Survivors of childhood sexual abuse are 10 to 13 times more likely to attempt suicide

(Plunkett A, O'Toole B, Swanston H, Oates RK, Shrimpton S, Parkinson P 2001)

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Chapter Twelve

{o}-{o}-{o}

.

"Thank god this day is almost over," Mox muttered, not quite sure if he was talking to himself, or to Seth who was driving. "I just want to get home and forget it happened."

"I know the hot water tank being broken sucked," Seth decided Mox was talking to him. "But the landlord said he'd have it fixed today and Alexa was home to let the plumbers in. Did she text you that they were finished? Or even that they arrived?"

"I don't know," Mox couldn't keep the frustration out of his voice. "I forgot my freakin' cell phone, which did nothing to help my mood."

"Well, if you want to text her to see if we have hot water, you can use my phone," Seth nodded in the direction of the cup holder where his cell phone sat.

"No, I'll find out soon enough," he muttered.

While the hot water situation and forgetting his cell phone was bad, the worst was Coach Taylor looking at him when he was done with his warm up and calling him out. "Mox, get over here."

He did, wondering if he'd done something wrong. He couldn't guess what it was. Warm up was pretty easy, they did drill work, things like jumping jacks, running in place, push ups, sit ups, stuff to get the heart going before hitting the weights. He knew he hadn't screwed any of that up.

"Is everything all right?" he asked the Coach, wishing he didn't sound so wussy. His stage persona wasn't wussy. But he thought Coach Taylor wouldn't appreciate him strolling up and mouthing off.

"As far as your work goes, it's great," Coach said. "But it's this I'm worried about." He pointed to Mox's legs that were covered with bruises, some fresh, some getting that green and yellow look. "And, because you've started wearing a t-shirt when you work out, I suspect you've got some on your chest, back, or both. What's going on? We work you, and bruises are part of the game, but not that many and not that frequently. This isn't a couple bruises you got one day because you were a little clumsy, these are a lot of bruises, gotten over a long period of time. Is something going on you need to tell me about?"

According to my girlfriend, it's foreplay. He should have been thinking of excuses, but he hadn't. "I-I don't know," he said, shrugging his shoulders. "They don't hurt or anything," he added, which was a lie. It was nothing he couldn't handle, but a number of them did have that aching feeling, like whatever part they were on were having a minor headache.

Coach Taylor studied him carefully. "I want you to go to medical."

Mox wasn't going to argue. He reported to medical, where he was poked a few times, asked several questions about his diet and other seemingly trivial things and had blood drawn, which would be sent to a lab that day. He found himself wishing the Nurse Practitioner would have asked him, "Do you and your partner play a few S&M games?" Because then he could have said, "Yes, we do." But to say it would be embarrassing. My girlfriend likes to beat on me a bit before we get started. I know it's weird, but it's our thing, so let's just leave it at that. He felt bad lying. Especially when they told him he could go back to training, but if he felt at all fatigued, he should sit down for a few moments, and if that didn't work, report back to medical.

He knew word had gone around among the trainers and coaches, because no one pushed him today, no one yelled, "Is that the best you got, Mox? And here I heard you were tough." Instead, everyone seemed to be taking it easy on him. He did a lot of practice promotion work, which he really didn't need and he knew it was because they were worried about him. He just prayed the tests would show everything was normal and everyone would leave it alone.

Jesus wept, had I known all this was going to go down, I would have worn sweatpants! But, he'd been finding the shirt sweaty enough, he could imagine how hot and tiring it would be to be wearing sweatpants. Maybe I need to get a suit like the Undertaker or Kane? I'd still need a long sleeved shirt to wear over it.

Seth had asked why he'd been singled out after warm ups, and Mox had told him a half lie that one of his blood tests for the sign up physical had gotten screwed up so they needed to retake it. Seth didn't question it, and Mox was glad. If he'd talked about the bruising, Seth would have figured it out. After seeing Alexa slap that rose across his face, he'd taken to staring at Mox's bruises and Mox knew what he was thinking.

When they got home, the house smelled like chicken and onions and Seth went right over to the counter and pulled the lid off the crock pot. "She made that thing with the chicken and vegetables," he said, looking positively gleeful. Then he hurried over to the sink and turned the faucet on. "And we've got hot water again!"

