Chapter 68

Sometimes when I look back at everything I don't know how I got the way I came to be. Other times for a second it will make perfect sense, and before I have the chance to understand it, it just goes away again. Like just a tiny shine that lasts for a second before disappearing. I can't stand thinking about it, it confuses me.

It was just this…thing. That happened to me. I don't know if there was ever a beginning or an end, I suppose it was too gradual to ever let me notice what was going on. There were certain events that led up to my turning into an actual monster. I'm actually really critical of myself now for becoming this way. I didn't mean to do it…

Probably it started when I wanted to stop wrestling. I wanted to stop wrestling. But Vince, being the asshole that he is, begged me to stay around. He was saying that he cared about me but I knew it was about money, cause since I'd come back the ratings had gone up and everything. As if he wasn't rich enough, right?

He was all testy with me when I told him that I wanted to quit, made me argue with him. I wanted to just pound him, he was bugging the hell out of me. Finally he made a compromise that he'd release me from the contract, no strings attached, as long as I just stayed until the next pay-per-view. He promised he'd come up with some really spectacular match for me and Mark to have.

So I stayed for a while, against my will, making all my wrestling stiff and making my head go through all kinds of things that I wasn't ready to deal with. This was probably how that descent of character happened with me, how it started. Just me being traumatized. I felt like a whore, just there for ratings…no one really cared if I stayed or not. And I didn't know how to deal with all that abuse, right on top of all the other shit. As a defensive mechanism I just began to shut down.

Raven really cared about me, I could tell. Perhaps he was the one person who protested my leaving again, maybe he was afraid that if I wasn't around where he could basically watch out for me I would hurt myself again. But I was changing. It got to the point where it only angered me that he wanted to around, that he cared about me. I felt crowded by that, and didn't understand. I didn't want to get close to him, I couldn't do any of that anymore, I couldn't handle it. My head wasn't balanced, I felt afraid enough as it was in a friendship with Mark, and he was my brother. It was just easier for me to keep the focus on Mark and just kind of forget that Raven existed.

I had to shut myself down, I had to stop caring about people that I knew would eventually leave me. Amber left me, she was…she was my world. And I was trying so hard to feel better over it…eventually what happened was that I wasn't so much miserable, but it just all shifted to fear, and I couldn't handle it. And I didn't know what to do, so I did the only thing I could do, just…let the coldness surround me. That's how people get the way they are…just…give up. Let the misery surrounding them just take over. And I let that happened, I let all the pain engulf me, lock me in my head, lock everyone away from me.  I didn't like doing that, I didn't like the look on Raven's face when I just kind of looked at him but couldn't bring myself to have a conversation, I didn't like the fact that I stopped calling Saphrin.

Mark was so cool about it though. He made it all bearable to survive the last couple of weeks before I left.

Raven and I had one conversation the whole last month. It made me so sad with myself for shutting him out but as soon as we were done I just continued doing it. I couldn't help it.

He offered to give me a lift to the hotel from Raw one night, the two of us leaving before the show was finished. I didn't know the city that well, didn't realize right away that he was swerving around and taking detours so that he could talk to me. By the time I saw his scheme I was too broken to do anything about it.

As we pulled out of the parking lot he asked: "Hey…remember that movie we watched? With Audrey and Humphrey Bogart and everybody?" It must've been easy for him to talk to me, staring at the road, not having to meet my eyes or something. He seemed all nervous.

"…Sabrina? Yes, I remember. What about it?" I wouldn't look at him either, so he's not really to blame.

"Remember right in the beginning? When Audrey like…turns on all the cars in the garage and wants to kill herself?" he asked. His hands tapped against the steering wheel nervously as he weaved in and out of the roads, driving all around.

"What about it?"

I turned my head to him when he didn't answer right way, I saw the crystals of tears forming in his eyelashes. "You uh…you aren't going to try that again, right?"

My heart quickened. "Huh?"

"Suicide, Kane…" he said. His mouth was tugging down into a frown, like what happens when you're trying not to cry. "You aren't gonna try to kill yourself again, are you?"

