatever and like okay, maybe a year ago I was scratching on that door like the cat out in the rain but I'm not dumb enough to think I still am. You're all like 'Summer who' and this, like this is a bigger deal than people realize. Cross Recoba, okay? I know that name. I know... he was... okay, like even talking about it now, I'm getting chills. Look."
She lifted her arm, shivering, showing off the goosebumps.
"He was injured."
She let that hang for a few seconds.
"Last year, I was too. And I thought I was never gonna make it back in a ring. I thought I was never – and when I finally got that all-clear... I wasn't about to go crawling back to Femme Fatale Wrestling. I'm not superstitious, honestly. It's just, the thought of history repeating was enough to make me look elsewhere. I guess what I'm trying to say is kudos to you, Mr. Recoba, because you've got a level of courage I don't. And I guess maybe if my injury had been something malicious, something intentional, maybe I'd have a deeper motivation to return to the scene of the crime but sadly? It wasn't. It was just a fluke thing and it was all over in the blink of an eye. My promising career. My prospect for a rematch at the title I'd just lost or looking forward to being promoted to the next division – all of it gone just like-" she snapped her fingers, "that. So I get it. This is a big deal. Your moment to reclaim something you lost at Bad Moon Rising – your first match back. You and I, we're on the very same wavelength like the song of our people that we're gonna be singing out there is exactly the same. We can harmonize and junk and it'll be like the greatest thing since sliced bread because redemption is a hell of a motivator, isn't it? Not that I'm drawing a parallel between my experience there and yours because I just crashed and burned against Spencer Thompson – on my birthday no less – and you know, not taking anything away from her. She was really, really good. Like legit amazeballs and it's lit a fire under me. And I guess I'm saying I know how you feel right now. Isolated. Alone. Shocking, right?"
She sighed, tilting her head back to break eye contact with the camera. "I don't have to spell it out because you're a smart guy, right? Clearly you are or you wouldn't have lasted this long in this revolving-door industry if you weren't and you probably woulda looked for a better career instead of putting in the work to get back here but, I get that. I do. Maybe you can tell, maybe you can see the difference in me just like I saw something in your eyes. Maybe you can tell how something has changed even though I'm still trying to put my finger on the 'what'. I can feel it in the air, like some looming disaster. Maybe it's just me being fatalistic because I'm getting so damn good at seeing all the patterns all the time. I know what's next for me. Claws out, more scratching at the door because it's raining. Of course it is. It's Saturday and I wanted to go out and do something fun and of course it's raining so instead I'm sitting here in a room filled with ghosts pretending you give a crap about anything I have to say. Trying to fool myself into thinking if I put the words out there coherently enough, you'll smile and nod and accept me as kin – I'm not stupid, Mr. Recoba. Really not."
She laughed softly. "I'm not gonna lie to you. I've craved this moment to shine since I came crawling back to the industry that tried to destroy me and for a few blissful seconds it was so easy to forget, to just lose myself in the familiar motions and ohemeffingee it was so good. It was the best thing ever, to feel like coming home, to feel that familiar warmth and to know without a shadow of a doubt that I wasn't wrong – this is where I'm supposed to be. Even if I'm alone. Even if I didn't actually choose this place out of the thousands of others out there – this is home."
She paused, closing her eyes for a second. "Something bad will happen eventually, Mr. Recoba. I know that's true. So do you, I think. Call me a pessimist, but really we both know I'm just talking reality. In this business it's all about the way the wind is blowing and here, in Purity?"
Her smile was sad but at least it was there.
"Dorothy, we're not in Kansas anymore."
Purity, Louisiana || Saturday, August 27, 2016, 7:27 PM (OFF CAMERA)
"-we made up the spare room for you and Layla's got a tray of those peanut butter and marshmallow squares you like in the freezer-"
MESSAGE ERASED. NEXT MESSAGE: LEFT TODAY AT THREE FORTY-SEVEN PM.
"Kasey, please call us back. It's Bill again. We're starting to get a little worried, honey. The things you've been posting on Twitter are-"
MESSAGE ERASED. NEXT MESSAGE: LEFT TODAY AT THREE FIFTY-ONE PM.
"Kasey, it's Larry. Uhm, Larry Gowan? Long time no see... chat... hah. So, how's Louisiana? Anyhow, Bill called me and asked if I could check in on you. I guess he's worried that you're going to-"
MESSAGE ERASED. NEXT MESSAGE: LEFT TODAY AT FIVE THIRTY-FIVE PM.
"Goddamnit, Kasey! Just call us back! If you don't, I'm going to call the police-"
[rustling and rattling before a female voice breaks in]
"Kasey, honey, it's Layla. I know you're hurting but if you could just give us a call it would mean the world to-"
MESSAGE ERASED. YOU HAVE NO MORE MESSAGES. TO SEND A MESSAGE TO SOMEONE ELSE, PRESS-
She stabbed the red button, ending the call, staring at the screen of her phone as though it had suddenly grown venomous.
"I'm fine," she murmured, shaking her head, watching the little bird icon pop up at the top of her screen. "...'rain is a sign of renewal. You can't appreciate the sunny days quite as much without a bit of rain'." Drew Davies had typed the words, and she read them aloud, sitting there, soaking wet, her eyes wide as it dawned on her how right he actually was.
She unzipped the sweatshirt, lifting the damp fleece up to her face, pulling the fading smell of Ak into her lungs one last time. Pretty soon it would smell like everything else in her closet, in this tiny little house that had been left to her.
"I'm fine." She said it louder this time, nodding firmly as she let the fabric fall from her hand, reaching out to grab her phone. And maybe she wasn't right now, but she wasn't as sad as she'd been. She wasn't broken or bent or bowed. She wasn't angry or frustrated. She was just full of a sort of calm acceptance – perhaps resignation.
Ak was gone. She had no idea where. She hadn't asked. Didn't want to pry or seem desperate. His reasons were his own and she loved him enough to respect that boundary. She knew it was just a saying, just some stupid thing some poet or whatever had written: 'if you love someone, set them free'. She knew better. Sighing, she shook her head, pushing her wet hair behind her ears.
She was still here. That was what mattered now. She was still gainfully employed, still being booked. She'd been chosen to kick off the very first Wicked airing on the Circle TV Network and while others might bitch about being there at the top of the show, she knew what it really meant. She knew how important... how huge it was. That was massive and daunting and extremely scary and here she was, moping around because of a little stupid rain. In the grand scheme, it was just wet and annoying. It wasn't fatal. Rain wasn't a bad thing, really. Eventually the sun would be back. So would the warmth and the joy and everything else that it meant to be Summer. She'd just have to fake it until then.
"I'm fine. Really. Truly. Fine."
This time she actually meant it.
