Post by Tiff on Apr 12, 2020 16:11:05 GMT -6
The door bursts open, nearly shattering as the lock breaks and wood splinters. No, Brytain Rollins is not above destroying her own home to make a point.
She stepped inside and ran steely blue eyes over the contents until she found her adopted daughter in a bed surrounded by junk food wrappers and drink bottles.
“Get up,” she said, her stare fixed on her daughter. “Before I get you up. This feeling sorry for yourself shit has gone on long enough.”
This kind of reaction would normally have Tiff Rollins shoot up from her bed, but not this time. She's still not right, even after sharing her feelings to the world. Instead, she looked like a mess, and she didn't even bother to look up to acknowledge Brytain's demand. Instead she just lets out a defeated sigh and a mumbled remark.
"Just saw the video, did you?"
“No, I did not just see the video. But you’ve been ignoring my calls and texts, you’ve been holed up in here and ignoring it every time I knock on your door. And I’ve given you space, kid. I’ve given you time to wallow and throw your pity party. But it’s done now.”
Brytain stepped closer to the bed and fixed Tiffany with blue eyes that felt like they were drilling into her soul.
“You want to sit here and cry? Fine. You want to claim the whole world is against you? Fine. But don’t you dare say that everyone has given up on you because I never fucking have. Not once. And you goddamn know that. And I’m not giving up on you now.”
Her jaw tightened. “Now get. The fuck. Up.”
She acknowledged that, but not in the way Brytain was probably expecting. Tiff finally looked up at her, but not to accept her request...
"Can't. I can't reach my fucking crutches."
Brytain nudged them over with one booted foot, not speaking just watching her daughter expectantly. She then does something unexpected. Tiff uses her one good leg to kick them away again.
"Oops."
A slow smirk spreads across Brytain’s face. “You wouldn’t be my kid if you didn’t choose to do the things the hard way.” Before she could react, Brytain pounced. Flipping the blonde over onto her stomach with a twist of her arm, Brytain dug a knee into her back and wrestled her arms together so that she could bind them from wrist to elbow with a soft rope. Being gentle, she got to work on typing her ankles together while Tiff yelled into the blankets. After she was done, Brytain hefted her onto her shoulders and turned towards the door, not stopping until they were both in Brytain’s car and she was backing out of the driveway. All the while Tiffany just squirmed and screamed, but it seems all for nought, as Brytain was having none of it. The very least she could have done it let her put some pants on...
“I packed you some pants, don’t worry...” Brytain chirped cheerfully.
It wasn’t a long drive to the gym, the state of the art extension of the Callaway-Rollins dynasty. 36th St was much quieter than it usually was, opening it’s doors amid a pandemic for very few.
Another half an hour had Brytain lugging the kid into the gym’s physician’s office and dumping her gently but unceremoniously onto the exam bed.
“I want to know,” she said, turning towards the doctor who entered the room behind them, “If there’s a reason her knee isn’t healing or if it’s psychological.”
To her credit, the doctor was nonplussed by the weird circumstances. She’d worked for the Rollins' for too long to bat an eye when this was surely not the strangest situation they’d ever put her in. Regardless of the circumstances, the doctor did what she was told and performed the usual examination. Two months since her assault, Tiffany had not dealt with her torn MCL well, and the lack of energy or effort since the incident did not help matters. Tiffany, who had just about recovered from the shock of the whole situation, finally gathered herself long enough to allow the doctor to do her job.
Sadly the doctor concluded what Tiffany already knew. It was a severe injury, one that would take time to recover. As the doctor broke the news, Tiffany snapped at her adoptive mother.
"You didn't need a fucking doctor to tell you that..."
Brytain raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t I? You’ve been keeping me in the dark about a lot.”
The doctor left quietly as Brytain loosened the ropes enough for her daughter to get them off. She carefully positioned herself in front of the door, not that Tiff was going anywhere without her crutches.
“You’ve been drowning yourself in self-pity. That stops. You’re a fucking Rollins, kid. Life doesn’t get to just kick us in the teeth without consequences.”
That was the last straw. With that, Tiff unloaded...
"Well I'm sorry to tell you but I wasn't born a Rollins. You adopted me, remember? And now everyone thinks I turned my back on my real family. And you know what? They're right. Ana was right. She was right, and I kicked her while she was literally dying in the hospital. I don't know what you expect from me but quite frankly everything would be better off if I never existed!" She doesn't give Brytain an opportunity to step in. "You don't understand. I don't think you've ever understood. That's why I don't tell you. That's why I lock you out. Cuz this is how you react to this bullshit. Cuz you can't accept that I just can't be this person you want me to be..."
