Some people use their own hurt as an excuse for hurting others
— Roland Merullo
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Chapter Twenty Two
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{o}-{o}-{o}
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Mox was in a state of delirium for several days, thanks to the drugs they gave him. He also had a tube inserted in his chest, because a fractured rib had punctured his lung. They had to perform surgery for that, which was a good idea because another fractured rib was pressing into his other lung and they were able to fix that.
They also had to perform surgery to fix a broken cheekbone. They had to splint his nose. The good news was Alexa hadn't broken his teeth and his skull fracture wasn't that serious.
They could have told him they needed to cut his penis off and he would have just nodded, he had no real clue what was going on. He heard his father, his mother talking to people, agreeing on what he needed done, because he sure wasn't capable of making any medical decisions.
She's tough he found himself thinking when his brain let him remember what had happened. I'm glad I didn't have to face her when she was underground fighting, because she would have killed me. The irony that she almost had killed him anyway didn't penetrate his drug addled brain.
He woke up once with some clarity and saw Roman sitting by his bed. It hurt to talk, but he managed. "You shouldn't be here," he said, his voice sounding so weak, even to him. It hurt to breathe too. "Your immune system… hospital isn't good for you."
"Shut up and go back to sleep," Roman advised him.
He didn't want Roman to be here, he might have a chemically induced immune system, but when he'd been in the hospital for treatments, he was kept in a special room for cancer patients. Mox didn't have cancer, so chances were he was in a regular room. A room with germs and viruses lurking on every corner, every surface. He wanted to tell him to get out, to demand, but in his condition he wasn't capable of doing much of anything.
So, he took Roman's advice and went back to sleep.
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The next time he woke up somewhat coherent, Jen and Sefa were there. Jen was holding his hand. His vision was blurry, but he knew she had been crying a lot. Her eyes still had a shimmer of unshed tears. When she saw he was looking at her, she reached out and gently, so very gently, pushed his hair out of his eyes. "Hi, Mom," he managed to gasp.
"Oh, Jon, save your strength," his mother suggested and he saw the tears starting to spill out. He hoped they were tears of happiness that he was alive and not completely in a fugue state.
"How" It really did hurt to talk. It hurt to breathe, why would he expect talking to be easier? But he forced himself to talk. "How is Alexa?"
Jen stiffened instantly. "She's fine, Jon," she was spitting out the words as if ridding her mouth of something horrible tasting. "I don't know why you should care!"
"Not…" it was getting harder and harder to talk and breathe and whatever they were giving him for pain was kicking in again. "Her..fault."
"She's still in the apartment, son," Sefa said. "We're not going to bring Aaron into this, unless you want to press charges."
He shook his head. "No."
He knew that answer didn't please his mother, but he didn't care. He floated off to sleep again.
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He realized later, when they cut back the drugs and he started being more aware of his surroundings, that someone in the family was with him almost around the clock. Jen and Sefa, alone or together. Same with Marc and Noella. Roman was there a lot, sometimes with May, sometimes alone. Even Seth came up on a Sunday. At that point, he was more aware, but talking still hurt. So, Seth did all the talking, going on and on about FCW, and how much he was missed and how much was changing now that they were working towards being rebranded as NXT. Mox appreciated that all he had to do was listen and nod. He enjoyed that day, it was good to see his other brother.
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Lance came in on the weekend, looking wiped out from flying from New York to Florida. He probably took a red eye and hasn't slept. Talking was easier for Mox, so he shook his head. "You're supposed to be in school."
"They let you leave for family emergencies," Lance said, coming over and sitting down on the chair next to the bed. "It's not prison. Roman's picking you up a strawberry milkshake, he'll be here in a few."
Mox smiled, which hurt his face a little. Since he'd been allowed to eat, he'd developed a taste for strawberry milkshakes, especially the ones made from a little place across the street that used nothing but home style vanilla ice cream and fresh strawberries, none of that sugar sweet, strawberry syrup most places used.
"I'm under orders not to ask you too many questions," Lance said. "So, if you don't want to answer me, you don't have to, but what the heck happened? All Dad and Rome can tell me is that you and Alexa were practicing and suddenly she went insane on you."
"Yeah," Mox admitted. "That's what happened." He knew his voice was raspy as if he were an old three pack a day smoker, but lately talking wasn't as hard as it had been. Maybe it sounded worse than it was.
"You hadn't done anything to really piss her off?" Lance had his head tipped to one side in that thoughtful look.
