Step 9: Make every effort to right those you’ve wronged.

July 25th, 2019 Three days before Leap of Faith

Ned’s foot tapped against the scuffed floor of the hospital waiting room. It always tapped when he felt anxious, the circumstances. His father’s condition was critical, bad enough that Ned’s brother, Nathaniel, had reappeared. Nate was the family’s outcast, someone who never fit in, butting heads with his family until his first chance to escape the environment he felt hated him equally. Yet, here he was, a few seats down from Ned, exhausted. His face, typically one Ned recalled as permanently smug or infuriated, was frozen in a state eerie to anyone who had known him long enough.

He was worried.

He dug the knuckles of one of his hands into the palm of the other, leaving spots of pale skin where the bones jutted deepest. His spine stiff, he studied the wall intensely, unable to pull himself from the grim concentration he’d been plunged into. It crept through his veins, paralyzing every muscle, squeezing on his lungs like two claws piercing through, the points scorching the tissue. And the confrontation of mortality sang a more poignant tune. A nagging insight gnawing at his thoughts’ fraying ends.

His father was dying.

If not today, then sooner than he was prepared for. It seemed so obvious, a little truth that all were privy to but few fully comprehended until it was gazing into them. The hospital wall he spaced out into stared back, its eyes filled with that truth and every inconvenient feeling of love, anger, resentment, and concern faded merged. A singular truth peering into his core.

Nathaniel was afraid.

“Hey,” Ned spoke up, maintaining his distance, but aware of the mental spiral Nate was undergoing, “how’re you holding up?”

“Fine,” Nate responded defensively, “I’m fine.”

Ned's face, though soft, irritated him. More so that Nate was unable to describe why. Certainly, it always felt as though Ned got the acceptance from their parents he never quite received, yet it burrowed deeper than that. Perhaps it was envy for the bright world offered to him, handing Ned his dream job while Nate was forced to get a job he despised. Miles away, the thing that placed a roof over his head was a daily reminder of the shackles he felt confined him. Ned frowned as he watched Nate, deep in thought, try to shove his emotions underwater, desperate for the bubbling to cease.

“Y’know,” Ned added sheepishly, “I know we don’t agree on much… but I’m glad you made it.”

Nate lifted his head, the stranglehold he had upon his pathos weakening. He turned to his brother, taking an uneasy breath.

“Why?”

Ned looked down at his hands, his thumb tracing over the fingernail of his index finger, quietly summoning his words.

“Because family’s worth everything.”

Nate began chuckling, the earnest cheesiness of Ned’s words nearly too sentimental to take seriously. Or maybe it was because he began to believe it at that moment, as stupid and cliched as it sounded. Perhaps it was the tears running down his cheeks, the sobs he tried to suppress as he laughed. Or just the realization that he’d been this antagonistic towards someone who’d loved him unconditionally. He couldn’t put his finger on it, even as the backs of his hands scraped against the tearful tracks freshly placed on his cheeks. He threw his head backwards, finally calming.

“God,” he shook his head, “you always sound like you’re in a fucking Hallmark special.”

Ned shrugged, softly smiling and chuckling to himself, “maybe.”

“...Dad’s gonna be happy to talk to you. When he wakes up.”

Nate exhaled, the plastic chair underneath him squealing as he moved.

“Same.”

---

June 18th, 2023 Father’s Day

Applause serenaded Ned, nearly overwhelming him. The thin, gravelly plastic chair creaked beneath him. Ninety days sober. Three whole months managing to stay clean despite everything. Everyone there was smiling, congratulating him. The purple chip was placed in his hands. This was supposed to be a huge moment. A triumph.

Amy’s hospitalized, comatose body.

Ned had finally done it. He’d gotten this far. The fellow attendants quieted so Ned could speak but the applause echoed in his head. He cleared his throat, unsure of exactly what image to conjure.

Noah’s disappointed glare.

“There’s a lot I could say. But before anything, I wanna thank everyone here. I wouldn’t have gotten half as far without all of you. I couldn’t have done it without Mom, Darcy, Theo or any of the other people in my life. I obviously wish my father was still here so I could hear his thoughts, but I know he’d be proud. I just feel… very humbled by all of it. Like this moment is mine.”

Isaiah’s wicked grin.

Ned closed his eyes, his tone shifted subtly, “Like I did it.”

He stood up, receiving applause, the polite claps becoming white noise as he clutched the back of the plastic chair for some support. He did his best to smile for them. To appear proud and presentable. To be the example of strength they needed.

Ned’s foot tapped.

---

Darcy inspected the purple chip carefully, watching it glimmer in the sunlight above. She rolled it across her knuckles before pinching it in between her forefinger and thumb, handing it back to Ned. The street was busy, but they had acclimated to the fast pace of walking in the concrete jungle that surrounded them. They shared a slice of pizza, handing it back and forth when there wasn’t a wall of people passing by. Darcy gulped down a bite, her other hand clutching her laptop bag as they quickly approached the hospital.

“It had to be nice,” she spoke, noticing Ned’s more wistful expression, “at least knowing that you’re progressing instead of spinning wheels.”

