A/N: Thank you guys for all the feedback for the story, I'm sorry it took me so long to update this one, I know that some people have been waiting patiently, and I thank you for it. I hit a little bit of writer's block, but I pushed through it and ended up going in a different direction than I originally intended, so we'll see how it goes. Anyways, enjoy, and I hope that you review, thanks. :)
"I'm going to go out there and kick his ass. He won't even see it coming."
AJ just nodded along, pretending like she was interested in what Big E was saying, but she wasn't, not really. She'd kind of tuned him out now, like she tuned out the rest of the world. It was just easier that way. She came backstage and she heard the whispers, people laughing as she walked by, oh, the poor, little AJ, screwed over once again. She went home, and she felt like she was being stared at by random strangers. She went online, and people were sending her messages saying that Dolph was better off now that he was way from her crazy.
So yeah, tuning everything out was the better option right now. If she just tuned them out, maybe they'd all just fade away. She just wanted to be alone most of the time, but it seemed like nobody would actually leave her alone, least of all Big E. He always seemed to be hovering around, and while he made no more almost passes at her (for which she was grateful), his thirst for vengeance towards Dolph seemed to grow by the second. She suspected that he was still interested in her as more than a friend, but was slow-playing it so as not to frighten her. She just wishes he would leave her alone.
"You can get in some shots too, show him what he left behind," Big E encouraged her, patting her on the shoulder, but letting his hand linger there a little too long, confirming or at least furthering her belief that he still wanted something more from her.
She didn't want more from him or from anyone right now, maybe not ever. She just wanted to be left alone to stew and reflect on all the failures in her life. She felt like she was floating in an abyss, one she didn't quite know how to get herself out of, but maybe she was never meant to get out of it. The more she thought about hurting Dolph, the less she wanted to do it. She knew she'd resolved to make him pay, but that was just in the heat of the moment. She didn't want him to hurt, she just wanted him to be happy, and wasn't that the most depressing part of it all? She didn't even want to see him hurt, and he hurt her.
"Does that sound good to you? We'll just interrupt his match, whatever match he has, and that'll be that."
"Okay," she said, but her voice sounded weak, and she was sure that he knew she wasn't really into the idea, but he powered through anyways. "Do you know what you have tonight?"
"Match against Kaitlyn," AJ answered. She wasn't in the mood for a match, but maybe getting some of her aggression out on Kaitlyn might help her mood. She was the champion after all, and she should feel proud of that. She had been proud of it, but now it just felt like it was another heavy burden on top of everything else. She was expected to go out there and be fierce and tough, but she was anything but, she was heartbroken and devastated, but couldn't let it show. When was the last time she was even truly happy? Oh yeah, she remembered now.
"Holy shit, you did it!" His arms were around her immediately, even before she had time to take a breath and let it sink in that she was now the diva's champion. Years and years she'd spent trying to reach this point, and she'd finally made it. "I knew you could, I knew you could!"
She let him sweep her up into his arms, spinning them around before stopping just so he could kiss her. "You were amazing out there, completely amazing, I'm in awe of you."
"In awe?" she giggled. "Really, in awe?"
"That was one of the best diva's matches I've ever seen, and I feel privileged that I got to be here to watch it. I wish I could have been out there with you, but with my match—"
"No, no, no, you don't have to apologize, you have a huge match coming up, and you're going to win that, our time as a power couple is just beginning. This is the start, baby, it's the start of everything," she kissed him again.
"I love you," he told her, "I'm so proud of you, can you believe it? I mean, who would have thought a year ago we'd be here together, both with the titles, both at the top of our games?"
"Not me," she shook her head, and it did seem surreal. This happiness that had so often eluded her felt so good that she never wanted to leave this haze, she never wanted to come down from this incredible high she was riding right now. "Look at us, we did it. Two kids who made good, right?"
"Yeah, I mean, who says dreams don't come true."
"I love you," she smiled, knowing he had said it before, but also knowing he would say it again, and every time he said it, she felt her stomach flutter. This had to be love, it had to be everything she'd ever wanted. She had it, she did it, nothing before even mattered because she'd made it.
"I love you too."
That seemed like eons ago. He'd lost that night, she'd cried, he'd comforted her even though he'd lost. It wasn't supposed to be that way at all. She wasn't supposed to chuck her title away and be angry at Del Rio. They were supposed to celebrate, but he ended up cradling her for hours as she cried and told him how proud she was of him. The next morning, she felt like a horrible girlfriend, making him do all the comforting when it was him that lost the night before. He told her that it wasn't a big deal, that he understood, and he was so sweet and kind, but maybe that was when he should have done it sooner. Maybe she just wasn't attentive enough.
"I'll see you in a bit then," Big E told her, squeezing her shoulder again, and she realized he'd said something, and she hadn't been paying attention, so she didn't even catch a word for it. She just stood there, wondering what she could do that would pass the time, but maybe keep her mind off Dolph. She should just go hide in the diva's locker room because at least there she knew there was no chance of running into him.
"Hey," Layla was here again, and AJ turned to walk away. Layla didn't take that as a sign that AJ didn't want to talk, and instead, she matched AJ's stride. "I just saw what happened with you and Big E. You didn't seem interested in a word he was saying."
"I was listening," AJ shrugged and lied.
