'Matters of Importance.'
Sept 5, 2016 18:32:32 GMT
Valentina Lemay, Ernie Parker, and 2 more like this
Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2016 18:32:32 GMT
February 23rd, 2016 || Santa Monica, California.
Pack, pack, pack, pack, pack – that’s all I could think about, really. Packing. That’s all I wanted to think about, actually. Why? Because it was far better than actually letting…whatever the hell you’d call the “problems” going on in my house rent space in my head. Avoid that kinda stuff like the plague until it invades your shores like H1N1 or the Bird Flu – that’s the best policy to have when you have shit you’re trying to not deal with that show up at the worst possible time. It’s also the absolute best way to stay out of conflict with your neighbor when her daughter’s Corolla was smashed up during one of your wild ass parties even though the car was fucked up before the party even started. Nevertheless, I was packing.
What were you packing for, Matthew you might ask; well, I had a match in some Civic Center in Vegas that weekend and I wanted to spend a few days in the City of Sin, doing whatever I could to pass the time up before I made my money in my chosen profession. It’s the “Marvelous” Matthew Page way, after all. So once I had everything in the bags they needed to be in (regular clothes in one suitcase, gear in its own duffle bag – can’t let the two worlds mix, word to George Costanza), I carried them out of my spacious bedroom and into my spacious…er (is that even a word?) living room to find my then-girlfriend sitting on the couch, seemingly brooding.
Ahh…perfect! Just the type of thing I needed before traveling: Liberty (or judging from her temperament right now, Samantha) causing another fuss with me over shit that needed to just not be brought up.
That’s the thing that’s funny about me and Samantha: We’ve known each other most of our lives, dating back to the time I hit her in the back of the head with a paper ball in 8th Grade English, and have had a back and forth, on-again/off-again, “will they/won’t they” romantic thrill ride since we were 22. We know each other, both in the colloquial sense and in the biblical sense. We’ve grown up together, learned the other like a book from cover to cover so these little flare ups and tiffs are bound to happen – it just does, really. Get what you paid for, get what you deserve. Whatever; my blonde concubine sat there, lips pursed in an unsatisfied pout, arms folded under her certainly real and not man-made chest*(*how does one go from a B cup to an overflowing D at the age of 21, the world will never know), certainly not the centerfold imagery that she was known for having but y’know…these things happen.
“Lib…you got everything packed, babe? It’s gonna be a decent drive over, and I wanna know if you got all your shit packed and ready to go.” I stated, doing my best to direct the conversation away from the one she damn sure wanted to have with me. Gotta nip that sorta thing in the bud when you can.
She gave me one look with those pale green eyes that I used to love looking into during more…amorous times, and turned her head, rolling her eyes at my mere presence. It was followed by deep sigh out of pure exasperation and annoyance being let out. Apart from that, her reaction toward my statement was quiet until she opened her lips and simply stated, “No.”
“No? What d’you mean ‘no’? Babe, we gotta get going now if we wanna check in on time. Let’s get goin’; c’mon.” I sounded urgent and indeed I was. Though, I probably shouldn’t have clapped my hands as if to say ‘chop-chop’. That is the thing that’ll, at best, get you yelled at and at worst, get you slapped. Either way, I was looking to get a nice motherfucking by my own girlfriend in my house.
“As in, ‘no, Matthew, I am not going to Vegas with you since you don’t seem to give a flying fuck about what’s troubling your girlfriend aka the woman you said you were in love with’.” Samantha turned her attention to me, giving one of those grins that weren’t happy but more so indignant and without any sort of pleasantries. “Is that clear enough for you, baby? Did I make my point easy for you to understand or do I need to plaster it on a fucking billboard with my tits on it?”
“Well…”
“Oh. My…GOD!”
