"What I told you was true, from a certain point of view. You're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view."
- Obi-Wan Kenobi, Return of the Jedi
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------“You were quiet in therapy today.”
He says from the living room as I fiddle about the kitchen, trying to figure out what I want more - A peanut butter sandwich or a glass of whiskey. I keep my back turned to him as I opt for the whiskey bottle and pour myself a few fingers worth.
“You were awful talkative.”
I retort, taking a sip and setting the glass down in front of me. It’s usually a challenge to get him to say much in therapy, and even more of a challenge to keep my mouth shut - but today he really laid it on thick. If I weren’t actually there, I would have thought he was going to therapy with Eden Morgan - As much as he talked about her.
“Sorry for worrying about you and your state of mind heading into--”
“I keep telling you, I’m fine.”
With the emphasis on the last word of that sentence, I turn around to face him, bringing the glass with me and taking another quick sip.
“You haven’t been sleeping.”
No, I haven’t.
“Might be because someone keeps bringing up shit that happened years ago when we should be focusing on our title match.”
He shakes his head.
“You've been having bad nightmares since before this match was even announced.”
I stop for a moment, looking down at the glass. What the hell do dreams have to do with this?
“... I just don’t understand why you don’t believe me. I’ve dealt with what happened. Gabriel apologized. Eden and I have a mutual understanding and we’re good. Why do you think all of that is suddenly going to go to shit?”
“Because that’s who they are.”
I empty the glass and put it down in front of me again, setting it down a little harder than I’d intended.
“Yeah, that’s who they are. I get it. And maybe I’m being a little naive when it comes to them but I don’t know - isn’t that my choice?”
“And if your choice happens to cost us in the title match?”
It’s my turn to laugh.
“Excuse me, but I’m the one who got us this title match. Do you honestly think I’d let my feelings towards Eden ruin that for us? If I thought that, I wouldn’t have picked the Co-operative Championships. I worked too damn hard to let it slip through my fingers, Joe.”
He sighs.
“I’m civil because you want me to be, but when I have an opinion of somebody it’s hard to change my mind. And I don’t give a shit what the reason is, she faked her damn death last year and lied to everyone. Lying to you to get in close before hurting you again is a drop in the fucking bucket for someone like her.”
I know he means well. But I don’t see how questioning Eden’s motives or confronting shit that happened years ago is going to help that, especially since Eden really didn’t have anything to do with it. Sure, she made her comments about it, she even made fun of what happened to me - but in my eyes, that pales in comparison to what Gabriel did.
Which is water under the bridge, as far as I’m concerned.
I turn back around and grab the bottle, pouring myself another glass.
“Joe, I know the titles are on the line and whether she really wants to be teaming with Donovan or not doesn’t matter. She’s not going to let those titles go easily. That’s the point. That’s the challenge. Yeah, we’re friends. We were kinda friends the last time we fought too - but that didn’t mean we took it easy on one another.”
Truth is, this friendship with Eden - It’s not like any other I’ve ever had, well except my friendship with Joe. It wasn’t born out of liking one another. It was more born out of a mutual respect that had grown over the years we’ve known one another. I know she’s thrown away relationships and friendships over much less than a title belt - I’m not blind to that fact.. But something inside me says that she wouldn’t throw our friendship away.
She’ll fight me like hell to keep those belts, and who wouldn’t? But at the end of the day, no matter who wins or loses - I have to believe that we’ll still have our petty little arguments over twitter and go on shopping trips where she spends the entire time critiquing everything about my style choices.
“You and I hated one another, once upon a time too, Joe. Does that mean you’re eventually gonna turn on me too?”
“Luce..”
“No, really. You and I, our friendship is a lot like Eden and myself. We didn’t like one another, but we grew to respect one another...and look at us now. Eden wanted me to walk her down the aisle when she married Gabriel.. Who wants someone they secretly hate to walk them down the aisle?”