"No, you weren't, I know that look," Layla said. "Hey, AJ, please, just listen to me. Look, I've been through my share of breakups, which is why I hate seeing you like this. You don't deserve to be like this. You need to show Dolph what he's missing. Come on, we both know E has a thing for you, use that to your advantage, make Dolph jealous."
"Why are you helping me?"
"Solidarity, plus Kaitlyn is a wet blanket," Layla scoffed as she thought about Kaitlyn as a friend, "she's just so…boring, and I think that you have the potential to be a lot of fun if you let things go a little. Let Dolph go a little, you can do it. I know it's terrible of me to say that you should use E, but well, he's there, isn't he?"
"I guess, but what if Dolph isn't jealous? He said he doesn't care, he said that he should have done it a long time ago, so he probably wouldn't care."
"Oh please, he's a guy, right? They always think you're some kind of property, and if you were to show him that you were over him, and ready for whatever or whomever was next, the ball would be in your court," Layla told her, "do it, girlie, you should have all the power here."
"I mean, I guess," she said, thinking about it. Maybe…maybe if he was jealous, he might talk to her, at least tell her what happened. That's all she really wanted to know. She just wanted to know where everything went wrong because she still had no idea where the turning point really was. If she could just find that out, maybe she could have some real closure instead of feeling like she'd been bamboozled.
So she tried because what did she have to lose? She'd already lost Dolph, and her title wasn't on the line tonight. Before her match, she tried flirting a little with Big E, and he didn't seem as responsive as she thought he would be, but maybe he knew what she was trying to do. It felt unnatural to her too, it felt too much like moving on, and she wasn't ready for that. She wasn't really ready to move on.
"I'm not going to be your rebound," Big E told her before her match. "When you're mine, you'll be mine."
"What?" she asked.
"Back there, I know you're just trying to move on, but what we have could be more than that," he told her, and she didn't care much for his tone of voice. It sounded like they were some kind of done deal. She decided to just ignore it and focus on her match. She didn't need any more confusion in her life.
The match wasn't long, and she got speared, and that was the end of that. She felt like she just kept getting speared, but really, the physical damage didn't even register with her. She felt so numb most of the time that this felt like nothing to her, laying in the ring felt like nothing to her. She was just pulling herself up when Dolph's music hit. She didn't understand, and for the briefest of moments she thought that maybe he'd come out here to check on her. Maybe something changed, and he wanted her and he missed her like she missed him.
Her heart fell somewhere near her toes when he started mocking her loss, mocking her, and she just didn't know what she'd done to deserve being treated like this. She'd never hurt him, she'd never done anything to him, why was he hurting her so much? Then, in the back of her mind, she heard Layla's voice, telling her that Dolph would be jealous if she gave any kind of inkling that she was interested in Big E. Hope flared inside of her that this was the reason why he was out here. It wasn't because he hated her, but he was jealous and angry.
He challenged Big E to a match right then and there, and it made more sense that he was jealous, trying to go after someone he thought she cared about. She tried not to grin when the match was happening, but it was difficult. If Dolph was jealous, that was an emotion that wasn't anger. Jealousy meant feelings were still there, and call her stupid, call her naïve, but maybe that meant there was something still there between them.
She just had to keep fostering this jealousy. If Dolph thought she was really going for someone else, she needed to feed into that. Was it not very nice to Big E, no, it probably wasn't, but she just needed answers from Dolph. He seemed so unwilling to talk to her that this seemed to be a desperate time, and desperate times called for desperate measures. So when she got a chance, she did the only thing she could think to do at that moment, and that was to attack him. Was it the right thing to do? She didn't know, but she didn't it anyways.
It actually did feel kind of good to just go at him like that, to just hit him and push all her questions into her fists as she pummeled him. Why wasn't she good enough? Why didn't he want her? Why did he tell her he loved her? Why did she make him believe that she'd finally found a happy ending? All of those questions transferred into her fists, and she expelled them from her into him.
She was finally pulled away, and she didn't care what happened between Dolph and Big E, she just felt better. She stumbled backstage, pushing Big E away from her, wanting to be on her own right now. She trudged her way down a hallway, away from where everyone else was, and she leaned against the wall, closing her eyes, catching her breath, and collecting her thoughts. She still wasn't her old self, she didn't even know what that felt like, but she felt better.
"What the hell was that?"
She opened her eyes and fell into his blue ones. "What are you talking about?"
"I mean that thing!" Dolph pointed to his right, but there was nothing there so he must be talking about earlier.
"I saw my opportunity and took it," she told him. "You don't want to talk to me, explain to me what happened, fine, but the consequences will be worse next time." She didn't even know where the words came from let alone the strength behind them. She was actually proud of herself for that.
"Not that," he shook his head, "the thing before your match, you told me there was nothing going on between you two, you two were together behind my back, weren't you? You were fooling around behind my back, weren't you!"
"What are you even talking about?" she asked. "Of course we weren't, I told you we weren't, and if nothing else, I have my word, and nothing happened."
"Don't lie to me!"
"Lie to you! Nobody is lying to you!" AJ screamed at him. "I'm telling you the truth!"
"No, you're not!"
"Yes, I am!"
"She told me she saw you two!" Dolph's breathing was heavy and frantic now, like he couldn't catch his breath. She stared at his face, those impossibly blue eyes, and the chiseled jaw, and she saw the look in his eyes, the betrayed look in his eyes, and something just wasn't adding up here. Something wasn't right.
"Who?"
"Kaitlyn."
