Keep You

No matter how hard I tried, I still couldn’t believe that my little sister was having a baby. It’s been two weeks since we found out, and the morning sickness was starting to kick in for her. She came over one day and in the middle of our conversation, she rushed to the bathroom, where I heard her getting sick and emptying her stomach. With a sigh, I walked into the kitchen to get her crackers, that always settled my stomach when I had morning sickness, so I figured I would try it to see what it did for her.

“Thanks,” Chasey muttered as she nibbled on a cracker. “I think Dad secretly hates me for this.”

“Chase, he doesn’t hate you,” I said, rubbing my hand on her shoulder soothingly. “He’s like the rest of us, he wishes you would of waited. Don’t forget, he knows what it’s like to be a teen parent.”

“He does?” Chasey looked confused, so I wondered if he ever told my siblings the truth about my birth.

“Chasey, you know Sara isn’t my real mother right?”

“There’s no way, you two are the same age.”

“Right, well, how many years apart is Dad to Sara?”

“Sixteen, Dad was sixteen when you were born?” I nodded.

“He didn’t know I was alive though for five years. I didn’t officially get to meet him until I was nine.”

“Really? Isn’t that when Jeff’s mom died?” Chase asked, starting on another cracker.

“Yep, the day of her funeral was the day I met my father.” I sighed, thinking back to that time. Things was so carefree, I didn’t have any siblings besides Jeff and Matt. My biggest worry was what my father would of thought of me when he finally met me.

“Was you scared?”

“I was terrified,” I replied with complete honesty.

“But, it all turned out good though didn’t it?” Dad’s voice asked from behind us. I smiled up at our father as he sat next to my little sister.

“Chasey Marie, I can never hate you. I do wish you would of waited, but this baby is coming, and there’s nothing we can do about it now.”

“I’m sorry,” Chasey muttered, staring at the table.

“Don’t worry about it Chase, just worry about taking care of yourself so that baby comes out healthy.” Dad said, hugging her to his side.

“And don’t worry, you have a sister and brother right here in this house that’ll do whatever we can to help.” I added as Jeff walked into the room.

“Absolutely,” he agreed, smiling at his sister-in-law. “And a niece and nephew upstairs.”

“Well, one’s upstairs still,” Kylie said from the living room. “This means I’m getting another cousin right?”

“Yep,” Dad answered his granddaughter. He went to sit with her in the living room while Chasey leaned her head against her hand.

“Go upstairs and sleep Chase,” I said to her gently. “Go in our bedroom and lay down, you need to get as much rest as you can.” She nodded and dragged herself from the kitchen. Jeff took her spot at the counter right beside me.

~POV: Mark~
“Grandpa Mark, can you explain something to me?” Kylie asked as we sat and watched a music video on Vh1 Classics. I knew the video because it was one of Riley’s old favorites. Avenged Sevenfold, her all time favorite band. The love for the band passed from Riley to Kylie, and I knew Riley loved that fact.

“What’s that sweetie?” I asked her, watching the lead singer move around a crowd of blue-black people. The screen switched to a woman dressed in red with long brown hair, walking around like a vixen looking for her prey.

“Wasn’t you a teen father?”

“Technically I was, your mom was born with I was sixteen.”

“Why did it take so long for you to meet Mom? Dad said it took you nine years, I think.”

“It did,” I replied with a sigh as another video started playing. “But it wasn’t my choice for that to happen.”

“How did it then?”

“I was on vacation with my family when I helped create your mother,” I started explaining.

“When you had sex with Grandma Mitchell?” Kylie cleared up. I nodded, sitting forward on the couch. I remembered the day my brother called me a seven year old girl in his house could of possibly been my daughter. I didn’t know what to think, and it took two years for me to get over to meet her because I was nervous.

“Grandpa,” Kylie cut me from my thoughts.

“Sorry, well, your grandmother never told me your mother was coming, so I didn’t know she was even alive until she was seven. It took two years for me to get up here to meet her because I was nervous for one, and I was busy at the same time. I was in college and working on building myself up as a wrestler. There just wasn’t time for me to meet her until she was nine.”

“What did you think when you first saw her?” Kylie asked, leaning against my arm. I looked down at her and wrapped my arm around her shoulders smiling at her.

“I thought the same exact thing about her that I thought about you when you were born. She was a beautiful little girl and I knew she was going to be crazy as hell. You poor kiddo, didn’t have a chance with your parents.”

“What do you mean?”

“They told you about their pasts right?” I asked to make sure I didn’t reveal anything.

“About them being wrestlers, yeah they told us.” she replied.

“Well, those two when they were in character was crazy. Especially your father. Jumping off of things, doing things no one would even dream of doing. Your mother and he were best friends for years before they started dating.”

