Aidan Collins Throwback RP: Confronting the Past

July 11th, 2015.

He sits alone, in the front seat of a rental car, clutching a nearly empty bottle of nondescript rum that has had the label nervously scraped off. From his position—parked on the side of the road in a residential neighborhood—he stares intently at a small Dutch Colonial home, feeling lost. It’s been years since he’s been here and he sort of feels like he’s never truly been here at all.

Perhaps this is attributable to the fact that he’s been drinking for quite some time—long before he boarded his flight from LaGuardia to Denver this morning. While he’d been too nervous to drink heavily enough to cause an accident while driving, he’s definitely affected by the liquor. His steel blue eyes, with a ring of chartreuse around the edges of the iris, are slightly glossed over; his memories, feelings, and emotions numbed to a blur. The drunkenness is a familiar feeling these days and he hates—but needs—it.

Aidan Collins is undoubtedly a broken man and years of success inside a wrestling ring has done nothing to change that.

So why here, in Denver, on this warm summer night? Well, this is where she lives.

She is Alex Lockwood, the woman who Aidan was once convinced would be his future wife… before she broke his heart almost six full years ago.

They only spent a few months together, but Aidan knew she was the one. He held the type of deep affection for her that one doesn’t mistake. Pure, unadulterated love. The type of tender love that only comes once in a lifetime; if you’re lucky to ever experience it at all. A month was all that was needed for him to realize that. The time they spent they spent together was as perfect as it gets.

He also knew that her reasoning for breaking things off was legitimate. She had found the pain pills he had been hiding from her and had come to the rightful conclusion that he was taking the pills for more than basic wrestling aches and pains. Her father had passed away from substance addiction similar to his own and she wasn’t going to expose herself to the same trauma for the rest of her life. Addicts do unquantifiable damage to those around them and she was too smart to subject herself to repeated disappointment, tragedy, and depression.

However… it never made sense to Aidan that she’d write him off so quickly. He would have given her the world if he was able. All he needed to do was prove his strength and prove that he could cut all the bullshit… but he never got the chance.

She had to have felt the same way that he did; he knew it. It would be too unimaginably cruel for such honest love to be unrequited. And if she had loved him so deeply, like he did her, how could she just let things go like that? Love like theirs was worth fighting for. Aidan was sure of it.

What was the worst that could happen by giving Aidan a second chance? That he would break her heart one more time? At least then she would have a better grasp of who he really was. She would better know the real person behind the personality, the Aidan that he only felt comfortable sharing with her.

This whole situation is fucked, he thinks while taking one final swig of the rum. He grimaces from the taste, putting the cap back on and throwing the bottle on the seat next to him. But fuck it, I’m here. Might as well get this shit over with.

He gets out of the car, closing the door quietly. He takes a deep breath, looking at the home, and begins to walk towards it. He’s certainly nervous and no amount of liquid courage was going to change that.

As he walks towards the house, he begins to have second thoughts. He briefly questions if she even lives here anymore, before remembering that he had ‘his people’ look into the place before boarding his flight. She’s almost certainly inside.

Maybe this would only dig up more pain, though. The thought of seeing her with another man would almost be too much to bare. Could he handle seeing another man do what he couldn’t by earning her love? Maybe she loves this new guy more than she ever loved him.

Fuck it. If she does, I need to see it in person.

His latent male misogyny raises the question of her looks—maybe she’s gotten fat—but his pragmatism quickly reminds him that it wouldn’t change the circumstance in the slightest. He’s here to demand an explanation, not to win her back. The way she looks now has nothing to do with how badly she hurt him then.

This is no time to be a coward, he thinks to himself. He came all the way here and there’s no turning back. For better or worse, tonight he obtains some sense of closure.

With his heartbeat pounding, he walks up the door and slams his fist against it violently. It was time to confront his inner demons and, frankly, he didn’t care what she thought about it. He needed to do this so he could finally move on. He had carried the weight of his guilt for far too long.

…

After a few seconds that seem to slow time to a standstill, the door swings open…

…

Alex stands on the sill of the door—his former lover, beautiful as ever. Backlit by the light coming from inside the home, she briefly seems to hold an angelic aura and Aidan can’t help but be captivated.

They stare deep into each other’s eyes, memories of the past flooding their minds. Neither is able to speak, both captivated by the surreal nature of the confrontation that neither thought would actually ever happen.

Finally, after a moment that seems to last forever, Alex speaks.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she says softly, but directly.

“Yeah?” Aidan responds quickly in agitation. “Well I am here and I need to get some shit off my chest! I don’t care what you think. I need some fucking closure.”

“You’re drunk.”

“So fucking what!?” Aidan screams. “What’s it matter to you anymore what I am? Do you suddenly care? The last time I checked, you were the one who threw me out like a bag of fucking garbage!”

She looks at him, equally in pity and remorse, unable to respond.

He can feel his heart pounding in his chest, rattling off his ribs, seemingly trying to escape the confines of his body.

“You think that didn’t hurt me? It broke my heart, Alex!” He sighs and starts to gather his thoughts. “It ripped my heart out of my chest, broke it, and replaced it with… replaced it with nothingness. No matter how much time passed, all I felt was pain—

“All I feel now is pain.”

“I-I—”Alex stutters, “I’m sorry. I just thought it was the only way.”

Aidan is perplexed.

“You’re sorry?! Sorry doesn’t make up for what you did to me. Sorry doesn’t change the way I felt and sorry doesn’t make up for all those nights I spent alone, thinking there was no good in the world.”

