Chapter Fifteen

The Accusation

There was a wood podium set up in the middle of the ring. A middle-aged man in a suit stood out in the ring with a briefcase clutched tightly in his hand. The entrance music for MNM played and Melina sauntered out by herself, looking withdrawn and heartbroken. In her hand she held a slip of paper. She kept her eyes down at the floor. The fans, the commentators and everyone else in the company were curious about her new demeanor and the throng of journalists and paparazzi at ringside. They were curious about why Melina wanted to speak alone, without the comfort of Johnny Nitro and Joey Mercury behind her.

Dave couldn't find Cassie. He had given up twenty minutes ago and had settled into his locker room to get ready for the rematch he had against MNM. It was December thirtieth, the night before New Year's Eve, and things were promising to be brutal for the four people involved. He was curious about Melina taking her place behind the podium. He had no idea what she had to say, or how it was going to impact him, but there was already discomfort bubbling in the pit of his stomach.

At the interview area, Cassie stood with the other Divas. She was dressed in blue jeans and an Animal Unleashed T-shirt. She looked like Dave's personal cheerleader. Jillian stood beside her, dressed in a black contraption that was barely passable for in-ring attire. The two of them stood with Kristal Marshall and Stacy Keibler. They watched Melina as she took her place at the podium and began to speak. As she talked, Cassie felt all the blood drain from her face and pool down to the soles of her feet.

Melina replayed footage of the week before, where she had made out with Dave Batista. Cassie felt physically nauseous as she watched Melina straddle the man she was in love with. The girls around her, the past eight months of flirting between Dave and Cassie not lost on them, though unaware of their talk last week when she went to South Korea, all put comforting hands on her shoulder. She could feel their sympathetic eyes on them. She felt like such an idiot.

"What started out as an innocent flirtation," Melina claimed tearfully, "turned into something abhorrent." They all listened, Dave included, when Melina announced that she had been sexually assaulted by the World Heavyweight Champion. "I told him to stop! And he didn't!" she cried into the microphone over the booing crowd. The audience was rabidly chanting Batista's name to rattle her cage, and it seemed like it was working. Cassie was fighting the urge to break down and cry. He had told her he loved her...and only hours before...she couldn't think about it. It hurt.

"I will be scarred forever now, just remembering that smirk," Melina continued, ripping Cassie out of her thoughts. Her eyes fell on the screen. She knew Melina was lying; they had made out, sure, but she hadn't been assaulted. Melina was just so conniving and vindictive. "My body is my temple, and it isn't yours for the taking. And I am here today to announce that I am suing David Batista...suing...for sexual harassment." The last two words she pronounced harshly, the words spitting from her lips like bullets from a gun, each syllable driving a nail deeper into Cassie's heart.

The girls stared at Cassie. Tears were welling up in her eyes. How could he do this? She was humiliated, disgusted and furious. How could he say such words to her after he had his tongue down Melina's throat. He had looked just as into it as Melina had been.

"Wow."

Jillian broke the silence. Tears were brimming in her blue eyes. Since Team SmackDown, Cassie had forged a friendship with Jillian, who was quickly proving herself to be a fantastic friend. While the girls started chattering wildly about Melina's bombshell lawsuit against their World Heavyweight Champion, Cassie just pushed past the group of Divas and trudged slowly to the Divas locker room.

Dave stood in front of the Divas locker room. He felt nervous and afraid. He didn't want to do this, but Rey had told him that he needed to go talk to Cassie.

He felt like a jerk, like a real low-life. He knew he was, he reasoned. He should have been upfront and honest with her last week about what happened, but he had no idea it was going to snowball like this. Cassie would have probably taken this news much better had he not told her he loved her the week before. If he had just kept their friendship platonic, things wouldn't be so complicated now. He exhaled. He was reaching, searching for reason justify his stupid actions. There wasn't any. He had hurt Cassie, he knew.

He knocked on the door, but there was no answer. He decided to go inside and wait for her. When he opened the door, he could hear the water running and he supposed she was in the shower. He debated leaving; after all, he was already in enough trouble with the Divas. Melina was with MNM. Christy and Stacy were both getting their makeup done for a photo shoot. Jillian was with JBL and Kristal was doing interviews. Which meant that he knew Cassie was the only one left in the Divas locker room.

Dave sat down on the couch and waited. Every now and then he could hear a soft sob in the shower and he felt his heart twitch. Eventually the water shut off and he knew that it was judgment day. He felt more nervous to face her than he did facing Triple H at WrestleMania 21. He knew that she knew all about what he had done with Melina now. How she was going to react was one of life's greatest mysteries.

Cassie walked out, a terry cloth pink towel draped around her tiny frame. Any other day, it would have been a welcome sight for Dave, but there was such bigger subjects and tasks at hand. She walked past Dave without even acknowledging him. That hurt him the most about the situation. He expected her to freak out, but no reaction made him feel worse.

"That's it?" he asked, his voice ringing into the uncomfortable silence of the room. "No, 'Dave', no 'How could you'?"

"I'd scream and cause a scene, Dave, but I figure you're in enough trouble with the Divas on this brand," she replied coldly, her words dripping with venom. Dave flinched from the coldness in her voice, but he stood and walked towards her. She spun around on him, holding up a hand. The other hand held up her towel and the clothing she was going to wear for the rest of the night. She was contemplating having a bonfire for all of the Batista T-shirts she owned.

