A loud banging echoed throughout the quiet house. A cool draft could be felt seeping through the cracks around the door. The banging continued.
I'm going in there.
Give him some more time.
All he has done since Apocalypse is sleep and drink.
Dinah shook her head at James.
His girlfriend of three years is gone. How would you react if I just up and left one day?
James didn't respond. He just kept his attention on the floor.
Not to mention he spent a few of those days in the hospital after the attack.
The look of anger on James' face was evident. He was still clearly sour over the incident.
I should still go check on him.
Dinah silently nodded her approval.
When James opened the door it was like he stepped into an entirely different world. The floor, usually littered with video games and comic books, was littered with empty bottles. The smell of alcohol was still fresh on some of them.
Dinah stuck her head in for a quick peak, and quickly retreated to a safe distance. The sight and smell hit her and upset her already fragile stomach.
James made his way through the mess to the bed. He pulled the covers back, and instantly regret his decision.
Is he okay?
Dinah called from the hallway.
Yeah, but don't come in. Mikey is completely naked.
James pulled the cover back up over Mikey's waist and tried to wake him. The only response he got was a mumble and some stirring.
Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a piece of paper. Curiosity got the best of him and he picked it up. He expected it to be the Dear John letter, but what he read was even more surprising.
Just by writing this it proves Im not over you in the way I convince myself
Long ago I tried to write you off when I pulled this book off its shelf
You had the world in your hands and you threw it away
I want you to know though that on my thoughts you dont as often weigh
We had it all and we wanted nothing less
To have received you I thought I must have been blessed
You broke my heart though and into a million pieces it was shattered
I look back at you and realize to you I never really mattered
I used to say thanks for making me the person I grew into
It is only now that I realize I am someone entirely different thanks to you
I would like to forget your smile each time we awoke
And I want to forget your voice from each time you spoke
I want to forget how I was hurt and how I cried
Most of all I just want to forget how I ever tried
I could kiss a million people and it would never compare
To when I laid next to you and ran my fingers through your hair
You left me sitting here cold broken and alone
With a loneliness that gave me chills down to my bone
Of all you ever did to make me the person I didnt want to be
The most important probably the one thing that you will never be able to see
Because strength is born from heartache
And because of your actions I am now finally awake
Able to see to the end any pain I may go through
And the strength to finally be able to get over you
I see you found my poem.
Mate, this is decent. I didn't know you could write poetry.
I rolled out of bed. James turned just in time to see me bending over to pull on some pants.
Damn, I did not need to see that.
I fell back into bed and reached under it, searching for something. I pulled out a partially empty bottle of vodka and sat next to James.
You didn't need to see that either.
I tapped the paper with the bottle before taking a long drink.
It wasn't bad. You may just have a hidden talent.
I took another drink.
I have a few things I'm good at that I keep to myself.
Why?
I reach for a shirt on the ground and start to pull it on.
Is that a puke stain?
I look down at the stain. I pull the shirt off and throw it across the room, then reach for the next closest shirt.
Because over the last few years I've found that it is easy to be Mikey, but it is harder to be Michael.
James shoots me a puzzled look.
Mikey is that guy that most of the fans cheer. The goofy guy who is all smiles. The guy who goes out and and horses around with Ricky Runn for five minutes instead of having an actual match. He is the guy who tells the announcers to order him take out when he is staging a sit in. That guy is easy to play.
I pause to finish off the bottle.
Michael is the guy most people don't see. The guy who wrote that. The guy who cries when he sees abused animal commercials on TV. The guy who made a girl way out of his league fall in love with him. The same guy who pushed her away. The guy who has trouble juggling his private and public life.
The two of us sit in silence for a few minutes.
Look at me. I'm not ready to come back, but I have to. I have to keep outdoing myself, I have to keep smiling, that is what being a good guy is all about.
Are you ready for that? I can find out who attacked us, I can get revenge.
