Um, I don't know if this is too short but I can always add to this...
++++
He woke up to the sound the ringing phone next to his head, a night of partying isn't going to do anything good for his hurt knee but it doesn't matter, he won't be back with the WWE for a while, so why not make the most of his paid vacation?
He searched for the phone in the mass of covers around him, finally feeling the hard plastic wrapped in his sheet, he pulls it out and brings it to his ear.
"Hello?" He rubbed his eyes as his fingers adjusted to the afternoon light.
"Bubba, I need to ask you a favor." Her voice isn't cheerful, she sounds tired and upset.
"Lita? What's wrong?"
And then he hears her crying, now, he usually hates when women cry, he doesn't know how to comfort them, doesn't know what to say or do but he knows Lita, if you continue on with whatever she needs, she'll stop and get through it. She's tough like that but, today, she's not stopping.
"Trish... Bubba, she tried to kill herself yesterday and I don't know who else to call and..." Her voice broke and she began to sob. This was getting to be too much, this was turning into another nightmare.
Bubba shushed her, even though he was beginning to feel the same as she. "She's going to be alright, is she in the hospital? Is she okay?"
"No, that's the thing. She checked out last night, flew to Stamford, quit the WWE and now I think she's going home and she didn't even tell me she was leaving the hospital. I don't know if she's planning anything or... Oh god, Bubba, I'm so scared."
"Don't worry, Lita, okay? She'll be okay." Bubba threw the covers off of him and slipped out of bed. He grabbed a pair of pants from the pile of clean clothes next to him and slipped them on, along with a clean white shirt and his jacket.
"Where are you?" He asked, as he grabbed his wallet from the top of the mantle of his fireplace in his bedroom.
"I'm in Detroit..."
"Okay, I'll get on a plane and be there and..."
"No!" She exclaimed.
No?
"What do you mean 'no'?" He scratched his head, confused at her outburst.
"I need you to be there... to talk to her." She expected yelling but there was only a pause at the end of the line. It wasn't short, it was terribly long and it seemed to stretch on for hours. "Bubba?"
"I can't do that... I... I'm sorry, Lita but with... Ann." He felt that stupid stutter of his, whenever he was upset, come on. "I'm sorry, baby girl but I w-w-wouldn't even know what to say t-t-o her."
She sighed, she knew that this was a last resort and that he'd probably say no but she had to give it a try and it failed. She sniffled and pulled the car out of the parking lot, back into traffic.
"It's okay, I've gotta go then. I'll see you later, Bubba." She quickly punched the end button and threw the phone on the passenger seat, she couldn't let him hear her cry. She knew how hard bring up Ann was and she didn't want to give him anymore grief.
"Wait, Lita..." He heard the click and the silence on the other end. He deeply sighed as he set the phone back onto its cradle, he couldn't do this over again, he hoped she would understand that.
As he slipped back into bed, he truly hoped that he was making the right choice. Trish was a sore spot for him, she had used him up and spit out the carcass of Bubba Ray but she was still a person, who seemed to have changed for the better in the recent years.
He pulled the covers over his head and tried to fall back to sleep but she was still there in the back of mind.
"God damn it, I'm so going to regret this." He grumbled as he pushed the covers off of him. He ran to his hall closet and pulled out a duffel bag, he threw some clothes from the clean pile next to his bed into the bag, zipped it up and grabbed his black boots.
"Toronto, you better fucking be good to me." He grabbed his wallet from his mantel and slammed the door shut. Why the hell am I such a good friend?
Bubba stumbled into his living room and out the door, taking the time to take a good long look at Ann's picture on one of his book shelves. Oh, what his life brought him.
+++
Lita and Jeff raced away from the airport in their rental car, making sure to be extra careful on the icy roads of Toronto. They sped down the highway, not caring about the fact that they had just passed a state trooper. Thankfully, he didn't notice them.
"Do you think she's really going home or she's like... going home." His gaze traveled to the sky.
She hadn't thought of that. Lita's mind floated back to how her ill grandmother kept reminding the family that she was going home soon, Lita was only seven at the time and didn't know what that meant but whenever she passed on and everyone at the funeral kept talking about finally resting at home, she got it. But that's not what Trish meant, could it?
She was knocked out of her daze by a blaring horn behind her, she looked up at the light and noticed that it had turned green.
"Lita! I was shaking you really hard just then, you didn't feel it?" Jeff asked, concerned at the fact that she had just did that in the middle of the street. "Do you want me to drive?"
"No." She drove off quickly, turning down a residential street. "I'm just, you know, I didn't think about home like that. I just assumed home as in stone, bricks, door on the front, two car garage."
