All the thanks in the world to AliceJericho, who knows far more about commas than I do, and Nattiebroskette, who knows exactly how to grab me by the back of the shirt, shake me, and yell "SNAP OUT OF IT!" when the situation calls for it. Their stories "Fade to Black" and "Can You Help Me Heal?" are both well worth your time, if you're looking for something else out there to read...
All the love and cookies in the world to everyone who's reading and reviewing - I love my readers! Let me know you're out there, it's the best motivation in the world. Hearing from all of you is the ink to my inkwell, so to speak. Even though it's a keyboard. Or something. :-)
Onward!
Meg hadn't yet checked into their suite when Randy called the hotel from the company car. He'd had to grab his luggage and go directly to the arena; time was constricting painfully around him. The suite was still reserved in their name, he knew that much, she just hadn't registered. He felt a chill after he asked if anyone named Magdalena Nechayev had checked in anywhere in the hotel and was told no, but reasoned it could be that she was simply waiting for him, or was too angry to be bothered.
The truth of it was, Dave had performed the same limply shuffled dance with Meg to get her into the arena in Jackson that he'd performed to get her out of her hotel in Biloxi and into the car, opting to leave all of their luggage in the rental and worry about hotel rooms when the time came after the show. It was more important to get her hydrated, see if she could function well enough to simply sit through the show at the arena on the off-chance there was an emergency that Dave needed her to help with, and prepare her to talk to Renee – if she could muster up the courage.
Dave needed to slow things down for himself, as well. He hadn't seen Meg so spun out in ages, and though he masked his concern well he couldn't help but feel he'd fallen through some strange portal back to Tampa right after she'd been kicked off Joe's front porch. He remembered the dangerously uneven territory she and Randy were on back then, Meg's mind a tangle of things she wasn't prepared to sort through, Randy's an equal mess of things he'd barely begun to acknowledge and could hardly handle when he did. Dave believed the two of them were now on more solid ground, but apparently he had been wrong. Granted, Randy's idea of a surprise couldn't have been enacted in any more of a ham-handed way without being a solid slab of bacon, but even so – it put Meg into such a tailspin that it terrified Dave. He paused at the door to the first of the two triage bays he'd been given for the night, nudged the door open, and walked Meg into the relative darkness inside.
"Okay, Meg. Step forward, there's the edge of the table. Think you can get up there?"
"Why am I getting up there?" Meg put her messenger bag up at the head of the exam table, considering whether or not it was worth using it as a pillow.
Dave rolled his eyes. "Because I'm asking you to. And because we have two triage bays tonight. You don't do arena work unless it's really busy, remember? You're hotel help only. I'll come get you if I need anything. Otherwise, just stay in here and rest, okay? If anyone needs to see you, I'll make sure they know where to look." Meg flinched at the thought of seeing people; she didn't know what to do with Jon or Renee, and the idea of Randy was terrifying to her for reasons she couldn't fully articulate. Instead, she let Dave guide her back onto the table, waxy and stiff, laying back in the dim lighting and waiting for him to put a warming blanket over her. Once the door to her room clicked shut and she heard the door to Triage Two open and close next door, she drew her blanket up around her face, trying to remember if she'd put any of the pills back into her bag.
"There was no reason for any of it, Meg. None. No reason to drink like that, to blame Renee or Jon, or take the valium...Randy fucked up too, Meg, but what were you doing? Or thinking?" Dave muttered to himself in the room next door, Meg's pill bottles knocking into each other in one of the pockets of his cargo pants. "Stop wrecking everything good, Meg. You have to stop. Eventually you're gonna run out of good."
Unbeknownst to Dave, Joe had set to knocking gently on the door to Triage One, looking for the man in Triage Two and chancing upon Meg instead when he opened the door. He startled, then looked curiously on her, her face taut and nearly buried in her blanket, appearing for all the world like she was about to twist off of the table and start to run if only someone would point her in a direction for escape.
"Uh, Meg? You feeling okay?" 'And why are you alone? You look so small. Sad.'
Joe's voice brought her slowly back to reality and chased any thoughts of running from her mind; like so many times before, he simply filled the doorframe and made escape impossible.
"Not really. You feeling okay?" Meg tried to push herself to a sitting position, but it was a struggle, and she ended up stopping and bracing herself on her elbow partway through the maneuver. The sudden light from the hallway was shocking to her eyes; Dave had only kept the light above the sink on when he'd left the room.
"I thought...I mean...I wanted a couple ibuprofin, and some extra wrap for my knee. I can ask Dave instead, it's okay. You don't look so good." 'You do, though. You know what I mean. What do I do to help you?'
"Nah, you're already here. Just give me a minute to get my bearings." Meg groped blindly for the water bottle she hoped Dave had left for her. He had; she just hadn't realized it was so close to her on the table and she connected solidly, knocking it to the floor. "Shit, shit, and fuck. Oh well." Meg slid down from the table and staggered to the counter, wrestling with the lid on the ibuprofin and trying to tap out Joe's usual dose, then mentally working through how best to fill a paper cup with water. "You can come in, y'know. Just put the lights on and leave the door open so Dave doesn't have a heart attack."
Cautiously, Joe flipped the light switch; Meg cringed physically when the lights blasted on. He edged into the room and picked up Meg's bottle of water from the floor, nudging her arm with it and watching with fascination as her fingers wrapped around its curving plastic – almost as if she was trying to figure out what she was holding. "Here. Really, Meg – are you okay?" He sat on the table, oddly cold from her body despite the blanket, breathing in her perfume, seeing her hands shake as she fumbled with the cap on the bottle of water. "Jesus. Clearly not. Give it here." Joe took the water back from Meg without waiting for her answer, opened it for her, then put it on the counter in front of her. "What's going on with you?"
