Bump by Matt Wallace

Author:Matt Wallace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Published: 2020-12-05T00:00:00+00:00

Heat

MJ stood in front of the Victory Academy bathroom mirror without really looking at her reflection and slipped the Lightning Boy hood over her head. She pulled her ponytail through the hole in the back before lacing the mask up tight. She adjusted it around her ears, nose, and eyes until it felt comfortable, and then she looked in the mirror.

She still didn’t recognize her reflection, and the mask didn’t look or feel like it belonged to her. She didn’t feel like Chica Relámpago, Lightning Girl. She felt like a kid wearing someone else’s mask and pretending to be a wrestler.

She wasn’t going to tell anybody that, though.

She’d made the dreaded call to her mom and gotten permission to wrestle another match. Despite how afraid MJ had been to talk to her, her mother was surprisingly calm about the whole thing.

Then her mother asked to speak to Mr. Arellano, and although the old man smiled all through the call, MJ was sure Mom spent the entire time yelling at him.

Her opponent was going to be Duchess, who’d wrestled and lost to Corrina the week before in a title match. The angle (which is what people in the business called a wrestling storyline) was going to be that Duchess was mad about losing and was going to take it out on MJ. The fact MJ was half the size of Duchess would only make the crowd hate her more.

MJ’s big move at the end of the match was going to be reversing Duchess when she tried to suplex MJ off the top turnbuckle. MJ would land on top of Duchess and pin her, but right before the referee counted to three, Duchess would roll MJ over and pin her for the win.

Tika had practiced the suplex and reversal with MJ over and over in one of the rings, with a pile of soft foam mats covering the canvas for them to land on safely.

MJ felt confident in her ability to do the move, and to take the rest of the bumps she was going to take, but the thought of wrestling in front of the crowd again still frightened her.

She took several slow, deep breaths, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. MJ found it didn’t just help her relax after training, it helped her calm down when she was scared or anxious.

She walked out of the bathroom and nearly ran into Zina, who stood there with her arms folded across her chest.

MJ wasn’t sure if Zina was waiting to use the bathroom, or if she was waiting for her.

“I see you ain’t setting up chairs anymore,” Zina said, and she didn’t sound like her usual friendly self.

“Um, Tika wanted to run through some stuff with me for my match.”

“Uh-huh.”

It was like talking to a stranger. This didn’t seem like the same girl MJ had made friends with.

“Are you mad?” MJ asked her.

Zina sighed. “It’s just kinda messed up, you know? I’ve been here a lot longer than you, and I’m not even close to being on the shows yet.

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