07-03-2020, 07:51 AM
07-07-2020, 10:44 PM
07-07-2020, 11:56 PM
OOC: First RP back. Not much, but it felt good to write. I forgot how therapeutic this is. Can't wait to get back into it!!
COVID-19
It’s the only thing people seem to be talking about. Well, that and racial injustice. Cassidy had tried so hard to ignore the real world, doing anything she could to hide from the responsibilities of adulthood. She and Austin had bought a house (more accurately, Austin had bought a house, and she just kind of took over) in Las Vegas, the city where, if you have enough money, you could be a kid forever. Las Vegas, the land where sad, pathetic midwesterners go to escape their pathetic lives and pretend that they mean something for a weekend, leaving with less money than they arrived with, and the bittersweet memory of what they did, and the knowledge that they were returning to the monotony of their meaningless jobs, their awful partners, and their ugly kids. You want to gamble away your life savings, VEGAS! You want to see a world-class show, VEGAS! You want to smoke legal weed, VEGAS! You want to bury a hooker you just used then accidentally murdered in the desert, VEGAS! Vegas was the place where your normal life was paused, and you were allowed to step out and live your ideal life for one perfect moment in time. It stood to reason that this was the landing place for an immature little girl looking to hide from the world. I mean, what’s to say that escape from reality had to end? Why not move to fantasy land, and make your break from reality indefinite?
The problem is, nothing lasts forever, especially the things that bring pleasure. Eventually, the real world has a way of finding you, no matter how far you run, and how well you hide.
When whispers of COVID first began, Cassidy took them seriously. She knew it was not something to be joked about, but she allowed herself to believe that she would be able to weather the storm in her paradise of immaturity and excess. COVID, like al;l things, would pass, and she would spend the interim drowning in a bottle of tequila, with Austin between her legs. In hindsight, it was super naive to believe that the constant rotation of fat, slobbish tourists wouldn’t bring the virus into her haven, and spread it EVERYWHERE!! Within months of the first whispers, COVID had arrived, and brought the real world crashing in with it. Soon, all bastions of fantasy were closed, and the city had become a ghost town. First, it was the casinos, afraid the spread of the virus and a possible death on the gaming floor, or in one of their hotel rooms, would severely hurt their bottom lines. As the casinos closed, shows were stopped. With no casinos to draw in the sheep, the strip clubs followed. The Vegas Golden Knights hockey season, a secret pleasure of Cassidy’s, was ended early as the NHL ground to a stop. Even the whorehouses closed, as the workers were afraid of contracting the virus...more than likely the least of their concerns, but who was she to judge. Soon, Vegas was nothing more than another boring town. They might as well have been living in Ohio, or any other of those boring flyover states.
But that was only the beginning, as the true scale of the pandemic became known, and escape options like Hawaii, Europe, or South America began to close their doors, reality began to set in. It wasn’t that there was nothing for them to do, and nowhere for them to go...it was the fact that there was nowhere for them to hide anymore. Reality had come knocking at their door, and they were suddenly forced to be adults. It was fine at first, seeking the bottom of their rather large alcohol supply, Austin spent most of the first two weeks working Cassidy like a jackhammer. But, as time went on, and the alcohol began to run dry, they found that they were going to have to deal with one another.
The fact of the matter is, Austin and Cassidy’s relationship was mostly superficial. Sure, they loved each other, and while she hated to admit it out loud, she always felt like a part of her was missing when he wasn’t with her, they never really had to sit down and get into any kind of deep discussions if they didn’t want to. Vegas offered more than enough in the way of distractions, which meant that anytime the conversation veered into the uncomfortable, there was always a way to get away from it. It meant that Cassidy had been able to keep a lot of heavy and dark things bottled up. She never had to sit down with her husband and discuss the fact that the abortion she had a couple years back was now weighing on her live a semi truck. She couldn’t sleep most nights, and when she did, it was only for a couple hours as nightmares of her unborn child danced in her head. She had developed an eating disorder, and a pretty severe cocaine habit, but the chaos of their livers before the arrival of COVID in paradise meant that he more than likely didn’t notice. Not that he didn’t care, but it was really easy to hide it from him. Cassidy had also started worrying that she wasn’t enough for him. Now that their fantasy lives had been paused, she worried that he would grow tired of her and leave. Without the smoke and mirrors, perhaps she wasn’t really interesting. Perhaps he would see that she was a fraud, and leave her in his dust. They’d been married for years, and she knew that industry marriages seemed to have a shelf life on them. Was her’s reaching its expiration date?!
