My Number One Fan

“Ron,” I gasped, backing away from him as far as I could go. “W-what are you doing here? I thought you were in prison.”
“Parole,” he said. “Good behavior.”
“Then why are you still in the prison uniform?” I asked, eyeing it up and down.
“No other clothes. My parents disowned me after I got expelled from school thanks to a little person by the name of Riley Mitchell, but from what I hear, you’re no longer a Mitchell, you’re a Hardy.” he looked down to my left hand and smirked. “You know that could have been us.”
“Not in a long shot,” I said. His face went from teasing to anger in a second flat, and he advanced on me.
“Why the hell not?” he asked, pushing me against the wall.
“Because you’re a creep and I’ve been in love with Jeff my whole life.” I said.
“Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff, Jeff.” Ron said, throwing his arms into the air and his head back. “Tell me this, if precious little Jeffrey wasn’t in the picture, would I have stood a chance?”
“No,” I said, a shiver running down my spine. He smacked his hands on either side of my head and put his face into mine.
“You know,” he whispered, breathing heavily. “Wrong answer.” Before I could react, he grabbed my shoulders and pushed me to the ground, covering my mouth before I could scream. He straddled my waist to keep me from fighting my way up. I watched, frozen with fear as he brought his other hand up and inched it toward my neck, his fingers wrapping around and squeezing. I felt my air get cut off, and after a while my vision started blurring and going black. I knew I was going to die, and I knew it would be a long time before they found me. I tried to cough, but no air passed through. Out of nowhere, I felt burning as oxygen started filling my lungs. Ron had let go of my throat. I coughed and grasped my neck, but was quickly grabbed up by Ron, who was now holding a gun.
“What the..” I started saying, but the gun being pointed to my head stopped me.
“Shut up, and I’ll let you live a little longer,” he said. I shut my mouth, only to be able to hear footsteps walking around outside. They stopped at the door to the trailer.
“Riley,” Jeff’s voice said, knocking on the door. “Ri are you in there?”
“Don’t say a word,” Ron whispered into my ear. I nodded, tears trailing down my cheeks.
“Riley, honey are you okay?” Jeff said, trying to open the door. Why the hell did I have to lock it? It seemed like an eternity before we heard him leave. I felt my heart break into thousands of pieces as I pictured his perfect face, red with tears and staring at my dead body. He shouldn’t even be worrying right now. He left wrestling for a break due to health issues.
“Are you ready to die?” Ron asked when he was sure Jeff was gone. I didn’t reply, mainly because I knew I had no choice. I closed my eyes as I heard the gun click as Ron loaded a bullet into the chamber, a bullet I knew would leave my brains laying all over the trailer. Out of nowhere I hear breaking glass, followed by a grunt and me falling to the floor. The gun was thrown from Ron’s hand and skittered across the floor.
“Riley, run!” I heard a voice shout. I knew it was Jeff’s. He must of known something was wrong when I didn’t answer.
“No way in hell,” I said, racing across the trailer to grab the gun. I pointed it to the two struggling men, trying to get a shot on Ron. They were moving to much for me to get one. I watched as the men struggled, barely catching the glint of silver that appeared in Ron’s hand out of nowhere.
“Jeff, watch out he has a knife!” I shouted as Ron started slashing the knife toward Jeff, who was just barely missing it.
“Run and get help Riley,” Jeff said, rolling to avoid the knife.
“I’m not leaving you,” I said, jumping into the chaos and reaching for the knife. I felt a sting as the knife swiped my hand, but I didn’t stop fighting. Soon people were storming into the trailer, pulling Ron away from Jeff and me. I would have been clinging to Jeff right now, but his neck was injured and I didn’t want to mess it up any more than it was already.
“Riley, what happened?” Matt asked me as Paul took Ron away.
“I just came here to work,” I said, trying to understand everything that had happened. “I get done and get ready to head home when I feel someone standing behind me. I knew it was him, I don’t know how, but I knew it was Ron. We heard Jeff call for me, but I couldn’t answer because he had a gun to my head. He nearly strangled me to death, and Jeff stopped him from doing that when he came up.”
“How long has he been here?” Jeff asked, rubbing his neck with his hand. The struggled must of strained some of his muscles.
“No idea,” I replied. “All I know is that he was wearing his prison uniform, said it was all he had because his parents disowned him, and he kept asking me if-” my voice trailed off as I looked Jeff up and down. He stared at me, waiting for me to continue.
