Chapter 78: Fracture Lines
I didn’t go to Amber right away.
That surprised me.
For years, she’d been my constant. The fixed point. The one person in that house who had seen everything I saw and had been old enough to understand it the way I did. Where Tasmin’s memories softened at the edges, Amber’s had always been sharp, exacting. We had survived the same nights. The same broken glass mornings. The same apologies that smelled like beer and shame. Amber was the one who taught me how to listen for the sound of his truck in the driveway and read the mood of the engine before the door ever opened. She was the one who showed me how to pack a bag quickly and quietly, just in case. The one who learned first how to disappear in plain sight.
She was supposed to feel like I did.
That certainty sat in me like an anchor. Heavy. Unquestioned.
And maybe that was why I delayed. Because some instinct, buried deep beneath my ribs, whispered that anchors could drag you under if they shifted without warning.
When I finally drove to her place, the sky was overcast in that way that made everything look flatter than it really was. Muted colors. Soft light. A world holding its breath. Amber lived further out than Tasmin, in a house that felt grown-up in a way ours never had when we were kids. Clean lines. Warm wood. Big windows that let the light in instead of barricading against it. Proof that she had built something solid out of what we came from.
I sat in my rental car for a full minute before getting out.
Just breathing.
Just listening to the tick of cooling metal and the distant sound of birds. My chest felt tight, but not with panic. With anticipation. With something like grief, already bracing for impact.
I knocked. Once.
Amber opened the door with a soft smile already in place. “Kay,” she said, like my name was a relief. Like she was glad to see me.
That alone unsettled me.
“Hey,” I replied, keeping my voice level. Neutral. She stepped aside and let me in. Her house smelled like coffee and clean laundry. Familiar in a way that had nothing to do with childhood. She gestured toward the living room. I followed, taking in the details the way I always did when I was trying to keep myself steady. The way the cushions were arranged. The framed photos on the wall. None of them of him. That mattered.
She poured me coffee without asking. Another thing that should have comforted me. Another thing that didn’t. “So,” she said gently, handing me the mug as she sat across from me. “I was wondering when you’d come by.”
There it was. Not if. When. “You knew?” I asked.
She nodded. “Tas called me.”
Of course she had. Tasmin, always reaching for connection. Always trying to weave us together instead of letting us drift. I wrapped my hands around the mug, letting the heat sink into my palms. “He went to see her,”
“I know.”
“And you,” I continued, watching her face carefully, “you’ve seen him too.”
She didn’t flinch. Didn’t deny it. Didn’t rush to explain. She just took a slow breath and nodded again. “Yeah. I have.”
Something cold slid through my chest. “When?” I asked.
“A few weeks ago.”
Weeks. Not days. Not hours. Weeks of silence. Weeks where she’d sat with that information and chosen not to bring it to me. I felt the first real crack form then, thin but unmistakable. “And you didn’t think to tell me?”
“I didn’t know how,” she said honestly. “And I didn’t want to make it harder for you before you were ready.”
I let out a short, humorless breath. “You decided that for me?”
Her eyes softened, but her posture didn’t change. Calm. Grounded. “I decided to give you space.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No,” she agreed quietly. “It isn’t.”
Silence stretched between us, heavy and expectant. I could feel the anger stirring now, low and slow, like a tide pulling back before it surged. “What did he say to you?” I asked.
“He apologized,” Amber replied. “He didn’t ask for anything. He didn’t make excuses. He just… owned it.”
I swallowed. “And that was enough?”
“No,” she said immediately. “It wasn’t enough. But it was something.”
Something. That word again. The way everyone kept reaching for the smallest possible measure of progress and holding it up like proof of transformation. “You believe him….Just like Tas”
She considered that. “I believe that he’s sober. I believe that he knows what he did. I believe that he’s carrying regret.”
“And you think that changes anything?”
“For me?” She met my gaze. “Yes.”
The word hit harder than I expected. “For you,” I repeated.
She nodded. “Kay… I’m tired.” That caught me off guard. Not because it was dramatic, but because it wasn’t. She didn’t sound defensive. She didn’t sound hopeful. She sounded… done. “I’m tired of carrying him around inside me,” she continued. “Tired of waking up angry at a ghost. Tired of letting my past decide how much peace I’m allowed to have now.”
