Chapter 72: Shame

As we get older we change. Some change more than others, but there are certain core elements of our personalities that tend to stay intact. The way you think and the way you feel can certainly change as you adapt and learn. And there is a larger level of growth from when you are younger. The way you think when you are a teenager is certainly not the same way you are going to think or feel when you enter your late 20s or your 30s.

And as resistant as I have been to change, I have to be completely honest and admit that I like the person I have become. I have not changed as much as others probably have or would like me to, but I have pushed myself to think differently and to feel differently. Especially when I think about the things that I have done in the past.

The Kayla Richards of old was definitely a different proposition.

Even now in my professional life, I have been called ruthless. I get called out for the things that I say and the things that I do. I get called an opportunist, a bully, and sometimes even an evil genius. And if I’m being completely honest with myself, they are all completely and utterly correct. They are right. In the realm of professional wrestling, I have done everything I can to cultivate this aura around me. And believe me, I know how heavy that word is these days. Teenagers and people in their early 20s love to use the word “aura” like it is some kind of stamp of approval. A buzzword to throw around when they think something is entertaining or they connect with it.

But real aura is when everyone around you stops when you enter a room. It is when the air feels different. It is when the personalities and feelings of everyone in the general vicinity shift. That is real aura. That is real power. And it’s something that so many of you have no idea what it is to hold. The responsibility of having that level of power, that level of fame, that level of respect. It is not something to be taken lightly. And it is something that has taken me years to come to terms with.

Because when I was younger, I had no idea what it meant to have that responsibility or to respect it.

When I was in my very early 20s, I went chasing respect. But I didn’t know what real respect was. I thought fear was respect. And now, as I stop thinking only about my future and I know what it is to have a true partner in life—as I look forward to getting married to a man who has made me feel the self-worth I never had before—I can’t help but think about the mistakes that I’ve made.

”They fucked up…”

Jace walked next to me, matching my pace. That meant he was taking slow but large strides while my legs moved faster. His giant 6’7” frame made me look even smaller by comparison. ”How? How do you fuck up a simple collection?” I remember grinding my teeth together, trying to push all of the anger I felt down. Jace, on the other hand, just smiled and looked to the side. He was trying to contain his amusement. That was one of the worst parts about him. He knew damn well how to get under my skin and how to instigate me.

He would poke and prod and push, doing everything he could to get me riled up. He had to get me riled up as the partner of a Gypsy Prince. It was my job to help enforce the codes and practices that the business side of things needed to adhere to. You could screw up a lot of things and still be forgiven in the family. But one of the things that you were never forgiven for was fucking with the money. ”I don’t know, but they did. These little bitches had one job. Walk in, put their hand out, and get the money. And if anyone tried to stop them, then they just had to be persuasive.”

”Persuasive.” I replied, parroting Jace. We moved toward one of the large buildings—the female barracks. The housing for the women who had not yet been claimed. Jace folded his arms and leaned against the wall outside. I took a deep breath and raised my foot before kicking the door in. The sound of the wooden panels smashing into the bricks behind made everyone in the room jump. The two girls who had fucked up raised their eyebrows. I could see the fear in their eyes; I could feel it radiating from them.

”N-no p-please. Jertisarel! Jertisarel! (Forgive! Forgive!)” The younger one, the one who didn’t really know any better, slid across the floor to the wall, hugging her knees to her chest. The other one—the one who we had put in charge of this little endeavour—sat back in the chair. Eyes full of fear as her hands went up in a defensive motion.

I shook my head. I could feel Jace’s eyes on me. I stepped forward, reaching out and grabbing a handful of black hair, pulling her head back so she could look me in the eyes. The green in them burned like emeralds in the sun. I knew I must’ve looked menacing. ”Tu ćorri ćhej (You stupid bitch)”. Her breathing started becoming laboured. Her hands shook. My lip curled, but there was a twang of guilt in my heart. Because I remembered, not long before this, that’s how I looked.

