After storming out of the arena, Renee caught the first flight back to New York. She'd stayed away from the internet entirely and kept her phone switched off. She'd even contemplating flying back to Ontario to make her retreat complete, but even now the sleepy, spacious, functional anonymity of Ajax with only her tutting, fretting mother for company did not appeal to her.
Instead, she'd spent the last 24 hours sat alone on her couch, trying desperately to order her thoughts and put things into perspective. Yet even when she did so, her situation seemed no less horrifying, and the way out of it no easier to determine.
There was still no choosing between the two in her mind. They both loved her, but they had different ways of showing it. They'd both hurt her, but they'd both made her happy at a time when she really feared the absolute worst for her future. There was no right answer. It was a judgement call if ever there was one. But after such a long period of life surprising her in the most unpleasant of ways, she had no certainty left with which to judge.
And yet she remained so proud; she wasn't going to run to either of them out of fear and loneliness, she wasn't going to grovel to the friends she'd shunned. She was going to do it the way she'd always done everything; alone, through her own strength of character. She needed to, she needed to prove such courage and wisdom remained within her in spite of it all.
A knock on the door. It was inevitable, one didn't create such a public scene, a sign of such obvious distress and disarray, and be allowed to disappear off the face of the Earth. Renee knew she should be thankful that she had enough friends in the world for that to be the case, instead she just prayed whoever it was would leave her to wallow. The whole thing seemed less real when she didn't have to speak any of it out loud, or hear the opinions and warnings of another.
Then there was the distinct possibility that it was Dean or Sami on the other side of that door. At this point in time, she felt so vulnerable that she'd have probably fallen into either man's arms without a moment's hesitation. She needed to wait for the shock and horror to die down before she so much as looked at them again.
Whoever they were, they were certainly persistent. Three minutes of near-relentless knocking, and Renee began to proceed gingerly toward the door.
"Who is it?" she asked, her voice cracking as it was pressed into use for the first time in over a day.
"It's Bayley. Renee, please let me in, I'm here to help you," the sweet, earnest tones took Renee by complete surprise. She'd involuntarily broken contact with her self-proclaimed 'best friend' (however far from the truth that moniker was) since she left Florida.
Bayley might have had her quirks and eccentricities, but if Renee had ever met anyone more well-meaning and loyal in her life, she couldn't think of them. It would never have occurred to her previously, but now she was presented with the situation, there was no one else she would rather break her silence to than the excitable young Californian.
Renee opened the door without a moment's further hesitation, and was met with the standard Bayley greeting, something she was never more grateful to receive than at this moment. It was warm, it was reassuring, it was real.
"I've been so worried about you. I had to come. Emma said I was being stupid and I needed to give you space, but she doesn't understand... my big sister's in trouble, I can't not be there for her, I can't," Bayley blabbered defiantly as she gripped her tighter and tighter, and Renee reciprocated wholeheartedly.
"You really didn't need to, Bayley, you don't owe me anything," Renee replied in breathless bewilderment as the hug continued unabated.
"Are you happy to see me?" Bayley asked pointedly.
"Of course," Renee answered.
"Then I did need to come. I'm gonna get you better," Bayley assured her, causing a lump to rise in Renee's throat at the generosity and idealism of this statement.
"No offence, but there's no amount of hugs and kind words that can do that. I'm broken, Bayley, I've pushed myself into a situation where I don't know what I want and whatever it is, it's probably not good for me. I'm not having anyone else ruin themselves trying to fix me. Too many people have screwed up their lives that way already," Renee lamented, and just as she'd expected, verbalising these thoughts caused the tears to start to fall yet again.
Bayley abruptly broke the embrace and eyed her with the kind of hardened stare she usually saved for the ring.
"Sit down," she almost ordered. Renee did as told and Bayley sat cross-legged facing her on the opposite end of the sofa.
"We came to NXT at round about the same time. I was just this scared, awestruck kid who couldn't believe her luck, I didn't really know who to trust or what moves to make. I came across this kind, smart, confident girl. She was just like me; an ordinary, mild-mannered girl living her dream, but she was brave, she was strong. She swallowed her fear and asked the most difficult questions of the most difficult people..." Bayley's words had Renee's mind casting herself back to her early days in WWE; the determination, the job satisfaction, the adventure and wonder, it all felt alien and almost exotic now.
"...And I thought to myself; if she can do that, so can I. I won't get anywhere being afraid, I won't get anywhere holding back. I can do this. That person was you, Renee. I've never said this before, but... you're kinda like my hero," Bayley finished, blushing slightly and bowing her head.
"Your hero?" Renee repeated in grateful disbelief.
"Yeah. And you're still that person. Sure, you've gotten mixed up in some crazy stuff, but it's all still there, it'll never go away. I don't admire you any less now than I did back then. In fact, maybe I admire you more. You didn't walk away, you kept it all beneath the surface until you really couldn't take it anymore. It doesn't make you weak, or bad, or any of that... you've got the answer, you've got the way out. I know you do."
Bayley lifted her hand comfortingly to Renee's shoulder, as Renee met it with her own, caressing it gently with her thumb. This whole conversation had made her realise just how long it had been since she'd felt genuinely good about herself. It didn't make her situation any easier to read though.
"Do I? Then what is it? There's a pro for every con... there's the sweetest, most loving man I've ever met, but he's also the man who broke my heart in a way so painful and debilitating I never even thought it possible. Then there's the guy who saved me, who went above and beyond to protect me and keep me from going clean off the deep end, but the way he acts towards me flat-out terrifies me sometimes. I sure can pick 'em, huh?" Renee concluded with a wry, resigned laugh.
"I'm not gonna make the decision for you, I don't know either of them half as well as you do, but I know you, I know you're not yourself right now and you'll need to be if you're gonna make the right choice. And unfortunately, I know you've only got a week and a half to find the real you," Bayley proclaimed gravely. Renee gripped the younger woman's outstretched wrist frantically in confusion.
"Why only a week and a half?" Renee questioned in frantic intrigue.
"You don't know?" Bayley asked rhetorically, her eyes widening in dread as it dawned on her that it was her responsibility to be the bearer of what was clearly very bad news.
"Know what?" Renee fired back, as all the semblance of confidence and self-regard Bayley's pep talk had stirred within her began to gradually drain away.
"After you left on Monday, Dean came out to the ring to confront Sami... it took a good ten people to separate them. Hunter and Stephanie were delighted, they love all this behind-the-scenes drama spilling into the ring. Social media went crazy, so they decided there's gonna be a match at Summerslam..." Bayley began to explain.
Renee gave a heavy sigh; it was going to be heart-wrenching to say the least watching the two objects of her affections beat the living crap out of each other, but when things had escalated to such a fierce and public degree, she would have been a fool to expect otherwise.
"At least it'll relieve some tension, I guess, maybe somehow it'll provide me with my answer," she muttered in vain hope of finding a positive to cling to.
"That's not all..." Bayley continued, almost shaking with the weight of the bombshell she was about to drop.
"...it's a Street Fight, and the referee..." she hesitated yet further, her little fists clenched together, her face suggested she wished with all her might that what she was saying were not true.
"...The referee is you, Renee."