My jaw tightened. “So you just… let him back in?”
“I didn’t let him back in,” she said calmly. “I let him speak. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” The question came out sharper than I meant it to.
“Yes,” she said. Firm. “Because I didn’t open the door to who he was. I listened to who he says he is now. And then I made my own decision.”
“And that decision was to forgive him.”
“No,” Amber said, shaking her head. “That decision was to forgive myself.”
The room suddenly felt too small. “For what?” I asked.
“For surviving,” she said simply. “For staying. For being angry for so long. For not saving you sooner. For not saving Mom. For all the things I couldn’t control but punished myself for anyway.”
I stared at her, a familiar ache blooming behind my ribs. “He doesn’t deserve that,”
“This isn’t about what he deserves,” she replied. “It’s about what I do.”
There it was. The fault line. Clear now. Stark. “You’re acting like this is some kind of personal growth exercise,” I said quietly. “Like what he did was just… an obstacle you’ve finally learned to climb over.”
Amber leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “I’m acting like I don’t want to bleed from wounds he stopped inflicting years ago.”
“He didn’t stop,” I shot back. “He ran. There’s a difference.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “And running didn’t erase the damage. But it did stop new damage from happening.”
“That doesn’t earn him redemption.”
“I’m not redeeming him, I’m releasing him.”
The anger surged then, sharp and sudden, but I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t lash out. I felt it coil inside me, tightening, demanding release, and I denied it. The old habit. The one that kept me safe. “So what?” I asked, voice deceptively even. “You want me to do the same? Sit down with him and let him tell me how sorry he is?”
“No,” Amber said immediately. “I want you to do whatever lets you breathe.”
“What lets me breathe,” I said, “is knowing that what he did mattered. That it wasn’t just… something we’re expected to get over because enough time has passed.”
Her gaze softened. “Kay… it mattered. It still matters. Nothing about what I’m doing erases that.”
“It feels like it does. That everything I went through and everything I have ever thought has been nothing but a lie. That I’ve been wrong this entire time. That every failed relationship, every friendship I have ended and every single person I have pushed away hasn’t mattered either.”
She inhaled slowly. “I know…but it doesn’t.”
That admission hurt more than any argument would have. “Then why do it?” I asked.
“Because holding onto rage didn’t protect me anymore,” she said. “It just kept me tethered to him.”
I looked away, staring at the window, the dull gray sky beyond it. “You sound like everyone else,” I murmured.
“Everyone else?”
“Tas. Mom. Him.” My fingers curled tighter around the mug. “So ready to move on. So eager to believe he’s different. Like I’m the only one still standing in the wreckage.”
Amber stood then, slowly, and crossed the room. She stopped in front of me but didn’t touch me. Didn’t crowd me. She knew better. “You’re not wrong for feeling the way you do,” she said softly. “And you’re not alone in it. But you’re also not obligated to stay there forever.”
Something inside me cracked at that. Not loudly. Not visibly. Just a quiet fracture, spreading outward. “It feels like you chose him,” I said, barely above a whisper.
Her face tightened with pain. “I chose myself.”
The difference mattered to her. It didn’t to me. I stood abruptly, the chair scraping softly against the floor. “I need to go.”
“Kay….”
“I need to go,” I repeated, already moving toward the door. Not running. Just leaving. The way I always did when staying meant breaking apart. Amber followed me to the entryway.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” she said quickly. “I’m just saying your path doesn’t have to look like mine.”
I paused with my hand on the door. “It already doesn’t.” I left before she could respond. The trip home felt longer than it should have. The flight, the drive. Every street too wide. Every stoplight too slow. My chest ached, but I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I just felt… hollowed out. Like something essential had been quietly removed while I wasn’t looking.
They were all forgiving him. Or at least, forgiving themselves enough to make space where he once stood. And I was alone in my refusal. By the time I got home, the sky had darkened, the gray deepening into something heavier. I sat there for a moment, feeling the weight of it all press down on me. Not just anger. Not just betrayal. But the slow, creeping realization that healing didn’t look the same for everyone and that sometimes, that difference felt like abandonment.
