Post by Leese on Sept 29, 2020 21:49:58 GMT
September 29th
Santa Ana, California
Circa 11:40 AM
Kameron waved as the car containing his son, daughters and brother reversed out of the driveway. It was handy having Cole available as a babysitter since it was still going to be a couple of weeks at least before the schools reopened. He was also much more patient than Kameron was when it came to home schooling and helping out with distance learning and he seemed to enjoy it, too, so the arrangement was mutually beneficial. As he headed back inside and closed the door, he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. If this was Mark saying he was skipping out of training because he'd spent all night at the studio...
He took out his phone and saw an unknown, but local, number on the screen. Not Mark bailing then. He took back the threat he'd constructed for his cousin in his head and swiped to take the call. Since opening the school he'd had to break out of the habit of not answering calls from phone numbers he didn't recognise, in case it was a potential new student. California area codes tended to be that lately.
"Hello?"
"Hey, big brother," said a familiar but long-forgotten voice from the other end of the line.
"Chelsea?"
"Don't hang up," she said quickly.
"How did you—?" He trailed off, part of him numb from hearing the voice on the other end of the line after so many years. He'd changed his phone number long ago; after he'd distanced himself from wrestling and pretty much everyone he used to know.
"You opened a business, Kameron. It's not hard to find contact details of whoever is behind a domain. You can pay a kid five bucks to do that on the Internet."
Well, her attitude was certainly still there. He could see her in his mind's eye rolling her eyes. It made every muscle in his body tense up.
"Have you been keeping tabs on me?"
He'd literally moved across the entire country to start his new venture with Mark, and she was apparently using a phone in California. It made him nauseous.
"No, I—" She sighed. "I've heard rumblings about some GEW thing and—"
"None of your business."
"Kam—"
"No." He cut her off abruptly. "Forget you heard anything about anything."
He had no idea how the news had made its way to her. Everybody involved had been careful to not broadcast it ahead of time. There were too many skeletons in the closet of GEW – Chelsea being one of them – and they'd all agreed to keep it quiet until the time came. This was supposed to be a closing chapter; a final nail in the coffin. Had she been watching him? And, if so, for how long?
"How did you even find out?"
"It doesn't matter how," she said. "Just hear me out."
"No."
"Just let me—"
"Absolutely not."
Chelsea sighed heavily. "Look, I know I messed things up back then but that was a long time ago and I ju—"
"Messed things up? Messed things up? Chelsea, do you have any idea how many lives you completely RUINED with your shit? You didn't just mess things up. You ripped them apart, set them on fire and then stomped the ashes into the ground. You—"
He cut himself off, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. She was opening an old wound that he thought had healed over, but now seemed as fresh as ever, and she was rubbing salt in it. Forgiving and forgetting wasn't something he could even come close to doing when it came to his livelihood and everything he'd ever worked for being destroyed by someone he'd at one point thought he could trust, in what seemed like a split second. Still, he didn't want to give her the satisfaction of riling him up.
"I don't even know why I'm giving you even a moment of my time. You don't deserve anything from me."
"I know," she said, her voice softening and reverting to the meek tone that had worked on him so many times in the past. "I know and I'm sorry for everything. I don't even know how or why things got to the place they did but James changed me and—"
"Stop it. You don't get to make excuses and blame it on someone who isn't and hasn't been around for, like, ever." His one-time best friend, at that. "This has nothing to do with James. What you did is on you."
"I want to make it right, Kam."
"You can't. Ever. There is no making it right or fixing it or mending bridges or chance of reconciliation." He barely even paused for breath. "No. We're done. We were done a long time ago."
"Please, Kameron. We can work things out. Time heals all wounds, right?" She was reaching, and then she tried to play her trump card. "You're my brother."
"No. No, I'm not," he said, and he meant it. "I liked it better when I thought you were dead."
And with that, he hung up the phone and it was only then that he realised how tightly he'd been gripping it. As he turned it over in his hand to unlock the screen, he noticed that his hands were shaking. "Get a grip," he mumbled to himself as he navigated to the call list and blocked her number. He didn't want to have to deal with that again.
He sat down, squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing his forehead as he rested his elbow on the arm of the chair, but in a flash he was up again. He was on edge now; too restless. Nothing could have prepared him for that and he was struggling to process it. Anger, confusion, paranoia and even a sense of sadness all seemed to be rushing through him at once. He headed toward the kitchen, stubbing his little toe on the table leg as he went.
