Post by Admin on Jan 4, 2019 21:12:12 GMT -5
(OFF CAMERA || 07-28-2011)
There was nothing quite like the sound of pen to paper to evoke that feeling of nostalgia. The only thing better than that was the smell of chalk dust. The hot pink pen danced over the lines with a muted scratchety-scratch—every perfectly formed letter making her hand ache. She knew she needed to get these thoughts down before they fled like startled birds and the laptop was dead because she'd forgotten to plug it in last night. With other things on her mind, she couldn't be bothered to look for the power cord in the mess that was her suitcase. There was no other sound in the hotel suite besides the faint pounding in her head. One hell of a headache was coming, and she knew it had everything to do with the stress she'd been putting herself under. Keeping up appearances online, she'd been her usually catty self on Twitter, even managing to toss out a few particularly witty barbs towards her opponents in her video and blog posts.
Sighing, she shook her head and watched while the Windows logo vanished from the laptop's screen. Drumming her fingers on the desk, she drifted off in thought.
Why does it have to be so hard? Why can't I just smile and know that I've got them all beat? Why do I always have to second and third-guess every little thing I do to the point of driving myself bonkers?
Her pulse pounded in her temples, ebbing and flowing with the pain, like waves crashing against an unseen shore. She felt dangerously close to tears as she sat there, trying like hell to write something coherent and scathing.
Ink blobs and sweat marks dotted the page, despite the frosty temperature in the room. She was agitated, completely fired up over the littlest things this past week. In the back of her mind she knew why, and knew that the longer she let that pick away at her, the more likely she was to blow up before she ever made it down to the Elimination Chamber to be locked into one of those pods.
She muttered a curse, and began typing quickly and efficiently, staring at the words she'd written towards Scarlett Kincaid as they appeared on the screen.
"God, I can't post this. It's crossing the line," she murmured, knowing full well that it was a lie. Inevitably, she would click the PUBLISH button in a matter of moments because that's what was expected of her, "it's not fair to take out my feelings on them. They've done nothing to deserve this other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time." Moralizing wasn't the best thing to do when she was known as being one of the biggest bitches in the business. Friendships aside, this was one of the biggest matches of her career, "I can't very likely write them poetry and show respect. That would be like shooting myself in the foot. That would be worse than Isabella's silence. They're beneath me. They're-"
The shrill tone of her cell phone ringing interrupted her musings. With a quick glance at the caller ID, she frowned and thumbed the answer button, already speaking before her caller identified themselves. "Brad? Where the hell have you been? You were supposed to come back after you went to LA on Monday. It's Thursday!"
A protracted sigh came across the line, "something's come up."
She rolled her eyes, "yeah? Colour me shocked. What is it now? Some ridiculous fight with Ryann?"
"I'm in Liverpool." The fact that he was calling from overseas wasn't quite as noticeable as it might have been, despite the soft crackle of static in the background—to say she was distracted was the understatement of the century.
"Liverpool? As in England?" Her brow furrowed more, "why?"
"It's complicated. I'm just calling to tell you that I won't be back in time to do any more…" he paused, "training."
"You selfish son of a-"
"Stop." He cut her off with a curt tone, "I'll explain it when I get back. God knows, I'm going to be doing enough of that to Valerie and Ryann as it is," he sighed, "you can handle this on your own, Kitty. Stop looking for a crutch… an excuse… whatever. None of them are skilled enough to destroy you, or that heart of yours."
She bit her lip, feeling frustrated tears prickle in her sinuses. "Please, Brad," she couldn't keep the whine out of her voice, "I need you here."
His silence spoke volumes before he said one last thing, "want and need are not the same thing. The sooner you wrap your head around that, the more likely you are to succeed. I'll see you at the show and not before."
The words CALL ENDED flashed across the screen.
"That bastard," she growled, turning all her anger towards her ex-husband in that split second. Normally outwardly calm before a match as important as this, Kaitlynn Stryfe was instead almost coming emotionally unglued as she began pacing back and forth across the hotel suite. Her cell phone was still clutched in her hand, and had been since the phone call had ended. Normally she would have whipped the offensive piece of technology across the room for giving her bad news, especially news that amounted to her NOT getting her own way.
She couldn't help but feel like time had reversed itself, spilling her back into last year. Still she kept moving across the floor, giving the soles of her bare feet friction burn from the carpet as she tried in vain to keep her emotions in check. Letting loose a little scream between her clenched teeth, she let the phone fly from her hand. Halfway through its flight, she regretted it, worrying about the messages she'd lose if it was broken before it smacked against the wall and slid to the floor, shattering on impact— it fell at the feet of her husband.
Alex looked down at the broken pieces of what was his wife's cell phone, leaning down to pick them up and deciding nothing was to be salvaged before depositing the remnants into the waste basket not far from where he stood. His eyes a bit wide in some form of expectancy, he also looked a bit puzzled as to what brought all this about.
"If you are not happy with your phone, we are more than capable of just buying a new one." He remarked, hoping to lighten the mood slightly as he had an overwhelming foreboding that it was a futile attempt.
She simply stared at him for a few moments, almost as if she was surprised to see him. Her lips quivered towards a smile, despite her emotional state, and then she bit her bottom lip, looking sheepish as she tucked her hair behind her ears. "It wasn't the phone's fault." There was something in her voice. Not really a tone, but a flatness that was like a flashing red warning beacon above her head: danger imminent.
"Alright, before I am to pick up perhaps one of our lamps or a potted plant, perhaps you would like to talk about it?" He moved towards the sofa, taking a seat and gesturing for her to join him at her earliest convenience. He was a little nervous, but most any man would be when his wife was in this frame of mind. "Would you care to join me?" He offered a small smile before the next question. "Or I do have an old phone in a drawer if you'd care to see what the inside of it looks like."
