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++Little Toy Guns : Blown Away++; App/Val Vs. M&M
Topic Started: Sep 25 2015, 08:38 PM (53 Views)
CodeApathy
++This had become a pilgrimage. Every year. Same place. Same time. For years I would lie there with a bottle of booze and pills. I wanted to join her. I felt like I should have been the one in that grave, not her. I had earned death a thousand times over. She was just a child who got dealt bad cards. She deserved more than me. She deserved a chance. God knows I had wasted all of mine. Mel just didn't get it. She didn't understand why. Her entire life had been the business, not that mine hadn't, but she never bore a child, not in the manner I did. She damn well never buried one. She was also quick to forget what happened after the fact in Atlantic City. If I wasn't so depressed I would just laugh it off, but I just couldn't do that anymore. I had fallen asleep on her grave, as I had often done. The solar lanterns that were spread around her headstone were flickering and dimly shining in the night. I never thought that he would come. He never had before, then again, we had been married three years now. Sooner or later he was going to face it head on. He respected my grief, but he just had a hard time understanding how to handle it. I awoke with a few gentle nudges and felt a blanket covering me. It took my eyes a few seconds to adjust to the atmosphere, but once I had gotten my wits about me, I found Thomas kneeling beside my weary body, a thermos in hand. He brushed my hair out of my eyes and sighed++

Thomas: I knew you would be here. I also knew that it was time I join you here...

Elizabeth: How did you find her?

Thomas: I always knew. I just didn't know how to approach it. It all happened so long before you and I ever met. I didn't know her, I didn't know her father. I knew it was all very perilous and horrific for you, but I just didn't know how to do this.

Elizabeth: How did you finally figure it out?

Thomas: I...called Orchid. I know the both of you fell out a very long time ago, but I knew she would tell me the whole story, without getting worked up. Liz...I...I understand now. What I don't understand is how Mel fits into all of this. Orchid knows but she wouldn't speak of it. She said that you deserved to be asked yourself. Here, I brought a cuppa. Chai, your favorite.

++I sat up, propping myself up against her headstone and sipped from the thermos. As I let the warmth fill me my mind quickly returned to that day we put her in the ground. It was an unusually cold late September. The blood of her fathers brains had barely dried on our former bedroom wall when we were lowering her. I clinched my eyes and tried to shift my focus, just had my therapist had told me too. As my hands trembled I felt him take them into his and pull me to him++

Elizabeth: Those bitches....I was at the height of my career and my signing on to that half assed promotion was for their benefit not mine. The only reason people started remembering that hag Mels' name was because I stabbed her. I made her a name. I gave her a start. I never asked anything in return but respect, but that company was flat out of such a thing. No. Instead I was the has been, the one who was past her prime. I was the biggest mistake that Sam ever made. Every week. Back and forth from that dead duck to her treatments. None of them ever knew. None of them ever cared to ask. Not even that washed up hack Erika. How could I have given my best when I was running on so little sleep? My whole life was running on coffee, energy drinks, fast food and short naps because I didn't want to miss that call.

Thomas: Liz...they didn't know? You can't fault them for not asking. You have not been very approachable at times.

Elizabeth: You would be right, except it all came out the day Fionn died. Mel, Sam, all of them knew it. They finally knew why I wasn't at my best. Why I turned out to be such a "disappointment". In true fashion while I was sitting, picking out a casket for my firstborn child, update after update came through on the dirt sheets. Not a kind word was said. They buried me and they continued to bury me any chance they could get. Mel just acted like it didn't matter. They all did. I have endured a lot in my career but that was the absolute lowest anyone could have ever stooped. I wasn't a part of their circle. I didn't belong in their world, so automatically I was exiled and then bad mouthed. There are unwritten rules Thomas! There are secret codes and unspoken creeds that we ALL know in this business and they damn well knew them too but they threw it all out the window because it didn't fit their ideals.

Thomas: I understand now. Mel and the others went above and beyond to disrespect you and spit in your face. They crossed the line. It was bad enough you had to deal with a dying child but to be backhanded like that...and Mel really doesn't understand?

Elizabeth: No. She thinks this is about her beating me. That I am just angry that she got over and I got fired. What she doesn't know is that the same night Sam fired me, I got a card from her...sending condolences....I think perhaps that was in the back of my mind a few weeks later when...

Thomas: Shh..you were absolved of the crime. That is all that matters. Elizabeth I have a confession. I had thought the reason you kept this yearly vigil up was out of guilt and remorse. I thought perhaps you were still blaming yourself.....

++I closed my eyes and rested my head back against the black stone, drinking some more tea. He rubbed my legs and covered them up as I sighed++

Elizabeth: I DO still blame myself Thomas. I keep telling myself that maybe if I had just taken time off, been there more, spent more time. I can't help but think that my antics depressed her and that it wasn't the leukemia that killed her, that it was a broken heart. She was devastated after Cage lit up and moved to the west coast to be with that slag. Always cleaning up his messes. Even until the very end. He and I were like toy guns up until the end, I just thank God that she didn't see how it ended. That she didn't see him for the man he truly was. I know Thomas...I know I couldn't have prevented the leukemia, at least not after she was born but I AM partly responsible. All of the alcohol, the drugs. She was weak when she was born. She was always weak in some form but God was she smart. Smart and talented. Annika...she is just like her. Every time I look at out girl I keep seeing Fionn. If I just could have let Cage go. If I would have just put pride and anger aside and just settled down. No. No I had to pursue him. I had to destroy my life, her life, end his life....and what do I have to show for it? A dead child, a murder charge, and nothing but regrets and disappointments.