I looked down at the biker glove I wore on the burned hand, fingers pulling up the sleeve on my other arm just a little to look at the peak of one of the scars. "What, uhh…" my voice wavered, too. "What makes you ask?"

"Cause…" his forehead creased, he bit down on his lip, curled one of his hands in a fist and tapped it against the wheel a little. We coasted to a stop at a red light and he finally looked at me. "You've changed, Kane…"

He made me feel as guilty as I'd felt right after Amber died, when he'd told me how it wasn't fair that I was shutting everyone out. It was what I was doing again, though…Goddamit he made me feel like it was my fault, that I was being a prick. I couldn't fucking help it, no one seemed to understand that.

"Why…why are you doing this?" he asked me. I turned away from him, held my head.

"Raven…don't…"

"No, answer me, Kane," he was starting to get angry. The light turned green, he kept driving, put his eyes back on the road and gripped the wheel with both hands. "Fucking answer me. Why are you doing this? It's not fair."

"Because everything is fair," I mumbled in sarcasm. I felt the car speed up, grabbed the hand piece on the door, squeezing nervously.

He turned a corner too quickly, the tired screeched. My heart jumped into my throat. "Stop it!" he shouted. Jesus Christ I was driving him crazy. I swallowed my fear, looked at him, saw then the tears that were rolling down his face despite how pissed off he looked. "Where do you get off doing this, Kane?"

Oh well fuck that. I couldn't believe he'd had the balls to ask me that. "Fuck you," I spat. "This has nothing to do with you, don't even get involved."

"WHAT?" he turned another corner, the car almost went out of control. He sped down the road we were on, some residential one, I don't even know if he knew where he was or what he was doing, was just going crazy. I felt scared of him, believe it or not. A red light came into view but he didn't slow down until the last second, the tires again screeching. "How can you say that?" he turned to me and shouted, staring right into my eyes.

The car was silent, so awkward, we were only like a foot or two away from each other as he just screamed. His voice just…melted into the silence, burned it. His eyes…I'd never seen them that way before. Tinged gold from his tears, yet so shadowed, so mixed between love and hate that they just looked distant. "HOW CAN YOU FUCKING SAY THAT!?" he screamed. I took in a little gasp of breath, startled at the sharpness of his voice. "What? What KANE? DID YOU JUST FORGET ABOUT EVERYTHING THAT WENT ON BETWEEN THE FOUR OF US!?"

He didn't keep driving when the green light came on, still just shouted at me, since I couldn't bring myself to answer him. I felt the tears coming but held them back, it was becoming almost an art to me, letting my expression go dull and not showing him what I felt.

"Look! Look, Kane!" he was crying, I could hear it in his voice and see the tears flowing again. He pulled up his shirt sleeve, pointed at the scars on his arm. "Do you fucking remember this or did you forget that, too?"

I couldn't look away from it. Chills ran through my body, looking down at the skin of his forearm, pulled tight, interrupted by that slash of scar tissue. It was old now, had just gotten silvery, stuck out. My wounds were still fairly new, pink. He started shaking, I still couldn't answer him.

"What happened to you?" he asked, wincing. I looked back up at him, he let the sleeve drop back into place. He calmed down a little, wiped the tears with the backs of his hands. "I do everything for you," he said softly, "what the hell happened?"

My throat went dry, hands started to sweat. How the hell was I supposed to tell him that it was just me being dysfunctional? Especially now that I knew it was hurting him this much…

"Don't tell me it was Amber…" he said. My heart skipped when I heard her name spoken. "I'm not the fucking one who killed her, Kane, you can't just take it out on me. You were doing so good, Kane…" he was shaking, crying again. "And now…what? Do you think you're the only person who cared she was gone? Do you know what the hell it was like for us at that hospital? When you were unconscious? All we could do was worry that we were going to lose you, too, Kane. And look at you- you're alive, but that doesn't mean a fucking thing to you, anymore, does it?"

"I didn't forget," I said, nearly a whimper. "Why would I forget something like that, Scott?" I ignored the comment about being alive, it had struck something deep in me and I didn't know how to address it.