I take another drink and make my way towards the living room - sitting down in a chair across from where Joe’s sat on the sofa. He leans forward and watches me for a few moments.
“Why even let me in on the big secret at all if they’re secretly planning on fucking me over?”
He gets up and begins pacing around in front of the couch.
“Look, obviously I think people should get second chances. But not them. Not after what they did to you. They didn’t just fuck you over in wrestling, that’s one thing. He gave you to someone that wanted to kill you and she was okay with it. And that’s not okay with me. It probably never will be.”
I nod my head.
“And that’s your prerogative. But it’s mine to believe.. Even if that’s opening myself up to more pain.”
But that’s always the game, isn’t it? Deciding to trust, or not trust. Life’s full of these kinds of decisions and I’ve been wrong more times than I can count. Maybe to him, it’s like I never learn from my mistakes - I don’t know. But I chose to trust him, and I think that decision has turned out pretty good.
I know they all won’t turn out that way… I’m just hoping that Eden and Gabriel don’t do what he thinks they will.
After a few moments, I empty my glass again and get up to take it to the kitchen. As I put it in the sink, I glance up to see him standing at the patio doors, looking outside.
“I.. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for forcing you to be around them. I respect that you don’t like them. I respect that you won’t like them. And I hope you’re not right about them… But I guess we’ll find out.”
He turns around to look at me.
“You look tired.”
I nod my head as a yawn escapes my lips.
“Yeah.”
I’m exhausted.
He’s right, I haven’t slept - and when I have, the dreams about my father, my childhood… That warehouse. Dreams about trying to kill myself… They’re not kind or happy, that’s for damn sure and they make it really hard to wanna close my eyes at night.
But they have no correlation to this match. None whatsoever.
“Maybe you should talk to the therapist about the nightmares.”
Maybe I should.
I shrug my shoulders and head towards the stairs, feeling his eyes on me the entire way.
“I’m just gonna go take a bath… Try and relax.”
I glance at him and force a smile on my lips.
“I love you. I’ll be back down in a bit.”
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JC had a headache.
He didn’t know whether to attribute it to his lack of sleep or something else, but he had been in a particularly foul mood all day. It was not something he wanted to take out on Lucy, but he felt as though he did when they went to group therapy together. He was very open about what he thought of Lucy’s new friends. And she was angry.
They entered together and she immediately made a beeline for the kitchen, which either meant she was hungry or she was ‘thirsty’. Joe had the thought of making some sort of comment about her imbibing at three o’clock in the afternoon, but thought better of it. That would be doing the very thing he didn’t want to do. Take out his own frustrations out on her.
Instead, he pulled up Twitter and checked to see if anyone had said anything worth replying to. No one had. He had been getting a lot of stress relief out of trolling people lately. It was fun, to him anyway, to make sarcastic comments knowing that it annoyed people he didn’t like or amused those he did. And if someone didn’t like it, fuck ‘em. It’s not like they’d do anything about it.
And given the thoughts in his head lately, he needed relief any way he could get it. He hated that a certain masked wrestler was trying to move into the vacancy his dark passenger left behind.
Jay Cee. Jay Cee. Jay Cee.
He grumbled to himself and deciding talking to his fiancee was the best way to quiet the tempest in his own mind. He also realized that the turn of phrase was a little more literal than he would like.
“You were quiet in therapy today.”
Lucy was still in the kitchen, rummaging through it like the Tasmanian devil, perhaps even unaware of how wild-eyed she looked with her sleepless, bloodshot eyes.
To his total lack of surprise, she chose the whiskey. Not that he blamed her. She didn’t get a lot of sleep last night either.
“You were awful talkative.”
She was definitely in a bad mood. Part of him wanted to blame himself but he mostly just wanted to get to the truth.
The therapist asked him how he felt about teaming with Lucy. He gave the honest answer. It was something he was looking forward to, especially to finally get his hands on Eden Morgan. When Lucy and their couples therapist asked what he meant, he went into detail.
