Post by Ana Somnia on Feb 19, 2022 16:52:02 GMT -5
VIII.
“TASTE OF IRON”
ANASTASIA WESTEN’S CONDO.
MIAMI, FLORIDA.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14th.
6:43 p.m.
“TASTE OF IRON”
ANASTASIA WESTEN’S CONDO.
MIAMI, FLORIDA.
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14th.
6:43 p.m.
——Anastasia Westen rarely struggles with decisions. Ordinarily, she is firm in her beliefs and the actions she takes resultant of them. Once she commits to something, she refuses to relent until her belief is validated and her commitment rewarded in some capacity. She has always been this way, ever since she was a young girl growing up in Moscow. In other words, second guessing herself is not something the woman who professionally goes by the Devil Herself does, let alone is capable of.
——Tonight, however, she puts this sentiment to the test. This previously unmitigated hallmark of her personality seems to join the stained cotton swabs Anastasia tosses into the trash beside her unnecessarily large vanity mirror. Her makeup and hair are finished, but she seems incapable of deciding on the right shade of lipstick to match her attire. She wears an iridescent velvet cowl-neck bodycon mini dress with a pair of slingback heels. A pair of hoop earrings consummate her ensemble.
——The process of selecting her garb for the evening’s festivities was relatively simple, at least in comparison to the somewhat tedious decision regarding her lipstick. If this were any other night, she would have picked a shade and run with it. But tonight is not any other night. It’s Valentine’s Day and Westen needs tonight’s date with Sara Daniels to go well, as it is the first time her girlfriend of nearly three years has agreed to go out with her in literal months.
——As she flip-flops back and forth between different shades, she thinks of all of the things the two have been through together. At first, it’s the positive memories. The fun, the laughs, the romance— even the physical battles in the ring over the years. But soon the fun turns to screaming matches. The laughs turn to tears. The romance turns to bags packed and infidelity.
——She remembers May 2019. London. Fall of Kings. No Holds Barred. She remembers Sara handing her defeat and the next three years of her life outside the ring in one fell swoop. She remembers fighting about her intimate relationship with Jon Jrygin. May 2020, Sara moving out of their condo.
——“You told me things were gonna’ change an’ the only change I see happenin’ right now is me movin’ out for a little bit,” she’d said.
——“Please don’t go,” Ana had pleaded. “We can figure this out. We always do.”
——She thinks of how close they came to reconciliation at Aleksei House in Miami that same May. She thinks of the day before her twenty-eighth birthday that year, when Sara had surprised her to sweep her off her feet and take her on a trip to a cabin on a lake in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The unclad, drunken laughter in Lake Blue Ridge. Drying off and warming up by the fire in one another’s embrace. She thinks of the breakfast in bed Sara made her the next morning. She remembers how she told Sara she’s more important than her career. She remembers compromising—something she never does—all in hopes of salvaging her relationship with the woman she loves.
——But then she thinks of Sara admitting to having cheated on her in front of the world instead of telling her to her face, let alone privately. The thought prompts her to unintentionally break one of her tubes of lipstick, so she tosses it in the trash among the cotton swabs.
——That anger, however, soon shifts her thoughts to memories of their run as EHWF World Tag Team Champions. Undefeated. Undisputed. Unstoppable. She can’t help but smile at the fond recollection of the first Tag Team New Age Deathmatch. That smile vanishes as quickly as it had materialized, though, when she thinks of how angry Sara had been after they traded in their titles to partake in the Meltdown Chamber for the EHWF Global Championship, which Ana presently possesses.
——And then there was Ana’s first defense of that very same title— against Sara, no less. It takes legitimate effort for Westen to shake off the guilt gnawing at her bones, telling her she should have lost, should have let Sara win. It was a lose-lose situation for her despite the victory. Sara joined Ana for dinner at the Jaron household four nights later, but outside of a FaceTime here or there Ana hasn’t seen Sara since. She did not accompany Ana to her next defense, nor did she celebrate with her afterward. In their limited conversations since, it hasn’t even come up.
——Each time Ana changes her mind on the shade of lipstick and endeavors to remove it, a different memory of her years with Sara hits her like a Muay Thai elbow strike. Every subsequent reminder varies in nature, although most of them are of their happiest times together. Their first bout inside the ring. Their first official date. Their first vacation.
——And then finally, mercifully, one specific memory makes her lipstick decision for her. She reaches into her drawer and procures a softer shade than she typically wears. It’s the shade she had been wearing when she and Sara shared their first kiss. When she finishes applying it, a smile spreads across her face.
