Disclaimer: The characters in my stories are completely made up characters and have temporally been given borrowed names for the sole purpose of satisfying the qualifications for posting on this fanfiction site. These stories are fiction and should be perceived as such. They in no way reflect the lives, beliefs or views of any persons living or dead and any similarities are coincidental. I am not affiliated with any company or professional wrestler in any way. No disrespect or copyright infringement intended. And if any of my favs happen upon my stories, I hope your not offended because this is not about you, it is about feedback on my story ideas. :) I love and respect what you do and I thank you for all the joy and entertainment over the years.


This is my new story idea. I hope everyone enjoys it. Please Review. :)


Chapter 2

The sound of dresser drawers being opened and closed woke Randie. She heard her father and stepmother, Anna whispering in their room and her heart began to thump fast and hard. She pressed a palm against her chest, took a deep breath and grasped the framed picture from her nightstand.

"Get up!" her father flung open her door and barked. "Pack two suitcases. That's it."

It was happening. It was really happening. They'd moved before, but she thought it was permanent this time. They'd been in that house for five years. Her father's home. Left to him by his mother, or so she'd thought. But now it seemed that it belonged to her uncle and they were all squatters.

She packed everything she could fit in those two child sized suitcases. All her larger ones had been given to Jaycee. Her stepsister. Her mother had only been gone a week before he'd moved in the woman and her bratty spoiled daughter.

"This sucks!" Jaycee whined at her door. "I still have so much to pack and your father said I can't take anymore. It's all your fault!" I could feel her anger like heat from an iron radiator. "I need another suitcase." She snatched the small pink case that Randie had just begun to fill and dumped her things out of the bed.

"I need this one Jaycee."

"What is the problem?" Her father snarled. He seen her snatch the case from Jaycee as he'd walked to the door. "Give it back." He narrowed those black eyes at Randie. "Jaycee needs more than you do."

Great. Randie sighed. She knew better than to argue with her father. The girl had four of her own suitcases. All large, some with wheels and she was given hers as well. Now, she had to leave most of her things behind while Jaycee loaded her father's truck.

It didn't matter. She didn't have much anyway and what she had was second hand. Jaycee was the one who got everything because she was skinnier. She was prettier and she had won tons of awards for pageants. Her father favored the girl over his own daughter who he had never given anything to. It was her mother who had loved her, so why he'd insisted that she remain with him was a mystery. He reminded her how much of a burden she was and how much she had ruined his life every time he ran low on money. Usually after getting off the phone with someone who owed him.

Randie glanced around the room. The pretty white furniture, the frilly pink curtains and matching bedspread. The porcelain dolls. None of it had been hers. It had all been there when they'd moved in and she hadn't been allowed to touch anything. She wondered if they would be like they were when she was little. Packing and unpacking, wandering around like homeless gypsies. Moving into furnished homes, then leaving an accelerated rush in the middle of the night.

She'd never missed the places she had lived in before, but she had never stayed long enough to make friends and she had been so young that the only people she cared about moved with her. She picked up that framed photograph and tears came to her eyes. She'd fallen in love with that boy. Given him her heart and her first kiss and her father had forbidden her from being near him. Made her ignore him in school. All because of Jaycee and her lies. Now, he thought she hated him.

She put the photograph in her suitcase, hiding it beneath the clotehs inside, then she ran from the house. She'd be in a lot of trouble, but she didn't care. She'd deserve her father's wrath. Take it gladly. She'd been punished for so much that she hadn't done that one more beating didn't seem to matter.

It was the middle of the night, but she knew he would be up. He was always up tending to his family's farm. Sometimes she wake up and sit in her window. She could see the barn but it was so far away she couldn't see him, but she could see his lantern and she was always tempted to sneak out the window and run to him, but she had always been so afraid.

"Matt!" Fueled by desperation she nearly screamed his name the moment she saw him. He turned from the feed trough he was filling and she flung herself into his arms before he could any words could fall from his mouth.

He pushed her away.

"What the hell, Randie?" He spat. "You act like you don't know me at school. You haven't spoken to me in two years!"

"I'm leaving."

"Good. I got a lot to get done."

"No. We're moving. We're going right now." She sobbed.

Those big brown eyes stared, a twinkle of the past flashing. He grabbed her, pulled her to his chest and she threw her arms around his neck, grasping his shirt so tight in her fists she knew it would remain disfigured when she let go.

He caressed her hair, his broad hand moved up and down on her back. She looked up at the sky. It was one of those nights – cold, dark and no stars. She hated nights with no stars. She hated the shadows of the night so much that she depended on those stars. They represented all the dreams of her future. Dreams that had always included him and now she didn't know what her future held. It like all she had left was that one moment and his embrace that felt so warm and safe. She didn't want to let go.

In the distance she saw her father stomping through the fields. In her mind, she screamed, demanded time to stand still. To freeze, but it didn't listen. Her father marched closer and closer.

"Try not to forget me." Matt whispered in her ear.

"I'll never forget you," she promised. "I'm still you're wife, right?"

"Forever." Then he pulled away, cupped her face in his calloused hands and kissed her lips.

Matt was her first kiss. Now he was her second and this time it lasted long enough for her to return it. She opened her mouth slightly, inviting the tongue that touched her lips and she forced her own to quickly learn how to dance with his until her father ripped her away.

