Everything You Ever Wanted

“It suits you.”

Mary-Ellen couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her son with a proper haircut, only that it had been years. It certainly had never been pink before. She would have noticed.

She’d been coming by on his birthday every year, even before he locked himself away in self-imposed exile, but today the drive over was different. There was a spark of excitement that she couldn’t shake. The rumors found their way to her ears. PRIME was opening its doors in the new year. Talent had been recruited. Contracts had been signed. Her son was among them.

She could tell by the sight of him that there was merit to these stories. Gone was the haphazard beard he’d worn for the last ten years. The extra weight he’d put on had been chiseled away.

Containing her smile was difficult.

“There’s something I want to ask you,” she said. Confirmation was imperative. She still needed to know. “I was talking to some of the girls the other day, and one of them mentioned PRIME was coming back.”

A surge of red washed across Jared’s face, and Mary-Ellen had all the answers she needed. She raised a hand to her lips, arriving a second too late to hide the gasp.

“Oh my god!” She said, “You’re doing it, aren’t you? You’re going back.”

“I am,” he said, and Mary-Ellen released a breath she didn’t know she was holding. “There’s been some back and forth for a while, but I didn’t want to say anything because it only came together in the last week.”

His eyes wandered to the floor.

“What?” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s in Vegas.”

They never talked about what happened in Las Vegas. Jared didn’t offer any of the details willingly, Wyatt Connors was better left a ghost. The only insight she had into the events of that February night came from a grainy cell phone clip shared in a group chat. She couldn’t get through it, not when she realized what it was.

She took a step forward and put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

“Mom,” he said. He sounded small, the voice of her baby boy, not the man he’d grown to be. “I’m terrified. I don’t know if this is the right thing, or if I should do it at all, and I’m convinced that it’s all going to blow up in my face, and…”

“I know. I know. This is a big step, and I know it’s scary, but I can’t tell you how happy this makes me.” She drew him in, wrapping her arms around his chest. “Jared, I’ve been praying for a day like this. Not because of wrestling, but… For the first time in years I see my son again. Do you understand?”

He nodded.

“I have something for you,” she said. From inside her purse she produced a book with a faded blue cover. “I’ve been holding on to this for a while, and I think it’s about time you have it.”

He turned it over in his hands, carefully thumbing through the pages. What he saw was a collection of notes, all of them written in his mother’s flowing hand. Stories of his early life laid out before him. Bottle feedings. Sleepless nights. A temper tantrum in the middle of a crowded Ann & Hope.

“What is this?” He said.

A letter to the twins on the eve of their first day in kindergarten.

“I started keeping a journal when you and your brother were born. Your father was working a lot of the time, so it was mostly just me and you kids. I didn’t have time to take any pictures, so at night I started writing about what happened. Milestones. My feelings. Things like that.”

An apology on the day their father left. How she wished she could have made it work, but some things were just beyond her control. A hope that one day they would understand.

“After a while it became more than that,” she continued. “I hoped that one day you two could see this and think of me as more than just your mom. I know it doesn’t look like much, but…”

“This is incredible,” he said. “But, why now?”

“I thought it was time that it fulfilled its purpose.” She shrugged. “And I thought that, well… I know that things have been hard, and there are events that you don’t talk about. But maybe you should.” She tapped the cover. “Even if the paper is the only one listening.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. I just need you to know that whatever happens, I’m proud of you. For years it’s been my wish that one day you would have your life back,” she said. “I hope this journey brings you everything you’ve ever wanted.”

#

The first page is an inscription to my brother and I, dated a month after we were born.

It says, “To my baby boys, I can’t wait to meet the people you grow up to be.”

I can touch it from where I’m sitting right now. It's been here since the first story, about an old high school gym and a wrestling plumber named Wet Willie. The "angry toilet man." Those first days back were terrifying, so talking like this became my escape.

There's a voice that I hear sometimes. It's been with me for as long as I can remember. Some days it whispers doubt into my ear, telling me that an idea won't work, or that someone else would find a way to do it better. On others it screeches that I shouldn't be here. Sure, it says, you can hold down a tag division, but that's because someone better is there to anchor you.

Even on the days that it's quiet, it always lingers. It's never really gone.

Those first few months, all it did was scream.

"They don't want you!"

"This is a mistake!"

"You will never fit in!"

And yet, it turns out that the best decision I ever made was buying a mannequin and convincing my agent that he could negotiate anything into a contract if he tried hard enough.

Without that, my universe looks very different.

I never thought I would have any of this.

#

They sat huddled together on the couch, watching the screen of Justine’s laptop as she scrolled from one photo the next. Part of the adoption process involved putting together a photo book for the agency to show prospective birth mothers, a way for them to know the people looking to take a baby into their home.

“Why would it be weird? This is what we do for a living.”

She shifted, tucking her legs underneath and hoping the nausea would finally pass. It had been going on for a few days, starting in the mid-morning and lingering into the afternoon and beyond. It made a nice excuse to take a break from spending a large part of her day in the gym, but otherwise hadn’t provided too big of a disruption. She tempted it once after sending Jared out in search of cupcakes. That turned out to be a mistake.

