Never before had I found myself on the receiving end of such blatant avoidance. But Chris was indeed avoiding me, and that was when I initially learned my lesson that, oftentimes, emotional pain was far more damaging than its physical counterpart. Late Sunday evening, after spending an entire weekend together, Chris and I caught a red-eye flight out of Tampa and straight into the heart of Indianapolis, which was to be the site of that evening's Raw. Our plane ride consisted mostly of silence, since we were both exhausted and not in the proper mood to travel so late.

After only a couple minutes of leaning into the pillow positioned against his headrest, Chris conked out, light snoring accompanying his sleep, so I slipped my earbuds in and listened to music on low volume. Eventually, I was lulled to sleep myself, but I was woken abruptly when we landed, as Chris used his hand to shake me free of my dreams. He hasn't said much, aside from mumbling that he would grab my luggage, and I was frazzled and sleepy enough to allow him to without putting up much of a fight. I wanted to feel something after the night we had experienced together on Saturday.

I needed some sort of reassurance that he was okay, and perhaps more importantly, that we were going to be okay as a couple. It's oft said that sex changes everything in a relationship, and I was feeling the aftereffects of that in waves. Saturday night had been filled with awkward exchanges and lack of eye contact, and Sunday hadn't been much better. I had put in the extra effort of seeking Chris out during our remaining time in his home, and I had even gotten out of bed early on Sunday morning to cook breakfast for both of us. I thought there was no possible way Chris could avoid me if we sat at the table together and enjoyed a meal, but he proved me wrong again.

I took my place at his dining room table to chow down on my scrambled eggs, bacon, and hashbrowns, thinking my lovely guy would join me and there would be some sort of breakthrough, but Chris took his plate and unexpectedly slipped into the next room without a word. Hurt as I was, I followed him into the living room, where he was watching TV while absently forking food into his mouth. I had demanded an explanation, but he had only muttered some halfhearted excuse about always watching television while he ate. I left him alone that morning, and I left him alone for the remainder of the day, for the most part. I had even let him be during our plane ride, but this time, I was fed up and ready for a confrontation.

To be fair, I didn't want to fight with Chris, but I deserved an answer, and I wouldn't rest until I got one. Rest was for the weary, and I was none of the sort; to the contrary, he had me fired up! If he regretted making the decision to be with me, he owed it to our friendship to be honest about his feelings. We exited the plane, and he pulled our luggage ahead of me, only briefly glancing over his left shoulder to make sure I was following. For the sake of not making a public scene, I said nothing, falling in line all the way to the rental car counter, where he squared away the details of the temporary vehicle that would be bringing us to our destination.

When the Enterprise agent held out the car key, I snatched it before Chris got the chance and headed out to our awaiting vehicle, which just so happened to be a new model Mustang GT in cherry red. The flashy choice was slightly out of character for Chris, but ever since I had gone on the road with him, he put more of an emphasis into traveling in style. I took the driver's seat and cranked the ignition, drumming my fingertips against the steering wheel while I waited for Chris to join me. I ended up leaning against the headrest and distracting myself with the passing traffic, but I became instantly more alert when the trunk slammed closed, and Chris lowered into the front passenger seat seconds later.

He sat there, staring straight ahead and patting his thighs, as if drumming in rhythm with the song playing on the radio, and I stared at him until he was forced to acknowledge me. With an arched brow, I reminded, "Seat belt."

"Oh, yeah," he said. Chris reached up for his belt and secured it, and with that, I put the car in gear and pulled away from the busy airport. I had him right where I wanted him now. We were in a moving vehicle, traveling at a semi-high rate of speed, which meant that he couldn't just escape or ignore me like he had been doing ever since Saturday evening.

I glanced over and saw him staring out the window, so I saw that as my opportunity to make things right. I reached for the radio dial and lowered the sound. "So, how are you feeling about everything?"

"What do you mean 'everything'?" he asked, not bothering to look at me.

"I just...I want you to let me in more, the way you used to, up until Saturday night. We always talked to each other about everything, and I want — "

"I never told you everything," Chris shot back. "You don't know nearly as much about me as you think you do."

"Oh," I said. I was at a complete loss for words.

What could I possibly say to him after that? I adored the man, but there was no doubt he was being a conversation killer of epic proportions. I kept my eyes plastered to the road, but I could already tell that driving while under such immense stress was a huge mistake. I had too many distractions working their way through my mind to actually be able to drive safely, so when I followed the road that led to the airport's exit, I flipped on my turn signal and pulled into the parking lot of the first hotel we came upon.

