Hack

"God, he really did a number on you, didn't he?" His voice was low and deep, almost a whisper from his lips to hers.

"Fuck you," Arianna ashed her cigarette on his hand.

"Shit," Dean yanked his hand away, "Shit that burns."

"That's the point. If I still had my glass, I would've smashed it against your face."

"Aw, there's the Tex I know and love."

"Fuck off."

"Look, we've both been fucked over by him. All I'm saying is I get it," Dean patted her shoulder, "Do- do you want to talk about it?"

She shook her head. She wasn't really sure if she'll ever be ready to talk about it. She wasn't even sure if she could bear to see him.

"Come on, let's get you back to the hotel."

"I'm sorry," Arianna offered as she swung her legs over the railing. "I never got to say I'm sorry after all that shit with Shield went down."

Dean caught her around the waist and set her down on her bare feet. "And here I was thinking you were apologizing for burning me with a cigarette I gave you."

"You deserved that," She slid her shoes back into the high heels that the Bella twins convinced her to buy.

Dean put his arm around her waist again to steady her.

"I can walk."

"I know, I just like having a pretty girl like you on my arm."

"I think mamas ought to warn their daughters about smooth talkers like you," Laying the Texas accent on again, "Slick as a slippery eel. You could sell ice to Eskimos."

"Your mama didn't?"

"Now, Cinci, you know that Mama Junebug ain't got time to be warnin' me 'bout anything."

"Either way, I'm pretty sure we've all been warned about you Southern belles. Y'all are too pretty for words."

Arianna giggled and playfully swatted Dean's hand away as he tried to kiss her cheek. She looked up and froze.

There he was. Seth Rollins looking better than a body has a right to.

She couldn't stop staring at him, yet at the same time she couldn't bring herself to look at him.

"Tex, you okay?" Dean looked up, "Oh."

"Come on, Dean. Let's go," It was now Arianna's turn to lead the way.



Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

Smoke in. Smoke out. Smoke in. Smoke out.

"Jesus, Arianna, you smoke like a chimney," Dean long stopped trying to keep up with her.

"It's nights like these that are the hardest."

"What?"

"Earlier, you asked me if I missed home. It's nights like these that are the hardest, when I miss home the most. It's not like my home life was great, but it's the nights, when I'm all alone with only my cigarettes and my thoughts to keep me company."

"I'm here with you tonight," Dean sat down next to her on the stoop of the hotel, wrinkling his nose at the acrid smell of cigarette smoke. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, pulling her against him.



"I'm here for you, you know that," The sultry voiced called to him through the phone, "Right babe?" Zahra cooed.

Seth wasn't really sure what she was asking with that 'right, babe?', but he mumbled an 'uh-huh' anyways.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

Suddenly that sexy voice he complimented her on grated on his nerves. Why did everything have an upward inflection, always a question?

"Babe?"

Why did he even call Zahra? He gritted his teeth at the thought of Arianna and Dean, kissing on the balcony, walking arm in arm, clutching at each other.

"Baaabe?" She drew out the first syllable. "Are you there?"

He needs to hang up. To find Arianna. She's who he really needed right now. Only she could fix this.

"Babe, let's talk about it. That's why you called to talk, right?"

He hated talking about it. He was sick of it. He was sick of talking about his junk and how it ended up plastered on everyone's news feed. "Not right now. I'm tired. Bye," He clipped his goodbye short by ending the call. He rested his phone against his chest as he laid back, staring at the ceiling. He didn't like the silence, the emptiness, the loneliness. He usually had someone with him at night. Usually, he went to Arianna's room. Then the vibrating of the phone shattered the fragile silence and the stillness of his body.

Mom.

Seth groaned. "Hello?"

"Colby! What have you done?"

"Mom, I really don't feel like talking about it."

"The hell you don't feel like it. We're talking about it. I had to find out from the neighbor's! The neighbor's have seen your willie!"

"Mom, please!"

"Colby, you're going to explain yourself right now. We are talking about this."

Seth relented and sighed.

"Well start from the beginning that's the best," his mom interrupted.

He continued his staring contest with the popcorn ceiling, squinting as he tried to focus his memories, "It was definitely 2012 and FCW was being rebranded into NXT so they had this hotshot art director from Texas coming in. There she was, I remember exactly what she was wearing when I first met her. Arianna Rose Burwell. She had her hair short then, well, not too short like above the shoulders. She was wearing this pink blouse- she called it fuschia, but I'm pretty sure fuschia is pink- and black skirt with these black high heels that I never understood how she walked in them. I remember she looked at me and said, 'Bo Dallas, right?'"



"I don't even know where to start, honestly," Arianna drew her knees to her chest, puffing on her cigarette as if it was the very thing that kept her heart pumping.

"The beginning is always a good place."

"I always start from the beginning and it never seems to make sense. Le-let's start from the end."

"What? You can't start from the end, there's nowhere to go from there."

"I'll work backwards."

"Whatever you're the writer," Dean rolled his eyes.

"I'm an art director. I haven't written anything in a long time," Arianna flicked her cigarette onto the ground and watched it roll and skitter across the asphalt, the glowing ash dying into gray flakes, "I did what I swore never to do. I'm my mother's daughter. I love him so much that- that it feels like he's a part of me. Like it's him that is beating my heart and filling my lungs.

I guess the story begins and ends with my mama. Mama June. We lived everywhere and nowhere. Odessa, Crowley, Fort Worth. A trailer park, a car, and then the Butler Housing Projects, which was nicer but you know how the Projects are. My entire life I watched my mother get used by men. She loved them, each and every one of them, completely and selflessly, and they took that love and used it for themselves. My Mama told me, 'Women were put on this planet to give and to nurture and men were put on this planet to take.' I never believed her until now."