Chapter 82: Open Doors
Colorado springs felt different than Denver.
Denver had noise. Movement. Edges. It felt transitional. Like a place you passed through on the way to something else. Colorado Springs, where Finn and I had built our home—felt settled. Quieter. The mountains didn’t loom here the way they did in postcards. They just existed. Steady. Ancient. Unbothered by human drama. The kind of presence that made your problems feel smaller if you let them. Snow still clung to the edges of the yard in stubborn patches, melting slowly where the sun reached it and refusing to budge where it didn’t. The sky was clearer today. Pale blue stretched thin above the peaks, the air crisp but not cruel. Inside, the house was warm. Our home. I still caught myself thinking that like it was fragile. Like if I said it too confidently, something might come along and take it from me.
I was sitting on the lounge, legs tucked beneath me, a thick blanket draped across my lap. The television was on but muted. Some daytime show flickering light across the walls without meaning. The quiet in the house wasn’t heavy. It was comfortable. Finn was at training. I had the day off. The kind of rare afternoon where nothing demanded anything from me. That should have felt peaceful. Instead, my mind kept replaying the last conversation at the restaurant. The question. Children.
Do you want them?
I stared at the window, watching condensation gather at the corners of the glass. I hadn’t expected that question to stay with me the way it had. I hadn’t expected it to settle into my chest and refuse to leave. The knock at the door pulled me from it.
Not loud. Not impatient. Just three steady raps. I blinked, then pushed the blanket aside and stood. When I opened the door, the cold air slipped in first, brushing against my skin. And then Tasmin stepped into view. She looked like me in ways that used to make people do double-takes. Pale skin. Green eyes. Tattoos curling down her arms like inked stories that didn’t need to be explained. But where my hair fell dark and sharp around my shoulders, hers cascaded in long, flowing blonde waves, catching the light even on a winter afternoon. Softer. Brighter. The kind of hair that looked like summer had claimed it permanently. “Hey,” she said, offering a small smile.
“Hey.”
There was no hesitation. No awkwardness. I stepped aside and let her in. She carried the outside in with her, the scent of cold air and faint perfume. I shut the door behind her and locked it automatically. “It’s freezing,” she muttered, rubbing her hands together.
“You live here to,” I reminded her.
“Yeah, but I don’t have to like it.”
That earned the faintest huff of amusement from me. “Tea?”
“Please.” Some things were muscle memory. When words felt unnecessary, routine filled the gaps. I moved into the kitchen, filling the kettle, clicking it on. Tasmin leaned against the counter, watching me the way siblings do, like they’re cataloguing changes without meaning to. We’d both grown up in the same house. But somehow we’d grown into different versions of survival. She’d chosen openness faster than I had. Or maybe she’d just been braver. The kettle clicked off. I poured the water, dropped the tea bags in, handed her a mug. Chamomile for her. Peppermint for me. The steam curled between us as we moved back into the lounge and sat down. She tucked one leg beneath her. I mirrored her without thinking. For a while, we didn’t talk. We just sipped. The quiet between sisters wasn’t the same as the quiet between strangers. It didn’t demand to be filled. It just existed. Tasmin broke it first. “Adam says hi,” she offered casually.
I nodded. “How is he?”
“Good. Busy. Work’s insane, but he’s good.” She paused, then added with a small grin, “Dawn’s decided she hates vegetables.”
I snorted softly. “She’s three.”
“Exactly. Everything is dramatic.” I could picture it. Dawn’s stubborn little face. The way she crossed her arms like she’d already mastered defiance.
“And you?”
Tasmin shrugged lightly. “I’m good.” But there was something behind it. Something she was building up to. I waited. She took another sip of tea, eyes lowering to the mug. “Dad’s been coming over,” she said finally. There it was. I didn’t react outwardly. Didn’t tense. Didn’t sigh. But something inside me sharpened.
“Oh?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “Once a week. Sometimes more.” I stayed quiet. “He plays with Dawn,” she continued. “Like actually plays. Gets on the floor. Lets her climb on him. She calls him ‘Pop.’” The word lodged somewhere in my throat.
Pop.
“He brings her little things,” Tasmin went on. “Nothing crazy. Books. Stickers. Stuffed animals. He sits with Adam and talks about work. Or football. Or whatever.” Her lips curved slightly. “Adam actually likes him.” That surprised me more than anything else she’d said.
“He does?” I don’t know why I was shocked or surprised, Adam likes everybody.
“Yeah. Says he’s… different than he expected.” Different. I stared into my tea, watching the steam thin out. Tasmin shifted slightly, studying me now. “He’s been consistent,” she added gently. “That’s the weird part.”
Consistency.
