been five years since Dad passed away.
For Kylie, it just felt right to pack her stuff and move away. Kylie hoped that her own child would have the same strength and determination she had, but also hoped that it wouldn’t put her through hell like she did to her own mom.
It took a few years and probably a million tense and worried phone conversations with her mom but eventually Kylie started to pay her rent in San Francisco. Soon enough, she started living in houses and apartments with less and less roommates. Every move getting her to a nicer place with more space of her own. Soon enough she was down to just one roommate, and then just as soon, she only started living with someone else when she wanted to and never because she had to. Funny enough, eventually she found herself living in a beautiful mansion married to an owner of a large software company. She had everything she could have wanted.
One of the downfalls though of letting your feelings for what is right guide you is that sometimes the alarms going off in our heads warning us to stay away from someone or something get ignored. Kylie found herself in a mansion, and in a relationship that started out great for a week or two and then started to get bad, and then just continued to get even worse. She had it all though so was able to ignore what her brain was telling her for a long time, and it wasn’t until her ex-husband decided he was done with her that Kylie found herself back where she started all those years ago on a bus leaving her second home. Now headed toward a new life in Venice Beach.
Luckily, she was still young enough to start over. In fact, she felt like she had found herself again. Like those few years she spent being a trophy wife weren’t actually her, and now she was about to start her real life. She could do it. She had done it before, and having no choice but to leave her old life she stepped off the bus at the L.A. station closest to Venice Beach feeling the lightest she had been in as long as she could remember.
Although she was a bit older now than that time she stepped off a bus in San Francisco she still felt like her 17 year old self again. Full of hope and excitement. Of course though, being a little older now meant that she had a few extra necessities with her like an almost maxed out credit card, and at least a few dollars in a bank account, but also a decent resume with experience and connections to help her get a decent job, and most importantly, her dog and best friend Rosie, a Belgian Malinois.
The tragedy of her past relationship felt like the best gift in the world as Kylie contemplated the new things she would be able to try and the old things she loved to do that she could start again. Things like painting. It sounds strange but one of the things she always did since she was a young girl was paint. Specifically, portraits of her friends dogs and cats. It was something she started as a kid and never really grew out of. She loved animals and she loved to paint. Putting the two together was natural for her and made her happier than anything else. Even as an adult. It was a silly thing she liked to do she knew, and let herself be shamed into not doing for years because it wasn’t expected of a wealthy man’s wife in her social circles.
Round 2*
When she entered the Ultimate Pro Elite Spartan, she found out soon everyone just called it the Ultimate, the clean, sparse look of the gym impressed her. The waiting room held a front desk, a leather couch, and the doors to the two locker rooms. Both converged on a workout space floored in polished blonde wood. One wall was mirrors, near the back were a speedbag and a dummy. A side door opened to a smaller room with additional mats for sparring. A giant snarling tiger decorated one wall, a huge dragon the other. The two animals seemed ready to battle one another. The whole room seemed to echo strength. It felt like home for the new her. It felt like somewhere she needed to be
Chris Taylor
G.L. Snodgrass
Lisa Black
Jan Irving
Jax
Margaret Duffy
Erin Bowman
Steve Kluger
Kate Christensen
Jake Bible