"You do not want to come near me right now," she told him darkly. The anger in her eyes took him aback. "Now. I am going to get ready to go out with Jillian and the girls. I'd wish you luck, but I'm sure Melina and her high-priced attorney will be there to cheer you on at ringside." With that, she turned on her heels and walked into the shower area to get dressed.

He thought about going after her, to try and give her his side of events, but he knew she was too angry to listen to what he had to say. Defeated, Dave left the locker room. He would have to try again next week, when cooler heads prevailed.

Dressed in a hot pink mini dress and black boots, Cassie sat at a nightclub that was a ten minute drive from the arena. She had styled her caramel hair into curls that framed her face. She sat at a round glass table, looking miserably out at the dance floor where the other Divas were dancing. Jillian had stayed behind with her, dressed in a denim skirt and a flowing white floral top. She looked at her friend sadly.

"You look absolutely heartbroken, honey," Jillian observed, sipping on her strawberry Daiquiri. "Do you want to talk? Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Are you kidding?" Cassie scoffed as she took a swig of her Bacardi and Coke. "I can't even help myself here."

"What's bothering you the most about all of this right now?" Cassie thought about it.

"Let's see...hmmm...I guess it would be that the night he told me he loved me, when I was all the way in South Korea, he had only an hour or two before done God knows what with Melina."

"Do you think what she said is true?" Jillian asked.

"I don't know. But he was fooling around with her at least. It was caught on video! God, I feel like such an idiot," Cassie confessed. "How can he say those words like they mean nothing?"

"I don't think they didn't mean anything to him, Cassie."

"They have to. Why would he do that? How can I trust anything he says to me when he'd leave out that big of a detail?" Cassie sipped her drink. All night she felt like she was on the verge of tears.

"Why don't you just go talk to him? Ask him what went down?" Jillian asked.

"Do you really think he's going to be honest with me? Jillian, he's facing a sexual harassment lawsuit. He's probably going to be super careful with what he has to say right now."

"You are ever the optimistic one," Jillian teased with a snort. "Look, you're going to need to talk to him sometime."

"I don't think I want to know," Cassie admitted. "Right now, I just want to think." Cassie got up and went outside. She decided to leave. Hanging out with the Divas didn't seem like it was something she needed anymore. She just wanted to be alone.

Dave sat in his locker room and stared at the floor. He felt like a cad and a failure. Melina had screwed things up permanently between him and Cassie, he figured. Every time he laid eyes on Melina, in her "It's OK to Stare" shirt tonight, he just wanted to Batista Bomb her to the depths of Hell. If he was so threatening and intimidating, why was she even at ringside tonight? Like Joey Nitro or Joey Mercury could help her if he wanted to get his hands on her. He ate chumps like them for breakfast.

He had let Rey down. He had gotten hit with the World's Strongest Slam, and MNM now had their titles back. It was exactly what Melina wanted. She had gotten everything out of the deal. Dave was left with nothing but the stigma of her accusations, knowing he had let Rey down and knowing that he had hurt Cassie. Hurting Cassie was the worst. The heartbreak in her eyes made him feel like the biggest heel. He could feel the anger resonating from her body in waves.

It had been stupid of him to tell her that he loved her out of fear that what had happened with Melina. He knew it was going to come out. He should have been honest with her, and there was no going back from it now. Dave knew things weren't going to look good when the cameras came back on when Melina was putting her shirt back on. He'd had sex with Melina in his locker room.

He pulled out his phone and dialed Cassie's cell phone number again. He'd been trying to get in touch with her all night, but she wanted no part of him. He hoped she had cooled down enough to talk now.

Cassie was driving back to her hotel when Jay-Z's "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" started to play. She didn't even need to look at her cell phone; she had personalized all the ring tones. She knew Dave was calling her. She didn't want to talk to him. As it stood right now, she never wanted to see him again. But she knew Dave. He was going to leave a voice mail and plead for her forgiveness, for her to hear him out. When that happened, when she felt ready, maybe she would give it a listen. But not tonight.

Dave knew it was going to go to voice mail, but he decided to just be honest and say everything he needed to. He hoped Cassie would hear it and forgive him. He listened to her cheerful voice give the message instructions, and then the beep that told him he could start talking.

"Please don't delete this, Cassie," he started, his tone pleading. "Please just hear me out. I know you're upset, and I know I'm the world's biggest idiot. I'm sorry. Melina's accusations are baseless, Cassie, and you know it. You have to believe me on this one.

"She came to me before our match and tried to make me an 'offer' I couldn't refuse. She was trying to get me out of the match. It happened. I'm sorry. I can't go back on it, but it's not what she is claiming happened. The only reason she is saying these things is because after everything happened between her and I, I still refused to back out of the match. She got herself into a spot that didn't work out for her. She didn't play it smart, she paid the price and now she wants to make me pay.

"God, I sound like such an asshole. Cassie, I'm sorry. I never wanted to hurt you. Everything I told you when you were overseas is the truth. I've been trying my damnedest for months to tell you how I feel...you know what? I think this would be better if we can just talk face to face. If you can stand the sight of me, Cassie, please come talk to me next week. I don't want to lose you. Please."

Cassie hit stop on the voice mail recording and cried herself to sleep.