I threw myself into the shows, giving everything I had to the matches and to the crowd. But as soon as I was in the locker room, I was distant and not talkative.
When I skyped with Rachel, somehow I knew another bomb was getting ready to go off.
"What aren't you telling me?" I asked.
"What?" She looked at me in surprise.
"You're hiding something."
My sister chewed on her bottom lip before handing her data tablet to Harry.
"Hey, big sis." He smiled, but there was no humor behind it.
"Harry, what's the deal?" I asked.
He looked off camera for a moment before nodding. "There's something you should know. It's about my brother."
How much more of this was I going to take? I closed my eyes and nodded. "Go ahead."
"It's not pretty." Harry looked apologetic.
"Just tell me." I snapped.
"Mother wasn't going to stand for your marriage. She wanted Xander to be with Charlotte from the beginning."
"I knew this." I told him.
"Mother strong armed Xander into being with Charlotte. She bribed him with resident adviser position and $10,000 if he ended things with you and got with Charlotte."
I gripped my phone so hard that I cracked the protective case. "Spineless, gutless coward."
"He was going to end things when you got back from the tour. It just happened to work out the way it did."
I was traded. The one person who was supposed to love me for the rest of my life gave me up over a bucket of money and a job. I had never felt so hurt and betrayed in my life.
"Thanks for telling me, Harry."
"I'm so sorry, Sandy. I knew Xander didn't have the guts to admit it to you, but that's what happened."
Unlike Xander, I kept my promise and didn't contact him until the second to last night on the tour. I ripped into him, confronting him with what Harry had told me. Xander attempted to deny it at first, but then he finally came clean.
"Yes, it's true. But you don't understand how my mother is."
"Really?" My fury rising. "You sleep with someone else, you lie to me, you agree with others except me that our marriage is over, and you still hide behind your witch of a mother."
"Can we please be adults about this?"
"You are so lucky there is an ocean separating us." I said, echoing Becky's threat from two weeks ago.
"I know." Xander sighed. "Believe me, your brother has already gone in on me."
"What did PJ do?" I asked.
"He knocked me out." Xander admitted.
I grinned. I couldn't be prouder of my little brother. When I asked Xander if he had been with Charlotte since that night, he didn't answer.
"I think after all this time, you could be honest with me."
"I don't want to hurt you."
"It's a bit too late for that. I already know the answer, I just need to hear it."
"We've been together every night the last two weeks."
"I can't believe anything that comes out of your mouth." I told him. "You tell me that you love me, you don't want to be with her. Yet you've been sleeping with her when we were supposed to be figuring out what we wanted."
"I've been figuring out what I wanted. Sandy, I do love you. Please don't think otherwise. But I want someone who will be here when I come home."
"Then we'll get a dog!"
"Sandy, we're in different worlds right now. You're wanting to be a wrestler and follow your dreams. And that's great. You're really talented and should be free to live that life. I want kids and a wife who I don't have to worry about getting hurt at work."
"You knew this about me before we got married."
"Then you told me you were taking time off."
"I did."
"And you jumped at the chance to go back when offered the WWE contract."
"That contract is amazing what it's going to do for me."
"Did you think about me? About us?"
"Of course, Xander! I always think about what's best for us, for you."
"Maybe what's best for me to be married to someone who isn't a wrestler." Xander sighed. "What I did was terrible. I wish you could have found out a better way, but ultimately, it's what's right. You've got to know that too. Mother is right. I deserve someone who has the same goals as me."
"You're asking for a divorce." I stated.
"I've already begun filing the separation paperwork. I'm marrying Charlotte once the divorce is finalized."
I couldn't believe it. He's already planning on marrying her as soon as the ink was dry on us.
"Unless." He paused.
I raised an eyebrow. "Unless what?"
"You quit wrestling. For good."
"I can't do that. I love you, I do, but I'm sorry. Being a wrestler just isn't what I do, it's who I am. I thought you understood that."
"Then I'm sorry too."