——For better or worse, of all the people Ana’s loved—Leon Goldwyn, Shawn Harris, Sydney Summers, Amelia Rensselaer, Sara Daniels—nobody has ever made her feel the way Sara always has. Even if Sara does not notice the lipstick or make the connection, Westen knowing is enough. This brand of romantic gesture is uncharacteristic of Ana but her relationship with Sara is different in and of itself, so the Russian does not mind acting out of character when it comes to this.
——Before she rises to her feet, Ana takes the bottle of vodka from the dresser beside her and pours some into a shot glass, which she promptly empties into her gullet. Once vertical, she adjusts the straps to her dress and smirks: there’s no possible way Sara doesn’t love the way it looks on her. Westen, however, moreso hopes Sara prefers the way it looks on her floor.
——Footsteps soon echo through the condo, alerting Westen to the presence of another individual. She had not heard the doorbell or the door open, inspiring her to cautiously peer around the corner toward the source of the sound. When she does so, she lays eyes upon Sara Daniels, whom she presumes has arrived to pick her up for their date. However, the ear-to-ear grin gripping Ana’s features when she meets Sara’s eyes disappears when she takes in the entirety of Sara’s attire.
——Sara wears a black pair of distressed jeans, black boots, a black Metric tee, a distressed black denim jacket, and a Springboks South Africa National Rugby Union snapback worn backward. In other words, she is not remotely dressed for the evening ahead.
——A furrow sets into Ana’s brow. It deepens when Daniels appears unsurprised by her reaction; she had been expecting this, evidently.
——“You are not ready,” observes Westen.
——A grimace forms on Sara’s visage before she sighs and removes the hat, holding it in both hands by the brim. It summons one of Ana’s earliest memories, when two men in dress blues stood in their door to let her father know his father was dead. That same sinking feeling makes her stomach plummet.
——“Yeah,” responds Sara rather simply. “I’m sorry.”
——“Do we need to push reservation?” inquires Ana.
——“No. I’m… I’m not goin’. We’re not goin’.”
——Sara’s tone is hesitant and somber, but Westen opts to ignore it. Instead, she saunters over to Sara and slowly walks the tips of her index and middle finger up Sara’s belly.
——“Ah, you want to stay in,” she surmises. “I like it.”
——Sara’s body tenses up as Ana draws nearer. The latter can feel this shift in her body language immediately, causing her to recoil, puzzled. Her mint-green eyes study Sara’s demeanor, searching for some kind of tell, much as she often does early on in the ring. Before she can find one, Daniels breaks the glacial silence, which felt to Westen as if it were moving in slow motion.
——“Shit,” she says. “I don’t even know how the fuck to say what I wanna’ say… what I need to say. You know I don’t fuck with lyin’, so I’m just gonna’ be honest with you, Ana.”
——Ana’s blood runs colder than the mountaintops she regularly hiked in winters she experienced growing up in Russia. Sara never calls her Ana. Daniels removes a hand from the brim of her hat and runs it back through her hair, her eyes dropping to the floor for a moment. Lifting her gaze back to meet Ana’s, Sara can see the apprehension behind a more stoic façade.
——“Sounds like I will need drink,” postulates the platinum blonde.
——“I ain’t sayin’ no to one myself,” suggests Sara.
——Ana nods and turns around to head to the nearest bottle of vodka. With Sara following behind her, Ana no longer maintains her masquerade; a grimace claws its way across her features. They venture to her bedroom, where Ana procures a half-empty bottle of expensive Russian vodka.
——When she turns around to face Sara with her manufactured mien again, she finds the woman she calls моя муза—my muse—sitting on the foot of what was once their bed, leaning forward with her elbows resting on her knees. Her hat rests on the bed to her left. Drawing a deep breath through her nose, Westen advances and takes a seat on the near side of the bed, adjacent to where Sara sits. She opens the vodka and takes probably an unnecessarily long swig before holding the bottle out all the way out to her left.
——Daniels sees the bottle appear in her peripheral and sits up straight, taking the bottle from Ana. After taking a swig herself, she nods her head and sighs. With an uneasy furrowing of her brow, she turns to face Ana, handing the bottle back to her.
——“You look fuckin’ amazing tonight,” she says, prompting Ana to turn to face her as well. “I’m sorry we ain’t goin’ out an’ showin’ all of that off… But we’ve gotta’ talk about somethin’, you an’ me. I— shit, how’d you put it that night on the lake? It’s important an’ it ain’t somethin’ we can get away with not addressin’.”
——“Say what you need to say,” responds the Russian, mirroring Sara’s reference, “like night on lake.”
——Ana takes another deep swig of the vodka before handing it back to Sara. With a vacant nod, Daniels takes the bottle and throws back a disquietingly long swig of her own. Lowering the bottle, she hesitates to return it to Westen. Instead, she first takes another swig. She doesn’t speak until the bottle is back in Ana’s hands.
