Ain't nothing gonna hold me down

She still remembered the pain, still remembered the exact moment that she felt soft tissue give way and destroy the next few months of her life. She remembered the overwhelming despair that followed in that eternal moment between shock and the rush of pain. She remembered coming down off the painkillers hours, maybe days, later with IWF on the TV, and realizing that she didn’t have the necessary strength in her arm to make her shoe fly all the way across the room to the screen.

She remembered the blackness.

She had never been the sort to let life destroy her, but the weeks leading up to the injury had robbed her of almost everything but her job. Her torn ligaments stole even that from her. There were some days where it was all she could do to drag herself out of the bed. Some days it was difficult to make it across the room to the bathroom, only to crawl back into bed when she was finished. Most of the time she slept, or stared at the wall until hunger overruled her lack of appetite. She felt like a fog had been pulled over everything, like the black cloud followed her even in the daytime, and swallowed her up into oblivion when she slept.

Some days, Andrew came home from his job and made her get out of bed and into the shower. As it would turn out, ignoring the whole world could be a smelly affair. He would cook, and drive her to her physical therapy appointments. She didn’t know how she would have survived without her little brother during the dark time. He was the one who managed to drag her out of her deep depression, a little bit at a time.

But even her brother’s efforts were not enough. She couldn’t seem to find the spark again. She couldn’t seem to find a reason to enjoy life. There were many days where she would slide into that deep and disturbed sleep again and pray that she didn’t wake up. She was too tired to fight anymore. She didn’t have the strength to fight the whole world. How was she supposed to get past this injury and make the whole world believe she would fight to the death when she didn’t believe it herself anymore? Too much weight on her shoulders had finally taken its toll, and her injury was the last straw.

She began to believe that she’d never be able to feel okay again. She had managed to make it out onto the back porch one morning, though, when her phone beeped at her. She checked it, and found that Amber had written her a message. Even though Stygian and his girls had been in Japan for a while now, the friendship between Rosalie and Lilah had continued to grow at a distance.

Rosalie roused herself from her position curled up in her deck chair long enough to open the message, and she frowned at it and read it again. She didn’t know how Amber had figured out how that she needed a good kick in the pants, but she had just gotten one. She fired back a quick message, nothing more than a terse acknowledgment, and pushed herself up and off the chair. She knew her anger would subside after a bit, and there was no reason to say things that she didn’t mean or would regret.

She needed to move beyond physical therapy, and back into real training. It had been far too long since she had been in the ring, or even watched the show. This was not behavior befitting of a knight, much less one who called herself the Queen of the Ring.

She had work to do.

“Hey, sis. You’re looking much better. How are you feeling?”

Rosalie glanced over at Andrew and grinned. “I’ve been better, but at least I’m not curled up in a little ball anymore.” She could see the terminal coming up quickly, and she would have to leave him in a minute, to fly to New Hampshire. To get back on the road. To begin her quest for the top all the way from the bottom again because of the injury and the way she’d reacted to it. She gripped the door handle tightly, starting to feel more determined and more nervous, rather than the excitement that she’d felt earlier while packing.

“You’ll do fine. I’m sure they wouldn’t have cleared you to go if your elbow wasn’t healed up enough.” Her brother pulled the car up to the curb, and she opened the door, but didn’t get out yet.

“It’s not my elbow I’m worried about. I don’t know if my head’s in the game the way it needs to be.” She gave him a bit of a crooked smile and opened the back door to retrieve her suitcase.

“Well, don’t worry about me, and don’t think about Ethan, and don’t think about anything but the show. It must go on, right? You’ll be fine, Rosie. I have faith in you.”

She laughed faintly, and gave a little shake of her head. “Thanks, bro. I’ll text you when I’m on the ground.” She closed the doors, and waved her brother off, before she turned toward the waiting airport doors and took in a long, deep breath. She could do this. She was good enough. Time to make the rest of the world know it, too.

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