My Letter: Part One (Choking On Regrets) [MWA #1]

Ice pellets rattled against the glass, thrown by the gusting wind. Larry Gowan awoke with a start, disoriented, sheathed in a greasy sheen of sweat. He could smell the candles that burned on the nightstand, vanilla and sandalwood. That was pleasant. He could smell the wintry air as it blew in through the half-inch cracked window, but most of all, he could smell her. Kitty McIntyre. The woman who should have already married Stanley Schwartz-Rottonbottom, Chauncy's brother. The woman who was supposed to be anywhere but here.

They'd run into each other the night before in the bar downstairs. Her eyes had been red-rimmed. She'd seemed more strung out than usual and he'd immediately fallen into the old trap. Sitting there on that bar stool, wrapped in cigarette smoke and vulgarity, she'd been completely irresistible and now he felt tainted. She'd been the first woman he'd ever shared a bed with years ago. Like his other vices, he couldn't bring himself to say no. He sat on the edge of the bed, head in his hands, feeling nauseated. Tears stung his eyes, a pained sound lodging itself in his throat. He pushed it back with effort, not wanting to wake her.

Nightmares again, and he was soaked in clammy sweat. Hot, scalding tears fell from his eyes as he slid to the floor, trying to keep quiet. At first he didn't realize he was crying, and as the liquid splashed down on his bare chest, he looked down, convinced his nose was bleeding. It was dark, and in the gloom, he confused what he saw with a phantom spot on his hand, searching his haggard features for the wound and finding none. When he looked down again, the spot was gone and nothing but clear wetness was on his fingertips.

His vision doubled as he stared at his hands, trying to will them away- trying to stop the ache in his heart that just wouldn't quit. He was denied both. The tears continued to fall.

The ache grew, and he dragged a heaving breath into his lungs. His head pounded, echoing the rapid beating of his racing heart. Panic attack looming, he could feel the walls closing in. "Oh, fuck," he whispered, lurching to his feet and staggering towards the bathroom. The floor was still damp from his shower, a few hours ago, and his feet slipped when he crossed the threshold. He crashed to his knees, breaking his fall as his hands slammed into the tiles. Darkness swam on the edges of his vision, the floor looming up to catch him as his arms gave out, dizziness overcoming him in a suffocating wave. Fighting through, he managed to pull himself to his knees, bent over, palms resting on the sticky tiles, wheezing and retching. He could taste the beer he'd had for dinner. With effort, he pushed the door shut, sagging against it as he tried like hell to regain control of himself. Head bent, he pulled air into his lungs, but it felt like it was choking him.

His stomach churned, and he stumbled towards the toilet, lunging and sliding across the slippery tiles. Leaning over the toilet, he was sure he was going to vomit. He felt battered and bruised, and it wasn't just from the sex. He dropped to his knees, gagging and panting. Nothing came up but a thin runnel of whiskey-soured drool, trailing from his lower lip, but he still gagged again. Bitterly foul vomit filled his mouth, and he spat, a pitiful moan escaping his lips. It kept coming, the purge lasting a few minutes before he fell to his ass on the cold floor, spent. 

Of course he'd tried to drink her under the table, passing the bottle back and forth. 

She'd waved off the heartbreak, pretending that SAWF hadn't changed them all. She'd laughed about the company she'd gone to work for, about how this new place was going to put her on the map. He'd barely listened, letting the empty words wash over him, watching the enthusiasm animate her in a way that was completely foreign to him. He saw the lie in her eyes, that pain behind the flippant words.

Drunk, almost plastered, it was easier to drift into familiar patterns. She knew what he liked, what he wanted and he stopped caring the moment she took control. Later, she'd let him take her from behind, moaning in wordless abandon, making him feel as though he was good at something. She'd ruined it, of course. Maybe even deliberately- she'd called him Jax and the name had cut through him like a knife. Jax, a damned name he hadn't heard in nearly three years.

He groaned as his stomach rolled again, and for a moment he had to grab the edge of the cool porcelain for support. Nothing came up this time, just that stabbing ache in his midsection. He looked up, meeting his eyes in the mirror that spanned the wall above the toilet, not liking what he saw. The past was too close for comfort.

"Who am I?" he whispered to the stranger in the mirror. Sure, the features were the same, his hair a little longer, his body a little leaner. The pale eyes, sometimes gray, sometimes ice blue. Still the same old Gowan on the outside, but what had he become? He heard her voice from the other room, calling to him, and it only made him feel worse. What was he doing? 

Priorities. Drink. Attention. A slow decline into obscurity- that's what he wanted. WCWF pension was a nice thing to spend, still gainfully employed, technically as a recruiter and road agent. He was in Boston to recruit at a few schools in the area. The odds were good that he'd never to set foot in a ring again. Another wrestling statistic, another career cut short. The thoughts sickened him. How had he become this shallow? He bent over the toilet, coughing and sputtering again, bringing up nothing but bitter bile.

"Larry?" she knocked on the door, her voice muffled by the wood. "Honey? Are you okay in there?"