——“Damn if there ain’t any fuckin’ easy way to start,” she says. “When I agreed to go out with ya’ tonight, I thought… thought it was what I wanted. I thought comin’ here an’... I don’t fuckin’ know, jumpin’ your bones or somethin’... I thought it would fix what’s broken here. I—”
——“You still can find out if you would like,” interrupts Westen with an amused smirk.
——She had been hoping to provide some levity and make things easier for Sara to express. It seems, however, to have the opposite effect.
——“I apologize; go on,” she adds, gesturing for Sara to continue.
——“When I agreed to come out with ya’ tonight,” she begins again with emphasis. “I thought it might be able to fix us. But the longer it bounced around my fuckin’ brain, the less convinced I became. Throwin’ each other ‘round the place would’ve been great, don’t get me wrong, but I think we learned that ain’t fixin’ shit a month ago.
——“You an’ me, Ana? We fell in love over our love for somethin’ bigger than both of us— the fight. Everythin’ we were started there. I’ve said it before— throwin’ fists through each other’s gorgeous mugs like we did when we first met? It was like you were in my fuckin’ blood. I couldn’t fuckin’ resist… An’ it ain’t matter what I said or did to you, you couldn’t fuckin’ resist either. That bloodstained smile after you’d gone to war inside that ring or a fuckin’ cage, wherever… the way you’d say my name... that look you’d get on your face before puttin’ some sorry cunt to sleep… it was all intoxicatin’.
——“You taught me shit ‘bout this business an’ the fuckin’ art of that violence you an’ I just seem to crave that I ain’t know, an’ there ain’t many people who can say the same. I feel like a fuckin’ pussy for sayin’ it but you might’ve taught me some shit I ain’t know ‘bout myself. An’ now I’m here soundin’ like a fuckin’ cliché ‘boutta’ say you made me a better fighter an’ a better woman... fuck.
——“I’m gettin’ off track now.. Look… We thought me fightin’ by your side, winnin’ Tag Team Championships ‘round the fuckin’ world… we thought it would bring us closer together. We thought continuin’ blendin’ our careers an’ our life together with each other would make us somethin’ we ain’t— an’ that was askin’ too much. That was askin’ too much of us an’ of shit we wouldn’t even be fuckin’ capable of controllin’ even if we knew how.
——“Ever since I agreed to come out with ya’ tonight I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout all this shit. I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout a whole fuckton of shit, to be honest. Goddamn sick of it at this point; I ain’t got jack shit done! I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout what happened in the Chamber, thinkin’ ‘bout what happened at Brian an’ Jo’s... An’ just ‘bout near everything we’ve been through together.”
——It initially comforts Ana to hear she was not alone in having ruminated on their time together but that comfort disappears when she recognizes the contrast between their two experiences.
——“Things have changed for me, Ana,” she continues. “My skin doesn’t vibrate anymore... Sometimes it crawls these days. I ain’t gonna’ sit here an’ tell you I don’t love you anymore, because a part of me’s always gonna’ love you— but I can’t do this anymore. I ain’t got it in me.”
——She maintains eye contact with Ana until the silence sets in, when she drops her gaze and nods, sighing softly. Westen’s gaze drops at the same time before her right eye twitches— and then she finishes the bottle of vodka in one go. Sara tries not to watch her do so but can’t seem to stop herself, and makes her wince. She doesn’t wince in pain or judgment, but in visceral unrest.
——Ana looks down at the empty bottle in her hand and stifles a chuckle that borders on a sob. She draws a deep breath through her nose as slowly as she can. Sara longs for Ana to look at her again.
——“Say someth—”
——“No,” grunts the platinum blonde, lifting her extended index finger up between Sara and herself. She finally meets her eyeline when she does so. The finger hangs in the air, her hand unable to remain fully stationary. She then rises to her feet and leaves the bedroom entirely.
——Confusion strikes Sara’s features, spurring her to her feet as well. She finds Ana with a new bottle of vodka on the balcony, where the Russian faces the other way, leaning against the railing with one hand and the bottle of vodka upside-down, held to the lips she had spent nearly an hour deciding how to color in the other.
——“Ana,” she says.
——Turning around, Ana leans back against the railing and stares straight down at the space before Sara’s feet. Her eyebrows slowly creep skyward as she gives a vacant nod. She takes another swig of the vodka and then lifts her eyes to meet Sara’s.
——“I did not know you to back down from fights, Dani,” she hisses, grimacing immediately afterward. “But sometimes I think I do not know you at all. But that does not make sense, Dani. I know you. And you know me. You know me like no one knows me. When I want something, I take it. When I need something, I take it. There is no failure; I do not tolerate failure. You promised me chance to make things right between us but you have not given me chance. You left before you could.”
