YES, I'M FINALLY UPDATING! I don't know what's harder to believe: how long this shit took or that I'm actually updating. Finalllyyyy. If you're reading this, I commend you! Thanks for hanging in there with me! I am not giving up. I want to especially thank those who last reviewed: Hi14 x, Cena's baby doll, therealchamps, RandyOrtonxWifexx, my time is now, 1222mercedes1222, awesomeone21, Rowan S. Rose. Again, thank you for bearing with me. I hope you enjoy.
The urgency to know was growing with every second but even more unnerving was the loudness in the silence that surrounded them. Here John stood, in front of his girlfriend, and he'd forced yet another new confession out of her. It wasn't the first time he heard startling new information about her through other people, and it wasn't making any sense. Why were certain topics off limits for them?
At this point, his chin was aligned with the broadness of his limp shoulders with his head hung low. Alyssa reached for his hands, and their immediate contact was cold.
"John, say something," she said.
"I didn't know that," he said dryly. The response sounded forced, almost robotic. "I didn't know Randy was your first boyfriend."
"Does it change anything?"
"It shouldn't."
"But does it?"
Silence lingered. It was as if a moment of struggle couldn't pass.
John hesitated with his words, carefully deliberating which ones to string together. When he spoke, he did so slowly. "Al, I get it that you don't like talking about certain things but-"
"Because it's in the past and I wanna leave it there."
She was so quick to cut him off, her definitiveness nearly pinned John against the wall. He gritted his teeth but immediately felt a comforting pull from her hands.
"Baby, I know this may seem big: I kept the identity of my first boyfriend from you. Yeah, it was Randy, but I haven't thought of him as one in years. I don't want you to get to know my past, John. You're my present and that's all that matters."
He chewed on this for a few seconds before casually nodding his head. That's all that matters, John mentally agreed.
Alyssa cupped his cheeks. "I may not talk about everything with you, but that's because not everything is important. When I'm with you, the last thing I wanna do is dwell on trivial matter. I just want you."
"You and me," John said. His chest gradually relaxed from constriction. She was absolutely right: the man she called her boyfriend over a decade ago is trivial matter. The man she calls her boyfriend now is him and only him. What else could be more important than that?
"You and me," Alyssa said. She titled her head towards the door and squinted. "Let's get out of here?"
"Gladly." John said. He scooted back to grab his duffle bag and made sure not to let go of her with his other hand.
The both of them silently made their exit, but it didn't take long before John got bombarded by staff. They were barely ten feet away from his locker room when a whole throng came to them. Alyssa, accustomed to this typical deal in the World Wresting Entertainment and is at times the one to bombard others with her job, stood to the side and smiled. This came with John and she knew how much he loved his work. As she watched him deal with business, she couldn't help but think of her own. She looked around backstage and noticed the exposed wires, tall walls, and colorless structures. It always fascinated her how these dull and lifeless buildings housed so much entertainment and people.
There was one person, in particular, she was itching to talk to. John was still talking business which provided the perfect window. She snuck away from the busy crowd and managed her way through the empty hallways. There was no one around for company except the questions swirling around in her head. It didn't take long before she reached the room she was looking for; getting around the arena and locating people was an automated skill and part of her job.
Lifting a firm fist, she knocked on the door.
"Come in!"
And she did, but the sight she walked into made her want to retrace her step. She'd seen Randy without a shirt plenty of times before but this time felt uncomfortable. His jeans were hugging his hips a little tighter and the sweat was cascading down his stomach a little too slowly.
Alyssa was only able to avert her eyes when Randy's voice piped in.
"Alyssa! Hey!"
She brought her eyes up to his face and the reasons for finding him quickly hit her. She didn't waste a beat. The anger simmered fast. "Does it make you happy trying to ruin any chances of me being happy?"
Randy stood in complete silence. "Uh…lemme, lemme put on a shirt."
She watched him walk across the room. "When will you stop, Randy?"