"Not that she made me aware of," Mox said, which was the outer truth. The inner truth was that he had a lot of reasons why she might be pissed off at him, starting with him overriding her choice of entrance music and ending with what they'd done when they were first introduced. I still hate you, she said when they first had sex, But I love you, too. He thought he had understood, he hadn't. He realized he was assuming the hate had faded into the background and it hadn't. She might not have even realized, she might have been telling herself the same thing, but the hatred was still there, still between them. She understood he wasn't to blame, but that didn't mean she could just let go of it.
"Why didn't you fight back?" Lance asked. "I mean, I get that you don't want to beat someone up, that's not cool. But she was beating on you. You're not a wimp, you know how to defend yourself, so why didn't you? Why didn't you stop her? According to Roman, you just let her do it. Why would you do that?"
"It's a long story," Mox said. He loved Lance, but sometimes that kid just wouldn't stop digging.
"She's Suzie, isn't she?"
Mox did a slow blink of surprise. How had Lance figured it out? Dad had seen her as a child in those cleaned up versions of their three movies, so it was a case of recognition, but Lance? "You went looking?" he asked. He should have expected that Lance would be the type that would start digging and the internet was a tool for curious people to dig further than politeness allowed.
"No," Lance said, shaking his head. "Dad didn't tell me either. I wasn't even sure I was right until Rome called me and told me about her going nuts on you. I suspected. Your relationship just seemed, well, off. The two of you were living together, you moved into the apartment so you two could keep living together, but yet there was something wrong about it. Especially her. She never seemed totally committed to the relationship. Yet, I had the feeling she wanted to be, she just couldn't jump that last hurdle. Something kept her from trusting you, from falling truly in love with you. And you always acted like you were tiptoeing around her. Anything she said, if it had the slightest chance it might be taken wrong, you rushed in to make sure it didn't. Yet, part of you always seemed a little afraid of her. Not like you knew she'd beat you like this, but that you weren't sure you were allowed to touch her. After that, it wasn't too hard to put it all together."
"Does everyone know?" he asked. Lance sometimes couldn't wait to share knowledge with everyone.
Lance shook his head, then shrugged. "Well, I don't know for sure, but I didn't tell anyone. I just get the feeling that others might have figured it out. Noella seems like the type to figure it out, and she'd tell Marc of course. Dad told me about the movies he saw. He was telling me to warn me never to find them. And I never have. But I figured he figured it out. He might not have told Mom at first, but I'm betting he has since you've ended up here." He paused, motioning around the hospital room. "Otherwise, she would have probably tried to kill Alexa with her bare hands."
"Is she all right?" Mox interrupted to ask. She didn't have to say which one he was talking about.
"I haven't seen her," Lance confessed. "It was straight from the airport to here. But, I know she's still on the property if you were worried she'd run off. Dad has talked to her. Noella and May as well. She isn't being kept prisoner if that's what you were thinking. She's not allowed to teach right now, but that's to be expected. And, according to Roman, Dad isn't saying she'll never be allowed. I think Dad gets that she's not likely to do what she did to you to anyone else."
Mox's head was swimming, but he did catch that Alexa wasn't being kept prisoner at the SPWA, nor had she run off. He wasn't sure what the future held, but he knew he'd have to talk to her again.
"Roman hasn't talked to her, he told me on the way over," Lance admitted. "He isn't trying to be mean, he just figures the two of them never got close, like she and May did, and he can't help but want to hurt her, or at least demand she explains herself. So he's avoiding her for both of their sake."
"Are you talking about me again?" Roman asked. He came in through the door, holding one of those cardboard containers restaurants and coffee shops used. It was holding three drinks. Before Lance could answer, he put the container on the nightstand and pulled out one of the drinks, handing it to Mox. "Strawberry milkshake for you."
Mox took it and took a sip. It was cold and it felt good on his throat. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to appreciate it.
"And here's your chocolate and avocado shake," Roman said.
The flavor combination was enough to make Mox open his eyes just as Roman was handing Lance the plastic cup. "Chocolate and what?"
"Avocado." At least Lance had the decency to blush at his choice. "It's really good. Chocolate masks the avocado flavor, but the avocado gives it a really silky texture. Don't knock it until you try it."
Roman shook his head, taking the last cup out of the holder and tossing the holder into the wastebasket. "You can have it, bro. I'll stick to peach." He took a sip of his own drink. "I like my milkshakes made with fruit."
"Avocado is a fruit." Lance shook his head.
"So are tomatoes, but I don't drink tomato milkshakes," Roman shot back. "I'll eat guacamole with my nachos, but that's about as far as my relationship with avocados goes."