Meg picked up the bottle with both hands and sipped gingerly, still shaking too hard for much else to be effective. "Bad pastry at a coffeeshop I went to. I should probably be in bed, but oh well. Gotta keep you guys working. The show goes on."
"Right." 'What did you actually do, Meg?' Joe reached around her for the cup of water she'd managed to half-fill; it gave him both a reason to be close to her and an excuse for it that was benign and believable to anyone who walked past. Moving slowly and swallowing the ibuprofin one at a time, he regarded her carefully. "I'll have Dave wrap my knee, okay? I don't want to put you in a bad position. He's probably next door, right?" 'This...is perfect. What would you do if I touched you? Helped you sit down, or tried to-'
"Right." Randy's voice was suddenly in the doorway, sounding completely flat. "He is. Just talked to him." 'Okay, talked to him a while ago, but he's still in there.' A bruise had formed over Randy's left eye, and a short, deep, cut was set in the center of it. Raw and poorly tended-to, Meg gave it a curious glance, but no more of an appraisal than she'd typically give the beverage section in catering.
"I guess you should head over, Joe." 'Hm. Wonder how long you were standing there.' Meg put her hand lightly on Joe's arm and walked with him to the door, positioning herself so she'd be between him and Randy in the doorway. "Excuse us, okay? Randy and I need to talk." Joe, confused, simply moved along with Meg as she led him, looking down at her as though she was confused about who, exactly, she was walking with and touching. Randy, for his part, did step to the side, but turned and glared solidly at Joe, as if to warn him away from Meg, whether or not he had her permission to touch her and regardless of who had initiated the contact.
Meg wobbled as she crossed the short span between the rooms, her body still unsure if it was willing to forgive her for this most recent injustice. Joe pressed his hand down over hers as it rested on his arm, before knocking on the door to Triage Two. "Meg...I know you...need...to talk to him, but if you...just...I'm around. Okay?" Meg simply kept her eyes forward, not acknowledging Joe, but not moving away from him, either. Randy watched the whole scene, feeling that same malevolent energy from a few shows ago, when everyone had crowded into the triage bay around Meg, the night Joe had worked Colby stiff. It was back again, now wrapping itself around him, pushing him further and further away from Meg, getting ready to detonate into something that was pure destruction and evil. Meg's hands lingered against Joe longer than they needed to, pushing Dave's triage door open for him, guiding forward by the lower back, pausing to look in after him before shutting the door.
She brushed past Randy as though she were a ghost, walking into her triage bay, ticking the overhead lights off, and sitting down on the edge of the exam table. Frail and greyish, she certainly looked like a medical specimen as she perched, Randy simply watching her while she stared out into the room. 'Was it that bad, Meg? Bad enough to be in a room with Joe alone, to touch him, to let that be...fine...maybe even...wanted? What happened to feeling safe with me? Trusting me?' He closed his eyes and worked to push the terrors down.
The constant motion of the day was beginning to catch up to Randy; Dave had sent him out of triage directly; he'd first asked if he needed an assessment, medication, or a Concierge appointment, and when Randy said no to all of the above, Dave simply told him Meg was in the room next door and turned his back to him. No matter what question Randy asked, Dave remained stone-still, silent as death. Giving up, but not quite ready to face Meg, Randy thought he'd try Jon and Renee instead. Renee was easier to find than Jon; he could be anywhere in the arena for his warm-up, but she was always filming in the same area. 'And I know I'm gonna catch hell, so I may as well get this out of the way now. It's not like I don't deserve it. Most of it, anyway; I need to know what really happened when I was gone.'
Cautiously, he approached Renee; her back was to him and it was only the speed with which the cameramen put their equipment down and vacated the area that told her someone was behind her. 'No jasmine. Not Joe, not his evil bitch. Probably our other resident dumbass, since I don't smell roses.' Putting a firm, cross look on her face, she slowly turned to face Randy, who already had his hands up in a gesture of surrender and peace.
"Look, Renee, before you lay into me, I just want y-"
"Save your bullshit. Save it. Did you know that when we were all talking about your little plan in the car – SUV – whatever, she wasn't asleep?"
"What? No. Meg was in my lap; she was out."
"You're a fucking idiot. She was awake. She heard us all talking. Trying to tell you it wasn't a good time to go, but you never said you'd stay, you never said where you were going, and now we're sitting in a city fucking named Jackson. Now, for whatever reason is in her head, she thinks Jon and I were agreeing with you about going. Not trying to keep you here. Do you know how bad it was last night? Oh, wait, right, of course you don't. She was screaming at me, Dave, and Jon through the door to your suite, punching the door, crying, slurring, then Dave said she stole his valium and I know she had her vicodin with her, so it's a fucking miracle that she's even alive right now! If she really wanted to, she could have taken everything, drank everything, and just been done. So either she didn't want to, she's too stupid to know how to kill herself, or she's too goddamned stubborn to die."
Something in Randy's eyes died, and Renee kept going, not caring. "And honestly? It's not my fault. It's not Jon's fault. It's your fault. Yeah, Jon suggested the idea. Yeah, I said I'd help. Because we love you and Meg, and you two make each other happy. But if this is how fucked up you love each other, and how much damage it causes, stay the fuck away from each other. No suites, no gala, no relationship, none of it. No more, you're over, it's done. It's broken. She was fine until you wrote one sloppy note? Then suddenly neither one of you can even talk about it and she goes into nuclear countdown mode? The fuck is wrong with you two?"