She ran her fingers through her hair and headed up a large hill. Jeff looked in the back seat at the lone bag on the floor of their rental car, it was Trish's bag. He really didn't know what to think about all of this, he had never dealt with anything like this before. He knew what it was like to be depressed but to kill yourself over someone like Jericho. He shook his head at the thought.
As they drove, the houses were progressively getting larger, more expensive cars in the driveway, bigger trees, bigger beds of flowers, they seemed out of reach but as they turned down Trish's street, it changed. It looked as if they had just drove into a dream, a place that you'd raise your kids, throw a steak on the barbecue, set outside and talk while you watched the stars fill the night sky, not hobnob with a famous hockey player or actor like the surrounding area.
Lita sigh of relief was echoed by Jeff as they spotted her silver car in the driveway, she would never leave without her baby. Lita pulled in next to the car and stepped out of their rental.
"Jeff, I want you to stay here, okay? I'm going to see if..." She trailed off and he nodded in understanding.
"I'll be waiting."
She headed down the path and up a short set of concrete stairs, she firmly pressed the doorbell and waited, when a minute passed she could feel herself getting worked up, thinking up the possibilities of what was going on in the house, but she tried to push that aside. She slipped her hand into the potted plant on the right side of the door and felt for the spare key, she felt the edge of metal and reached for the tape, securing it and pulled.
Lita walked back over to the door, slipping the key in the hole, she said a silent prayer and turned the key. As the door opened, the soft sound of music flowed from the back of the house, she followed it, straining to hear if it got further away or closer.
She walked down a set of stairs and into Trish's rec room, the music that obviously the kind to slit your wrists to was deafening, she walked over to the bar and noticed that five empty glasses were set out on the top, she grabbed one and sniffed. The smell of liquor filled her nose and she gagged.
"I see you found me." A harsh whisper came from the other side of the room. Lita reached up and turned on one of the bar lights, red light flooded the room and she turned her attention to a dark corner of the room. She could barely see Trish propped up on a bar stool, drinking amber liquid from a glass.
"Congratulations, Lita. You win a prize, let's see what I can give you. I've got a house, some cool clothes although I'm sure they won't fit you. Oh, you can have..."
"Stop talking like that." Lita demanded, she moved closer to the blonde.
"Like what? Like I don't have much time left. Guess what? I don't."
"Stop acting like this is a joke or something, like you're just wheeling and dealing your way to the afterlife."
Her fists balled up and she began shaking. "You don't have cancer, you don't have AIDS, you're going to live past tomorrow!"
Trish bitterly laughed and brought the glass to her lips, taking a long sip. "You don't understand, huh, Lita? There's nothing left for me here, I'm all used up. Haven't you heard? I'm over."
"What the hell do you mean over? Trish, you have a long life ahead and you've got this precious gift of a healthy..."
Trish rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms, who the hell did she think she was? Little miss saintly Lita the holiest of all? "Oh, spare me with your garbage. I know when I'm not needed anymore. I thought that maybe it was all because of Jericho and I know that's what lead to it but this has been coming for a long time. Maybe if you had been a better friend you would have realized it..."
Lita gasped as Trish chuckled and brought the glass back to her lips. Lita rushed over and ripped the glass from her hand, spilling the liquid all over both of them, she flung the glass over the wall near the bar, shattering it.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? I have been the best friend that I could be." Lita screamed but Trish didn't back down, she pushed herself off the bar stool and moved in to Lita's space.
"What the FUCK is wrong with me?" Trish mocked her friend's tone. "I don't wanna be around you or any of those freaks in the WWE, alright? I'm sick of it. I just wanna go off somewhere and never return, be it dying, be it living in the fucking forest for the rest of my goddamn life. That's what I wanna do. I want to get as far away from you as I can."
Lita's lip trembled as she tried to hold back tears. "Oh, Lita, gonna cry? Do you need one of my tissues? I used a lot of those but no one ever noticed, certainly not you." Trish smirked.
Lita stepped back and Trish stepped forward. "Stop it." Lita put her hands in front of her body, only to be slapped away by Trish.
"Stop what?" Trish moved into Lita's face again, Lita couldn't believe was she was seeing, her friend was blaming her, blaming her for... she burst into tears before she could finish her thought.
"Don't cry, Lita. Do you remember all those times you cried about Matt? Oh, multiply that by about ten thousand and that's how many times *I've* cried."
"You never came to me!" Lita cried. "You just balled it all up inside and withdrew yourself from everyone. It's not my fault! I just want to help you but I don't know how."
