Chapter Nine: The Move

Taylor's POV:

It was hard dealing with what Jeff told me about his past, but Jeff, Amy, and I spent the next two weeks in San Antonio getting ready to leave. It was distracting and by the time we were done, I found that I was okay with it because he was honest. We went through everything in the house. Jeff packed a lot of stuff up to be stored in North Carolina that belonged to Mom in case I wanted them when I got older along with all my trophies, and all of the pictures were being sent to his house. Everything else, the house, the furniture that I didn't want, it was all being sold. I threw out all of my gymnastics posters. I told Jeff that I didn't want that to be part of my life anymore and he was okay with that.

The movers had come and taken everything. The house that had been my home for as long as I could remember felt foreign to me. I sat on the floor in the living room, just looking at the emptiness, waiting for Jeff and Amy. We'd be leaving for the airport soon.

"Cameron is pretty quiet," Jeff said, coming to sit with me. "Not as much to do as there is here in San Antonio. But I think you'll like it."

"I hope so," I said.

"Matt, my Dad, and I all live close together. Same stretch of road, each of the houses are about half a mile away, with Dad's in the middle. One of us is usually home," Jeff said to me.

"Between the three of you, you own a mile and a half of land?" I asked in shock.

You didn't find that in the city of San Antonio. Further out, where the ranches where, like Michael's, but not in the actual city. I couldn't believe one family could own so much land.

"We actually own more than that, that's just the distance between the three houses," Jeff said to me smiling.

"I have to admit, I'm kind of excited to see that."

"And my dad, Matt, and I talked. You're gonna have your own room in all three houses. You can decorate them any way you want. This way, you no matter which of us you're with, you're always at home. So, I hope you don't mind, but at this point your rooms just have beds, dressers, and desks. I figured wait until you got to see the rooms and let you tell us what to do with them from there," he said.

"That's a lot of personal space," I said laughing. "You wouldn't care if I chose to stay with Matt or Gil instead of you even if you were home?"

"We all need to get used to each other. If you need space from me, I'd rather you be with my brother or father where you're safe than not know if you're okay, so yeah, I'd be okay with it."

"Will I have a computer in each of these rooms?" I asked.

"No. You'll have a laptop. You can take it with you to whichever house you're at and connect it to the wireless printers. Matt and I put a wireless printer in Dad's house for when we're there. We've updated all his technology. Otherwise he'd still be using dial-up internet connections," Jeff said and we both started laughing.

"How long is Amy staying with us?"

"She wants to make sure you're okay before she goes, so I'm not sure."

"I like having her around."

"So do I. I miss seeing her this much."

"What do you mean?"

Amy came into the room and sat with us.

"He means that your uncle Matt, your father and I used to work in the WWE together. We were part of a stable called Team Xtreme. So we traveled a lot and spent almost all of our time together. I even dated Matt for a while."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Well, Matt and I didn't work out and it took years for us to get over that, but in the ring the three of us had a lot of fun."

"You used to wrestle?"

"Hell yeah. I decided I wanted to do that and just up and went to Mexico to learn from the luchadores. It took a while, but I worked my way to the WWE and when the three of us were paired up it was some of the best times I'd had."

"Luchadores?"

"Mexican wrestlers. They're awesome," Amy explained.

"I wish I could have seen that," I said.

"We can show you some of it when we get back to Cameron," Jeff said. "The WWE released tons of DVDs and everything with our old stuff. But first, it's time to head to the airport, Taylor."

Jeff's POV:

When we got to North Carolina, Taylor seemed nervous to be there. I hoped that as she got used to the quiet of Cameron. It took a while to reach my house from the airport. After parking, I helped Taylor from the backseat of Matt's car and into the house and carried her around so she could see her new home.

"It's surrounded by woods here," Taylor said.

"Well, that's one thing all of us in this family have valued over the years, the ability to just be in the middle of nowhere to be who we want to be," Matt said. "Your dad and I had our own backyard wrestling over at Dad's house. It turned into a promotion that we still co-run."

"Really?" Taylor asked.

"Yeah," I confirmed. "There are a lot of good memories for the Hardy brothers out here. Hopefully, you'll be able to build some good memories of your own now."

My phone started ringing. Amy picked it up.

"Jeff," she called to me. "It's Gil."

"I'll be right back, Taylor," I said as I went and picked up the phone in the kitchen. "What's up, Dad?"

"How was the flight back with her?"

"She seems a little nervous but excited."

"Why don't all of you come over to my house for dinner? I know you haven't had time to go grocery shopping and you are not gonna start feeding my granddaughter a constant diet but take-out, Jeffrey," Dad said warningly.

I laughed, realizing just how well my father knew me.

"Fine, but I gotta warn you now, don't be offended if she barely eats anything, Dad."

"Why wouldn't she eat?"

"I'm not sure if it's something to worry about or just everything she's been through, but I've noticed since she's been out of the hospital she takes a few bites anytime me or Amy feed her and that's it. I think my pet hamsters used to eat more than she does right now."

"That's not good, Jeff."

"I know, Dad. But I'm watching her. If it goes on too long, I'll talk to her. At this point, she's eating something, so I'm just gonna keep an eye on her."

"Be sure that you do. Make sure your brother has all of you here at seven."

"I'll tell Matt, Dad. See you later."

I hung up the phone and went back to the living room, where I had found that Matt and Amy had pulled out some old pictures of me and cringed.

"Really? I leave the two of you for three minutes to talk to Dad and you pull those out? How did you find them?"

