Rainy Day | Rhea Ripley

Chapter 2

You need a new clean slate without the dents

A place to put your pain, your consequence

- Like A Villain by Bad Omens

"Good, there you are!" Demi was already waiting in front of the Gym building when I got there. I glanced at my watch. After yesterday's debacle, I had made sure to eliminate every possibility of being late today and it was currently eight am."Did I get the time wrong?" I frowned."I texted you that we had to leave an hour early but the text didn't seem to go through and I thought you wouldn't get it in time" She was already heaving my luggage in the trunk of her car. I bit my lip, after I had turned my phone back on yesterday and gotten the travel details from Demi I had put it in airplane mode and turned off my WiFi because I just wanted to exist in my safe little bubble for a night. But I must have missed her other messages.Good thing it had still worked out.

I got in the passenger seat and we drove off to the airport. I hadn't really expected her to make conversation during the ride, but if it hadn't been for the loud heavy metal music blasting from the speakers this would have been the most awkward drive of my life.She pulled into the parking lot and leaned back in her seat, eyes closed, after shutting off the engine. "Prepare yourself for the vultures" She sighed, more to herself than to me. Which was good because I had no idea what the hell she was talking about.

When we walked into the airport and I felt her tense next to me I realized what she had meant."You call your fans "the vultures"?" I whispered to her in disbelief."Of course not" she whispered back "You'll see what I mean"We had been greeted by a large crowd of people, holding phones, photos, and all kinds of merchandise for Demi to sign. But it was clear very quickly that not everyone was here with the same intentions. As Demi was chatting with a fan who wanted to take a picture with her, with the composure of someone who had done this a billion times before, a guy approached from the side. He was holding all the WWE memorabilia that his scrawny little chicken arms could fit and he seemed to know nothing about the concept of personal space.

"Rhea! Hey, Rhea could you sign a couple of things for me?" He yelled at her, trying to grab her wrist. Demi declined politely as she was still talking to some of the others."Oh come on it will only take a second" he started to sound annoyed. He also didn't back off, instead, he came even closer, effectively trapping Demi between the group of people and a gigantic potted plant. "Hey dipshit, she's clearly busy right now so how about you back the fuck off and stop being a creep." I ducked between them and stood in front of Demi like a barrier.

"Sorry guys, Rhea needs to go now or we'll miss our plane." I gave a half-hearted apology and all but escorted Demi to the Check-in desk, which must have looked ridiculous because I had even scrawnier little chicken arms than the creepy guy and Demi was... well Demi."That was kind of ballsy you know," Demi said once we had finally boarded the plane and taken our seats.I looked at her, questioning. Did she mean the fact that I had made a sad attempt at playing her bodyguard or that I had started a fight with the creepy guy?

"Are you usually in the habit of mouthing off to strange men who have no understanding of boundaries?""That dude was all over you and he had no right to be as entitled as he was""True. But he's basically everywhere I go, next time he sees you he might remember you. What are you gonna do then?""Well, I would like him to fuck around and find out" My eyes had become tiny from anger.Demi just looked at me like people look at a chihuahua that won't stop barking but is still kind of cute.

I expected her to immediately put on her headphones and not even look at me for the remainder of the flight but to my surprise, she kept looking at me."Why don't you tell me a bit about yourself?"That took me off guard. What in the world would she want to know?"Uhm, my name is Alexandria Therese Marlowe and I'm 23 years old. I'm a videographer, I was born and raised in New York, I don't have any pets because I can barely keep a cactus alive, my favorite color is burgundy..." I stopped my rambling as I saw her barely able to keep a straight face."What's funny?""Nothing, you're good. What about your family?" I cringed at the question. "Not in the picture" "I see. Any deep, dark secrets I need to know about?""Well if I told you they wouldn't be deep, dark, and secret anymore now would they?"

Trying to think of a way to distract from how uncomfortable the turn of the conversation had made me I took out the small camera I had stashed in my carry-on, the rest of my equipment being checked in with my luggage, and pointed it at her. "So, Rhea Ripley, care to tell everyone where we're going?" She rolled her eyes at me. "Turn that thing off, Marlowe" I just grinned at her."Sorry doll, no can do, this is my job after all" Demi raised her left eyebrow, grabbed my hand that was holding the camera and pushed it down, and leaned in so close that her face was directly in front of mine, almost touching our foreheads together. "You call me doll one more time, Alexandria, and a job will be the least of your worries" She had put on a devious grin that I had only ever seen in her character Rhea.Then she leaned back, put on her headphones, and closed her eyes, leaving me to try and make my goosebumps go away for the rest of the flight.