Oh yes, I did!
I'm going to begin to re-write this story. As I've grown as a writer, I feel that I could write this more strongly than I have before. I'd also like to eventually continue this series in the future, because I think more can be told from this.
That being said, yes, I've already written it. However, I am resurrecting this and making it better. This is originally called, "All That's Left of Me." So, without further adieu, here is the prologue.
Prologue: A few years prior...
The young woman knelt next to the coffee table, which had marks and scratches branding the once perfectly smooth exterior. The hotel room wasn't much better; and in fact, neither was she. She'd become just as damaged as that table. Her skin was now sullen, her muscle losing the tone she'd had. Any time she took a spill, a bruise would form quickly. She had bruises around her waist where the man had pulled her into him, leaving marks on the insides of her thighs and scratches across her lower back.
She was hopelessly in love with the man, and even though she would admit that he was sometimes too rough with her fragile state, it was proof that he loved her just the same. She was lucky, to say the least, to have someone like him around.
She watched pensively as the purple-haired man across from her quickly snort his line of perfect white powder, tilting his head back as his eyes watered. He made a guttural sound, the same sound he normally made as the high began to take over his body. It was a sound of euphoria, something that he only did when he was in an extreme amount of pleasure. She should know, he did this often when he would come during their sexual entanglements...
"Come on, Chels, do your line. We gotta get out of here soon, otherwise people are going to suspect shit," he caught her staring at him, admiring him as she always did. How he took the drug down like a professional, the way he looked when he was satisfied with the product. Fuck, she just couldn't help but think the world of the man. Because he was her world. He was her everything.
Snapping out of her daze, Chelsea quickly finished her own, falling backwards against the stained hotel couch. Her frail, nude body shivered, not only from the cold bite from the drafty, broken window in the run-down room, but the sudden rush she'd gotten.
"Jeff," she murmured, grabbing on to the drink she'd mixed for herself earlier. Her eyes began to close lazily, a small smile forming as she spoke his name. She could hardly wrap her hand around the foam cup that had been supplied generously by the hotel, next to the coffee pot that had a spiderweb crack in it, deeming it unusable. Shit, she was high, and whatever Jeff's supplier had gotten them this time had been fantastic.
No, this wasn't anything new to either of them; drink some cheap and terrible rum and Coke, do some lines, have sex, maybe smoke some pot. She liked it when he'd give her his prescription Adderall, which riled her up greatly in the ring. He claimed it made him into a zombie, his mind turning to mush. He told her that he felt like he was just going through the motions of every day life when he was regularly taking his medication, and he was a free-thinker. He didn't want to feel that he had no control over his own life. She, on the other hand, loved the extra energy she gained from the pills; she was more daring, more agile, and felt as though she could defeat anyone.
He had only given her heroin only once, but she knew better than to continue with that. Her best friend from high school was seriously hooked on it now, and would do anything to keep using. She'd even lost her daughter to the state because of it. Chelsea wouldn't lost everything she had worked for for a drug that made her lethargic; that wasn't the kind of thing she was looking for. She didn't need to relax, rather, she wanted to feel like a superhero. That's exactly what the cocaine did, so that was what she tended to stick to.
It was a vicious cycle between the two of them, and a painful one. This convenient, drug-induced relationship had been going on between the two of them for a while now.
But Chelsea also knew that this was where their relationship started and ended. Jeff used her for her body when his girlfriend was at their home in North Carolina, and she was sadly hooked on everything about this man. From his long, colored hair to his solemn eyes, he was a treat to look at. But it was his mind that she loved more than anything imaginable. They spoke often of the corruption of government, the broken education system, and the influence of media on humans. He was a true artist, and he knew a lot of things about a lot of subjects. There was never a dull conversation between the pair, and she couldn't get enough.
Unfortunately, he wasn't willing to break things off with the girlfriend. Though she tried to understand his reasoning, she couldn't; yet she was too enamored that she was willing to accept whatever he was able to give her. That was enough. Being with him during their down time...it was all enough for her.
"I love you," she verbalized her thought, and he just shrugged. This further proved the point, and as numb as she felt right now, she couldn't ignore the jabbing heartache searing through her in that moment. She had professed her undying love to him before, and he'd never given her the response she so desperately searched for. She hated herself for wishing things would be different and for waiting around for things to change. She knew deep down they probably never would.
