Title: The In-Between (Prologue)
Featuring: Troy Douglas
Date: September 2011
Location: Rev 248

Ten months ago...

Troy Douglas and his insides hadn't been on speaking terms for a week. Some damned imp had been doing backflips inside his stomach for days on end, and no amount of sleep, antacid or occasional nips of vodka were enough to quell the beast.

And it was driving him nuts.

He'd played countless winner-take-all football games, wrestled in arenas filled with thousands of people in front of television cameras broadcasting every image out to millions more in high-def glory. He'd been under the knife for more experimental spine and knee surgeries than he could ever care to think about, and here he was with butterflies dancing the samba in his gut, too petrified to pull his tuxedo jacket on.

If anyone was there to talk to him, they would've told Troy it was a classic case of pre-wedding jitters — nothing to get worried about. With the rest of the wedding party otherwise occupied running hither and yon about this old Westchester County estate, Troy was all alone, rubbing the same circular pattern with his thumb along the lapel of his jacket for the last 15 minutes without even realizing it.

"What in the hell am I doing?"

Troy didn't know who he was asking the question to. Himself? God? The Force? He didn't even know why he asked it. But, there it was, hanging in the floral-scented air.

There were a million implications, a million permutations, a million different answers and they all flew through Troy's head, one after another at warp speed. It was enough to make his head spin with dizziness, forcing Douglas to plant his hands on the leather armchair in front of him to keep him from flopping to the ground in a heap of overpriced formal wear.

Frankly, all Troy wanted to do was throw up, and he couldn't — his nerves had prevented him from ingesting anything more than a couple of Tums since late Friday night.

Fucking hell, he thought, this was all too much for him.

It was a thousand different decisions and changes all at once. Getting married, retiring from wrestling, settling down, trying to start a family, all of it was a 180-degree change from the past decade of his life. A decade of never staying in the same place long enough to stick, of putting his body in danger every single night, of being too scared of what would happen if he dared to get too close to somebody.

He spent a long time running from ghosts until he finally decided to stop. Apparently, his stomach still hadn't stopped ... and neither had his brain.

Image after image flashed in his mind's eye. He tried to shut his eyes and make the wild kaleidoscope stop, and it wouldn't. His life, every single bad decision he'd ever made, every one of the myriad of nightmares he'd had to plow through in 35 years on the planet flashed before him on an infinite loop.

"God damn it, just make it STOP!"

Troy forced his eyes shut and finally, mercifully, saw nothing but black in front of him. He digested the long-awaited pause, to the point that he almost forgot to keep breathing.

It was a knock at the door that reminded Troy that he was still living in the real world.

"You okay in there?" The voice of his best man, Ben Castor, jerked Troy back to reality.

Deep breaths, buddy.

"Yeah, Ben. I'm fine."

"Sam heard some shouting, so she had Alicia sent me over to make sure you hadn't eviscerated the caterer with a pair of tongs," Ben quipped. "You, uh, haven't, have you?"

"Cram it, Castor."

"Well, Sam told Alicia to tell me to tell you it's the five-minute warning and if you're late, she's marrying the first warm body she can find. 'Kay?"

And then something amazing happened. The butterflies just stopped, and Troy finally ceased wearing a circular groove into his suit jacket.

Samantha Wade was waiting for him. A million different questions, a million different scenarios, but screw the sentimental cheeseball Frank Capra quality of all of it, she was the only answer he needed.

As Troy finally slipped his arms into his suit jacket, he came to terms with something he'd been fighting for a long time.

He wasn't a professional wrestler anymore ... and that was fine with him.
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