I didn’t hate Amber. That was the worst part. I loved her. I understood her. And I still felt betrayed. Inside, the house was quiet. Too quiet. I kicked off my shoes and leaned back against the door, closing my eyes. Everyone else was moving forward. Letting go. Releasing. Redeeming. And I was still standing guard over the ruins. Not because I couldn’t leave. But because someone had to remember what it cost to survive.
The end of enablement
”This division…..my division. Is a joke.”
Kayla Richards, the former SCW Bombshells Champion, sits in a penthouse suite at the MGM Grand. Because of course she would. And of course she would go out to Vegas two weeks before the show to enjoy some downtime. She takes a deep breath, a champagne flute in her hand, dressed in a tight-fitting white dress with a long slit going up one leg, which she crosses over the other as she relaxes on the white leather couch inside the main room of the suite.
”Last year, going into Inception, this company had two of the most dominant champions this business had ever seen. I was the World Bombshells Champion, and Finn Wheelan was the World Heavyweight Champion. Coming out of that show, Finn was still holding the World Championship, and I had lost the Bombshells Championship to Andrea Hernandez. Now, when I lost that championship, I made the decision to wait and regain it in the most dominating way possible by destroying every single woman that was in an Elimination Chamber match so I could snatch my championship back and prove to everyone that it was a fluke. I made that decision. No one else did.”
“And when I regained my Bombshells World Championship, Finn lost his World Heavyweight Championship. So in many ways, Inception last year was the final time that this company had real credibility on both levels. I would try to regain that credibility for the Bombshells by getting my championship back, but Finn had done so much for this company that it completely shredded his body. His shoulder was hanging on by a thread. His entire body and mental well-being were being given to this company. A company that never appreciated him. A company that has never appreciated me. And when I lost the Bombshells Championship to Frankie, I made the decision to step back and see how the division was going to play out.”
“I allowed Frankie Holiday to have a grace period to prove herself.”
“And where exactly did that mercy get me, the Bombshells Championship, and the division?”
“It destroyed it. It destroyed all credibility, as everything that I worked for for the better part of the last four years got flushed down the toilet. I dominated as an Internet Champion. I dominated as a Mixed Tag Team Champion. And then I dominated at the very top of the business. I set this division up to be something special. To regain the glory days before it was ruined by mediocrity. The same glory days that we saw when Alicia Lukas was champion. The same glory days when Amber Ryan and Roxi Johnson went to war. Those glory days. I had us back there. And then it was ruined. Flushed down the fucking toilet.”
Kayla pauses, taking a sip of her champagne before slowly putting the glass down on the table in front of her, the black marble making a small noise as the delicate glass touches it. Her long black hair is slicked back but still flowing down her shoulders, a pair of white gold earrings framing her face as a diamond nose stud shines under the bright light coming from above.
”This is my failure. I foolishly thought that Frankie was going to be the next big thing in this company. That she needed room to mature and breathe. So I allowed her to have that breathing room. I allowed her to have that little bit of extra rope to walk away from me. And do you know what happened when I gave Frankie Holiday that little bit of extra rope? I’ll give you one hint.”
“She fucking hung herself, and with it, this entire division.”
She spits her anger like venom, her green emerald eyes staring forward through heavily eyeshadowed makeup and black eyeliner, mascara making her eyelashes pop in a way that seems unnatural yet somehow evil.
”Now where are we? What is this division doing? Frankie Holiday is facing Aiden Reynolds’ much more talented sister. We have, in Amelia, a woman who could be a star against Frankie Holiday, who everyone thought was going to be a star. We have a Roulette Championship match between two old farts that nobody cares about, an Internet Championship match between someone who can’t get out of her own fucking way in Victoria Lyons and a perennial contender in Harper Mason.”
“And the stupidest and biggest joke of all: the World Bombshells Championship being defended in a tag team match. Let me repeat that, just on the off chance that there are some of you who haven’t been watching the show or keeping up with the fuckery that is going on. The top prize in our game, a championship that means you are the best of the best in the women’s division in this company, is being defended in a tag team match between the woman who flew her way into winning the damn thing, her perennial hang-on in Mercedes Vargas, against her ex-wife and her rookie fucking sister-in-law or cousin-in-law or whoever the hell Zenna is…”
“Are you all kidding me?”