Anxiety hit her like a sledgehammer, and depression was not far behind it.
Taking a hiatus from the industry seemed like a smart move, but had only exacerbated her problems. She had taken to sleeping during the days, and haunting the house like a ghost at night. She would watch Austin sleep when he was home, wondering if he was dreaming about someone else. The times they did have sex, she almoist expected him to moan some other woman’s name. She wouldn’t even have blamed him. She was a burden...definitely not the woman he had pledged his life to. Sure, they said that whole “nin sickness and in health” nonsense, but did they really think there were bad times ahead?
One night, Cassidy had tried her wedding dress on again. It hung a bit loose on her thanks to her eating disorder. She remembered standing over Austin, watching him sleep as she often did. She remembered a crushing feeling of dread sweeping over her. The next thing she remembered was being in a hospital, one arm strapped to a hospital bed. They said they had been called to a report of a woman in a wedding dress acting erratically. They found her walking in the middle of the street, and were afraid she was suicidal.
She was.
Of course, that’s not what she told them. She convinced them that she had partied a little too hard on her wedding night, and must have wandered off. The dress seemed to corroborate her story, and not too long after, she was unhandcuffed from the bed, and allowed to leave. When Austin asked her where she’d been, after she got home, she said she’d been out for a drive. He made mention of her wedding dress being a bit loose, but didn’t seem to connect the dots.
As the days went by, adulthood crept into their daily lives. Cassidy began cooking dinner some nights. Mostly mac and cheese, spaghetti, or a casserole. She made the bed each morning, She felt herself becoming more and more like her mother, which most people wouldn’t have considered to be a bad thing, but it made it even harder to look at herself in the mirror. She felt herself becoming everything she had spent her life revolting against.
There were very few days that Cassidy didn’t want to put a gun to her head and pull the trigger.
But...it was all for him.
He felt like her everything, her anchor to a world she would otherwise not mind floating away from. He was probably the reason she was still alive, but she didn’t want to put that onus on him. The idea of “I’ll kill myself if you leave me” was so...cheesy b-film, soap opera. Besides, it wasn’t as if she wanted that to be the reason he stayed. She just felt as though he was her world, and without him, there was no point anymore. The months of isolation in quarantine, haunted by her demons...Cassidy came to lean on him. She had no idea how he actually felt. Anxiety and depression have a way of lying to you, telling you that you aren’t good enough, thet nobody loves you. He still told her he loved her, and she sometimes saw that twinkle in his eyes when he looked at her, but she also knew that he was able to turn the charm on when he wanted to. She’d seen him do it to other women before, only to laugh at them behind their backs. Hell, they could BOTH do it. Cassidy was not one to p;lay victim. She was a predator in her element, no need to deny that. But now...there were days when she felt like one of them, like prey rather than predator.
What really shook her was when she got a call from Bill and Carol. Usually, she let their calls go to voicemail, but for some reason, she picked up this time...she didn’t know why she picked up, and she for sure didn’t know why she called them “mom and dad.” They had been Bill and Carol for as long as she could remember. Carlysle and Cassandra Carter, two of the nicest people on the planet, and two of the most boring to her. She did everything she could to avoid ending up like them, but that night...there was some comfort in hearing their voices. They said they were worried about her when they didn’t see her name in any of the tabloids over the last few months. They may not have approved of her lifestyle, but it for sure made it easy to keep tabs on her. They had subscriptions to at least 3 different tabloids, and a news alert for any mention of Cassidy on the internet. When they didn’t hear anything about her, they got worried.
Cassidy felt the tears streaming down her cheeks as they talked to her. They didn’t care that she didn’t say anything, they just wanted her to know they were there for her. It is a weird parent that assumes that something is wrong with their child when they DON’T hear about them getting into trouble, but they were dead right. She tried to hear her quiet sobs, but knew her mother could probably feel it anyways. She did what she could to comfort her daughter, then ended with…
“I know you have never liked the idea of therapy, but I did a little research about therapists in Las Vegas, and I would really like you to take this number down…”
She probably assumed that Cassidy ignored it, but the young blonde grabbed a pen and wrote it down. Cassidy could hear her mother basically trying to hug her through the phone. She told Cassidy she loved her multiple times before Cassidy finally hung up. She sat back down on the full size bed in her old bedroom, curling up in the bed as she stared at the scrap of paper in her hand.