Yet she stupidly held on to the little bit of hope that was there. The hope that built within her every moment he laid her down, hungrily kissing her lips. With every careful touch of her most delicate, private areas...and, sometimes, with each angry thrust into her.
Jeff stood up abruptly, and took her drink from her hands, placing it back on to the imperfect table. He extended one hand to her, and she shakily gained strength to stand.
"If we don't get back to the show now, they're going to realize we're gone," he spoke to her, his eyes searching hers. His were empty, far gone from either the drug or that he simply didn't really care. She, on the other hand, could see straight through to his soul.
He pulled in Chelsea for a gentle kiss, which only re-ignited the flame she'd already had for him. She felt the heartache all over again. He could be the biggest asshole in the world to her, but there was a piece of him that was sweet and gentle. And every time she'd let go of all hope, every time she was ready to walk away from their arrangement, he pulled this shit. It was enough to make any girl swoon.
"Let's find our clothes and get back," he spoke, his lips still near enough to hers that she could feel the gentle vibration of his words against her mouth. She knew they really ought to, but she had really been hoping for round two, right there on the dirty floor. Yeah, they'd already used up the only condom that they had between them, but that didn't mean they couldn't figure out something else, did it?
"Let's go," Jeff was growing impatient with her, startling her with his rough tone he took. She kept her eyes cast downward from his stare as she began to collect the clothes from the floor that had probably never been introduced to a vacuum. "I can't be late for this match. I was late last week because of you, remember? They had to cancel the whole match. I'm still trying to talk my way out of that one."
Disappointed, Chelsea fumbled as she began pulling a gray thermal hoodie over her messy, stringy, dyed- black hair. She giggled stupidly as she stumbled trying to put her thong and jeans on again.
On their way out the door, she didn't bother glancing at herself in the mirror. She probably looked just as fucked up as she felt.
She trailed Jeff as he rounded the corner of the city block back to the arena. She'd already wrestled that evening, getting shit-stomped by the Glamazon, Beth Phoenix. She was glad she'd wrestled that one mostly sober, and was proud of her performance. She only had a tiny bit of what she called Magic Juice, which was just a bunch of different assorted types of alcohol mixed together in her small silver flask. Jeff wasn't so lucky, and would be facing Christian in just under an hour from now.
She had a definite love/hate relationship with the purple-haired highflying star. He'd offered her cocaine for the first time after she'd pulled something in her elbow, inactivating her from wrestling for three weeks. She was really down that night, and sat at the hotel bar alone, taking shots of whiskey, feeling sorry for herself after being told that she would lose her opportunity to face the current WWE Divas champion, Kelly Kelly. Her injury meant she'd be starting back at the bottom rung of the ladder, and it was a hard pill for her to swallow.
It was also the same night she found herself attached to Jeff, entrapped by him so much that even though it should've been suffocating, she didn't want to stay away.
She fell hard and fast, and got to know the man quickly. Sometimes it was the alcohol talking, and sometimes it was really him. But their relationship turned physical quickly with the amount of inebriation, and she let herself keep getting sucked in further and further. There was something about Jeff Hardy that kept bringing her back, even if she didn't really want to. She'd stopped hanging out with some of the other women on the roster, letting her close friendship with Natalie "Natalya" Neidhart crumble. Even though they'd trained together at the Hart Dungeon, Natalie no longer spoke to the raven-haired woman. Who could blame her? Chelsea wasn't the same woman that she used to be. She didn't have the same life in her that she used to.
But none of that mattered to her. No lost relationships or friendships meant anything. She had Jeff.
Later, that same year...
"Chelsea, we're only doing this because we care about you," Stephanie McMahon sat across from the black-haired beauty, wearing a concerned yet serious expression. She reached out her hand, grasping Chelsea's free hand sympathetically. Chelsea wiped a tear from her eye, her perfect makeup now certainly ruined.
She glanced around the office of her boss. It was moderate yet chic, very classic. As she struggled to avoid Stephanie and the director of talent relation's gazes, her red, watering eyes landing on a photograph of the billionaire's daughters. They all looked just like their mother. They were each beautiful, without a care in the world.