I'm not ready, I just told you. Frankly I don't care who attacked me. Right now I don't care about anything. I could up and quit tomorrow and I would be happier. Michael would be happier, but the fans don't love Michael. They don't accept Michael. They love and accept Mikey, and that is who I have to go out there and be. I don't give a damn about this battle royal. I don't give a damn about The New Church, or Krypto, or Saxoteur. I could care less if Chris K.O. or Steven Holmes, or Darren Bull ran the company. Sometimes I feel like I'm not supposed to be here. Sometimes I wake up, I don't want to be here. Others I wish I would have never tried to be a pro wrestler. It changed everything. My mom loved to text me. She doesn't look at me like Im the same person. I used to be the sweet one, but things changed. Now I just keep going out there and doing what the fans want, that way someone will accept me. My whole life I wanted to be part of the cool crowd, part of the winning team, but considering the person I have become, alone is exactly how I deserve to be.
James takes a moment before he speaks.
You have people who accept you. Dinah and I have grown to actually like having your around believe it or not. Your family allows you to come back anytime you want, and you have Ros...
He stops when he realizes his faux pas.
Sorry.
Did I ever tell you how we met and eventually came to be?
James simply shook his head no.
I take a deep breath and begin my story.
About five years ago I was at a party. Don't ask why I went, I think a friend dragged me along to get me out of the house. World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade had just came out and it was taking up most of my free time. He said a high school senior should be doing things other than guiding a Dwarf Hunter through made up lands. Anyway I spend most of the party glued to the wall. I wasn't a big drinker back then. After my third or fourth soda my bladder was ready to explode. As I made my way to the bathroom I saw a girl crying in one of the upstairs bedrooms. My naturally altruistic personality kicked in and I went to check on her. This guy she had been crushing on hard had rejected her and she was upset over it. For the next hour or so I sat talking to her and getting to know her. It took me an hour to fall in love. Once she stopped crying she went back out to the party, and I thought I would never see her again. I didn't want that though. I ended up neglecting my guild almost every weekend. I was going to parties like a Hollywood ****e, just trying to see her again. Finally I was at a graduation party a few months later when I ran into her again. I tried all night to work up the courage to talk to her. Finally I put all the nervous shit out of my mind and went for it. She was a little tipsy, and most of the talk was nothing more than her talking about wanting to be a singer, and her drunkenly telling me she thought my hair was cute. I couldn't keep the courage I had and let her walk off that night. Graduation came and went, and by societies standards I was a man at that point. That summer I thought it would be me and few friends hanging out, getting into some trouble, kicking some alien ass in Halo, and enjoying life before college. It ended up just me and her. I liked her and she liked me and I more than liked her, but I didn't know if she did or did not more than like me. She never said, so I didn't say anything all summer. I was content to enjoy the small miracle of a girl choosing to talk to me and choosing to do so again the next day and so on. A girl who was smart and funny and who, if I said something dumb for a laugh, was willing to say something two or three times as dumb to make me laugh, but who also got weird and wise sometimes in a way I could never be. A girl who read books that no one had assigned to, a girl who had blue eyes that made me feel like I was lost floating somewhere in the sky.
I shifted my weight, and I wiped a single tear from the corner of my eye. James still sat, surprisingly intent to enjoy my story.
It was like that until the weekend before I left for college. That Saturday we sat on the bank of the river, just talking about nothing, but to me it was everything, but the reality was I was going to go off to school soon, and unless her family made a drastic move, I would be pretty far away, and it would probably be it for us. I had to say something, but with my track record if I said something it really would be it for us. The sun was setting, and our conversation had gotten quiet as we gazed out onto the calm waters. We sat in silence until the sun had creeped behind the horizon and we made our way back to my car. The hum of static from my broken radio was the only sound there was for much of the drive. All of a sudden I broke the silence. Can I tell you something? Then I was telling her. And I kept telling her and it all came out of me and it kept coming and her face is there and gone and there and gone as we passed underneath the lights that lined the sides of the highway. And theres no expression on it. I think just after a point I was just talking to lengthen the time where we lived in a world where she hadn't said yes or no yet. And regrettably I ended up using the word destiny. I dont remember in what context. Didnt matter. Before long I was out of stuff to say and she smiled and said, okay. I didn't know exactly what she meant by it, but it seemed vaguely positive. I would have loved to leave in order not to spoil the moment, but there was nowhere to go because we were in a car driving home.
