They say there's no such thing as bad publicity. They're wrong. In Vince's eyes it was all too fresh to be incorporated into a storyline and my presence at Wrestlemania was going to be a distraction.
"I'm sorry kiddo, this isn't your fault, it's business." The promises of a renewed push when it had all blown over did nothing to lift my mood.
Just like that, my hopes, my dreams. Gone. I was a wrestler who wasn't wrestling. I was pointless.
I went home for a couple of weeks. My parents were in Fiji so I had the house to myself. It was quiet, it was empty but it was home and it was as far away from the circus as I wanted to be at that time.
I purposely ignored the internet, the forums, the dirt sheets - the only communications I had from inside of the wrestling world were with Phil and Kelly.
At first the talk had been that Kelly would replace me in the dark match before Wrestlemania but in the end they'd opted for a handicap match. Natalya against Laycool to really get the crowd into Natalya's corner. At first Kelly was furious with creative's inability to make a decision and then she was furious with their inability to make the right decision. Her hard work, her dedication to the cause, to the company was constantly being ignored. Listening to her gripes and her problems took me away from my own.
Phil was an annoying constant. Apparently once the police had decided Abigail's glass of wine was not the cause of my poisoning she'd been spending more and more time with Moxely in Cincinnati. Phil was free of his albatross and in need of a new damsel in distress. When he wasn't working he was flying back and forth between my house and Chicago. If I'd have been told a month or so before that it was possible to get bored of his presence I wouldn't have believed it but at that moment in time his love, and his attention, and his fussing had me climbing the walls.
In a way I understood it. He'd watched Abigail fall off the rails and he had taken it upon himself to make sure that the same thing didn't happen to me. When he stayed over not a moment of my day went unmonitored. My activities, my attitude, food intake – it was all under the microscope.
Two weeks later and straight after Raw he called me from the airport to tell me his flight had been delayed.
"You don't have to come" I told him, trying to sound as calm as possible.
"I'll still be there." he replied, "I'm just going to be a little late that's all. I don't want anything to happen to you."
"Jesus Christ Phil. I'm a grown woman. I've managed to survive the last twenty two years of my life just fine. I'm not Abigail. I neither need nor want to be babysat." I'd lost my temper, and I felt like crap. He was silent. I'd sounded like a child, and it should've been no surprise that I was being treated like one. Not wanting to hear the rebuttal, confirmation of my unreasonableness I slammed the phone down.
A short while later, after a long hot bath and a solace-seeking conversation with Kelly I went to bed. Despite my mind working overtime I found sleep quickly and would have remained in a near catatonic state if it wasn't for the sound of a trash can being overturned in the backyard. When you're home alone every single sound is magnified by a thousand and one dust cart might as well have been a thousand. I sat straight up and I panicked.
Without thinking I ran down the stairs, switched on the kitchen light and looked out. I couldn't see anyone so I switched the light off, opened the door and stepped outside.
Nothing.
I called out "Hello?"
Silence.
"I can see you." I shouted. I felt embarrassed and slightly paranoid as the words left my lips but then the bushes in the back of the garden rustled and I saw what looked like a man's leg disappear behind the wall.
"Shit" I pushed the door shut turning the lock then took a few seconds to breathe before running frantically to the living room and grabbing the phone.
The doorbell rang, and the phone fell out of my hand. "Fuck." I fell down onto my knees and picked the phone up again. 911. "There's someone outside. 1111 Everglades. Hurry." The doorbell rang again and I bolted into the kitchen pulling a knife out of the drawer.
Through the back window there was a splash of light like a bolt of lightning, or the the flash of a camera. Then a pounding on the front door. I pulled the phone up to my ear. "I don't know what to do." I sank down onto the floor tears streaming from my eyes. A second later a rock smashed through the window landing next to my feet. I screamed, and then salvation.
A voice.
From the front door. "Lucy. Open up."
I focused my attention on the voice. I recognised the voice.
"Lucy. I just heard you shout. You don't open the door I'm going to have to break it down." It was Phil. I crawled across the kitchen floor and ran to the door swinging it open without a thought.
"Oh God Phil, thank god, he's here. He's in the backyard." I went to hug him but he barged past me. Through the hall, through the lounge, and into the kitchen. He stopped momentarily, examining the damage, surveying the glass littered floor. Then he unlocked the door and disappeared into the night. I screamed "Phil!" but he'd vanished.
I stared out into an abyss and the most terrible of thoughts crossed my mind. I'd made a stand, I'd stepped away from Philip Brooks, CM Punk. A man who was used to fawning, and adoration. A man who rarely heard the word no. Then straight afterwards an attack. The stakes had been raised. I'd been scared and conveniently he'd turned up to save the day. I was with a man who needed a damsel in distress, who needed to be in control, and now he was outside chasing shadows. Chasing a man who was sure to disappear.
A man who been hired to put the frighteners on me?
Another knock on the door – the police. I turned to them "There was someone outside. He.." And then Phil approached from behind them. A man's head underneath his arm in some sort of sleeper hold. "I found him, and I found this" he stated grimly, flinging the man forward and handing a camera to one of the officers. "And what's more, I know him. He works for the WWE, a camera man."
An ordinary man. I didn't know his face, he looked regular, mundane. Slightly podgy, slightly balding, middle aged. An everyday Joe. It didn't compute. The attacks had been so personal, my assailant had known my every move, this man, he was nothing to me, a nobody. There was no way he could've…"
Phil interrupted my trail of thought, speaking to one of the officers "You're aware of the situation, right?"