“If what, Riley?” he asked, straightening up.
“He kept asking if, you weren’t in the picture, if he would of stood a chance on getting with me,” I answered, lowering my head to look at the floor. “I kept telling him no because it was true. He could have been just like you and I would still have gone for you Jeff because you’re my best friend above everything else and I love you and-”
“Riley,” Jeff’s voice said kindly. “It’s fine.” I felt his hand lift my chin, forcing my to look into his eyes. “You don’t have to explain anything. He attacked you, he’s going right back to prison. He would of gone straight back anyway if Paul realized he was here. There’s a restraining order against him on the property and you. He can’t come onto the property, both Dad’s and your family’s, without getting an automatic arrest warrant. Since he came here, he broke both orders. Add that to what e did here, he’ll be going away for a long time again.”
“Plus if it’s what he said, he went against his parole as well.” I said. I gasped suddenly as a pain started forming in my hand. The three of us looked down and saw the blood dripping from my fingers from the cut I received from Ron’s knife.
“We need to get you to the hospital,” Matt said, grabbing me by my wrist and running toward the door.
“No need, medics are here by the house,” Paul’s voice said. His face came into view and seeing how pale and terrified he looked, I felt bad. I should of stayed at the house.
“I’m sorry uncle Paul,” I said, wrapping my arms around him, being careful to avoid touching anything with my cut hand.
“It’s not your fault honey,” he said, squeezing me back. “Go get that hand checked out.” I walked back toward the house, seeing a medic parking in the driveway. I passed a police cruiser, and nearly screamed when I saw Ron in the back. I walked up to the medics and held out my hand. One of them examined it, determining it wasn’t that deep, so they could get by with just bandaging it up. When they finished, they told me to avoid using the hand until I check in with my regular doctor. I agreed and was lead into the house by Jeff. We stood at the window and watched as the cruiser holding Ron went down the driveway, hopefully taking him from our lives forever.

~Two Weeks Later~
A banging on the door had me waking up. I knew it was the front door, and I knew it was urgent by the knock. I opened my eye and glared at the clock on my nightstand. 6 in the morning. I groaned and sat up, noting that Jeff was still fast asleep. I stood up and threw my robe on over my nightgown, making sure it was tied before going downstairs and looking through the window. Seeing the police cruiser sitting in the driveway confused me even more. I opened the door to reveal two officers, both extremely young so I had no idea who they were.
“Hello, Mrs. Hardy.” one of the officers said. “I’m Officer Jackson, this is Officer Thomas, we have a warrant to search the house and it’s premises.”
“On what grounds?” I asked, crossing my arms against the chill from the outside.
“Drug paraphernalia, along with distribution of,” Officer Thomas said, holding the warrant out to me. I looked at the two men confused before reading the warrant. It was legit, so I had no choice but to let them in.
“I can tell you right now the strongest drug you’ll find here is prescription pain killers.” I said, standing back to let them in. They went to work right away. I ran up to the bedroom and shook Jeff awake, and explained to him what was going on. I ran back down the stairs to find the two men whispering to each other.
“Ma’am,” Jackson asked when he noticed I was back. “Have you seen this before?” he held up what looked like a pipe. Jeff ran down the stairs wearing shorts and a t-shirt. He spotted the men with the pipe, and I knew right away what was going on.
“Jeffrey Nero Hardy!” I shouted, turning to face him fully. He looked at me with guilt in his eyes, and I knew I was right. “JEFFREY!” I screeched, tears prickling the back of my eyes. The officers continued their search, and to my horror, they found Jeff’s stash, which was worse than I thought it would be. I cried as I watched them pull out Vicodi, steroids, and even cocaine. I felt my tempter rise as I turned to face him.
“You care about me being healthy huh?” I asked him. He didn’t look at me. “At least have the balls to look at me Jeffrey.” When he still refused to look, I knew I had my answer. “Three times Jeff. You were suspended twice, and now you’re getting arrested. How about this, to see if it wakes you up. You know I’m not judgmental, but when you swear up and down you’re stopping something, and then you keep it up anyway, that’s basically lying to me Jeff, and I don’t take lying, you know damn good and well I don’t. So how about this to wake you up? I love you, you know I do, but I can’t be with you if I can’t trust you. You either clean up your act for good this time, or this,” I held up my left hand, pointing to my wedding rings,” is going right back to you, and you lose me for the rest of your life. So chose, drugs and slow downfall, or your wife.” Jackson was standing off to the side, handcuffs at the ready. I watched as he placed them around Jeff’s wrists. Jeff looked up at me, shame, hurt, guilt and numerous other emotions in his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered as tears fell from his eyes. I watched as he was lead out of the house and into the police cruiser, where all the evidence was being held now. I watched as they drove off with my husband before breaking down. I ran to the living room and grabbed the cordless phone off the stand, dialing the only number it made sense to call right now.