My idea worked twofold, because not only would it take me off the road during my time of duress, but Chris and I were going to need a place to stay and freshen up before it was time to head over to the Bankers Life Fieldhouse arena. I parked the car and left it running so we could at least have the air conditioner as our main defense in battling the elements. Summer had arrived, and the Indiana heat was no joke. Chris let out an agitated sigh and reached for the door handle, preparing to jump out and grab our things, but my hand shot out and I caught his left wrist, holding him firmly in place.

"You're not going anywhere until we talk this out," I said.

"There's nothing to talk about."

"You can't be serious," I responded, rolling my eyes heavenward. Even with my ironclad grip on his wrist, Chris continued staring out the window. He wouldn't even look at me, and that hurt worse than anything else. I had made passionate love to this man no more than 48 hours earlier, and now, I couldn't even convince him to meet my gaze. If he was trying to make me feel insignificant, then his master plan was ultimately working. "There's everything to talk about. How about the fact that ever since we were together on Saturday, you've ignored me at every turn? You won't look at me, won't talk to me, won't touch me, and how is that supposed to make me feel, huh?"

"I don't know."

"No," I shook my head, "no, you're going to have to do a whole hell of a lot better than that. I'm owed more than that. I'm your girlfriend, damn it!"

I struck a chord with him that time. Chris turned to me, those thoughtful blue eyes full of wonder, and for a second, I knew everything would work itself out fine. He would apologize for acting strangely and admit that our intimacy had confused him. He would beg me to help him through our first rough patch as a couple, and I would do that, because our relationship was that important to me. We would begin to nurse the wounds, fill the cracks, and get our lives back on track. We were Chris and Stephanie, Stephanie and Chris, and nothing could ever break us apart. Or so I had believed.

Looking me fully in the eye for the first time since Saturday, Chris uttered the six words that froze my heart over like an igloo in the Arctic. Six words became powerful enough to make time stand still, just long enough for my entire world to come crashing down around me. "Maybe you shouldn't be my girlfriend."

It took me a while to respond, because for at least half a minute, all I could hear was my own heartbeat, combined with the pulsing of blood through my veins. It pounded in my ears until it was all I could hear, like a heavy metal song booming through the sound system inside a nightclub, and I felt the urge to pinch myself again, but for a very different reason this time. This time, I wanted the moment to be a dream; I wanted it to all go away. "I...I don't understand. Why would you say something like that?"

"Can you let go of my arm?" he said. "Your nails are digging into my skin."

I let go wordlessly, nodding softly, only I didn't know why. I had lost nearly all control of my body movements. Suddenly, I didn't want to be anywhere except home in Connecticut, curled up in my gigantic bed while my mother sat nearby and nursed me back to a state of emotional health. I vaguely wondered what the treatment was for heartsickness. "We only just got together, and you seemed so happy with me this past weekend. Well, I mean, you seemed happy on Saturday, at least."

"This was never meant to be. It shouldn't have happened to begin with," Chris remarked. His eyes squinted in deep concentration as he watched me, trying to see how I would react to his words. If he was waiting for me to sit back and let him go without a fight, then he had been right about one thing: we didn't know each other as well as previously thought. "We're only fooling ourselves if we continue buying into the belief that we have a snowball's chance in hell of actually working out."

"Oh, bullshit!" I snapped. I shut off the engine and yanked the key out, slamming it into Chris's lap. "You know something? You're the biggest coward I've ever met in my life!"

"Really?" Chris asked, not a single ounce of emotion in his tone.

"Yes, really!" I said. A growing lump formed in my throat and my eyes burned with unshed tears, but I held the wave back, because I was too proud to cry in front of him. Not when he was treating me with such a lack of compassion. I had received better treatment from strangers than from my own boyfriend, and it killed me. "You invite me to your house for a weekend alone, make a decision to be with me, and make love to me, and now you're throwing that all away? If you have doubts, then fine, that's probably normal in a new relationship like ours, but to toss me away like a piece of trash is just plain stupid. I would never treat you like this, Chris. I care too much about you to pull any shit like this."

"What did you expect?"

"I expected for you to be a man and talk to me like one!" I shouted, crossing my arms over my chest. "Like I said before, it's okay if you're feeling insecure or uncertain about our relationship, because this is new to both of us, but to shut me out completely in the hopes that I would break up with you as a direct result is ridiculous. Don't try to deny it, because that's exactly what you were doing. You had second thoughts and wanted to break it off with me, but you didn't have the guts, so you tried to ignore me, thinking I would do your dirty work and end things first. Well, guess what? You thought wrong! If you want us to break up, you're going to have to be a man and do it yourself!"