Trish pushed Lita into the bar and pinned her in place. "You wanna know how you can help? You wanna know what's wrong with me? I don't want to see tomorrow, I don't want to see today, and I don't even wanna see the next hour. I'm tired of just being! Alright?"
Trish let go of Lita and moved around to the other side of the bar, she pulled out another bottle of liquor and began pouring into a large glass.
"Trish, this isn't good for you." She pointed the glasses on the bar. "You need help not all this." Lita said, softly, looking at her friend who seemed more interesting in getting her glass full again.
"Stop being my mother and get out." She spat.
"I'm not trying to be your mom, you need..."
"What I need is for you to get the FUCK out of my home." She roared.
Lita looked at her friend for a moment in disbelief. She just looked so angry, so terribly sad. This wasn't Trish Stratus at all. This wasn't the girl who passed out cookies in the back or who smiled every minute. Was her friend already dead? Trish looked up at her, no emotion filled her once vibrant features. She looked so hollow...
Lita took in the moment, the new girl in front of her, for another second before turning around and walking out of the house, the woman she just left wasn't Trish, not by a long shot.
Jeff nervously played with a piece of gum wrapper he found on the dashboard, he stopped and lit up as he heard the front door open but his face fell as soon as he saw Lita's tear streaked cheeks.
"Lita?" He asked, much wonder in his voice, but she didn't answer.
She opened the car door and ripped Trish's bag from the back seat. With all of her strength, she flung the black bag onto the porch and it landed with a great thud. She slipped into the car and started it up.
"What happened?" He placed his hand on her shoulder as it began to shake. Lita let out all of the sobs that she had held in up until this point, deep, soul shaking cries poured from her mouth as Jeff moved over and pulled her into a hug.
"Trish is gone. It's not... she's... Let's go." Lita murmured as she put the car in drive.
As they pulled out of the driveway, they didn't notice the rustling of the white drapes in the window above the garage or the girl behind them, staring at the rental car speed off.
Trish whimpered as the car stopped at a stop sign for a moment, she brushed away the tears with the back of her hand. She glanced down at the glass table by her side and noticed something, she picked up a silver frame that held a picture from years ago, she shook her head as memories flooded back to her. It was of her and Lita with bright smiles on their faces, with Jeff wedged in between them, laughing. Her eyes tore away from the happy family as she placed it back on the glass.
"Goodbye."
++++
He woke up to the sound the ringing phone next to his head, a night of partying isn't going to do anything good for his hurt knee but it doesn't matter, he won't be back with the WWE for a while, so why not make the most of his paid vacation?
He searched for the phone in the mass of covers around him, finally feeling the hard plastic wrapped in his sheet, he pulls it out and brings it to his ear.
"Hello?" He rubbed his eyes as his fingers adjusted to the afternoon light.
"Bubba, I need to ask you a favor." Her voice isn't cheerful, she sounds tired and upset.
"Lita? What's wrong?"
And then he hears her crying, now, he usually hates when women cry, he doesn't know how to comfort them, doesn't know what to say or do but he knows Lita, if you continue on with whatever she needs, she'll stop and get through it. She's tough like that but, today, she's not stopping.
"Trish... Bubba, she tried to kill herself yesterday and I don't know who else to call and..." Her voice broke and she began to sob. This was getting to be too much, this was turning into another nightmare.
Bubba shushed her, even though he was beginning to feel the same as she. "She's going to be alright, is she in the hospital? Is she okay?"
"No, that's the thing. She checked out last night, flew to Stamford, quit the WWE and now I think she's going home and she didn't even tell me she was leaving the hospital. I don't know if she's planning anything or... Oh god, Bubba, I'm so scared."
"Don't worry, Lita, okay? She'll be okay." Bubba threw the covers off of him and slipped out of bed. He grabbed a pair of pants from the pile of clean clothes next to him and slipped them on, along with a clean white shirt and his jacket.
"Where are you?" He asked, as he grabbed his wallet from the top of the mantle of his fireplace in his bedroom.
"I'm in Detroit..."
"Okay, I'll get on a plane and be there and..."
"No!" She exclaimed.
No?
"What do you mean 'no'?" He scratched his head, confused at her outburst.
"I need you to be there... to talk to her." She expected yelling but there was only a pause at the end of the line. It wasn't short, it was terribly long and it seemed to stretch on for hours. "Bubba?"
"I can't do that... I... I'm sorry, Lita but with... Ann." He felt that stupid stutter of his, whenever he was upset, come on. "I'm sorry, baby girl but I w-w-wouldn't even know what to say t-t-o her."