That word again. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t trust my voice yet. She kept going. “I didn’t think I’d let him around Dawn. Not at first. I was angry. I was protective.” She smiled faintly. “Still am.” I understood that instinct more than she probably realized. “But he’s been good with her, He listens. He doesn’t overstep. He asks before he does anything. He respects Adam.” She paused. “And he shows up.” That one hit harder than the rest. I swallowed slowly. My mind betrayed me, offering flashes I hadn’t asked for. Empty seats at school events. Missed birthdays. Promises that evaporated into excuses. But then it layered over something newer. Garlic sliding across a table.
Do you want children?
“He’s been coming to see Amber too,” Tasmin added. “She told me he’s been helping her with some stuff around the house.” I nodded once. Both of them had opened their doors wider. I was still standing in mine, hand on the frame, unsure how far to swing it. Tasmin set her mug down on the coffee table. The ceramic clinked softly against wood. “I’m not telling you this to pressure you,” she said carefully.
I looked at her then. Her green eyes were softer than mine. Warmer. But there was steel in them too. We’d both inherited that. “I know,” I replied quietly.
“I just…” She hesitated. “I wanted you to know what it’s been like for me.”
“And?”
“And it’s not perfect,” she admitted. “It’s awkward sometimes. There’s history. But…” She exhaled slowly. “It doesn’t feel fake.”
That word mattered. Fake was worse than absence. I leaned back into the couch, folding my arms loosely, not defensively, just to hold myself steady. “I’m glad,” I said, and I meant it.
She studied me for another moment before asking the question she’d clearly been circling. “How are things going between you and him?”
There it was. I considered lying. Not a big lie. Just something easy. Neutral. Like We’re fine. But I was tired of easy. “It’s… better,” I admitted. Tasmin waited. “We’ve been meeting. Talking.”
“About?”
“Everything. Nothing.” I gave a small, humorless smile. “The past. Work. Finn.” Her eyes flickered at Finn’s name but she didn’t comment. “He’s trying,” I added. Tasmin nodded slowly, like that confirmed something she already suspected. I leaned forward slightly, resting my elbows on my knees, fingers lacing together. “Last time we talked…” I hesitated. The words felt strange in my mouth. “He brought up children.”
Tasmin’s eyebrows lifted just a fraction. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” I huffed a quiet breath. “It caught me off guard.”
“I can imagine.”
I stared at the floor for a second before looking back up. “But I didn’t shut it down,”
That felt important. Tasmin’s expression shifted, subtle pride, maybe. “What did you say?” she asked gently.
“I told him I didn’t want kids before, That I was scared.”
“Scared of what?”
I held her gaze. “Becoming him.” Silence settled between us.
Not sharp. Not explosive. Just real. Tasmin didn’t flinch. She didn’t rush to defend him. She just absorbed it. “That makes sense,” she said softly.
I hadn’t realized how much I needed someone to say that. “But…” I continued, voice quieter now. “I told him that after Finn… something shifted.”
Her eyes warmed immediately. “You can see it,”
I nodded once. “I can picture it. A house. Noise. Chaos. Him holding a baby like he’s terrified he’ll break it.” A small smile tugged at my lips despite myself.
“And that doesn’t scare you?”
“It does, Just not in the same way.”
The fear wasn’t about repeating history anymore. It was about vulnerability. About loving something so much it could destroy you if it disappeared. Tasmin leaned back slightly, processing. “That’s normal, You don’t have to have all the answers right now.”
“I know.”
The air shifted again. Not tense. Just… thoughtful. Tasmin glanced toward the window, then back at me. “For what it’s worth, you wouldn’t be him.” I didn’t respond immediately. “You’re not wired that way, You overthink everything. You question yourself constantly. You care too much.” A soft, almost sad smile touched her mouth.
“He didn’t.” The words settled heavy but steady. I looked down at my hands again. Maybe she was right. Maybe awareness alone changed things. The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. Just full. Tasmin didn’t push further. Didn’t ask if Finn and I were trying. Didn’t pry into timelines or expectations. She let it breathe. After a while, she reached for her tea again, now lukewarm, and took a small sip anyway.
“You’ll figure it out,” I nodded. Outside, a breeze kicked up, rattling the bare branches of the tree near the driveway. The house remained warm. Still. Open doors didn’t have to mean wide open. Maybe they just meant unlocked. I glanced around the lounge, the framed photos on the wall, the blanket still crumpled beside me, the quiet evidence of a life being built piece by piece. Tasmin followed my gaze. “You’ve built something good here,”
I looked back at her. “Yeah,” I replied, and for once, the word didn’t feel fragile. It felt true. We sat there a while longer, talking about smaller things after that. Dawn’s latest obsession with dinosaurs. Amber’s new job. Adam’s attempt at cooking that had nearly set off the smoke alarm. Normal things. Little things. And as the afternoon light shifted across the room, I realized something quietly unsettling. For the first time in a long time… The idea of family didn’t feel like a threat. It felt like possibility.
