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Welcome to Detroit: Population Fuck My Life
Topic Started: Aug 18 2017, 08:33 PM (143 Views)
Tatum Momo'a

There wasn’t a lot to pack, just two suitcases and a carry on that held her RISE contract carefully slid inside of a file folder so that it wouldn’t crease or rip during the flight. She’d had it signed and sent back before they’d even landed in Hawaii thanks to the on flight wifi.

Rev had chewed her up one side and down the other for that. Not that they could have afforded to have a lawyer look over the thing anyway but she’d gotten a decent vibe from Brett Sands. One that said that while his history with women was suspect, his passion for developing wrestlers and doing right by them was genuine.

She’d even managed to track down a decently priced studio apartment in Detroit. In a neighborhood that wasn’t great but also wasn’t as bad as it could be. She was at least mostly certain that she wasn’t going to be raped, murdered or any variation of those two on her way home from training.

But right now, the problem was that there were three flights of stairs standing between her and the apartment itself. And while she was pretty sure she wouldn’t be raped, murdered or any variation of the two herself she was also fairly certain that if she left one bag on the sidewalk while she lugged the other upstairs it wouldn’t be there by the time she got back.

“Fuck it,” Tatum muttered, “You’re training to be a wrestler. You’re gonna have to lift people. You can carry two goddamn bags up some stairs.”

She’d regret that once she got to the top, sweaty and out of breath and feeling as though every muscle in her arms and legs had turned to jelly somewhere between the second and third flights.

It wasn’t much. The key jammed in the lock and it everything was about fifteen years outdated. There were a few worrisome cracks in the drywall and most of all, she couldn’t smell the ocean here. There was nothing of her beloved Hawaii in this city. Nothing of her beloved Ina, either, who was a sea baby heart and soul.

Her dreams were here in Detroit but her heart was back home in Hawaii. Rev had moved back into the apartment over the store and he’d promised that he and Ina would Facetime with her every night but it still wasn’t the same.

She’d have brought her little monster with her if she could but this was no place for a child. They’d both have to grow stronger without each other… for now. The more focus and dedication she put into her training the faster she could prove herself and start making the kind of money that would let her travel back and forth or bring Ina with her safely.

More importantly, she could finally do something to help the family that had done so much to get her here, standing on the edge of fulfilling her dream.

The apartment came furnished but Tatum wasn’t sure if that was a good thing as she cranked up the thermostat and eyed the dingy looking futon warily. It had been a major perk for her to find something with furniture in place since shipping anything from the Islands was hellaciously expensive but now…

She hesitantly perched on the edge of the futon and flipped on the box TV that set on a rickety looking end table across from her. Tatum doggedly blocked out the morbid curiosity about how many germs exactly were crawling around on the futon and tried to focus on relaxing before she starting unpacking.

She flipped through until she found a sports channel that replayed wrestling shows, her favorite way to veg out. But as soon as she located the channel, she grimaced. Ina’s father’s face filled the screen with that cocky smirk and she rolled her eyes.

It wasn’t exactly that she hated him or that they’d parted on terrible terms. They hadn’t, exactly. They’d mostly just… parted. He wasn’t a terrible person and it definitely wasn’t that she was still hung up on him in any way. She’d told Rev the truth when she’d told him that she’d never been in love with the man. She’d been wild and free and young, she’d just turned 18 and left the Island for the first time and he was there and decently attractive and most certainly willing. The fling had gone on for months and he’d been fun and made her laugh and did things in bed that she’d always wanted to try but wasn’t willing to ask for until then.

But Ina had forced her to grow up, to think of someone other than herself for once and him? He only thought about himself. She was mostly afraid of what would happen the day he realized who she was and put the math together… what would happen if he knew that he was Ina’s father?

There was no winning there. He could decide that he wanted in on Ina’s life and turn everything that Tatum had worked for upside down. If he fought her for custody, well… he had enough money to throw at it that he would certainly win.

And the last thing that Tatum wanted was Ina around the kind of life he lived; always in another city, always with a new woman, always running his mouth.

The other option was that he wanted nothing to do with her and it would break Ina’s heart. Rev had told her that Ina had been asking already at four. She knew that the other kids at preschool had fathers… fathers who came and picked them up or played football with them and volunteered to be classroom helpers. She knew that she only had a mama and three Uncle’s who would lasso the moon if it made her smile. Tatum couldn’t help but wonder if she was dooming her kid to grow up with a father sized hole in her heart that she’d constantly try to fill with all the wrong things.

There was some guilt there too, if she wanted to admit it. She’d asked herself multiple times over the years whether she was being fair and judging him too harshly. Did he have a right to know he had a daughter? Maybe… but would knowing change anything? Would it make him strive to be the kind of father that Ina deserved or would he just continue on, bumbling around like a punchline to a bad joke and fucking everything up?

Tatum sighed and flicked the television off, massaging her temples, her hopes for rest and relaxation dashed.
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