Complicated

November 18, 2020 - NXT

Damian wrapped his arms around me and crushed me into his chest, "I just want you to be happy."

"I am happy." I lied.

"Keep telling yourself that. You might start to believe it."

I pushed Damian backward and rolled my eyes at him.

**

I rolled out of the ring, clutching my stomach and struggling for air. Rhea had bruised my ribs for sure. Rhea met me on the ramp and hugged me. Her bleached hair was stained red with blood from her torn ear. I did feel bad about that. I hadn't meant to rip out her piercings.

It was an intense match though. I wasn't sure I was going to come out on top, but I did. Fighting Rhea was fun, if highly painful. She was my best friend and I trusted her fully in the ring, which always made for a great match.

We finally made our way up the ramp and Finn Balor was in the ring. He started his whole Promo by congratulating me for retaining my women's championship.

I went to the trainer's room immediately. He wrapped my ribs and cleaned Rhea's blood off my arm. She was also in the trainer's room about to get stitches on her ear.

"We're badasses, you know that?" Rhea asked.

I slid off the bench, wincing from the movement. "Yes, we are."

"Even if I feel half-dead right now." Rhea tried to laugh but just ended up wincing in pain.

"Same though. But did you hear the fans? They loved that match."

"Cause it was a badass match."

"Match of the year." I agreed. I laid my hand on her arm, "when we're both healed we'll have to do it again."

Rhea nodded and lifted her hand up for me to fist bump, "hell yeah."

I headed to the locker room, but couldn't be bothered to do anything other than throw Damian's oversized shirt over my head. Eventually, I was going to have to give him this shirt back, but it being so big was useful and comfy. I grabbed my bag and started to leave.

"There are your boys," Damian's voice floated up to me as I passed a monitor that I had been ignoring.

I stopped walking and looked at Damian. Not the monitor. If I saw Fish then my resolve would crack right in half and I'd be back to square one on trying to forget his existence. "Not my boys."

He half-shrugged clearly not trying to argue with me. "Fine. But they are kicking McAfee's ass. You should, at least, be thankful for that."

I smiled in spite of myself. That did make me happy.

"Aw, crew and refs are separating them now," Damian said, looking disappointed. He thrived on the chaos.

"Good. They need to go home and try again when it's not the end of the show." I said, not hiding the fact that I was irritated that they were overshadowing the amazing match that Rhea and I had just had.

Damian looked down at me then as if reading my mind, "No one is going to forget that match. It was next level." He looked up at the screen, brows raised. "Oh, that can't be good."

I heard William Regal's voice then, but I'd just caught the tail end of what he'd been saying so I wasn't sure what was going on. A few very tense beats passed then Regal's voice filled the silence again, "WAR GAMES."

My heart dropped.

I spun around to face the monitor. The UE were all in the ring, looking smug and excited to be in yet another War Games match.

Lorcan, Burch, and Dunne matched that energy on the ramp. But Pat McAfee, he looked how I felt. Utterly shocked.

War Games was the hardest, most physically demanding match of the year. The steel was unforgiving. The two rings gave us twice as much room to get thrown around. Weapons were all fair use. No one was the same after War Games.

"Are you okay?" Damian asked.

"Great," I said, swallowing hard. My eyes never left the screen. The cameras pushed in on each member of the UE. Each one of them looked way too happy to be in War Games. It was their match to be sure.

The camera lingered on Bobby and just like that the dam I'd spent a month building broke. Worry coursed through me. But it didn't matter, because he and I were barely friends at this point.

"Oh my god, just talk to him." Damian interrupted my internal panic.

"Leave me alone." I snapped and turned to walk away.

"You can't avoid him forever," Damian called after me.

"Watch me," I called back. Even though I knew he was right.

I was speed walking out of the arena. The last thing that I actually wanted was to see any of the Undisputed Era. My thoughts were too muddled. I was too distracted after seeing them on camera.

That's not true. Well, not entirely true. I was only distracted because I saw Bobby on camera. For the past month, I had been perfectly happy pretending he doesn't exist, and the weeks before hadn't happened. Now, the time for pretending was firmly over.

I slid into the driver's side of my car and heaved a sigh of relief. I had made it. My phone buzzed beside me. I grabbed it, thinking it would be Rhea. The relief that flooded me a moment before turned back into cement knots in my stomach.

Bobby: Are you still here?

Me: Just leaving

Bobby: Please stay. 5 more minutes.

Bobby: Please.

I groaned. My ribs ached and my chest tightened. I wanted a hot shower and some pain meds and to get out of my gear.

Me: Dude, I'm in too much pain for this. What do you want?

Bobby: I just want to see you.

I turned on the interior light of the car so that I showed up in my camera. I took a selfie, ignoring that my makeup was smeared and my hair was a mess. I sent it to Bobby as part of a text.

Me: Well, now you see me. Goodnight, Bobby.