Maybe it was time…
Drinking the Flavor Aid would have to wait…
Maybe another night.
---------------------------------------
The camera shook and came to life, the view auto focusing as Cassidy Carter came into view. She was sitting on the ground in what looks like an alley, leaning against a brick wall. She looks...tired, wrapped in a black hoodie with the hood up. The last time she was seen, the hoodie was less than snug, but this time, it is clearly loose on her. She smiles as the camera focuses on her, but it’s clearly forced. She tackles a few moments to collect herself and takes a deep breath before speaking.
CASSIDY: “So...here we go again.”
She pauses, taking another deep breath, her eyes dropping to the ground in fr4ont of her.
CASSIDY: “This is usually the part where I talk about how I have done nothing to prepare for my match, because my opponent is far beneath me, and blah blah blah. And, if I’m being honest...I haven’t done any research on Erica Eden, but I’m not going to pretend it is due to some long harbored disdain for her, or the world around me. These are strange times that we are living in, and in these strange times, we find ourselves grasping at the things that feel familiar, like home to us. For me...I’ve spent more of my life between those ropes than anywhere else, and for better or worse...that ring is my home.”
She took another deep breath, her eyes never looking up into the camera.
CASSIDY: “I know I’m supposed to come out with fire and fury, preaching about how I am the devil’s gift to the wrestling world, and proclaim for all the world to see that I will be the next World Champion.”
Her eyes finally look up into the camera slowly.
CASSIDY: “The fact of the matter is, I know that I am not going to be the next world champion. Hell, I have a long climb before I get anywhere NEAR a championship. I can’t even tell you that I’m going to win this match. All I can tell you is that I will be there, and I will give it everything I have, but for me, this isn’t about winning or losing. That will come...with time. Do not think I am going to allow myself to be the new punching bag. I have ambition, I have drive, and I have fire. But this time...this time it is about coming home. It has been far too long since I’ve been given somewhere to let my fire burn, and I just need to get back in there. This is my homecoming, and for better or worse…”
She pauses again, this time her eyes looking directly into the camera.
CASSIDY: “I’m fucking home!!!!!!”
COVID-19
It’s the only thing people seem to be talking about. Well, that and racial injustice. Cassidy had tried so hard to ignore the real world, doing anything she could to hide from the responsibilities of adulthood. She and Austin had bought a house (more accurately, Austin had bought a house, and she just kind of took over) in Las Vegas, the city where, if you have enough money, you could be a kid forever. Las Vegas, the land where sad, pathetic midwesterners go to escape their pathetic lives and pretend that they mean something for a weekend, leaving with less money than they arrived with, and the bittersweet memory of what they did, and the knowledge that they were returning to the monotony of their meaningless jobs, their awful partners, and their ugly kids. You want to gamble away your life savings, VEGAS! You want to see a world-class show, VEGAS! You want to smoke legal weed, VEGAS! You want to bury a hooker you just used then accidentally murdered in the desert, VEGAS! Vegas was the place where your normal life was paused, and you were allowed to step out and live your ideal life for one perfect moment in time. It stood to reason that this was the landing place for an immature little girl looking to hide from the world. I mean, what’s to say that escape from reality had to end? Why not move to fantasy land, and make your break from reality indefinite?
The problem is, nothing lasts forever, especially the things that bring pleasure. Eventually, the real world has a way of finding you, no matter how far you run, and how well you hide.
When whispers of COVID first began, Cassidy took them seriously. She knew it was not something to be joked about, but she allowed herself to believe that she would be able to weather the storm in her paradise of immaturity and excess. COVID, like al;l things, would pass, and she would spend the interim drowning in a bottle of tequila, with Austin between her legs. In hindsight, it was super naive to believe that the constant rotation of fat, slobbish tourists wouldn’t bring the virus into her haven, and spread it EVERYWHERE!! Within months of the first whispers, COVID had arrived, and brought the real world crashing in with it. Soon, all bastions of fantasy were closed, and the city had become a ghost town. First, it was the casinos, afraid the spread of the virus and a possible death on the gaming floor, or in one of their hotel rooms, would severely hurt their bottom lines. As the casinos closed, shows were stopped. With no casinos to draw in the sheep, the strip clubs followed. The Vegas Golden Knights hockey season, a secret pleasure of Cassidy’s, was ended early as the NHL ground to a stop. Even the whorehouses closed, as the workers were afraid of contracting the virus...more than likely the least of their concerns, but who was she to judge. Soon, Vegas was nothing more than another boring town. They might as well have been living in Ohio, or any other of those boring flyover states.