She looks down, finally admitting defeat.
"So what's the point of anything. Injury or not, it ain't worth shit."
If she were anyone else, Brytain never would have allowed her to see the flash of hurt that crossed her face. But this was her daughter.
“No, the problem is that not only do you give a shit about what everyone else says or thinks, you allow it to hold weight.”
She shook her head. “When I was 17, everyone said wrestling was a lost cause for me because I was too small. When I was 19, everyone said I was never going to amount to anything without the abusive piece of shit who raped me. When I was 22, people said I would never last with Syn because he would destroy me. When I was 24, people said I should just give up on being champion because I’d already tried and failed so many times. When I was 26, people said I should give up on being a mother because I’d done too much damage to my body.”
She slid her chair closer, “Nothing and I mean NOTHING I have ever had in life came to me easy. I clawed my goddamn way out of a trailer park in North Carolina under the thumb of an alcoholic abuser to sit here. With you. Giving you everything I wished I had but didn’t. I have worked my ass off to give you the support system I didn’t have. The home I never had. The access to the best medical care and physical therapy and gym that I NEVER had. The one thing that I can’t change is to give you the mentality to fucking SPITE them. So if you want to roll the fuck over and let these fucks TELL YOU WHO THE FUCK YOU ARE then I can’t help you. Or you can stop feeling fucking sorry for yourself, you can stop listening to what other people want you to be and you can fucking FIGHT.”
There was a long pause. Tiffany didn't know how to respond. This was Brytain at her very realest. But even then, even after everything, this was not enough...
"You know..." she murmured, just coherently enough for Brytain to understand, "When I grew up, I wanted to be like you. But after all this time, after everything I've been through, the truth is...I'm nothing like you. I'll never be like you. The things you went through. The things you had to overcome, and still have to...I can't do it. I just...can't..."
The silence turned into weak sobs as tears watered down her face, sadly not for the first time today...
"I'm sorry. I just can't do it..."
She broke down. As Brytain offered her shoulder, Tiffany swiftly took the offer and buried her face into her shoulder. Brytain tugged her closer. It didn’t matter that Tiffany was an adult at 20. There was never an age when being held by your mother wasn’t something that you needed. She gathered up her daughter in her lap and kissed the top of her head.
“You’re not like me. You were never supposed to be like me, kiddo. I was angry and I was hateful and I was that way because I had to be. I had no support system when I was your age. I had no one to hold me and let me cry. You’re not supposed to be me, baby. You’re supposed to be something so much better than I ever was or will be. What drew me towards you was the desire to have you NOT turn out like me.”
She sighed softly. “I’m not talking about in the ring. I’m not talking about any of the awards and belts and bullshit. I’m talking about as a person. Tiff, I don’t give a shit if you never walk into a ring again. That’s your choice to make. But I will never let you lay down and die. I fought all of that to be here to carry you when it’s too hard to stand on your own. To love you when you can’t love yourself.”
"But don't you think it's for the best?" Tiff asks through the tears. "I can't be this person you want me to be. What everyone wants me to be. I'm just a big fat disappointment. In the ring, in my life, everything I've ever done. It's just so much easier to just quit it all..."
Brytain scoffed and raised Tiff’s face so that she had to look her in the eyes. To see the tears there, one of the only people in the world to ever see Brytain Rollins cry. “I don’t want you to be anyone but Tiffany Rollins and I don’t want you to be anything but happy. I didn’t bring you into my life and choose to make you my family because I wanted you to be ANYONE. I did it because I LOVE YOU. You, Tiffany. If you decide to walk away I will still love you unconditionally. And we will find something you do want to do. If you want to stay then I will move mountains to get you back into the ring. But don’t you ever think I’m only here because I want you to carry my name on your back. I’m here because I am your mother. You are my daughter. And you will ALWAYS be mine whether you wrestle or you don’t.”
To see the woman she once idolized, now her own adoptive mother, with tears in her eyes, was enough for Tiffany to almost break down completely. Luckily Brytain was there to break her fall, giving her enough time to give her response.
"But you aren't my only family... There are so many expectations for me to be something I can never be...and don't wanna be...what about them?"
“Fuck them,” Brytain said simply. “Your only responsibility in life is to be the best YOU that you can be. And if anyone has an issue with that they can fucking fight me. It’s my job as your mother to stand between you and those people. So LET me. If this is what you want... if you honestly don’t want to ever get back in a ring, that’s okay.”
Brytain’s lips twitched up at the edges, “But do yourself a favor and really think about it, kiddo. Because there was once a time when I wanted to walk away from everything because it was too hard. Because people were calling me a murderer and worse. It got too hard to fight all their expectations. But there was this kid... and even though everyone told her it was a mistake and even though everyone gave her shit for it... she still looked at me like I hung the moon. She still thought I was worth something. She still showed up at my shows and she still cheered the loudest for me.”