"I don't like them at all," Mox confessed. "They taste like they gave up. Like they were doing the best they could to be delicious and about half way through, they said 'screw it,' and threw in the towel."
Roman and Lance both laughed at this, which made Mox the happiest he'd been since showing Alexa a rebound lariat. He still had the ability to make folks laugh.
But when his shake was about a quarter of the way gone, he looked at Roman. "Please don't be mad at Alexa."
"I can't do that, Mox," Roman said, growing instantly serious. "You're my brother and she… well, she beat the fuck out of you. Maybe you can just let that go, but I can't. When you were lying on the floor of that ring, blood pouring out of you, I wanted to kill her. The only thing that stopped me was being concerned about you. I was expecting you to just die while we were waiting for the ambulance, that's how bad you looked. Maybe you're the forgiving type, but I can't be that way. I'm still angry. Maybe when you're up and around and feeling okay, I can let it go, but you aren't and I can't."
"She's not completely to blame," Mox whispered, staring at his milkshake. A brief silence fell over the room, then he lifted his gaze to Roman's. "Do you know who she is?"
Roman shrugged. "She's someone from your past, before you met us. I figured that out. And since we met you within an hour of your escape, I put two and two together. I knew about Little Suzie before then, Mox, it was all over the place especially when that book came out. So, I put it together."
"How come you didn't say anything?" Mox kept his gaze on Roman's.
"It was none of my business," Roman said. "I figured if you wanted to know, you would tell me, but you didn't. Had I known she was going to do this," he paused to motion to Mox's body. "I would have talked to her sooner and let her know I knew and she'd better not hurt you."
"No you wouldn't have," Mox disagreed. "You didn't know she was going to turn on me like she did. You probably would have been like Dad and worried that we'd hurt each other emotionally."
Roman squirmed for a moment, then shrugged, which was the closest Mox knew he'd get to Roman confessing Mox was right. He took another sip of his milkshake, then turned his attention to Lance. "Please don't tell me you're transferring back here because of this."
Lance shook his head. "I would, but Lita and Perry Saturn are both out on injury and have agreed to help Dad. They're on the tail end healing so they get around okay. They can teach."
"Good," Mox said, "I don't want you to transfer again to help. Roman having cancer was one thing, but I'm going to be just fine."
"Of course you will," Roman said. "The doctor is saying you can go home in a couple days."
Mox nodded, then looked at Roman. "Are they going to give me Lances old room? Because of the bed and all? Because you and May have been using that bed and I don't want to take it away from you."
Roman blushed. Now that he was feeling better and about ready to finish up with chemo, May and him sharing a bed was becoming less about May wanting to be close to him in case he needed her, and more about them being a couple. And their parents weren't offering any objections, likely out of gratitude to May. "Well, yeah," he admitted. "But May and I will be moving into our old room."
"Two twin beds," Lance teased. "Won't that take some of the glow away?"
Roman looked over at Lance, brows raising. "You'd be surprised at what you can do on a twin sized bed, if you have the ambition."
"Quit bragging," Lance said. "Have some sympathy for a guy who's single right now."
They laughed and then abruptly stopped and avoided looking at Mox. Well, I guess I don't have a girlfriend anymore either, he admitted to himself.
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Later that same afternoon, when Roman and Lance left and Sefa and Jen came in, Mox begged Jen for another milk shake. When Sefa suggested he'd go get it, Mox shook his head. "No, I-I just would rather Mom got it."
Sefa and Jen exchanged looks, then Jen nodded and left the room, understanding that the milkshake wasn't that important, it was giving Mox a chance to talk to his father alone. "What's up, Son?" Sefa asked, sitting down on the chair Lance had been sitting in, the one that made it easiest to look at Mox.
"You're going to let me see Alexa, right?" Mox asked. "I know you and Mom don't want me to, but I can't leave it like it is."
Sefa nodded, "I understand. And I've been thinking it over carefully. I'm not kicking her out of the camp. She's good at weight training. I'm being a little over cautious about her wrestling again, but that's me. May isn't coming out and confessing, but I know she and Alexa have practiced a few times. Which, I don't think is helping Roman get over this, but it is what it is. May doesn't seem afraid. At the very least, Alexa can go back to just being a weight trainer, but I think she'll be back into wrestling, too. Unless you want to make a huge deal out of this, nobody outside of the family needs to know."
"I don't," Mox said. His voice was raspier than normal, he'd been doing too much talking today. "But Dad, it can't end like this. We have to talk."
"I know," Sefa said, reaching out and patting him on the arm. "And the two of you will see each other soon enough, I promise."