"Renee...you don't know all of it. I...just...ask Jon. Ask him to tell you what happened to her. All of it. He knows-" He closed his eyes, shaking his head slightly. "She falls apart like that because she has to, sometimes. Jackson was with her for years...and he's never not going to be with her. We were talking about forever, with each other, before I left, I know I confused the fuck out of her by going. And if you just talk to her-"
"Believe me, I'm going to talk to her. You think I ever want to feel like that again? Thinking I just listened to someone die and couldn't do anything about it?"
"The fuck do you think I felt like for months? At least you were there with her." Randy's eyes hadn't opened, his voice now down to an angry hiss. "Talk to her. She's gonna tell you she knows she fucked up. She's gonna tell you a lot more than that, I bet. It's been so long since she's done anything like this. Even close to this."
"And you need to stop making fucking excuses! She wasn't always like this. Either she's gonna come out of it or she's not, but-"
He'd already turned, gripping his arms with his hands, trying to hold himself back from shaking Renee while somehow keeping his mouth shut, but he knew before he started it was an impossible task. "But what, Renee? But if she can't just snap back to normal, she should leave? Get some really good happy pills? Nice tight straightjacket? Find an AA sponsor? Maybe a live-in sobriety coach?"
"No, I was gonna say, asshole, if she's not gonna come out of it, then you can't do shit like what you did. You look like a big bag of fuck, yourself. Like you did with Sam. If both of you need each other that fucking bad, then stay here. Or end it. But don't play halfassed-happy-husband and drag us around in the shit you create."
Randy dug his fingers harder into his arms and began to walk away, never having looked back at Renee. "Just leave her alone, Renee. She's not in the right...she's can't handle it right now."
"Oh well. We couldn't handle it last night, so I don't really give a shit. She needs to hear it."
Randy simply kept walking, now hoping he would run into Jon. 'He'd understand it better. He's been there. Meg fucked up, but it's part of getting it out of her head.'
Jon was sitting in catering, feet up on a chair, thumbing the edge of a script packet, staring off into space the same way Meg had been. Randy wasn't halfway across the room before Jon had heard his footfalls and rolled the script into a tight tube, the paper creaking under his fingers. Waiting until Randy was within striking distance, Jon spun as fast as he could and whipped the rolled script forward and up, catching Randy above the left eye with the edge of the papers and raising an ugly red welt.
"You're a piece of shit. We fucking told you to wait, didn't we? Didn't we? She coulda fuckin' died. I used to do all that shit, you have no fuckin' idea how to watch her, and you really have no fuckin' idea how wrapped up in you she is if all it takes is one shitty note from you to send her that far down. And now I get to clean up a fuckin' mess with Renee because she spent the whole night crying that Meg was gonna die and it would all be her fault. Dave had to fuckin' rewrite a valium script for her because Meg took the other bottle. And the fuckin' stupid thing is, I don't think Meg wanted to die, I think she was fuckin' scared you really did leave her and she didn't know what to do with that. She didn't want to think about it, or didn't know how. I'm not even mad at Meg, I get what she did, I get where she's at, and believe it or not I think she makes sense. But you, you dumb motherfucker, you just..." Jon trailed off, hoping he'd said enough.
Rubbing the welt he knew had formed above his eye, and entirely unsurprised to find blood come away on his fingertips, Randy slowly crouched to pick up the rolled packet of paper, carefully setting it on the edge of Jon's table. "I know she didn't know what to do. Believe me, Renee let me know. But...I found her necklace. And I think...if she wanted to...she could go back there. She could go home. She built a kind of a family there, an-"
Jon stood up so quickly he toppled the chair his feet had been in. "You fuckin' idiot, her home is with you! No you, no home! You get that now? Or does she need to do that pill-booze-death shit a few more times before you understand that everything she settled down with you, you just tore up without givin' her a single fuckin' reason? Dave said she feels like a goddamned throwaway, and what did you do, Orton? The same shit Joe did, and the same shit Jackson did!"
'I am not Jackson. I never did those things to Meg. I never do those things to her. Even when she asks me for – I wouldn't – I don't – I love her, I would never hurt her like that, except I did. I left.' Randy lunged at Jon, angry at himself, suffocating on it, which Jon more than anticipated – blocking him easily and countering him down to the surface of the table, again hitting the welt over his left eye, opening the cut further. Randy let out a short howl of frustration, but catering had cleared quickly at the first sign of aggression between the two men, and there was nobody left to come to anyone's aid.
"Oh, fuck you, Orton," he growled out, pinning Randy over the table, banging more chairs around, "You did do exactly what Jackson did. You didn't have to get her drunk and kick the shit out of her, she did that to herself. You just set her up to do it, which is what he did every time. Isn't that what you told me? Learn how to take care of it, or leave her the fuck alone. I'm startin' to think Renee is right and Meg can do better." Dragging Randy off the table by his shirt, Jon shoved him back, hard. "Go clean yourself up, you're a fuckin' mess."
Zero-for-two in terms of getting any sort of support from his friends, the encounter led Randy to a bathroom to blot half-assedly at his face before going back to triage, though he did manage to catch an angry shove from Tenille along the way. It didn't budge him as he walked; mostly she managed to bounce herself backwards off of him, but he understood her sentiment.
