Author's Note: A story told from Paige's perspective, something I haven't attempted yet. Hope you like!
Selfish
It was impossible to not notice the amount of stares I received as I walked through the arena's parking lot. I looked like a terrible mess - the incredible amounts of jet lag I've been suffering with not aiding my case - and had no time to eat before leaving the hotel. To say that I was a tad annoyed would be putting it mildly; cameramen passing through received death glares from beneath my sunglasses, and I prayed that they weren't filming. I could see the headline on the Network now: 'Paige Hates Sunlight, Watch WWE's Resident Vampire Venture Outside!'
Which wouldn't be completely inaccurate, but the last thing I needed was for people to tweet me pictures of garlic or silver.
This Monday was already off to a mediocre start, and I'd barely stepped foot into the building. Yawn after yawn poured endlessly from my mouth, and with my hands preoccupied with baggage, there was nothing I could do to stop the torrent of tiredness. It didn't do me any favors in regards to the staring, but it helped that every Superstar around me looked like death. 'Helped' in the vein that I didn't feel alone. Still, it be would be better to see someone that was in an actual good mood for a change, if only to brighten things up a bit.
I made my way down the longest, most empty hallway of all time to reach the women's locker room, before my eyes caught a glimpse of orange in a lonely corner. It was easy to spot, like a giant blemish on an otherwise clean sheet of paper. Right when I was thanking the heavens for sending the gift of positive energy that was Becky Lynch, I took another look at her. If her sitting on the floor wasn't enough of a hint, she was obviously in a sour mood.
Great, I thought to myself. The one person that could turn this day around was also suffering from a case of the Mondays. I figured I should try to cheer her up; she'd done so enough times for me in the past. I slowly walked over to Becky, her chin propped firmly onto her knees, barely acknowledging my presence.
"'Ey, Becky! Why the long face, lass?!"
She swiftly picked up her head immediately as I started speaking, her features morphing from that of shock to that of… anger? Apparently she didn't appreciate my Irish accent, but something told me she was angry for another reason entirely.
"Nothing? Not even a 'Quit horsing around, Paige!' or a 'Buck off!' Nothing? Nada?"
I wasn't quite as skilled with the wordplay as the Pun Mistress herself, but if there was anything that would make her smile, it would be corny jokes.
"Sorry, I'm just… I'm not really in a good mood."
"What's wrong?"
I tossed my bags off to the side and sat down on the floor beside her. Ignoring the fact that this floor had probably not been cleaned by the staff, I patiently waited for Becky to tell me what had gotten her so down. This wasn't typical Becky. No, typical Becky wore the cheesiest grin you'd ever seen on another person while she delivered the world's most abrupt jokes. This was atypical Becky, and atypical Becky needed support.
She seemed to be struggling with a way to tell me what was on her mind, biting on her bottom lip. After a minute of this, rather than simply tell me what she was thinking, she handed me an ornate envelope of some sort. Looking at it carefully, it was clear that it'd already been opened, presumably by Becky. I pulled out a long piece of paper, folded neatly to fit inside. I shot her a blank look - 'I literally have no idea what's going on' - which she responded to with a nod of her head.
"What is this?"
"Read it."
Still confused, I quickly began reading it to myself. 'You are cordially invited to the wedding of Ms. Sasha Ban-' I stopped as I read Sasha's name.
"Oh! This is Sasha's wedding invitation!"
Truthfully, Sasha had told me herself that a date for her wedding had been chosen, but I had yet to see Sasha within the past few weeks to pick up my invitation. Becky must've just recently run into Sasha if she'd already received hers.
"Now do you see?"
I gave Becky an even more blank stare than before, unsure of what she was trying to get at.
"See what?"
"How awful this is!"
"Oh yeah, weddings are truly awful. What with all the happiness and the eternal bonding of two souls and all that. Just dreadful."
Another glare from Becky was cast my way, but what did she expect? She was giving me nothing to go on here. Although, I should rethink sarcasm being my go-to default mode.
"Okay, but seriously, Becky. I'm having a bit of trouble understanding what your problem is here."
"Sasha's getting married."
"Yeah, we've established this."
"No, you're not listening. Sasha's getting married. To someone else."
She said this slowly for my benefit - freakin' rude - but after thinking about this for a second, it dawned on me: Becky was in love with Sasha.
Still.
I could feel my cheeks warming up in embarrassment, which I'd imagine was extremely prominent on my colorless face. I knew too much about Becky's history with Sasha, pining for her from afar for years now. They were close friends, but Sasha had been engaged that whole time, leaving Becky zero room to profess her feelings to her. It tore Becky up inside, Charlotte and I having to comfort her on more than one lonely night. It was sad, but there wasn't much that could be done, especially if you take into account that Sasha was marrying a man. Becky's dreams were crushed from the start.