The Trilogy
”Everything is right with the world. Back where it needs to be. Shifted to a time that matters. Or at least it almost has.”
Kayla chuckles and shakes her head. Her English accent a contrast to the American ones that we are used to hearing. But it’s a familiar one. Not so familiar to the people of Fort Worth, Texas, where the supercard is going to be from. But here she is, sitting in a hotel room to acclimatise and get used to the way Texas feels.
”There was a divergent point. A point where if things had been slightly different all of this could have been avoided. See, I told everyone that Crystal did not deserve to hold the SCW World Bombshells Championship. And I stand by that. I told that to her face and I will continue saying it time and time again. Her time is done. So is Mercedes Vargas’ time. They both wanted something out of their partnership. Crystal wanted to feel like she belonged. She walked away from her family, her wife, to throw in with Mercedes. And Mercedes wanted that title opportunity. She had a grand vision after Crystal took the championship from Frankie. One way they would both keep that championship. They would keep it in Crystal’s hands. That was the plan. You can’t tell me otherwise.”
“Crystal needed someone like Mercedes on her side. She needed Mercedes to keep this championship. I have never needed anyone to help me keep a championship. I have never needed anybody to have my back in a championship match. I have been the one to keep it around my waist or over my shoulder. I have been the one to step up and show the world just how good I am.”
“But, Crystal CaldwellzdunichRoseMillarWilliams was never that bitch…”
“Not like me…
“I am the one running all of this shit. I’m the one who is keeping the fucking lights on. I hold this championship and it means something. Others will come in and beat me for it and then I will have to rescue it. I had to rescue this championship from Andrea Hernandez. I had to rescue it from Juliana de Maria. And now I’ve had to rescue it from not just Crystal but also Mercedes. I just want to remind you all that this championship, a championship that is around the waist of the best female wrestler on the planet, was defended in a tag team match. Two old decrepit bitches defended the championship against two women who should not have gotten near it.”
She rolls her eyes and grabs the championship belt. She holds it in her right hand looking down at it, her eyes tracing over the centre plate, over the SCW logo and down to her name.
”And the saddest part about all of this is that you all thought I was done. You all thought that I had been ended. That Frankie Holiday had taken my championship and started a whole new dynasty for herself. The rookie who in her first year had been able to win the Blast from the Past, but then also beat me for the SCW Bombshells Championship. A woman who had one of the greats as her mentor. A woman who was going to go on and become the best of the best and have the kind of career that everyone could only dream of. That’s what you all thought, isn’t it? That’s what you all thought. Amazing. Legitimately amazing that you all thought that was what was going to happen. But what happened?”
“Where was this great run, hmm?”
“Before I talk about my opponent’s failures let me remind you all of something. When I first came into this company I was looked at as a nobody. It’s true, I was. All I kept hearing was that I would end up getting my shot. I had an opportunity in my first match. I won. I won my second match. Then nothing. Nothing. I want you all to sit back and realise how incredibly stupid that was. I won my first matches and then I sat in catering for months. And as much as you all think I’m some kind of bitch that will just go and speak her mind, I was giving SCW an opportunity. An opportunity to give me the chances that I had earned. And they didn’t. So what is a girl to do when she’s being ignored by her bosses? Well, it was very simple.”
“I kicked Mark Ward’s door down and I demanded that I get a match.”
“I was the redheaded stepchild that nobody wanted. And after they couldn’t ignore me anymore I started getting my matches. I started destroying everyone they put me in the ring with. I won Internet Championships, three of them. I won two Mixed Tag Team Championships and now I am a three-time World Bombshells Champion. You can count my losses without using all of your fingers. My singles losses are even fewer. But, even though I absolutely dominated this company with Finn by my side, we were overlooked for things like Couple of the Year. I was overlooked for Woman of the Year last year as Victoria Lyons got it. And then at the same show, High Stakes, Frankie lost the championship to Crystal. I had to watch her lose the championship to that woman while I wasn’t even on the show. Yeah, apparently Justin Smith was good enough to get a match but I wasn’t. Imagine that. Candy was on the show and I wasn’t.”
Her voice is filled with venom and anger, her eyes burn too. The emerald green looking like green fire as her hands clap together as she leans forward.
”But now, I’m the champion again, Frankie. All is almost right with the world. And this match was always going to happen. If you had your opportunity first, I have a feeling that you would have avenged your loss to Crystal and then you would be the one going into this match as champion. But I was the one who got my match first. So I ended her reign. I was the one who took this title back. And from that moment I knew that you and I were going to end up facing each other. I told Mercedes Vargas that I was going to give her some time to surrender the championship to me but she ended up doing it later that night because she knew damn well that I was going to end her if she didn’t give me the championship.”
