“What? How can this happen?”

I asked the question, but it was rhetorical, really, I didn’t even know why I bothered to ask it or just say anything. Tears streamed down my cheeks, and I just couldn’t hold anything back, I’d known her since she was a child and now at 20 years old, her light was extinguished.

It wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair.

It seldom is.

I was absolutely devastated by the news, Laney’s stepsister had suddenly passed away. And on all days, it was Laney’s bloody birthday. What a sick joke to play. Ha, bloody ha, reaper, you horrible bastard.

The hours after the news broke were lost, I don’t even remember anything besides crying in bed, Laney was with her Mam so thankfully it gave me chance to pull myself around in time to be with her and spend the rest of her birthday just trying to keep the day as normal as it could be.

F*ck. It was hard.

We had a low key birthday meal out with my side of the family but it didn’t feel real, like I was just a passenger. Laney was absolutely fine, and the family were making that special effort to cheer her up but it was like she didn’t really need it, while I was emotionally shattered.

I always said never raise a Princess who needs rescuing, but she showed me on this day at just 11 years old… She’s going to be one tough bitch when she’s older.

**5 Days Later…

“F*ck off!”

I shouted at my phone when I read the words on the screen, death wasn’t done with me, now taking one of my oldest friends away. Again, the tears came, the stinging eyes arrived and that numbness that washes over you.

John was a hard man, not scared of anything. My memories flashed back to a football game between Middlesbrough and his beloved Newcastle United. As a prank our ‘Boro fan friend got us tickets in the ‘Boro season ticket stands, this wasn’t going to end well.

Within minutes Newcastle scored, John jumped up and celebrated. The whole crowd stopped and turned and aimed a barrage of abuse at us, Tobias Clarke wishes he could have had this much heat.

But what did John do?

Bastard starts blowing kisses to the crowd… now we’re really in the shit. Police, stewards, every security member in vicinity charged at us and dragged us out the stadium.

“I know what we’ll do, my mate manages a bar near here” says John, and away we go, walking away with the Riverside stadium in the background, the crowd noise filling the air.

Problem number one; we walk into the building and there’s bloody massive Middlesbrough badge painted on the walls and problem number two; we walk in and there’s about 60 fans watching the game.

The manager asks John what he’s doing here, and before he can answer the fans pipe up “we saw you getting kicked out on TV”. Middlesbrough equalise and the fans all jump up and surround our table celebrating, the manager begs John not to react and he doesn’t.

Boro go 2-1 up, they jump up again. Difference is this time they’re chanting “you’re just a fat Geordie bastard” at John. This time both me and the manager beg John to keep calm, and he does.

Then later in the game Newcastle make it 2-2. John looks at me, I look at him and smile and we slowly raised a fist in the air like we’re regular members of the Nation of Domination. The place erupts, he’s pushed off his stool, we jump up.

The third member of our party then pipes up “nothing to do with me, I’m a Darlington fan” which has become an infamous line between our friends group, John and myself laugh, shrug our shoulders and raise our fists.

For a brief moment there’s silence in the crowd, like they can’t believe two blokes are happy to fight 60 of them. It was the break we needed as the bar staff and manager drag us behind the bar and take us to a side door to make it out of there.

As luck would have it a taxi was just going past, we jumped in as the mob of 60 came out of the pub looking for us, the windows were down, birds were flipped and we buggered off back to Darlington laughing at our “darlington friend”.

And that was John; hard, tough man with a sense of humour.

Shit, this one f*cking hurt.

**4 Days Later

I feel nothing. Death has lost it’s power over my heart and my tears as I read even more news. One of my best friends Mother had unexpectedly passed away before even making cancer treatment.

The guilt was real, I just couldn’t cry. Death had finally silenced me, though it still hurt.
I looked at the last conversation we had, she told me she was having a camera down her throat to look for cancer, I reassured her to say she’d had worse things down there and wished her luck, she laughed and said thanks.

Knowing that the last thing I did was make a sick woman laugh was a comfort to me with this one but still I felt bad that instead of being devastated, it was more “what else do you want to throw at me, death?”

**The Wedding

What a day it was for Sean and Michelle, I was honoured to be there after all the back and forth I’d had with Sean. Again, Laney was an absolute star all day while grief simply held me back.

God, it’s a ####. So I made small talk, stayed pleasant with everybody and barely had anything to drink. My whole concentration was on Laney’s happiness, making sure she had a good time while my heart beat for my lost souls. She’s a beautiful girl, Michelle, and Sean’s a good kid.

After all the death, it was nice to be involved in something so pure. Of course, I’d completely overspent on gifts being so emotional, but they deserved it, little did I know I had the potential to deliver an even better wedding gift in just a few weeks’ time.

**The Promo

“Azami, Azami, Azami…” I say to the camera, pointed at me as I’m sitting on a stool in my custom bar set up in my house.

“You’re one dangerous bitch, aren’t you. Let’s not sugarcoat it. You’ve definitely got bigger balls than your Dad, that’s for sure. I suppose I should say thank you, though.

That night when you rang the bell, giving me just that moment to defend my World title? Thanks for nothing, all you did was put a shit stain on my credibility as Champion, and filled my little head with just enough arrogance that I thought I’d be absolutely fine in matches out of my comfort zone.

So you could say, the only reason I became stupid enough to make challenges to stack the odds in the favour of Maniac is down to you.

I owe you. I owe a good ol’ spanking that your Daddy should have given you a long time ago.

But you know what, I’m not a selfish arsehole; it’s not about me.

The last few months I’ve had to go through some of the darkest days of my life, and one of the bright days that pulled me through was Sean and Michelle’s wedding. Shit, it was a beautiful day.

They made it, they bloody made it regardless of you. I owe them a debt for helping me through, when a Price is in debt, a Price pays and wouldn’t you make the perfect wedding gift to settle that balance?

Beaten up, and defeated, and wrapped up so you can’t hurt anybody anymore.

So at Havoc, Azami, you will go to sleep, bitch.”

I reach other and click the stop button on my phone, that’ll do for now.