"They've been engaged forever. You knew this was going to happen eventually."
"Of course! But… I don't know. I'm happy for her - or I want to be, anyway - but I can't help the way I feel. I thought maybe one day she'd wake up and go, 'Hey! What am I doing? I'm in love with Becky!' Does that make me a selfish person?"
'A bit,' was the first sentence to come to mind, but that was a difficult question to answer. I've been in her position before - admiring someone from a distance, watching them love someone else. I couldn't fault Becky for having these feelings; seeing the longing, the pain in Becky's eyes, almost made me irrationally angry at Sasha for making her hurt inside.
"You're not… that selfish. Love is complicated."
"You're tellin' me. I never got to tell her how I felt. I'm used to being the funny one, but now I'm just a straight up fool."
"Fool?"
"Yeah, you know. Like a jester. Because I'm an idiot, is what I'm gettin' at."
It was good to see that she could find some humor in the situation, whatever little of it could be found. It made me happy to see Becky happy.
Because… well… yeah.
Rather than try to psychoanalyze my own feelings, I decided to shift gears to Becky.
"There's still time to tell her how you feel."
"You're a madwoman."
"Come on. What have you got to lose?"
"Uh, my friendship with her?"
A short, solid argument.
"Well. Okay, fine. That is a possibility, but you've already tortured yourself enough as it is. Wouldn't it just be better to get everything out in the open? Sasha's not the type of person to ditch her friends for any reason."
"I really don't think that-"
"Paige! Where've you been?"
Becky and I turned our attention to the sudden third voice in the hall, and as luck would have it, it was Sasha. Like Becky, she was holding a shiny envelope in her hands, it's decorative lining reflecting off of the ceiling's lighting fixture. Becky was currently panicking, leaving me to be our mouthpiece.
"Just hanging out with my biffle Becky, of course."
"Ew, don't ever say 'biffle' again. Why are you two dorks sitting on the floor?"
Upon hearing her comments, I stood up from the floor, pulling Becky up as well. I wanted to tell her to just breathe, but Sasha was inching way too close to us for comfort. I couldn't communicate with her without Sasha becoming suspicious.
"Can't two friends chat on the floor?"
"No. But anyway, I've been meaning to give this to you forever!"
She was positively beaming as she handed me the envelope - another wedding invitation - her smirk, one I didn't know she was wearing, widening tenfold when I finally had it in my grasp. She must've been trying to give this to me for a while, our conflicting schedules making it impractical to do so until this very moment.
"I'm mysterious. No one knows where I am."
"That's fine, as long as I know where you are one week from Sunday."
Becky and I exchanged glances, and I checked the invitation to make sure she wasn't mistaken. 'June 26th' - exactly one week from this Sunday, thirteen days from now.
"A bit of short notice, eh? I mean, I knew it was soon, but not that soon."
"Well, we spend so much time on the road that we thought it'd be better to do it sooner rather than later."
Sasha was right. With how unpredictable our schedules were, it wouldn't be the smartest idea to hold it off. Now was the perfect time to make this happen before Sasha was suddenly swamped with matches every night.
"True."
"You okay over there, Becks?"
Uh oh. Sasha had picked up on Becky's silence, which was uncharacteristic of the Dublin woman. She stood there, looking at her feet, twiddling her thumbs like a scared child. I had to think fast. I pushed Becky in Sasha's direction, shoving her in the rear with my boot, closing the gap between them.
"Actually, our dearest Becky has something important to tell you."
Wide-eyed, she stared at me like I'd grown a second head. She was horrified, but I waved her off. This was the perfect opportunity to declare her love for Sasha! I mouthed the words, 'It'll be fine,' to her, hoping that she was able to read lips.
"Becky? What's wrong"
"Sasha, I-I…"
"Is everything okay?"
"I-I just… I u-um… I wanted to t-tell you something."
Oh lord. Becky sounded like she was on the verge of tears. Okay, I take it back - I take it all back. This was a horrible mistake, Becky's constant stuttering was not a good sign. Before I could beg her to stop and apologize, she continued.
"Sasha, I can't go to your wedding."
"What?! Why not? What's going on? I'm starting to get freaked out."
"I can't go b-because I love you, okay? There. There it is. I love you, and I've been in love with you for I don't even know how long. And now, now you're getting married and it's just killing me inside. I can't take this feeling anymore - this pain. So. So I can't go, and uh, I-I guess that's it."
I stood there with my mouth agape, and it was easy to see that Sasha was wrestling with a million and one thoughts. All I wanted to do was pull Becky away from here, but I couldn't. She'd already gone too far down the rabbit hole.
What have I done?
