Chapter 69

In the morning Mark made me call Saphrin and tell her what happened. I didn't want to, I figured the hospital would've done it already and so why should I? But Mark made me feel bad about it, was saying that they probably wouldn't tell her much, that since she was now almost eight months pregnant she wouldn't be able to come out and see him. So finally I called, sometime late in the morning, not knowing what would happen. She sounded like she was already awake and about when I called, I heard Evan laughing in the background and knew she had probably been up all morning with him.

By the tone of light in her voice I knew she hadn't heard.

"Uhh…Saphrin?"

Could my life be any more battered?

"Kane? Hey, how've you been?" she sounded clam, not excited, probably thought I was finally making amends and didn't want to patronize me or something. She knew it would've scared me off if I was trying to overcome everything. While that was respectable, it wasn't the case.

"Uhh, fine, Saph," I said to her, just to be pleasant. But I didn't want to just chat, there were things I needed to tell her. I thought of when Amber died, when I wanted so badly to be the one to tell her because it wouldn't made it just a tiny bit easier, but when she and Raven came in to see me I just couldn't do it. "This is about Scott," I said to her.

Dead silence on the other end for a moment. "Umm…you haven't heard?" I asked her. She must've known it was serious since I hadn't called him "Raven".

"What's going on?"

"Saphrin…Scott and I were in a car accident last night."

She gasped. "Oh my God," her voice thickened, she sounded like she was going to cry, then like maybe she would pass out or something. "Oh my…God," she repeated. "Is he all right?"

I sighed. "Mostly? I don't know, really. I don't think he's physically injured, he was conscious at the accident and all, but then like…he was…" how should I word it? I paused. "Well I mean if there's anything wrong with him it's all in his head…"

"Kane," she said firmly. "What happened? Why are you saying that? Oh my God should I come?"

"No," I said quickly. "No, don't come. You're pregnant and all, don't worry yourself. Mark's gonna go to the hospital and see if he's okay, and I'll tell you."

"Why don't you?"

"Because."

"Because, what?" she demanded. I groaned.

"Saphrin he drove us into a tree-"

"So you're not going to talk to him?" she interjected.

"-on purpose. I don't want to talk to him. I'm pretty pissed off actually."

She bit back a gasp again. "My fucking God, Kane, when are you going to tell me what happened!?"

"First- calm down," I told her. I could just see her throwing a tantrum with that huge swollen womb of hers. I didn't want her to hurt herself. I sat down on the bed, leaned back, rubbed my eyes. "Just sit down, relax, don't get all worked up about it, okay?"

"Kane, how can-"

"Saphrin!" I was scolding her. "Listen if you don't calm down you're going to hurt yourself, or your baby, and I don't want that happening and I don't think Scott would want that, either, okay? Just sit down and listen to me for a second, okay?"

She sighed, paused for a moment. "Okay, okay. Tell me what happened."

I paraphrased it to just be nicer on her, didn't want her hearing the details of her insane lover. "We were driving, he started yelling at me, we got all heated at each other…and then he just…drove into an intersection, hit a tree, we were hit on the other side…"

"Are either of you hurt?" she sounded sincere and concerned. I liked that she cared about me.

"No," I said. "No, not really. I cut up my arm pretty bad but nothing serious. I got out of the car myself, and I watched some people help Scott. He was bleeding…on his head…" I was zoning out. It took me a moment to remember what was going on, and finished telling her. "And uhh…people were helping him out of the car but he was conscious, and then collapsed…he didn't need a stretcher or anything and got in the ambulance with some help…so I think he's pretty much okay…"

"Well then why is he still in the hospital? Why aren't you?"

"Because…" I closed my eyes and saw it again, and heard him screaming. "I don't know. He freaked out. I saw him screaming and trying to fight all the doctors…"

"Oh my God," she kept saying, and started crying. I felt kind of bad about it, at the same time felt so subdued and dead that the pain wouldn't register, I couldn't make the transition between the knowledge and the feeling. I knew she was hurting, it was a fact, I couldn't make myself feel it though.

"He's okay," I told her, trying to think of some white little lie to tell her. "Listen, he probably just hit his head and got disoriented, you know? Don't underestimate him, you know he's capable of things like that."

"I have to come see him," she choked out. "Please, Kane, will you go see him? I need to know…" she was sobbing. "I need to know…please, Kane, for me? Go see him? I can't…"

The guilt was rising in my chest like a sickness. How could I saw no to her? "Listen, Mark is at the hospital right now, I can just wait for him to come back and then I can tell you what's going on, okay?"