“And to top off this birthday cake made out of dog shit and duct tape, what am I doing? In a situation where I could’ve saved the division, saved the show, and saved my precious Bombshells Championship— instead of facing Crystal and snapping her neck like a twig and showing her that the friendship that she and I had was nothing but a joke because she has turned into a joke— I am instead facing Bella Madison. And the saddest part about all of this is that I don’t hate the idea of facing Bella Madison. I don’t hate the idea of she and I having a match, because she seems like someone who could push me to the limit if properly motivated. The issue is the only one in this match who really has motivation is me. What’s Bella’s motivation? To beat someone who’s better than her? Shit, that’s her motivation in 90% of the matches that she ends up dragging her second-generation, pampered ass into.”
Kayla growls and sits forward, uncrossing her legs but keeping her knees together so we don’t have an accidental kitty wardrobe malfunction.
”Look, as painful as it is for me to admit this, Bella going against Crystal for the Bombshells Championship would be a hell of a lot better than the tag team match that we have for the title. It would make a hell of a lot more sense than myself and Bella going against each other. What would make more sense is this company taking the handcuffs off of me and allowing me to get my championship back by snapping that stupid, pathetic bitch’s neck. But since I can’t do that, and since I’m going into Inception to face you, Bella, then you are going to be the one who has to feel all of the anger and frustration that I have been going through over the last few months since losing my championship and making the decision to step back and watching it gloriously blow up in not only my face, but also the company’s face.”
“The last few months have been an absolute nightmare for me. From losing to Victoria, to having to face women like Candy and Zenna and Cassie. And now I’m going into a match with you. And I’d like to believe, Bella, that you understand the magnitude of this. And if you don’t understand the magnitude of this, I want you to go home, I want you to pick up your phone, and I want you to call your mother and ask her to explain it to you very slowly, because you might not get it.”
“You probably want to frame this as some sort of coming-out party for you. A chance for you to beat someone who was dominant. A chance for you to play out your contrived and overused Cinderella underdog story of the girl who everyone thinks is not good enough finally proving everyone wrong. And hey, I get it. It’s an interesting story, and it’s one that people really can get behind. You will have fans, and a lot of the people backstage, and you will have everyone else absolutely cheering you on, but the issue is that it won’t mean shit.”
“At some point, the applause and the back-patting and the love and outpouring that you get will end up stopping, and the bell will ring. And when the bell rings, a year in the ring with me, all bets are off, all Cinderella stories end up failing, and you will be left alone with a goddamn monster.”
“You come from a wrestling family. Your mother and father were professional wrestlers— great ones, even. You surround yourself with other professional wrestlers. You are friends with Miles, you’re friends with LJ, you are married to a professional wrestler. It just so happens that both your husband and his idiot older brother happened to be married to women who are much better at this wrestling thing than either of them. And in your case, that’s not saying much considering Malachi is a fucking joke.”
She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, leaning back to finish her champagne and calm herself down.
”I’m not going to sit here and say that you can’t beat me. I’ve said it before, Bella— if we’ve faced before or been involved in a match, you absolutely can beat me. Anyone can beat me. In one out of 100 matches, I’m sure that there is a timeline out there where I slip on a banana peel and fucking Candy gets a win over me. It’s not if you can beat me, it’s will you beat me? And I just don’t see it happening. Miracles can happen in this world, and yeah, you will come at me with everything that you have. I know that. You know that. Everyone knows that.”
“And you should know that your mother and father will be proud of you no matter what happens. But that’s what they’re supposed to do. They are supposed to love and cherish their baby girl. They’re supposed to support you no matter what. But Bella, trust me— the competitive side of them? There is a small part of your mother that dies every single time you get into the ring and end up failing. She watches as her daughter struggles and fails at the thing that came so naturally to her. And it’s because you simply can’t keep up. You rely too much on your family’s legacy. You rely too much on your last name. And you rely too much on the natural talent that you believe you have instead of getting in the gym and working.”
