What really frightens me

Fear.

While Olivia Henderson is no stranger to its suffocating grip, this time there is something foreign about the way its fingers tighten around her heart. Travis Greipe looks down at her, cheeks a pale shade of pink as a nervous smile creases slightly parted lips. She has thought about this from the moment she saw him in that crowded hallway at school on his first day, dreaming about him leaning down and pressing his lips against hers.

A kiss.

Her first kiss.

Olivia closes her eyes…

“What are you thinking about?”

She opens them, the jagged scar of a smile not the one she expected to see.

“Uh…” the child of The Grin looks to her left, then toward the right to take in her surroundings. She realizes that she must have been daydreaming, because the object of her affection is nowhere to be found. Instead, she is seated across from her father at the dining room table. “Nothing, just a math problem that's been giving me trouble.”

“You must really like math, because I've never smiled like that about anything school related.” Tony Gamble chuckles softly to himself. “Well, that was before that's all I could do… Obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“Anyway, I called you down here to talk to you about something important,” his eyes shift away as he speaks, toward the ground as he musters up the courage to have a talk he would rather her mother discuss with her. Not because it was a topic he felt uncomfortable discussing, but because it was something that might make her uneasy.

“Is it about Travis,” her cheeks blush slightly as a timorous grin eases onto her lips.

“No,” he replies. “But I'm sure that's something we're going to need to talk about sooner or later.”

A nod is her response.

“There's something I've been keeping from you,” he begins, having to clear the lump forming in his throat before he continues. He looks up at her, and notices the furrow on her brow as her eyes narrow. “Do you remember when you and your mom found me passed out and called the paramedics?”

“Yeaaah…” She stretches the word out a bit, unsure as to where the conversation is heading.

“I wasn't honest with you about what happened that night,” it takes everything within him to keep going. “And it wasn't the first time that it had happened.”

“What do you mean?” Olivia places her hand on top of her father's.

“Well, I'm sick.”

-_-_-_-_-

“He doesn't know, none of them do.”

Victoria Henderson is sitting next to Tony Gamble on the couch in her living room. Tony has his head back and his eyes closed, thumb and forefinger on his forehead as he speaks.

“I almost told Cancer, but he's got so much going on right now with Cecilworth… I didn't get much farther than the two of us going back and forth telling each other to go fuck ourselves.”

“That sounds productive,” the former valet, turned mother of his child, rolls her eyes as she laughs.

“Very, actually.”

“You should probably tell your partner.”

“Yeah,” Tony places his hand on his lap. “I just don't want to throw all of this on his lap when we're so close to getting another shot at the titles. I don't want to let him or the Bandits down.”

“How do you think your daughter is going to feel if this kills you, Antonio?”

He sits up and looks over at her.

You don't think that's going to let her down?”

“I just need to get past this match against Creed, then we go win the titles. Once we win them, I can figure out a way to walk away.”

“If you can walk.”

Tony sighs, his head practically in his lap now as he stares at the carpet for a moment.

“This isn't going to kill me, Vicki. I promised Olivia I was going to walk her down the aisle one day, so I need to be here for another twenty years at least.”

“Baby steps.”

“Slow down there, grandma.”

“Not what I meant.”

They share a laugh, and much like his daughter did when he told her about his illness, she places her hand on his.