Post-Denial

Gabby's incendiary remarks made Taylor's heart race. She wanted to kill her. She couldn't believe that someone in her own gym would talk so much shit about Cassie, as if she didn't know any better.

She grabbed Gabbie's wrists and held them tight. She lifted Gabbie's hips off the mat and pushed her knee in under her tailbone. "You're a fuckin' idiot," she spat, and violently headbutted Gabbie in the face and pushed back.

"Believe it or not, there's more to life than AFW," she said as she stood up. "You think success here is all there is because you haven't had it, but you can't see the bigger picture." She leaned down again to burn Gabbie with a wild-eyed glare. "I'm going to say this one more time. If you ever say one bad thing about Cassie, ever again, you won't be welcome here anymore, and that's if you can make it out alive. Do. You. Understand?"

Gabbie winced as Taylor head butted her,. She stumbled back and rubbed her head but steeled herself and shoved Taylor away once they were upright. She glared right back at Taylor and stood her ground.

"If you want me to leave, then I'll leave." She growled. "But don't tell me what I can and can't say. I'm never going to be intimidated by someone like you. Elliot might be your best friend, but I've known her my whole life. She's never run from anything."

Gabbie took a deep breath. "You can scream at me. You can tell me I don't know what it's like and you can tell me there's more to life than AFW. All that's true." Gabbie shrugged. "But it's also true that Cassie Elliot couldn't cut it and no matter how many times you beat me up or throw me out, that's still never going to change."

Gabbie turned her back on Taylor purposefully and knelt down as she began to undo her sparring pads. She pulled one off and winged it and then flopped to her hands and knees.

"FUUUUUUCK!" She screamed as she punched the mat. FUCK! FUCK! FUUUUUUCK!" She continued to punch the mat repeatedly with each curse.

Taylor was cold-hearted and ready to kick Gabby out for good when the girl broke down and threw a fit. It made her pause, because she had done the exact same thing not long ago, in the shower, after losing the title. She stopped, and looked over gabby, trying to keep her expression as hard as she could.

"What the fuck is your problem?"

Gabbie snapped back and glared at Taylor. "What the hell do you care? I'm just going to pack up my shit and go. Save us both the trouble of waiting for you to kick me out. Tell Elliot to have a nice life."

It was hard to tell if Gabbie's words were genuine or sardonic.  The blonde pushed herself up, tearing off the rest of her sparring gear and stuffing it under her arm.

Taylor left her shin guards on and tucked her gloves under an arm, and folded her arms over her chest. She cocked an eye at the practically hysterical girl in front of her.

"Theres a word for people like you, I think," she remarked evenly. Her face remained set in stone. She wasn't yet over the idea of throwing Gabby out on her ass.

Gabbie turned and looked back at Taylor with an equally hard look. "I'm sure you know from experience." Gabbie said. She held onto her gear but her shoulders slumped.

"I'm thinking about joining Friction now." She said seriously.

"Well... Yes."

Taylor has lots of experience with crazy people. It was, for the most part, her job.

"I'm sure you could just kickbox your way through some of the lower card girls," Taylor said with a shrug. Honestly, it seemed like a terrible idea. A good wrestler would eat someone like Gabby alive. She lacked skills and size and Taylor wasn't really sure if she wanted to help train her for that... She couldn't imagine why Gabby would want to. She would undoubtedly have more success in Momentum, doing the thing she was good at.

"I'm not stupid." Gabbie said.

"I know that wrestling isn't my area of expertise, but I'm not a singularly focused fighter either. I do know how to do things other than boxing and I've been fighting my whole life. You're right. I'll have no trouble with the girls who just show up looking to strike a pose."

Gabbie furrowed her brow. "I like you, Taylor." Gabbie said suddenly. "Because you don't take shit from anyone and you're a fighter. If we have to kick each others asses because we're both stubborn bitches, that suits me just fine. I like you because you're a fighter." She repeated. "I'm a fighter. I thought Cassie Elliot was a fighter too. No matter how much I loathed her for turning my sister into what she is now, I respected her because she's a fighter. Well... she's not a fighter, she's Jiu Jitsu practitioner, not a fighter and that's not something I was prepared for. I don't know how to wrap my head around that so I'm going to do the only thing I know how to do and fight. And I'm going to keep fighting and I'm not going to give up. No matter what."

Gabbie sighed and then smiled. "I never thought... that maybe it was my sister who could have had an effect on Elliot..." She mused.

Taylor made a sour face and went to the corner to set her gloves on top of the turnbuckle. She knelt down to unstrap her shin guards and laid them down at the edge of the ring.

"Yeah, I'm a fighter. And yeah, Cassie's not, and it's probably the best thing about her. She takes shit from people. Like me," she folded her arms again and let her hips cock to the side. "I treated her like shit, and she decided that she was going to be my friend. I treated her like shit, and she treated me like the best person in the world. She wore me down. She changed my life.

"Cassie never gave up on me, no matter what. She's moving on from wrestling before she ends up old and busted so she can go back home and have a real career and raise kids, and you're acting like she's a coward. Sounds to me like she knows what she really wants."

She shrugged. The chance of her having to beat Gabby's skull in was still very real... She was just not in the mood to listen to people try to talk shit about Cassie. That was just one thing that she couldn't let slide.

"If fighting is really all that matters to you, you're gonna be in big trouble once you realize you can't cut it."

Gabbie shook her head. "Whatever. I'm confident in my ability." Gabbie said. "Just don't whine when I last longer and do better." She said and turned to leave the ring.