A/N: Lol I put a little bit of foreshadowing in this chapter and I'm hoping I don't wake up tomorrow with ten "I KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENED TO ARI" reviews. Also, a little disclaimer: the idea of referring to Seth in this story by his real name (even though that's what I did in the original version and is what I'm doing for many other characters) makes me uncomfortable for reasons I can't articulate… Maybe it's because what happens between Ari and him is going to be a lot and I feel better linking that up with a character who I know a lot about rather than a real-life guy I don't know that much at all, if that makes sense? Anyways, here's another shameless self-promotion of the playlist I made for this story: playlist/5CH8gVXwNna0yWb6KdUQky?si=DG0znJYwQAeaDvfe-N9CIQ
Step Four. Never meet your heroes - heroes being one-sided crushes you had when you were sixteen.
2017, the night of Wrestlemania 33
"How do I look?"
"Like a pageant mom who screams at their kid from the side of the stage."
"Gee, thanks, Ari." Mom retorted, looking up at me as contour was blended out below her cheekbones. I only smiled devilishly at the woman before taking a seat on a round ottoman behind her chair.
It wasn't long after that that my eyes caught the large Hollywood mirror on the wall in front of my mother, glowing a warm yellow as the last touches were made to her makeup. For a few moments, I just stared at myself in the reflection; the green and black eyeshadow that I spent almost a full hour on, thinking it was going to be the coolest girl in the downtown Orlando area that night, had been rendered all but ruined by an accidental strike to the eye by my littlest sister, V. She was six and the baby, so I just had to grin and bear it when it happened, but I'd been covertly shooting dirty glances at her all night.
"I thought you were going to wash that off." Mom said suddenly, gesturing towards my face.
Only smirking at my mother, I raised a hand and swiped at my other eye. When I looked back at the mirror, both sides of my face looked like I had just jumped right out of a bad Mad Max rip-off. As devastated as I was over my makeup ruined just before, only a fool would pass up the opportunity to do the exact opposite of what their mother said.
"Oh, Jesus Christ," Mom muttered. If she didn't have a face full of stage makeup, she would have closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration.
I chuckled in amusement until a pair of big hands suddenly clasped my shoulders and squeezed them gently.
"… Well, hello, Furiosa."
I looked up at the owner of the extremities, grinning when I caught sight of a face somewhere between amused and perplexed, "Hi, Dad."
The man moved his hands up to my cheeks, gently tilting my head from side to side so he could get a look at each eye.
"What's up with Joan Jett over here?" Dad asked Mom, keeping a hold of my face.
"Trying to give me a heart attack, I'm convinced." She answered.
"With her track record? Never." Dad replied, smiling softly down at me. We both knew that I had given my mother a few note-worthy scares in my lifetime.
After gently shaking my head, Dad let me go and squatted beside me. "The security guard's gonna be here in a minute to come and take you guys out." He said.
"Are you sure you're going to be okay to handle your sisters?" Mom quickly added, her eyebrows knitted with concern.
I only looked back towards the kids in question, all sitting on the couch in the centre of the locker room. V and Murph were both staring at the same iPad screen, whilst Rory, my oldest younger sister, was huddled in the corner, reading a Percy Jackson book that I had lent her. The worst thing that anyone of them was doing at that moment was keeping their sneakered feet on top of the light-coloured couch cushions. Putting a mock look of horror on my face, I looked back at my mom.
"Oh, god! They're crazy. What am I thinking?!" I gasped.
Dad snickered to himself and Mom just rolled her eyes before a knock on the door sounded, heralding the arrival of the aforementioned security guard. Mom went over to answer it and Dad offered me a hand up off the ottoman. After I accepted and was on my feet, the man pulled me into a bear hug.
"Love you, kid."
"I love you too, Dad." I whispered back, "Don't get your ass beat by Rollins too badly."
"Shhh…" Dad gently scolded, patting the back of my head. Eventually, he released me and went over to say goodbye to my sisters. Mom soon came over to take his place, putting her hands on my forearms and caressing them.