——“That ain’t fair an’ you fuckin’ know it,” says Sara while Ana takes another swig of the vodka.
——“NO,” growls Ana far more forcefully than before. “Now it is my turn to say what I need to say. It is your turn to listen. After all these years, I deserve that at least, yes?”
——Sighing, Sara nods in agreement and saunters over to lean against the railing beside Ana. Westen turns to face Daniels while taking another quick swig of the vodka.
——“You never gave me chance because you knew I would keep promise I made you,” she explains. “You knew I would make things right between us. I think you knew you wanted out but wanted me to still be villain. You do not need to accept blame if you can just blame someone else, no? But I will not let you blame me anymore. I cast wide shadow, yes, but if you stood in it? You stood in it because you wanted to. If you really wanted to step out of shadow, you would have. Just like that, you cannot do this anymore because you don’t want to do this anymore. Nothing more, nothing less. You say you do not lie, but still you pretend.
——“I have given everything to you, моя муза. I have fought for you, bled for you. I have welcomed you into my home, into my career. I have met you halfway! I have betrayed myself— for you! And what have you done? You have betrayed me, too. You have humiliated me in front of world and for what? I ask you, Dani, for what?! Because you were jealous? Because I’m better fighter? Because they call you ‘Ana Somnia’s Girlfriend’? I would be PROUD to be called ‘Sara Daniels’s Girlfriend’. Instead, it hurt you.
——“When did you first start to resent me, Dani? Is that why you did what you did? It makes me wonder… this is most you’ve looked at me in months— did that start before or after you cheated? Maybe it was after I decided to forgive you? But while I tried to make things right, you did not just not give me chance, you did not give yourself chance. You RAN AWAY and now you give up? What do I need to do? What do I need to do for you to see? For you to give me chance you promised me? Please tell me. Do I need to beat it out of you inside ring? Or cage? You have lost faith in us… tell me how to make you see things can be different! Better than they even were in beginning!”
——“You can’t,” responds Daniels. “My mind’s made up, Ana. I can’t do this anymore. I fuckin’ won’t.”
——“Why today, Dani?” replies Ana rhetorically. “Why like this? Another test? Or have you decided to finally try to break me?”
——“I ain’t surprised you’re angry,” answers Sara. “I’m pissed as fuck myself. I’m angry I handled things the way I did— you’re right. But that ain’t doin’ shit to change anything, so what’s it matter? But more fuckin’ importantly, Ana? I’m angry about so fuckin’ much, more an’ more lately. For the last three years only two fuckin’ things have mattered to me— three if you count takin’ that strap off of Samantha Taylor. You an’ the fight. But at some point, I stopped enjoyin’ the fight like I used to.
——“So you wanna’ talk ‘bout fuckin’ blame? Let’s talk ‘bout fuckin’ blame, then. You wanna’ know what the fuck I think, Ana? I think that’s because of you. I finally figured you out. There ain’t shit left to the puzzle for me. I thought you loved the fight like I do, but you’re sick, Ana. You use it to fill that void inside of ya’ and that makes it somethin’ for you that it ain’t for me. How the fuck am I supposed to trust us when the foundation we’re fuckin’ built on is bullshit?
——“I wasn’t plannin’ on doin’ this today. I really wasn’t. But I couldn’t go out tonight an’ put on a happy face. I couldn’t see you in that dress out in the world an’ not hang on a little longer. But I’ve made up my mind. I have. I couldn’t have looked you in the eye all night knowin’ what I needed to do. I told you… I ain’t got it in me anymore. This ain’t a test an’ I ain’t tryin’ to break you. I ain’t tryin’ to hurt you at all, Ana. I’m just doin’ what I need to do. It’s gonna’ be better for both of us in the end, I know it. You lashing out ain’t changin’ shit. You can’t make me stay any more than ya’ made me leave. I love you, Ana… but it’s over.”
——Sara shakes her head and places her hat back on her head. She pushes away from the railing and back inside, heading for the door. Westen remains behind, contemplating Sara’s words. When she realizes she’s only made things worse, she hastens after Daniels, desperately seeking her continued presence so she could try to turn it around.
——“Please don’t,” she pleads. “This is not over. It cannot be done! We are not done.”
——She reaches out and grabs Sara’s wrist, hoping she might be able to prevent her from leaving. Daniels, however, does not simply rip her arm free and tell her not to touch her as she has in the past. Instead, she whips around and cracks Westen straight in the nose with her elbow. The force, combined with the precarity of her heels, knocks Ana onto the floor, where she stares blankly ahead for a moment in bewilderment before reaching up and pressing the side of her hand against the base of her nose. Looking down at the blood that now stains her hand, Ana looks up at Sara, who stares back down at her with tears welling up in her eyes.