Through closed teeth he breathed heavily, baring them, tears pooling in his eyes, begging to be shed. I couldn't detect whether he was more hurt or angry. Once neither of us were talking it fell silent again, both of us awkward and pained. He turned to the wheel, tears shaken out of his eyes when he moved his head, stomping down on the gas pedal.

"You're as dead as she is," he hissed.

My heart ached. "No…" I said softly.

"Yes," he shouted. "Yes you are, Kane."

"Scott…" I stared at the road, the lines blurring by so quickly. "Slow down…" I said. I felt fear slowly building in my chest.

"Fuck you," he shouted without having to think. A moment later he just said it again, shaking his head to himself. "Fuck you, Kane. Just…FUCK YOU!"

My heart pounded, the car went faster. "Please…" I said, just that one word, that one syllable. There was nothing else for me to say, that one little thing was begging enough for him to get what I was saying. "Stop it…" I didn't look at him, was only staring ahead at the intersection that was coming up, my hand reaching down without looking away to touch the seatbelt buckle, to make sure that it was buckled. I looked at Raven, saw that he was buckled in, too. As we neared the intersection he didn't slow down. And I realized:

This is my fault.

All these mistakes I'd made, they were coming back to me. I'd had no reason to ignore him, it hadn't been his fault but I'd taken out all the shit that was wrong in my life on him. I looked at his face again, saw the tears streaming, his eyes dead, muscles all pulled tight and body stiff. Slowly I lifted my arms, shielded my head, and just waited, couldn't bring myself to look.

"I'm sorry," I said to him, not looking.

Then he said: "No, you're not."

Then the crash.

I was crying beneath my arms as we hit, before we hit, even, unable to translate everything he'd said, unable to hold it all in. He didn't make any sound, if he did it was hidden by the crash, which was all I could hear. Just…so loud, so deafening. Crashing and breaking and shattering…just noise. My body fell forward, snapped back by the seatbelt then padded by the airbag that flew out. Initially I didn't feel any pain, felt aware of what was going on, wondered if I was injured but was too shocked to notice. After all the noise ended I just felt heat, opened my eyes and lowered my arms, pushed the airbag away. My arm hurt, I looked down and saw the red, saw the pieces of glass that were sticking out of it, brushed them away with my opposite shaking hand, reached up to wipe the tears away and felt the blood on my face, then the glass in my scalp. I couldn't make sense of any of it, didn't understand why he'd done this to us, didn't get how my whole life was falling out from under me.

I turned to Raven, saw his arms folded over the steering wheel, over the puff of fabric from the deflated airbag, saw his head leaned down in his arms, saw his shoulder shaking with the sobs. I reached over and touched his shoulder, squeezing it for a moment before I tried opening my door. It was crushed a little, I leaned my wounded shoulder into it to make it open, then staggered out. Some people were already rushing over, some cars had stopped and the drivers were stepping out, staring. I hadn't seen what happened, the way they had. When I looked around I just saw the front of the car stuck on a tree, the back had been hit by another car, dented the whole side, broken then windows…that was how I'd been cut, I realized then.

People were gathered around the other side of the car, hovering around his door, opening it and lifting him out. I looked at him, saw blood running down his face, didn't know how it had gotten there since I hadn't looked. They were all holding him up, he seemed dead on his feet, slumping over. I almost cried again, shoved away a couple of people who were trying to help me.

He lifted his head really slowly, looked up and met my eyes. From the red all around his eyes were glowing, and so were the tear streaks that parted all the crimson. We stared at each other over the car for a moment before he fell, collapsed, the people all rushing over to catch him, make sure he wouldn't further injure himself. I tried to breathe, tried not to cry, tried to make sense of what was going on, tried to keep myself balanced by I found myself stumbling backward. I leaned against a different tree, slowly sank down to sit on the curb. Within minutes I heard the sirens, before they arrived I felt the pain start to throb. I groaned as I pulled my sweatshirt off, despite the fact that it was pretty cold out, let the glass caught in it fall down to the road. The bleeding wasn't so bad really, most of the cuts were pretty minor, the deal was that there were a lot of them. I shivered, reaching up, trying to brush glass out of my hair. It was fucking cold out. The sirens were getting closer, a squad car had shown up and started reporting what happened but not an ambulance or anything. The cop took a blanket out of the trunk of the car and told me to use it, but I didn't. I wiped blood away with it but didn't let it warm me.