"Fine," Chris shrugged. I'll never forget his empty stare when he next spoke. "I don't want to be with you, Stephanie. This was a mistake."

I closed my eyes and pursed my lips, letting out a heaving breath and struggling to steady my pounding heart. Devastated as I was, I couldn't hold his honesty against him. As much as I would have loved to make Chris feel the same about me as I did him, I wasn't the puppet master of his heartstrings, and I knew that. I prided myself on holding it together as well as I had up until then, but inside, I was tearing in two. My wobbly voice was all that gave me away. "Well, this hurts me a lot, but at least you're finally being honest. It's going to take me a while to get over this, because I still have feelings for you, but I don't want us to never speak again. I hope we can still work on being friends."

"I resigned from the company today," Chris said, simple as that, as if he were commenting casually on the weather. My mouth fell open and my eyes bulged. Oddly enough, Chris seemed satisfied that I clearly hadn't seen his resignation coming. It was perhaps the biggest blow he had delivered me all weekend. I was still processing his words when he added more salt to my wounds. "I'm done with the WWE."

"You're kidding," I rushed out. I wanted to believe he was, but my instincts had already told me otherwise.

"I'm not."

"Why would you fly all the way here with me if you had no reason to be at tonight's show?"

"Because I'm dropping you off and ending this."

"You flew to the next town with me for the sole purpose of breaking up?" I asked, shaking my head disbelievingly. This man who I had spent my entire weekend with, even bared my soul to over several months, had turned out to be a complete stranger. I wanted to seep into the ground and stay there until I could find a way to make sense of the chaos. Nothing fit together anymore. "That was the only reason you came with me? To tell me that what we have is over?"

Chris stared straight ahead, looking out the windshield. His hands fell lazily into his lap. "I'm glad to be gone, you know. Since 1999, I've kept my mouth shut and put up with the bullshit from your dad, the road agents, the other guys, and everyone else in between. All I've had since I started working here was my fans. They were the only ones who ever truly had my back. I didn't tell you this before, but I've known I was leaving since the beginning of this year. Leaving the WWE was my New Year's Resolution."

"What are you talking about?"

"The end of last year came, and I made a promise to myself that I wouldn't spend another year being miserable. I've been sick of the stares, the comments, and the ridicule for a long time now, so I made a deal with myself. When the new year came, I would plot some type of revenge on Vince McMahon. I would do something so vile and underhanded that he would never be the same again. I wanted the effects to be long-lasting, something that would cut through him so deeply that he would want to throttle me, except he wouldn't be able to, because I would already be gone from the company."

"Look, whatever happened between you and my dad is your own business, and that has nothing to do with me. We don't have to break up just because you're plotting against him," I said, even going so far as to crack a bit of a smile. "Hell, if you're willing to let me, I can even help. My dad probably needs to be taken down a notch or two."

"As it turns out, you're already helping. You were the biggest part of this plan, although I never would have seen it coming. I couldn't possibly have planned for you to come and start talking to me out of the blue," Chris continued. "When you first came up to me, I didn't want to be anywhere near you. I wanted you to go the hell away, but then you grew on me. Somewhere along the way, I started liking you, and it made me sick, because I didn't want to like you. I'm not supposed to fucking like you. You're the offspring of the man who has ruined me and taken away any pride I had left before I entered this company."

I reached out to touch his arm, but he flinched and tugged away. I was left to pretend the action didn't actually break my heart, despite how profoundly it did. "You can't honestly hold that against me, Chris. I don't control my dad or his actions. I can only control myself, and I care about you. If that's why you want to break up, I'm here to tell you that it doesn't have to be this way. We can still be happy together, even if you're leaving the company."

Chris sighed heavily. "You're not listening to me. My only goal this year has been to put Vince in his place. As soon as I carried that out, I knew I could leave the company and finally let go of several years' worth of pent-up frustration and anger. The revenge is complete, so now I'm leaving."

"What exactly was the revenge?" I wondered. Had I even an inkling of what he was about to tell me, I never would have asked. I would have fled the car and never looked back, but at that point, Chris's emotional hold still had me captive.

"Funny you should ask."

"Well, what was it?"

"Imagine my luck when I was sitting around one day, struggling to come up with a plan to completely fuck Vince up, then you come strolling along. You start talking to me, we start building a friendship, and somewhere along the way, I saw opportunity. Yeah, I liked you...I mean, I still think you're okay," he corrected, "but this was the way it had to be."

"The way what had to be?"

