The Roulette Never Stops
Alicia didn’t hear the front door close over the sound of the shower running. She had the water up too high, steam filling half the bathroom, fog creeping across the mirror until even the outline of her face disappeared. She let it burn. She wanted it to. She needed something to feel real. Something to sting.
She braced both hands against the tiled wall and let the water hammer down the back of her neck, muscles aching from more than just the match that won her the SCW Roulette Championship.
She wasn’t supposed to be here.
Not “here” as in alive or standing upright, though some nights that was negotiable. She wasn’t supposed to be SCW Roulette Champion. She wasn’t supposed to be actively wrestling. The plan, her plan, Austin’s plan, their plan, had been for her to ease back. Slow down. Prioritize home. Let the young ones tear each other apart while she watched from a safe distance. But then she’d felt that itch. That primal, sick, beautiful itch. And one opportunity turned into one match turned into one title. And now she was champion again. The belt sat on the counter next to her folded clothes. It gleamed under the fluorescent light, gold plate shining like it was laughing at her. It didn’t care about plans or balance or promises. It only asked one question:
Are you willing to spin again? The bathroom door opened. She didn’t turn. She didn’t need to. Austin’s voice floated through the steam, calm and casual, like they hadn’t both been dancing around this conversation for three days. “Boys are down for the night.”
Her jaw tightened despite herself. “Mm.”
“You going to stay in there all night or should I order scuba gear?”
Alicia snorted under her breath. “Shut up.”
A pause. Then…..
“Mind if I come in?”
She hesitated. Technically, no. In reality, yes. “Whatever.” He stepped in, closing the door behind him. He didn’t try to get in the shower with her. He just leaned against the counter, arms folded, eyes landing briefly on the belt. He didn’t smile.
“So. Roulette Champion.” There it was.
Alicia kept her head down, letting the water hit her face now. “That’s what they’re calling me.”
“It’s what you are.”
“Mm.”
Another pause. Longer. He exhaled through his nose. “You weren’t supposed to go for it.”
Her fingers curled against the tile. “I know.”
“What happened to taking a step back?”
“What happened to you being proud of me?”
That came out sharper than she intended. She regretted it instantly and not at all. Austin didn’t flinch. He just nodded once. “I am proud of you.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“I’m serious.”
“Then why do you sound like someone died?”
He pushed off the counter, pacing slowly, restless. “Because I know what that title means. You know I know.”
“I’ve been in roulette matches before.”
“You weren’t champion of the whole division before.”
That shut her up. The shower suddenly felt too hot. She reached back and twisted the knobs off. The water sputtered to silence. She stayed still, water running down her face, hair plastered to her forehead, chest rising and falling slowly. She didn’t turn when she spoke. “What are you actually mad about? That I won it? Or that I didn’t ask your permission?”
“I’m not mad.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m not mad, Ali.” His tone was steady, but she knew him too well. Every word was measured. “I’m scared.”
She closed her eyes. “You think I’m stupid enough to get myself killed?”
“I think the wheel doesn’t care how smart you are.” She grabbed the towel without looking at him, wrapping it around herself and stepping out, water trailing across the floor. She finally turned to face him.
“You’re a wrestler, Austin. Don’t lecture me on risk when you’ve jumped off cages and landed on barbed wire.”
“I know.”
“So why do you get to do it but I don’t?”
His jaw clenched. “Because I already buried someone I loved once.” Silence. The words hit her like a chair shot to the spine. She swallowed hard. Slow. Controlled. Measured. There it was. Not jealousy. Not control. Not patronizing concern.
Fear.
Not for himself. For her. She didn’t know whether to be grateful or furious. She stepped forward until they were inches apart. Her voice softened, but not gentle. “Don’t you dare put your ghosts on me.” His eyes flicked up to hers. No anger. Just exhaustion.
“They’re already on both of us.” She hated that he was right. She hated that he had a point. She hated that she wasn’t entirely sure she would stop if it got bad. Before she could reply, his gaze shifted past her. To the belt on the counter. She followed it. The Roulette Championship sat there, glowing like temptation itself. All shine and ego and validation. A reminder of who she was before she was a wife. Before she was a mother. Before she was expected to slow down.