Mox nodded, but he was listening elsewhere. Alexa was heading to the kitchen, but she was also talking to someone and it didn't sound like a friendly conversation. "No, you listen to me, you fucking bitch. I don't know who you are, I don't know what you want, but don't you ever call this fucking number again, do you understand?"

She walked into the kitchen and Mox saw with horror, she was talking on his phone. "No, I won't give him a message, I told you that before you trashy little whore. And I will erase every text you send, and I'll answer every call you make so you can't leave voicemail. Fuck off!"

"Alexa!" Mox came closer to screaming at her than he ever had before, in three strides he was across the room and tried to pull the phone out of her hands. Who is she talking to? Not Mom, please don't let it be mom. Or Donna, or Amber, or better, let it be a wrong number!

Alexa dodged his grab, and turned, swiping the phone to turn it off.

"Alexa, give me my phone!" Mox said.

Alexa glared at him. "Don't you dare get upset with me!" she ordered, handing him the phone. "I'm not the one who's fucking around."

"I swear to god, I am not fucking around, Alexa!" he said. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Seth slinking out of the room. He looked at the screen to see who the caller had been and groaned. "Alexa, Raven and I are just friends. She's like a little sister, for god's sake!"

"Uh-huh," Alexa said, and her eyes narrowed. "Well, I was supposed to be your little sister once, if I remember, and you had no problems fucking me!"

"That's unfair and you know it," Mox said, fighting the flush of shame and anger that roared through him whenever he thought of the movies he'd made with Little Suzie. "When I met Raven, she wasn't interested... intimate relationships. For all I know she still feels that way. I was celibate by choice back then and we hit it off, we became friends."

"And both fixed that little celibacy problem?" Alexa seethed.

It was too much after the day he'd had. First he'd had to go to medical because of her, and now he might have lost one of his best friends. He wasn't going to sit down and be insulted and humiliated by her. "Alexa, I'm going for a walk," he said, his teeth clenched. "I need to get away."

"Be sure you take your phone so you can call your cyberfuck!" she called after him as he slammed the door behind him.

.

He walked down the street, to the little shopping center. For a moment, he was tempted to go to the beer isle. and grab a six pack, but he couldn't exactly sit outside and drink beer, and beer was on the "Really shouldn't drink that" list. So was wine and that's all you could sell in grocery stores. So, he bought a cup of Mountain Dew he'd poured from the soda area and a banana. When he was paying, he stared at the cigarettes, almost tempted to buy a pack, something he hadn't wanted to do since he first moved in with the Reigns and Dad had taken him to the doctor. But, he was able to resist that temptation.

Outside were three benches, two in front and one at the side. He went over to the side and looked at his phone. He had plenty of bars, so he called Raven.

Raven answered but not with her usual, "Hey Mox!" "Listen you little-"

"It's me, Rave, it's me."

He heard a whooshing escape of breath from her lungs. "Mox, who the hell was I talking to today?"

"Uh, her name is Alexa, she's staying with me, because she has a broken arm." It is the truth, he thought. I don't have to tell her I'm having sex with her.

"She told me you and her were in a relationship," Raven said, and Mox could hear the heat still simmering behind the words. "I tried to tell her I didn't care if you're both fucking on the front lawn of the White House every night, while all the members of Congress were playing 'Happy Days Are Here Again' on the Kazoo. I said I was just a friend and she kept going off on me."

"She's a little possessive," Mox said.

"No shit, ya think?" Raven snapped.

"I'm sorry," The weird thing was that Mox had no idea she felt possessive towards him. I mean, they hadn't even sat down and agreed they were only seeing each other. For all he knew, she left the house every day and met some other guy and had sex with him. He hoped she didn't, but they never formally said she couldn't.

"You don't owe me an apology, she does," Raven said, the anger in her voice slowly slipping away. "and I think I have about as much chance of that as I have of winning the WWE World Heavyweight championship tomorrow before breakfast."

"Where are you wrestling, now?" Mox asked to change the subject.

"I go from here to there," Raven admitted. "I was in Japan recently."

"That's cool," Mox said and he meant it. Japan had some great wrestling.

