Post by Amber Richards on Jun 4, 2016 0:38:39 GMT
5 years ago…..
I woke up, my eyes drew in the dark and focused in. The light from under the door giving me just enough to see the surrounding. The dank apartment in west Hollywood. For a moment I’d forgotten, lost in the dream. I swallowed hard and sat up. My body in pain from the night before. My right arm in tremendous pain, more than the rest of me. I felt sick….
Not regular sick. Regular sick is curable most of the time, bed rest, anti-biotics, pain killers. But this sick, my kind of sick needed different medication. I got to my feet and off the old ratty mattress where I had slept. My body felt cold on the outside, but burned up inside. I felt like I’d been microwaved and looked like a zombie.
I stumbled around into the bathroom and closed the mirror. I looked horrified at the thing standing opposite. My hair wild, unkept. The dye faded out from blond to a white melting into the black. The dark rings under my eyes being made to look worse by my own naturally pale skin tone that had turned into a disgusting grey. My lips also white as the colour from my eyes had faded into a murky green instead of the bright emerald I had been known for.
I closed my eyes. I examined it. The monster I had inside me. I saw it all, the past I was running from. At 19 years old I stood alone in this bathroom in a shitty drug den. I was thousands of miles from home. From the only family that mattered, my sister. My mother had died months prior. I hadn’t even been home to say goodbye….
To face…him…
A tear rolled down my cheek as the pain rattled through me. I needed to get well. I heard it, the door opening. I smiled and stumbled back out into the main room as Danny walked in. He was tall, skinny with skeletal features. But if he filled out, if he ate…he’d be handsome. He smiled at me as he dumped the paper bag on the table. Our medication I thought to myself. He rummaged through a few drawers for our tools.
I eagerly sat down on the couch in front of the TV. He dropped the tools. Surgical tubing, a spoon…cotton wool……a needle. I smiled up at him as he sat down, ever the gentlemen he wanted me “well” first. The TV turned on as I tied my arm, I readied myself for the first sting…I wanted to feel it…..then I saw it….
Wrestling….
I saw a young female wrestler, blonde with Hispanic features. She stood in the center of the ring, the crowd in the palm of her hand. A united states championship belt around her waist. The crowd adored her, loved her but also hated her at the same time.
I swallowed hard and remembered my dreams, what I left home for. Those dreams had disappeared, faded and crashed into pieces. Tears slid down my cheeks as I looked down at my arm. Blue veins popped from under my milky white skin, open wounds stuck out in my arm as I looked at my other hand…and the needle about to piece my skin….
My eyes trailed back to the TV. To her. I dropped it on the table, I didn’t want this, I didn’t want to be this….I wanted to be her…to be a wrestler…I wanted to be…Ana Valentine.
“This feels like a consolation prize….”
Amber sits on the edge of some steps as the sun rises. She wears a pair of torn black jeans and a black Asking Alexandria shirt with a hoodie left open thrown over the top.
“Hey Amber I know you have been impressive, done everything I asked you but instead of rewarding you with a shot at the big belt you get to be in this tournament against the rest of the females for a brand new title…”
“And the one who gets the title shot against Millar?. My sister, Kayla Richards. Kind of a joke really. I mean I can push this defiance title, I can hold it and elevate it to mean just as much if not more than the top belt. It’ll be even easier if Crystal or my sister are still champion….”
“I can make that title something everyone wants. I can make it lusted after.I’ve done it before I can do it again….”
“Now before I get to my first opponent in this whole thing, the woman I have to beat to get into the shindig, I just feel the need to clarify something for everyone. I am not under Ana Valentine’s “protection” I am not on her “team”, I am in it for myself. I stand here because I want to.”
Amber smirks slowly and slips the hood from her jacket backwards as her thick black hair flows down. Her voice is smooth and calming with her English accent shi9ning through.
“I went after Kaya, I beat down Kate and Eliza because of personal issues but in the end this is a business. I don’t want favours from Ana, I don’t want her to pamper me and kiss my ass like she does with Crystal and Sarah Twilight…..”
“I just want to be pointed to the ring and rewarded for my hard work.”
“And do I have to remind you all I am undefeated in that ring?....”
“And it’s not due to anything except who I am and what I can do. I don’t care who steps into that ring. From Scarlet or Lizzie Dalmon, to Lilith and Eliza to Sarah Twilight or Ana herself. You step in that ring infront of me and be prepared to fight. Be prepared for me….”
“All these new names signing with VWS and people basically shitting themselves with glee. Tolson, Twilight, My sister oh MY!....”
Amber scoffs and smiles.
“The one name you need to know, the one name you need to look at with respect and pride is Amber Richards. I’m not some nobody here to play with fucking teddy bears or flip the boss off and refuse to do my job. I’m a champion in waiting. And this week on All in weekend I get to prove it. I get to step in that ring and whip a loudmouths ass…”
“Samantha Tolson gets to find out just who the fuck Amber Richards is and why she and Twilight and Lilith and all the other women who have been pushed ahead of me should be afraid.,…”
“Very….fucking…afraid…”
“Amber…..Amber?....ya there?”