I hated Raven so much at that moment, couldn't bring myself to pity him. I was just mad at him. And fucking freezing because of his mess, and because of mine. I hated both of us, really.

As the ambulance showed up and started nearing it began to snow. Flurries, coming down and sticking to me. Two different ambulances came, I didn't need any help getting in but Raven was really out of it. I watched them help him up. He didn't need a stretcher or anything but could barely walk on his own. I wondered somewhere in my head if he was okay, the way I was okay. Just physically, though I knew neither of us would psychologically heal from this for a long time.

I sat down on the stretcher inside the ambulance, letting the medics do their work, slap on a couple of bandages and ask me what happened. I told them what I knew, that I saw we were going to crash and protected my head, didn't really see anything. They let me know right then that I wasn't going to need any stitches, but that I needed to go get checked out by a doctor, anyway. None of them would look me in the eye, most of them stared away from me and avoided looking at any of the scars. While I noticed this, I couldn't blame them, didn't do anything about it.

At the hospital I went in, ahead of anyone who was there waiting in the emergency room just because I'd come in with an ambulance, went to a triage room where they just made sure everything was okay. They gave me some pills to ease any pain, properly bandaged my arms, asked briefly about the cut scars on my one arm. Policies, I suppose. But I assured them that I was fine, and they said that it wouldn't be necessary to keep me, and so I left. As I was leaving, I passed another triage room, a different one, where I heard screaming in a familiar voice. I turned my head to see, and just saw Raven, on a bed, kicking and yelling at the doctors while they tried to settle him down. I saw them hold him down, try to get him in restraints as another one pushed a needle into his arm. I stopped, stared, gaped. I couldn't believe what had happened to him.

One of the nurses standing there had a bloody lip, I could guess that he'd punched her or something. She looked shocked, almost frightened, and looked up at me. She saw me staring and hastily closed the curtain around the bed. With nothing more for me to see I turned back and kept walking.

At the pay phone I called a cab, not Mark. I wasn't ready for him yet, just called a cab and waited in the doorway for it to show up. I held my sweatshirt but didn't put it on, it was still all wet, not to mention that it was ripped, and that even if it was dry I thought that was quite disgusting.

When it arrived I just told him the name of the hotel, not sure where it was, not even sure where I was. I thought of Raven, kicking and screaming back in that building, how I was just leaving him there. My arm flared, and I thought: Good. He deserves it.

I can't lie. I did upset me, a lot, that I was this angry at him. I didn't want to be angry with him, he was my…friend? Were we still friends? God, I didn't know.

At the hotel, Mark was laying in bed watching TV. When I walked in a couple hours late he looked totally calm about it.

"Did you and Rave work everything out?" he asked me. Christ, it had been planned, hadn't it? I swallowed the lump in my throat and leaned against the wall. It was dark, Mark couldn't see my condition.

I sighed. "Was that planned or something?"

Mark stared thoughtfully. "Yeah. He wanted to work everything out, he said he was really worried. So…? Did you guys talk and everything?"

It took me a moment to think of what to say. Finally I just went over and sat down on the other bed, turning on the lamp. Mark looked into my eyes, then down at the bandages on the right arm, then to the scars on my left arm, which had been relatively unharmed. His eyes widened incredibly.

"What the fuck happened?"

"He drove us into a fucking tree," I mumbled, then turned the light off. "And I'm pretty tired. I'm gonna go to bed."

"Kane!" he scolded. He turned the light back on, and I threw my hand up in front of my eyes to block out the brightness. "How can you just say that? Is he okay? Are you okay?"

"I'm just peachy," I said.

Mark punched the side table in anger, the sound didn't phase me. I'd been through too much, the sound of the crash was still in my ears. "What about Scott? Jesus Christ, Kane! Is he okay?"

I shrugged. "Probably not. But he'll live."