Chapter 42

1 week until WrestleMania

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Karlee awoke, startled as she wiped the sweat from her forehead. The dream in which had woke her from her sleep was now a distant memory and she shook the fuzziness from her head before standing up. As she walked towards the curtains, she sighed, knowing it was the middle of the night am she would probably struggle to fall back asleep. She grabbed her phone and sat on the bench by the window. The gloominess of the British weather seemed to only further depress her. It was always bloody dark.

As she scrolled mindlessly, grunting at all the happy photos from her friends back home she stopped suddenly when a familiar face appeared on the screen. Her chest tightened as she stopped herself from clicking on the 'breaking news' story. Dean was the front and centre, bloody lip and grinning into a paparrazzi's face. She cringed as she read the headline.

'Boozing, Banging and Brawling. WWE headliner makes most of single life'

She had vowed to stay away from the press and tabloids. It only made her pain hurt hat little bit more, and she knew most of them would be lies. She took a deep breath and clicked the link. Karlee waited with bated breath as it loaded on the small screen.

The first picture was the same one on the cover of the article. Deans arms splayed, fresh from a fight with a massive drunk grin on his face. He hadn't fought in a bar since well before his WWE days and she knew it was a release for him when he was struggling. They had had many a conversation about when he used to get beat in his indie days and Dean used to explain that the best way to get over a loss was to go and I've a fight with someone bigger than him.

The next photo was from the same night. Same clothes anyway and he had his arms round some blonde she didn't recognise. Another pang in Karlee's chest made her suddenly aware this was not a good idea. She was just away to click off and go back to bed when Seth's face appeared on screen.

'Hello?" She answered.

'Yeah, hey. Um... We think the babies will be here soon." Karlee jumped to her feet. She needed to scream with excitement.

"uh, is everything okay? I'll get the next flight over." she heard Seth sigh and knew he was pacing.

"Yeah it is for just now. She is in a lot of pain just now but they're giving her drugs. She wants you by her side." Karlee started throwing clothes onto her bed off the floor. She scrambled around as she tried to gather what she needed. Then it hit.

"Are you ready to come back?" Seth asked. She couldn't come up with an answer. Was she? She stuttered and mumbled her words before stopping to compose herself.

"I don't have any option." and with that she hung up. She didn't want grilled or told anything about Dean. She needed to pack and get on the closest flight she could.

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She was so worried abut attracting press attention that when she walked into the airport and nobody took her on, she wondered what was wrong. When she noticed all the love island contestants standing for a photoshop, she knew she would be okay.

A million thoughts were running through her head and she knew she would probably have to face up to Dean when she went back. She found herself casually looking at the ring on her finger. The diamonds sparkled, and she caught herself smiling. No. She had to focus on Kaitlyn, Seth and the babies.

After arriving at the airport far too early, she found herself getting bored too easy. Flicking through the apps on her phone, she hovered over her search engine. If she typed her name in, all that she would see was all the shit that had been said about her in the tabloids. She always dreaded that, especially not being the most secure person in the world.

'Fuck it.' she mumbled and typed her name into google.

"Karlee gone from WWE? Five reasons why." she clicked the first link from some fan forum. She quickly realised it was just people speculating but she was also intrigued.

Injury, pregnancy, internal communications gone wrong. You name it, it was an excuse. One of them was that she had split with Dean but the fans quickly squashed the reasoning in the comments, claiming they would never split. Her heart ached slightly as she read some of the comments.

The next article made her chuckle slightly. She knew Dean had been paired back up with Sofia, but what she didn't know was that during every single one of her matches since Karlee had left, she was inundated with 'We want Karlee' chants. Reasoning further down the article, she noticed the was a video and she clicked on it. Her heart flipped again as she saw Dean, looking a little worse for wear at ringside during a house show and the deafening chants in the background. Dean held his head in his hands as she tried to drown them out. She was just about to shut off her phone when he walked out. He left ringside and went backstage. Karlee wondered if it were the drinking, making the noise unbearable but she knew it was probably the chanting of her name being too much to handle.

Karlee squeezed her eyes shut as she turned her phone off and threw it in her bag. The tears threatened to break free but she took a deep breath and got herself under control. She lulled her hood tighter around her and brought her knees up to her chest. This was going to be hard and it was going to hurt. But it had to be done.

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