"Your dad has belittled me since I began working for him, but I was stuck in my spot there, because I had to make a living, and there wasn't much else I could do while raking in such good money. I'm not sure why he even hired me, other than to make a complete fool of me, but he did. What better way to get back at the man who made my life a living hell than to seduce his only daughter?" Chris said. It came as a shock that I was still living and breathing, because I could have sworn my heart stopped beating in my chest. I was frozen stiff. This couldn't be real. "He can't even stand it when you talk to me at work. How badly will he lose it when he knows that I had you in the most intimate, physical way possible? This past Saturday, you were mine, and there's nothing he can ever do to take that away."

"No," I said, shaking my head vigorously. "No! You don't mean any of this, Chris. You're just hurt, and you want to make my dad hurt just as horribly as you have, but you don't want to direct this revenge at me. I know you care about me. I've seen the way you look at me when we're alone together."

"This weekend, I finally got back at the all-powerful Vince McMahon. He thinks he's so damn tough. Let's see him get through this," Chris said. "He may have gotten the upper hand on me more times than I'll ever be able to count, but I bedded his precious daughter and quit the company without warning, all in the same week. How's he going to ever come back from that?"

"You can't be serious."

"Take that back to your dad," he directed. Tears blurred my vision as he carried on, like nothing we shared had ever meant a damn thing. I struggled to catch my breath and slid a hand over my aching chest. "You go back to that old bastard today and tell him how the guy who worked the hardest and received the least in return is gone. Tell him all about how we sneaked around together right under his nose. Tell him about how we went to dinner together countless times and talked on the phone for hours. Then, right when he's really about to lose his shit, tell him we fucked on Saturday. I'd tell him myself, but since I've already quit, you'll have to send my regards. Vince McMahon has fucked me over for 15 years and, today, I've officially beat him at his own game."

"You asshole," I cried, tears streaming down my face. I let out a shrill scream and beat the steering wheel repeatedly with my fists, even though the person I would have loved to beat the most was sitting right beside me. I felt sick, like I would lose my stomach contents at any moment. "You stupid fucking bastard! How could you? I told you my secrets!" I sobbed. "I told you I loved you. I trusted you!"

"I never meant to drag you into this mess, but you came along at the perfect time," Chris said. He had resumed looking out the windshield, expressionless. His stunted body language led me to believe he was uncomfortable seeing me cry, but that made no sense, since he obviously didn't give a shit about me at all, in my eyes. How could I have been so blind? I thought he was done twisting the knife in my back, but he had only just begun. "Oh, but rest assured, you were a real good lay."

In one swift motion, I unlatched my seat belt, leaned forward, and slapped his nearest cheek with as much force as I could work up. I growled angrily, wishing I could perfect my swing in such a cramped space, so I gave him another solid slap for good measure. Hot tears rolled over my cheeks like raindrops down a window, and the contents of my nose began trickling down my philtrum, so I sniffled and used the back of my hand to wipe the mess away. "You're pathetic, you know that? I'm stronger than you'll ever be. Go ahead and run away, but I'll get the last laugh when I tell everyone what a disgusting jackass you are! Everyone was right about you. I should have stayed away."

He sucked at his teeth and picked absently at his fingernails. "It's not like I made this happen all on my own. You shouldn't have made it so easy for me to get inside your pants. All it took was almost six months of conversation and a single weekend alone. And here I was, thinking I would actually have to work for a piece of ass."

"Fuck you!" I spat out.

I'll never forget what came next. Chris turned to me with an arrogant smirk and reached out his right fist, nudging me lightly in the chin with his knuckles. "You already did, babe."

I had every intention to tell him how much he had hurt me. I needed Chris to grasp that the damage he had inflicted was irreparable and that we could never be friends again, let alone anything more. I opened my mouth to speak, but the words caught in my throat, and nothing more than a low squeak ever escaped me. I struggled frantically with the door handle, but my violently trembling hands weren't helping matters. When I finally thrust the door open, I jumped out of the car and ran. I don't recall feeling the warmth of the sun on my face, or the hot wind whipping my hair up behind me as I picked up speed, but I somehow found myself inside the women's restroom in the hotel.

I was relieved to find the room empty and rushed into an unoccupied stall, slamming and locking the door as I dropped my head into my hands. I cried until my eyes became rimmed in scarlet and my throat went raw. That was the first time in life that I ever genuinely wanted to disappear from the planet. In some manner, I didn't want to exist anymore, because everything felt so wrong. There were character-building incidents in life I could bounce back from; then there were those that would alter me in a way that I would never quite be the same young woman I had once been. This was one of those wretched, defining moments, and though I logically knew I would survive it, my mind couldn't work out the 'how' of the situation.

I lost a little piece of myself that day that I never fully regained.