“I have a natural affinity for professional wrestling, but not the same that you have. The difference between you and me is that despite the fact I’m a natural at this, and even though I act like all of this is so easy, I get in the gym and I work my arse off. I run my mouth. I get in the ring. I do everything I can to win, and I leave it all out there in the ring every single time. I watched as the man I love destroyed his body for a championship. I watched him go through rehab after rehab when it came to his shoulder, and I watched him get stitched back together by fucking voodoo witch doctors.”
“And I would go through the exact same.”
“You want to beat me, Bella? You want to get in that ring and make a name for yourself and show the world that you are more than just a sad underdog story and a famous last name? Then you have to prove it by beating someone who matters. And trust me on this, sweetheart— I matter. And to beat me, you’re going to have to damn near kill me, because you will not be getting anything off of me that you haven’t fucking earned. So saddle up, grow a pair, get in the ring at Inception, and show me something more than what you believe yourself to be. Because if you bring the same tired bullshit that you always have? I’m going to eat you alive.”
Chapter 79: Proof of Life
I didn’t call him right away.
That was the compromise I made with myself. Not silence. Not refusal. Just distance, long enough for the noise to settle. Long enough to be sure that this wasn’t me reacting to Amber’s calm certainty or Tasmin’s hopeful softness. Long enough to know that if I opened this door, it would be because I chose to, not because I was being pulled through it by guilt or expectation. Because that was the fear, really. Not him.
Expectation.
The quiet pressure that came when everyone else had decided how healing should look. I tried to tell myself I was fine. That I didn’t need anything from him. That my life was stable now in ways it had never been before. I had built something solid out of years of instinctive self-destruction. I had learned how to stop running toward men who mirrored chaos because chaos felt like home. I had learned how to stay. How to trust. How to let myself be loved without bracing for the moment it would turn cruel or conditional.
That mattered. And it scared me. Because stability had made me reflective in ways survival never allowed. It gave my past room to breathe. To stretch. To speak. Amber’s words echoed whether I wanted them to or not. I chose myself. Tasmin’s voice followed close behind, gentler but just as persistent. You don’t have to forgive him to move forward. I hated how reasonable they sounded.
Anger had always been clean. Sharp. Protective. Anger didn’t ask questions. It didn’t second-guess. It kept me upright when everything else felt like it might cave in. But lately, anger felt… heavy. Like armor I no longer needed but didn’t know how to take off without exposing something raw underneath. Eventually, I sent the message. It was short. Controlled. Deliberately unemotional.
If you want to talk, we can meet. Public place. My terms.
I stared at the screen longer than I needed to before hitting send. The response came quickly.
Of course. Anywhere you’re comfortable. Thank you for even considering it.
Thank you.
The words made my stomach tighten. Gratitude felt misplaced. Premature. I didn’t respond. I chose the place instead, a small café far enough from familiarity to feel neutral, close enough to leave quickly if I needed to. Somewhere bright. Somewhere busy. Somewhere I wouldn’t feel trapped by memory. When I arrived, he was already there. He looked even older than before. Sadder than before. More pathetic.
Not weaker. Not smaller. Just… worn in places I didn’t remember. More gray than dark in his hair. Lines around his eyes that spoke of regret more than laughter. His shoulders curved forward slightly, as though years of carrying something unseen had finally begun to show. He stood when he saw me. That, too, surprised me. ”Kayla,” he said. My name sounded strange in his mouth. Familiar, but distant. Like a word I used to know how to answer to.
I didn’t hug him. I didn’t smile. I nodded once and sat down across from him, placing my bag carefully at my feet like an anchor. ”Before we start,” I said, my voice steady in a way that felt unreal, “you need to understand something.” He nodded immediately. Too quickly. Like someone bracing for impact. “This isn’t forgiveness, This isn’t reconciliation. This is a conversation. And I don’t owe you anything beyond that.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m not here to ask for anything.” I studied his face, searching for the old tells. The defensiveness. The tendency to fill silence with excuses. I found none. That didn’t comfort me. It only reminded me that people could change their masks without changing what they’d done.
“Good,” I said. “Then listen.” The waitress came by. I ordered coffee, black. I needed something bitter to keep me grounded. When she left, the space between us filled with the kind of silence that hummed instead of screamed. “You left, Not just the house. You left us. And you didn’t just pack up and leave a family that needed you, you packed up and left a family that you destroyed. Your drinking, the violence, Jax was broken, Amber was broken, I was broken, Mom too…Tasmin was too young… but when she got older, it was like a stab to the heart…”
“Yes,” he replied quietly.
