Lethe

(n.) a river in the Greek underworld that, when drunk from, made souls forget the suffering of life.

DCU Center

Worcester, Massachusetts

"… And just so you know, my man isn't 'one of the best' right now, he is the best in the WWE right now." Lio hissed before walking out of the shot behind Bobby.

There was a brief silence before one of producers loudly yelled "CUT!" and Lio walked back over.

"I'm so sorry! I promise I'm not that mean in real life." He uttered quickly, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"Don't be silly, I haven't forgotten what the business is like. I grew up with over-the-top egos and false personas."

Gosh, that was more true than I wanted it to be.

"Oh, thank god, you're good at this, you know? For a second there, I thought I'd actually hurt your feelings."

"Well, that's why they asked me back a second time." I chuckled. Grandpa did say that the people loved me.

"Hey, I was just wondering-"

Oh no, Lio had that tone in his voice. Oh no, oh no, oh no.

"If they had that garlic bread at catering tonight? I saw you there earlier."

Oh… okay.

Did I want him to ask me out? Can't say I was interested in him, so no. But would I have taken it as a compliment? Yes, to the point where you would have been starting to toss the word "narcissistic" around. Asking some one out is the ultimate sign of: "I thoroughly enjoy the thought of being with you.", and "I thoroughly enjoy the thought of being with you." is perhaps the ultimate compliment.

"Um, yeah, they do." I answered.

"Alright, cool, I'll see you around."

And with that, Lio was out of my sight. He was on the hunt for that garlic bread, and I, well, I was just confused and slightly disappointed.

Maybe I'm just a narcissist.

"So, am I all done here?" I asked a producer as I began to walk away.

"Yeah, you did a great job, kid, maybe we'll have to have you back sometime." He gave me a grin that (looking back on it now was probably just him knowing something I didn't, but at the time) could only be described as inherently creepy.

"Well- I'll see you." I muttered before speed-walking away and headed towards the dressing room, eager to pull my eyelashes out (they were fake ones, don't worry) and take the thousand pins that were in there out of my hair. When I walked in, however, I was greeted by a person who made me rethink that whole routine.

Colby was sitting there in a chair, having scarce amounts of eye-liner and concealer put on. Camera makeup.

"Hey, I was wondering if you'd be back or not." He said enthusiastically.

Oh yeah, that's right. I see last week at the diner as a rejection of epic proportions, but he simply sees it as hanging out. We were… buddies.

This was fine, I was okay.

"Oh yeah, apparently they loved me, so he delayed the search for an uber-qualified person for a few days longer, so I could come back again."

"Did he make it up here okay?"

Aww, that's sweet of him. Grandpa had loaned me one of his cars to drive from Greenwich to Worcester, a distance that I had never driven before in a car. I had told Camille about my nerves (she has my number now, by the way, but that's a story for another time), and she must have told Colby what was happening.

"Oh, me? Yeah, I was fine. A little bit scary for the first hour or so, but it was good. I almost caused a collision only once." I replied.

"I'm positive that you didn't. I'm sure you were great."

OH MY GOD, DOES THIS MAN EVER HAVE ANYTHING NEGATIVE TO SAY?! Ahem. I'm sorry you had to hear that.

"How's Camille?"

"She's good. She would have come tonight to see you again but there's a few performance center newbies heading into NXT and the creative team wants them all to look a certain way, and she's stuck working on it." Colby answered. "Anyway, how's living in your grandparent's basement treating you?"

"Well, first off, I'm not living in the basement, I'm living in the pool-house, where I at least have my own entrance. And, well, it's- it's-"

As I struggled with how to word exactly how I felt at that moment, my mind wandered to an… incident that happened earlier in the week

"Did you know?"

"… Yeah."

I had just finished unpacking my things when there was a knock on one of the windows in the pool-house. Before I even turned around to see who was standing there, I had a strange feeling that it was someone who was, well, important to me, like my mother or my uncle. I turned around and thanked the good lord above that it was the latter; I didn't think I could handle seeing my mom at that moment. After the appropriate greetings had been said and a brief chat about how things were in Vietnam had taken place, Uncle Shane and I found ourselves sitting by the pool in complete and utter silence. I had decided to ask that question as an icebreaker of sorts, I didn't think my uncle was actually aware of my true parentage, but his answer instantly caught me off-guard.

