Love Conquers All

Breakfast with Shawn and his family wasn’t going like I expecting. Maybe I should’ve cancelled for another day, but there was no telling on how long it will be until I come back to San Antonio. When I arrived, his house seemed a lot bigger than I remembered, but it was nice. It seemed to take forever to finally reach the front door, along the way it was giving me time to think. Now that I know how Demitra winded up with John Morrison, I needed to know what else happened last night. The more I tried to remember, the more my head started to hurt, and so did my back. I had to find some way of hiding my tattoo from Shawn. He is like a second father to me and I feel like if I just walk in there and say, ‘Oh hey Shawn! Look at my new tattoo, and I don’t even remember how I got it! I was drunk. Ha ha!’ Yeah, like that wouldn’t have gotten me in trouble with my real father. If he was alive and saw my behavior last night, he would be so ashamed. I finally reach the front door and put on my best smile as I knocked and waited for an answer. Shawn answered the door and grew a huge smile on his face. He welcomed me into his home with open arms. “Wow Emika look at you! I haven’t seen you in two years! How have you been?”

I smiled and hugged him back as tight as I could. “I’ve been doing great. How have you been? It’s been a while since I last seen you and your family.”

“I’m doing great, and my family has been dying to see you again.” He lets go and walks over to the kitchen. I could hear him in the distance. “Hey everyone, guess who’s here.” Before he could say anything else, I hear footsteps getting closer, louder. It was the kids. They run over to me and give me the biggest hugs, almost tackling me to the ground.

Shawn’s wife, Rebecca, came over to where we were and smiled. “Okay kids, that’s enough. Give Emika some air.” She laughed as the kids let me go. I smiled at them and then walked over to Rebecca to give her a hug.

“Hey Rebecca, how have you been?” I smiled at her.

“Good, good. Things have been going a lot easier ever since Shawn came home. And I think it’s great that he’s here, the kids need their father. As much as I need Shawn.”

I looked at the kids playing with Shawn in the living room. The image of them playing with him, reminded me of the days I had with my father. I bit down on my lower lip to prevent me from crying. I’m guessing Rebecca noticed.

“Come with me in the kitchen, I can make you some breakfast.” She wrapped her arm around my shoulder in a motherly way as we walked to the kitchen. She led me to the table and sat me down. She walked over to the coffee pot and poured me and herself a cup of coffee. She walked over to me and smiled a little bit at me. “So, how have you been ever since that day?”

I sighed and looked outside. “I’ve been okay, just trying to get my life back together and get back into the business.”

She nodded. “I see what you mean. Hopefully things get better for you as time goes on. I’m sure your father is very proud of you, you’ve accomplished so much.”

“Yeah. I didn’t think things would get better after the years we had to deal with my mom leaving us. And then to find out years later that my dad had cancer, and on the day he died, the pressure just got to me that day and I told myself I would never go back. I guess it’s true that you can never say never.” I bite on my lower lip again to try hard not to cry.

“Yes, but that only counts if you believe in it strong enough to say it twice. I’ve seen your performances in the past, you belong there Emika. And it’s very clear that something brought you back. If you wouldn’t have come back, then you would’ve been wondering ‘what if’.”

She was right. I would have been living my life as a lie. Spending my days as Julie instead of Emika. I don’t think I would’ve been happy if I never went back, and I owe it all to Demitra. She was the one who forced me to start talking to John and to start hanging out with him. I really owe her one.

Rebecca walked to the refrigerator and started pulling out ingredients for an egg and cheese omelet. She always made it for me when I came to visit and it became my favorite dish of hers. While she was cooking, I pulled out my phone and told Rebecca I was going to step outside to make a phone call. She nodded at me as I walked outside and closed the door behind me. I had no idea who to call, so I decided to scroll through my contact list. Some part of me was saying to call some of my old friends from back home, but then again I didn’t know who was true to me and who wasn’t. Before I even dialed a number, my phone went off. I had a new picture message. It was from Phil. He sent me a picture of my tattoo. The text with the picture said:

»Call me. I will explain everything.

I was finally going to get some answers from all of this. I exited out of the picture message and immediately called Phil to hear what he had to say. I wonder if he felt guilty about not telling me anything earlier. Even though I was freezing outside, I had to make this call private. So I walked to the guest house and lay down on the couch. After three rings, Phil finally answers the phone.

“Hey, Emika.” By the tone in his voice, I couldn’t tell what he was feeling.

“Hello Phil. So tell me, what happened last night?”

He hesitated and then let out a deep sigh. “Okay here’s what happened. I showed up at the club around three o’clock. I really didn’t want to go because I knew there was going to be drinking and people acting stupid. But then I got a video message from…well…the name isn’t important. Anyway, when I showed up, I saw you kissing Cena. I was upset by the idea so I stepped outside. Demitra joined me because she needed to smoke a cigarette and—“

“Wait a second, Demitra doesn’t smoke!”

“She told me she never told you. She said she started smoking a month ago. Anyway, can I finish?”

“Yeah sorry.”

“Okay, anyway, while we were outside talking about you and things that would make the WWE a lot better, you came outside with Eve and you were wasted. Eve asked me to take you home since Cena or anybody else was too drunk to drive or call a cab. So I carried you to my car. Along the way to the hotel, you kept saying that you wanted a tattoo and if I didn’t take you to go get one then you would throw a tantrum. I was able to find a twenty-four hour tattoo parlor and that’s how you got your tattoo.”

“Well that explains everything. Wait, so how did I wind up back in my hotel room…uhh….”

“Naked?” He chuckled.

I began to blush. “Yes…that.”

“Okay, well, I took you back to your hotel room and I placed you on your bed so you could go to sleep. But then you started taking your clothes off. And by the way you can be surprisingly strong when you’re drunk. Anyway, let’s just say one thing led to another, in other words, we had sex.”

I was shocked by his words and I swallowed my own spit as my eyes grew wide. “We did?”

“I told you I wouldn’t lie to you Emika.”

At this point I began to feel very nervous. He must have left the room before I woke up. “Um…Phil…I have to go.” Before he said anything, I hung up and sat there just thinking about everything Phil just said to me. I tried to go into denial about this, but what other solution was there? Surely John didn’t have a story, he was as drunk as I was.