Tarnished Armor

Homesick (Chapter Forty Six)

I awoke in a pool of my own vomit. Apparently, the EMTs liked pumping someone's stomach. I don't remember what happened to me, all I remember was passing out in front of a large fountain. I hated the fact that my medicine did things to me that no one ever thought were possible. That's when I saw Layla and Dani in my room. 

"Jesus Christ, girlfriend, don't go scaring us like that again." Dani said. 

"I agree wth her. Don't go scaring us. What happened?" 

"I got a message from my father saying that wrestling wasn't nearly as important as my health. I should go wrestle in indies while I recovered. He knew someone who would watch over me and make sure I was okay." 

"Who is it?" 

"A guy named Austin who wrestles under the name Adam Cole. He works in various indies like Ring of Honor and Pro Wrestling Guerilla." 

Dani looked at me. 

"Is that what you want?" 

"No. I want to stay where I have friends." 

"Where else could you go?" 

I looked at Layla. 

"As far as wrestling or what?" 

"I mean off the circuits, out of this life." 

"I don't want out of this. Wrestling, entertaining the world, is my life." 

"Don't you want your daughters to be stable?" She asked. 

"Lay, my daughters have their parents with them all the time. They're stable." 

"What happens when you go for treatment and they only have Candace?" 

"They'll ALWAYS have me." 

"What if you don't make it through this time around, Linds?" 

"I will." 

"You have such high expectations." 

"I have to have something to come back to, Lay." 

I smiled weakly as both women hugged me quickly and left. I sat there thinking of what Chris, my father, said. Neal was my brother. He was my older brother by about three years. I was fifteen when he was eighteen and living in a loft apartment in Chicago. I never was afraid of any man, until Neal. When I finally left him at the age of sixteen, he was nineteen and on his way to prison. He had pictures of me naked in his belongings and to make matters worse, he had pictures of other girls younger than me in his laptop, his phone and hard copies in a file somewhere in his office. I tried to block out what he did to me. I grew up from sixteen to nineteen on my grandparents' farm. The courts disputed my placement and tore me from my grandparents for six months. The hardest six months of my young life. I've been through cancer treatments but those paled in comparison to living with Neal. He made me do things no  man should make a teenage girl do. I stripped naked in front of his friends one night. They were all drunk and high on Crystal Meth, I felt their hands touching me and instantly ran away. I spent a night here and there with friends from school, even my mentor, a woman named Jenny. She was a teacher at my school. I told her about what happened with my brother and  she made damn sure I made it back to my grandparents' farm in Omaha. She made sure I was in school, clean and safe when I returned home. My grandpa smiled when he read the eight page letter she sent along with me to them. 

"Dear Mister and Missus Sutton, my name is Jennifer Darwin. I am Lindsay's English teacher and mentor. I am sorry that I couldn't meet you but Lindsay speaks highly of you both when we talk. I want her safe and from what she tells me, her 'brother' mistreats her in ways I can't begin to imagine. Please be aware he has not touched her in any way. From what Lindsay tells me, she's unsafe where she is because of her brother's habits. Please know that I house her, feed her and keep her safe whenever I can. She's the older daughter I wish I had for my own sweet girl, Haley. Haley adores Lindsay and my husband, DJ, has also taking a shine to her. She's made the entire house shine with her presence."