He pulled a fresh tee over his head and looked at her calmly despite his confusion. "What are you talking about?"
"Why would you tell John we dated back in high school?"
Randy raised his eyebrows. He wasn't aware she even remembered this. "I didn't."
"I didn't either, so who else would've?"
Good question, Randy thought. It stirred something inside of him he didn't even know was there. "Look, I know it's been years since that happened and yes, you've spent a decade trying to act like it never did. But we're not the only people on this earth that knows our past, Alyssa. I didn't tell John anything."
"You're the only one who would!"
Randy snapped his head to the side as if he'd been slapped. In some sense, this feeling was much worse. He looked at her head on. "For what? So you two could shove it in my face some more that I lost you? That I don't have you and he does?" Randy shook his head and exhaled. "After all these years Al, I'm obviously not over you, but I'm done wishing, subconsciously scheming, and hoping we're getting back together. I didn't tell John anything. There's no benefit of talking about our past when you obviously don't want me in your future."
Alyssa watched as Randy turned his back to gather his belongings. When he looked at her again, his eyes glazed over. "I admit, my hands haven't been clean. That doesn't give you the right to just accuse me of every bad shit that happens to you."
Randy's line of vision fell to the floor as he walked his way out of the room. The answers Alyssa longed for suddenly became secondary to feelings of guilt and confusion. If Randy didn't tell John, who did?
She forced herself out of the room but wasn't sure what to do next. The walls didn't look any less dull but soon enough, she found herself perched up against one. There was no where else for her to go. Anywhere else, she still wouldn't know who told John.
Then, it dawned on her. Why couldn't she just ask him herself?
She eyed the white wall ahead and shook her head. Who was she kidding. For someone who was so adamant on not speaking about her past, why should she be the one asking questions? Why does it matter who told John, anyway? Whoever it was couldn't do any harm to them.
Right?
Randy was mulling over the table filled with coffee cups, donuts holes, and croissant sandwiches when an unfamiliar voice spoke for his attention. He'd been ignoring it at first, determined to focus solely on his breakfast selections; but it'd gotten much louder, he had to glance over.
"So you must feel my pain."
Randy heard this crisp and clear, but the voice was still unfamiliar and so was the face. "Excuse me?"
"Do you not remember our conversation at the bar?"
At the bar? What bar? Randy's mind was still trying to get away from the food next to him and this new set of thoughts wasn't any better. All this thinking before sunrise was doing him no good.
"You know what, never mind. You were drunk. You probably don't even remember me."
Randy watched the woman in front of him tuck some of her brown locks behind her ear before walking away.
"Wait a minute," he said.
She turned slowly and stared.
"Wait a minute. Why don't you remind me your name? Now that we're sober and all."
"Candy," she said.
As he desperately tried to process this name he swore he'd never heard of, the woman's face blurred into the background as Alyssa emerged from behind. He wasn't expecting to see her so soon and her hardened stare wasn't making it any easier. The glare in her eyes was enough to force him back to the table he'd been looking at. The problem was, even with all the food in front of him, all he could see was Alyssa.
To his surprise, she stopped walking once she reached the table. Randy imagined her trying to figure out what to eat- something he'd been failing to do the last couple minutes. He grabbed a croissant sandwich without further thought and didn't bother with the coffee. He figured he might as well spare the both of them and began his way down the hallway.
"Randy!" Alyssa called out.
Her voice paralyzed him.
"Randy," she said more softly.
He hadn't gotten the chance to turn around and it surprised him to find he didn't have to. Alyssa was in front of him now and they were eye to eye.
"Listen, I'm sorry about last night. You're right. I shouldn't be pointing fingers."
Randy nodded slowly. "Yeah, it's fine." He averted his eyes elsewhere, anywhere else but at Alyssa. He couldn't possibly keep his gaze at the one thing he wanted but couldn't have. The tease would be brutal. He cleared his throat. "I gotta-"
Alyssa's words came out like vomit as she her mind fumbled through all the recent stories. "Have- have you met the new employee? She's some part of backstage."