"You know what to say out there if Murph or V get upset?" She asked firmly.
"Mm-hm," I responded, quickly nodding my head.
"You know where to go if you feel unsafe?"
"Yep."
"Have you been to the bathroom?"
"Yes, Mom, I've been to the bathroom! Can we please just goooooo?!" I groaned, extending my neck up into the air.
"Alright, fine," The woman sighed, raising her hand before turning to my sisters, "Levesque tribe, let's move out."
The three girls rose to their feet, Mom's words being somewhat of a rallying cry with us. I walked over to them, circling so my back was facing my youngest sister.
"You wanna get on my back, V?" I asked.
"Backpack! Backpack!" She exclaimed to the tune of the Dora the Explorer song, stepping up onto the arm of the couch and leaping onto me. Once V had her arms wrapped around my neck and I had a hold of her ankles, we walked towards the door, a cacophony of "Bye Mom!"s and "Bye, Dad!"s sounding from our mouths.
"Bye, my babies!" Mom called after us, waving her hands like a madman. Rory and I exchanged a short look, our faces scrunched up with embarrassment for our mother. Both of us thought we were being so smooth until a low, muffled chuckle came from Dad's direction and we heard a shrill:
"I saw that!"
"Sorry, Mom!" I called back as loudly as I dared, "We'll see you out there!"
"We'll wave to you in our heads!" Dad hollered. It wasn't exactly on-brand for Triple H and Stephanie McMahon to wave excitedly at four girls in the front row during their entrance - being the 'the bad guys', after all.
With contented smiles on our faces, my sisters and I began to follow the orange-vested security guard down the hallway. Every so often, the four of us would see someone we knew and wave eagerly (V, however, chose to forgo the wave when we went past Taker in his full gear, instead timidly hiding her head in my shoulder). When we were about halfway to an open corner in the arena that would lead us to ringside, a long-haired, broad-shouldered man in a bright, gold outfit passed by us, his chiseled arms stretched far above his head. The four of us had never known him well enough to give him an excited wave, but I had a sudden urge to say something, anything to him.
You're just polite, you're just so polite, I thought to myself, even though I had spent the last ten minutes (or perhaps sixteen years) harassing my mother. … And it would be rude to not even acknowledge him when he's the one about to beat the sense out of your dad. I mean, it's totally not because he's the most gorgeous man you've ever laid your eyes on.
I nervously chewed my bottom lip, trying to think of what to say before the man passed us by and my moment to be… polite was over. Before I could consider it any longer, our eyes met and I blurted out whatever random gibberish it took to fill the silence.
"Goodluckoutthere." I stuttered, cringing as soon as the jumble of words exited my mouth.
WHAT IN THE HELL WAS THAT?! ARE YOU TRYING TO SOUND LIKE DONNIE THORNBERRY?!
At first, the gold-outfitted man only furrowed his eyebrows at me in confusion. I tried my best to play my words off, simply returning his look with lowered brows of my own, when he abruptly came to a complete stop. Without so much as a word, the guy lowered his arms, reached up towards the side of his head and seemed to pluck some small object out of that direction. I realised after a few moments that it was a dark-coloured earbud.
"What was that?" He asked, lowering his head towards me.
"I said, good luck out there, Seth," I repeated; my voice was still trembling, but at least it wasn't coming out of my mouth at the speed of light anymore.
"Oh… Ah, thanks." A grin appeared on his lips and my stomach did somersaults at the expression. He was smiling at me. Smiling at me. "Nice… uh… make-up," Seth added, gesturing to his own eyes.
"Uh, thank you," I mumbled, my hand flying up to cover the smudged green and black in embarrassment. "It's, it's for my dad."
"Oh, you're… um… I wanna say one of Shawn's kids?"
Despite the absolute shotgun blast to my ego that Seth not even knowing who I belonged to - let alone who I was- was, I continued to beam up at him, merely shaking my head courteously when I processed his words.