"Becky. I don't know what to say. I'm so, so sorry that you've been hurting, and I wish there was something I could say to help. But I can't say the one thing that could help you, and…"
She paused, unsure of how to phrase what she wanted to say, but still determined to say it. I wondered to myself if Sasha had already suspected something like this was going on, but there was no way to tell for certain. Becky was trembling, waiting for her life to end somewhere between Sasha's apology.
"You're one of my closest friends, Becks, and I want more than anything for you to be at my wedding. But if you can't, I understand. We'll always be friends, no matter what, alright?"
As Sasha delicately wrapped her arms around Becky, they both began to shed tears. I didn't know what to do. I thought I was providing emotional support to Becky by being here, but I pushed her into something she didn't want in the first place. Sasha quickly bid her farewells, and I was left alone with Becky again. She hadn't moved from her spot.
"Becky, I'm so-"
"No, shut up!"
Becky's sudden outburst startled me, her anger throwing me for a loop.
"What?"
"I knew this was a bad idea, I knew it. Why did you make me do this?!"
"I'm sorry! I thought you'd want to tell her so you don't regret it later."
"Now she's going to think I'm some lovesick stalker until the end of time!"
This was getting out of hand. Becky was devastated, but she was over exaggerating to a major extent.
"Becky, you're upset."
"Gee, you think?! I can't believe I listened to you. You're just some stupid kid, what would you know about love? About anything?!"
Becky was clearly an emotional wreck, but her sharp remarks cut beyond belief; I know I was partially to blame for this, but taking her anger out on me wasn't going to make her hurt any less. Still, what could I say? I shouldn't have meddled in her love life, but I only wanted to help. Seeing Becky so down, her heart in distress, made me want to try something, anything. I should've stuck with wordplay.
She was slowly calming down, my expression likely giving away how much this was affecting me.
"Paige, I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I just… I need to be alone for a while."
Without another sound, Becky turned and walked down the hallway. I couldn't believe what just happened. Because of me, everyone ended up feeling ten times worse than if I'd kept my mouth shut. All I wanted was for something to cheer me up, and instead I accomplished the exact opposite.
I hate Mondays.
Thirteen days came and went in a flash, and I hadn't heard from Becky since her confession to Sasha. Some would say it was ill-advised, and I'd be inclined to agree. I thought about texting Becky numerous times these past two weeks - so many saved drafts on my phone that never saw the light of day - but I couldn't bring myself to send any of them. If she was still upset, she'd talk to me on her own.
Though I tried to distract myself, her harsh criticisms still resonated with me every day. 'A stupid kid,' she'd called me, her eyes filled with anger and sadness. It stung to hear her say those things, but what stung the most was that maybe there was a hint of truth to what she had said. She immediately followed it up with an 'I didn't mean it,' but maybe she did. They were words spoken in the heat of the moment, sure, but what if she did think that? All this time, she thought I was some dumb child, a nuisance. I couldn't bear the thought of that because, as I'd recently come to terms with, I admired her so much.
We only started rebuilding our friendship within the past few months, yet I learned more about her in those few months than I learned about most people in a few years. She was damn near inspiring, and it was hard not to develop these weird inklings of a crush on her when we spent increasing amounts of time together. That's why this felt so bad. I was too naive to see it before. I didn't want the person I admired to write me off as some kid - I didn't want to believe she'd think that way about me.
The rational part of my brain kept telling me that this was the traffic combined with the summer heat talking. Admittedly, I've never been good at being timely, but today, on the day of Sasha's wedding ceremony, I'm the latest I've ever been. With cars driving at an actual speed of two miles per hour and the ninety-degree weather burning my skin to a crisp, the emotional stress was surely getting to me. I had to tell myself that Becky wasn't like that; she wouldn't offer to become friends again just to secretly think I'm nothing to her.
When did I become such a pansy?
Pulling up to the church where the actual ceremony was being held - internally joking that I'd probably burst into flames upon stepping inside - dozens of cars were already hogging up almost every parking spot. I couldn't be the last one to arrive, right? After a terrible parking job, I jogged over to the large staircase, when my eyes caught a glimpse of orange sitting on a lonely step.
I was getting a terrible sensation of deja vu.
"Becky?"
She looked up at me, eyes red and dry, before heaving a long sigh.
"Hey."
"Mind if I sit?"
She patted the spot to her left, motioning for me to sit. The stone steps were smooth to the touch, not terribly uncomfortable. It seemed like a fitting place to have a conversation.
"I was actually worried you might try to stop the wedding."
That earned me a chuckle from Becky.
"I thought about it, but I didn't have it in me. I'm not that crazy."
"So, why are you sitting out here anyway?"
"I got here about twenty minutes ago. I couldn't bring myself to go inside."
"She's probably expecting you."