She sighed, she knew that this was a last resort and that he'd probably say no but she had to give it a try and it failed. She sniffled and pulled the car out of the parking lot, back into traffic.
"It's okay, I've gotta go then. I'll see you later, Bubba." She quickly punched the end button and threw the phone on the passenger seat, she couldn't let him hear her cry. She knew how hard bring up Ann was and she didn't want to give him anymore grief.
"Wait, Lita..." He heard the click and the silence on the other end. He deeply sighed as he set the phone back onto its cradle, he couldn't do this over again, he hoped she would understand that.
As he slipped back into bed, he truly hoped that he was making the right choice. Trish was a sore spot for him, she had used him up and spit out the carcass of Bubba Ray but she was still a person, who seemed to have changed for the better in the recent years.
He pulled the covers over his head and tried to fall back to sleep but she was still there in the back of mind.
"God damn it, I'm so going to regret this." He grumbled as he pushed the covers off of him. He ran to his hall closet and pulled out a duffel bag, he threw some clothes from the clean pile next to his bed into the bag, zipped it up and grabbed his black boots.
"Toronto, you better fucking be good to me." He grabbed his wallet from his mantel and slammed the door shut. Why the hell am I such a good friend?
Bubba stumbled into his living room and out the door, taking the time to take a good long look at Ann's picture on one of his book shelves. Oh, what his life brought him.
+++
Lita and Jeff raced away from the airport in their rental car, making sure to be extra careful on the icy roads of Toronto. They sped down the highway, not caring about the fact that they had just passed a state trooper. Thankfully, he didn't notice them.
"Do you think she's really going home or she's like... going home." His gaze traveled to the sky.
She hadn't thought of that. Lita's mind floated back to how her ill grandmother kept reminding the family that she was going home soon, Lita was only seven at the time and didn't know what that meant but whenever she passed on and everyone at the funeral kept talking about finally resting at home, she got it. But that's not what Trish meant, could it?
She was knocked out of her daze by a blaring horn behind her, she looked up at the light and noticed that it had turned green.
"Lita! I was shaking you really hard just then, you didn't feel it?" Jeff asked, concerned at the fact that she had just did that in the middle of the street. "Do you want me to drive?"
"No." She drove off quickly, turning down a residential street. "I'm just, you know, I didn't think about home like that. I just assumed home as in stone, bricks, door on the front, two car garage."
She ran her fingers through her hair and headed up a large hill. Jeff looked in the back seat at the lone bag on the floor of their rental car, it was Trish's bag. He really didn't know what to think about all of this, he had never dealt with anything like this before. He knew what it was like to be depressed but to kill yourself over someone like Jericho. He shook his head at the thought.
As they drove, the houses were progressively getting larger, more expensive cars in the driveway, bigger trees, bigger beds of flowers, they seemed out of reach but as they turned down Trish's street, it changed. It looked as if they had just drove into a dream, a place that you'd raise your kids, throw a steak on the barbecue, set outside and talk while you watched the stars fill the night sky, not hobnob with a famous hockey player or actor like the surrounding area.
Lita sigh of relief was echoed by Jeff as they spotted her silver car in the driveway, she would never leave without her baby. Lita pulled in next to the car and stepped out of their rental.
"Jeff, I want you to stay here, okay? I'm going to see if..." She trailed off and he nodded in understanding.
"I'll be waiting."
She headed down the path and up a short set of concrete stairs, she firmly pressed the doorbell and waited, when a minute passed she could feel herself getting worked up, thinking up the possibilities of what was going on in the house, but she tried to push that aside. She slipped her hand into the potted plant on the right side of the door and felt for the spare key, she felt the edge of metal and reached for the tape, securing it and pulled.
Lita walked back over to the door, slipping the key in the hole, she said a silent prayer and turned the key. As the door opened, the soft sound of music flowed from the back of the house, she followed it, straining to hear if it got further away or closer.
She walked down a set of stairs and into Trish's rec room, the music that obviously the kind to slit your wrists to was deafening, she walked over to the bar and noticed that five empty glasses were set out on the top, she grabbed one and sniffed. The smell of liquor filled her nose and she gagged.
"I see you found me." A harsh whisper came from the other side of the room. Lita reached up and turned on one of the bar lights, red light flooded the room and she turned her attention to a dark corner of the room. She could barely see Trish propped up on a bar stool, drinking amber liquid from a glass.
"Congratulations, Lita. You win a prize, let's see what I can give you. I've got a house, some cool clothes although I'm sure they won't fit you. Oh, you can have..."
"Stop talking like that." Lita demanded, she moved closer to the blonde.
"Like what? Like I don't have much time left. Guess what? I don't."
