EPISODE 21 SUCK IT

Raw was all about The Man. The McMahons had invited me to come back and I could get my WrestleMania match back if all I would do was apologize.

I had multiple segments with different characters, old friends, including Fergal, and foes, including Ronda, advising me to apologize.

It was a bit of a catch-22, whatever way you looked at it. I had made a point of ensuring the character came across as smart and aware, but considering the previous week’s emotional outburst, smarts wasn’t exactly what I was selling. Seeing as I did in fact beat up Stephanie, I should apologize, but also, the McMahons were notorious for screwing people over. What’s a gal to do?

Life was imitating art—I fought to try not to apologize, considering the likelihood it would be futile. The least my character could do was stick to her convictions, however skewed they may be. I lost that battle. They thought it would be more impactful to see how reluctant I was and then have it taken away.

And so in the main event segment, I did it.

“But if all it’s going to take is two words, then…” (I would have loved to say “Suck it”—HHH’s famous catchphrase, but no dice.)

“I’m sorry.”

With that Vince came bounding through the curtain in classic Mr. McMahon swagger. Even though I had no love for this creative, that was pretty friggin’ cool—to be the focal point of a promo with Vince, Hunter, and Stephanie. It was like I had transported myself back to the Attitude Era, the peak of my fandom.

Of course, Vince didn’t come as a messenger of joy, and reprimanded me for being the asshole that I was, and said that I could never lay hands on his daughter. Which, hey, man, you’re right: I’d do the same thing!

But now I was suspended for sixty days, which naturally would take me up to the day after WrestleMania.

WHAT???!!! Ronda and I were (story line) pissed! We were gearing up to destroy each other once and for all in a sanctioned match at WrestleMania.

However, Vince came up with a suitable replacement. What he called “the epitome of the embodiment of a WWE superstar”… my archnemesis… Charlotte Flair!

The crowd booed their faces off.

There was no way Charlotte was being left out of the WrestleMania main event.

I didn’t mind her being in there. Triple threats are some of my favorite types of matches. It’s like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. But also, I knew that it would be an extra layer of heat, which always helps the babyface. It would also leave something on the table for me to have at a later date, seeing as we hadn’t given away Becky Lynch versus Ronda Rousey.

The other part of me, the part that, despite the ups and downs of our friendship, has nothing but love for Charlotte, was happy that we would get to do this historic match together, and should we rekindle that bond it would be a special memory to share.

But as the obstacles in the story kept mounting, the next night I showed up—again, regardless of my suspension—on SmackDown and was attacked, leading to me being on crutches for the next few months. I suppose I had that one coming. The Man had become a bit of a dumbass.

To turn things around, at least in my personal life, when I got back to LA, Colby surprised me at my apartment with a beautiful bouquet of flowers and some fancy dark chocolate. (I may have a slight obsession with dark chocolate.)

It was the week of Valentine’s Day and he had all sorts of outings planned. Including going to see Bring Me the Horizon in the Forum in LA, and a dinner together for Valentine’s night, where the exclusive conversation came up.

“What do you want to do here? Do you want to date?” he asked.

“No, I don’t think so. You’re not ready for it.” I put the heat on him when in reality, I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

I had never been in a relationship that hadn’t broken up. If we were an item it would eventually become public, and if we broke up it would be awkward. Everyone would have their input on it. What would work look like? From what I had seen, when people at work broke up, one always came out looking worse than the other and eventually someone would have a meltdown and either leave or get fired.

I didn’t want to go through all that.

“But maybe I am. Maybe I wasn’t with the right people before,” he conceded.

“You’ll regret it if you don’t go and sow your wild oats,” I said, still putting the heat on him, though I wasn’t ready to commit. I wasn’t even ready to commit to not committing. It was all too scary.

I left the next day for an autograph signing in Houston, Texas, ahead of the Elimination Chamber PPV.

I didn’t have a match at the PPV, but I was going to appear and beat the soul out of Ronda and Charlotte, doing terrible at this being “suspended” thing. But I was a rebel with a cause. And pretty dumb, apparently. But so were the security guards, who couldn’t stop my crippled crutch-wielding self from entering the ring.

But before all of that went down, I had babies to kiss and hands to shake. While doing so, I began to notice that whenever someone came up and either brought Colby’s name up or perhaps was wearing his shirt, I got overwhelmingly excited to talk about how great and talented, kind, smart, and funny he was. How gosh darn handsome he was. I swooned as little cartoon love hearts popped out of my head as the fans smiled and nodded awkwardly.

Shit. What are you doing, Rebecca? I’d stop myself as I tried to shoo away the butterflies that seemed to be populating my organs. The conversation in my own mind was going something like this:

You’re really into him, aren’t you?

No!!!

Why not?

’Cause he’s so… so…

Perfect? And gets me and is the most incredible human I’ve ever met?

Damn it!!

I was into him. Fuck.

I got to the arena for Elimination Chamber. Colby hadn’t even landed in Houston and I was texting him that I missed him and couldn’t wait to see him.

“What happened? Are you okay?” he asked, confused by my sudden affection, a departure from the somewhat aloof game I had been playing.

“Why are you all about it all of a sudden?” Colby asked as we drove after the PPV.

I was already showing more affection than I had before, stroking his arm as he drove, smiling at him nonstop.

“Earlier, at the signing, whenever someone or something reminded me of you, I got this weird subconscious excitement. I just wanted to talk about how great you are. It made me realize I might be kind of into you.”

“So do you want to do this? Like, do you want to be a thing?”

“Yeah. I think I do.”

“So we’re doing this, then.”

“We are.”

“Oh, that’s wild, man,” he said, stamping our officialness into the cosmos.

It was wild and it felt so right.

We now just had to figure out if we cared about this becoming public.

I wondered if The Man should have a man, and if that would do anything to my mystique. If I even had mystique. Best to just keep it on the down low for the time being.

We were having coffee that morning in a cafe near the arena when Fergal walked in while we were all cozied up. Fergal and I were so far past any sort of romantic relationship that there was zero weirdness, but it did make it obvious that Colby and I wouldn’t be keeping this a secret for very long. And that was okay too.