"Wait, what?" I asked, head darting towards my uncle.

"Your mom came and saw me the night she found out she was pregnant. She said to me: 'There's no way it could be Paul's, and I don't know what I'm going to do'. I was the first person to know."

"Did you tell her to keep it a secret?"

"I didn't tell her to do anything, she made that decision on her own. And I'm not going to say that she made the right decision, but I look back and think about how good Paul was with you, he could have never matched that."

I only looked down in silence. I was… fucking furious.

"My whole life… My entire life is built on one big lie and all you have to say is that it was probably better that way?" I hissed through a clenched jaw.

There was a brief silence.

"Yeah."

I was hiding it well, but, in all honesty, I was seething. Both my fists curled up into balls and I began to stare Shane (he most definitely wasn't worthy of being called Uncle now) down.

"How could you not say anything?! What you did wasn't noble, you didn't enable me to have a good childhood, what you did was evil! You know what Mom did when she told my so-called Dad that she was pregnant with me? She trapped him! He's a good person and Mom took advantage of that! And you said absolutely nothing even though you knew about everything!"

"Even if I had my mind set on it, how was I supposed to come out with that? 'Oh, by the way, Paul, she's lying, the kid's not yours'?"

"… Yes. That's exactly how you would do it! It's called telling the truth! Jesus Christ, how could you just do that to someone?! How fucking dare you!"

I stormed off, wiping the angry tears off my cheeks, before Shane could even say anything at all.

Suffice to say, Uncle Shane and I weren't on speaking terms right now, and probably wouldn't be for the foreseeable future.

"Oh yeah, it's… tolerable. Grandpa's getting me an apartment in the city though, so at least it's not going to be forever." I answered, crossing my arms.

"Wow. That's excit-"

Colby didn't actually stop speaking. I just saw someone walk by in my peripheral vision that made me stop comprehending his words. God, that guy looked so familiar, the boots, the hat-

Oh no.

I looked towards the door and saw that they were gone, but that flash of the one person I possibly hated more than my mother was burned into my brain. Shocked and with tears in my eyes (already), I looked back at Colby.

"Was-was that…"

"He's here hyping up Johnny Gargano." Colby uttered. "I thought you knew."

I only shook my head before walking right out of the room, where to I didn't know; I just had to get out of that building. If I didn't know any better, I would've thought I was having a heart attack. Jesus, why can't I breathe? Why am I so sweaty? IS THIS TUNNEL VISION?

While in my breathless, half-blind and damp state, I initially didn't notice someone calling my name. Was it Colby coming to see if I was okay? Was this going to be our 'rom-com' moment? But to my disappointment, I realized that the voice was not Colby. I would not get a fairy-tale moment today, I would instead get a massively tragic and humiliating breakdown instead.

"Ari!"

He grabbed my arm when he got close enough, pulling it back so I finally had to look at him.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!" I screamed, yanking my arm out of his grip. We stared at each other for a moment, taking in the sight of each other, I suppose. He used to be my hero and now he was just some asshole to me, and I used to be so close to him that it was like I was his daughter when he was on the road and now I was-

Oh, right.

"What do you want from me?!"

"Can we-can we just talk for a moment?" He asked. His voice sounded so unsure, like he didn't know if this was all actually worth trying to have a conversation about it. I only scoffed in reply.

"There is absolutely nothing to talk about. I won't accept your apology and I won't take any bullshit excuse and forgive you."

"No, that's not why I came here tonight. I mean, I came here to apologize, but I'm not coming up with any excuses, I came here to talk about there being a chance of at least something that resembles a relationship between us."

Once again, I scoffed.

"Oh, so you didn't come here to make excuses, but you came here to talk that "Oh, we're still a family" bullshit?" I questioned.

"… Yeah. I know everything's fucked-up and I accept full responsibility, but we can get through this together, as a family."

I was so angry that I laughed. I don't even know where it came from, but when I came back down to Earth, I found myself holding a storage box and in the middle of a full-on belly laugh.