Probably wasn’t a good idea to answer her rhetorical question when she’s like this. Actually, it never is because that just makes her even angrier and ready to become a human volcano. From where I stood, I could see her begin to absolutely fume; I think I even saw steam pluming from her ears like a cute tea kettle. Her jaw hung a little, eyes narrowed at me, and even her hands were clenching themselves into fists – most likely trying to control her anger and short temper so she didn’t go flying off the handle though I probably didn’t make things easy for her.
I know I didn’t make things easy for her.
“Okay…okay.” I held my hands out, a nonverbal declaration of peace as I took residence on the armrest of the couch she was seated on. Probably was dangerous to do that but in any event, I did it and wasn’t going to let a little thing like the potential of her lunging for my neck get in the way. “What’s been eating you? What’s crawled up your ass and caused you to be a pain in mine to the point that we have to have this little impromptu bull session?”
“I’ve been a pain in your ass? Me?! You know good and fucking well, Matt, that you’ve been a pain in mine.” She must’ve seen where I was going and no doubt knew my sense of humor because she held her index finger up and said, “And no, that’s not an anal joke, you fucking perv.”
She’s the one who begs for it but I’m the perv? Okay. But that’s another story for another day.
“Alright, alright, Liberty. Just tell me what’s happening so we can deal with this and move on.” I was dismissive, sounded annoyed and if you guessed those two emotions, you would be batting 1.000%. Truth be told, I did not want to be stuck in my living room, having a conversation that was gonna turn into an argument. I’d rather try and convince the people of Libya that Qaddafi was a great and upstanding human being.
“See? That’s it right there; you don’t know how to turn it off. You just don’t know how to turn it off, and you don’t see how that shit is affecting me, Matthew.”
Arching an eyebrow, I looked at her like she had about seven heads sprouting from her neck. I wasn’t following the train of logic she was riding in on so what she was intimating to me was foreign and felt as though it came from out of nowhere. “I’m not sure what you’re going on about, Liberty, but—”
She stopped me with this aggravated scream that made me recoil back and look at her wide-eyed as if some primordial monster was about leap out of her throat and attack me.
“Holy fuck! This isn’t Liberty Valentine talking to Matthew Page about what he’s gonna do for his next match. This is Samantha Shaw talking to Matthew Prescott about their relationship that he seemingly doesn’t give a flying fuck about anymore!” She ended with a flourish, teeth gritted and breathing heavily, and those eyes. The eyes that once held love for me now seemingly were on fire with certain rage.
Okay, now I knew what she was talking about. The last time she had a fit of rage like this was when my good pal and Chief of Staff in Marvelous Incorporated (a Limited Liability Company) Benjamin Newsom may’ve pinched the side of her stomach when she was sitting down and she went off on him. She’s not fat – at about 5’5” and weighing a trim 114-pounds, she was as fit as any fitness model out there on Instagram. What she didn’t like was him pinching the skin near her ribs/stomach and poking fun at her, trying to give her body issues. Which I can understand. This instance, however, felt like it was something that had been brewing within her for at least a couple of months before she decided to actually speak up and tell me what had been on her mind.
“I don’t—”
“No; let me speak for just this once before you dominate the conversation with your ego. Please.” She looked like she was so angry that she was on the verge of bursting into tears. Again, you don’t really know how to react to your girl doing this until you actually meet it head on and by then, it’s probably too late. “You’ve put your career in front of our relationship for like…almost a year now. I can’t help but feel like you just don’t care about what I want. I can’t help but feel like you’re telling me in, so many words, that I’m only around to fulfill and satisfy your needs. And to me? That’s fucking insulting, Matt.”
She had a habit of firing off expletive laden tirades whenever she was mad/upset so it was a shock to me that she, for the most part, sounded measured and calm despite her earlier outbursts. Which, if you know anything about women, means that there was an even bigger storm heading to your shores because that relative calm you’re feeling? Yeah, that’s the eye of the storm, and trust me…you don’t want that.