——“It’s over,” Sara says assuredly, albeit with a frog in her throat.
——And with that, she’s gone. Ana remains on the floor, blood pouring down from her nose and covering the lipstick she had spent so much time deciding on. The taste of iron burns her tongue only slightly more than the taste of irony does.
——Their love was born of violence, it’s only fair it dies the same way.
——Tonight, however, she puts this sentiment to the test. This previously unmitigated hallmark of her personality seems to join the stained cotton swabs Anastasia tosses into the trash beside her unnecessarily large vanity mirror. Her makeup and hair are finished, but she seems incapable of deciding on the right shade of lipstick to match her attire. She wears an iridescent velvet cowl-neck bodycon mini dress with a pair of slingback heels. A pair of hoop earrings consummate her ensemble.
——The process of selecting her garb for the evening’s festivities was relatively simple, at least in comparison to the somewhat tedious decision regarding her lipstick. If this were any other night, she would have picked a shade and run with it. But tonight is not any other night. It’s Valentine’s Day and Westen needs tonight’s date with Sara Daniels to go well, as it is the first time her girlfriend of nearly three years has agreed to go out with her in literal months.
——As she flip-flops back and forth between different shades, she thinks of all of the things the two have been through together. At first, it’s the positive memories. The fun, the laughs, the romance— even the physical battles in the ring over the years. But soon the fun turns to screaming matches. The laughs turn to tears. The romance turns to bags packed and infidelity.
——She remembers May 2019. London. Fall of Kings. No Holds Barred. She remembers Sara handing her defeat and the next three years of her life outside the ring in one fell swoop. She remembers fighting about her intimate relationship with Jon Jrygin. May 2020, Sara moving out of their condo.
——“You told me things were gonna’ change an’ the only change I see happenin’ right now is me movin’ out for a little bit,” she’d said.
——“Please don’t go,” Ana had pleaded. “We can figure this out. We always do.”
——She thinks of how close they came to reconciliation at Aleksei House in Miami that same May. She thinks of the day before her twenty-eighth birthday that year, when Sara had surprised her to sweep her off her feet and take her on a trip to a cabin on a lake in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The unclad, drunken laughter in Lake Blue Ridge. Drying off and warming up by the fire in one another’s embrace. She thinks of the breakfast in bed Sara made her the next morning. She remembers how she told Sara she’s more important than her career. She remembers compromising—something she never does—all in hopes of salvaging her relationship with the woman she loves.
——But then she thinks of Sara admitting to having cheated on her in front of the world instead of telling her to her face, let alone privately. The thought prompts her to unintentionally break one of her tubes of lipstick, so she tosses it in the trash among the cotton swabs.
——That anger, however, soon shifts her thoughts to memories of their run as EHWF World Tag Team Champions. Undefeated. Undisputed. Unstoppable. She can’t help but smile at the fond recollection of the first Tag Team New Age Deathmatch. That smile vanishes as quickly as it had materialized, though, when she thinks of how angry Sara had been after they traded in their titles to partake in the Meltdown Chamber for the EHWF Global Championship, which Ana presently possesses.
——And then there was Ana’s first defense of that very same title— against Sara, no less. It takes legitimate effort for Westen to shake off the guilt gnawing at her bones, telling her she should have lost, should have let Sara win. It was a lose-lose situation for her despite the victory. Sara joined Ana for dinner at the Jaron household four nights later, but outside of a FaceTime here or there Ana hasn’t seen Sara since. She did not accompany Ana to her next defense, nor did she celebrate with her afterward. In their limited conversations since, it hasn’t even come up.
——Each time Ana changes her mind on the shade of lipstick and endeavors to remove it, a different memory of her years with Sara hits her like a Muay Thai elbow strike. Every subsequent reminder varies in nature, although most of them are of their happiest times together. Their first bout inside the ring. Their first official date. Their first vacation.
——And then finally, mercifully, one specific memory makes her lipstick decision for her. She reaches into her drawer and procures a softer shade than she typically wears. It’s the shade she had been wearing when she and Sara shared their first kiss. When she finishes applying it, a smile spreads across her face.
——For better or worse, of all the people Ana’s loved—Leon Goldwyn, Shawn Harris, Sydney Summers, Amelia Rensselaer, Sara Daniels—nobody has ever made her feel the way Sara always has. Even if Sara does not notice the lipstick or make the connection, Westen knowing is enough. This brand of romantic gesture is uncharacteristic of Ana but her relationship with Sara is different in and of itself, so the Russian does not mind acting out of character when it comes to this.