Eventually, walking everywhere he could except to triage, there he stood in the doorway, watching Joe curl around Meg, then watching her touch him, the color fading from his vision in the time it took him to find his voice and direct Joe to leave. When Meg came back and sat down on the table, the sickly light from the fluorescent overheads in the arena hallways filtering into the room, she looked as though she'd been dipped in formaldehyde – gutted and preserved in the moment, specifically for him to see. Randy hadn't realized how dry his throat was until he tried to talk, and he was eminently thankful for the text alert that came from his phone, giving him an opportunity to stop and rethink how to start. Dropping his shoulders, he began to type, trying to give himself time to think.
'Bonjour – I have a picture. Some parts are almost complete. Monsieur Alvin would like to send it pre-wrapped; I told him that would be fine. That was his purpose with the small jewel boxes. Hope all is well! - Remy
While waiting for the attached photos to make it from cell-space to his phone, Randy tapped out a reply. 'Boxed is fine, I guess. I trust you. She's...not talking. At all. Looks like hell. I'm lost. I screwed up.'
Remy handed the Saint Anthony of Padua medallion, wrapped in a small bit of paper, to Alvin, who hummed lowly, and slipped it behind the velvet lining of the lid to the box he'd picked out for Meg's necklace, leaving just enough chain – melted sugar spoon – sticking out that Meg would be tempted to pull at it, cat-like, just as he remembered her fingers dancing across and toying with so many of the bracelets and necklaces in his store so long ago.
"Y'sure she's gonna know what y'mean by puttin' this in here?"
"Oui. That paper is a note. It explains. As long as she opens the box and finds the chain, you know, takes out the medallion, she will understand it is for him."
Alvin hummed again, and went back to chipping at Randy's diamonds, the chains long since having been made, and only a few more diamonds needing planing before work on the garnets could begin.
'Remy, what'n'a world is this?' Alvin shook the Saint Anthony medallion around in his palm, half a smile on his face. 'Meg ain't about to be wearin' two, now is she?'
'Non, non. I am going to tuck it into the box with her necklace. She will understand it is for Randy – Saint Anthony of Padua...he is the Saint of finding lost people. Two people more lost than Magdalena and Randy, well...monsieur, I do not know any. But they have found each other. The Father gave it to me when we spoke.'
'An' you think he's gonna wear it? He di'n't say nothin' 'bout bein' Catholic.' Alvin looked skeptical and put the medallion down, then began trying to pick at the linings of several of the smaller jeweled boxes to see if any had space behind the lid to hold Remy's surprise.
'Monsieur Alvin, there is nothing Meg could ask of him that he would not do. And where this is concerned,' Remy paused to string the medallion on the chain Alvin had just finished, 'I think he will want to wear it. For her, and for himself. He tracked her down after the accident. He's always kept her safe, or at least tried. And he kept saying something I did not understand...about being found in the church. He is not Catholic that I know of, but he is of Meg.'
Alvin simply chuckled lowly to himself and began work on a second chain. 'Take that'n off. That's Meggie's chain. I'll do this'n longer, for him. Those two are...' He trailed off, shaking his head, a small, knowing smile on his face.
'Oui. They are. For better or for worse, and most certainly until death.' Remy shook his head.
Randy stared down at Meg again, not realizing his feet had carried him to her side as he typed out his message. 'Now what? What do I-'
Meg's frigid hand reached out, a single finger tracing a line down the outside of Randy's nearest hand, rounding over his fingertips, then retreating back to her side. "You came back?" Her voice, all sandpaper, was pure confusion. "Why...bother? It wasn't forever, now was it?"
'Oh...oh fuck. Didn't she get my message? Start there.' "Where's your phone?"
Meg pointed toward the sink, and Randy looked perplexed and horrified at the screen, all webbed cracks. "What the fuck happened?"
"Chair fell on it. Uh...I fell on the chair that fell on it." 'I can't...I need water.' Meg fumbled for the bottled water again, and Randy moved to help her, trying bitterly to make himself at least as useful as Joe had been.
"Fell? Your leg?" He passed the water to her, instinctively reaching over to both lift her upright and hold the bottle to her mouth.
'Thank God. My throat hurts.' "Drunk. High. Then I read your note. Uh, the paper one. I couldn't see the text. The night gets blurry from there. Renee's mad at me. Jon, I dunno. Dave's scared. Prolly just tired of it."
"You never read the text I sent?"
"Why not call? Screen's fucked up now, anyway."
'Good point. Why didn't I just call her that morning? Time? I didn't want to – wait, the fuck? I didn't want to talk to her? No. If I talked to her I would have fucked up and given away where I was.' "Look, Meg...I know it's all been a mess. If you really want me to leave you alone, if you want time to think, I can just give you space."
Meg's eyes died. 'You just came back...I didn't ask you to go. I don't want you to go now.' "Uh. Whatever you want, Randy."
"He wants to get the fuck out of here so I can talk to you." Renee stood in the doorway, glowering at both of them. "It's not like he's gonna apologize to you, I've been standing here a good three minutes and that shit hasn't fallen out of his mouth yet. But, hey, he did offer to leave for a second time. You wanna try SoCo again, or should we just jump to the big leagues and I'll buy your ass some 151 and a straw?"