“Well shit; sorry my career’s been kinda skyrocketing in the past year but that’s kinda what happens when you end up in this business: The personal life – kinda doesn’t matter in the long run when you’ve gotta bounce around from city to city, makin’ money and kickin’ some ass.” Could I sound less empathetic to my girlfriend’s plight? Probably, yeah but given the tone, it’s probably wise that I didn’t opt to go with what I was really thinking.
And knowing is half the battle, kids.
“You can’t be this damn dense – you have a Goddamn degree from USC, for God’s sake. You cannot be this dense. Because you’re either being genuinely ignorant of the problems I have or you’re willingly overlooking the issues, and I don’t know which would make me wanna swing on you more.”
“Li…” Her eyes widened at me, almost as if to say ‘don’t you fucking dare’, which made me correct my stance immediately. “Sam…you’re important to me. You are; there’s no doubt about that fact but I care about my career, too. And I’m sorry if it seems like your needs or wants are being neglected but I would like to think I’m doing a pretty good job at making sure you’re at least happy enough. Like, what do you want from me – a ring? Do you want marriage? You yourself told me how much you hate the concept because the feminist in you is so against it.”
True story; she fed me that line of bullshit after a night of sex that included her calling me “daddy” while I choked her, pulled her hair and slapped her ass. Feminists are weird, bro. Good lays but really fuckin’ weird.
“I would like for us to talk about our future without the prospect of wrestling being factored in because while it’s brought us a lot of good and fun things…there’s a finite end to it that can happen any day now, and you know that, Matthew. I’ve got our future in my mind past the next six or seven months and you? You’re tryin’ to rush us out the door to go to fucking Vegas for a match this weekend.”
“…Nah, fuck that.” That was one that threw her for a loop. “I’m not gonna put my career on hold because you sudden are gettin’ wet at the idea of wearing an overly expensive wedding dress in front of most of the family you can’t stand. Not to mention, my career? The money that comes from it has made you pretty damn happy, hasn’t it? So, no; I’m not gonna allow you to be selfish and ruin a good thing.”
“Selfish? Me? I’m the selfish one…okay; I’m leaving because if I stay here, I might actually go to jail for stabbing you in cold blood given how angry you’re making me.” She got up in a huff, hand moving to wipe away a tear that had cascaded down her cheek, but attempting to do so, so I didn’t catch this. I did.
I shook my head and let out a scoff, thinking there was no way she was being this overdramatic for no real reason. My obliviousness, or purposeful ignoring of her feelings, was really showing as I didn’t go after her but really, why would I? “C’mon, Sam. You’re not gonna do this over something so simple. Don’t start blowing shit out of proportion because you didn’t get what you wanted.”
“No, I’m done with you. You’re calling me ‘selfish’ because I care about us. Think about that for a second, prick.”
Ouch.
She stormed over to the front door of my house, doing her best to regain whatever composure she had before turning to face me.
“Until you can figure out what you want and what’s truly important, don’t call me. Don’t call me, don’t text me. Nothing. If you wanna run around with other bitches, go right ahead. But until you can figure out if you want to make this…what we have…had, real? I want nothing to do with you.”
I blinked, still trying to process what she was saying to me when she just slammed the door when she stormed out. Hell, I was close to doing the cliché “Samantha, wait!” thing that you see on TV but couldn’t even do that because she was out like a flash. This was…it was very ungood, to steal a phrase from Benny. And speaking of: After sitting there dumbfounded for almost two minutes, I pulled my iPhone out of my pocket and sifted through to find his number and hold my phone to my ear.
“Hey, Benjamin? You uhh…you up for a trip to Vegas, bro?”
So yeah. Rather than deal with my issues with Samantha, I chose to compartmentalize my shit so I could focus on this now “guys trip” to Las Vegas that was no doubt going to be filled with debaucherous behavior and other self-destructive activities. And as for Samantha?
Well, you’ll be happy to know these months later, we still aren’t on speaking terms – at least not the type that doesn’t end in a shouting match. All the same, I would rather a bullet in my head or to be dropped on my head in the ring than deal with that shit again.
