Disclaimer – I own none of the characters except Vanessa and Leila. The rest are trademarked to World Wrestling Entertainment.
Vanessa woke up to find a strange scratching noise at the door. She sat up immediately but then came to her senses.
"Leila," she said to herself, and continued listening to the noise until Leila finally burst through the door wearing the same clothes from the night before, except she had no make-up on and her hair was frazzled.
"Damn, Vanessa! You scared me then. If you were awake, why didn't you come and help me?"
"Have fun?" she remarked sarcastically, ignoring what Leila just said.
She kicked off her shoes and sat on the bed, next to the other girl. "Look, I'm sorry I left you last night, if I knew you would have been like this, I wouldn't have gone."
"Ha, I know for sure, that isn't true! You couldn't wait for Randy to get into your knickers, you two were practically doing it on the dance floor."
Leila stood up and towered over the bed. "You know what, you're just jealous!"
Vanessa stood up as well and moved towards her. "Me, jealous? Fuck you."
"Well fuck you too then!" Leila threw a glass against the wall and then opened the door to exit, but then thought against it and screamed. "This is stupid. Why are we fighting? We're in a beautiful hotel after having just spent an amazing night at John Cena's party and all we can do is fight. What's happened to you; as soon as I walked through the door, you've been giving me attitude ever since. Did something happen to you last night?"
Vanessa remained silent and tried to fight back tears she felt spilling out.
"Oh my god, something did happen, didn't it?" She rushed over to her friend and sat her down. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you."
"No, it's nothing, don't worry. I feel so stupid for crying now." Vanessa brushed away her free-falling tears with a tissue and faked a smile. "I'm fine."
"You don't look fine. We've never kept secrets from each other before, why are you going to start now?"
She inhaled deeply, stopped wiping her eyes and instead twirled the tissue around her fingers, avoiding any eye contact with Leila. "Okay, something did happen." She waited for Leila to say something, but she remained silent, and so she continued. "Well I was dancing with Chris Masters for a while, but then I got tired so I sat down while Melina got drinks. Then he came back and started being suggestive, asking me to come back to his hotel room with him. I said no, so then he got angry and the whole situation blew up."
"I'll kill him when I see him!" Leila interrupted.
"Let me finish, he's not the reason I'm upset anyways." Vanessa went on to explain what happened with John Cena. As she retold the events, she noticed her friend getting tenser by the second and her cheeks flushed with anger.
Leila hesitated for a moment before answering. "He doesn't even know you, how dare he say something like that? He has no right saying that. He probably thinks I'm an even bigger slut."
"Why does everything always have to be about you, Leila? You're so self-centred."
"Right that's the second time you've snapped at me in the space of a couple of minutes. John Cena must have really hurt you and for that he has to pay."
"Leila, please just leave things alone." Vanessa pleaded with her friend.
"If he thinks, he can mess with us and get away with it, then he has another thing coming to him." She quickly changed her clothes and stormed out the room.
Vanessa followed her steaming friend down to the lobby, where they found John Cena, Shawn Michaels and Carlito sitting at a table having breakfast. Leila stormed up to John, picked up the glass of water standing beside him and threw it in his face.
"That's what you get for messing with one of my friends!"
Before he could reply, security quickly grabbed the two girls and escorted them out of the building. While Shawn quickly rushed to John Cena's aid; Carlito followed them out.
"You can't throw me out, I have every right to be in this hotel just as much as anyone!" yelled Leila.
"I'm sorry, but we can't have guests behaving in the manner that you just did," explained one of the security guards. "It tarnishes the reputation of this establishment. Now, we're not asking you to leave, we just want to make sure law and order is maintained."
"We know, and we're sorry. It won't happen again."
The guards seemed satisfied with Vanessa's apology and left them alone. As soon as they had gone, Carlito approached the girls.
"Listen, I don't know who you are, but John really didn't need that at this moment, so please just leave him alone."
"Why shouldn't he? Just because he's John Cena – the superstar wrestler doesn't mean that he shouldn't be held responsible for hurting Vanessa."
"Maybe so, but I can imagine he must be feeling pretty hurtful now he found out his brother just got murdered."