“Hello,” a male voice answered, sleep making his voice thick.
“Matt,” I said, sniffling. “Jeff was just arrested,” I informed him.
“What?” he snapped, his brain clearing right away. “For what?”
“Three guesses,” I muttered as fresh tears fell down my face. He cursed words that would of made a sailor blush. I waited for him to say something else when Amanda got on the phone.
“What happened?” she asked me. I went over what happened with being woken up by the police, then Jeff coming down the stairs to see the officer holding the pipe and how he gave himself away.
“Dear lord,” Mandy muttered.
“I’m going to go bail him out,” Matt’s voice said.
“No Mandy stop him.” I said quickly. When Matt’s voice came back over the phone, he was pissed.
“You’re just going to let him rot in a cell?” he asked.
“Matt, he’s told us over and over again he’s going to stop. Maybe time in jail will do him some good, and believe me, I’m not letting him off lightly on this, I told him before they took him away that I love him, but if he doesn’t straighten up for good, I’m leaving him.”
“You really said that?” Matt asked, not sounding convinced.
“You can go ask him yourself if you’d like, or talk to the officers standing here listening.”
“Riley, this is messed up, but Jeff doesn’t need to be in a jail cell.” Matt said. I placed my forehead in my hand as tears trailed down my face again.
“He had Vicodin Matt,” I whispered. “Steroids, and, and-”
“What else?” he asked.
“Cocaine Matt,” I said in a rush.
“C-Co what?” Matt responded, shocked. “You’re kidding me right?”
“Matt, this is Jeff, my husband, we’re talking about. Why would I bullshit about something like this?”
“No idea, I’m sorry.” Matt said, sighing. “I have no idea what to do Riley.” he admitted. “He’ll only listen to you about this.”
“And he’s started to get to the point to where he won’t even listen to me,” I said. “I think I’m going to have to scare sense into him.”
“How? By acting like your leaving him?” Matt asked.
“It’s the only thing I can think of to do.” I said, rubbing my forehead. “How did things get so screwed up Matty?” I asked him, sobbing.
“It’ll get better Riley,” Matt said. “It’ll get better, maybe this time will teach him for certain that he can’t keep relying on himself to get over this.”
“He needs help, like I did with my dreams.”
“Hey, why don’t you ask Dr. Grace to recommend someone good with rehab.” Matt said suddenly.
“That’s a good idea Matty,” I said, perking up slightly. “I’ll give her a call later on today and ask her.”
“After bailing Jeff out?” Matt asked. I sighed, knowing he was right. Jeff shouldn’t have to stay locked up behind bars.
“Fine, but he’s sleeping in a guest room.” I said. “I’m too pissed off at him right now to allow him to sleep in bed with me.”
“Honestly sis, I don’t blame you one bit.” Matt said.

~Later that day~
“Thank you Riley,” Jeff muttered as we walked to the car. I climbed behind the driver’s seat as Jeff got into the passenger side. I didn’t reply to him. I just started driving home.
“You’re not talking to me are you?” Jeff tried again. I remained silent, keeping my eyes on the road. “Look, I don’t blame you, but you know we’ll have to talk eventually,” Jeff said.
“I know,” I muttered, sighing. “Jeff, think of all of this from my perspective, you’re constantly promising that your going to stay sober, but then you fail drug tests, then you’re arrested for having drugs, inside our house. You had cocaine in our house Jeff. What if we would have had kids right now and they would of found it? They would of thought it was sugar or something and eaten some of it and killed their brain cells.”
“I’m sorry Riley, I wasn’t thinking.” Jeff said.
“No, you wasn’t, that’s why I’m going to start doing the thinking for you,” I said, slowing down to turn down the driveway. “As soon as I get inside, I’m calling my therapist to get her to recommend rehab centers near here. You’re not going to do this bringing yourself up shit this time Jeffrey. Every time you do, you end up relapsing a year or so later. Not this time, you’re going into rehab this time."