Author's Note: Now, this one, is indeed a story that mentions Chris Benoit. I understand how... strongly opinionated some people are about him and I have to agree that what he did wasn't right. However, I don't look at Chris Benoit as the man that did that horrible act. Yes, he did do it but I can't remember him for that. I remember Chris Benoit as the wrestler. He brought so much joy to me when I was watching wrestling and he made it entertaining for me. I'm sorry if this story offends anyone, and trust me; there is no chance that I want to 'glorify' Chris Benoit and what he did. However, I feel that, as he has impacted on my life, I should be able to write a song-fic about him. This one in particular is told from Harry Smith's point of view. Please enjoy and may I put this as a warning. If you don't like Chris Benoit stories, please don't read any further. I'm sorry if I offend any of you with the decision of posting this up here.
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters mentioned in this story. This story is told in Harry Smith's P.O.V. I want to own Harry Smith so I'm working on that ;). The story is based on the song 'Why' by Rascal Flatts.
Enjoy!
I sat there with my face in my hands as I heard the news.
Not another one.
Chris Benoit. He had committed suicide.
Not only that, he'd done the most unthinkable act beforehand.
What was he thinking? Why was he in such a dark place? If there was one thing that Mom and Dad had taught me and Georgia is that there is always light at the end of the road, no matter how dark it seemed. It was a saying that had been memorized by the countless times Pop Stu had recited it. Hadn't Chris listened? There's never any reason to go that far.
As I walked into the room, I saw everyone turn around and stare at me.
"Harry, you made it!" Nattie said. She slipped her hand in mine and gently squeezed it.
"T.J is waiting for you down here." She said. I nodded and we walked down to where her boyfriend was sitting. We were now gathered for the funeral of Chris Benoit. We were in his little hometown of Edmonton, Alberta. This was definitely not the way Chris had wanted to draw a crowd. He was good at that, drawing a crowd.
Why did he have to do it? It was the question that was running through my head all the time. Was there anything I could have done to stop him? Could I have helped this man face his demons? If there was, maybe he would have still been alive today. I'd heard news reports saying things about Chris that I couldn't believe. Chris was incredibly good at hiding his troubled soul, none of us knew what went wrong. The thing that kept eating away at me is why he had to do it? Why did he have to leave, he was young, and made himself leave way before it was time to.
I'd managed to convince Mom into sharing some stories about Chris to me. Now, the image of Chris as a seventeen year old boy, rounding third base in baseball and scoring the winning run home was stuck in mind. No matter what sport Chris played, he played it with passion and gave it his all. Just like in wrestling, no matter who he was in the ring with, it was all about him. He was the shining star of the ring.
Why did he have to do it? After Dad died, I had become a lot closer to Chris and it felt as though I was losing another Dad figure. Not to mention the amount of strain, stress and pressure it put on fellow wrestlers. Nattie would deny it, but I had heard her crying about it. Could we have said anything to him to stop him from making this mistake? Because that's what it was, it was a mistake. A big, irreversible mistake that no-one could fix. I didn't even know that he was feeling that way otherwise I would have made sure that someone had talked to him about it and tried to make sure that everything was okay with him. How couldn't I have seen through his mask? Why was he hiding it from everyone in the first place? I had no idea what went wrong with Chris, and I knew I was never going to find out. No-one would probably ever find out.
As we walked out of the funeral, I looked up and saw the oak trees swaying. It was early summer and the breeze was nice. Not too warm, not too cold. I squinted as the sun shone down on my face and I looked down to see Nattie doing the same thing. My thoughts were going at a mile-a-minute and then I heard through all the noise, through all my thoughts, a mockingbird sing. This world really ain't that bad a place; I wanted to know why Chris wanted to leave early.
Why? Everyone was asking it, not just me. I knew that much. Who was I to try and explain away Chris's actions? I wasn't going to, he made a mistake. One he couldn't take back. There was one burning question I wanted to ask him though, who told him that life wasn't worth the fight? Whoever they were, they were wrong, they lied to Chris. Now he was gone. I wiped away tears from my face and Nattie hugged me tightly. I hugged her back and TJ squeezed my shoulder. Chris had almost been like a father figure to me in the past couple of years and both Nattie and T.J knew how I felt about him. I loved Chris. I thought I knew him, and he would never have walked away in the middle of something but he did.
He walked away in the middle of his life, tapping out to the struggles of life, hurting many people in the process.
Including myself.
Reviews anyone? Hope you enjoyed!