Randy didn't understand the relevance of this question or why she was even trying to keep up a conversation with him. "Uh…"
"The girl that was just here."
"Oh, Candy?"
"Sure. Yeah, Candy."
Randy drew his eyebrows closer. "Is that not her name?"
"Well, she told me her name was Stacy. And she also told me John was the reason she got hired."
"Hmm. She told me things, too. I was too drunk to remember, but apparently, we met at a bar."
Alyssa rolled her eyes. This didn't surprise her. "She's full of bull."
"Yeah, I guess." Randy shrugged. Then, something started jogging his memory. "But now that I think about it, I do remember having a conversation with some stranger."
"With her, you think?"
"Maybe? I don't know. She was saying something about feeling my pain."
"Your pain?"
"I don't know. I'm trying to remember that night, but I keep drawing a blank."
"Is it possible you told her we dated back then?"
Randy felt automated to say no- it sounded ludicrous since that fact had been buried a long time ago- but as he thought of it some more, he realized it was could be reality. "Possibly?"
"And it's possible she ran to John and told him all about it," Alyssa concluded. "Damn. That girl sure knows how to get around, in and out of bed."
Randy stood in silence as he tried to make sense of everything. This morning had been full of surprises; none he really wanted anything to do with. He still couldn't decide if it was good Alyssa was talking to him or not. Either way, he sought it best to keep his eyes and mind off of her. "Listen, I gotta get ready. I hope that Candy, Stacy girl doesn't cause trouble."
"Me too," Alyssa said. She watched as Randy walked away, feeling an unsettling amount of disappointment with his departure.
Work. That was supposed to be his sole motive today. As John walked through bland halls of the arena, he found trickles of distraction interfering. There were workers unraveling wires, producers voicing out demands, and wrestlers roaming around with food and crumbs around their mouths. The air was thick with agenda and although John was aware of his fair share, his mind couldn't help but wander off to his surroundings. There was finally something possibly more frantic than his mind. He was more than ready to celebrate that fact by observing it all but what his relentless eyes found made him take a full stop.
It wasn't just Candy propped up against some wall, but it was Randy too. Candy and Randy were there- together. As soon as visions of them merged into one, John's feet continued to move and so did his mind.
Randy and Candy knew each other? How? Was he behind all the snaky things she'd done? If he was…
Before John was able to finish the thought, he found himself plowing towards the other man. He barely saw the hazed look in Randy's eyes mere seconds before their skin connected. John charged at his sides, momentarily lifting him off the floor only to crash him to the ground.
Randy's hands went up in defense which allowed John free reign to take a hard blow to his jaw. No words percolated from either men, not even as the crowd began to form around them.
"John!"
John connected his fist to Randy's cheeks, instantly leaving a gauge, before getting pulled back by a pair of arms. It wasn't the physical force that got his attention but the voice that came with it.
"John, stop it! Get off of him!"
Alyssa, John saw. It was Alyssa.
All the tension in his body froze as he gathered himself to a straighter stance. His eyes glazed over at Alyssa and he couldn't help but wonder why the hell she sounded so defensive over Randy. Still.
"What are you doing?"
"You see that-" John pointed at Candy and Randy. "They know each other. Put the two and two together and tell me what the fuck they're doing."
John walked off hastily, but Alyssa tailed him to the corner.
"John, Randy has nothing to do with Candy. He told me how she got a hold of him when he was drunk. This is all her-"
"Are you done? Huh? Are you done defending Randy now?"
John's stagnant harsh demeanor took away all of her words.
"Whether he had anything to do with Candy or not- whether it was him who made her rub it in my face that he was your first boyfriend- he had that long coming to him. He's deserved that hit; I've kept my hands off for a damn long time now, Alyssa."
She swallowed the forming bulge in her throat but still could not utter a sound.
"I hope you realize how unworthy he is of everything you do for him before he takes everybody away from you."