But that was only the beginning, as the true scale of the pandemic became known, and escape options like Hawaii, Europe, or South America began to close their doors, reality began to set in. It wasn’t that there was nothing for them to do, and nowhere for them to go...it was the fact that there was nowhere for them to hide anymore. Reality had come knocking at their door, and they were suddenly forced to be adults. It was fine at first, seeking the bottom of their rather large alcohol supply, Austin spent most of the first two weeks working Cassidy like a jackhammer. But, as time went on, and the alcohol began to run dry, they found that they were going to have to deal with one another.
The fact of the matter is, Austin and Cassidy’s relationship was mostly superficial. Sure, they loved each other, and while she hated to admit it out loud, she always felt like a part of her was missing when he wasn’t with her, they never really had to sit down and get into any kind of deep discussions if they didn’t want to. Vegas offered more than enough in the way of distractions, which meant that anytime the conversation veered into the uncomfortable, there was always a way to get away from it. It meant that Cassidy had been able to keep a lot of heavy and dark things bottled up. She never had to sit down with her husband and discuss the fact that the abortion she had a couple years back was now weighing on her live a semi truck. She couldn’t sleep most nights, and when she did, it was only for a couple hours as nightmares of her unborn child danced in her head. She had developed an eating disorder, and a pretty severe cocaine habit, but the chaos of their livers before the arrival of COVID in paradise meant that he more than likely didn’t notice. Not that he didn’t care, but it was really easy to hide it from him. Cassidy had also started worrying that she wasn’t enough for him. Now that their fantasy lives had been paused, she worried that he would grow tired of her and leave. Without the smoke and mirrors, perhaps she wasn’t really interesting. Perhaps he would see that she was a fraud, and leave her in his dust. They’d been married for years, and she knew that industry marriages seemed to have a shelf life on them. Was her’s reaching its expiration date?!
Anxiety hit her like a sledgehammer, and depression was not far behind it.
Taking a hiatus from the industry seemed like a smart move, but had only exacerbated her problems. She had taken to sleeping during the days, and haunting the house like a ghost at night. She would watch Austin sleep when he was home, wondering if he was dreaming about someone else. The times they did have sex, she almoist expected him to moan some other woman’s name. She wouldn’t even have blamed him. She was a burden...definitely not the woman he had pledged his life to. Sure, they said that whole “nin sickness and in health” nonsense, but did they really think there were bad times ahead?
One night, Cassidy had tried her wedding dress on again. It hung a bit loose on her thanks to her eating disorder. She remembered standing over Austin, watching him sleep as she often did. She remembered a crushing feeling of dread sweeping over her. The next thing she remembered was being in a hospital, one arm strapped to a hospital bed. They said they had been called to a report of a woman in a wedding dress acting erratically. They found her walking in the middle of the street, and were afraid she was suicidal.
She was.
Of course, that’s not what she told them. She convinced them that she had partied a little too hard on her wedding night, and must have wandered off. The dress seemed to corroborate her story, and not too long after, she was unhandcuffed from the bed, and allowed to leave. When Austin asked her where she’d been, after she got home, she said she’d been out for a drive. He made mention of her wedding dress being a bit loose, but didn’t seem to connect the dots.
As the days went by, adulthood crept into their daily lives. Cassidy began cooking dinner some nights. Mostly mac and cheese, spaghetti, or a casserole. She made the bed each morning, She felt herself becoming more and more like her mother, which most people wouldn’t have considered to be a bad thing, but it made it even harder to look at herself in the mirror. She felt herself becoming everything she had spent her life revolting against.
There were very few days that Cassidy didn’t want to put a gun to her head and pull the trigger.
But...it was all for him.
