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Karen sat uneasily in her own personal locker room as she steeled herself. Well, there was no more putting off the inevitable. It was time to just go ahead and do what she needed to.
Kurt was already in the ring, a microphone in his hand. He was speaking gently, with a placid expression on his face to match, and requesting her presence. He wanted an answer from her regarding the "heartfelt" plea he'd made the prior week.
She swallowed hard and rose, shaking her head. If that was what he wanted, so be it - she wasn't going to make him wait any longer.
The tall brunette left her locker room and made her way down the hallway. She ignored the stares of wrestlers around her for the time being. Instead, she rehearsed in her mind everything she'd been wanting to say to her husband, down to the last little word. It wasn't as though she needed to do that, however, as she'd known from the moment those rude words had left his lips the prior week, what she was going to say.
"Karen," Kurt was saying in the center of the ring, his voice taking on a pleading tone, "please come out here. Please... right now."
The crowd reacted immediately as she emerged from the back and stepped onto the ramp. She gazed seriously over at her husband and kept her strength. She had to, or she wouldn't be able to do this at all. It wasn't that she couldn't face him, just the prospect of doing so here, in front of a huge audience.
She grabbed a microphone before stepping carefully into the ring in the heels she wore. She shook her head as she met her husband's blue eyes.
"Karen," Kurt said, a smile on his face, "so, you're here to come back... You're coming back home and bringing the kids. This is wonderful!"
She cocked her head as she eyed him with annoyance. He just didn't get it and never would.
"Kurt, I have made a decision... Unfortunately, it's not the one you want to hear."
The Olympic champion's face suddenly fell. He simply gaped at his wife.
"You really don't get it, do you?" she questioned, a sardonic laugh escaping her. She shook her head yet again. "I left you once before, Kurt. And when I took you back, things were great for awhile until you fell right back into your usual ways." Karen kept the steady eye contact with him in spite of the sudden anger that crossed her features. "I am not going to fall for it again... and I am not going to play second fiddle to your career, Kurt! No more and never again!"
"I'll change!" The bald former TNA Champion got down on his knees before her. Karen rolled her eyes and glanced around as though she were on another planet before eyeing him again. He was truly pathetic if he thought she was going to buy into this ploy. "I swear it on our kids' lives, Karen," he announced, "I can change!"
"You're not going to chance," the brunette corrected. "And you know what? That's fine... because I want a divorce!" she shouted. As she dropped the mic and made her way out of the six-sided ring, Angle's eyes widened with shock. She began to walk away, and before she reached the stage area, he did a one-eighty.
"Fine, you want to play, Karen?"
She turned back to face him.
"You go on!" Kurt yelled. "Go on back to your little boyfriend, AJ Styles!"
Karen ran back to the ring at the mention of AJ's name. At the same time, her heart nearly skipped a few beats. She grabbed the microphone she'd abandoned a moment earlier, facing her husband again.
"AJ is not my boyfriend!"
The man sneered.
"Oh, like hell he isn't!" He inched closer to her, sticking his face into hers. "People talk, Karen... And talk around TNA is that you've been seeing AJ behind my back! You bitch, you've been cheating on me with him all this time!"
She shook her head as she responded.
"That's not true! AJ and I are just friends!" While it was true that at the moment that was all they really were, Karen had a nasty feeling in the pit of her stomach. Those mutual feelings were of course still there between her and the young man. But they'd decided to wait until the divorce proceedings were underway before starting their actual relationship.
"Right... Sure, Karen, sure." Kurt's blue eyes grew hard and cold as ice as he muttered the next sentence to her. "With a friend like AJ Styles, you really have no reason to have a husband, huh?"
The brunette's mouth flew open, and she backed away, dropping the mic again. She had to get out of the ring and away from him before she did something she would regret, like slap him.
"You go on," he cried as she broke into a run up the ramp, "but AJ is in for a world of hurt! Oh, it's real, Karen Angle... It's damn real!"
Karen cast one last look back at her husband from over her shoulder. She felt thoroughly chilled to the bone...
because she knew Kurt, and she knew he was not one to back down from a promise of that nature.