She was like that once. She was innocent, way back when. She'd worked so hard to become a diamond in the rough. Fought her way through a horrible upbringing, an absent relationship between herself and her father. A strained relationship between herself and her mother. She'd plowed through her courses in high school, keeping her head down and her mouth shut as she was mercilessly teased. Unfortunately, Chelsea didn't have the grades to get much further. It wasn't that she wasn't smart; it was that she had more struggle making it through each day than she could handle.
After graduating near the bottom of her class, she'd began her career as a model. By a stroke of luck, she'd auditioned at the local shopping mall to be a model for a lame-ass fashion show that a new, opening store had put on. The same day, she'd been noticed and picked up by an agent who thought her angry, darkened look was "striking" and "becoming," something that wasn't the traditional type of model-pretty, but impossible to ignore.
Unfortunately, Chelsea became bored of that business endeavor quickly. She'd done most of her shoots for clothing stores' websites, such as Hot Topic. It paid the bills, and it gave her plenty of leads to work alongside other companies. But eventually, she was overwhelmed and unfulfilled. She knew that her looks could only get her so far in life, and she needed to start thinking outside of her comfort zone.
After deciding that she wanted to get a little more serious about finding a potential career, she'd turned her then 19-year-old dreams into reality. Taking the money from modeling and beginning school with the Hart family, Chelsea began training in the Dungeon buried deep in the heart of Canada. She'd seen an ad in a magazine she'd picked up during a modeling gig once in Quebec, and the more research she did, the more she became sold on it. It would get her away from everything she'd been running from, and it was something challenging.
That was where she'd met Natalie, who at first hadn't taken kindly to another woman stepping foot into her family's lair. They saw each other as a rival, both wanting to achieve greatness. Both trying to be in the limelight, trying to keep the attention of scouts. While Nat had been training since she was a tiny tot, Chelsea was a fast learner. She picked up on things quickly, and was naturally very talented. Being the only women in the class, they were often paired together. Their constant battle for attention drew them closer in an odd way, and with each passing day, they got to know one another better. After each class, they began to make plans to do things outside of the ring.
Eventually, the two became the best of friends, the physically demanding work in the ring bonding them forever. The late-night giggles and the countless dates with a guy Nat had been seeing. The fights Natalie had with her sister. Her dad's drinking problems...Chelsea had been there to experience it all with her, offering as much support as she could in such challenging life issues.
After graduating from the Dungeon, WWE had pushed Nat straight to the main roster, having watched her for years because of her family's name. Not to be outdone, Chelsea continued her training with the Hart family, even though she'd technically already graduated. She wanted to be better than she was. She'd been offered an instructor position for the beginner class, which she'd taken with gratitude.
In her spare time, she spent hours practicing new moves that she'd seen in other promotions, particularly liking the move sets of men she'd seen on Lucha Underground. She watched matches intently, focusing on the storytelling and how to get momentum and fluidity going. Learning in-ring charisma, watching promos. Every bit of learning she could do, she did it.
The next year, the WWE scouts were there once more, this time, looking her way.
She'd been given a try-out match prior to a Monday Night RAW the same night the scout had been there. Though it was a dark match without a large crowd present, Chelsea had never worked so hard to shine in the ring before. She'd called each of the spots during the bout for her opponent, fluently executing the moves that she'd practiced tirelessly with Natalie once upon a time.
She had done well enough to be given an opportunity to perform with the new developmental program known as NXT, which paired recruits with a 'veteran' member of the roster as some sort of mentor. Her intense and interesting look brought something different to the program, the fans latching on to the darkness that seemed to surround her. Because of her fast success, Chelsea had grabbed the attention of the upper management which, in turn, had offered her a stint on the main roster.
But now, it seemed, every step she'd taken to get to where she was now would mean nothing. She'd managed to stray too far from the path to achieve everything.
"Once we found out about Jeff Hardy's drug abuse, we had to start testing randomly. You didn't pass," the older woman continued, distracting Chelsea from her short stroll down memory lane. She'd give anything to go back to locking up with Nattie once more in the Hart Dungeon, neither of them knowing the unfortunate events that would await them just a few years away. For Chelsea, though, it seemed her time would be cut much shorter than Nat's. But the only person to blame was herself.