He dragged himself upright, cranking on the faucet after flushing the toilet. He ignored her voice, and her knocks, instead taking a hefty swig of the complimentary mouthwash. He spat in the sink, watching the green liquid go down the drain, and wished he could wash away everything else as easily. He met his eyes in the mirror again, not surprised to see tears dripping down his cheeks. The salty droplets spattered on his bare chest, streaking silently down his skin. Sweat beaded his brow, and his hair was a disheveled mess, still devoid of a single strand of gray, even inching this close to forty. Picking up the towel, he blotted his face. Even after puking up his insides, he didn't look that bad. Shaken, maybe, but not as shattered as he felt. He was pale. That was all. Shaking his head, he pinched his own cheeks, trying to bring back the color. He smelled cigarette smoke wafting around the doorjamb, wondering if he could ask her to put it out and still be considered a good host.

It would have to end now. Now before it got any more fucked up.

She stood by the window, cigarette between her lips. The burn of the cherry lit her features as she inhaled, and those dark, soulless eyes swiveled to him as he approached out of the gloom. He said nothing, drawing aside the curtain while she stubbed out the Marlboro in the ashtray. He rested his hands against the window, feeling the cool glass beneath his palms as the wind washed across the sill, chilling the sweat to ice. "Kitty," he whispered her name.

"Lare," she said softly, turning towards him. A smile curved her lips as she moved closer, wearing nothing but that boyish tank top and a pair of white panties that could almost have been stolen from his drawer. She slipped her arm around his waist, leaning against his bare back. She was maybe half an inch shorter than him and her body molded perfectly to his. He stiffened, his palms slipping against the glass. "What's wrong?"

"Everything," he muttered, meeting her eyes in the reflection. He knew she could see the tears still drying on his cheeks. He made no move to wipe them away; he didn't care. "I'm..." the word caught in his throat, and she said nothing, waiting for the confession to come. It didn't.

With a sigh, she moved away from him, returning to the bed. "You're still drunk," she murmured, slipping under the covers, "sleep it off, honey. Everything'll look better in the morning."

---

His eyes snapped open, a small sound penetrating the hung-over exhaustion, accompanied by the familiar smell of cigarette smoke. He found her sitting on the edge of the bed with her back to him; smoke curling around her head like a halo. Feeble light crept around the curtains, revealing that it was daytime. Pushing his tangled hair back from his face, he squinted at the clock on the table, giving up when his eyes refused to focus. Out of instinct, he reached for her, one hand nearly grazing her back as she stood up, crossing to the window without looking at him.

"Who's your favorite Beatle?" She asked, the question bordering on the absurd.

Gowan blinked, his heart stopping because he remembered the time he'd asked Chauncy that when they'd first met, "what?"

"Your favorite Beatle," she repeated, her expression hidden by the shadows as she turned to look at him.

"John," he licked his lips, his mouth running without his brain engaged, "because of Imagine. Because he was the best songwriter." Was this a test? Had Chauncy sent her here to see if he still carried that torch?

"Someone told me it was a good... uh... litmus test or something. You can learn all you need to know about a person by who their favorite Beatle is-"

"Rorschach." Gowan muttered, pulling the pillow from under his head, and pressing it over his face to blot out the light.

"Right. That."

"John Lennon," he told her again, his voice muffled beneath the pillow. "Yours?"

He felt the bed settling under her weight, "in all honesty, I never really cared for them until you played Strawberry Fields for me. Superficially? Probably Paul. He's the best looking."

"It's just," he couldn't bring himself to complete the thought, his brain skipping tracks to avoid thinking about that damnable British boy.

"What?" Kitty's voice held that needling tone now. "We can't have a conversation?"

"Paul," he muttered, wishing she'd just go away, "you're the practical one, the passionate one."

"Does that make you the dreamer?" She fired it right back.

Gowan chuckled bitterly, sitting up and letting the pillow fall away from his face. "Yeah, that's me. Head in the clouds, hopeless romantic giving up musical genius for the love of a very, very weird woman..." he paused, his blue eyes flicking to her and away again. "You're not going to be my Yoko Ono, if that's what you're vying for."

"Oh, Larry, please. Don't flatter yourself. We'd never make it..." she trailed off. Something in his eyes was hard, making them shift to steely gray, from their usual faded blue. Instead she held out the envelope in her hand. "This... um, the guy from the front desk brought it up this morning when you were still sleeping." Something in her voice was strained, her eyes fearful.

His gaze dropped to the heavy envelope, and the looping, spidery scrawl on the outside. Jackson's writing, unmistakable. It was addressed to him at the WCWF Headquarters in Plano. Someone had obviously forwarded it. That meant they knew where he was. "Did you read it already?"

She said nothing, that fear in her eyes still as she looked away. She slipped her finger between those lips, and nibbled on her ragged fingernail. She said enough in those movements to tell him everything he needed to know.

With a trembling hand, he hooked a finger under the flap and tore it open, blowing inside before liberating the letter. His eyes skimmed the page, his features drooping as his misery became all the more apparent.

"He wrote me a goddamned letter," he didn't know whether to laugh or cry, letting the paper fall to the floor, "to ask for forgiveness..."