My hand relaxed, and her hair untangled from my fingers. I took a step back and folded my arms over my chest. ”Please. Mercy. It wasn’t my fault. It was supposed to be simple. Just one woman. But there was a man there. It was only the two of us. They refused to pay. Said they didn’t need us anymore.”

I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. But it didn’t work. Not only was I angry—I could feel it—but I also knew that Jace was right there, staring a hole into my back from the doorway. ”Well, if they don’t need us, maybe we don’t need you. If you can’t handle a simple collection job, then maybe you need to go become a servant….” Her bottom jaw started to quiver. I knew what I had just threatened. Collection jobs meant respect. You earned money. Being in the kitchens, serving, scraping—you were looked down upon.

I went to turn and walk away. The girl reached out and grabbed my hand. This was a mistake. She knew it was a mistake. But she was scared. Afraid and alone. Her younger friend who went with her was hiding her face. I knew what I had to do, and my heart sank to the pit of my stomach. I turned, my hand striking her as hard as I could across the face. I had turned my ring into the middle of my hand, facing my palm. The jagged edges of the stones caused a deep laceration on her cheek. The blood sprayed across the floor, hitting the green linoleum in a sickening splat.

She let out a whimper and a cry. I looked down at her, doing everything I could to make sure that my eyes didn’t turn sympathetic. Instead, my nostrils flared and I leaned down, reaching forward. I grabbed hold of her chin between my thumb and forefinger, forcing her to look at me. And then I added one simple word while staring her right in the eyes. ”Pathetic.” As my hand released her face, the look in her eyes changed. The fear disappeared. It was replaced now. It was a look of defeat. Of complete and total submission. I turned and walked out, back past Jace and into the hallway.

I was ashamed of myself. I knew what I had done to that poor girl. I also knew that she had two roads in front of her. She could internalize it and come back stronger. Or she could let it define her and break her. I know that because I stood up. I stood up where others let it define them and break them.

But not me.

Not anymore.

Second verse same as the first

”Well….isn’t this interesting?”

Kayla steps sideways, pacing back and forth as she folds her arms over her chest.

”I have never won a match before actually having it. And no, I’m not talking about the upcoming one. I’m also not talking about my match against Bella. A lot of things have been happening in the bombshells division, but one constant that we have had is me as champion. Aside from a small few-week period where someone held it who should never have even come close to it, I have been the champion here. The leader who is driving this division, this company, into the future. And that isn’t me being arrogant, that’s just a fact.”

“Facts. Something that is lacking in a lot of the verbal diarrhoea that most of you decide to throw out there into the universe. In other words, most of you talking an insane amount of shit. And hey, I do too. But when I talk, people listen, because when I talk, I am the only one who’s honest. Hell, even Bella, who I actually like, isn’t honest. She’s not honest with herself and she’s not honest with anyone else. She lies to herself about everything—from her talent to her relationship to her family.”

“She’s a talented girl. She is. And with a little bit of hard work and a tweak in her personality, Bella could become a star. But she’s not willing to pull the trigger. She’s not willing to do what it takes to become the champion that she sees in her head. She’s too nice. And nice girls finish last.”

“Yeah… I know that was corny.”

“But it’s true. To get ahead in this business, to step up and become what you need to be, you need to silence that little voice in your head. That conscience. It’s something Bella listens to way too much. Even when she tries to come off as a bad bitch, she just fails. And she got in the ring against me after winning a championship opportunity, and she failed. But most people fail against me. She shouldn’t feel too bad about that. There are only a handful of people in this business who have been able to figure me out. And even then, even then, I end up getting the last laugh.”

Kayla can’t help but chuckle as she shakes her head. She takes a deep breath in and pushes it out before looking up to the sky as she seems to be choosing her words carefully—or as carefully as she can. After all, this is Kayla Richards we are talking about.