“Do you remember when that happened?” Kylie asked, looking up at me with the same eyes her mother used on me for many years.

“I remember that day all to well,” I admitted. “Someone threatened Riley, and they had broken into my brother’s house to do it. We were terrified something would happen to her, so we all stayed at your grandpa Hardy’s house until we could figure everything out.”

“And you did,” she stated rather than asked. I nodded, remembering the relief I felt when the kid was caught.

“I’m glad you did,” Kylie said, wrapping her arms around mine.

“So am I.”

~Riley~
I watched Dad and Kylie from the doorway leading from the hallway to the living room. He was explaining things to her, which I was thankful for. It seemed the more she knew about our pasts, the more she respected us and was regretful about what she put us through.

“Hey Dad, why don’t you take Chase home, she’s not really feeling very well.” I said, walking into the room. I glanced at the mantel and saw the picture of Jeff, Matt, Amanda and myself that was taken in the old house. It was during a Halloween party Jeff and I had, about a year after I came back from Texas.

“Okay, let’s go Chasey,” Dad called. They left, and I looked at the picture again as Kylie flipped through the channels. A sudden idea came into my head, so I pulled on my boots and grabbed my jacket.

“Hey, how about a walk?” I suggest to Kylie. She nodded and stood up, pulling on her shoes and grabbing her own coat.

“Hey Jeff, Kylie and I are going for a walk, you know, mother, daughter bonding,” I told Jeff after walking into the office. He looked up from the screen with surprise in his eyes.

“Oh, okay, anywhere special you’re going?”

“Actually, yeah,” I said, leaning against the desk. “I’m taking her to the site of the old house.”

“Oh,” he said. “Well, have fun, call if you need anything, or just scream, I’m sure someone will hear you.” he laughed as I rolled my eyes.

“Ready?” I asked Kylie as I walked to the front door. She nodded and we went out the door, heading to the path in the woods.

“Where are we going?” Kylie asked after I left the path.

“Here,” I replied, stopping just where the outline of the old house was still lain.

“What is this place?” Kylie asked, stepping over the outline to stand In the middle of old house.

“This place is our old home,” I replied, walking to stand by her. “A few months before your father and I had our wedding, we were at your uncle Shannon’s tattoo parlor. We got a call from Matt while we were getting ready to leave. The house was on fire, and fully engulfed by that time. There was nothing left of the house, just what you see here.”

“Wow, this is sad,” Kylie muttered, looking around at the clearing that used to be a house.

“It was a lot worse at the time. There was only a few months until the wedding, we wouldn’t of been able to build a new house in time, and we lost our dog, who was like a son to us, in the fire. There was no way to save him.”

“Is that Liger or Jack?” Kylie asked. We showed them the graves of the dogs before, but after we had to bury Jack, we didn’t have the heart to mark any of the other ones. So they only know of Jack and Liger being there. They didn’t know about Whitey, Short Man, or Miggie. None of them.

“It was Jack,” I answered her. “You know though, Ky, that the fire did have a lot of bad, but there was a few good things that came from it.”

“Like what?” Kylie asked, looking toward me. I smiled and walked toward the out edge of the house, stopping at where we found the Aluminummy Hardy Gun.

“I’m sorry Kylie,” I said, not really meaning to ignore the question.

“For what?”

“For not being the mother you needed,” I whispered, lowering myself to the ground.

“Mom, you was the best mother you could be to me, it’s all me if things didn’t work out the way you wanted them to.”

“No, it just means I should of tried harder,” I muttered. Kylie didn’t say anything, so I thought she was just ignoring me, but when I felt arms wrap around my neck, I knew it was her.

“You did everything you could do Mom,” she repeated, staring into my eyes. “I was just acting out, and I’m sorry for it.”

“One of the good things,” I started to answer Kylie’s question finally. “Was that, we found hope, and faith, and we found a way to keep it. We realized that no matter how hard things are for us, it could be a lot worse. Jeff and I both learned that, with each other, we can get through anything.”

“The fire caused you to realize all of that?” Kylie asked, looking back at the lining.

“Yes it did. C’mon,” I said, standing up and leading her back to the trail. There was a trailer in the Imag-I-Nation that Jeff and I haven’t visited in a long time.

“One of the biggest things,” I started as I walked up to the trailer. “is inside here.”

“What was it?” Kylie asked.

“You know the Aluminummies we have around that your father made?” I asked in reply, opening the door. She nodded, so I continued. “One of them was a decoration for the old house. There was a hand gesture we used to use, called the Hardy Gun. Jeff made the Aluminummy to where we was throwing the sign in the air. When the house burned down, the entire Aluminummy destroyed…” I let the sentence fall until I brought out the aluminum hand. “except for the gun.”