Still, it seemed to be cooperating.

“I’m just trying to imagine what someone’s going to think when they see this picture. ‘Oh, look. These folks get half naked and put on little stretchy pants and fight. Let’s give them a baby.’”

“Okay, first of all, there is nothing little about your pants - wrestling or otherwise.”

“That’s not…”

“The amount of fabric in one pair of your shorts could clothe an entire village.”

“Cal.”

“Like you could single handedly put every JoAnn’s in Massachusetts out of business with that thing.” She nodded to where he was sitting on the couch, and Jared slid a pillow in between them to block her line of sight. “An old woman just wants to sew her granddaughter some dresses for her dolls, and the person at the desk has to be all, ‘I’m so sorry, ma’am, but a man came in earlier and bought every bolt we had. We tried to reason with him, but he was dummy thick.’”

He put another pillow on his lap, maybe thinking that this would all stop if he could hide his backside from view. He should have known better.

“‘If you hurry you might be able to catch him,’” Justine continued. It was clear to her that Jared wanted to smile, to laugh along with her. Eventually he would, the game was in seeing how long he could hold out before breaking. “‘He left in a big ol’ dump truck.’”

His defenses fell quick, and soon Jared had his hands to his face, shaking with laughter. From behind his fingers he said, “Goddammit, Cal.”

“You love me.”

“That is why we’re getting married, yes.” His eyes drifted back to the picture on the screen. It had been taken by a ringside photographer, minutes after their final defense against the then-Winds of Change. Justine was perched on his left shoulder. No masks, no mannequins. “Shame we can’t put this off for a few months, so we could add a couple pictures from the wedding.” He looked over his shoulder with a grin. “Might see less of my ass in those.”

“Maybe, but we could always put this off another week. Then I can ask Lauren from the digital media department to get me a shot of you with the Uni.” She pointed to the photo that was still on her computer. “We can put it on the same page as this one.”

She glanced at her partner and frowned. Jared had That Look on his face, the one he wore when he wanted to argue, but knew better than to try.

“Spill it,” she said. “What’s up?”

“Hm?”

“I brought up the match with Julien, and you started making that face. You know the one. Do we have to have this conversation again?” She grimaced. A knot had formed in her abdomen, and was rapidly climbing. “Because by know you should know that I... that I think...”

Her throat tightened. Her stomach lurched.

“Are you okay?”

There was no time to answer. Justine had just sprinted towards the hallway and was about to round the corner towards the half-bath when the fist in her guts clenched tight. On instinct, she put a hand to her mouth, thinking it would stop what was about to happen.

#

She was right, we didn't need to have that conversation again. I did already know what she was going to say.

"This is where you belong."

It’s what she said back in 2022, when I was given my first singles match in PRIME. A main event no less, and my opponent was against a man who’d just challenged for the Universal championship - the same title I’ll be wrestling for in a few days.

The pinnacle of all sports.

A year ago, I tried to convince Justine that she should represent our team in a big match - a battle royal, it’s called - to try and win a chance at that same title.

She refused.

She refused despite having never had that chance in her life, not once.

That role, that opportunity, she said, was for me. That it’s where I was supposed to be.

I didn’t win, but that didn’t shake her belief in me. Not once. I remember there was a press conference right after the event, and when I got up and left the table, she was the first person I saw waiting in the wings. I tried to apologize, after all I’d just wasted the opportunity she gave me - the chance she sacrificed so that I could have it. But she wouldn’t hear it. Instead, she told me how proud she was of how far I’d made it.

But that voice? It doesn't care what other people think, because it believes its truth to be absolute. Even now it's trying to tell me that having a Golden Ticket is a fluke, a mistake. That this chance should go to someone else, and if I were to just look around the roster I'm sure I could find someone more worthy of the spot than me. 

Give it to Ivan, it says, or Hayes. Give it to Brandon, so that he can finally exact his revenge against the lizard king. Give it to Nate, because he's beaten Julien once already, which means he can probably do it again.

You hear that enough, and it shapes what you believe in the quiet moments. It colors your opinion of yourself, warps the reflection in the mirror. I have killed myself trying to prove that voice wrong. But that's now the way, I've been going about it all wrong.

It's shouting, screaming these thoughts at me right now. Desperate for a foothold.

Because it knows it's dying, its influence is waning, and the only way it can survive is if I listen.

#

“What you’re describing doesn’t sound like a virus.”

Susan, the same goddamn nurse.

The same goddamn room with the same stupid prints on the wall, and the same fucking clock with a second hand that always hitches at the nine. How often did they need to reset that thing? How many minutes was it off by? Justine tried to do the math, conceding when her mind wandered to the time she told her sophomore geometry teacher what to do with her X-axis.

She didn’t want to come back here, not after the heartbreak of her last visit. Never again, if she could help it. It had only been a few months, but that wound was still raw.

“This sounds more like morning sickness to me.”

Goddamn Susan with her goddamn diagnosis. Where did she get her degree, anyway? Was it an accredited school? How many of her classes did she take online?