”So, as we go into Violent Conduct, I’ve had to deal with a change of plans. Originally, I was supposed to be defending the championship against Andrea Hernandez. And I wasn’t very happy about that. Not because I was afraid of Andrea—far from it, actually—it’s because I don’t like repeating myself. Against Andrea, there was nothing left to say and nothing left to do because we had faced each other so many times. And I couldn’t even be angry at Andrea herself, because she did earn the opportunity to face me. But after she earned it, I noticed something.”

“I noticed that she wasn’t the same. I noticed that the Andrea Hernandez who had a fire in her belly, who wanted to prove everyone wrong and who beat me, was gone. She was gone the moment I beat her and took the championship back at the Elimination Chamber. She was gone the second she was staring up at me holding the championship, and she realised that everything I said about her was true. I said the pressure would be too much for her, I said she would fail, I said I would come back stronger and she wouldn’t be good enough to beat me—and in the end, I was right.”

“But she still earned an opportunity against me. An opportunity that was due to happen at Violent Conduct.”

“The thing is, every single time I say something and I’m proven to be right, every single one of you just ignores it. I said what I said about Andrea and it came true. And after she won an opportunity to face me, I told everyone she was going to just quit. I told everyone she didn’t have that passion anymore, that I had taken every last inch of relevance she had, every last minuscule cell of passion, and stolen it. I took all of it from her, and I knew she was just going through the motions. She had lucked into a championship match, and I told each and every one of you I had already beaten her and she was going to quit before the match.”

“And I was right…”

She pauses for a moment and shrugs, wearing a black leather biker jacket over a black and red halter top with skinny black jeans and Converse.

”So that left this company—and my championship—in a tiny bit of a pickle. Because of Andrea Hernandez and her selfish actions, the company was scrambling for an opponent to face me at Violent Conduct. And instead of just looking at who had been winning matches and who was the best of the best and giving them a championship opportunity, they decided to grab anyone and everyone who wasn’t already in a match, put them all together, and the winner would get to face me. Everyone from legitimate contenders to women who should not be allowed anywhere near my championship were getting an opportunity.”

“And the winner? The woman I beat at Summer XXXtreme. The Blast from the Past winner. Frankie Holliday.”

“It seems like we cannot avoid each other, can we? The thing is, Frankie, I knew I’d be facing you again someday. I knew that eventually you would earn your way back up to this opportunity. I just didn’t think it would be this soon. Just over two months from our last meeting, and here you are again, getting ready to face me at a supercard. And much like last time, you earned your position—even though the week before the match you were confused as to why you were put in that position.”

“And confused as to why a lot of the other women in that match were also there.”

“I have to say, Frankie, I was not prepared for that level of self-awareness—or awareness of how this company operates. I’ve been saying for a long time that the way things are done to bring people to championship matches needs to change, but my complaints fall on deaf ears. Instead of just finding someone based off their win-loss record, we get these contendership matches. And while sometimes a legitimate contender comes out of them, other times nobody ends up winning. Not the fans, not the champion, not even the challenger. But despite your comments to the contrary about whether or not you earned your place in the contenders match to begin with, you did do what you set out to do. And you are trying to change how things are done by taking the opportunity with both hands.”

She claps slowly with a small smile on her face before continuing.

”But you are still just a rookie, right? That’s how you constantly referred to yourself. Hell, after I beat you, you made light of the fact that you had only had a handful of matches, that you just lost to the champion, and it was everything you had worked for. You literally made fun of yourself and also the company for putting you in a position like that. But you were so sure of yourself. You even made a clever little pun about removing me as the captain of the ship on the Sun Princess cruise. Very clever. But you still failed.”

“You still failed. And instead of looking at the loss, analysing it, accepting it, and realising that you needed to come back better and stronger, you instead decided to be a sarcastic little bitch about it and just shrug it off. Playing around like it didn’t bother you because you’re just a rookie. Just a rookie, right? Seems to be a running theme with you. You lose a match or face any type of adversity and it’s just you being a rookie. It’s just you failing because of your inexperience. How long before that stops being any type of comfort to yourself in your own twisted little mind and your stupid little narrative?”