“I guess,” Ned responded, coming off more distant than intended, passing the slice back having barely eaten.

She scarfed down the rest of it, carefully stepping down the sidewalk, watching Ned get obscured somewhat every time someone navigated around them.

“Your heart’s really set on going to see him, huh?” She asked, stopping as they stood in front of the hospital Amelia was confined to. He was silent for a moment before tightly hugging Darcy, leaving no gaps between them. She slightly squeaked as she was pulled close, wrapping her arm tight around Ned.

“Yeah. He needs to know,” Ned answered, sighing, “I’m sorry you have to deal with me… being so preoccupied. I really do need to focus more time on us.”

Darcy shrugged. He knew she agreed but understood where he was coming from. She gave him a small kiss before beginning to head into the hospital.

“We’re lucky IT work can be remote, otherwise, you couldn’t have me hover over her until she recovers,” Darcy teased Ned as he countered.

“How hard is it to update Acrobat?”

She rolled her eyes, but couldn’t help but laugh a little, the concern seeping back through the more time her mind was given.

“You gonna tell your brother when you see him?”

“That I’m working hurt?” Ned asked, at a bizarre peace with the facts.

“About the vertigo,” she clarified. Ned shrugged, not wanting to commit to an answer he wasn’t yet certain about. He wasn’t sure if his brother would agree to seeing him, but he needed to try.

“Take care of yourself, Ned,” Darcy said, keeping her voice a little stoic as she began to step into the hospital, hearing his response and giving a soft smile, even though he was gone when she finally glanced back.

“I’m Ned Kaye. I take care of everybody.”

---

---

---

“What defines our achievements?”

“The accomplishments themselves or what we do with them? Am I defined by my win at Leap of Faith 2019? Or my first title victory in this company? My first War Games win with my team this year? What do all of these events have in common? I did all of them with Bobby Bourbon as an opponent. Now, I'm fighting for my fiftieth XWF career win and who waltzes into my life, attempting to slow me down? Bourbon. You know what I think, as a recovering alcoholic...”

“I wish your namesake was as easy to overcome as you are.”

“Just like your namesake, you are the corniest fucking spirit out there. You pride yourself by doing everything as some sort of ingenuous clown act because you know in straight up matches, you get your ass handed to you constantly. Hell, you’re bigger and stronger than me and you still weren’t confident enough in yourself to face me in a match that wasn’t a pure mudshow. You know what Bobby is? He’s 10 proof because only 5% of him has any bite and it's the parts he covered up for over half his career. The bravest thing you've ever done is show your face. That's not courageous, that's the bare minimum to get your ID. But oh boy, can Bobby string together some rhymes. He hits his stride, lifts his pride, witless snide from a fitness guy with pits inside a mile wide. An empty vacuum within a man trying to excavate the things that make him human. But you’re not becoming a wrestling god by carving out your humanity with the saddest freestyles this side of Vinnie Lane’s bedroom. You’re just becoming a bigger dipshit.”

“The stanza of Bobby's life is one sad rhyme, a syllable of failing himself repeated ad infinitum. He’s defined by what he fears and it’s appearing weak. That's the key of it all, Bobby. You're scared. Not in the way most people express it, the man is more inauthentic than Chuck E. Cheese pizza, but when he no-assed his reformed BoB and got rightfully slapped out of the room he had a crisis of self. The fact is that you are so much worse than just some amoral douchebag like your partner. You're an opportunist and you squandered every opportunity. You see an on-fire Ned Kaye and want to douse the flames because you’ve spent your 2023 shitting the bed. You realize that your “PooBoB” schtick reaffirmed that you can’t keep a good thing going and then tried to redeem yourself by challenging Sid. You face Raion Kido, someone everyone claims is weak and he serves you your own ass twice in a row. That’s why you hired a publicist, not a therapist. Because the monster Bobby Bourbon is a myth. Bobby Bourbon is a man whose career was in the shadows of others until some trailer trash psychopath started carrying him through the tag division. You owe your legacy to the biggest scum of the Earth and he spat venom at you after selling you out. That's the company you keep. The fact that Bobby needed somebody as horrendous as TK to cling his career to is such an indictment of his myth that it speaks for itself.”

"It's Bobby’s mission to be the boogie man in the closet. The monster lurking underneath the bed. He thinks I'm a child, trembling in the sheets, paralyzed by fear. No, Bourbon. I'm the blazing torch whose light stretches to every dark crevice to remind others of the truth. That there's nothing to be afraid of. Because myths, monsters, and Gods don't hurt people. Human beings do.”

"You gave up being a human being long ago, instead just the intimidating shadow that disappears in light. You want the portrait of the man you are? Here:"


“Cracker Barrel Bourbon: Half-price on weekends, cheap heat 24/7. The spitting image of what it means to sacrifice everything to be the supporting role in someone else’s story. Angie Vaughn with extra steps. The only person to have twice the Uni reigns as most others, but be half the champion. Empowered by the myth you crafted, the mask you never removed. Saturday, I unmask the myth…”

“And show the man for the coward he is.”

"You can't run from yourself."