Aidan shakes his head.

“You know… I came all the way out here for an apology but I’m starting to realize that an apology doesn’t change a damn thing. What you did was fucked up and I’ll probably feel the pain you inflicted on me for the rest of my life.”

“What did you want me to do, Aidan? It wasn’t easy for me, either!” Alex screams back, pleading her case. “It hurt every step of the way but I had to break up with you and you know that.”

“I know, because of your father…” Aidan raises his brow, speaking with contempt. “I get that… but I’m not him. I had my issues but you didn’t even give me a single chance to win you back. All those letters I wrote you—for months—and you couldn’t even write me back? Not once? Not even to tell me to fuck off?”

“Had your issues Aidan?” She shakes her head in disbelief, smirking cynically. “I’ve seen the magazines talk about how you’re a danger to yourself, Aidan. I still see what you are. You’re just like my father, whether you’ll admit it or not. I knew the letters would stop and you’d return to your old ways.

“I was right.”

“I would have given it all up for you!” Aidan pleads. “I would have given up anything. Wrestling, the money, the fame. The partying would have been the easiest thing to give up. I loved you that much, more than I can even put into words. I only went back to that other shit because that’s all I had left!”

“No, Aidan.”

She pauses, thinking of the most effective way to phrase this. When she finds her words, she speaks directly, in a morose tone that Aidan has never heard from her before.

“You wouldn’t have given that stuff up because you never wanted to. You thought—you think—that you’re invincible. Like the rules that everyone else plays by don’t apply to you!

“You wouldn’t have given up the drugs because you couldn’t give up being the center of attention—and you couldn’t give up the selfishness that made you feel like you deserved to feel good all the time… You couldn’t give up the self-pitying that you used as an excuse to justify your self-destructive behavior in the first place. I don’t need to smell the liquor on your breath to tell that you haven’t changed Aidan. That you wouldn’t have ever changed…

“And you never will.”

…

The harsh analysis leaves Aidan stunned. He had no idea that Alex, the sweetest girl he ever met, could even harbor such hostile pessimism. He recoils while looking off to the distance, taking in the importance of what she just said. It definitely hurts to hear that from a person that means so much to him.

But, the part that hurts him the most… is that he knows she’s 100% right.

He stares at her as she looks down at her feet, feeling guilty about speaking so bluntly. Both feel the desire to apologize, but neither is able to summon the strength to do so. Instead, they stand frozen, each hoping to be washed away from the situation simultaneously.

The lengthy silence is broken by a single word spoken with a gentle voice from the inside of the home.

“Mom?”

A young boy emerges, dressed in Adventure Time pajamas. He rubs his eyes, trying to adjust to the light after being awoken abruptly.

The boy looks at his mother, confused by the unfamiliar intruder and by the commotion going on outside his normally peaceful home. Most children would be scared, given the circumstances, but the boy manages to stand firm. It seems as though he’s ready to protect the person who actually holds the responsibility to protect him.

Aidan is surprised by his presence at first, then embarrassed. A kid shouldn’t be caught up in something like this. He quickly looks back up towards Alex, sullen with remorse, before looking back at the boy.

He can’t be much older than 5, Aidan thinks, as he notices the boy’s light skin—speckled with feint freckles—and flaxen blond hair. He has his mother’s button nose and Aidan wonders if he has her mischievous smile as well.

Hell, he ponders, does she even have that smile herself anymore?

Aidan didn’t know Alex had a kid and he quickly realizes that there’s probably a whole lot that he doesn’t know about her. Years of relationships, feelings, and experiences, in actuality. It only makes sense that she would move on, even if he was unable to. It’s a stark reminder that being stuck in the past is his own doing.

She probably hurt just as bad as him during the breakup and he suddenly realizes that his depression and self-pitying is mostly of his own doing. If he truly wanted to move on and repair his life, he could have done so years ago. She did; her boy is proof of that.

As he reflects, the child looks back at Aidan and—for the first time—Aidan notices the color of his eyes.

Steel blue, with a ring of chartreuse around the edges of the iris.

It was as though he was looking into a reflection of his own.

The boy’s age, his looks, his eyes... The evidence hits Aidan all at once, with the force of a derailed bullet train smashing into the side of a steel mill.

This boy was his.

“Brendan,” Alex says, keeping her back faced towards her son. “Go back to your room, honey. I’ll tuck you back in. Just give mommy a minute.”

The boy hesitates, looking at Aidan one last time confusedly, before heeding his mother’s request. He slowly walks out Aidan’s field of view and Aidan glances back at Alex, this time in anger. She responds with a look of concern, realizing that he’s put the pieces together and that her charade is over.

A tear rolls down Alex’s cheek and she mouths the words “Sorry”; she doesn’t have the strength to form sound, the guilt of her lie being exposed sending shivers up her spine.

This time, Aidan is the one to pause, thinking of the perfect way to phrase his point of view. How could she betray him like this? How could she betray the boy? Her… His… Their son.

However, instead of unleashing his rage on the woman who kept his child from him, he simply turns and walks away.

“Aidan!” Alex yells out, but her words are ignored. Aidan walks to his car, gets in, and drives away quickly. He’ll need some time—alone—to really wrap his mind around what just occurred.

When he drove over here tonight, he expected a whirlwind of emotion. He expected passionate shouting and even to possibly shed tears. Hell, he expected the unexpected…. But this was way beyond that; this was inconceivable. He’ll need some time to process it all.

He is a father… and has been, unknowingly, for years.