"Yeah, it was fun. And, because I speak Japanese, I had a bit of an edge. Being completely unable to write it screwed me over a few times." Raven gave a short laugh, then grew serious. "Look, Mox, despite what your girlfriend accused me of, I only called for two reasons, one to see how you were doing."

"I'm doing good," Mox said, taking a sip from the cup of soda.

"Except that you have lousy taste in women," Raven said. "Sorry, that was rude."

"No, it's okay," Mox said. "It sounds like she was really out of control today. It's natural that you'd have a bad impression of her. She-she's been through a lot in her life, you know?"

"Oh," Raven said, and then went quiet. Raven wasn't stupid and she had been a big supporter when all the shit about his past was going down in the media. Mox thought he could hear her brain working and putting it all together.

Shit, this isn't what I want to happen! "And what's the second reason?"

Raven hesitated, something she rarely did and Mox got worried. She's trying to find the right words. "Just spill it, Rave."

"Okay, I heard from May, who heard it from Roman that you haven't been to your parents place for dinner in over a month."

Had it really been that long? Mox recalled calling his folks a couple times to let him know he wouldn't be up on Sunday because he was so tired from working all week. But it didn't seem like he'd been doing it all the time. Then he realized the last time he'd been up there, was when he went with Alexa. I've been avoiding Dad because he doesn't approve of Alexa. Still, it seemed odd that Raven would be calling to chastise him. He would have expected a call from Lance or Sefa, using the excuse that Mom was worried they hadn't seen him lately. But Raven? And May told her? Since when did family dinner become such a big deal? A wave of dread, cold as ice, rolled over him. "Is Lance okay?"

"Lance is fine," Raven said. "But you're catching on, there's something going on in your family and they were hoping to see you to talk about it. And it's important enough that I'm calling you to tell you."

"Raven, you're scaring me. What's going on?" He had the cup in his hand as if to take another sip, but it was as if his arm was frozen.

"I don't really know," Raven admitted. "May knows, but she and Roman are close and we both know it. But she wouldn't tell me, she just asked me to try to persuade you to come."

"I'll call and let them know I'll be up this weekend," Mox said.

"Good. And Mox?"

"Yeah?"

"Whatever it is, it's family. So, I'm going to suggest you leave your girlfriend home, unless you're engaged or something." Raven said. "Honestly, I'd leave Seth home too. I know you and Roman consider him to be a brother, but he's not a son to Sefa and Jen, and technically, he's not your brother."

.

He called his family right after he and Raven hung up. He thought about calling the home phone, but then changed his mind and called Sefa's cell phone.

Sefa answered it on the second ring, "Mox!" he said, his voice sounding happy to be hearing from him. Hell, it sounded damned near jovial.

Yeah, something is wrong, Mox thought. "Hey Dad, look, I'm sorry I've been a shit lately, I shouldn't have waited so long, but I'd love it if I could come to Sunday dinner. That is, if I'm invited."

"Mox, you are always invited," Sefa said. "Talk about timing, I was thinking about calling you and asking if you were okay. Glad to know you are."

"Yeah, I'm just great," Mox said. "And I'll be up Sunday, I promise."

"Good," Sefa's voice still sounded so carefree and happy that it was unnatural and Mox could sense it was killing him to keep it up. "You think you'll bring Seth or perhaps another friend?"

He means Alexa, "No," Mox said, trying to make his own voice sound just as carefree. "I thought it would just be me."

"Well, we look forward to seeing you. Your Mom will be delighted!"

.

When he returned home, he was too worried to argue with Alexa. He let her yell at him about Raven, saying nothing. And he let her beat on him that night, as hard as she wanted.

The only thing he did not do was have sex with her. He just wasn't in the mood and nothing would get him there. She finally gave up, moved on the bed as far away from him as possible, as if he were radioactive and fell asleep.

.

The next day as they were heading to FCW, he asked Seth if he could borrow the car Sunday and explained that something was up with his family, that he had no idea what it was, but he had better go up alone. Seth quickly agreed.

Alexa got her cast off that day too, which he felt bad about, because he should have been more excited but all he was able to do was to pretend to be very excited, assuring her as Summer had, that she would build it back up in no time at all. And smiling when she talked about how wonderful it was to be able to scratch and not to have to go through rubber gloves and trash bags in order to work with water.