"No, we're all a part of the Levesque tribe," I explained through a tight smile, thumbs pointing to V on my back.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't even realise." Seth said, giving a short, breathy chuckle. There was a short pause before he spoke again: "You do know what's about to happen is… nothing personal, right?"
"I'm sixteen; I do have a rough idea of how scripted television works," I answered, stiffly nodding my head.
"Oh, thank god," Seth exhaled, hands going to his knees, "I thought for a second after you said who were that this was going to be one of those moments…"
Ego shotgun blast #2.
Regardless, the friendly grin stayed on my lips, matching Seth's sheepish expression. After all, what other way could I get him to fall in love with me besides blind admiration? Well, there were lots - too bad I was too young to know about any of them yet.
"HEY! WE'RE GOING TO MISS MOM AND DAD!" V cried out to me, grabbing a hold of my ear and pulling it back.
"V! OW! OKAY! OKAY!" I snarled through gritted teeth, trying to wriggle free from her grip. You're ruining the story I'm going to tell your nieces and nephews in fifteen years, I all but shrieked in my head. When I finally got my youngest sister to let go of me, my eyes met Seth's again, quietly sighing in relief when I noted that my sister's behaviour hadn't sent him speed-walking away.
"Well, we should get going," I spoke calmly. As much as I wanted to stay in that hallway and get to know everything about Seth Rollins and tell him everything there was to know about me, we all had places to be.
"Yeah, so I'll see you out there," Seth said, raising his hand.
"Yeah, maybe," I added on, finally daring to put on a flirtatious half-smile.
"What are you talking about?! We're in the front row, of course he's going to see us!" Murph interjected. The act prompted me to turn my head towards my middle younger sister and send her a covert death stare to end all death stares. Once I was certain I had struck the fear of god into the eight-year-old's heart, my gaze returned to Seth once more.
"You guys make it out there safe, okay?" He said firmly. Demanding that a girl make it somewhere okay was a painfully paternal thing to do, but the concern in Seth's voice made my heart beat fast in my chest, and I had to try my hardest to not giggle like a little girl (a normal little girl; not the one that had just tried to rip off my ear) in response.
"We-we will," I responded, vigorously nodding my head.
After one final polite, raised hand, Seth continued down the hallway. I watched the muscled man as he slipped further and further away from us, not remembering to fully breathe again until:
"ARI! COME OOOOOOOOOOON!" V screeched from behind me.
"Alright, alright," I huffed, readjusting my youngest sister on my back before carrying on with following the security guard towards our seats. Before the four of us turned a corner, I looked over my shoulder back at Seth. And while he never showed as much as an inkling to look back at me as well, a warm feeling spread across my lower stomach. At that moment, I was fully convinced that the only thing keeping us apart was the general stigma against dating a junior in high school when you hadn't been a junior in high school for the better part of fifteen years. It would maybe take some time - a few years even, but something would surely happen between us. Surely.
While sixteen-year-old girls were practically famous for complaining about how much their life sucked, I was under the impression that mine was actually okay. More than okay, in fact; life was- okay, maybe not amazing (I wasn't quite Mrs Seth Rollins just yet), but it was good.
Life was good.
"Oh no, this is bad… This is really bad." I muttered to myself, frantically fingering through a filing cabinet in the corner of my grandpa's office. I was under the assumption that, much like every other businessman on planet Earth, he kept his work laptop on top of his desk. However, in doing so, I'd brushed over one crucial thing about my grandfather: he most certainly was not like every other businessman on planet Earth. For all I knew, Vince McMahon's work laptop could have been hiding behind one of the pictures hanging up on the wall.
"Motherfucker! Where is it?!"
My sisters and I had come to visit my grandpa while he was in his office countless times over the years, and I was cursing myself that I had spent all that time saying: "OH MY GOD GRANDPA I'M SO HAPPY TO SEE YOU!" and not instead: "Excuse me, Grandpa? When you're not working on your laptop, where do you happen to keep it?"