That kid, they both knew, had been Tiffany.
“Are you walking away for you or are you walking away because that’s what they want you to do?”
Tiff takes a moment to think. But Brytain could tell she was not going to get an answer straight away. The look on Tiffany's face, the look of hesitancy, proved even after everything she just heard, she was not ready to move on...
“You don’t have to answer me right now. Not even today. This is something that deserves real consideration behind it.”
She gently shifted her daughter back to the exam table. “But what you are going to do is meet with a physical therapist. Even if you never want to her back in the ring again, you’re not going to trash your body to do it. And that part? You don’t have a say over.”
Tiff gives an expression as if she's disappointed. She shrugs, almost as if she enjoyed the break from the constant training, but deep down, with the damaged leg and the last two months of inactivity, she knew this was her punishment for letting herself go, especially under Brytain's watch...
"Fine..."
“Hey,” Brytain said softly. “This isn’t to get you back into ring shape unless that’s what you want. You don’t have to go that hard. But you’re not going to let that leg heal wrong and be fucked for the rest of your life. You’re too fucking young to spend the next 60 odd years in constant pain because you didn’t treat this right in your twenties.”
"I know I know..." Tiff weakly replied as the tears on her face finally began to dry. "It's just...I don't know...it's just..."
She struggled for an excuse...
"...it just felt safe. In my room. With everything going on..."
Brytain arched an eyebrow. “You’re safe anywhere with me around, kiddo. Don’t you know by now that I’ll burn this whole world down for you?”
Tiffany nods, confirming how normal this statement was to her at this point. She wipes the last year from her face; her mother's comforting words seemed to be working.
"You sure do love burning things..." she whispers.
Brytain tipped her head back and laughed, ruffling her daughter’s hair. “Fucking right. Now do you want a piggy back ride down to the car or a pair of crutches?” Brytain thought she knew what the answer was going to be, but considering how fragile her daughter is right now, she was surprised by her answer.
"I don't mind..."
She hid an indulgent smile before turning and lifting Tiffany up so that she could carry her down to the car. “Just know that if you try to tell anyone how fucking sweet I am, I will deny it until my last breath,” she teased.
This finally brings a smirk to her face, albeit not a very convincing one.
"Sure..."
She stepped inside and ran steely blue eyes over the contents until she found her adopted daughter in a bed surrounded by junk food wrappers and drink bottles.
“Get up,” she said, her stare fixed on her daughter. “Before I get you up. This feeling sorry for yourself shit has gone on long enough.”
This kind of reaction would normally have Tiff Rollins shoot up from her bed, but not this time. She's still not right, even after sharing her feelings to the world. Instead, she looked like a mess, and she didn't even bother to look up to acknowledge Brytain's demand. Instead she just lets out a defeated sigh and a mumbled remark.
"Just saw the video, did you?"
“No, I did not just see the video. But you’ve been ignoring my calls and texts, you’ve been holed up in here and ignoring it every time I knock on your door. And I’ve given you space, kid. I’ve given you time to wallow and throw your pity party. But it’s done now.”
Brytain stepped closer to the bed and fixed Tiffany with blue eyes that felt like they were drilling into her soul.
“You want to sit here and cry? Fine. You want to claim the whole world is against you? Fine. But don’t you dare say that everyone has given up on you because I never fucking have. Not once. And you goddamn know that. And I’m not giving up on you now.”
Her jaw tightened. “Now get. The fuck. Up.”
She acknowledged that, but not in the way Brytain was probably expecting. Tiff finally looked up at her, but not to accept her request...
"Can't. I can't reach my fucking crutches."
Brytain nudged them over with one booted foot, not speaking just watching her daughter expectantly. She then does something unexpected. Tiff uses her one good leg to kick them away again.
"Oops."
A slow smirk spreads across Brytain’s face. “You wouldn’t be my kid if you didn’t choose to do the things the hard way.” Before she could react, Brytain pounced. Flipping the blonde over onto her stomach with a twist of her arm, Brytain dug a knee into her back and wrestled her arms together so that she could bind them from wrist to elbow with a soft rope. Being gentle, she got to work on typing her ankles together while Tiff yelled into the blankets. After she was done, Brytain hefted her onto her shoulders and turned towards the door, not stopping until they were both in Brytain’s car and she was backing out of the driveway. All the while Tiffany just squirmed and screamed, but it seems all for nought, as Brytain was having none of it. The very least she could have done it let her put some pants on...
