Disclaimer: I own Matt Hardy. I captured him yesterday and tied him up in the basement.
Note: I suppose you people are all tired of old me. But hey, I don't feel old. I may be it, but I don't feel it. Anyway, I've decided to discontinue my It Just Feels Right story. Instead, I am going to take out thought-provoking little parts from the story and post em up so you could read em. This is my first one, and depending on how many reviews I receive, it won't be my only one. So, have fun, and grab your tissues!
A Day Remembering My Brother…
"Are you okay, Matt?"
His eyes fluttering open, Matt Hardy looked up and his wife, Lita (Amy), yawned a big yawn, and smiled. "Yeah," he whispered softly, clutching his twelve-month-old son Jeff tightly to his chest. "Just a little tired. And," he added with a small chuckle, turning his eyes away and peering outside the car window, "my legs hurt. A lot."
Lita returned the smile and looked back at the road. "It'll take some getting used to," she said. "Your muscles aren't used to walking yet."
Shaking his head and yawning once more at the same time, Matt lay his head on the car door and closed his eyes again. Even if they did hurt, he thought to himself sleepily, it's worth it. To feel my legs again, to use them, to be able to walk around and teach my son Jeff how to walk on his own…I'd give anything.
The sound of a car honking one long note made Matt frown in his sleep and wake again. The car next to them was the one that honked—and that car contained the ever-so-happy people Adam, Jay, and Chris, and the rest of their music equipment. Matt laughed when he saw Jay's mouth moving in an obvious complaint, probably due to the fact that Matt's guitar was poking him in the back, since there was no more room for it in the trunk.
Grinning, Lita honked back at them and rolled down Matt's window. "Hey, Adam!" she called, "are we almost there? Jeff is getting irritable!" But in fact, she was the one getting irritable…baby Jeff quite liked being held in his father's arms for a long period of time. Because they were broad and well muscled, they provided an abundant amount of heat. No, baby Jeff was happy where he was.
Adam half knew this, for even from the other car, he could see baby Jeff's content expression, and Lita's sort of disconcerted one. He decided to humor Lita. "Sorry, Fireball!" he answered. "Not there yet!" Which, of course, was a lie. They were about three blocks away.
"You're evil," Chris remarked from the passenger seat, smacking Adam on the arm. However, even he had to laugh when Lita scowled and Matt had to talk her into calming down. "Just follow me!" Adam called out again, rolling the window back up and pushing on the pedal.
"Sheesh Lita," Matt mumbled in the other car. "We've only been driving for an hour."
Focusing entirely on the road, Lita ignored him and pretended not to hear. "Jeff's irritable," Matt thought her heard her mumbling, and smiling to himself, he returned his expression back to the outside of the window, studying the really interesting setting of Los Angeles. He even happened to capture a glance of the Paramount Pictures Studio.
However, that was not what they were headed for. They were headed for a recording studio.
He remembered when Chris had first approached him after Matt had watched him do another on of his Fozzy shows, saying, "You have a great voice and a hidden talent for playing guitar. Why don't you ever record anything?" And that was it. Although it would cost over four-thousand dollars to do, just for twenty copies of his own CD, he did some research, signed on with an independent label, and was currently heading for the studio.
Of course, it took many hours of learning and practicing the guitar and vocals, but like Chris said (and Jay encouraged), Matt had a talent for music, just one that he had never tried. Now he could play, which even he could admit to himself, to be good. With the help of Lita, Chris, Eddie Vedder and Scott Stapp lyrics, he wrote twelve songs, and decided to compose others that were already made. Some of them were better than the others, but the best one was the song Black.
"What is he doing?" Lita snapped when Adam pulled into a parking lot. Matt rolled his eyes and sighed. "We're here," he said, enjoying watching her face twitch in confusion. "He said it would take a while—" she began, but Matt cut her off with one of his typical chuckles. "He lied, Fireball. We're here. That's the studio," he said, pointing to a large office building next to the lot.
"Oh," she shrugged (Hoping her anger wasn't showing), turning off the car and climbing out. Jogging around it, she opened the door for Matt and took baby Jeff into her arms, cooing at him lovingly. She looked up at Matt and suddenly felt concerned, for he was obviously having a hard time getting out of the car and getting up on his legs. "Do you need help?" she asked softly.
"No," was his short, unchanged answer, giving her one of his dark shadowed looks. She quickly turned away, knowing better to argue. No. That's what he said every time someone offered to help him walk--he'd briskly turn them down. If they asked why, his simple reply would be, "I deserve it." Most people would walk off not knowing what he was talking about.
If they did know what he was referring too, they'd frown and watch him fall, tripping, his knees giving out from below him with no warning, so he'd fall so suddenly that it drew shock from anyone around him. A little voice in the back of their mind would say, "It doesn't matter what he did. Nobody deserves to almost be crippled for life and have to struggle to just walk daily." But they never did offer again, his dark expression silently pleading you not to.
Sometimes, if they didn't know and they'd ask, he'd look at them with his clear, big chocolate brown eyes and blink, almost in surprise. "I didn't take life the way it's supposed to be taken," he'd say, as if it were an obvious answer to a simple question. "I tried to commit suicide, I took drugs, and this is my payment." The person who asked would wince, and he'd very abruptly grow angry. "No. Don't feel sorry for me, I no longer feel sorry for myself."