"This is bullshit."
I can assure you: I didn't usually get this cantankerous over trying to find a material object. As a matter of fact, I had spent a larger portion of my life purposefully losing them (case in point: the bag from my mother that I had catapulted into the sea in Thailand). However, after being kicked out of an entire country, surviving an intercontinental flight and causing my grandfather's heart attack all within the last forty-eight hours, the story of the invisible laptop was the thing that tipped me over the edge.
So, there I was on my hands and knees with shaky hands and gritted teeth, mumbling obscenities, as I searched through the final drawer of the filing cabinet. The actual chances of a laptop being stuffed inside were low, but I was running out of places to look and I didn't want to discount how eccentric my grandfather was again.
"Um, hello?" A voice suddenly called.
I froze stiff right there on my hands and knees. Nobody was supposed to be on this level of HQ this early in the morning - Grandpa told me that specifically last night. Was this whole thing a trap? Was this the olive branch all over again? Was that my mother who had just walked through that door? Was the laptop even real? Was the heart attack even real? Was the dud visa even-
The realisation that my mother did not have a low, men's voice abruptly brought me back down to earth.
Slowly, I got up on my knees and peered over the desk in the centre of the room. When it occurred to me who was standing by the door, hands on their lower hips, my breath caught in my throat.
It was my high school infatuation; there in the flesh - in Vince McMahon's office at seven thirty in the morning. I would have asked him what the hell he was doing here if I wasn't shell-shocked by the fact that he was, well, here.
When I took a second to think about it, I didn't exactly know what there was to be shell-shocked by; in the end, nothing - absolutely nothing - had happened between us. Seth hadn't even really talked to me again after that first conversation at Wrestlemania 33, besides a casual "Hey" if I was around when he was talking to my parents or a friendly wave if my sisters and I passed him in the hall. I wanted to say something to him. I wanted to tell him how good he looked in whatever he was wearing when I saw him. I wanted to tell him that I had followed him on Instagram and that it looked like he had fun in Rome in hopes that he would find me and follow me back. I could never figure out how without sounding psychotic.
With the power of hindsight, the beginning of the end was when my parents found out how I felt. They weren't mad or scared or even concerned; they were just thoroughly, thoroughly amused. Sure, they had given me a gentle lecture about statutory rape and predatory relationship, but that was where the seriousness stopped. My dad- Paul, rather, had once caught me looking at Seth's aforementioned Instagram and had flipped around and pretended to make out with himself every time he saw that I was on my phone for the next week. My mom mainly used the whole thing as a painfully unfunny joke whilst trying to parent me ("Come on, Ari, Seth wouldn't want to be with a girl who didn't study for their AP English Language exam." "Seth doesn't like girls who put empty milk cartons back in the fridge").
The weekend before my summer vacation started, Mom casually mentioned to me that she had seen Seth with his girlfriend at a Raw taping. While it was a singular, irrelevant moment in time for her, my mother's words destroyed my entire vision of what the future held; there was no more "someday", there was no more "just wait", and there was no more Seth.
I spent the next two weeks holed up in my room in the same tie-dye hoodie, sobbing intermittently to "Sweater Weather". My parents entertained it for a solid three days; Mom left meals outside my door and Dad told my sisters that I was "going through some changes". Soon, the food stopped coming, my sisters were allowed to come in and out of my room again and loud groans would reverberate through the house when The Neighbourhood would begin to blare. Nevertheless, this behaviour would have continued throughout the entire summer if there hadn't been an internship waiting for me at the Metropolitan Museum of Art during the second half of the break. In retrospect, I found the juxtaposition of how I spent the first versus the second part of my summer vacation funny; I was smart and sophisticated enough to get offered a place in one of the most prestigious programs in the American Northeast, but I had spent the weeks beforehand in a pseudo-depressive episode over an unrequited crush. I guess that's sixteen-year-olds for you.