"We're not going to get through this together, because we're not a family. I am embarrassed of how I came to be; therefore, I'm embarrassed of you. I am ashamed to call you my father, and I hope that hurts you, because it hurts me every time I have to think about it. So, with the least amount of respect that I can possibly muster, STAY THE FUCK AWAY!"

People were… staring after that, probably thinking in their heads that I was nothing but an insane and flighty weirdo. I had gotten in his face, but he only stared at me impassively, while I, the one who, ironically, just went on the brutal tirade against another person, had tears in my eyes.

I hastily wiped them away before walking off again. I'm guessing my outburst most definitely hurt his feelings, because this time he didn't follow me. A couple of other people did, maybe Natalya and Charlotte? I honestly wasn't paying a lot of attention to whomever was pitying me, but rather how fast I could get to my car and get the hell out of there. So, I waved them off without a single word and sped off before the car door was even fully shut.

It didn't occur to me until I-90 that I had absolutely no idea where I was going. Should I turn back and sulk in my hotel room for the rest of the night? No, that would just make me even more upset. Should I go back to the arena? Oh my god, don't be stupid. Should I just drive back to Connecticut? No, I had none of my things, I would have to return to the hotel at some point in the night.

That's when an idea (that seemed like a good one at the time) suddenly crossed my mind. Cameron was in Boston, maybe we could meet somewhere and I could try and block out what just happened. Before I even considered that I might be imposing on someone or interrupting something he already had planned, I had my phone up to my ear, waiting for him to answer.

"Hey."

"Hi…" I trailed off, "Um, I just got in my car and took off from a show in Worcester, and I was just wondering, can we meet somewhere and talk in Boston tonight?"

Well, that was straight to the point.

"Yeah, sure. I'm actually at a party, do you mind coming here?"

"Not at all."

Against my better judgement, I had decided that a party was probably a good thing for me right now. Yes, me, a person who was probably in the middle of an emotional breakdown, thought that going to a party with copious amounts of drugs and alcohol was going to be perfectly safe and okay.

"Alright, I think the address is 12 Hawthorne Avenue, out in the suburbs. I'll be out front though, so if you can't find the number just look for me."

"Alright. Thanks, Cam."

"No problem, Ari."

"… So, I freaked out on him and I took off all of a sudden. I just couldn't handle being there any longer. Gosh, I hope I'm not coming off as crazy." I sighed, putting my head in my hands.

Not ten minutes after I'd arrived at 12 Hawthorne Avenue, Cameron and I were in the corner of the backyard, engaged in deep discussion and cradling beers that we weren't legally allowed to have. We were seated high on a stone fence, sitting opposite each other with both pairs of our feet hanging off the sides. For the first time in forever, I truly felt like I was a nineteen-year-old, and not some woman working a temp job at the WWE.

"Not at all. You've just been hurt, and you want to distance yourself from the perpetrator. It's nothing strange."

"That's comforting to hear. Hey, I'm sorry that I'm making you talk about your dad like he's the devil or something."

"Don't worry. My dad and I- well, we haven't been that close for a while. I guess it's a mix of all the shit went down and me going off to college and me… you know… deciding that I'm too avant-garde for Georgia Southern. I don't like talking about him behind his back, but, in the space of a year, it's like we've become strangers."

"Oh. That sucks, I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I've learned to live with it. Whenever I feel gloomy about it, I just say to myself: 'Well, he's still paying for you to be here, so he must still care about you a little.'" Cameron followed that with a chuckle, even though the sorrow in his voice was almost palpable.

Without even really thinking about it, I reached over and grabbed his hand and, when Cameron didn't immediately give me a stink-eye and pull it away, softly sighed. I didn't want to hug him eight there on that fence, but I wanted him to know that there was at least one person that had his back.

"We're both undeniably tortured souls, Cam-Cam. Now let's go get fucked-up."

A solid half an hour later

"BEND OVER TO THE FRONT! TOUCH YOUR TOES! BACK THAT ASS UP AND DOWN AND GET LOW!"

In my eagerness to forget this evening's proceedings, I had gone too hard way too fast. While downing five straight shots and chasing them down with two cups of lukewarm fruit punch afterwards, I had somehow gotten separated from Cameron. Not to worry though, I was now happily leading the crowd throughout a medley of 2000s songs.