“You didn’t protect us. You didn’t stay. You didn’t fight for us. You didn’t try to be better back then….”
“Yes. I know”
No justifications. No attempt to reframe it. My chest tightened despite my efforts to stay detached. “Do you understand what that did?” I asked.
He hesitated, then shook his head slightly. “I understand some of it. I don’t pretend to understand all of it.”
“Good,” I said, leaning forward. “Because I’m not here to make this easier for you.” I took a breath. Slow. Deliberate. “Your absence didn’t just hurt. It shaped me. It taught me things that took years to unlearn. It taught me that love was unreliable. Those men left. That staying meant enduring damage. So I pushed people away before they could abandon me. I sabotaged relationships before they had the chance to matter. I chose men who were wrong for me because chaos felt familiar. Because part of me believed that if I could survive that, then it was normal.”
His jaw tightened. His hands curled slightly on the table. He didn’t interrupt. “It took me a long time to realize I wasn’t broken,” I continued. “That I was coping. That every bad choice made sense when you traced it back far enough. But it also meant I hurt myself over and over again. Friendships ended. Relationships collapsed. Not because I didn’t care, but because I cared too much and didn’t know how to let that be safe.” I met his eyes then. “You didn’t just hurt my childhood. You shaped how I moved through the world as an adult.”
His voice was barely above a whisper. “I know I did.”
The sincerity in it made my throat burn. I hated that reaction. “I’ve met someone now,” I said, forcing myself to continue. “A man who loves me for who I am, not for who he can control, or fix, or outlast. Someone who doesn’t mistake endurance for devotion. And I’m not going to let your shadow take that from me. I won’t destroy something good just to stay loyal to my bullshit past.”
“You shouldn’t,” he said immediately. “You deserve better than that.”
“I know,” I replied. “That’s the difference.” The silence that followed wasn’t hostile. It was heavy. Honest. The kind that demanded accountability without theatrics. “I’m not ready to forgive you,” I said finally. “And I might never be. Forgiveness feels too final. Too neat. And what you did wasn’t.”
He nodded slowly. “I don’t expect forgiveness.”
“But I am willing,” I continued, choosing each word with care, “to give you a chance. Not trust. Not closeness. A chance to prove that you are who you say you are now.”
His breath caught. “Thank you.”
“This chance has boundaries,” I said firmly. “You don’t get access to my life. You don’t get opinions. You don’t get to rewrite the past or minimize it. If you disappear again, that’s it. No explanations. No second or third fucking chances.”
“I understand,” he said. And for the first time, I believed that he truly did.
“This isn’t for you……This is for me. I need to know that letting go of anger doesn’t mean letting go of myself.”
He looked at me then, not with entitlement or nostalgia, but with something like humility. “If that’s all I’m allowed,” he said, “then that’s enough.” That surprised me.
We finished our coffee without saying much else. When we stood, there was no embrace. No gesture toward closeness. Just space, intentional and necessary. As I walked away, I didn’t feel lighter. But I felt intact. I hadn’t forgiven him. I hadn’t absolved him. I hadn’t rewritten history. I had simply allowed myself to step out of the ruins without pretending they never existed. This wasn’t healing. It was proof of life.
Echo
”Is there an echo in here?”
Kayla shakes her head. She’s not wearing the elegant dress that she was last time, instead dressed closer to what we usually see. A black crop top with a leather jacket over that and black jeans.
”It’s almost like I called it, right? What you would say, the attitude that you would have. It’s because you’re predictable, Bella. You are incredibly predictable. You think this is some kind of game with me? Do you think this is something I just do for fun? This is my life. I have said it before and I will say it again: people think that I don’t love this business because I don’t say it very often. So when I do say something like this, you should listen. I love professional wrestling. Not everyone does. Some just look at it as a means to an end or a way to make money, but I love this business. I’ve loved this business since I took my first steps in it. And I wasn’t born into this. Not like you.”
