John Cena's Arc

Chapter 11 of 12

The ceremony ended at half past one. Cena shook the last hand, signed the last program, and walked to his truck alone. Triple H had spoken first, without the paper. He had said twenty years in six sentences and then sat down. Cena drove home with the windows open and his name still up on the arch behind him. The house sat at the end of a quiet street, tall and painted in the colors he had picked himself. Blue trim, red accents, a wide porch with two square columns. He climbed the front steps slowly. His shoulder was stiff from the match. His dress shoes pinched. He unlocked the door and stepped inside and locked it again behind him. The front hall was quiet. He set his keys in the bowl by the door. He took off the jacket and hung it on the hook. He walked to the living room and stopped in the doorway. The couch was where it always was. The TV sat at the end of it on the low shelf, dark and dusty. He had not turned it on in a week. He had been at the arena, or the council hall, or in a room with lawyers. He had not sat down in his own house in daylight since the vote. He sat down now. The cushions gave under him the way they always had. He leaned back and let his head rest against the top of the couch and closed his eyes. He thought about the stone. He thought about Harris's letter, folded in the drawer upstairs. He thought about Gunther in a county cell, missing the day he had tried to ruin. None of it made his chest tight anymore. The fight was over. He had won the part he could win. He opened his eyes and reached for the remote. He turned the TV on. A game was playing, some team he did not follow. He left it on low. The sound filled the room the way sound fills a house when a person finally stops moving. His phone buzzed on the cushion beside him. He looked at the screen. A message from Bret Hart. Three words. "Proud of you." Cena typed back, "Come by tomorrow." He set the phone face down. He sat there a long time. The light through the front windows moved across the floor. The game went to a commercial and came back. He did not get up. For the first time since the day he walked into the council hall and heard Harris call him a distraction, John Cena had nothing left to fight for The star was on the arch. The house was quiet. He closed his eyes again and let it be quiet.