Next door, Dave could hear Meg, Randy, and Renee crystal clear and was trying his damnedest not to react, other than to be eminently relieved that it hadn't taken longer to wrap Joe's knee – he didn't need to do damage control if Joe found out what had gone on the night before. It was bad enough he knew Meg was feeling poorly; it gave him an excuse to be intrusive and overbearing. If Joe was to find out Randy had left her alone – had acted no better than Joe – it could turn into leverage nobody needed to deal with. Hearing Meg admit it was the promise of a safe forever that she'd latched onto – and that Randy had apparently tried to bring her – that had been her undoing positively broke his heart. Dave opened the bottle of valium, sighed, and poured them down the sink, running the water as fast as it would go.
"Oh, and I'll make sure we get you some really effective Tic Tacs! No more false alarms, Meg. How about a 500-count bottle of Tylenol? Dave's probably got one around here somewhere, that way he can keep his valium for when I need one after you off yourself, and you don't have to pussy out in case your vicodin doesn't actually do the trick. I hear Tylenol is great for successful liver failure. No coming back from that one!"
Randy shifted away from Meg, intending to move Renee from the door, but she threw a hand up in his face. "You touch me even once and I'll scream so loud it'll end the careers of grandkids you don't even have yet. She needs to hear this shit." Renee stalked up to Meg, grabbed her by the wrists, and snapped her up to attention. "Look. I love you, Meg. You scared the fuck out of me. I thought you died – I literally thought I was listening to you die, and there was nothing I could do. Do not do that to me ever again. I don't know what you went through, I don't know what you're working out, I don't get it, and Jon told me I need to back off and let you sort your shit out – Randy, don't get any ideas, because you're still an asshole and you don't get a free pass-" Renee glared directly at him, then returned her focus to Meg "-but I do not want to lose a friend. Next time you want to work it out, you come get me, okay? Or Tenille. Or Jon. You don't pull shit like what you did, even if he's busy pulling shit like what he did."
Meg, for her part, looked directly through Renee as though she hadn't heard a single thing she'd said, and it took Renee a second to realize Meg had been inching up toward her the entire time she'd been speaking. Quietly, directly next to Renee's face, and barely loud enough for Randy to hear, Meg began to speak. Something in her eyes had become spiteful and hard, and Renee shivered even without looking at Meg's expression.
"Has Jon ever picked you up by the hair the morning after he's fucked you so hard, so many times, with so many things – things, Renee, it didn't matter what, it could be him, it could be whatever he could reach – no matter how many times you begged him to stop, that you were numb from the waist down? Then, he threw you down the flight of stairs outside your room because you couldn't fight him, your legs didn't work, then over a table – and you felt your ribs break – then smashed a glass ashtray next to your face and carved a line into you, from your hip all the way across your ass and promised he'd give you a matching one on the other side that coming night? That you had to hope you could get him drunk enough, or be sweet enough, or good enough in bed, that he'd forget about carving you up when he came back?" Renee had paled, then greyed, but Meg never let go of her and refused to let her get away so easily. "When he does, when that happens, then you can come back here and tell me how I'm supposed to properly deal with it when the one person who finally got that shit out of my head decides to bail on me and I hear you and your lover-boy talking about how you're gonna help him do it. Until then, take your 151 and your Tylenol and your smart mouth and go film your next segment."
'Meg, I didn't mean for...Jon said leave it alone, just wait for a few days...I wanted you to know I was scared, I care about you, I didn't want to lose you...what the fuck did you go through? I don't want you to die.' "Meg, what...I wasn't..." Renee stumbled over her words, Randy standing in slack-jawed shock near the door.
Meg slowly let go of Renee's wrists, and it was the absence of the cold pressure from her hands that caused Renee's stomach to wrench and heave. "You should go for a little while, Renee. I don't feel good. You don't, either. And we're both wrong for this." Renee, for her part, didn't need to be told twice, and she moved out through the door twice as fast as she'd come in, closing it behind her.
Randy had backed away from Meg's side while she held Renee's wrists, but now he closed in on her, well past horrified at what she'd explained had happened to her. Feebly, she tried to fight against his arms, but he refused to let go of her, her words to him from months ago rattling around in his mind.
"You said we can't annihilate each other."
Meg paused, mid-struggle, to look up at him. It was better that she did stop moving; the room had started to spin around her. "I...we...what?" 'Where did I remember that shit from? The night he did it to me? Why is all this coming loose? I don't want it coming loose. When you stay here, it stays gone. Put away. And when did I say...whatever I said, to you?'
"We were arguing. When Sarah got hurt. You said we can't annihilate each other every time we do something the other person doesn't like. So...that means we can't do it to ourselves, either. I'm not saying I didn't fuck up massively. I did – I know I did. And if I knew what you just said...Meg, I would have done all of this differently. What I was trying to do was...undo...a fuckup from before. I didn't mean to make anything worse, and I wasn't trying to take away forever. We both need that. And it wasn't Renee or Jon's fault. They were trying to help me do it in a way that wasn't such a trainwreck. I was the one who made the mess, Meg. Not them."
Her struggle stopped; whether it was from understanding or lack of energy remained to be seen. "Didn't you already know enough to do it differently? You...just left me. Walked away. You just offered to do it again. And right now...yeah. I do want you to go."
Randy looked like he'd been shot. "But...where are you gonna stay? And...what about-" 'You – wait – you said yes to that? You want me to go? You aren't gonna keep me?'
"No. I just mean now. I just want to lay down, and I want you to go. Don't push about anything else. I'll see how I feel later."
Crestfallen, Randy let go of her, and Meg bunched up in the corner of the table. 'Guess that answers that about the gala. Renee is upset, and Randy and I are a mess. Good; I didn't have the shoes yet anyway.'