Pretty soon, Seth was a distant memory; I was too concerned with everything I was learning about at the MET, travelling to and from Manhattan most days and feeling like a real adult to think about him. Even when the internship was over and I was back to my usual routine, it didn't really hurt anymore. Sure, I would still feel a twinge in the pit of my stomach every time I saw him on Instagram, but I could imagine a life without him in it - even after Mom told me that the girl she saw with him that night didn't come around to shows anymore.
By this point, it had been well over a year since I had thought about Seth at all (I'd had astronomically bigger things to process than a high school crush, after all). Maybe I wasn't actually shocked to see him. Maybe I was just shocked by the familiar twinge of pain that had cropped up in my stomach.
Seth was looking out the doorway, eyebrows knitted in confusion and hands still on his hips, obviously searching for some form of life on this level of the building. Before I had time to duck down again, he turned his head back around and we met each other's eyes. I can only imagine mine shone in utter terror, whilst his shone in…
Confusion?
"Hi." was all that I said at first, politely raising my hand as he had done all that time ago.
"Yeah, hi…" Seth said quickly - dismissively - before raising both of his own hands in a shrug, "Is Vince around or what?"
Oh no, I thought. Grandma's words immediately echoed in my head: "No one outside this family hears about this. Nobody. Do you understand?" But how else was I supposed to explain the absence of a man who had taken all but four nights off work since I was born? Before I could think about it any longer, I realised the silence between us was getting awkward and I found myself babbling out an excuse.
"Oh, he's feeling a little unwell this morning so he won't be in until a little later. He's got his phone on him, though, so you can probably call him." I replied in a tone that I would use regularly at the Pink Moon. A customer service voice, if you will.
To my disappointment, the response only caused Seth to tilt his head and furrow his eyebrows further. There was something about it that hadn't quite landed with him; I cringed in shame.
"What?" He asked simply, staring at me through narrow eyes.
"I said-"
"No. No. It wasn't that kind of what. I heard you." Seth sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.
"Oh. Okay." And with that, I turned my head to just stare down at my feet. It didn't even matter that I didn't even have the laptop now; I just wanted to leave.
"Oh god. I'm so sick of this guy right now. Just sick of it." Seth suddenly snapped. His words made me look up at him again. This time, I spotted the dark bags under his eyes, "Yeah, sure, I'm a "big-time guy", sure, I'm "leader of the locker room". Right up until bear-in-a-mansuit crawls out of whatever neck of the woods he's from and all of a sudden I've lost my title and I get stonewalled when all I want is a goddamn meeting!"
"I wasn't-"
"I'm over it. I'm done. I'd say just put me back on NXT, but Paul's not even around anymore so I don't see it being any different. Everyone in this building just takes me for a fucking joke. Everyone in this company just takes me for a fucking joke." Seth added, rubbing his eyes deeply in frustration.
I got the sudden urge to walk up to him and passionately say that I didn't think he was a joke, but I fought it down, figuring Seth needed to hear it from someone he knew a lot better than me. So, as the man continued to rub his eyes, I could do nothing but cross my arms and send him a sympathetic look.
Eventually, the middle and ring fingers on Seth's right hand parted and he looked at me for a few moments through an uncovered eye. I forced an awkward smile, suddenly afraid that his rant had been that of a soon-to-be spree killer.
"Who are you?" Seth asked pointedly, slowly lowering his hands from his hands. The familiar feeling of my ego deflating hit me; admittedly it wasn't quite as harsh as a shotgun blast (more like an aggressive prick of a pen), but it still stung nonetheless.
"I-um-"
"No, who even are you?" Seth interrupted, "Because I've sure as hell never seen you here before. Do you even work on this level?!"
"Well-"
"What the hell are you even doing inside Vince's office when he's not here anyway?! How did you get the keycard to get in?!"
I used to get yelled at at the Pink Moon all the time by tourists; by the time the monsoon happened, even having "YOU'RE A FUCKING IDIOT!" screeched into my face was like water off a duck's back. Seth's words, however, made my heart beat fast in my chest in embarrassment; they felt different. They felt worse.