A sad smile flickered across her lips as she moved towards where he sat. "The phone's been doing an awful lot to piss me off lately," she murmured, sitting down on the couch beside him and tucking one ankle behind her knee so that she was almost sitting on her foot. "I guess Brad bailing on me was the last straw..." the way she said it made it clear that she wasn't done venting by a long shot, but that he was likely going to have to pry the issue from her.
Alex sat in silence, his mind racing with things that could possibly have caused this to occur, and nothing really jumped out at him as a result. "Well my love, I am more than eager to hear what is bothering you when you are interested in sharing it with me. Perhaps there is something I can do to help. Perhaps not. But listening has always been something I excelled at when it comes to you," then his mind remembered the whole sordid affair from earlier in the year, "though admittedly I have slipped up at one point or another."
She turned to look at him, her eyes filled with tears, "tell me it's not true," the words came out as a whisper, without any sort of clarification as to what she was talking about.
"I'm afraid I am going to need a bit more clarity on what you are wishing me to deny. Chances are whatever it is if someone else said it, it isn't true. But humor me. What is it that I may or may not have done?" He queried, leaning forward as she truly had his undivided attention now.
"Gambini," she said his name with a shudder, and a reflexive crossing of herself as though he was the devil incarnate. Blinking through tears, she met her husband's probing gaze levelly, "Leo said on Twitter that you..." she paused, swallowing, "sold him your shares in SVW. Why...?" her voice grew softer, smaller, "why would you deal with that snake after all he's done to us?"
For a brief moment, Alexander Stryfe was frozen. His mind telling him long before that the decision he made weeks ago would come back to haunt him, and now here they were in full form on his sofa in the form of his distraught bride. "I'm afraid I cannot deny those accusations. I did sell my stake in SVW to him. But...it's not as simple as that. It wasn't about money. It was a decision I made because....I felt it the best thing to do in order to make sure we never have to deal with him again."
She frowned, tensing and pulling away from him, even though she remained in the same spot. "I don't understand."
"I wouldn't expect you to, not having all the facts at hand." A long sigh escaped his lips as he looked down to his hands a moment, as if searching for the answer on them. "I did everything in my power to ensure Anthony Gambini went to prison for the rest of his life. You know that. But you see, in an attempt to ensure that outcome, I did something that I now regret. Through an intermediary, I contacted one of the jurors in the trial and offered them an obscene amount of money to sway the other jurors into making sure Mr. Gambini spent the better part of his life locked away."
A pause came here as Alex tried to force himself to continue. "And all was well in hand, until as you know, the star witness for the prosecution went missing the day before his testimony. And then the case was frivolous and the evidence unable to garner such a result. Thus he was acquitted. But you see....he found out about what I did. I'm not quite sure how. And one of his associates contacted me. They informed me of what I already knew, jury tampering is a felony. And they had proof I had done so. And they were prepared to see to it that I went to prison. However, they made me an offer. They told me that if I agreed to sell my entire stake in SVW to Mr. Gambini, my overzealous attempt at justice would not be brought to light and that they would promise that you and I would never ever hear from him again."
"Oh, Alex." She sighed, shaking her head, completely floored at what he'd just revealed, "why would you do something like that..?" she looked at him, not understanding his motivation in resorting to jury tampering. All this time, she'd never known. Her question was mostly rhetorical, said aloud only as the wheels were turning in her mind.
And rhetorical or not, the answer was imminent. "Because years ago, I lost faith in the legal system. Anthony Gambini isn't a man I can control or threaten. He wasn't a wrestler; he wasn't dependent on me to make a living. And when I discovered what he truly was, I had to. I wanted to ensure beyond all doubt that he would never leave prison for what he did to you. Attacking me is one thing; people have done that for years. But I was going to be damned if I let the safety and security that you once enjoyed become a memory of the past. As airtight as the prosecution's case was, I wanted there to be no question. I did what I did, I do not regret it. Only that it would prove to be a fool's errand. I did what I did...because even though you may not need it, there is nothing on Earth that I want to protect more than you."
She blinked, feeling the tears well up anew at his words, "you did it for me?" The words were a whisper as she smiled through her tears, reaching out to take his hand. "I... don't know what to say. That's..." she shook her head, clearly at a loss for words, "I've been so angry at you since I read those words, and it's come close to costing me this match. You don't know how many times over the last year I've dreamed about this chance at redemption. And now that it's here, I'm worrying that you're..."
"You should realize by now, Kaitlynn that everything I do...it's for you. I have spent a third of a lifetime living for myself. Since I met you, that focus has shifted dramatically. I have everything I want. So I want to give you nothing short of everything else." His hand took hers, giving it a little squeeze as his eyes met hers again for the first time since his admission.
"I'm so sorry to have doubted you," she sniffled, blinking away the tears, "I can't help the feeling that he'll still find a way to destroy you. To destroy us."
Alex let a small smile come out as he shook his head. "I'm not worried about that right now. Right now, I am far more interested in seeing you smile, and taking you out for the evening, allowing us the chance to show Charlotte how the better half enjoys themselves. Would you join me for an evening of dinner and dancing perhaps?"
She nodded, feeling the grin as it came to her lips. "You always know how to make me feel better," she chuckled softly, "bribery's a start. Now if you could just find a way to ensure I win that belt from Scarlett, you'll be my hero always and forever." The words weren't meant seriously; it was obvious by the mischievous gleam in her eyes.
"I'll see what I can do." He responded with a wink, though it was hard to tell if it was in jest or if he was serious.