"Ow, fuck!"
He clenched his teeth, limping the rest of the way. A moment later, Ryan came down the stairs with his gym bag over his shoulder and frowned as he saw Kameron opening a Bud Lite he'd just taken from the fridge. It wasn't even noon yet. Kam glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed. It was time to get going. Since opening the school they'd been running afternoon and evening sessions three times a week, to make sure no restrictions on capacity were broken and to give all students a chance to get in as much training as they could.
"You OK?" Ryan asked, raising his eyebrows as he looked at his dad, who looked like he'd just seen – or indeed spoken to – a ghost.
"No, I mean yeah just... go wait in the car."
Ryan wasn't convinced. "What's up?"
"Just GO, Ryan."
The teenager raised his hands in surrender, deciding to not press the issue any further, and headed to the front door as Kameron downed the beer and then threw the empty bottle across the room. It smashed against the far wall, making the dog yelp and hightail it up the stairs. Kam hadn't even realised he was there. He leaned his back against the kitchen counter, gripping the edge tightly as he raised his head to the ceiling, closed his eyes and let out a long breath. "Get a fucking grip," he told himself again. He took a minute to compose himself, then swiped his keys up from the counter and exited the house. Time to get back to business.
September 29th
Irvine, California
Circa 12:15 PM
As soon as they stepped through the door to the main hall, Ryan headed to change as Kameron made a beeline for Mark who was outside of the ring. "We need to talk," he said, not breaking his stride as he grabbed his cousin by the elbow. "Now, Mark."
"Hey, Collins," Mark called out to Napoleon Collins, one of the senior members at the school who had graduated under Scott Simmonds and Benji Merrick several years ago but had jumped onboard at Wildfire to further hone his craft. "Get the warm-up going. We'll be back soon."
Napoleon nodded his head and climbed into the ring as the two head trainers walked across the room to the far side, where they were out of earshot of everybody else.
"OK, you can let go now," Mark said, ripping his arm from his cousin's grip and frowning. "What's so urgent that it couldn't wait a few hours?"
"Chelsea's back."
"What?"
"Well, not back-back... but still back."
Mark's eyebrows raised and he gestured with open hands, prompting Kameron to explain whatever the hell he was rambling on about.
"She called me. Said she'd heard about the reunion and she wanted to make things right."
Mark gave a short laugh. "This is a joke, right?"
"Does it look like I'm joking?" Kameron half-snapped. "Am I laughing right now?"
"OK, so she called you. That doesn't mean she's back. Maybe she's just... I dunno, lonely and regretting shit."
Kameron scoffed. "Please. This is Chelsea we're talking about."
"Or... she's just trying to get under your skin and throw you off your game before your match. Maybe she's working with Scott or something."
"What connection does she have to Scott?"
Mark shrugged. "Just trying to make sense of things."
"That doesn't make any sense," Kameron said, shaking his head.
"She could be anywhere, Kam. Just block her number and forget about it."
"She's in Cali."
"What?"
"You heard me. She called from a Cali number."
Suddenly, Mark was taking it a lot more seriously. "Are you sure?"
Kameron rolled his eyes. "Considering it said ‘California' on the screen before I answered it, yes I'm sure. She's not smart enough to use any fake number thing."
"Where in Cali?"
"I don't know, Mark!" Kameron threw his hands up. "I've been here for two minutes. I don't know every area code."
"What was it?" Mark was trying to stay calm and rationalise whatever was going on, because he could tell Kameron was on the verge of freaking out.
"Hold on," Kameron took out his phone and navigated to his recent calls, then read from the blocked number. "949."
"949?"
"Yeah. Know it?"
Mark chewed on his bottom lip and nodded his head. "Yeah, it's local."
"How local?"
"Could be Orange, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach or, ya know, Irvine..."
"FUCK!" Kameron yelled and, much like the beer bottle half an hour before, his phone met the wall. The loud smack caused everyone in the room to turn to look at them before Napoleon got their attention again and called for push-ups.
"Go the fuck home, Kam," Mark said through clenched teeth. The other man's outburst had wound him up. He was acting like some serial killer was on his back, rather than his younger half-sister who was probably just trying to stir up some trouble. They could handle her. "You're no good to anybody here. I'll bring Ryan by later."
He didn't wait for an answer, and he wasn't sure that Kameron was even going to protest anyway.