He spoke without looking at her. “Did you tell the kids?”
She blinked. “No.”
“Why?”
“Because they wouldn’t understand.”
“Or because you didn’t want to explain why you went back on your word?”
She bristled. “That’s not fair.”
“It’s honest.” She looked at him, searching his face for mockery or judgment. There was none. Just weary realism.
She sighed, rubbing her forehead. “So what? You want me to drop it? Vacate and bake fucking cookies?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what are you saying?” He stepped toward her again, gentler now.
“I’m saying, if you’re going to do this, do it with your eyes open. Not because you’re chasing a high. Not because you’re afraid of slowing down. Do it because you’ve weighed it and still said yes.”
She stared at him. He stared back. Neither moved. Finally, she exhaled, quiet. “…I don’t know if I can separate those things.”
He nodded once. “That’s what scares me.” For a moment, neither spoke. Then she stepped past him, picking up the title belt. She ran her thumb across the nameplate. Alicia Lukas. A name she chose. A name she earned. She didn’t know whether to feel proud or guilty. Maybe both. She leaned back against the counter, belt resting against her hip.
“You going to support me or not?”
He looked at her. Not like a wrestler. Not like a competitor. Like a husband. Like a father. Like someone who had already seen too much loss to pretend it couldn’t happen again. “I’ll support you,” he said finally. “But I won’t pretend I’m not holding my breath every time that wheel will spin.”
She nodded slowly.
“That’s fair.” They didn’t hug. They didn’t kiss. They just stood there, steam fading, silence stretching between them, not warm, not cold. Just real.
The realities of marriage.
Not explosive. Not dramatic. Just two people in a bathroom, trying to make peace with the fact that love doesn’t erase who they were before they found it. It just makes survival a team sport. And somewhere in that silence, Alicia knew: The next time that wheel spun, it wouldn’t just be her stepping into the chaos. It would be both of them. Whether they liked it or not.
The resurrection
"I know what you are all thinking"
Alicia looks up, stepping forward with an arrogant, shit-eating grin plastered on her red-painted lips.
"This wasn’t meant to happen. I was supposed to be done. Not just done — I was supposed to be useless. No longer the woman that everyone had feared. The former SCW World Bombshells Champion. Someone who had failed every single time she faced a champion over the last three years. Three years of being in and out of this company. Three years of not really knowing what I wanted to do with my life or who I wanted to be. And I’m not gonna lie, some of the time when I was away from this crazy business and this company I looked at my life and I was content. Content with what I had accomplished and content with what I had done in my career."
"But those moments of contentment, those moments where I looked at my career and my life and I felt at peace? They were fleeting. Few and far between. They weren’t times when I would linger on the thought and think to myself that my life was where it needed to be. I always had something else, something in my stomach that was pushing me forward. Telling me that it was time to come back. Telling me that I needed to re-dedicate myself to all of this. But, in that three-year span I struggled to do anything of note. I had those little moments of self-doubt coming in and crushing every bit of spirit that I could ever seem to want."
"I felt lost."
"For a very long time. I didn’t just feel lost in my personal life, but also in my professional life. I felt like I’d lost who I was. When I looked in the mirror, I didn’t see the strong-style southern belle any more. I didn’t see the woman who had come into this company and taken it by storm. I didn’t see the woman who had one-awards in broken records. I just saw a broken woman. Someone who wasn’t good enough to hang with the best of this company and this business any more. Someone who wasn’t good enough to be a champion. Not just someone who wasn’t good enough to be the world champion — someone who wasn’t good enough to hold any championship in this company. I was sick to my stomach and completely disgraced. I was disgusted with myself and who I thought I was."
Alicia pauses and nods a few times before folding her arms over her chest. Wearing a black leather biker jacket and tight-fitting black leather pants with a red crop top, she tilts her head and starts laughing to herself.
"But the truth is that stars and talent fade. I don’t know if this is my last ride. I don’t know if it’s the beginning of a new one. I just know that I’m here to enjoy it. I am here to be the best roulette champion that I can be. I am here to re-dedicate myself to this company, to this business, and this is the resurrection of Alicia Lukas. And I know that that is going to sit a little bit wrong with some people. I’ve never been what you would call popular with the other girls in this company."