“So, at Blaze of Glory you and I are going to meet again. And it’s funny because I look at how this match is being framed, even by the company. And my stomach starts to churn and gargle and I start to feel angry, anxious even.”
“See, they are talking about this as if I’m trying to simply avenge something. This company is talking about you beating me like it was some kind of foregone conclusion. You beat me at Violent Conduct. That is where you ended my championship reign. This is true, it’s a matter of fact. But what people seem to forget is that on the cruise ship at Summer XXXTreme I beat you. But you wouldn’t know that, would you? You wouldn’t know that by any of the marketing that has been released before this show. In fact the official website makes it sound like you faced me once and it was done. You dethroned me, you took my championship and it somehow exposed me.”
“I’m not even making that up. It says it exposed a crack in the myth of who I am. It’s amazing how people tend to forget.”
“See, this match is the end of a trilogy. I beat you, you won the Blast from the Past and you came back and beat me. Now I’ve been able to beat the crap out of the woman who took the championship from you and you have your chance at it going against me. Three matches, three supercards. You and I seem destined to do this, Frankie. But instead of the company leaning into the fact that this is a trilogy, instead of the company building this up as an epic showdown between two women who have been able to go on an absolute tear through the entire division and are now looking at settling it for the third time, all of the marketing, all of the hype, everything is built around the fact that you beat me once. Built around the fact that you took that championship from me and then before I could have my rematch against you, you went and lost it to fucking Crystal fucking Caldwell.”
“I can handle you beating me. I can handle you taking that championship from me. But what I can’t handle, Frankie, is you disappointing me.”
Kayla takes a deep breath and sits back, the venom from her voice changing. She looks and sounds like she is legitimately disappointed. Her shoulders slumping down as her body language changes.
”You were supposed to be my successor. Not just my successor but also your mentor’s successor. You were supposed to be the next big thing, the next woman that was going to rule this division with an iron fist. That’s what you were supposed to do. For over a year, over two separate championship runs, I held this company’s women’s division up over my head. I carried it on my back, and I did so with a smile on my face. People can think everything negative they want to about me, but at the end of the day I love this business, I love this championship and I love this company and I have done everything I can to make sure that this company and this division reached heights and success that it had never seen before.”
“And I was tired. I was exhausted. Defending the Mixed Tag Team Championships as well as the Bombshells Championship was wearing me down. Physically, mentally, emotionally. I was beaten down and I was beaten up and when you beat me a weight lifted off of my shoulders. I felt like I was going to be able to breathe again. To step back and let you take that torch and lead the division into the future.”
“But now? Well Frankie, I’m not tired anymore. Now I’m angry. I’m angry because you failed. I’m angry because after you lost to me you then lost to Kate Steele, you picked yourself up, you won the Blast from the Past and got another opportunity at me. You were able to beat me and then you let it all fall apart. You let Crystal beat you and now here you are stepping in front of me to get your championship opportunity when you should’ve never gotten one in the first place. The reason why I have a championship opportunity against Crystal is because I had earned it through my last run. I held it for over 160 days and I defended it against anyone they put me in the ring with. Remind me again, how long did you hold that championship? Less than two months?”
“What a joke…”
“But I can’t help but wonder where you are going to go. Are you going to own up to your failures or are you going to use the “I’m still just a rookie” line that you have used time and time again to explain away your failures? When are you going to step up and try and be the champion that we all thought you were going to be? Because you look at our track records, you look at what I’ve been able to accomplish and what you’ve been able to accomplish and it’s not even close. 51 wins, eight losses, think about that. Think about the monumental effort that I’ve had to go through to win all of those matches and be the champion that this company and this division deserved.”
“And now think about what you failed with. How you dropped the ball.”
“Take all of that anger that I have, all of that frustration in not only watching you fail but also knowing that I could’ve prevented it if I had just beaten you at Violent Conduct. Then throw in the fact that this company seems to refuse to acknowledge that I already beat you and that you beating me means that you are holding it over my head and that you are somehow in there stopping me from going forward. That is frustrating, that is annoying. I know what it takes to beat you, Frankie. I could’ve taken my opportunity at that championship the first time. I could’ve taken it right there and then and snatched that championship back off of you after Violent Conduct because now I see that you weren’t ready….”
“And you still aren’t. So at Blaze of Glory I’m gonna take all that responsibility that you dropped the first time and I’m going to take it off your shoulders. Because you don’t deserve the pressure of being a champion. You haven’t earned it, so I’m going to end you.”
