Bridgette was straightening up some things around the floor in her apartment when she heard a knock at the door. She looked up at the clock and it was 6:30 on the dot. She went over and opened the door and saw Colby standing somewhat nervously on the other side.

"Hey." She welcomed.

"Hey." She smiled.

She opened the door more and backed up. "Come on it.."

"Thanks."

"So, I see you've grown to be very, punctual." She said.

He chuckled. "Yeah. I guess you could say I have. With my job I kind of have to be at places at specific times or I'm late for an interview or miss a plane or something." He stood nervously with his hands in his pockets for a moment during the awkward silence. "Besides, I was already nearby and just waiting for it to be 6:30 so I could come up."

She slightly laughed as well. "Also very persistent. You can sit down if you want."

He looked behind him at the couch and took a seat at the end. He glanced around the apartment. It was small but it was nice. The living area was just big enough for a couch, a television, and a coffee table. There was a hallway with the bathroom and bedroom off of it, then a small kitchen at the end. He could see the back wall and fridge from where he was sitting on the couch. "Nice place."

"Thanks. It's not much, but it's mine. Um, I'm not sure if you ate anything yet. Did you want to get some dinner while we talked?"

"Sure. I can eat."

"Do you mind if we just order something for delivery? Normally I would cook, if I had more time. But I only got home half an hour ago and didn't exactly expect this."

He smiled. "Delivery is fine. Whatever you want. I'm not really that picky."

"Chinese? There's a place not far by. It probably won't take long."

"I can never say no to chinese."

She went into the kitchen to get the takeout menu so he could look over it. After she ordered the food she joined him back in the living room. He was sitting there with a white fluffy cat on his lap and he was petting his head.

"You have a cat."

"Queso, get down! I'm sorry. I thought he was sleeping on his bed." She apologized as she tried to shoo the cat away.

Colby laughed at her. "Queso?"

"I like mexican food okay?"

"He seems like a cuddly cat. I don't mind him you know."

"Well, I didn't know if you were allergic, or hated cats, or didn't want to get cat hair on your clothes."

"You need to just calm down and relax." He laughed. "It's just me."

"I know it's you. But this is a very different you than the last you that I knew. This you might as well be a stranger."

"And whos fault is that?" Coolby asked.

He could tell she was slightly annoyed and upset by that comment, which he didn't mean to do, but he was very hurt as well and he couldn't completely hide it. Thankfully there was a knock at the door breaking the odd silence that fell over the room. Bridgette went to answer the door to get the food, then brought it into the kitchen. Colby got up off of the couch and followed her. She placed the bag down on the counter and went to get some plates.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean."

"No. You're right."

"I didn't come here to yell at you."

"Just drop it please. If we're going to do this, I don't want to argue." She then felt her cat rubbing against her leg and looked down to see him meowing. "No Queso. This isn't for you this time."

"This time?"

"It gets lonely sometimes. He's my company. Sometimes we share shrimp fried rice. Stop judging me."

They both made some plates out of the food they got to share and went back into the living room. They both sat down on opposite ends of the couch. Queso sat on the floor staring at Bridgette. She pulled out a vegetable from her lo mein and tossed it to him.

"I guess I was wrong about your hair." She said as she put a fork full of food into her mouth. "The long hair seems to be working for you"

"I told you it was a good idea. So, it's just you and Queso here?" He asked trying to get a conversation going.

"Yup. Mom moved down to Florida last year to help grandma so just me. What about you? How are you living these days?"

"I have a house. It's not huge but it's just what I want."

"Just you?"

"Yeah. I'd love to have a dog, but I'm just not home enough. It wouldn't be fair to it."

"True. That must be hard being on the road all the time."

"It can be. Most of my good friends are the ones I'm on the road with. It gets tiring, but I really love what I do."

"So what do you do besides wrestle and work out? With your schedule it doesn't seem like you have much time for anything else.

Colby stopped eating and thought for a minute. "No, that's pretty much it."

"No girlfriend then?"

"Not currently. What about you? Are you seeing anyone?"

"Nope. Just me and Queso usually."

"Why though? You wanted to start a new life. Why don't' you do adventurous things or go out a lot with people. Why just sit in here with a cat and work behind a computer all day." Colby questioned.

"I did get a new life. It didn't have to be a wild one. I just wanted to go out and do some things for me. That' what I do. I enjoyed taking pictures of things. It took my mind off of things and I really got into photography. Which got me started where I am. I supplied pictures with them for articles and just kind of moved my way up there. And I enjoy sitting in the park and reading, doing Yoga, cuddling up to a movie. I have my space to just be me."

Colby wasn't exactly sure how to feel about that. He was happy for her that she was doing what she wanted to do and happy with it, but at the same time her reasoning sounded so sad. Almost the reason to why they became friends in the first place.

"So why did you leave?" He finally asked.

"Mom said that we had to move. I didn't really have a say in it. I came home one day and she had stuff packed and said we're leaving and that was it. I didn't have time to come and find you or say goodbye."

"Why didn't you reach out after?"

"Mom said it was best if we just kind of laid low for a while. Then as time went by, I figured it'd be best for both of us if I didn't."

"How could you think that? And what were you laying low from? What was going on with you?"

Bridgette placed her plate on the floor and sat back on the couch and turned her head to look over at Colby.

"Cole, life at home was hard. And the longer we were there the harder it got. Mom always tried to do everything right, but she could only do so much."