"Stop acting like this is a joke or something, like you're just wheeling and dealing your way to the afterlife."
Her fists balled up and she began shaking. "You don't have cancer, you don't have AIDS, you're going to live past tomorrow!"
Trish bitterly laughed and brought the glass to her lips, taking a long sip. "You don't understand, huh, Lita? There's nothing left for me here, I'm all used up. Haven't you heard? I'm over."
"What the hell do you mean over? Trish, you have a long life ahead and you've got this precious gift of a healthy..."
Trish rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms, who the hell did she think she was? Little miss saintly Lita the holiest of all? "Oh, spare me with your garbage. I know when I'm not needed anymore. I thought that maybe it was all because of Jericho and I know that's what lead to it but this has been coming for a long time. Maybe if you had been a better friend you would have realized it..."
Lita gasped as Trish chuckled and brought the glass back to her lips. Lita rushed over and ripped the glass from her hand, spilling the liquid all over both of them, she flung the glass over the wall near the bar, shattering it.
"What the fuck is wrong with you? I have been the best friend that I could be." Lita screamed but Trish didn't back down, she pushed herself off the bar stool and moved in to Lita's space.
"What the FUCK is wrong with me?" Trish mocked her friend's tone. "I don't wanna be around you or any of those freaks in the WWE, alright? I'm sick of it. I just wanna go off somewhere and never return, be it dying, be it living in the fucking forest for the rest of my goddamn life. That's what I wanna do. I want to get as far away from you as I can."
Lita's lip trembled as she tried to hold back tears. "Oh, Lita, gonna cry? Do you need one of my tissues? I used a lot of those but no one ever noticed, certainly not you." Trish smirked.
Lita stepped back and Trish stepped forward. "Stop it." Lita put her hands in front of her body, only to be slapped away by Trish.
"Stop what?" Trish moved into Lita's face again, Lita couldn't believe was she was seeing, her friend was blaming her, blaming her for... she burst into tears before she could finish her thought.
"Don't cry, Lita. Do you remember all those times you cried about Matt? Oh, multiply that by about ten thousand and that's how many times *I've* cried."
"You never came to me!" Lita cried. "You just balled it all up inside and withdrew yourself from everyone. It's not my fault! I just want to help you but I don't know how."
Trish pushed Lita into the bar and pinned her in place. "You wanna know how you can help? You wanna know what's wrong with me? I don't want to see tomorrow, I don't want to see today, and I don't even wanna see the next hour. I'm tired of just being! Alright?"
Trish let go of Lita and moved around to the other side of the bar, she pulled out another bottle of liquor and began pouring into a large glass.
"Trish, this isn't good for you." She pointed the glasses on the bar. "You need help not all this." Lita said, softly, looking at her friend who seemed more interesting in getting her glass full again.
"Stop being my mother and get out." She spat.
"I'm not trying to be your mom, you need..."
"What I need is for you to get the FUCK out of my home." She roared.
Lita looked at her friend for a moment in disbelief. She just looked so angry, so terribly sad. This wasn't Trish Stratus at all. This wasn't the girl who passed out cookies in the back or who smiled every minute. Was her friend already dead? Trish looked up at her, no emotion filled her once vibrant features. She looked so hollow...
Lita took in the moment, the new girl in front of her, for another second before turning around and walking out of the house, the woman she just left wasn't Trish, not by a long shot.
Jeff nervously played with a piece of gum wrapper he found on the dashboard, he stopped and lit up as he heard the front door open but his face fell as soon as he saw Lita's tear streaked cheeks.
"Lita?" He asked, much wonder in his voice, but she didn't answer.
She opened the car door and ripped Trish's bag from the back seat. With all of her strength, she flung the black bag onto the porch and it landed with a great thud. She slipped into the car and started it up.
"What happened?" He placed his hand on her shoulder as it began to shake. Lita let out all of the sobs that she had held in up until this point, deep, soul shaking cries poured from her mouth as Jeff moved over and pulled her into a hug.
"Trish is gone. It's not... she's... Let's go." Lita murmured as she put the car in drive.
As they pulled out of the driveway, they didn't notice the rustling of the white drapes in the window above the garage or the girl behind them, staring at the rental car speed off.
Trish whimpered as the car stopped at a stop sign for a moment, she brushed away the tears with the back of her hand. She glanced down at the glass table by her side and noticed something, she picked up a silver frame that held a picture from years ago, she shook her head as memories flooded back to her. It was of her and Lita with bright smiles on their faces, with Jeff wedged in between them, laughing. Her eyes tore away from the happy family as she placed it back on the glass.
"Goodbye."