Taylor was laughing. I walked closer and looked at what she was looking at. A picture of me in my high school wrestling uniform.

"That was really you? You looked so scrawny," she said giggling and pointing at the picture.

"Very funny," I said, looking from Taylor to Matt and Amy who were laughing with her. "Wait until I start showing her the pictures of you making our old wrestling gear, Matt."

"You don't have those anymore," Matt said, suddenly horrified.

"Dad made me copies after I lost everything in the fire," I told him and he stopped laughing.

"Wait, you're older brother used to actually make your wrestling gear? What kind of wrestling gear?" Taylor asked.

I went into another room and came back with some pictures of mine and Matt's early days of OMEGA, when we were still doing state fairs and things like that. I showed her our costumes.

"Those are so corny," she said giggling. "You really made them, Matt?"

"Yeah," he said, hanging his head in shame.

"Spent hours sewing and everything," I told her.

Her and Amy were just laughing at the way Matt and I were going out of our way to embarrass each other to Taylor, but I was happy to see her laugh so much. It was the most I'd seen her smile since she'd woken up. We started to lose track of the time when I remembered Dad's phone call. I checked the time. It was already 6:45.

"We gotta go," I said suddenly. "All of us."

"Where are we going?" Taylor asked.

"I got distracted with the pictures, but Dad called. He wants all of us at his place at seven for dinner. Matt he said to make sure you get us there on time."

"Really, Jeff, you wait until now to tell me?" Matt complained.

"Hey, you're the one who pulled out the embarrassing pictures while I talked to him. It's your fault I got distracted!"

"Come on, Taylor," Amy said, helping her up. "I'll help you get washed up before we go. Let these two fools work out whose fault this is on their own."

When they came back, Amy had brushed Taylor's hair and changed her shirt to a heavier one. I had gone into my room and thrown off my tank top and thrown on a plaid button-down over a clean tank top. I left it open as I carried Taylor out of the house and put her back in Matt's car for the ride to Dad's house, buttoning it on the way over.

Dinner at Dad's house was more about embarrassing me and Matt. Dad showed Taylor lots of pictures of the two of us when we were little, making her smile and laugh, but he took it one step further than Matt and I had at my house. Just when I thought it couldn't get any more embarrassing, it did. Dad put on some old home movies of me and Matt for Taylor.

"Really, that's the two of you? You don't look anything like you do now!" she squealed.

"Yeah, yeah, eat it up, Kid." I said to her, hiding my head, seeing how cheesy I was as a kid.

By the end of the night, once Matt and I were sufficiently mortified, Dad let us all go. After dropping us back at my place, Matt said goodnight and went home. Amy went into the house, ready to finally have a few minutes to take a shower and relax. Taylor and I sat on the porch.

"So, what do you think of being here so far?" I asked her.

"You guys are all nuts," she said laughing. "But it's nice. Mom, grandpa, my coaches, pretty much everyone I've ever known has always been so uptight and anal. They'd never just act the way you, Matt, and Amy did with Gil tonight."

"So you've always had a lot of structure?" I asked.

"Yeah. Rules about everything. How to act, dress, speak, you name it, there was some kind of rule telling me why I was doing it wrong."

"I can't even imagine living like that. As I'm sure you've guess, I'm not big on conformity."

"Yeah. Got that, Jeff," she said sarcastically before changing the subject. "This place is huge."

"Are you up for taking a walk?"

"Can I?"

"Sure. I'll show you some of the Imag-I-Nation. Some of my artwork was done with glow in the dark paint, so you'll see it better now anyway."

I helped her up and started towards my getaway at home. We walked slowly so I didn't overwhelm her healing body. We stood on the crest of a hill and could see the barn that I had painted over. I showed her my art from the distance.

"You did that?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Nobody tries to tell you that it's weird?"

"I don't care if they think it's weird, Taylor," I said looking at her. "My art, whether it's music, poetry, paintings, it doesn't matter how I do my art, is my way of expressing what's in my mind. My life is in the public eye and lots of people know what I do, and I even let the WWE film part of one of their documentaries on me and Matt showing them part of the Imag-I-Nation, but this is me. I am an enigma and that's fine by me. It's even been part of my nickname in my wrestling career for years."

"You really don't care? You just do whatever type of art comes to you?"

"Yeah, that's why I have the Imag-I-Nation. It's my imagination come to life," I explained.

"So, if I wanted to start painting weird things like what you saw in my room in Texas you wouldn't get mad at me?"

"No. Creative freedom is something I am very big on. If you want to dye your hair green, I'll help you," I said laughing.

"This is gonna take some getting used to," Taylor said to me.

"I know. But for now, I think you've had enough excitement for one day. Welcome home, Taylor," I said, as I led her back to the house. "Tomorrow we'll go into town and buy supplies to decorate your room."

Leaving her with Amy, I went to change out of the clothes I was in and shower. When I got out, Amy told me Taylor wanted to see me before I went to bed I went into her room.

"You wanted to see me?" I asked from the doorway.

"I wanted to thank you."

"For what?" I asked, walking in and sitting on the edge of her bed.

"Not being a jerk to me after what Mom put you through. You put your life on hold for me."

"You don't have to thank me, Taylor. What happened between your mother and me has nothing to do with me caring about you. And even if I had been allowed to be in your life all these years, I would have dropped everything for you. It's what family does."

"But you're being so nice and you don't know me. I haven't always been nice to you since I woke up and you've still always been nice. So have Matt, Gil, and Amy."

"Don't worry about it, Taylor. Get some rest. I'm happy to have you here. We all are."

I hugged her and left her for the night.