Rainy Day | Rhea Ripley

Chapter 26

Person in the mirror, they won't let me feel a thing

Keep me focused on my problems, I'm addicted to the pain

- Breaking Down by I Prevail

"Take this out before I do it myself" Demi snapped at the medic, pointing to the IV in her arm.

"Just wait until the infusions have gone through, it's just fluids and I'm sure you'll survive waiting ten more minutes" The guy couldn't have been much older than I was but from his calm demeanor, I guessed that he had dealt with his fair share of uncooperative WWE superstars.

"In fact," someone said from the door to the infirmary behind me "if you don't then you aren't appearing tonight, so pick a struggle"

Triple H had entered the room, looking at Demi like he was chastising a little kid.

For a second it looked like she was going to fight him on this but then she agreed so he left.

After Demi had indeed survived waiting the ten minutes, the medic took the IV out, gave her a protein bar and told her she could go.

I was instructed to keep a close eye on her though, which she visibly hated.

"Wanna tell me what the hell that was?" I asked once we had gotten to the locker room, luckily with no one else there.

I expected Demi to get defensive right away, yell at me or just ignore the question, but to my surprise, when she looked at me, there were tears in her eyes.

"I want to tell you Alex, really I do, but I can't. I don't know how. Dominik knows though, please let him explain" She fled into the bathroom and I had no choice but to go look for Dom.

I found him sitting on an equipment box in a small corridor, his head in his hands.

"I know this isn't easy for you either but I really do need to know what's going on and she won't tell me. She told me to ask you. I'm not sure why she trusted you enough to tell you and not me, but she must have a reason. Just please, tell me"

By now, my desperation was clear.

He looked up at me.

"No, you got it wrong, Alex. She never told me, I figured it out a while ago and it took months to even get her to admit it. She gets like this whenever something is bothering her a lot, especially when she thinks that she did something wrong and isn't good enough for whatever reason. The first time I noticed it was while we were pretty much doing back to back shows, on the road for weeks, and someone at the gym made a very douchy comment about her body. She spent days training basically 24/7, not eating, barely sleeping and when I noticed how much she had let this stupid comment get to her head she was about to pass out from exhaustion. I didn't say anything to her, I just made sure that she was never alone and eventually it got better. But this is a pattern, I think she's been doing this since she was a teenager. As for right now, I don't know what exactly she is reacting to though, it has never been this severe as far as I know."

"What do I do?" the question came out in a pathetic squeaky voice. What had I done to her to make her treat herself this badly?

"Go talk to her. Don't accept no for an answer." He advised. 

With a bad taste in my mouth I returned to the locker room where Demi was lying on one of the benches on her back, staring at the ceiling.

"Demi this can't go on" I started talking very carefully.

"This isn't easy, I know but our entire relationship is getting so dysfunctional because we never talk openly. We are both masters at letting our problems eat at ourselves and this isn't right. Please tell me what I did, I want to make this better"I was rambling again but I couldn't find a better way to phrase what I needed to say.

Demi sat up abruptly with a shocked expression.

"What do you mean what you did?" She asked, genuinely confused.

"I mean what did I say to make you feel this way about yourself? I really just want to know so I can do better in the future"

Before I could grasp it she had gotten up and rushed over to me, engulfing me in a hug that probably crushed several of my ribs.

"Alex, you didn't do or say anything. After Xav had gotten to you I just felt so defeated. Like I couldn't protect you and no matter what I did you wouldn't be safe. It spiraled out of control and I couldn't cope with this feeling in any other way but at the same time I felt so ashamed because I didn't want you to see the truth, how fucked up I actually was. And then I started to push you away which just made me feel even more guilty. I recognize how childish this is but I just don't know how to stop anymore" She was sobbing into my shoulder. 

Even though seeing her like this broke my heart, I was relieved.

"I wish you would have told me sooner but it's okay. You are not alone anymore, we will figure this out, I promise. Let's sit down tomorrow and really, actually talk. I think that's been long overdue. As for today, I think you have had enough stress, let's just get some lunch with the guys and hang out with them until the show starts. Does that sound okay?"

She smiled at me through her tears and gave me a kiss.

"Sounds perfect"

Dominik looked relieved when he saw us walking out of the locker room together. 

Both of us were aware that this was far from over but for now Demi seemed a lot more relaxed and happy than she had in a while.

She found an air hockey table and challenged Damian and Finn to a game against her and me, but quickly decided she needed to swap me for Dominik because according to her my air hockey skills "sucked ass". 

This left me, once again, in the role of the referee and D&D ended up winning because it was suddenly part of the rules that the referee was allowed to touch the puck and give it a little shove in the right direction.

Finn was furious and told me he would be carrying me to the ring with him later to feed me to Logan Paul but Damian didn't seem certain whether or not that would pose a threat to Logan.

Then our game was interrupted by Levesque, reminding us that the four of them were actually here to work and not to play on a kids-sized air hockey table so we made our way back to the locker rooms for the judgment day to get ready.

The closer it came to the show starting, the more Demi seemed to fidget again. 

Both Dom and I tried to calm her down but something in her seemed to have shut down again.

We really needed to talk.