What happened?
James interrupts, and despite him being older than me by a good five years, I feel like I am telling a bedtime story to a small child because of the look on his face.
Nerves took over and I shut up the rest of the ride. I dropped her off without a word. I don't remember the drive from my house to hers. All I remember is falling asleep as soon as I got home. The next thing I can recall vividly is arriving at college and kissing my mom bye when she and my dad left.
By this time Dinah had made her way from the hallway back into my room. James made room for her and she took a seat to hear me finish my tale.
A few days later I was in class, and I ended up seated next to this girl who I had gone to school with and been good friends with, and her parents moved away when we were nine or ten. Puberty and adolescence had done her a hell of a lot of favors body wise. We got to talking and she invited me to a small get together that weekend. Maybe it was peer pressure, maybe it was me trying to change who I was, but that night I wasn't myself. I shaved and gotten a hair cut the day after the invite. I went out and spent what was supposed to be my food money on all new clothes. When I arrived I wasn't Michael, or even Mikey, I was someone totally new. I had on a nice button up collared shirt, with a plain t-shirt underneath. There was no Spider-Man or Batman hiding behind dress clothes that night. I had on nice shoes and new pants, instead of the same old cargo shorts and sandals. I even wore contacts instead of glasses. Not that I needed them, because when I looked at her that night I had 20/20 hindsight.
I laugh at my own lame joke before I continue
Nothing that night was typical me, I got drunk for the first time. At the end of the night when I was usually in a rush to get home and get a few hours of gaming in, this night I was ready to literally get it in. I ended up having my first one night stand that night. Maybe it would have been more but as I stumbled to my dorm the next morning I checked my phone and had a voice mail. When I got back I listened to it.
Hey Mikey, this is Rose. I know I haven't talked to you since that night, I had to think about it long and hard. I think you are right though. Destiny was the perfect word. Over the summer I fell for you and I fell hard. I want you like I haven't wanted anything in my entire life. I just hope you feel the same way.
The rest of the story you guys pretty much know. I left that evening after I sobered up and picked her up. Aside from the twist ending it was storybook.
Dinah is crying at this point. James puts a hand on my shoulder. I close my eyes and the room falls silent for a few minutes.
I look at you guys, you are in your late 20s, you are about to start a family. You two are pretty much the same people you are going to be your whole life. At your age, if you are a liberal person you are pretty much gonna be liberal your whole life. If you are conservative at your age, you are pretty much gonna be that way your entire life. If you are a girl who doesn't like oral, you better buy some cats and curl up with your Twilight books because you are gonna die alone.
James and I laugh a little, Dinah mostly lost to the joke.
I'm not there yet. I still have a lot of growing up to do. I'm twenty two but still feel like a child at times. Being a former tag team champion doesn't make me a man. Falling off a twelve foot ladder through four tables doesn't make me a man. Surviving a brutal blind side assault does nothing to help me grow up. I could be the first guy eliminated in the battle royal, or I could win the whole thing and go on to shock the world and be world champion. Those won't make me a man either.
This is all such a sad story.
I guess it is a story. It isnt a story about how girls are evil or how love is bad though, it is a story about how I learned something and Im not saying this thing is true or not, Im just saying its what I learned. I wish I could say this was a story about how I got on that late night bus home a boy and got back here a man. More cynical, hardened, mature and all that bullshit. But thats not true. The truth is a long time ago I got on a bus a boy. And I never got off that bus. Being with Rose was like a dream, maybe its time I wake up and face reality.