Subject: Definition of Prodigy | FOOL's GOLD Sat May 04, 2024 10:03 pm
The garage door was cocked open halfway to ventilate the musty walls that surrounded her uncle’s age-old, stained and beat up practice ring. Beads of sweat drip down Lennon’s youthful face as she stares distantly outside. It was blistering hot outside and the heat distorted her view of the grass into a swirly mirage. She rests in the corner of the ring for a moment, watching what seemed like endless Instagram stories, all of girls her age or even her friends who spend their weekends clubbing, shopping, vacationing… she felt a twinge of FOMO, but she knew if she was given the option, she’d still choose to be exactly where she is right now.
“Knock, knock…” Lennon hears a faint voice from the other side of the garage door. In the same breath, Courtney Lane, her brother’s girlfriend, pulls the garage door up a little bit and scoots underneath it.
“Courtney?” Lennon seemed taken back. It’s been a while since she’d visited the family, but she was always welcome in their home.
“Hey, Laura…” Despite the few years that’d gone by, Courtney surely had not moved past Will’s death. You could see it in her face.
She looked up at the ring and immediately back down at her feet. With her, she carried a nondescript box that she slid shyly across the ring in Lennon’s direction.
“I’m sorry I haven’t been around much, I just…” Her voice trailed off and she eventually shrugged.
“Hey,” Lennon scoots on all fours over to Courtney. “You don’t have to apologize. Nobody could ever understand what you’re going through. We’re always going to be your family.”
“Thank you,” Courtney offered a quick half-smile in response. She took a deep breath in and looked around the garage, tracing her fingertips along the ring apron.
“So, you really went for it, huh?”
“Yeah. Yeah I did…” Lennon smiled. The smile faded as quickly as it appeared. “It hurts so bad that he can’t be here to see me.”
Courtney nodded, perhaps understanding more than anybody. “I saw your uncle at the supermarket a few days ago. He told me you’re already the number one contender for the PCW Prodigy Championship. Congratulations.”
Lennon smiled and nodded, but kept her head down. Deep down, wrestling was always a point of contention between her and Courtney. She was always eager to watch it, experience it, understand it… But Lennon always wanted it to be the special thing between her and Will.
“He told me your wrestling name, too.”
Lennon’s heart sank into her stomach for a second. The name Armada was supposed to be Will’s. It was his way of marrying his interests and part of his would-be gimmick. She braced herself, expecting the conversation to take an uncomfortable turn.
“I brought you this,” Courtney tapped the top of the box and put it straight into Lennon’s lap.
Lennon looked at Courtney and then down at the box. It was just a regular, white box. When Lennon opened it, though, she pulled out a thoroughly customized new set of ring gear; shiny, purple, glittery, with the last name ARMADA imprinted across the backside.
In Will’s handwriting.
Tears swelled up in Lennon’s eyes as she traced the embroidery with her fingers. She looked up at Courtney who watched her intently, a genuine smile she hadn’t seen in years.
Courtney placed her hand on Lennon’s knee and offered a supportive squeeze before making her way to the door. She turned back one last time…
“Now he will be there to see it. Take care, Laur.”
///
“Just over a month ago, you were exactly where I am, James.
Two-and-oh. With your eyes set on the Prodigy Championship.
Standing across from a man much bigger than you, an ocean of differences between you.
Both of us with something to prove.
I don’t have a lot of the things you do. I don’t have a team behind me, speaking for me, motivating me, marketing me like the cash cow puppet you for some reason don’t realize you are. I’m not sitting at anyone’s B-plot Avenger’s roundtable. I don’t have a background in muay thai. I’m not from the streets.
I’m not chock full of gimmicky undertones that can pad my ego in the event I suffer my first professional loss.
Don’t get me wrong. I think you’re freaking incredible, James. I think you’ve flipped PCW upside down with what you’ve accomplished so far. But you’re not unique. You’re not unusual… different…cut from a special cloth.
You’re actually not the textbook definition of a prodigy at all.
And the fact that you’re parading around with that championship, spouting over and over again that you don’t really care about it, or wrestling, or anything...Well, it’s tired. It’s boring.
We’ve seen it a thousand times. I think it’s actually why you and I are meeting so quickly.
Nobody wants the fighter anymore. The respect and adoration for the cliche that you’re living is running thin. You can be the best fighter, James, but what does it matter if you’re not fighting for anything? If you’re not fighting for anything, you’re dying for nothing.
Not me.
Because let me guess. You just don’t care about family or honour or dreams - none of that inspires you or drives you. That’s fine. But being a one-note, one-dimensional wrestler will only take you so far, James. Throwing your body around recklessly, with no strategy, no natural ability, nothing but Aaron Elliott telling you to jump before you ask how high… it’s not the behavior I’d want from a champion. Especially not the Prodigy Champion.
I know your team is just JUMPING for joy at what seems like a surefire defense for you, but I promise you, I’m the first opponent you’re going to have that can actually take that title from you…
Yesterday at 12:14 am by 
Subject: Definition of Prodigy | FOOL's GOLD 