"Please don't make me leave." She begged him. "I want to live with Mom." She never voiced her opinions before. She'd always done what she was told, without question, but this time it felt like her life depended on her.

"Why? So you can screw around with those boys? So you can be a whore like her? She's not even your real mother. Your real mother is dead." he shoved her to the ground, her head bouncing off the car she landed near. "Get in the car. I'll deal with you later."

Her father glanced at the head lights coming up the road, then sped up as if it were coming for him. She picked herself up, the tears falling so fast that she couldn't see straight, but she managed to find her seat, or the small space between Jaycee's many cartons and the door. She had no room and it was going to be a long ride to where ever they were going. Something was sticking her in the side and she had to lean on the door.

Anna was sitting behind the wheel, her precious beauty queen by her side. The motor was running waiting on her father to emerge from the house and it was put in gear as soon as he was in his truck and they were backing away.

Randie gazed out the window. She saw Matt's lantern, sitting still instead of moving about as it normally did. She placed a hand on the window. She had been heartbroken when her father had forbade her to be friends with Matt, but leaving the town where he lived hurt even more. Knowing she would never even see him crushed her.

They were almost out of the drive way when her head was sudden thrust forward. She grasped her neck. She had yet to put on her seatbelt and she hadn't been ready for the sudden jolt. She glanced behind. A car had pulled into their path. In front, her father leapt from his truck and confront the man who yelled as he climbed from his own vehicle.

It had been a long time, but she remembered them.

"Aunt Peg!" she rushed from the vehicle and into the arms of the woman she had lived with for a short time. She didn't remember exactly how old she had been, but she remembered her warm hugs and gentle smile.

"My sweet girl." Her Aunt Peg hugged her. "You've grown so much."

She held tight until while her father and uncle fought. Yelling and screaming about the house and how my father had had no right to move into it without his permission. Her aunt and uncle were the only family of her father's she had ever met.

"I have as much right to it as you do." Her father bellowed, but the man believed that he had a right to anything he desired, no matter who it belonged to.

"It belonged to my mother, not yours." They were only half-brothers. Sharing a father and they had grown up in different homes, only spending a few moments together from time to time. They never really got along even though her uncle had tried several times.

"And you never use it. What's the problem with us staying here? You didn't need it. The army provided you with everything!"

"So that just makes it alright to steal my home?" her uncle was in the Army and apparently his home has stood idol as he moved from one assignment to another. Apparently he had finished his tour and had planned to return only to find that it had not been sitting as vacant as he thought.

"You were always selfish." Her father spat. "Always."

"I could have you arrested!" her uncles spat, then he calmed down.

"Cal!" her aunt called out. "Cal!" Her uncle glanced back at his wife who nodded to Randie, the young girl who was scared to death.

"I'm leaving. Keep your precious house!" her father screamed. "I'm done with you anyway."

"Yeah, run. Like you always do when you come across someone you can't bully" Her uncle yelled.

"I'm the bully?"

"You bully everyone. The whole town is scared of you. Where ever you go! Every town. And your own daughter. She's terrified of you."

"You and you're money who can't even help family."

"I've helped you dozens of times. And you keep taking and taking until nothings left." Uncle Cal glanced at his niece. "You need help?"

"Yeah." Her father told him.

"Fine, I'll help but I won't give you money to spend on booze. Leave Randie with us."

"No." her father laughed.

"Leave Randie and I won't press charges."

"It sounds like you're trying to blackmail me, Cal." Her father spat.

"If that's what it takes. She's better off with us and you know it. Isn't that why you wanted us to adopt her years ago. Then you ran off in the middle of the night right before we were supposed to meet our lawyer."

"I changed my mind." Her father laughed.

"But you didn't mind taking the money we gave you. That was the deal, Jake. Twenty thousand for your daughter. Rightfully, she belongs to us."

"But legally, she's mine." Her father reminded him. "Another twenty grand and I'll let you have the little brat but until then." Her father snatched her away and forced her back into the car. "She stays with me."

"Why don't you do what's best for her for once."

"It's not my problem you're shooting blanks little brother. That's your problem."

As they drove away from the only town she had ever considered home, it felt like the darkness fell all around her even though the sun was rising. Her sleepiness returned. Or maybe it was exhaustion from crying. She fell asleep against the window and when she awoke, she was in surrounded by big buildings and a sea of cars. They were barely moving. The sound of the honking horns and Jaycee's whining about leaving all her friends behind made her head throb. Her father must have been planning the move for a long time because after several hours on the high way, they pulled up to an apartment complex. It only had only two bedrooms which meant she would have to share a room with Jaycee, but as began unpacking I learned that I wouldn't have a room at all. I had to sleep on the old ratty sofa that someone had left behind. It smelled and was shoved to one side of the room so Anna could place her plush suede sofa in the center of the room. She couldn't sleep on that because Anna said it would cause it to dip in the center and ruin it.

Randie hated the new apartment. She hated the way it smelled. She hated the old sofa with the springs that poked her all night. She laid awake most nights. Listening to the sirens. Seemed someone somewhere was always in trouble or hurt. She felt sorry for them, then thought about their families who would be there for them. Caring for them if they were hurt, worrying if they were in trouble. She had no one. Nothing but a servant in her own home. Even the family portrait on the wall didn't include her. All she had was dreams and a picture of the only friend she'd ever had.