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What Is It Worth?
Topic Started: Oct 13 2017, 08:15 PM (187 Views)
Elijah Carlson

They said you’d never be back.

“... for a little while I never thought I would be.”

They said you’d go to a smaller company.

“I didn’t know where I’d go, or if anyone would even want to sign me to a contract.”

They said your wife was the one who took care of the family and that you just rode her coattails.

“People forget so quickly…”

Elijah Carlson stood a few feet away from a gravestone with the name Jacobs engraved on it. He sat down, crossed his legs over indian style, and stared ahead quietly for a few moments. The Golden Opportunity Rumble had come and gone. His return to wrestling complete. Was it successful? Not if one judged success by wins and losses. But in a match where forty people would enter and thirty nine of them would walk away disappointed, he had held his own. He still had it, that much he was certain of.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come see you sooner, Connor. You understand, I’m sure. Or at least I hope you do. Court doesn’t. Neither does Genie. Man, the shit they gave me for being in and out of your funeral service, for not sticking around. I probably deserved everything they said but I couldn’t do it. I know you get it, but I’m sorry that I couldn’t be there. If the roles were reversed I know you would have been.”

He looked away, a thousand thoughts speeding through his mind as he did so. The cool, crisp October air blowing gently against his face. What more could he say? He knew there was more that he needed to say to his friend who he hadn’t devoted enough attention to to keep him from allowing his demons to overcome him. It had cost another young woman her life as well.

Strange how he was only twenty four years old, with twenty five closing in rapidly, and yet so much had happened in the last year to force him to grow up. The revelation of who his parents really were. His father disowning him. His mother’s passing and now his best friend was gone too. His legitimate best friend, not the sort that people jokingly boasted about on social media. No, Connor Jacobs had been a real friend. Probably the only real friend Eli had before Genie had come along. JPD and Tara had their own place as well, but neither of them held the same sort of place in his heart that Connor had, and would continue to hold.

“Remember when it was just the two of us in college. I mean, yeah there was other people around but you and I were thick as thieves. What happened? Was it graduation and me deciding to actually give this crazy profession a shot? Was it the fact that we just went our separate ways and had to learn to rely on others? What? Is it my fault? Is it really my fault for meeting a woman who changed the way I viewed everything?”

Tightening and loosening, Eli’s hands worked themselves over and over again as emotion began to twist the expression of his face.

“I can’t help but be mad at you. I guess that’s part of why I haven’t been here to see you since we buried you. How could you be so fucking foolish, man? I needed you here. Where do I turn when Genie inevitably leaves me again because I can’t get my own shit in order? You left me in a position where I’d be alone. I know you think I did the same thing to you but you put yourself in that position. You’re the one who let that shit take hold of you. You’re the one who let it drag you down.”

He paused, shaking his head.

“But… I guess that’s what I did too. Although it isn’t fair to say that Genie drags me down. She does the exact opposite. I don’t know how to give back to her in the same way that she gives to me, though. You don’t know what it’s like to feel like you’re constantly letting another person down. We still fight, you know. Not like the stupid, crazy twitter fights everyone sort of knows us for. But we still fight over stupid shit. And I can tell it’s wearing on her. Every day it feels like I’m getting one step closer to the next time she leaves and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. What are we gonna do, go to counseling? Counseling works for a few months for most couples and then things just go back to how they were.”

In his pocket he felt his phone buzz, retrieving it a moment later and looking at the screen half expecting it to be Genie or Frankie Morrison. Why he hadn’t thought to hire Frankie a year earlier he wasn’t sure but the man was an expert at handling business and getting things taken care of. It had taken a substantial part of the stress of finding employment off of his shoulders. Especially once he had made the decision that he wasn’t going to go back to the place that had been his home, a place that he had ‘reigned supreme’ for months.

It wasn’t. It was another of his friends. Phoenix Quagliaterre. At this point in his life she was honestly probably his closest friend. She was, at the very least, the one that he related to the most as she had a habit of saying stupid shit that pissed her fiance off. Then again, Xavier wasn’t innocent in everything either. For the moment he let the call go to voicemail, figuring he could talk to her about whatever she needed to talk about later on.

“How do I manage doing what I do, being the best of the best in an industry that chews most people up and spits them out like they’re nothing, and be the sort of person who isn’t self destructive in their relationship, Connor? Funny that I’m asking you, right? Like you know shit about relationships.”

He chuckled to himself and shook his head, a gesture he seemed to make an infinite amount of times.

“You know, she’s proud of me. She’s proud of me for everything that I’ve accomplished. Hell, she’s helped me accomplish it all. And when she needed me, what did I do? I left and went somewhere else and left her alone in the most toxic of work environments there is. She’s never needed my help. But she thinks she does. I don’t know why I didn’t think to sacrifice my own career for her benefit for once. I could have managed her. Helped her to analyze and break down her opponents. Instead I pulled the same selfish bullshit I’ve been pulling since before she even knew me.”

Eli’s laughter grew heavier, darker as he closed his eyes and rocked backward slightly.

“All so that I could make that one tweet. Those three words. That’s all I looked forward to. I just wanted to shove it in every single one of my doubters face and say I’m back bitches.”

Sighing, he closed his eyes and titled his head downward, leaning forward instead.

“I’m sorry, Connor. I’m sorry I let you down. And if you’re up there looking down at all of this laughing at how ridiculous we all are, calling me a pussy for being this emotional. Give me some kind of advice. Some kind of guidance. Help me salvage more than my own wrestling career. I can do that on my own, but what is it worth if I break her in the process?”

Silence fell between Eli and the gravestone, although he had yet to receive any kind of response from the stone whatsoever. It was moments like these that helped him refocus and recenter himself on things that were important. He’d never be able to make amends with Connor for not being there to help him when help was needed the most. The small gesture of sitting and having a conversation with his old friends tombstone, though, helped to ease his conscience.

These were the sorts of conversations that Genie would never know about. The kind that would make her suspicious as to where he had disappeared to for an hour or two. She’d never know the depth of the fears he had that she would one day leave again and that the blame would be solely at his feet. Well, maybe one day he’d have the stomach to tell her how much he doubted himself. Maybe one day he’d peel back the facade and let her see the truly vulnerable man that he was.

Until that day came, though, he’d continue with these conversations where he was talking to no one in particular. He’d survive, and try to get better, one day at a time.

And he’d do while being Elijah Carlson, the man certain he was the absolute best to ever set foot in a wrestling ring.

Pulling his phone back out once again, Eli dialed the number for Phe as he stood and placed a hand on the gravestone and spoke softly.

“I miss you, bud. I promise I’ll make you proud.”

Raising his phone to his ear, he turned away from the stone and spoke clearly while walking back to his car.

“Hey Phe… what’d you need?”
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