"O-okay. Meg, I just...I'm sorry. I know I did it all wrong. I'm trying to fix something for you, I just did it wrong."
"By breaking everything else? I said I trusted you not to hurt me." Meg sighed. "You know what? No. Because you didn't make me do that shit. I did that shit all on my own. Just go, Randy. I'm tired."
'Yeah, I...just...fuck.' "The gala's in a few days, Meg." He tried sounding hopeful; it came out sounding afraid.
"And Renee is the only one who knows what's going on with the dresses, so good luck with that. Now go. Please. I'm asking you." 'I guess that answers that answer about the gala; too bad we're all so fucking angry at each other now. And that one is squarely on me. How do I even start to fix this?'
Randy let himself out, making sure the door closed behind him – as much to keep Joe out as to convince himself Meg was safely inside. He realized he had no idea where to go or what to do with himself; usually he'd go wander around with Jon before their matches, or double-check scripting with Renee to make sure he hadn't missed anything. Sometimes Dave would double-check his tape, but that certainly wasn't going to happen, either. Turning toward his locker room, he decided he'd fill the silence with sound and went to find his iPod, knowing Meg had probably organized a few playlists on it. 'It's better than nothing. She knows I came back. Once she works through it, maybe she'll be less...whatever she is right now. That whole thing she explained with Jackson...maybe things are coming back to her. Leaving her this close to the gala was so fucking stupid. And I hope reminding her of New Orleans isn't...gonna make it worse. I need to find Jon and apologize. It wasn't that long ago I would have said fuck it, instead.'
He had 25 minutes to kill before he was expected to do anything televised; more than enough time to scroll through his iPod and see what Meg had been up to. Sometimes she'd just sit with it attached to her laptop, a small smile on her face, and tell him she was leaving him 'Easter eggs' as surprises. He'd have to go digging, but he'd usually manage to come up with whatever goofy, sweet, or sentimental gem she'd found for him. Most popular rock song from the day he was born? Check. Top song on the pop music charts from the day they met? Done and done. The tune they'd heard on the piano after dinner in Blaine? Randy had that set to follow Adagio for Strings. A few days before he'd pulled his disappearing act, he saw Meg with his iPod, but she'd said hers had lost its charge. She was believable, but he was hopeful it was a cover for another downloaded treat.
Randy was half-right; Meg had downloaded more music to his iPod, but it was as though she sensed the impending disaster. Curious, he toggled to the last song she listened to and pressed play. The voice was recognizable; the same man who'd sung about finding her in the church was piping through his headphones. If he'd thought that first set of lyrics rattled him, this song ruined him, and he spent the next 25 minutes pressing repeat until he wasn't sure he'd left New Orleans at all. 'Tragic about you, magic and lonesome about you...if that isn't you, Meg, then I don't know what. And innocence did die screaming. Wretched and precious. And broken. But goddamn if I'm not hoping about this. Hoping about you.' He chose to ignore the line about slithering out of Eden to sit at Meg's door. It was too painfully close to life, both real and scripted, and he wasn't prepared to believe he'd become the one to tempt – or force – her out of grace. Out of recovery and peace.
Renee didn't have anything else to pre-record, so she headed to catering for a bottle of water. She needed something to calm her nerves, and as much as she wanted a drink, she felt a sick hypocrisy in the urge. Jon hadn't moved from the table he and Randy had argued at earlier, chairs still upended, the rolled script still twisting back and forth in his hands. Jon's eyes focused on everything and nothing at once, finding a blank spot on the concrete floor to stare at, without really looking at anything at all. Renee carefully righted a chair across from him, then shifted slightly to the side, feeling like she shouldn't block whatever it was he was trying to look at, see or unsee.
"Something go wrong, here?"
"Had a conversation with Randy."
"Ah. Yeah. Me, too. Didn't go so well, huh?"
"He fuckin' knew better than to leave. She's so..." Jon sighed, heavily, and shifted his gaze down to the surface of the table. "It's fucked up. I've been there, I get what she was tryin' to do. There's too much shit in her head, and when it all starts moving around, she's gotta shut some of it up. When he's here, he does that for her. I don't know what all he told her – that necklace is more than just a necklace, I know that much – but when he left, it tore something out that she needed. Whatever it was, it kept her alive. Kept all that shit quiet."
"It didn't give her the right, Jon, and she needed to hear it."
Jon's eyes shot up to Renee, and a small, illogical part of her brain asked her if she had just watched him slip into character. "She heard it? From who, Renee? Him or you?"
"I talked to her. It wasn't like she even heard me when I did. She started in on this...rant...about what Jackson did to her one night and said that until I went through it I didn't have the right to say anything to her, but she can't put us all through that. She could have died."
"I told you to leave her alone, Renee. I know she could have died. She knows she could have died, and not just from the fuckin' pills. You gonna remind her every day, or you think she's got enough permanent marks to let her know?"
Renee blinked and backed up, hard. "The fuck is this? You, too? I told her the next time she was that upset, to find me, or you, or Tenille, or anyone, but not to do what she did. You think I'm so much in the wrong for that? For asking her to get help, instead of getting shitfaced? Ask Randy, he was right there when I talked to her, he can te-"
"Go take a walk, Renee." Jon pushed back from the table, setting off on a walk of his own, pausing just long enough to grab some sugar and salt packets from the catering tables, along with a full-sugar Dr. Pepper.