“I packed you some pants, don’t worry...” Brytain chirped cheerfully.
It wasn’t a long drive to the gym, the state of the art extension of the Callaway-Rollins dynasty. 36th St was much quieter than it usually was, opening it’s doors amid a pandemic for very few.
Another half an hour had Brytain lugging the kid into the gym’s physician’s office and dumping her gently but unceremoniously onto the exam bed.
“I want to know,” she said, turning towards the doctor who entered the room behind them, “If there’s a reason her knee isn’t healing or if it’s psychological.”
To her credit, the doctor was nonplussed by the weird circumstances. She’d worked for the Rollins' for too long to bat an eye when this was surely not the strangest situation they’d ever put her in. Regardless of the circumstances, the doctor did what she was told and performed the usual examination. Two months since her assault, Tiffany had not dealt with her torn MCL well, and the lack of energy or effort since the incident did not help matters. Tiffany, who had just about recovered from the shock of the whole situation, finally gathered herself long enough to allow the doctor to do her job.
Sadly the doctor concluded what Tiffany already knew. It was a severe injury, one that would take time to recover. As the doctor broke the news, Tiffany snapped at her adoptive mother.
"You didn't need a fucking doctor to tell you that..."
Brytain raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t I? You’ve been keeping me in the dark about a lot.”
The doctor left quietly as Brytain loosened the ropes enough for her daughter to get them off. She carefully positioned herself in front of the door, not that Tiff was going anywhere without her crutches.
“You’ve been drowning yourself in self-pity. That stops. You’re a fucking Rollins, kid. Life doesn’t get to just kick us in the teeth without consequences.”
That was the last straw. With that, Tiff unloaded...
"Well I'm sorry to tell you but I wasn't born a Rollins. You adopted me, remember? And now everyone thinks I turned my back on my real family. And you know what? They're right. Ana was right. She was right, and I kicked her while she was literally dying in the hospital. I don't know what you expect from me but quite frankly everything would be better off if I never existed!" She doesn't give Brytain an opportunity to step in. "You don't understand. I don't think you've ever understood. That's why I don't tell you. That's why I lock you out. Cuz this is how you react to this bullshit. Cuz you can't accept that I just can't be this person you want me to be..."
She looks down, finally admitting defeat.
"So what's the point of anything. Injury or not, it ain't worth shit."
If she were anyone else, Brytain never would have allowed her to see the flash of hurt that crossed her face. But this was her daughter.
“No, the problem is that not only do you give a shit about what everyone else says or thinks, you allow it to hold weight.”
She shook her head. “When I was 17, everyone said wrestling was a lost cause for me because I was too small. When I was 19, everyone said I was never going to amount to anything without the abusive piece of shit who raped me. When I was 22, people said I would never last with Syn because he would destroy me. When I was 24, people said I should just give up on being champion because I’d already tried and failed so many times. When I was 26, people said I should give up on being a mother because I’d done too much damage to my body.”
She slid her chair closer, “Nothing and I mean NOTHING I have ever had in life came to me easy. I clawed my goddamn way out of a trailer park in North Carolina under the thumb of an alcoholic abuser to sit here. With you. Giving you everything I wished I had but didn’t. I have worked my ass off to give you the support system I didn’t have. The home I never had. The access to the best medical care and physical therapy and gym that I NEVER had. The one thing that I can’t change is to give you the mentality to fucking SPITE them. So if you want to roll the fuck over and let these fucks TELL YOU WHO THE FUCK YOU ARE then I can’t help you. Or you can stop feeling fucking sorry for yourself, you can stop listening to what other people want you to be and you can fucking FIGHT.”
There was a long pause. Tiffany didn't know how to respond. This was Brytain at her very realest. But even then, even after everything, this was not enough...
"You know..." she murmured, just coherently enough for Brytain to understand, "When I grew up, I wanted to be like you. But after all this time, after everything I've been through, the truth is...I'm nothing like you. I'll never be like you. The things you went through. The things you had to overcome, and still have to...I can't do it. I just...can't..."
The silence turned into weak sobs as tears watered down her face, sadly not for the first time today...
"I'm sorry. I just can't do it..."
She broke down. As Brytain offered her shoulder, Tiffany swiftly took the offer and buried her face into her shoulder. Brytain tugged her closer. It didn’t matter that Tiffany was an adult at 20. There was never an age when being held by your mother wasn’t something that you needed. She gathered up her daughter in her lap and kissed the top of her head.
“You’re not like me. You were never supposed to be like me, kiddo. I was angry and I was hateful and I was that way because I had to be. I had no support system when I was your age. I had no one to hold me and let me cry. You’re not supposed to be me, baby. You’re supposed to be something so much better than I ever was or will be. What drew me towards you was the desire to have you NOT turn out like me.”