I opened my mouth to explain everything, or defend myself at the very least, but no discernible words came out. Instead, I just made a weird noise, sort of strangled halfway through. I felt something rise from my stomach to my chest and, for a moment, I wasn't quite sure if I was going to sneeze or vomit.
You can imagine my quiet surprise when I started sobbing uncontrollably instead.
They were loud, howling sobs that not even a polite hand over my mouth could muffle. My shoulders were hunched over and my entire body shook whilst tears blurred my vision. I couldn't quite put my finger on what caused the sudden outburst, whether it was purely Seth's harsh words or a compound of every shitty, unlucky thing that had happened to me within the last few days. I frantically wiped my eyes and tried to say a few words (an "I'm sorry" at the very least). However, each time my mouth moved to make an intelligible sound, it was interrupted by a hiccuping sob deep from within the bottom of my throat. I kept thinking: Why now? Why couldn't you have handled it and broken down on the car ride over to the hospital like a normal person?
"HE-HE HAD A H-HEART ATTACK!" I wailed suddenly, hands still covering my eyes. When my embarrassment had dissipated enough to lower my hands, I peered through the watery curtain of tears against my eyes to see his face. To my shock, Seth's scowl had fallen away to reveal wide eyes and a red flush that spread across his cheeks.
"Is he-Is he alright?" He asked after swallowing hard.
"Oh, he's fine. I'm just upset." I sobbed quietly.
For a while, Seth only nodded wordlessly, eyes never leaving my face. When he did finally speak again, he was still stuttering, voice growing lower and softer each time something left his mouth like he was suppressing something guilty.
"I'm gonna- I'm gonna-" Seth merely gestured at the door.
"I'll tell him you were here." I sniffled quietly, looking down at my feet.
"Thanks."
After that, Seth stuffed his hands into his jean pockets, turned on his heel and quickly shuffled out the door. He didn't look back.
Once I was certain the man was gone, I sunk back down and began crying anew; a fresh batch of tears ran down my flushed, red face. For over two years, I had thought that Seth Rollins would never make me cry again, but I was bitterly wrong. I wanted to go home. I wanted to go home so bad. Not Uncle Shane's pool-house either. Not even Thailand. I just wanted to go home to my parents and my sisters.
The only silver lining in the entire situation was that, whilst on my butt in front of the filing cabinet sobbing like mad, I spotted Grandpa's laptop poking out from beneath his under desk drawer.
It was an overcast day in New York. I had taken the New York-New Haven train down to the city after dropping off Grandpa's laptop to cheer myself up. However, sitting there on the steps of the MET nibbling on a deli sandwich, I couldn't say I felt that much better.
I thought about visiting the Thai Consulate to put in for my new visa right there and then, but the thought of spending the entire morning in a waiting room before having to tell some random bureaucrat my life story made me want to cry all over. I was done with being diplomatic and professional for the day; diplomatic and professional had gotten me yelled at and left in tears.
With a shaky sigh, I balled up the waxy paper my sandwich came in and stood up. Maybe I needed to take a long walk around Central Park to clear my head; that would have to make me feel just a little bit better.
So, I walked down Fifth Avenue and entered the park right by the Seventy-Ninth Street Transverse. I headed over the Glade Arch and walked towards Bethesda Terrace, past the boathouse, past Conservatory, past Pilgrim Hill. I ended up on Terrace Drive, venturing west until my feet reached the familiar red-bricked surface. It was 10 am on a sunless Tuesday so the area was quiet, save for a select few walkers and tourists. I walked over to the edge of the terrace, grabbing a hold of the weathered stone railing and looking into the fountain below. When a soured memory came to mind, I quickly let go and made my way down one of the wide, gray staircases and headed left down a path that ran parallel to the eastern side of the Lake.
I got to the Bow Bridge before I realised I was being followed…
A/N: Lol remember when I said that the chapters wouldn't be as long after the last one? That was a funny joke.