Sean extended his arm and rotated it a full 360 degrees in front and around behind him as he tried to loosen his shoulder socket. The elder Kard brother was inside the Golden Pro Wrestling Academy gym locker room, trying to literally unwind from another one of the training sessions.

The past few weeks hadn’t been easy, to say the least.

He and Seth had found enough common ground to give a wrestling reunion a shot, but that relationship turned out to be relatively easy to repair vs. getting back in “ring shape.”  Despite the heights of success that they had already experienced, he and Seth were… old. Early 40s at this point and no longer in their prime.

Sean opened the locker and pulled out some Bengay to rub on his shoulder, which seemed to be the epicenter of his most recent pain. Before sticking it back in the locker, Seth walked up behind him and gave him a friendly pat on that same shoulder.

“Ah!” Sean yelled.

“Oh shit, sorry man,” Seth apologized.

“All good, all good,” said Sean while exhaling a long breath. “I don’t know why I thought this wouldn’t be so bad.”

Seth opened his own locker and grinned.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if we didn’t have old man Miller constantly whispering to his trainers on how to torture us. I think he might still not have forgiven us for what happened back in 21w.”

21^st Century Wrestling was the former wrestling promotion that the Wild Kards and Golden Glen Miller had both competed in. For Glen, it was his last stop in his career, but for the Wild Kards, it was the beginning of theirs. It was also the beginning of their fractured relationship after Seth got a taste of success and had let it get to his head.

“You mean, forgive you?” Sean wryly corrected. He instantly regretted cornering Seth with that bit of moral high ground considering how you’re supposed to treat a recovering addict. “I’m sorry, that was meant to be funny, not a jab.”

“It’s alright,” replied Seth, who paused momentarily before grabbing a fresh shirt out of his locker and putting it on. “I own it. I was a little shit back then… I was running around and calling people little bitches!”

They both let out a chuckle as they finished changing clothes.

“Hey, I’m going to head back to the hotel and do a facetime with Lindsay,” Seth said. “I’ll hit you up later to go get dinner.”

“Cool, sounds good,” acknowledged Sean, who was putting on deodorant.

As the door shut behind Seth, the impact of it closing loosened Seth’s locker, which slowly swung open on its own. As Sean went to close it for him, he noticed a small bottle of pills sitting at the top shelf. Sean gritted his teeth and grabbed the bottle.

That fucking liar! he yelled internally.

Sean ran out of the locker room, down the hallway and out the lobby doors before he stopped Seth midway in the parking lot.

“You said you were off this shit!” accused Sean, holding the pill bottle up in Seth’s face.

Seth’s expression immediately went from surprise to sour.

“What the fuck?” Seth exclaimed. “You went through my locker?”

That part didn’t matter to Sean at all because the pills were the bigger fish to fry.

“It came open when you left! But what the fuck dude… you said you were clean!”

“I am, asshole!” yelled back Seth before grabbing the pill bottle out of Sean’s hand. He looked down at it momentarily before staring Sean in the eye. “I’m bipolar… this medicine practically saved my life.”

“Oh, Jesus…” Sean murmured to himself realizing what he had just done.

“After I had gotten clean and started dating Lindsay, I was still dealing with a lot of the things I had always dealt with; mood swings, depression, insomnia… Lindsay told me if I didn’t get my head figured out, she would leave me. So, I finally went to see a doc about it, and that’s when they diagnosed me and got me on mood stabilizers.”

“Ah, I’m really sorry, I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions,” apologized Sean as he watched Seth furrow his eyes in frustration.

“You know what, Sean,” Seth retorted. “Maybe this whole thing was goddamn mistake. I’ve made my share of those in the past, so I don’t know how I didn’t see this coming. Why would I think anyone in my family could possibly trust me again?”

Seth turned, stormed off and hopped in his vehicle before peeling out of the parking lot.

Sean stood be himself with his head down wondering if he just threw away this whole opportunity with his brother.