The rest of the week passed in a blur. Training, eating and sleeping. He and Alexa had sex at least once, and managed to perform with enough satisfaction that Alexa wasn't upset. But, he felt outside of himself while it was happening, which was a familiar feeling to him. Well, maybe not to him. But to Timmy it was old home week. Fucking on autopilot.

.

He knew Alexa wouldn't be happy about not being included in Sunday dinner, and he just wasn't up to explaining it to her. So, he took the coward's way out and left before she woke up. He left a note for her, which he knew wouldn't calm her down, even though it was the truth. Something big was up with his family and he felt he had to go there and it was serious enough that he felt he should go alone. He also left her cash so if she and Seth decided to go to one of the restaurants close enough to walk to, she could get something to eat.

Leaving so early, meant that he got there early. He saw Lance's car there, which surprised him. Lance was still in college, but he had been going to ESU so he could wrestle in ESW. New York wasn't close enough to just drive home for the weekend, and ESW held shows every Saturday night. Roman's car was there too, but that wasn't surprising, Roman probably flew to training and left his car at home, knowing it was hard to have a car on the road.

The SUV for the camp was there, but the smaller Honda their mother drove was gone, which made Mox assume that Mom had gone to church. Maybe with Marc, if Noella had decided to stay home with the twins, both of them way too rambunctious to tolerate church.

He walked into the mudroom calling out, "Hey, I'm home!" He went to the kitchen, expecting to see Sefa and Lance, heads bent over Lance's latest and greatest laptop, studying the videos from the previous night's show.

Instead the table was empty, except for two mugs and a plate with two cinnamon rolls on it. Sefa and Lance both rose when they saw him, Lance running over and throwing his arms around him. Hugging him tightly.

A little too tightly. As if Mox was a lifeline he desperately needed. Mox hugged him back, looking over at Sefa, who was on his feet, smiling and saying how happy he was to see him and wasn't it great he showed up early.

"Yeah," Mox said, when Lance had released his stranglehold on him. "So, uh, how's it going?"

"It's...going," Sefa said, giving his son a hug. He motioned to the plate on the table. "Look, Cinnamon rolls." He walked over to the coffee pot and poured a mug of coffee for Mox.

"Since when are there cinnamon rolls by the time breakfast is halfway finished, never mind by the time Mom's off at church?" Mox asked, sitting down at his old place, the chair next to Roman's, where Sefa had put his coffee cup.

"Your mom made extra knowing you love them," Sefa said.

"And you two didn't snarf them the moment she went to church?" Mox knew whatever was going on was serious. "Knowing I would cover for you? What the heck, guys, what's going on?"

Lance looked away, staring at the wall, refusing to look at Mox. Sefa looked down at the table. "I didn't want to tell you until after dinner," he said. "Your mom and brother made me promise we could have a Sunday dinner."

"Well, I think that's blown out of the water," Mox said. "Considering the way you two are acting, it's pretty clear nothing normal is going on. And which brother? I don't think it's Lance, because he's doing a terrible job of avoiding looking at me. Marc?"

Sefa drew in a deep breath. "Roman."

"Roman's home?" For a moment, Mox's heart rose. He never seemed to have enough time to spend with Roman. Then he frowned. "Wait a moment, Roman is home? Why?" His mind poured over the texts they'd sent each other. They were usually brief, but Mox was busy with training and Roman was supposed to be too.

"He went to Minnesota for his physical," Sefa said. "And, well, uh..."

That's when Lance looked over at Mox, eyes filled with tears. "He's got cancer!" he burst out. "Leukemia, just like I did!"

Mox's coffee cup, which he'd been holding, preparing to sip from, slipped from his hands and fell onto the table. It didn't break, but it did fall on the side, spilling hot coffee on the table and down into his lap.

Author's Notes: Some may consider this a spoiler, but in these times, I don't think it is. Roman does have cancer in this story, but he won't die of it. The reasons why I gave it to him will become clearer as the story goes on, but no, I'm not going to kill him.

Not much else to say. We're doing our best to stay safe, and I hope you are as well. I still wish people would stop hoarding all the paper products and disinfectant cleaners, but I don't think that's going to happen until we have a vaccine and everyone's gotten it.