Towards the end of a song, I stepped off the chair I was standing on and walked over to the third cup of fruit punch I was working on that I had left on a table. It was only after I had taken the world's biggest mouthful that I locked eyes with a guy across the room who was… running towards me?

"Hey! Don't drink that! Someone put something in that!" He called out. For the second time that evening, I scoffed and brushed someone off before taking another mouthful and, to my surprise, felt the strange feeling of a pill going down my throat.

Oh.

"Shit. Shit. Shit. What do I do?" I asked the random man.

"Cameron! Get over here! I found her and we got a situation!" The guy called, not even paying an ounce of attention to me. Was I slurring my words already?

Before I knew it, Cameron was standing in front of me.

"Fuck this guy. Cameron, do I make myself vomit?" I asked.

"What?"

"I said-"

At this point, it dawned on me that my speech was in fact horribly slurred, and "Do I make myself vomit?" came out more like "Derimakessevoma?".

It truly was fucking tragic.

The guy, or girl (let's not rule that out), who roofied me that night must have had access to some hardcore shit, because by the time Cameron and his friend were taking me up the stairs to the bathroom, I was completely gone.

"Why the fuck do I have whiplash? I only head-banged a couple of times." I muttered to myself, walking down the stairs.

At 6:30, my dad had asked me to come and walked the dogs with him, I accepted since, even though it was the night of my graduation, I was going away to college soon and those moments were it was just the two of us would become few and far between. I became suspicious when he started stalling me, saying things like "Oh, we've never gone this road before" and "We should sit down here". And when we finally got back to the house at 7:30, the cars lining the driveway gave it away.. So, the words that made me aware of the party were not: "SURPRISE!", but instead: "God fucking dammit, I told your mother to make everyone park at the back of the house!"

But, eager not to hurt everyone's feelings, I still acted shell-shocked when I entered my house and everyone jumped out.

Now it was 12:30 in the morning and, since my party was filled with kids who had curfews and middle-aged adults, everyone had filed out at this point and I was in my bed. However, my stiff neck had led me downstairs towards the kitchen in search of some water and an aspirin. As I got closer to the kitchen, I began to hear muffled voices coming from the back porch.

"Do you remember that time all of us piled into the one hotel room to nitpick Starrcade?"

There was laughter between two people, and, when I poked my head out from behind a corner, I saw my mom and a man standing outside, leaning close to each other. A small smile formed on my face; the two had always seemed like good friends who just had trouble showing it.

"Do you remember the Christmas party in '99?" Mom asked.

"God, sometimes it feels like it's all I ever think about. God, what a mess…" The man responded.

"A mess that turned into something extraordinary, well, at least that's what I think."

"No, don't get me wrong, so do I. It's just-"

"More difficult for you to see it that way, I know. Hey, I'm really sorry for shutting you out all those years ago."

"No, it's okay. Paul was better for her anyway, she grew up with him there and now she's going to an Ivy League school. I would've just fucked her right up."

Who the fuck are they talking about?

"No, you wouldn't have. But, I'm glad things turned out this way, I wouldn't have them any other." Mom uttered

"So, we're never going to tell them?"

"We can't. I'm sorry, but she'll be an adult soon. You can get closer to her under the pretense of: 'We're both grown-ups, let that be our thing in common.'"

"God, it's still hard to wrap my head around it. I'm really that kid's father…"

"You're her father. You're Ari's father."

WHAT THE FUCK?

My throat went dry and I could feel my heart pounding in my ears. Despite my legs feeling like they might give out, I took off running, leaving the front door wide open as I sprinted out of it, off the porch and down the driveway. I didn't stop to cry my heart out, as I was already shaking with sobs as I ran.

Despite my surprise party's beginning being a flop, there was another moment that night where I felt nothing but pure shock. But instead of being mixed with happiness and the feeling that you were loved, it was mixed with horror and disgust.

My dad wasn't my real father.

The man was my father.

He was my father.

He is my father.

My father is-

A/N: Ahahahahahaha, I don't think so. You'll finally find out the identity of He a.k.a Him a.k.a The man a.k.a Ari's real father in the next chapter (but if you've been putting all the clues together, you've probably already figured it out). In the meantime, follow, favorite and review!