He didn’t like her. He didn’t like Baal. He only kept his mouth shut for Lucy’s sake. But if he happened to get in the ring with one of them and just happened to get a little rougher than normal?
Well, accidents happen.
“Sorry for worrying about you and your state of mind heading into--”
“I keep telling you, I’m fine.”
She wasn’t fine. He was up before she was because she was tossing and turning. And this wasn’t the first night. It was a common occurrence. Clearly what happened two years ago, helped in part by those two, was still affecting her.
“You haven’t been sleeping.”
“Might be because someone keeps bringing up shit that happened years ago when we should be focusing on our title match.”
Those two who claimed to be her friends, but weren’t there when she was close to death.
Didn’t see the fruit of their labors.
She may be more forgiving, but he wasn’t.
He just shook his head in how hostile she was acting right now. He had his reasons and they were all about caring for her. But she clearly wanted a fight.
“You've been having bad nightmares since before this match was even announced.”
She stared down at her glass and didn’t answer for a moment. He knew more than most that bad dreams were usually a symptom of what was wrong upstairs. He didn’t sleep much himself because of his own problems. Guilt, doubts, stress, you name it. He was used to running on little sleep.
“... I just don’t understand why you don’t believe me. I’ve dealt with what happened. Gabriel apologized. Eden and I have a mutual understanding and we’re good. Why do you think all of that is suddenly going to go to shit?”
“Because that’s who they are.”
She slammed the glass down, getting angry.
The truth was, she was naive. Even after all she had been through, she still implicitly trusted people. It was admirable, in its own way. But it led to her getting hurt a lot. So if one of them had to be pessimistic in order to keep her from getting hurt, yet again, by someone she put too much faith in, he was fine being that person.
“Yeah, that’s who they are. I get it. And maybe I’m being a little naive when it comes to them but I don’t know - isn’t that my choice?”
“And if your choice happens to cost us in the title match?”
She laughed and he frowned at her. He thought appealing to her desire to be a champion might work better than her personal well being. She was drinking in the middle of the afternoon. She wasn’t sleeping. But she also had personal pride and one can usually make their point by appealing to that.
Usually.
“Excuse me, but I’m the one who got us this title match. Do you honestly think I’d let my feelings towards Eden ruin that for us? If I thought that, I wouldn’t have picked the Co-operative Championships. I worked too damn hard to let it slip through my fingers, Joe.”
A sigh escaped him, involuntarily. He couldn’t tell if she didn’t get what he was trying to say or if she was being willfully stubborn. Probably a combination of both. In addition to trusting people too easily, she was hard-headed and often thought the worst of herself.
It made serious conversations difficult, although he’d be the first to admit he was very similar. It was why, when they got along, they were great together. But a relationship is work and sometimes two stubborn people just take longer to put the work in.
“I’m civil because you want me to be, but when I have an opinion of somebody it’s hard to change my mind. And I don’t give a shit what the reason is, she faked her damn death last year and lied to everyone. Lying to you to get in close before hurting you again is a drop in the fucking bucket for someone like her.”
She poured another glass and rolled his eyes, even though she likely didn’t see him. More to the point, what was the point of therapy if he couldn’t share his thoughts without her attacking him for it.
She began to go on and on about how Eden would never screw her over or throw away their friendship but he began to tune her out a little bit. His mind drifted, thinking about everything that had happened and how things seemingly weren’t great between them.
It was a bunch of little arguments now and he wondered just how much therapy helped compared to how much it hurt. Maybe it was good to get it all out of the open. Maybe it was making things worse.
He got up and started to pace, a common thing he did when he was agitated. All of this pent up energy he had, all of the negative emotions that bubbled up, he needed an outlet. Better to wear a rut into the floor than break something and cause a bigger fight.
More about how they likely didn’t have bad intentions toward her. Even if they didn’t, it didn’t change anything. People don’t change, no matter how much they or others may want them to.