I snap out of it and turn to see Queenie. Her eyes staring a hole right through me as the visions in my mind burn. The memories start to fade, the smell of reality hits my face. The coffee, the food. Queenie’s perfume. She was staring, she was worried.
“Yeah, uh sorry I was daydreaming…”
“Who’s Danny?”
I swallowed hard, I obviously muttered his name. I looked away and down at my arm. Small scars remained, I barely noticed them. But the memories, they were there. Always there just bubbling under the surface. I closed my eyes and took a sip of coffee, the warmth calming me.
“Um, just someone I knew years ago, dunno why he popped into my head…”
“Ah ya miss him? Can ya call him?...say hi?”
“He’s dead….”
Queenie goes to say something but instead swallows hard, she gives me a small nod and puts her hand on mine. She gives it a squeeze and sits back. I keep looking at my coffee. Watching the liquid move inside the mug. I get to my feet and force a smile at Queenie.
“It’s complicated Queenie…..I just…..I have to wash up….”
I turn and pull my hand away making my way to the bathroom. I turn the tap, cold water hits my face as I take a deep breath. My hands grip the sink as I calm myself. I look to the mirror and see a completely different woman. My face is full and not drawn out., My skin, still pale is milky white and as Renee says…”porcelain” but not the steely grey that I remembered all those years ago.
My lips, now red and plump look healthy as my long thick black hair. I look away from the mirror to turn off the tap, as I look back up I see him out of the corner of my eye standing there, skeletal and dressed in the same clothes I remember.
“Danny?”
I turn and he’s gone, my heart races, my body shakes. My hand moves across the bathroom counter and I knock a glass off. It smashes on the floor. I look down at it and stare at the jagged edges, the light from above hitting them. I look up to fi9nd Renee standing in the doorway staring at me.
“Ya aight lamb?”
“Oh, yeah I’m great, I just…I’m having a clumbsy day is all…”
Renee studies me, his deep brown eyes look me up and down, he knows something is wrong, but he also knows me well enough not to push the issue.. He just smiles and nods turning away, as he leaves I pick up the glass, I carefully put each shard into the bin and as I get to the last one I feel it. The glass cuts my finger, breaking the skin as blood drips on the white tiled floor.
I stare at it, pooling there, the deep red popping against the hard white. I sit back and stare at my hand holding the opened finger. Just a small scratch, a small break. Nothing to see here. I’m not broken….just a scratch….
“Just a scratch….”
“You need to get well Amber…..”
“What should I do with you Tolson?”
Amber steps back and forth, her hands sitting behind her at the small of her back. Her fingers intertwined.
“When VWS was first conceived I was asked to be a part of it, I signed my contract, I sat back and waited till I got the call to “debut”. It was all a setup of course. I was there to take my sister down a few pegs. And my arrival was met with the suitable mixture of cheers and boo’s. And honestly, you’d have to be living under a rock for the past few years to not know who I am.”
“I walked into one of the biggest professional wrestling companies on the planet at a young age after being on the indies, I took their womens division by storm. I became one of the best there and I had to earn it all. l Now I come to VWS an established name, a star and I get shuffled aside for the likes of you and Sarah Twilight….”
“I’ve heard all about it, how Ana Valentine aggressively recruited you, how she basically viral bombed you with texts, tweets, e-mails and phone calls until you got beaten down enough to sign here…”
Amber slowly grins and shakes her head.
“I wondered why. I mean Ana has never been one to want other alpha females around here. And went ahead and hired not one, but three. And I know this because we can recognize our own can’t we Sammy?. You and I along with Twilight have the same…personality…the same…swagger for lack of a better word.”
“We’re good, great…perhaps the best and we know it. See I’m not like Crystal Millar the failure who kisses ass, I’m not like little miss Lilith who loves to play with Teddys, I’m not like Eliza or my sister riding the wave of love because of their last name’s…..”
“I’m one of the best professional wrestlers of this modern age and I don’t just mean “for a woman”. I mean in general. But then again so are you. I’m not foolish or arrogant enough to believe I can just blow through you Sam.”
“I know you’ll be a challenge and I know a victory isn’t a guarantee”
Amber turns and folds her arms across her chest.
“But then again you referred to Kate Steele as a “good wrestler”. So maybe I am giving you too much credit. But the truth is no matter how you spin it this is a dream match. Two of the best, two of the brightest and two of the youngest who haven’t even hit their prime yet.”
“Oh so exciting…”
“It almost gives me tingles in my womanly area….”
“I’m not just looking at this match as a chance to advance into the tournament Sam, I’m also looking at this as a way to re-stake my claim as the rightful champion. I beat Kate twice, Eliza and Kayla and no one has given me that real challenge here but I hope that ends with you. I want to get in the ring and have a real sense of loss. That I may not win…I haven’t had that in a while…”
“Maybe that wait will finally end, or maybe I’ll find out that all you are is hype…”