Waiting until he was far enough away that she knew she couldn't hit him, Renee threw her bottle of water at him. "Thanks, Meg. Thank you for managing to fuck this up, too." Renee set off in search of Tenille, praying she could hold it together long enough for the two of them to find a women's room in the middle of nowhere so she could cry in relative peace.
Jon debated the doors to the triage bays before testing the doorknob to Triage One. It was locked, but he heard Meg shuffling around behind it, trying to rattle the knob open. He opened the door only enough to slide himself through it, not wanting to blind her with the light from the hallway. By the time his eyes adjusted to the relative dark of the room and the dim light from above the sink, Meg had already fussed her way back onto the table. She'd sat on the edge, just as she'd done with Randy, looking at him from under half-lidded eyes, as though she was bracing for him to be the next round of vitriol and argument.
'Nah. You know what you did. I'm damage control.' "Chill, Meg. Regular soda pop, but I forgot ice. And where's your water?"
Shakily, she pointed at the counter. It was mostly full; Jon knew she hadn't been drinking any of it, which concerned him. "Meg. Not good. You know you need to drink more." Tearing open the salt and sugar, he poured out half the bottle of water, put the contents of the packets in, topped the bottle off, and shook it. "Here. It's not the nurse-approved solution, but it used to help when I did this shit."
"Thank God you picked wrestling and not medical school," Meg rasped out, "You're trying for electrolytes and ending up in 'gross.'" She drank the water anyway, figuring the salt and sugar couldn't hurt anything, and then reached for the Dr. Pepper, motioning him up onto the table next to her.
He sat next to her, pulling her into a one-armed hug. "Sorry about Renee."
"Nah. I get it." Meg sniffled. "She's...scared. She probably never saw you in it. And she doesn't know how bad I can get. Randy walked me through the worst of it, but..." She trailed off. "When it all comes down, it comes down hard. And lately...I remember more of it. I don't go looking for it, but it keeps coming."
"It's okay." Jon pulled her in again. "Get some rest. And I don't care how bad that tastes, drink it, okay?"
Meg offered a weak smile, but tipped the bottle of water again. "Be safe out there."
"Be safe in here, Meg." Jon slid off the table, clicking the door shut behind him. 'Too much like me, gives me the fuckin' chills. Renee needed to leave her the fuck alone.'
They all walked wide, awkward circles around each other for the rest of the night, that malevolent energy balling up between them, delighted, sucking on the delicious tension and feeding greedily off of it. Tenille wanted to slap Randy, scream in his face, but was frozen with fear when it came to acting on the impulse, and found herself terrified of Meg for reasons that wouldn't come up from her throat, as though she could accidentally speak the destruction into reality if she worked at it too hard. Jon was furious with Renee for confronting Meg and thus inviting his own drug-addled horrors out of the crevices of his mind, and Renee was horrified at the images Meg had planted in her mind, all of which now involved Jon, Meg, herself, in some sort of sick and rotating dance where nobody was ever sure who was out of character.
Dave, for his part, felt age creep over him with the all sandy heaviness that time brings along, and its grit settled between his joints, making every motion ache – especially because all the motions involving Meg were repetitive: save her, help her, save her again. Meg didn't answer when Sarah called and then called again, trying to find out what was going on with plane tickets and pantsuits. Randy simply settled back and waited, testing out the patience of Job, for whatever dam would break or wall would crash, knowing – or at least, hopeful – that eventually, Meg would run out of things to fuel the fire. 'And I have to believe that. Everything else, we've all done it to ourselves. I didn't have to leave. Nobody had to go to her room, nobody had to argue with her. She didn't have to drink or take the pills. Sometimes we all have to let go. But, I'm hoping about this.'
Meg simply lay on the table, in silence, until Dave came to get her at the end of the night. She let him lift her to vertical and slide her off the table to her feet, walking her gingerly to their SUV. Randy watched them walk out, keeping his distance, then sighed and called a company car to take him back to their hotel, alone. 'I can just...meet her at the room. She'll let me know if she doesn't want me to stay, and if not...I'll try Dave. Dave just sounded like he wanted me to talk to her, and then he'd be okay with me. Maybe I can stay there. I did try to talk to her.' He considered texting her, but knowing her phone was near-useless, sent a message to Dave.
'I tried everyone. Renee screamed at me. Jon opened up a cut over my eye. Nell shoved me. Meg...asked me to go away at the arena. But I did try talking. Can I see her at the hotel? Is that okay?'
Dave's phone chirped from the center console, and Meg reached for it. Dave let her sit up front on the condition that she handle the phones so he could drive uninterrupted, but he didn't intend for her to handle his personal phone – only the triage models. Meg wasn't sure how to respond after she read Randy's message and moved to put the phone down, but Renee came in next: 'Did Meg leave you any valium? Jon's losing his shit at me because I yelled at Meg.' Tenille followed quickly: 'Renee's in a car with me, Jon totally bitched her out and she's crying. Can she see you? I think she's fighting with Meg right now. Do meds help this? IDK what to do!'
Meg set Dave's phone down far harder than she meant to, earning a sideways glance from Dave. "I take it we've all gone back to high school?" He rolled his eyes. "Everyone needs to stand in front of the chalkboard and write 'I will not be an asshole' one hundred times and then agree to hug it out. Everyone, me included, is being ridiculous. It's going to fuck up the gala, it's going to fuck up matches, it's just going to fuck things up, period. I don't know where we – you, more than anyone – start, to make things right, but someone's gotta start. Maybe you and Randy can-"
"Dave, stop."