She sighed softly. “I’m not talking about in the ring. I’m not talking about any of the awards and belts and bullshit. I’m talking about as a person. Tiff, I don’t give a shit if you never walk into a ring again. That’s your choice to make. But I will never let you lay down and die. I fought all of that to be here to carry you when it’s too hard to stand on your own. To love you when you can’t love yourself.”
"But don't you think it's for the best?" Tiff asks through the tears. "I can't be this person you want me to be. What everyone wants me to be. I'm just a big fat disappointment. In the ring, in my life, everything I've ever done. It's just so much easier to just quit it all..."
Brytain scoffed and raised Tiff’s face so that she had to look her in the eyes. To see the tears there, one of the only people in the world to ever see Brytain Rollins cry. “I don’t want you to be anyone but Tiffany Rollins and I don’t want you to be anything but happy. I didn’t bring you into my life and choose to make you my family because I wanted you to be ANYONE. I did it because I LOVE YOU. You, Tiffany. If you decide to walk away I will still love you unconditionally. And we will find something you do want to do. If you want to stay then I will move mountains to get you back into the ring. But don’t you ever think I’m only here because I want you to carry my name on your back. I’m here because I am your mother. You are my daughter. And you will ALWAYS be mine whether you wrestle or you don’t.”
To see the woman she once idolized, now her own adoptive mother, with tears in her eyes, was enough for Tiffany to almost break down completely. Luckily Brytain was there to break her fall, giving her enough time to give her response.
"But you aren't my only family... There are so many expectations for me to be something I can never be...and don't wanna be...what about them?"
“Fuck them,” Brytain said simply. “Your only responsibility in life is to be the best YOU that you can be. And if anyone has an issue with that they can fucking fight me. It’s my job as your mother to stand between you and those people. So LET me. If this is what you want... if you honestly don’t want to ever get back in a ring, that’s okay.”
Brytain’s lips twitched up at the edges, “But do yourself a favor and really think about it, kiddo. Because there was once a time when I wanted to walk away from everything because it was too hard. Because people were calling me a murderer and worse. It got too hard to fight all their expectations. But there was this kid... and even though everyone told her it was a mistake and even though everyone gave her shit for it... she still looked at me like I hung the moon. She still thought I was worth something. She still showed up at my shows and she still cheered the loudest for me.”
That kid, they both knew, had been Tiffany.
“Are you walking away for you or are you walking away because that’s what they want you to do?”
Tiff takes a moment to think. But Brytain could tell she was not going to get an answer straight away. The look on Tiffany's face, the look of hesitancy, proved even after everything she just heard, she was not ready to move on...
“You don’t have to answer me right now. Not even today. This is something that deserves real consideration behind it.”
She gently shifted her daughter back to the exam table. “But what you are going to do is meet with a physical therapist. Even if you never want to her back in the ring again, you’re not going to trash your body to do it. And that part? You don’t have a say over.”
Tiff gives an expression as if she's disappointed. She shrugs, almost as if she enjoyed the break from the constant training, but deep down, with the damaged leg and the last two months of inactivity, she knew this was her punishment for letting herself go, especially under Brytain's watch...
"Fine..."
“Hey,” Brytain said softly. “This isn’t to get you back into ring shape unless that’s what you want. You don’t have to go that hard. But you’re not going to let that leg heal wrong and be fucked for the rest of your life. You’re too fucking young to spend the next 60 odd years in constant pain because you didn’t treat this right in your twenties.”
"I know I know..." Tiff weakly replied as the tears on her face finally began to dry. "It's just...I don't know...it's just..."
She struggled for an excuse...
"...it just felt safe. In my room. With everything going on..."
Brytain arched an eyebrow. “You’re safe anywhere with me around, kiddo. Don’t you know by now that I’ll burn this whole world down for you?”
Tiffany nods, confirming how normal this statement was to her at this point. She wipes the last year from her face; her mother's comforting words seemed to be working.
"You sure do love burning things..." she whispers.
Brytain tipped her head back and laughed, ruffling her daughter’s hair. “Fucking right. Now do you want a piggy back ride down to the car or a pair of crutches?” Brytain thought she knew what the answer was going to be, but considering how fragile her daughter is right now, she was surprised by her answer.
"I don't mind..."
She hid an indulgent smile before turning and lifting Tiffany up so that she could carry her down to the car. “Just know that if you try to tell anyone how fucking sweet I am, I will deny it until my last breath,” she teased.
This finally brings a smirk to her face, albeit not a very convincing one.
"Sure..."