"You want me to wait?" she whimpered.

"…Yes?"

"Kane!" she shouted. "Why can't you just do this for him? You're his friend! Please, Kane, you have no idea how much he hates hospitals, it'll make everything so much better…"

"But-"

"Why can't you just do this one fucking thing? For me?"

"You…you don't understand…"

"WHAT don't I understand? He's my fucking husband! Kane, of all the goddamn things I've done for you, you can't do this one thing?!"

She had a point. "Well what the hell do you want me to do?"

"Go talk to him! Apologize, I don't know!"

"Apologize?" the anger popped open inside me. "APOLOGIZE? I'm not the one who decided to drive into a tree, Saphrin!"

"No," she snapped, "but you're the one who broke his heart!"

Silence.

My heart pounded, skipped a beat. She didn't say anything, her crying had come to a halt but I could hear her breathing. I cursed her ability to read me so well. My hand squeezed the receiver, my arm shook a little.

"I have to go," I said coldly to her. We both hung up the phone at the same time.

In anger I started to tear the room apart, punching the walls, throwing the phone, smashing a lamp. I didn't care that I would have to pay for all of it, I wasn't thinking of that at the moment. I kicked one of the beds, tore the pillows apart, finally collapsing with a scream of anger. I ripped the bandages off my arm, looked down at the cuts and screamed again. Fucking Raven.

Hell no, I wasn't going to go see him. Saphrin was right, I did probably owe her, but…no way. No fucking way.

My arm stung, not as badly as the suicide cuts at all, but…god. I hate him. I loved him, I was upset that he had done this to us. Bastard. If I was ever going to talk to him again I needed to give it time, avoid him until I wasn't angry with him anymore. I mean…give or take a couple of seconds, a few feet, either of us could be dead. Stupid fucking Raven.

After a while I picked myself up, walked into the bathroom to splash water on my face, to calm down. As soon as I got in there I lost my focus, seeing nothing by my reflection. I stared only for a moment before punching the mirror, in the dead center of my reflected face. The glass sliced up my knuckles but that didn't keep me from doing it again. When I could make nothing of the reflection other than a smeared mass I fell back, sat on the floor, leaned against the bathtub.

I was bleeding all over myself.

I couldn't cry. There was something dry and hollow inside, that hurt me. I wanted to cry, just…couldn't. I didn't know what to do, staring down at my torn open knuckles, shaking. Where was Mark when I needed him? When would he come? Had he even known about the car accident before I'd told him? Had he felt it? Maybe not because I'd remained fairly calm through the whole ordeal…

Or was I losing him, too?

Fuck, my hand hurt so much, I could see slight bruises forming, though most of the blood had pushed out. I flexed my fingers, gritted my teeth against the sting. I needed help, though I knew I probably wouldn't ask for it. I just wanted Mark to show up and fix everything for me. I leaned my head back, closed my eyes, and just…asked for him. He would come- I would make him come. He had to, he must've felt it if I was trying to get his attention, he got it all the time even when I wasn't doing it on purpose. He fucking had to come. I could even feel the waves, pushing through my head, rippling out. He would come.

I was bleeding.

He would come, and I was bleeding. This is what I knew. Mark would fix everything, the way he always did.

I started getting dizzy, felt like I was going to pass out. Not because of the blood loss, I hadn't even lost that much blood. Just because of all the stress in my head, because of…everything. I let myself slip away as I lay there, zone out. My body never actually shut down, my mind was just gone, I was lost in catatonia when I heard Mark enter the room, burst through the door and come sit down beside me. I wasn't paying attention as he cleaned my hands, held a towel against them. It took me a while to come out of my head, to thank him, to realize what had happened. I was so lost in my thoughts that it hadn't even registered.

When I opened my eyes, lifted them, locked on Mark's, I swore I could see past him, see huge black wings, made of immaculately dry feathers, spread out behind him. It was strange to see that. I closed my eyes for a moment, when I opened them they were gone, when I opened them I realized he was shaking me by the shoulders.

"Mark…" I mumbled.

"Are you okay?" he helped me up. It was morning still, he brought me into the disaster area of a hotel room and made me sit down on one of the beds. I told him I was fine, he told me to calm down. I asked about Raven.