"I know, Stephanie, I know," sobbed Chelsea, tears violently spilling down her cheeks. "But I want to change." She could no longer keep her feelings held back.
"I want to help you. You've barely made a dent in your career. We really enjoy your performances. That's why we're going to help you with going to Forward Progress—that's one of the country's greatest rehabilitation centers. My dad did Mr. William Regal this favor once, and he improved immensely. As you know, William has become one of the most prominent trainers for our company. Please, don't disappoint me. I have faith in you, just as he did in William. You could become something great with this company, if you allow yourself to. The only person holding you back from achieving everything you possibly can is yourself. That being said, you will be obligated to complete this course before you are able to begin training in our facilities once again. You need to be back to a hundred percent. I'll be keeping tabs on your progress, and we'll make sure you've got a spot when you're ready to return."
Chelsea sobbed loudly, thanking the woman. She knew that she didn't deserve a second chance. She'd heard stories from other former employees of the WWE. That Stephanie McMahon was a bitch, a liar, only looking out for herself and her family. But in that moment, Chelsea was overwhelmed with true gratitude, realization settling in that someone actually believed in her, and was willing to help her become a better version of the person she already was.
Then again, anything was better than the person she'd become.
She left the boss's office, wiping mascara from her cheeks. Everyone in the arena was already long gone, but she didn't want to risk anyone seeing her as distraught as she was. Chelsea began to feel rage burrowing into her chest; it was odd to feel at all. She had been so numb for so long, the black abyss known as hopelessness had replaced her soul. She dialed Jeff's number quickly on her cell phone, and he answered gruffly, as though she'd just woken him up.
"Jeff, they let me go," the tears welled up in her eyes once again. "They killed my dream!"
"Chelsea, knock it off. You knew what could happen," he responded, unsympathetic. Of course he was. He had no chance of coming back. This wasn't his first offense.
"I didn't expect to get caught!" she yelled into the mouthpiece, frantic.
The man chuckled on the other end.
"Listen, Chelsea. Don't call me anymore. You knew what could happen. You knew where our relationship stood. And now I'm reminding you. I'm going to clean up my act, and you should, too. It's time for me to change. Find something new, something better. I don't have a chance to go back to WWE again, but being your first offense, you still have that option. Listen to me, Chelsea. Forget about me. Forget about us..."
"I've decided to ask Beth to marry me," he continued. Those words were enough to form a lump in her throat, the bile beginning to churn in her stomach.
..."She makes me happy. You bring me down. You only bring me down, always so needy and wanting more of fix than I can give you. So let's cut the shit, and be honest here. This is the end of anything we had, or what you thought we had."
Chelsea heard the click of the phone, indicating he'd hung up on her. She could feel her stomach dropping as her glowing LCD screen proved the call was lost.
No, wait—she was dropping. To her knees. She wept, throwing her phone and shattering it against the brick wall just down the hall from where Stephanie McMahon had just fired her sorry ass. This was, by far, the worst day of her entire life...
Fleeting thoughts of slitting her wrists or drowning herself in her hotel room went through her mind. But she knew that death wasn't the way that she'd get revenge on the man who had tore her into pieces.
She silently vowed that she'd prove Jeff wrong. She never brought him down! Not once! It was he who had ruined her life. He who introduced the wonderful world of drugs. Jeff was the one who broke her heart. Just like a drug, he built her up so tall and strong, that it was only a matter of time before something so simple could knock her over. All she could do from here was to build herself back up, and become better. Much better. She'd throw all of her energy and focus on getting the help she so obviously needed. She would go back to the WWE and take it by storm, hopefully capturing the title one day.
She also hoped that Jeff would live with that guilt on his mind, knowing that he was the reason she had been derailed. That when he'd heard of her return, he couldn't help but to be intrigued. She'd get back to the shape she'd been in when she'd started, and the light would once again return to her eyes.
Of course, there was also a hope that while he was sleeping with his soon-to-be wife, he saw Chelsea's face. Felt Chelsea's arms around his neck. Heard her call his name. She wanted to sit in the back of his mind, tearing apart his dreams while he slept. She wanted to haunt him, make his life just as miserable as he had made hers in the past few months.
She also vowed that she would never, ever fall back into his trap again. She'd be happy.
One day.