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Late into the night inside her own hotel room, Sasha found herself sunken on top of a comfortable couch that faced the smudged windows of her relatively inexpensive suite. The dim luminescence of the yellow lamp coloring her drink with a warm tint the exposed wine without the aroma. Orlando’s skyline from where she sat was almost unappealing, an ugly curvature of misshapen trees instead of razor-edged and avant-garde buildings of louder and bigger cities, but it oddly felt like home.
The pizza had already gone cold on top of the colder plate that sat on her lap. Time wasn’t exactly linear whenever people are stuck in the purgatory of their own minds, sinking in the comfortably tragic ocean of nostalgia for whenever they find themselves in places that feel distinctly homely - and tragic, all at once.
She caught herself when a reflection of her stared back, and suddenly she’s reminded that it has been about five or so years since she’s last called the city her home. Her hair was now blue and a different-looking belt with an arguable prestige lay on her bed instead. Sasha wasn’t sure whether to lament innocence or celebrate growth upon the ideation that her mind had been filled with questions instead of dreams; that she was older, but at least, in its most empty sense, better - fewer friends but with the most valuable friendship. It has to be better.
Change has to be preferable.
That’s because people can’t look back.
And Sasha never did, not during mornings, not during endurance training and all the hours that she’s spent in the ring. Because for a minute of the goddamn year, in the same city, she might just actually once again find her place in the sun.
Except for this moment, just right after the drawn-out pay-per-view, tired out of her mind and exhausted out of her soul. She reckoned that she’s going to think about the dream match that she just had in the morning, tomorrow can wait - because it always had, what’s one more day?
Tonight, she dreams. Tonight, maybe, she looks back.
A sharp ring of notification pierced through the mad silence. Sasha cursed herself for not just altogether muting her entire phone. But surely, it wasn’t anything from social media - so it must have been a rather important text.
As she gingerly walked over to the phone that lay discarded and animated against perfectly folded sheets, Sasha picked up the source of blinding light.
‘Running off with my belt eh’?’
And the most prominent ghost of a distant past decided to rear her ugly head. They hadn’t talked since Hell In A Cell, and they hadn’t had a decent conversation since- The Man. Very few people get past the question of ‘what happened’ and Sasha was proudly one of them. Until now, when she felt so, goddamn, vulnerable. Sasha thought that maybe she’s going to hate Becky for this amongst a growing list of things that she’s learned to forget instead of forgive.
God, their time was done and way past the two of them and Becky knew that. She hoped Becky knew that. Whatever the fuck that text was for, Sasha didn’t want to humor Becky. She should have known by now that there was nothing between them.
But fuck if she tried.
Maybe she could, just to tell Becky that she was-
‘Not yours anymore.'