"He's uhh…" Mark's eyebrows came together. "He's out of it, you know?" I nodded slowly.

"You should call Saphrin and let her know how he's doing…"

"Why don't you?"

I groaned. "I don't want to talk to her."

He narrowed his eyes, didn't have to ask me why, sensed what I was feeling. Finally he shrugged. "Sure. Listen, I'll call her if you can get our things together and out to the car. We have to get going, you know?" I agreed, was packing up my things and his, cleaning up the room the best I could without having to fix anything I'd broken. Mark talked with Saphrin, I could hear what he was saying.

"Hey sweetie," he said to her. "I just saw Scott…no, he was all disoriented…Kane? Yeah. …I think he'll be fine…well the thing is, he hit some orderlies and stuff, and they want to keep him for a while, and he might need to be there for a while, too…uh-huh…" I'd had enough of it, didn't feel like listening to them, went into the bathroom to double-check that I'd picked everything up.

It's like that line, from that movie Angel Heart. No matter how cleverly you can sneak up on a mirror your reflection always looks you in the eye…

My reflection was cracked, even though they were split leveled and broken, my eyes still locked on each other, I still had to see them and realize what I'd done. I'd driven my two best friends out of my life, I'd driven Raven out of his mind. I didn't want to be causing damage, honestly, I didn't want to be hurting others as I'd been hurt. But…it wasn't my fault. Nothing was ever my fault! Life had just screwed me over so many fucking times…I almost punched the mirror again as I stared, taking a second to calm down, then rushing away, grabbing our bags, and heading for the parking lot.

I never went to visit Raven in the hospital, and I never called Saphrin again after that. I never really talked to anyone except Mark, and lived like a zombie until I was finally allowed to leave.

The last match was at Armageddon, Vince's brilliance decided that it should be an inferno casket match or some bullshit. Not just locking the opponent in the casket, but you had to set it on fire. How perfect.

Actually, when I take a second to step outside my cynicism I know it was a pretty bitchin' match, that the fans really enjoyed it, that it was a good grand finale. But I don't want to admit that, I was pissed off and didn't even want any part in it.

Mark won, of course. I hated myself during the match, it was one of those few matches that made me feel again, that really challenged me, got the blood pumping. Made me want to stay, so I got angry that I knew I wasn't. Stupid Kane, always unable to make up his mind, stupid Kane who gets attached to everything. The match went on for around a half hour, lots of technical wrestling, lots of hardcore. I got busted open a couple times, I gave Mark permission to hit me where I'd gotten cut in the car accident, so that it would open right up. I busted him open, too, hit him with the ring bell and split a line right down his forehead.  All the adrenaline was good, to feel that pain, then to see that I could do that to him. Inwardly I was kind of pissed at him, not anything specific, but it was one of those few times that I felt I could have vengeance for everything he'd ever done to me.

Fans don't realize that sometimes when Mark and I wrestle- we're really fighting. How couldn't we?

He locked me in the casket after a while, I pretended that I was unconscious after he hit me with the stairs. When he set it on fire I opened my eyes, felt my heart pounding. The heat was all around, yet all I could see was black, I could hear the flames cracking and also the crowd…I felt genuinely scared. To feel it and not see it was something I'd never felt before, and didn't enjoy that. No masochism made me enjoy it.

Afterward, backstage, everyone was saying goodbye to me, congratulating me and Mark on the match, saying that I'd had a great career. A few asked if this was really the end, if I would ever come back. I didn't answer, because I really didn't know. But just then I needed to be alone, I wanted to go home, I wanted to just sleep and calm down.

I went to the apartment, by the time I got there it was two or three in the morning. It had started to snow, I was cold, depressed, sore, when I got inside. The place was so empty…

I slept alone, woke up feeling sore still from the match, filled with bitterness when I looked out to see the snow. It was almost Christmas…

Like our anniversary, I thought. A time when I would buy them presents. That was when all of this had started, when I tried to kill myself, when I got worse- then got better. When everything got fucked up even worse. Even though I knew it had screwed my head up the previous time I was wondering if I should get them Christmas presents…

For most of the morning I was in bed, got up around noon or so. No matter how much time I had spent in the apartment or how long it had passed since what happened, I still wasn't used to how empty it was, how cold, how silent. It didn't make any sense, any of it.