"She's better off without me."
I was never an expert on this sort of thing; I knew how to make people laugh with dry humor. But having a serious talk with someone - someone important to me - wasn't as easy. I'm barely in tune with my own emotions, and to be in tune with someone else's was a different beast. Becky's emotional state, though not foreign territory, was something I always had backup for. Charlotte would be there to soften her up while I silently agreed in the background. For Becky, however, I had to give it my best try.
"Do you honestly think for a second that Sasha would want that? Because I know for a fact that she's in there getting married, ready to say her vows, wishing that one of her closest friends in the entire world was there to see her on the happiest day of her life."
Becky seemed to be paying attention, my words hopefully reaching her.
"You said before that I didn't know anything about love. Well, you're wrong. I've had my heart broken so many times, stupidly waiting for someone to piece it back together. And then guess what? Some schmuck would come along and piece it back together, just to shatter it again. And again. And again. I have so many trust issues, because I can't bring myself to put my heart on the line again. It's torture. But eventually it heals, because we all have these strange Wolverine hearts or whatever. Your heart will heal too. Avoiding Sasha - that's not going to do anything except ruin your friendship with her. She wants you in her life, Becky. You just have to accept that it's not the same way that you want her, and move on."
I wasn't crying, but this whole ordeal had taken its toll on me. My heart was beating rapidly, reliving the memories of countless failed relationships. Broken promises, meaningless sweet-talk, acts of false love - all of those images seemed to vividly present themselves to me at once. I just hoped that it was all worth it.
"It's funny."
The sound of Becky's voice, not as shaky as it was before, snapped me out of my thoughts. A tranquil gaze replaced her previous one of wistfulness, her sadness edged out by her new state of peacefulness.
"I've been in love with Sasha for so long. She was always there for me - always cared for me when I needed it. She never let me fall, and if I did, she picked me right back up again. She got me, you know? That's what I wanted from a relationship. I knew she was spoken for - everyone knew - but you can't control who you fall for. Heh, I guess that was the one fall she couldn't pick me up from. I can't throw that friendship away, though. Not with Sasha. I'd never want to give that up."
Hearing Becky speak this way about Sasha made me realize the type of connection they shared. What Sasha looked at as more of a sister-like relationship, Becky looked at as a potential for romance. But they had a bond that wouldn't, couldn't, be broken, and I think Becky was starting to realize this as well.
"Paige. I'm sorry. For what I said, and all."
"You didn't mean it."
"The sad part is that I did, a little bit. Part of me didn't believe that you could understand, but hearing you talk about your trust issues and the awful relationships you've had. You've gone through the ringer, and I'm sorry that I disregarded your feelings as nothing. You're a terrific person, and I'm glad we've gotten close again."
This time I did cry, a few tears cascading down my now reddened cheeks - from the sun, or from the raw emotion, I couldn't tell you. I wrapped my arm around her, pulling her close to my body, allowing her to rest her head on my shoulder. I didn't want to disrupt Becky; this was the most at peace I'd seen her in a long time.
"Boy, not loving Sasha is going to be hard."
Her speech was nearly muffled, her face half-buried in my arm. I didn't have it in me to ask her to move, even if this would be an awkward conversation because of it.
"You'll find someone new."
"Will I, now?"
"Yeah. They'll probably be totally into you, tell you when your puns are too much. They'll sit on the floor with you, talk to you about wedding invitations, let you call them a kid. Worry about you for like, I don't know, thirteen days."
I didn't have the slightest idea as to what I was doing, but the words kept spewing out of my mouth like water from a gardening hose. I wanted to change the subject - ask her about anything else at all - but my worries were cast aside when she nuzzled her head into the crook of my neck. This time, her words were loud and clear.
"Yeah, that sounds perfect. That type of person sounds pretty special - supportive too. They'd make a great lover, I bet. Though, I'll probably still be out of wack for a little while, so I hope they'd be willing to wait for me."
She gave me the most heartfelt smile I'd seen her give anyone, and my heart wanted to melt right then and there.
"She… I mean, they have already waited this long. I think they'd be able to wait a while longer."
Love was complicated, so very very complicated, but it was undeniably the most precious 'thing' in existence. It was a massive amount of feelings hitting you at once from every direction. Becky knew this firsthand, her love for Sasha eating away at her for far too long. When we finally walked through the double doors of the church, the beautiful bride-to-be mouthed a 'thank you' towards the two of us, her face lighting up at our entrance. Becky took a deep breath, gently taking my hand in hers, clasping her slender fingers around my own. As she gave me one last signature Becky smile, a smile that I graciously returned, I knew that she'd be okay. Our friend was getting married, but the most important thing to me right now was Becky Lynch.
Maybe I was a bit selfish too. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing after all.
End