Both ladies immediately froze with shock. Even though she hardly even knew John, Vanessa felt immense grief. She knew what it was like to lose someone very close, and she could empathise with how he felt. She remembered back when her fiancé had died; the grief was unbearable. It swallowed her whole and constantly tortured her, reminding her of that dreadful day when she discovered him. She almost convinced herself that he was simply sleeping, but when she saw the empty bottles of pills and vodka next to his bed, she knew what had happened.
"I don't know what to say," she eventually replied, after a long period of silence. "I'm so sorry."
"Not me you should be saying that to," Carlito answered then walked off.
"I feel like such a bitch." Leila frowned.
Vanessa sadly looked at her. "Me too. We should go find him and apologize."
"I'm probably the last person he'd want to talk to. Plus, I want to go find Randy first."
"Are you serious? You just found out that someone's brother got murdered, yet you want to go and find the guy you screwed last night?"
"Vanessa, it's not like that. I just…"
"No, it's fine. Sorry. You go find Randy; I'll be looking for John."
"Sure about this? I can come with you if you want."
"I'll be fine. I kind of want to be alone with him anyways. He probably won't want to see both of us. I'll see you around."
Leila gave her friend a small smile before leaving. Vanessa inhaled deeply, and steadied herself before she would have to face John once again.
§
Up in his hotel room, John Cena sat on his bed and flicked through music channels on TV. Although he wasn't even concentrating, he needed something to distract his mind from his brother. He knew that this was no accident. His brother had been murdered. Someone must have been out for him. And John was determined to find out who it was and make them pay. His phone rang and sent him out of his thoughts. When he answered all he heard was heavy breathing on the other line, then faint laughter.
"Who the fuck is this?"
"After a long pause, a deep male voice replied. "You'll soon see." Then the phone went dead.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. He thought about the phone call, and picked up a golf club that was lying around. He swiftly opened it, only to see Vanessa looking very sombre.
"Can I come in? We need to talk."
He didn't reply but gestured for her to come in. Vanessa tried to ignore that fact that he was topless, only wearing a pair of sweats. She may have seen him topless many times on TV before but she'd never seen it up close. His body was perfectly sculpted; she imagined herself wrapped up in his arms. So inviting.
"You said you wanted to talk." John stated, disrupting her thoughts. "So talk."
"I'm really sorry to hear about your brother."
He flinched at this. Somehow, the fact that only he knew was enough to comfort him and make him believe that maybe it wasn't true. But now he had heard the words, it made it all too real. "I told Carlito not to tell anyone."
"He wanted me and Leila to understand. If we'd known, then Leila definitely wouldn't have thrown the drink on you."
"Why should I be treated differently just because someone has died? I'm still the same guy. I'm not a fucking invalid. If you want to show that you hate me, then you should have done it, regardless of my situation."
Vanessa was shocked by this. "I don't hate you, John. I don't think I ever could."
"You don't even know me."
"But I want to get to know you." Vanessa realised the sexual undertones to this and rapidly tried to change it. "What I mean is that, you seem a nice guy. And I would never wish sorrow upon anyone, even if I did hate them."
"I know what you meant." John reached over to the bedside table and poured himself a glass of vodka, which made her flinch. "How is Adam doing these days?"
"Fine. I understand. You obviously don't want to talk to me. I'll see myself out."
"Vanessa, wait." He grabbed her arm and pulled her in close to him, so their bodies were touching. "I don't want you to go."
She hesitated, taking in the moment. "I don't want to go either."
With this, he leaned in and kissed her. He wrapped his hands around her waist and she brought up her hands and tenderly stroked his face. Unexpectedly, she pulled away.
"This is wrong. I'll only be taking advantage of your situation."
He exhaled loudly and poured himself another glass of vodka. "Leave then."
"John, it doesn't have to be like this…"
"Just go!" he screamed at the top of his voice. Scared by this, Vanessa quickly rushed out the room and ran to her hotel room. When she arrived, she slammed the door and burst out crying into her pillow. A little while after, she heard a knock at the door. Rushing, she wiped away her tears and opened the door.
"John…"
"Please, just don't say anything."
He flopped into her arms and started crying. She gently escorted him onto the bed and sat him down.
"I don't know how I'm going to deal with this. Why couldn't I have died instead? Why couldn't have it been me?"
She rocked him back and forth almost as though he was an infant. He felt so fragile in her arms. Just watching him made her shed tears again. Although she desperately wanted him, she never imagined things would have turned out like this. He was a broken man and putting the pieces back together again was not gong to be an easy task.