He felt like her everything, her anchor to a world she would otherwise not mind floating away from. He was probably the reason she was still alive, but she didn’t want to put that onus on him. The idea of “I’ll kill myself if you leave me” was so...cheesy b-film, soap opera. Besides, it wasn’t as if she wanted that to be the reason he stayed. She just felt as though he was her world, and without him, there was no point anymore. The months of isolation in quarantine, haunted by her demons...Cassidy came to lean on him. She had no idea how he actually felt. Anxiety and depression have a way of lying to you, telling you that you aren’t good enough, thet nobody loves you. He still told her he loved her, and she sometimes saw that twinkle in his eyes when he looked at her, but she also knew that he was able to turn the charm on when he wanted to. She’d seen him do it to other women before, only to laugh at them behind their backs. Hell, they could BOTH do it. Cassidy was not one to p;lay victim. She was a predator in her element, no need to deny that. But now...there were days when she felt like one of them, like prey rather than predator.
What really shook her was when she got a call from Bill and Carol. Usually, she let their calls go to voicemail, but for some reason, she picked up this time...she didn’t know why she picked up, and she for sure didn’t know why she called them “mom and dad.” They had been Bill and Carol for as long as she could remember. Carlysle and Cassandra Carter, two of the nicest people on the planet, and two of the most boring to her. She did everything she could to avoid ending up like them, but that night...there was some comfort in hearing their voices. They said they were worried about her when they didn’t see her name in any of the tabloids over the last few months. They may not have approved of her lifestyle, but it for sure made it easy to keep tabs on her. They had subscriptions to at least 3 different tabloids, and a news alert for any mention of Cassidy on the internet. When they didn’t hear anything about her, they got worried.
Cassidy felt the tears streaming down her cheeks as they talked to her. They didn’t care that she didn’t say anything, they just wanted her to know they were there for her. It is a weird parent that assumes that something is wrong with their child when they DON’T hear about them getting into trouble, but they were dead right. She tried to hear her quiet sobs, but knew her mother could probably feel it anyways. She did what she could to comfort her daughter, then ended with…
“I know you have never liked the idea of therapy, but I did a little research about therapists in Las Vegas, and I would really like you to take this number down…”
She probably assumed that Cassidy ignored it, but the young blonde grabbed a pen and wrote it down. Cassidy could hear her mother basically trying to hug her through the phone. She told Cassidy she loved her multiple times before Cassidy finally hung up. She sat back down on the full size bed in her old bedroom, curling up in the bed as she stared at the scrap of paper in her hand.
Maybe it was time…
Drinking the Flavor Aid would have to wait…
Maybe another night.
---------------------------------------
The camera shook and came to life, the view auto focusing as Cassidy Carter came into view. She was sitting on the ground in what looks like an alley, leaning against a brick wall. She looks...tired, wrapped in a black hoodie with the hood up. The last time she was seen, the hoodie was less than snug, but this time, it is clearly loose on her. She smiles as the camera focuses on her, but it’s clearly forced. She tackles a few moments to collect herself and takes a deep breath before speaking.
CASSIDY: “So...here we go again.”
She pauses, taking another deep breath, her eyes dropping to the ground in fr4ont of her.
CASSIDY: “This is usually the part where I talk about how I have done nothing to prepare for my match, because my opponent is far beneath me, and blah blah blah. And, if I’m being honest...I haven’t done any research on Erica Eden, but I’m not going to pretend it is due to some long harbored disdain for her, or the world around me. These are strange times that we are living in, and in these strange times, we find ourselves grasping at the things that feel familiar, like home to us. For me...I’ve spent more of my life between those ropes than anywhere else, and for better or worse...that ring is my home.”
She took another deep breath, her eyes never looking up into the camera.
CASSIDY: “I know I’m supposed to come out with fire and fury, preaching about how I am the devil’s gift to the wrestling world, and proclaim for all the world to see that I will be the next World Champion.”
Her eyes finally look up into the camera slowly.
CASSIDY: “The fact of the matter is, I know that I am not going to be the next world champion. Hell, I have a long climb before I get anywhere NEAR a championship. I can’t even tell you that I’m going to win this match. All I can tell you is that I will be there, and I will give it everything I have, but for me, this isn’t about winning or losing. That will come...with time. Do not think I am going to allow myself to be the new punching bag. I have ambition, I have drive, and I have fire. But this time...this time it is about coming home. It has been far too long since I’ve been given somewhere to let my fire burn, and I just need to get back in there. This is my homecoming, and for better or worse…”
She pauses again, this time her eyes looking directly into the camera.
CASSIDY: “I’m fucking home!!!!!!”