——Before she rises to her feet, Ana takes the bottle of vodka from the dresser beside her and pours some into a shot glass, which she promptly empties into her gullet. Once vertical, she adjusts the straps to her dress and smirks: there’s no possible way Sara doesn’t love the way it looks on her. Westen, however, moreso hopes Sara prefers the way it looks on her floor.
——Footsteps soon echo through the condo, alerting Westen to the presence of another individual. She had not heard the doorbell or the door open, inspiring her to cautiously peer around the corner toward the source of the sound. When she does so, she lays eyes upon Sara Daniels, whom she presumes has arrived to pick her up for their date. However, the ear-to-ear grin gripping Ana’s features when she meets Sara’s eyes disappears when she takes in the entirety of Sara’s attire.
——Sara wears a black pair of distressed jeans, black boots, a black Metric tee, a distressed black denim jacket, and a Springboks South Africa National Rugby Union snapback worn backward. In other words, she is not remotely dressed for the evening ahead.
——A furrow sets into Ana’s brow. It deepens when Daniels appears unsurprised by her reaction; she had been expecting this, evidently.
——“You are not ready,” observes Westen.
——A grimace forms on Sara’s visage before she sighs and removes the hat, holding it in both hands by the brim. It summons one of Ana’s earliest memories, when two men in dress blues stood in their door to let her father know his father was dead. That same sinking feeling makes her stomach plummet.
——“Yeah,” responds Sara rather simply. “I’m sorry.”
——“Do we need to push reservation?” inquires Ana.
——“No. I’m… I’m not goin’. We’re not goin’.”
——Sara’s tone is hesitant and somber, but Westen opts to ignore it. Instead, she saunters over to Sara and slowly walks the tips of her index and middle finger up Sara’s belly.
——“Ah, you want to stay in,” she surmises. “I like it.”
——Sara’s body tenses up as Ana draws nearer. The latter can feel this shift in her body language immediately, causing her to recoil, puzzled. Her mint-green eyes study Sara’s demeanor, searching for some kind of tell, much as she often does early on in the ring. Before she can find one, Daniels breaks the glacial silence, which felt to Westen as if it were moving in slow motion.
——“Shit,” she says. “I don’t even know how the fuck to say what I wanna’ say… what I need to say. You know I don’t fuck with lyin’, so I’m just gonna’ be honest with you, Ana.”
——Ana’s blood runs colder than the mountaintops she regularly hiked in winters she experienced growing up in Russia. Sara never calls her Ana. Daniels removes a hand from the brim of her hat and runs it back through her hair, her eyes dropping to the floor for a moment. Lifting her gaze back to meet Ana’s, Sara can see the apprehension behind a more stoic façade.
——“Sounds like I will need drink,” postulates the platinum blonde.
——“I ain’t sayin’ no to one myself,” suggests Sara.
——Ana nods and turns around to head to the nearest bottle of vodka. With Sara following behind her, Ana no longer maintains her masquerade; a grimace claws its way across her features. They venture to her bedroom, where Ana procures a half-empty bottle of expensive Russian vodka.
——When she turns around to face Sara with her manufactured mien again, she finds the woman she calls моя муза—my muse—sitting on the foot of what was once their bed, leaning forward with her elbows resting on her knees. Her hat rests on the bed to her left. Drawing a deep breath through her nose, Westen advances and takes a seat on the near side of the bed, adjacent to where Sara sits. She opens the vodka and takes probably an unnecessarily long swig before holding the bottle out all the way out to her left.
——Daniels sees the bottle appear in her peripheral and sits up straight, taking the bottle from Ana. After taking a swig herself, she nods her head and sighs. With an uneasy furrowing of her brow, she turns to face Ana, handing the bottle back to her.
——“You look fuckin’ amazing tonight,” she says, prompting Ana to turn to face her as well. “I’m sorry we ain’t goin’ out an’ showin’ all of that off… But we’ve gotta’ talk about somethin’, you an’ me. I— shit, how’d you put it that night on the lake? It’s important an’ it ain’t somethin’ we can get away with not addressin’.”
——“Say what you need to say,” responds the Russian, mirroring Sara’s reference, “like night on lake.”
——Ana takes another deep swig of the vodka before handing it back to Sara. With a vacant nod, Daniels takes the bottle and throws back a disquietingly long swig of her own. Lowering the bottle, she hesitates to return it to Westen. Instead, she first takes another swig. She doesn’t speak until the bottle is back in Ana’s hands.
——“Damn if there ain’t any fuckin’ easy way to start,” she says. “When I agreed to go out with ya’ tonight, I thought… thought it was what I wanted. I thought comin’ here an’... I don’t fuckin’ know, jumpin’ your bones or somethin’... I thought it would fix what’s broken here. I—”
——“You still can find out if you would like,” interrupts Westen with an amused smirk.