“How long before people stop looking at that as a legitimate excuse and just see you for what you really are? You’re a hypocrite. And hey, welcome to the club, because we can all be hypocrites. You pointed that out about me—the fact that I freely admit to doing everything I can to stay champion, and I told you that if I needed to, I would resort to any act of cheating that I felt necessary. Here’s the problem though, Frankie. I didn’t need to cheat.”

“I didn’t need to, and I didn’t want to.”

“All I needed to do to end you on the Princess cruise was to jump up and slam my knee into that stupid little head of yours twice. Then you laid down, stared at the lights, and I defended my championship. And this time? This time you weren’t even meant to be here. This time it was meant to be Andrea Hernandez, but she dropped the ball and you picked it up. So now you have an opportunity to beat me and get your revenge, but the issue I have is that you don’t even believe in yourself.”

She steps forward, looking down at her shoes before slowly raising her eyes back up with a smirk on her red-painted lips.

”Everything about you screams desperation. You try to protect yourself constantly by leaning on your own inexperience. You try to pre-emptively stop people from being able to talk about certain subjects. Your sarcasm doesn’t do you any favours either. Talking about me like I’m the best and faking contrition is just a way for you to play as desperate as everyone else. Hell, half of the things you say are unbelievably hackneyed. Overused metaphors about poker and playing cards? Yes, we get it. This is Sin City Wrestling… so many roads that others have walked down, all because you can’t come up with anything more entertaining than that.”

“Shit, you even decided to double down on your talk about championships and what they mean. When you faced me last time, you told me titles don’t matter. You said they come and go and you accused me of being defined by them. I’m not defined by championships, Frankie—I’m defined by success. And the measure of success is how you are remembered. When people look at the record books, they will see my name next to championships. They will see how many people I beat in defending those championships, and that is what is etched in history. The fact that you do not see that as a problem? The fact that you honestly believe the bullshit coming out of your mouth just shows that maybe I’m wrong. I keep thinking your inexperienced rookie shtick is a way for you to deflect and that you’re really not that stupid.”

“Maybe you really are that inept. Maybe whoever trained you tried to impart some kind of knowledge on you that you either didn’t understand, or your trainer was an idiot.”

“You keep talking about that inexperience, about the handful of matches you’ve had. But then you said something even more interesting—the fact that you watch and study, you adapt and overcome. But it didn’t really work against me, did it? You’re not a professional wrestler, you’re a fucking fan with a notebook. You can binge-watch the NFL every single weekend, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to go out there and break records. That doesn’t mean you can get on the field and lead the fucking Detroit Lions to a Super Bowl…”

She spits her words like venom and shakes her head before continuing.

”You have another shot. Another opportunity at glory. And I’m hoping and I’m praying that you take it seriously. I am doing everything I can to mentally prepare myself for the bullshit you’re going to say, but I am also hoping that your pseudo-intellectual psychology bullshit doesn’t rear its ugly head. That you realise studying tape is no replacement for real-world experience. And I hope you finally get it through your stupid skull that championships are everything in this business. And if you can’t see that, then you have no business being in it.”

“This match, this fight, is an opportunity for you to show the world what you can do. And in a street fight, you can do whatever you want and it’s all nice and legal, so if that little conscience of yours has a problem with it then you’re free and clear. But it also means I can do whatever I want to, Frankie. I can destroy you. And I will be doing everything in my power to make damn sure that I walk out as the champion. And you have to do everything to make sure that I fail. I just don’t think you have it in you. Your way of thinking is flawed. Your way of living is flawed. And you’ve already proven, with your stupid comments about being a rookie and not having the experience and everything else, that you are mentally not ready to be in this game. You are not mentally ready to face someone like me. And until you are, you’re just going to fail every single time. Let the violence begin. Because I’m damn sure ready.”