He knew. Better than most. And it was only a matter of time before he went back to his default state. He was sure of it.
Jay Cee. Jay Cee. Jay Cee.
“...if they’re secretly planning on fucking me over?”
He snapped out of his train of thought and stopped in his tracks.
“Look, obviously I think people should get second chances. But not them. Not after what they did to you. They didn’t just fuck you over in wrestling, that’s one thing. He gave you to someone that wanted to kill you and she was okay with it. And that’s not okay with me. It probably never will be.”
He was surprised he was able to get out a coherent point with everything bothering him right now. Even more surprised that she nodded and understood where he was coming from.
“And that’s your prerogative. But it’s mine to believe.. Even if that’s opening myself up to more pain.”
She got up and disposed of the glass. He took advantage and tried to will the current batch of negative thoughts out of his head. Medicine or not, things easily took their toll on his emotional state and every day it was a challenge not to give in to his instincts and let himself slip back into insanity.
Was it any wonder people were openly calling him out as a defanged snake?
He walked to the patio and stared out, hating himself a little for angering her. Hating himself a lot more for letting people get in his head the way certain people did recently.
He heard her walking up to him and turned to face her as she spoke.
“I.. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry for forcing you to be around them. I respect that you don’t like them. I respect that you won’t like them. And I hope you’re not right about them… But I guess we’ll find out.”
He didn’t care about being around them. He just wanted her to be wary. But he was tired of fighting. Tired in general.
But looking at her face now, he noticed the dark circles under her eyes, which wasn’t just her makeup. She was carrying full luggage.
“You look tired.”
A yawn confirmed the most obvious statement he could have made that day.
“Yeah.”
“Maybe you should talk to the therapist about the nightmares.”
She simply shrugged and walked away. He watched her as she went, knowing full well that she wouldn’t talk to anyone. She barely wanted to talk to him about it.
Stubborn. He loved that about her, but it also made her frustrating sometimes. Relationships, right?
“I’m just gonna go take a bath… Try and relax.”
As she headed up the stairs, she turned to face him. She smiled at him, which gave him at least a little bit of relief. Maybe she wasn’t as mad as he thought.
“I love you. I’ll be back down in a bit.”
It was almost a reversal of last year, when he was busy losing his mind. He swore that she didn’t understand his point of view or where he was coming from. All she wanted was to get him to take his medication and get help to get under control. He lashed out and nearly lost her.
He was wrong then and she was wrong now.
Part of him knew the only way she would seek help with what was clearly some form of PTSD, was if he kept pressuring her. But then that ran the risk of driving a wedge further between them. Was he willing to hurt their fragile relationship if it meant helping her? Was he willing to be the bad guy?
The answer came to him quickly.
Yes, he was just fine with making the hard choices. He had been doing it his entire life.
He was stubborn too.
“I love you too.”
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So...
The people that have been shipping us online must be ecstatic right now.
Well, you're welcome... Fans of things that were gonna happen sooner or later anyway. Speaking of, 'Lucy Cool' is totally a thing now, right?
That's not my actual last name, Luce, and you know it.
Yeah, yeah... Way to suck the fun out of the room.
Don't worry, we're going to have plenty of fun at Kobayashi Mar-ooh, look, the people running UGWC are fucking nerds.
And the fact that you know what that means? You're one of them, hun.
But that's okay. I'm actually digging the name, and the concept.. Thanks to my good friend Rogan for adding some extra fun into what was already gonna be a fun match.
And thank you for giving the idiots ammo that think I'm riding your coattails around here.
And yes, you are idiots. Because if you don't think I belong in title matches every PPV, you haven't been paying attention. As far as I'm concerned, it's about time I get handed something after scratching and clawing for every opportunity I've ever had in this business.
I keep saying 'You're only as good as your last match', but guess what? I won my last two. And were it not for this, I might not even be on the card. Honestly, I'm a little insulted.