"No, I'm serious, you and Randy need to-"
Meg curled against the window, felt the cold glass against her face, and suddenly the memory of the window in Louisiana slammed into her. When her head went through the window, the glass that coated her face was summer-warm, and she remembered the humid air that sucked across her face when the window exploded, pushing the air-conditioned coolness away from her skin before the blood over her eyes was too thick to see through. 'Everything across my head stung. Everything was cutting me, and the glass looked like stars. Why the fuck am I remembering all of this now? What's going wrong?'
"- and it'll all stop. That's really it, Meg."
Meg shifted her eyes, but not her body, reaching blindly for Dave's phone as it chirped again. Jon, this time: 'Renee started shit with Meg, and I'm pissed. At her, not Meg. Tell Meg I'm sorry.' Sarah followed: 'Anyone gonna tell me about this gala? You guys still out there?'
"Dave, why is it coming back now?"
"You thought you lost him, Meg. Or that he gave up on you, whichever. You're scared. It's normal."
"Fuck, Dave," Meg snorted, "Nothing about me is normal." Meg rolled the seatbelt strap around both of her hands, keeping her face pressed into the window until they got to the hotel. She checked into the suite ahead of Randy, started a shower, asked room service to rush the same dessert wine they'd had in Blaine, and pulled urgently at her medallion in between undressing and putting on a bathrobe, setting out an extra robe for Randy. 'Patron Saint of murderers, tell me I didn't just kill four friendships and my relationship. One last try.'
Randy was exhausted to the point of physical pain, his suitcases almost impossible to drag behind him. A few of the more persistent fans had hung around the lobby to pester him for photographs, and he had to block some of the more aggressive women from joining him on the elevator. Checking in at the desk, he was overjoyed to hear that Meg had gotten upstairs ahead of him; even happier to hear she'd already called room service. 'I don't care if all she ordered is a single cup of coffee. She's here. She can kick me out as long as she opens the door long enough to let me see she's in there and okay.'
He managed the keycard in the slot, but Meg pulled the door open before he could even get the handle down. For a second, her face registered something eager and warm, but she dropped her head and backed away, willing him to simply come in. Randy noticed the wine and the extra robe, heard the water running, but was more concerned with Meg and what condition she was in. 'She looked like shit earlier, she let Joe near her, she was...lost. And all that shit coming back to her. What was that? Fuck, forget what...where did that come from?'
Cautiously, Meg picked up Randy's robe and moved into the bathroom, laying it close enough to the shower to warm from the steam. 'Come on...follow me. No sex, nothing crazy, just an apology.' Randy followed, and Meg spent the next few minutes dimming the lights to the room, gently undressing him, and guiding him into the shower, easing off her own robe and following behind him. Carefully, reverently, gently, Meg worked a mix of his soap and hers together in one of the hotel's oversized, over-fluffed washcloths, and as soon as her cold hand closed over the top of one of his shoulders, the washcloth working circles over the other, Randy knew they'd prepared to keep each other again, despite their complete and utter inability to maintain a relationship properly, or communicate like functional humans.
Pressing up onto her one good foot, Meg leaned up close to his ear, hoping he could hear her over the water. "I never should have do-"
Snatching her around before she could finish the sentence, Randy pulled her in against him, trying not to crush her, wishing he could press her against him so fully that she disappeared into him, and sank down to the floor of the shower with her, the tiles hot underneath them.
"Stop, Meg. You shouldn't, I didn't need to, they never ought – whatever. Fuck it all. Just keep me. I'm keeping you. As long as we understand what we're doing to each other. I won't leave like that anymore, but I promise you, I had a really good reason. You're gonna see."
"And you stop. I can't fall apart like that. You don't...answer to me...like that. If you want to go somewhere, or you need to be mad at me, or whatever, then that's what you do. You don't have to put your shit on hold and tiptoe around just because I might fall apart. I need to stop acting like that. I need to get it out of me."
They stayed there on the floor of the shower, Meg swirling the washcloth over whatever she could reach, Randy resting his head on her shoulder, silently listening to the water thunder down around them until they both risked falling asleep. She turned off the water and gently toweled him dry, draping his robe over his shoulders and shooing him out into the main room. Randy rummaged through their suitcases until he came up with sleepwear; she struggled through opening their bottle of wine. While he raised an eyebrow at her, she simply shook her head and explained that Dave had all of her pills and she'd only poured for him. A closer look at the bottle, and he couldn't refuse her a small sip off of his glass; he recognized it as the wine they had at the resort.
Their shared glass of wine was all that their mutual exhaustion gave them time for; even the complication of changing from robes to pajamas was too much. They fell asleep propped up together against the headboard of their bed, legs and arms tangled across each other. None of the other parties to their disaster were faring so well; Jon was in Dave's hotel room, having been told by Dave that Meg was likely too exhausted to talk to him that night, but both men talking to each other well into the early morning hours. Renee went to Tenille's room and spent the night sniffling into a pint of ice cream, followed by nightmares that circled around Meg's snapshot of her time with Jackson. Sarah, having given up all hope of talking to Meg or Dave, instead texted Randy and settled for hearing from him in the morning.
The only variable was Joe, who lay in a separate bed from his wife, circling his fingers over the spot on his arm where Meg had placed her hand, still feeling the pressure against his lower back where she'd guided him through the door of the triage bay toward Dave. 'It's a start, Meg. I'll take it. And eventually, I'll take you back.'