Unfiended

Chapter 5

Home is where the heart is. For Seth, that usually meant wherever Becky was, whether it was Iowa or California, America or abroad, a hotel room or an arena. For someone who was so accustomed to wearing his heart on his sleeve, even when it meant he was dubbed too sensitive, it was sheer agony to see Becky regressing. Sometimes Seth wasn't even sure he could trust what he was seeing or hearing. Hunter and others had accused him of holding a grudge against Bray, of being overprotective of Becky, but now that she had tried to choke Charlotte, all could do was hope others would take his claims more seriously. More than anything, he wanted Becky to recover, to go back to lively spitfire who enamoured him—and occasionally irritated—him so completely. Before the unprovoked attack on Charlotte, he thought she was making progress, even with the occasional lapse; now he didn't know what to believe.

By Hunter's decree, Becky was off the schedule for at least a month. Seth was given a few days off to help her adjust, but as soon as he started going to events again, he worried about leaving her behind. "It's for her own good," Hunter assured him when he refused Seth's request to at least bring Becky on the road with him. "She'll just miss wrestling even more, and if fans see her at the hotel, they'll wonder why she wasn't on the card."

Seth secretly thought Hunter was more worried about her crashing the shows and making a scene, but he kept that to himself. WWE was well within its rights to fire Becky for assault, even though Charlotte was adamant about getting Becky whatever help she needed. She and Roman and others—everyone from Sasha and Bayley to Naomi and the Usos—found excuses to drop in for a visit, and for the first week or so, Seth was grateful. Then he noticed how Becky's eyes dimmed when everyone left, like a computer being powered down.

How much could a person change before they weren't themselves anymore? Seth didn't want to know, at least not when it came to her. He and Becky had hit it off right from the start and been friends for years—confidants, workout partners, allies—and he didn't want to lose any piece of that history, not even the painful parts. He especially didn't want to lose what they had now—or at least not what they used to have. "Fight for it, man," Roman had advised him. "You have to. It's going to be tough and it's going to be uncomfortable, but if we want to get her back from the brink of . . . wherever she is, it's probably going to be messy. Feelings will get hurt and you can always apologize later. The important part is making sure she's there to hear the apology, right?"

Seth still found himself lingering in the kitchen doorway, though, and not just because Becky had a knife in her hand. There was nothing particularly ominous about the way she was chopping the carrots, but given how quickly she had snapped and attacked Charlotte, he wanted to give her plenty of space whenever she had a sharp object. "Hey, Becks," he said, entering the kitchen slowly. He found she stayed calmer if he announced his presence; loud noises and sudden appearances still spooked her.

Normally her eyes lit up whenever she saw him, but they had been mostly murky as of late, like a swamp hinting at dangerous depths. "Hey. Is this enough carrots? I forgot to read the recipe."

The recipe in question was in a cookbook on the counter not even a foot away from the cutting board, but Seth still glanced down at it. "Should be, yeah. If you want, we can still eat out or have something delivered instead."

Becky frowned a bit, eyebrows dipping. She set the knife down, but Seth was keenly aware that her fingers lingered on the handle. "I thought you wanted us to cook more?"

"I do, but—" But going out to eat makes your brain run in some other gear and then I don't have to worry about you as much. And if we get food delivered, I don't have to watch you struggle with something as simple as remembering which dial to turn for the front burner on the stove. Guilt kept him from saying any of those things, though. "It's up to you too," he said at last.