——She had been hoping to provide some levity and make things easier for Sara to express. It seems, however, to have the opposite effect.
——“I apologize; go on,” she adds, gesturing for Sara to continue.
——“When I agreed to come out with ya’ tonight,” she begins again with emphasis. “I thought it might be able to fix us. But the longer it bounced around my fuckin’ brain, the less convinced I became. Throwin’ each other ‘round the place would’ve been great, don’t get me wrong, but I think we learned that ain’t fixin’ shit a month ago.
——“You an’ me, Ana? We fell in love over our love for somethin’ bigger than both of us— the fight. Everythin’ we were started there. I’ve said it before— throwin’ fists through each other’s gorgeous mugs like we did when we first met? It was like you were in my fuckin’ blood. I couldn’t fuckin’ resist… An’ it ain’t matter what I said or did to you, you couldn’t fuckin’ resist either. That bloodstained smile after you’d gone to war inside that ring or a fuckin’ cage, wherever… the way you’d say my name... that look you’d get on your face before puttin’ some sorry cunt to sleep… it was all intoxicatin’.
——“You taught me shit ‘bout this business an’ the fuckin’ art of that violence you an’ I just seem to crave that I ain’t know, an’ there ain’t many people who can say the same. I feel like a fuckin’ pussy for sayin’ it but you might’ve taught me some shit I ain’t know ‘bout myself. An’ now I’m here soundin’ like a fuckin’ cliché ‘boutta’ say you made me a better fighter an’ a better woman... fuck.
——“I’m gettin’ off track now.. Look… We thought me fightin’ by your side, winnin’ Tag Team Championships ‘round the fuckin’ world… we thought it would bring us closer together. We thought continuin’ blendin’ our careers an’ our life together with each other would make us somethin’ we ain’t— an’ that was askin’ too much. That was askin’ too much of us an’ of shit we wouldn’t even be fuckin’ capable of controllin’ even if we knew how.
——“Ever since I agreed to come out with ya’ tonight I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout all this shit. I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout a whole fuckton of shit, to be honest. Goddamn sick of it at this point; I ain’t got jack shit done! I’ve been thinkin’ ‘bout what happened in the Chamber, thinkin’ ‘bout what happened at Brian an’ Jo’s... An’ just ‘bout near everything we’ve been through together.”
——It initially comforts Ana to hear she was not alone in having ruminated on their time together but that comfort disappears when she recognizes the contrast between their two experiences.
——“Things have changed for me, Ana,” she continues. “My skin doesn’t vibrate anymore... Sometimes it crawls these days. I ain’t gonna’ sit here an’ tell you I don’t love you anymore, because a part of me’s always gonna’ love you— but I can’t do this anymore. I ain’t got it in me.”
——She maintains eye contact with Ana until the silence sets in, when she drops her gaze and nods, sighing softly. Westen’s gaze drops at the same time before her right eye twitches— and then she finishes the bottle of vodka in one go. Sara tries not to watch her do so but can’t seem to stop herself, and makes her wince. She doesn’t wince in pain or judgment, but in visceral unrest.
——Ana looks down at the empty bottle in her hand and stifles a chuckle that borders on a sob. She draws a deep breath through her nose as slowly as she can. Sara longs for Ana to look at her again.
——“Say someth—”
——“No,” grunts the platinum blonde, lifting her extended index finger up between Sara and herself. She finally meets her eyeline when she does so. The finger hangs in the air, her hand unable to remain fully stationary. She then rises to her feet and leaves the bedroom entirely.
——Confusion strikes Sara’s features, spurring her to her feet as well. She finds Ana with a new bottle of vodka on the balcony, where the Russian faces the other way, leaning against the railing with one hand and the bottle of vodka upside-down, held to the lips she had spent nearly an hour deciding how to color in the other.
——“Ana,” she says.
——Turning around, Ana leans back against the railing and stares straight down at the space before Sara’s feet. Her eyebrows slowly creep skyward as she gives a vacant nod. She takes another swig of the vodka and then lifts her eyes to meet Sara’s.
——“I did not know you to back down from fights, Dani,” she hisses, grimacing immediately afterward. “But sometimes I think I do not know you at all. But that does not make sense, Dani. I know you. And you know me. You know me like no one knows me. When I want something, I take it. When I need something, I take it. There is no failure; I do not tolerate failure. You promised me chance to make things right between us but you have not given me chance. You left before you could.”
——“That ain’t fair an’ you fuckin’ know it,” says Sara while Ana takes another swig of the vodka.
——“NO,” growls Ana far more forcefully than before. “Now it is my turn to say what I need to say. It is your turn to listen. After all these years, I deserve that at least, yes?”
——Sighing, Sara nods in agreement and saunters over to lean against the railing beside Ana. Westen turns to face Daniels while taking another quick swig of the vodka.