But Susan wasn’t in the room anymore. She hadn’t been for minutes - real or imaginary, depending on how the calculus of the clock. She was waiting for test results, because, “you’re here, and everything you said sounds pretty textbook, and here this is to collect the specimen now make sure you use these little wipes first, and oh by the way do you remember when your last period was?”

There was a polite knock on the door. Justine sat bolt upright on the exam table.

Goddammit, Susan.

She was smiling.

Why was she smiling?

#

Two years.

Has it actually been that long?

Mom was right. Talking to the paper works.

I don’t know if my life is interesting, only that it’s eventful. Hopefully I’ve done justice in the retelling, but I’m sure that a detail has slipped here or there. Turns out I had a lot to say, even if the story didn't always have a happy ending. If nothing else, maybe you’ll think it’s entertaining. All of this… this might be my journal, but these stories aren’t for me. 

These are for you.

They always have been.

#

“Hey,” she called into the air, “I’m upstairs.”

She’d stolen the sweatshirt as kids, tried to give it back as an adult, and now wore it as a source of comfort. She pulled it tight around her and closed her eyes, listening to the sounds of his feet on the stairs. Box breathing. Four steps in equal measure. A trick that her brother’s platoon used on their second tour in Iraq to steady their breath and slow their heart rate.

Jared was at the door to her room in seconds.

“What did the doctor say? Is it anything serious?”

She forced her hands into the shirt’s pockets, only now aware that her fingers were trembling.

“It’s good news, actually,” she said.

“So, nothing I can catch?”

“No,” she laughed. “This isn’t contagious, so you don’t have to worry about throwing up all over Julien in the middle of the ring.” She paused, letting her smile widen. “I mean, you still might, but this won’t be the reason why.”

“I'd rather not puke at all, if I can help it. Is that an option?”

“There is a conversation we need to have, though.” She knew those words were dangerous, that they would trigger a certain reaction, but this was a dance and she needed to lead.

“About what?”

She could read the concern on his face, in his posture. Got him.

“Names.”

“But… I already took care of that.” The expression was one she’d seen countless times before. Justine always likened it to how a dog might look if you tried to teach it astronomy. “You said you wanted to keep your last name, so that’s how I made sure it was filled out on the marriage license. I already brought it to city hall. Should I go back, or…”

She waved a dismissive hand through the air and rose to her feet. She couldn’t contain herself any longer. She had Jared on the hook and could keep him wriggling there for as long as she wanted, but It was time to let him in on the truth.

“No.” She reached down and took his hand in hers. Carefully, she placed his palm against her belly. “That’s not what I mean.”

He furrowed his brow, still trying to solve the puzzle. A carnival of emotions played out across his face in turn. She wondered if he understood yet.

“There’s a tradition in my family.” That’s when she broke, the first tears fell. “The girls… We all have names that start with the letter J. So, if… if…”

There it was. The subdued gasp as his jaw slowly fell. The first quiver at the corner of his eyes. The way the room seemed brighter all of a sudden. She would remember that moment forever.

“Cal.” The word was barely a whisper, spoken through trembling lips. “Are… are you?”

“It goes back generations,” she continued. “You know my mom, June. Then there was my grandmother, Janice, and my great-grandmother Josephine.” Tears streaked along her face, only getting caught in the crease of her smile. “It’s a whole thing.”

“Are we…?”

“No rules for the boys though,” she said. That same light found its way into her voice. “Which is why I’ve got a brother named Sean Vito. If that’s not a name that screams ‘my job is a front’ then I dunno what is.”

“Please,” he pleaded, “tell me that this is real. Tell me I’m not dreaming right now.”

She laced her fingers into his and led him into the hall. It was only a few steps until they reached the room that had been set aside as a nursery, should that day ever come. It had been months since Justine had closed its door, a false positive between the holidays being more than she could handle. More than once she found Jared peeking into the space, in this his hope was unwavering, but he would always close it the moment he felt she was near.

She nodded to the handle.

“You should do it,” she said. She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek. “One last peek.”

They stood quietly for a moment, and then Jared met her eyes.

“You’re going to be an amazing mom,” he said. He raised his hand, still entwined with hers, and set them both on the handle. “Together?”

“Together.”

#

So much of my life has been lived in public that sometimes it’s hard to find the truth. You might hear things, or see things, and some of it might be hard to understand.

One day, when you’re old enough, this will be waiting for you. You’ll get to hear about the time your mom came with me to a fundraiser in Louisiana, and asked me… asked if I had ever thought about becoming a parent.

One day, maybe you’ll understand me as more than just your dad.

And now it's real. Do you know why? Because your mom is louder than any other voice I hear, even my own. It tells me that I deserve this, that I always have. That the universe - that immortality - is there within reach.

Justine, she’s given me so much - a life, a future.

A family.

I thought this match was about validation, and it is... but not just mine. This is about you having a dad that I hope one day you can be proud of.

This is about your mom, and what it means to prove her right.

You and her - the only voices that matter from now on.

This is about my mom, and how I get to tell her that I took her advice about talking, even when I wasn't yet sure who would be listening. And then I can tell her the best part - that her last wish came true.

And so did mine.

You are everything I ever wanted.

I can’t wait to meet the person you grow up to be.