Santa Ana, California
Circa 11:40 AM
Kameron waved as the car containing his son, daughters and brother reversed out of the driveway. It was handy having Cole available as a babysitter since it was still going to be a couple of weeks at least before the schools reopened. He was also much more patient than Kameron was when it came to home schooling and helping out with distance learning and he seemed to enjoy it, too, so the arrangement was mutually beneficial. As he headed back inside and closed the door, he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. If this was Mark saying he was skipping out of training because he'd spent all night at the studio...
He took out his phone and saw an unknown, but local, number on the screen. Not Mark bailing then. He took back the threat he'd constructed for his cousin in his head and swiped to take the call. Since opening the school he'd had to break out of the habit of not answering calls from phone numbers he didn't recognise, in case it was a potential new student. California area codes tended to be that lately.
"Hello?"
"Hey, big brother," said a familiar but long-forgotten voice from the other end of the line.
"Chelsea?"
"Don't hang up," she said quickly.
"How did you—?" He trailed off, part of him numb from hearing the voice on the other end of the line after so many years. He'd changed his phone number long ago; after he'd distanced himself from wrestling and pretty much everyone he used to know.
"You opened a business, Kameron. It's not hard to find contact details of whoever is behind a domain. You can pay a kid five bucks to do that on the Internet."
Well, her attitude was certainly still there. He could see her in his mind's eye rolling her eyes. It made every muscle in his body tense up.
"Have you been keeping tabs on me?"
He'd literally moved across the entire country to start his new venture with Mark, and she was apparently using a phone in California. It made him nauseous.
"No, I—" She sighed. "I've heard rumblings about some GEW thing and—"
"None of your business."
"Kam—"
"No." He cut her off abruptly. "Forget you heard anything about anything."
He had no idea how the news had made its way to her. Everybody involved had been careful to not broadcast it ahead of time. There were too many skeletons in the closet of GEW – Chelsea being one of them – and they'd all agreed to keep it quiet until the time came. This was supposed to be a closing chapter; a final nail in the coffin. Had she been watching him? And, if so, for how long?
"How did you even find out?"
"It doesn't matter how," she said. "Just hear me out."
"No."
"Just let me—"
"Absolutely not."
Chelsea sighed heavily. "Look, I know I messed things up back then but that was a long time ago and I ju—"
"Messed things up? Messed things up? Chelsea, do you have any idea how many lives you completely RUINED with your shit? You didn't just mess things up. You ripped them apart, set them on fire and then stomped the ashes into the ground. You—"
He cut himself off, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. She was opening an old wound that he thought had healed over, but now seemed as fresh as ever, and she was rubbing salt in it. Forgiving and forgetting wasn't something he could even come close to doing when it came to his livelihood and everything he'd ever worked for being destroyed by someone he'd at one point thought he could trust, in what seemed like a split second. Still, he didn't want to give her the satisfaction of riling him up.
"I don't even know why I'm giving you even a moment of my time. You don't deserve anything from me."
"I know," she said, her voice softening and reverting to the meek tone that had worked on him so many times in the past. "I know and I'm sorry for everything. I don't even know how or why things got to the place they did but James changed me and—"
"Stop it. You don't get to make excuses and blame it on someone who isn't and hasn't been around for, like, ever." His one-time best friend, at that. "This has nothing to do with James. What you did is on you."
"I want to make it right, Kam."
"You can't. Ever. There is no making it right or fixing it or mending bridges or chance of reconciliation." He barely even paused for breath. "No. We're done. We were done a long time ago."
"Please, Kameron. We can work things out. Time heals all wounds, right?" She was reaching, and then she tried to play her trump card. "You're my brother."
"No. No, I'm not," he said, and he meant it. "I liked it better when I thought you were dead."
And with that, he hung up the phone and it was only then that he realised how tightly he'd been gripping it. As he turned it over in his hand to unlock the screen, he noticed that his hands were shaking. "Get a grip," he mumbled to himself as he navigated to the call list and blocked her number. He didn't want to have to deal with that again.
He sat down, squeezing his eyes shut and rubbing his forehead as he rested his elbow on the arm of the chair, but in a flash he was up again. He was on edge now; too restless. Nothing could have prepared him for that and he was struggling to process it. Anger, confusion, paranoia and even a sense of sadness all seemed to be rushing through him at once. He headed toward the kitchen, stubbing his little toe on the table leg as he went.