Well I just lost my last one, so your last point stings a little. But fairs fair, I guess.
Anyway, I guess the point is - This is our time. Joe's been over here, scratching and clawing and showing every damn one of you that he's every bit the man that he's said he is. And he'll be every bit the champion that you fear he can be. As for me? Hell, you guys know what I'm all about around here.
I'm not Joe's ride to championship gold, no. I'm just the smartest bitch in this place who decided to make sure he's the one by my side because I know what it's like to be across from him and I gotta say Edie and Donovan... You two have got your work cut out for you.
Of course, getting here is one thing and actually winning the match is another. Trust me, it's not that we think we aren't going to earn these titles. And we certainly don't think you two are gonna be a cakewalk.
But I still like our chances against FaceApp's #1 fan and Discount Ivanka.
Outside of a few tweets about how hard you're going to fight, you've been surprisingly quiet about this match, 'Edie'. I think you can feel the beginning of the end coming. After all, how can two people that don't even like each other possibly compete with UGWC's first couple?
I'll go ahead and answer, since Gabriel isn't around to be the brains for you. You can't.
I mean, you're both obviously talented, or you wouldn't be where you're at right now and you wouldn't be in the history books of the UGWC. And somehow.. Somehow you guys put aside your hatred for each other and got those belts. That's both surprising and not shocking at the same time.
Might I think that you're obviously carrying the team, Edie?
Damn straight I do. But I'd be remiss if I didn't believe that you're just as big a threat to topple our hopes as Eden is, Donny. You wanna be the funny guy, you wanna make us all overlook you because all you can do is post creepy ass .gifs all over our twitter feeds but in our one match together, Donovan.. I came out on the losing end. I don't underestimate people. We don't underestimate people. We're here to take you to your limits, and hopefully walk out of this 'no-win' scenario with the Cooperative Championships.
You can only put aside your hate for so long. Trust me, I've got some experience in that department.
And I know without any kind of a common bond, that little team of yours is going to fall apart sooner or later. I just plan to make sure that it's on Monday and Lucy and I reap the benefits.
I am excited to finally square off with two of the veterans of UGWC. It's amazing our paths haven't crossed until now, although I think my brother beat Hastings in a cage match once. My excitement for competition doesn't exactly matter this time, though, because there's something I want more.
I am not going home to lose. I want those belts and I've got no problem breaking faces to get them.
And in the spirit of camaraderie, I don't have an issue fucking you guys up either. You see, this go around in the UGWC, I've got a goal. I touched on it when I announced that I was gonna go for the Coop titles - And it's a goal I should have completed a long, long time ago because for Christ's sake.. She whom I have blocked on Twitter achieved it before I have.
And THAT... That is just not gonna do. You know what I mean Edie. I mean you're the first. You've always beaten me to any of my big accomplishments here, haven't you? I was the second ever woman world champ... And you were the first. But then again, it's kinda fitting that you beat me to it, huh?
But it's not about being first, or second... or whatever. I just want my name on the list along with yours. I want that Grand-Slam and you and Donovan aren't gonna keep me from ticking off one of the things I need to reach that goal. But you already know that, don't you? This ain't our first dance, honey and it probably won't be our last. And I look forward to it, I really do... But stand aside because you know that I deserve to be right up there with you and the rest of the champions who've reached that pinnacle, don't you?
I guess the real question is, who wants it more?
Sure, no one's more entitled than Eden Morgan and no one thinks more highly of themselves then Donovan Hastings...but is that enough?
From my perspective, it's not.
Lucy wants to cement her legacy? Well so do I. And I'm absolutely sick of sitting on the sidelines waiting for it to happen. Everyone likes to talk about my legend status in hushed tones, but I'm here to turn up the volume and finally, finally write my name in the history books. I'll be damned if I let your little high society circle-jerk stop me.
I think that about sums it up.
We'll see you two on Monday. Lucy Cool, signing off.
God damnit, Lucy. That'd better not stick.