——“You never gave me chance because you knew I would keep promise I made you,” she explains. “You knew I would make things right between us. I think you knew you wanted out but wanted me to still be villain. You do not need to accept blame if you can just blame someone else, no? But I will not let you blame me anymore. I cast wide shadow, yes, but if you stood in it? You stood in it because you wanted to. If you really wanted to step out of shadow, you would have. Just like that, you cannot do this anymore because you don’t want to do this anymore. Nothing more, nothing less. You say you do not lie, but still you pretend.
——“I have given everything to you, моя муза. I have fought for you, bled for you. I have welcomed you into my home, into my career. I have met you halfway! I have betrayed myself— for you! And what have you done? You have betrayed me, too. You have humiliated me in front of world and for what? I ask you, Dani, for what?! Because you were jealous? Because I’m better fighter? Because they call you ‘Ana Somnia’s Girlfriend’? I would be PROUD to be called ‘Sara Daniels’s Girlfriend’. Instead, it hurt you.
——“When did you first start to resent me, Dani? Is that why you did what you did? It makes me wonder… this is most you’ve looked at me in months— did that start before or after you cheated? Maybe it was after I decided to forgive you? But while I tried to make things right, you did not just not give me chance, you did not give yourself chance. You RAN AWAY and now you give up? What do I need to do? What do I need to do for you to see? For you to give me chance you promised me? Please tell me. Do I need to beat it out of you inside ring? Or cage? You have lost faith in us… tell me how to make you see things can be different! Better than they even were in beginning!”
——“You can’t,” responds Daniels. “My mind’s made up, Ana. I can’t do this anymore. I fuckin’ won’t.”
——“Why today, Dani?” replies Ana rhetorically. “Why like this? Another test? Or have you decided to finally try to break me?”
——“I ain’t surprised you’re angry,” answers Sara. “I’m pissed as fuck myself. I’m angry I handled things the way I did— you’re right. But that ain’t doin’ shit to change anything, so what’s it matter? But more fuckin’ importantly, Ana? I’m angry about so fuckin’ much, more an’ more lately. For the last three years only two fuckin’ things have mattered to me— three if you count takin’ that strap off of Samantha Taylor. You an’ the fight. But at some point, I stopped enjoyin’ the fight like I used to.
——“So you wanna’ talk ‘bout fuckin’ blame? Let’s talk ‘bout fuckin’ blame, then. You wanna’ know what the fuck I think, Ana? I think that’s because of you. I finally figured you out. There ain’t shit left to the puzzle for me. I thought you loved the fight like I do, but you’re sick, Ana. You use it to fill that void inside of ya’ and that makes it somethin’ for you that it ain’t for me. How the fuck am I supposed to trust us when the foundation we’re fuckin’ built on is bullshit?
——“I wasn’t plannin’ on doin’ this today. I really wasn’t. But I couldn’t go out tonight an’ put on a happy face. I couldn’t see you in that dress out in the world an’ not hang on a little longer. But I’ve made up my mind. I have. I couldn’t have looked you in the eye all night knowin’ what I needed to do. I told you… I ain’t got it in me anymore. This ain’t a test an’ I ain’t tryin’ to break you. I ain’t tryin’ to hurt you at all, Ana. I’m just doin’ what I need to do. It’s gonna’ be better for both of us in the end, I know it. You lashing out ain’t changin’ shit. You can’t make me stay any more than ya’ made me leave. I love you, Ana… but it’s over.”
——Sara shakes her head and places her hat back on her head. She pushes away from the railing and back inside, heading for the door. Westen remains behind, contemplating Sara’s words. When she realizes she’s only made things worse, she hastens after Daniels, desperately seeking her continued presence so she could try to turn it around.
——“Please don’t,” she pleads. “This is not over. It cannot be done! We are not done.”
——She reaches out and grabs Sara’s wrist, hoping she might be able to prevent her from leaving. Daniels, however, does not simply rip her arm free and tell her not to touch her as she has in the past. Instead, she whips around and cracks Westen straight in the nose with her elbow. The force, combined with the precarity of her heels, knocks Ana onto the floor, where she stares blankly ahead for a moment in bewilderment before reaching up and pressing the side of her hand against the base of her nose. Looking down at the blood that now stains her hand, Ana looks up at Sara, who stares back down at her with tears welling up in her eyes.
——“It’s over,” Sara says assuredly, albeit with a frog in her throat.
——And with that, she’s gone. Ana remains on the floor, blood pouring down from her nose and covering the lipstick she had spent so much time deciding on. The taste of iron burns her tongue only slightly more than the taste of irony does.
——Their love was born of violence, it’s only fair it dies the same way.