"And why would I be? I have always been someone who has been very vocal about the levels of respect that I’m willing to give to other competitors. Women that I look up to and that I do see as equals. I’m more than willing to sing the praises of them. But there are some women in this business that shouldn’t be here. They are just taking up space in the company and don’t really do anything of consequence. And when I first stepped foot in this company there were a lot of people who didn’t like the fact that I was calling them out because of their lack of talent or the fact that they were being dominant in the division that at the time was full of trash cans."
"Amazing, isn’t it? Amazing how, unlike those former champions, I begged and pleaded with management to get the best of the best into this company. I didn’t hide from the best challenges. I wanted to face them. And lo and behold this company delivered some of the best women’s wrestlers on a silver platter for me to face, and I went to war with them weekend after weekend until I couldn’t do it any more — until I felt myself break and I needed time away. But the bodies that I laid down and the women that I brought into this company laid the foundation of the Bombshells division and made it the powerhouse that it is now."
"But, with every positive comes a negative. And we’ve never really been able to get rid of the women in this company that don’t deserve to be here. And I am facing two women who certainly push the boundaries of what should be accepted as a professional wrestler in SCW. On the one hand we have Twisted Sister. A crazy, heavy-metal-loving psychopath who doesn’t even get booked here all that often but whose entire aesthetic screams that she would belong in the roulette division."
She laughs again before shrugging.
"Now, I’m not going to sit here and badmouth Twisted Sister in the way that you would think. She doesn’t get booked all that often but when she does, she certainly puts everything on the line and she is certainly entertaining. But she’s just not that good. So I don’t understand why she’s getting an opportunity at the roulette championship. I don’t know why I’m not defending it against Harper Mason in a rematch. I’m sure she’ll get one eventually if she has the balls, but as of right now I’m having to face a woman like Twisted Sister who is barely in this company and is nowhere near the same level that I am."
"I will break you, Twisted Sister. I will break you in half. I will destroy you. I will beat the hell out of you and I will send you packing. But I still don’t have the same venom and vitriol in my voice and in my heart for you as I do for the other woman in this match. You see, the other woman in this match has no excuse whatsoever to be as bad as she is. She has no excuse whatsoever to be a loser like she is and someone who wastes everyone’s fucking time."
"Bea Barnhart…"
You can hear the change in Alicia’s voice, going from aggressive but almost jovial to quieter but more menacing.
"You are a woman who should be a star. With how much experience your husband has and the fact that you’ve always followed him around and you have experience yourself in this business, you should be able to learn from everything that you have seen and everything that you have done and become something better — not someone who occasionally gets a lucky win and occasionally flukes herself into a championship opportunity. You should be a respected veteran. But you’re not. You are not because you simply don’t listen. You come out and make all of these outlandish comments about what you think you’re going to do and how you think you’re going to win and you promise victory, and then when you don’t deliver on it, instead of showing some remorse and showing that you’ve grown and learned, you simply ignore it."
"Like in your mind you can get away with just saying a few words about how you lost and moving on, making those same outlandish promises. You show no consequences for your actions and no consequences for your losses, so you make all of the losses not matter. And if your losses don’t matter, then why the fuck should we ever think that your wins will matter? It means you don’t have real passion for this business, no passion for this industry and no love for this company or any of the champions or championships within it."
"So what, Bea? What are you going to do?"
"Are you going to come out swinging and try and become the roulette champion? Are you going to make us believe you care about the roulette championship or care about beating me? Or are you going to do what you always do and make outlandish promises with little to no backup, get in the ring and then embarrass yourself, and then turn up in a week or two and have it all mean nothing? What’s going to happen? Because this is what I’m willing to do. I’m gonna give you a beating so bad that you have to acknowledge it, that you have to acknowledge what happened to you, that you finally show some goddamn passion for this business that I have laid my life on the line for, and that I have laid my body on the line for for the better part of the last ten years."
"When this match ends I’m going to be the roulette champion and you two can go back to doing whatever it is that you do."
