Dirty Deeds

CH 25: Layla

        It's another house show. Layla has a match, but I don't. Nevertheless, team Lay-Cool goes out together. Matt agrees to meet me in catering after the match, so I'll have time to talk to Layla. "Good crowd tonight," I say to her, as we're walking back from her match. They're loud and rowdy and booing us as we leave. She grunts a reply, not looking at me as we make our way up the ramp. Once we're backstage, I grab her arm. "Hey, Layla."

"What?" she snaps at me.

I'm tempted to pull my hand back in the face of her anger, but I don't. "Can we talk, please?"

She smirks. "Now you want to talk? After two weeks of more or less ignoring me for Matt freaking Hardy?"

"Yeah. I do want to talk. I don't want it to be like this."

Layla looks furious. She jerks her arm away from me and storms to the locker room we're sharing. I follow her in, and she turns on me. "You win, okay?" she said. "We made a bet, and you win. Now can you just make him go away?"

I sigh. "Layla... It isn't like that. I don't care about the stupid bet any more, all right? I wish we'd never made it, and that I'd become his friend under different circumstances."

She glares at me. "I wish you were still my friend, Michelle. Punk says you're happy, but how can you be? You've picked one of the most pathetic guys on the roster and now you're holding his hand on TV? You're damaging your reputation!"

"I don't care about my reputation!" I say. At her words, anger has been building in my chest. "You know what? He and Punk hated each other. The three of us just spent the afternoon in a car together. By the time we got here, they were joking around like old friends. And you know how judgmental Punk can be. Why can't you just give the guy a chance?"

"Why are you so taken with him all the sudden?" Layla counters.

"He's... good," I say with a shrug.

"Which is precisely why it'll never last." Her words sting. "You don't want someone 'good', Michelle. You want someone who is as devious as you are. You want someone who won't be appalled when you show your true self to them. And that person will never be Matt Hardy. You're lying to him and to yourself, and in the long run, you're going to get hurt. And in the meantime, you're throwing away our friendship over this guy."

"I'm not the one who's throwing it away, Layla," I say. "I want to be friends with you."

"Are you going to dump Hardy?" I shake my head, and she sighs. "Then I guess there's nothing more to say, is there? Creative wants us to stay a team; I asked. We're stuck working together until Wrestlemania, at the least. Probably until the draft. So we'll be making happy faces for the crowd, as usual. But when the matches are over, I want you to stay the hell away from me because I want nothing to do with you and your loser."

I bite my lip. As mean and aggressive as she's being, Layla has been my best friend for a long damned time. Tears sting my eyes. "If that's the way you want it..."

"That's the way it is," she says with finality. "At least until you come to your senses and dump Hardy." She doesn't look at me. "I hope you changed your room booking."

"I did," I say, and the words sound watery to my ears.

She nods. "And you'll have to make other ride arrangements. I'll move back to the main Diva locker room at the next show." She looks up at me, and her eyes are clear. I can barely see through mine, but that detail is readily apparent. "If you see me in the halls, pretend you don't know my name, and I'll do the same for you." And with that final wisdom, she brushes past me. "I'm going to grab a snack from catering and head to the Diva locker room after. Then it's all yours, loser lover." I hear the door close behind her, but I'm too engrossed in my tears to really pay it any mind.

I'm sitting on a sofa off to one side when a soft knock sounds on the door. I don't answer. I can't. I'm still wrapped up in my own soggy world, feeling as though my chest were about to explode. I don't hear the door open and close again, and I'm oblivious to whatever's being said. But I do feel the arms that wrap around me tight, and I bury my head into the shoulder of the person who's holding me. His words are soothing nonsense as I try to cope with the loss of my best friend.