"Ow, fuck!"
He clenched his teeth, limping the rest of the way. A moment later, Ryan came down the stairs with his gym bag over his shoulder and frowned as he saw Kameron opening a Bud Lite he'd just taken from the fridge. It wasn't even noon yet. Kam glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed. It was time to get going. Since opening the school they'd been running afternoon and evening sessions three times a week, to make sure no restrictions on capacity were broken and to give all students a chance to get in as much training as they could.
"You OK?" Ryan asked, raising his eyebrows as he looked at his dad, who looked like he'd just seen – or indeed spoken to – a ghost.
"No, I mean yeah just... go wait in the car."
Ryan wasn't convinced. "What's up?"
"Just GO, Ryan."
The teenager raised his hands in surrender, deciding to not press the issue any further, and headed to the front door as Kameron downed the beer and then threw the empty bottle across the room. It smashed against the far wall, making the dog yelp and hightail it up the stairs. Kam hadn't even realised he was there. He leaned his back against the kitchen counter, gripping the edge tightly as he raised his head to the ceiling, closed his eyes and let out a long breath. "Get a fucking grip," he told himself again. He took a minute to compose himself, then swiped his keys up from the counter and exited the house. Time to get back to business.
September 29th
Irvine, California
Circa 12:15 PM
As soon as they stepped through the door to the main hall, Ryan headed to change as Kameron made a beeline for Mark who was outside of the ring. "We need to talk," he said, not breaking his stride as he grabbed his cousin by the elbow. "Now, Mark."
"Hey, Collins," Mark called out to Napoleon Collins, one of the senior members at the school who had graduated under Scott Simmonds and Benji Merrick several years ago but had jumped onboard at Wildfire to further hone his craft. "Get the warm-up going. We'll be back soon."
Napoleon nodded his head and climbed into the ring as the two head trainers walked across the room to the far side, where they were out of earshot of everybody else.
"OK, you can let go now," Mark said, ripping his arm from his cousin's grip and frowning. "What's so urgent that it couldn't wait a few hours?"
"Chelsea's back."
"What?"
"Well, not back-back... but still back."
Mark's eyebrows raised and he gestured with open hands, prompting Kameron to explain whatever the hell he was rambling on about.
"She called me. Said she'd heard about the reunion and she wanted to make things right."
Mark gave a short laugh. "This is a joke, right?"
"Does it look like I'm joking?" Kameron half-snapped. "Am I laughing right now?"
"OK, so she called you. That doesn't mean she's back. Maybe she's just... I dunno, lonely and regretting shit."
Kameron scoffed. "Please. This is Chelsea we're talking about."
"Or... she's just trying to get under your skin and throw you off your game before your match. Maybe she's working with Scott or something."
"What connection does she have to Scott?"
Mark shrugged. "Just trying to make sense of things."
"That doesn't make any sense," Kameron said, shaking his head.
"She could be anywhere, Kam. Just block her number and forget about it."
"She's in Cali."
"What?"
"You heard me. She called from a Cali number."
Suddenly, Mark was taking it a lot more seriously. "Are you sure?"
Kameron rolled his eyes. "Considering it said ‘California' on the screen before I answered it, yes I'm sure. She's not smart enough to use any fake number thing."
"Where in Cali?"
"I don't know, Mark!" Kameron threw his hands up. "I've been here for two minutes. I don't know every area code."
"What was it?" Mark was trying to stay calm and rationalise whatever was going on, because he could tell Kameron was on the verge of freaking out.
"Hold on," Kameron took out his phone and navigated to his recent calls, then read from the blocked number. "949."
"949?"
"Yeah. Know it?"
Mark chewed on his bottom lip and nodded his head. "Yeah, it's local."
"How local?"
"Could be Orange, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach or, ya know, Irvine..."
"FUCK!" Kameron yelled and, much like the beer bottle half an hour before, his phone met the wall. The loud smack caused everyone in the room to turn to look at them before Napoleon got their attention again and called for push-ups.
"Go the fuck home, Kam," Mark said through clenched teeth. The other man's outburst had wound him up. He was acting like some serial killer was on his back, rather than his younger half-sister who was probably just trying to stir up some trouble. They could handle her. "You're no good to anybody here. I'll bring Ryan by later."
He didn't wait for an answer, and he wasn't sure that Kameron was even going to protest anyway.