He stopped eating as well and turned his body on the couch so he was facing her. "Tell me about it."

She breathed in deep. "We moved in when my mom married my step-dad. They hadn't known each other all that long before they got married, but they met at church and he had a good steady job, and seemed like a good guy. So we were hoping things would finally turn around. Mom wouldn't have to work so hard and we would be happy. But the longer we all stayed in the same house and the more comfortable he got, his bad side started to come out. He yelled at mom all the time. Criticized her about her cooking and cleaning and not being home because she was working. About me. He would never talk to me directly but always go to her if there was something I needed to do. 'Tell your daughter she needs to do the dishes. She needs to pull her weight around here.' It always put more stress on her. But she always tried to make it work. She just wanted us to have what we did before Dad died. She tried to ignore it to make things better for me. But what she didn't know is the older I got, the more he started to ignore her and pay attention to me. I tried to ignore it at first, then I tried to deal with it and not tell mom. Eventually things got so bad with him that I did try and tell mom that he was being weird around me and mean to me. I didn't really give her any details, so she just said that because I was getting older he was just trying to be a good dad to me and help me out." She explained her eyes tearing and small sniffles coming out and sh relived it all in her head. She closed her eyes and turned her head away from Colby. "Then when I told her i was pregnant, things clicked in her head and she figured out what I was trying to say without saying. And she got us out. The next day she packed up and when I came home from school, we left."

"Bridge, I'm so sorry." Colby said as he tried to move closer to her. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I never said anything because I didn't want her to be unhappy. And she never said anything about what was going on with her because she just wanted me to have a better life. So we both suffered for longer than we should have."

"I would've been there. I would have helped." He said placing his hand on her knee.

"I know." She said trying to force a small smile. "But I was also afraid that you'd judge me I guess. And I just didn't need that. Hanging out with you and some of the guys was the only happiness I had. I didn't want you to start being different around me making everything suck."

Colby sat on the couch, his hand still on her knee looking at her. He wanted to ask a question, but he wasn't sure just how to do it without upsetting her. He decided there really was no way to avoid it so he tried to ask as gently as possible.

"Bridge, what happened to the baby?

"I lost it." She said wiping away under her eye. "All of the stress of leaving and mom fighting with Scott and not eating properly and everything going on, my body just couldn't handle it."

"I'm so sorry."

"It was what was meant to be. It would've been so hard to raise a baby then, especially with mom just leaving our home and her job and everything. I couldn't have given that baby a good home. But it did help give me life. It brought to light just how fucked up everything was at home and made mom decide to leave. The really messed up thing was, it wasn't even his. But I never told her that because I was so afraid she'd think oh well if that's not it then maybe it's not so bad we can go back."

Just then she heard her cell phone ringing from inside her room.

"I'm sorry, I have to go check that." She said placing her hand on top of his, then getting up and disappearing into her room.

Colby just sat on the couch in awe of everything. He wasn't quite sure what her story would be if he ever found her, but he never thought this would be it. Bridgette always did seem kind of shy and withdrawn around everyone else, but with him she was always this happy bubbly person that he would watch movies with and talk with and listen to music with. He never would have thought that someone was hurting her. And if he did he would have made damn sure that it would have stopped. As she was in her room talking, he also thought about the baby. He had seen her almost every day for months up until the end of the summer and he hadn't known. He had wondered if she had known. Then a thought smacked him in the face. If it wasn't her ex step-father's baby, who's was it? He got up off the couch and walked over to her bedroom door. Just as he got there, she opened the door and almost walked right into him.

"Sorry Cole. I didn't know you were there." She apologized.

"That's okay. Everything alright?" He asked concerned.

"Yeah, it was just work. Letting me know about a scheduling change for printing issues." She answered still standing in the doorway.

He nodded. "Good." Then looking passed her head, he thought he saw something familiar through the crack in the somewhat open door.

"I'm going to go grab a water. Did you want one?" Bridgette asked.

"Yeah, sure. Thanks."

She walked around him and down to the kitchen to grab the water from the fridge. He knew he probably shouldn't have, but he slightly pushed the door open a little more to her room. He had no right to, but he wanted to see if what he saw was what he thought. He took a step into her room and looked around. And there on her wall by her closet door was a poster of Seth Rollins holding the WWE championship.

"Kind of childish to have posters hanging up on your wall, huh?" He heard from behind him causing him to jump.

"I uh, " He stuttered trying to think of something to say about getting caught in her room.

"It's okay. I tried to hide it, but what can you do?"

"You have this in here?" She asked pointing to the poster.

"Of course. I was so proud of you for that. I actually sat here and cried with it happened. Poor Queso, he didn't know what was going on." Bridgette laughed.

"You watched it?"

She sighed. "Cole, I want to forget all of that from my past. I wanted to start a new life, which meant not having you in it everyday. It would just have been too difficult with all that happened. But that doesn't mean I didn't think about you."

"So that's why you knew all that stuff about the business and what I do."

"Guilty. You have no idea how I felt that morning when I got the call saying they needed me for the event and you were the special guest. My heart just dropped into my stomach."

"Well I'm glad you got the call." He smiled. She smiled back at him. "Hey Bridgette, if your dad wasn't you know, who was the father?"

"It happened earlier on in the summer." She replied. "Around early June."

"The night of the strawberry festival?" He asked.

She looked down onto the floor.

"Yeah."