On Christmas I visited their graves, even though there was snow on the ground. I brushed the snow off of the headstones, froze my ass off as I stayed there for a while, talking to them, telling them that I loved them, and Merry Christmas, and about random shit. Also stood by Roman's grave for a moment, wondered if the androgynous person celebrated. Didn't matter, I was just amusing myself with stupid things.

As I was leaving I passed Lydia's grave, stopped there for a moment, staring. Obviously I'd never met her, but I loved her. I loved her because I knew she must have been as beautiful as her daughter, I loved her because if it weren't for her, I would've never had Amber. Even if Amber had caused all my pain in a way, I wouldn't have given anything up for her. The time I'd had with her meant more to me than life itself.

Mike must've been lonely, too.

We were both in the same situation, kind of. Yet neither of us were open about it, neither of us talked much, neither of us extended a hand to the other. We never really talked to each other, every now and then ran into each other here or there and said hello…

I hadn't realized what I was doing until I found myself at the door of his apartment, knocking. When he opened the door he looked so aged, so tired. He found it in himself to smile, welcome me in, offer me a drink. The table was set for one in the dining room, next to the window, a glass and a bottle of wine on the table. He was so much more graceful about all of it than I was.

He set a place for me, served food, poured me a glass of wine. We didn't say much to each other but I knew we both appreciated the company. Finally, after drinking all the wine between us, after finishing eating, after the sun had gone down and we were filled with silence, he said:

"How've you been holding up?"

I laughed out of nervousness. "Not too good, how about you?"

He laughed too, creasing forming near his eyes, eyes filling with tears even though he was chuckling. "Horrible."

We talked about our wives and about our daughters, he talked about his granddaughter and I told him a little about my mother. There we were- two miserable men who'd seen nothing but loss, who were laughing at how pathetic they were. The more we talked about how sad it all was, the funnier it became, the more bottles of wine he popped open, the drunker we got, the funnier it was that all the people in our families were dead. Of all the times I'd hung out with him and Amber, we'd never been this jovial.

After a couple of hours we were both drunk, both talking about it, him telling me about when Lydia died, me telling him about when I found Amber. It was hilarious, I was laughing hysterically when I told him about how I walked into the kitchen and fell onto my knees. He told me how hysterical it was when he almost set his house on fire when Lydia died. As funny as it all was, as much as we were both laughing, we were both crying also.

I spent the night there, in the morning we had breakfast, neither of us really talking, not mentioning our conversation from the night before. After that I went home and never talked to him again.

At home it was quiet, that's the only way I could describe it. I pretty much just worked out and watched television, talked to Mark on the phone. Now and then I would go shopping, buy clothes and waste money just to pass the time, go grocery shopping, buy new CDs to listen to while I worked out cause I got tired of all the ones I already owned. I had nothing to do, I was bored. Mark came over a few times when he was in the area, I made sure to watch Raw for him every week.

When February came around I was shocked, hadn't really realized how long had gone by until I turned on the news one morning and saw the date. Pathetic, isn't it? That I didn't even know what day it was. When I saw that day it had been February 7th. A fucking week until…

I freaked out, couldn't breathe, broke down and cried for a while. I did all kinds of exercises to calm myself, tried to pull off some breathing techniques that Mark had showed me. Finally I called him on the phone, cried to him for a while. He consoled me, told me to relax, that it would be rough but that I would live through it. After talking me down for a while I felt better. I tried to hold onto his words for the next few days.

On the night of the ninth I couldn't sleep. I didn't end up sleeping, on the tenth I went out and bought roses. I brought the roses to her grave, left them in the snow, tried not to cry because it was so goddamn cold and that would've only made it worse.

Being there made my whole body hurt, just thinking about all this shit, knowing that it had been almost a year made me lose my balance. When I got home I called Mark.

"Everything okay?" he asked when he answered the phone. I wasn't crying, but was probably about to, my stomach was in knots and I felt like I would vomit.

"Mark…umm…" I rung my hands, paced around. "Can I stay with you for a couple days? I don't want to be alone," I told him. Similar to what I'd said to Saphrin, no? With Mark it was much different, though, he understood inside and out.

"Oh, Kane…" he sounded as pained as I was. "Yeah. I'll get some time off. You go right ahead, I'll get there as soon as I can, okay?"

When we hung up the phone I felt strangely at peace, yet so frightened. I probably broke a handful of traffic laws trying to get to the airport, so frantic, feeling incomplete. I felt scared to be by myself.

Almost a fucking year.

I didn't want to be alone.