Thomas: I...Liz you aren't perfect. You never were and you never will be. Come now Liz lets be honest with each other. Our whole relationship started because I raped you. We are both derelicts of society and that will never change. You made mistakes, yes. There are things you could have done differently, yes. The only thing that matters now is that we have Annika and some good came out of Fionns death. The work you have put into the arts, sports, scholarships, sponsorships in her memory has been nothing short of deserving a royal title. You are amazing with Annika and she is so proud of you. She idolizes you. As for this Mel....

Elizabeth: It isn't just her. It is just that my anger over that whole situation in that crap hole in Jersey has her at the epicenter. If anyone knows what it is like to be married to this business it is me. I know what happens when you throw yourself so far into it that you can no longer see the light of day. I am living proof that it can either go smashingly or it could crash and burn like Buddy Holly's plane. I have endured both. Yet even now she shoots me those smug looks as if I am beneath her. I am beneath no one. I never have been and I never will be. Until her trophy room looks like mine she has zero room to declare me anything but an icon. The icon that I am. She is so high on herself now, so is Androit, but hell at least SHE earned her stripes and it didn't take being stabbed by some so called has been to get it done. I've got no quarrel with Androit, from my end this match is just business, but Mel. Throwing jabs on twitter basically insinuating that Valkyrie got the short straw because she drew me as her partner? Classy. She is counting her out before she even laces her boots so maybe someone can tell me just when in the hell Melinda became such a big deal? I can. She became a pawn in the game again the minute she took the bait. I have had many many long years to sit back and contemplate this all.

++Again I squinted my eyes and lightly rubbed my forehead. Thomas' face shifted from approval to worry within an instance. He cradled the back of my head and rubbed it gently++

Thomas: What about your condition? Can you promise me that you won't push yourself to the brink over that slag? Two comas Liz. Think about that. Two. Not to mention the recent death of Finelli, whom was a part of both of those comas. I won't dare ask if it is worth it, as I know it is. All I ask is that you don't push yourself too far? I can't lose you. Not now. Annika needs you.

++I buried my head into his shoulder and exhaled sharply++

Elizabeth: I won't give my life for her or anyone else in this business. I just need to finish this. I need to get the message across. Not just to her, but to anyone and everyone else. An example must be made and she is going to be it. She had the balls to mock me in my time of grief then she better have the balls to finish this. Wins and losses no longer matter. It isn't about the money or the fame. This comes down to principle. Principle and tradition. With every passing year the old school, the school you and I came from, it is dying out. It is being replaced by glamour whores like Kash and mid-card lifetimers like Melinda.

++I finished my chai and let Thomas help me to my feet. I leaned down, kissing the headstone once more before he whisked me away, but suddenly I paused and softly laughed to myself++

Thomas: Liz? Something strike you?

Elizabeth: I remember when Fionn used to pray that daddy and I were just playing a game...glasses smashing against the walls, doors slamming, screaming and shouting. I don't know how many cell phones I destroyed by throwing them at the wall. He was there and then he was gone and then he would be back again. All the lies, the secrets, anything and everything to protect her from the truth. She loved that bastard and I didn't have the heart to let her find out that he was just a heel with a waning career. She would always go to her safe haven, her closet, and try to shut it out. Back then, it was hearing her sing "Like Toy Soldiers" that made me finally sever all ties with Cage. The sound of hurt and sadness in her voice haunted me and chilled me to the bone. You know what I listened to the entire trip here?

Thomas: Martika?

Elizabeth: Of course, but I also kept playing Carrie Underwood over and over again. I can't help but imagine that Fionn wished the words between I and her father were like little toy guns and I realized something queer, she understood what hate was and how hate sounded. She endured the real, raw and horrible side of humanity and yet she never let it affect her. She had a heart of gold. Even as her body wasted away, she retained her spirit and I could never understand how...

Thomas: Because she was your daughter. She got that from you. Just as Annika has. You won't raise the white flag until you have no other alternatives, and I have never seen that happen yet. I don't expect to see it now. If Melinda, Androit, anyone else, wants to take jabs, you do what you have always done. Survive and surpass. As for Valkyrie, you show her what a legend is. You prove Mel wrong. You make sure that her debut is monumental.

Elizabeth: What about our new security force? He brought in some heavy hitters. I think he knows how volatile of a situation his company is. His adoption of those bikers are a clear evidence that he doesn't think he can handle it on his own. I also think that Melinda has let down her guard. She has herself convinced that I have backed down, which I haven't, but the guy that pays us won't let Mel and I burn his promotion to the ground just to settle some petty real life grudge. He may see her and I as a liability at some point.

Thomas: Worrying about technicalities and formalities was never our style Liz, just do what you have always done. Steady the hand, size up the target, get it in your sights and aim for the eye socket....

Elizabeth: I did not shoot him in the eye socket!! It was his temple...and he shot himself....the jury said so......

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