“You were. And you are right, I don’t lie. In fact, there’s something that I’ve pointed out so many times. I don’t lie to my opponents. I don’t lie to fans. I don’t lie to management. When I stand here and I say something, I am always telling the truth. The truth from my perspective, anyway. Some think that that’s cruel and unusual. I just see myself as a realist. Something that you seem to agree with. In fact, you freely admitted that it pisses you off how right I am and how I don’t lie.”
“So tell me, Bella… how much of my truth did you actually listen to?”
“How much are you going to take to heart and actually use? You talk about respect, and you also talk about hating that same respect, and that is one of the first things I’ve heard out of your mouth that makes sense to me. Believe me, there are certain women in this business that I hate that I have respect for. I hate the fact that I had respect for Andrea Hernandez at one point. When she beat me, I applauded her, but my respect was misplaced. Same with Frankie Holiday when she beat me and took that Bombshells Championship from me. I had respect for her. Only for her to piss it all away. So why should I continue giving my respect to anybody when they don’t really earn shit and they constantly disappoint me?”
She pauses and shakes her head, trying to hide her frustration, anger, and disappointment.
”Much like you. You disappoint me, Bella. We are going into this hardcore match, a match with no rules, which will allow me to do whatever I want to your pretty little face, and you are focusing on all the things I’ve said about you in the past. You are talking me up, talking about my championships and what I’ve been able to accomplish, and the fact that I don’t quit. All the while comparing me to you and saying how you want to be that way. Listen, sweetheart, you and I aren’t the same. You were born into this business with a mother and a father who could show you the ropes. You have had every opportunity given to you because of that name, despite the fact that you tried to move away from it in the beginning.”
“But respect is something poisonous. You respect me because you’re too busy looking up at me, and people who look up never land the killing blow. People who are constantly looking up don’t see those standing behind them with daggers ready to stab them in the back. I have eyes on all sides, and you are currently below me, beneath me in talent and status. But I also know that if you had the balls, you would have a dagger at the ready to jab right into my back and take my spot.”
“And if you did that?… shit, I’d respect that…”
“Thing is, you won’t. You can’t. You have completely misunderstood what I’ve been trying to tell you. Yeah, you’re not a big enough bitch. You do care too much about what people think of you, all the while worrying too much about what I think of you. When I say to you that you are almost there, that you’ve almost made it, that you are on the cusp of getting to that next level, I’m not giving you a compliment. You have been ‘a moment away’ for years, which means all that has happened is you’ve gotten louder while standing in the same fucking place.”
She gets to her feet, moving around the room. It seems to be almost the opposite of how it was the first time. Instead of it being bright and Kayla looking like some kind of glamour model, now she is definitely more like herself. The room is dark. She reaches forward, grabbing a glass which is filled with some kind of amber liquid, taking a sip before placing it down and pushing out a deep breath.
”Your life, your entire career, has been built off the word ‘almost.’ Bella is almost a champion, almost ready to become a main event player, almost ready to become like her mother. Almost ready to become like Kayla fucking Richards. But almost is not a legacy. Almost is not what gets you in the record books. And almost isn’t what gets you where you need to be. Imagined crowns do not make you a real queen. Imagined championships don’t make you a champion, and imagined careers don’t make you a legend.”
“I said it, didn’t I? I told you that you were going to go down this route. You want so badly to be me, but you never will be. You are still figuring it out, by your own admission. I don’t figure anything out. I already know. And if you haven’t figured it out by now, if you haven’t finally gotten to the point where you know what it takes to become champion and to do everything that others have, then you never will. You have had every single advantage handed to you, and you haven’t been able to make it work.”
“So you never will.”
“And this match will go a long way to proving that. You can keep on playing the underdog who’s still learning all you want, but if you are still doing this after five years of being in some of the best companies this business has ever seen, then you are either so ignorant that you can’t learn anything that isn’t shoved directly in your face, or you just can’t figure it out and you’re nowhere near as good as you believe yourself to be, or as good as your mother believes you to be. At Inception, you are going to be stepping in the ring with the most dangerous woman on this roster, in a match where there are no rules. A match where I can do whatever I damn well please to you and get away with it. If you are an underdog, if you are still figuring it out, then when we get into the ring, I am going to eat you alive, Bella. You can spend all the time you want looking up to me, because I’ll be looking down at you, broken, ended, where you belong.”