And if they didn't know why he tried to commit suicide, and why he had started taking drugs, they'd ask about that. Matt would never refuse to answer, as most expected, but instead his shadowed face would smile and he'd say very quietly, "Someone very dear to me was died when I was in great need of him. I didn't know how handle it. I felt that his death was my fault, and I feared that he had died hating me. I was wrong. He loved me…"
"Who was this person?" they'd ask in reverence, somehow getting the feeling that a young man they were speaking to was wiser beyond his years. And Matt's eyes would brighten as he said, almost softly that you couldn't hear, "Jeff. My brother."
"Hey, Matt!" Jay cried excitedly, scampering to Matt's side but caring not to touch him as he slowly walked, taking out a fake microphone, "are you excited about making your first music debut?"
Everyone turned and gave him an expecting eye, and baby Jeff wailed. Matt laughed, a sound that never failed to cheer those around him, and grinned while he said, "Yup. Never thought this day would come. By the way Chris…" he slightly turned, "thanks for helping me."
Chris rolled his eyes. "Yeah." Jay put the mic under Chris's mouth. "That's about the millionth time he's said that," he pretended to whisper into it. Nevertheless, he knew Matt was speaking the truth. He really was excited. His heart was thumping wildly in his chest as he watched Adam and Chris unload the car of their guitars and bass. The drum set was in Lita's car. Jay was unloading that.
"Dada!" baby Jeff exclaimed over the noise, rising his arms towards him. Matt slowly made his way to Lita and took Jeff from her arms, hugging his son tightly. "How 'bout you, Jeffy?" he said in his southern drawl. "Are you excited?" Baby Jeff laughed merrily. Matt grinned and ruffled his son's black hair, which was in rows of a dozen braids each tied with green and purple rubber bands signifying the Hardy Boyz. Baby Jeff giggled under his father's tender touch.
"You want to hold Jeff?" Lita asked, scratching her bright red hair. Matt nodded and watched her pick up his guitar with ease. No longer did he feel any envy when watching people do things that was extremely hard to him. At least, he could say to himself, I don't have to live immobile, helpless, and lost in a wheelchair any longer.
"Hey Matt." His best friend, Adam, trotted over to him, wearing what Matt liked to call, 'a serious expression.' "Are you ready, Matt?"
It didn't take Matt long to figure out what Adam was referring to. "Are you ready, Matt?" Am I? Pushing the black curly hair out of his face and taking a deep breath, Matt nodded shakily and smiled. "I am."
Lightly tapping the real microphone with his index finger and hearing the results, Matt shot Chris (his 'producer') a thumbs-up. Chris shot it back, then looked down at the many controls, flipping switches and highering volumes that Matt didn't recognize. It didn't matter. He clutched his black Fender closer to him and one last time checked the tuning using the harmonics. Satisfied, he turned back to Chris.
"Whatcha doin'?" he asked, his southern accent still getting away with him. He cursed himself under his breath and reminded himself he was in L.A, not Cameron.
"Oh, just putting the controls to the exact same way Vedder had it when he recorded Ten. The sound is kinda odd, but hey? It worked with Pearl Jam." Snickering to himself, he continued his work. Getting bored, Matt turned to Jay, who was banging on his drum set, much to baby Jeff's amusement. Adam was fiddling with the keyboards and synthesizers, and Lita was plucking the bass with ease.
Yes, Chris had definitely done a good job teaching each of them to play. When they first started, Matt remembered not knowing what a chord was. Lita didn't know one note from another, and Jay had absolutely no rhythm. Adam, at first, called the keyboard a piano. "How do you play this sort of piano?" he incredulously asked, falling into his Edge role. "We're better now," Matt thought quietly.
To himself, making sure nobody heard, Matt bared his fingers, did his E, and strummed himself the song Black one more time, praying to himself that he wouldn't mess up in the middle of recording. So far, he hadn't on his other songs, but in his heart, he knew Black was more important than the rest.
It was the song Matt's brother Jeff sang to him when he lay dying, his raw and untrained voice still echoing in Matt's ears sometimes. It was the most beautiful voice Matt could swear he ever heard. "I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky," Matt would whispered to himself, "but why, why, why, can't it be, oh can't it be mine…?"
Lita looked up from her bass. "Huh?"
"Nothing," he said, turning away and swallowing away the choking feeling in his throat.
After a few minutes of getting everybody organized (and prying baby Jeff's strong fingers from Jay's drum set), Chris, with naughty baby Jeff still in his secure arms, went back into the producing corner and sat baby Jeff down. Then, picking up his own dark blue Fender, he looked at Matt as a cue. "Ready?" he asked.
"Ready," Matt replied, putting on his earphones, edging closer to the microphone, and laying his bared E on the guitar. 'One,' he mouthed. 'Two, one two three four…"
Chris pressed record.
He strummed it in the rhythm, changing it from E to Am and softly said into the mic, "Oh…yeah…" with a smile on his face. Jay hit his drum twice, Lita played her base, Adam played the keyboard, and Chris started with the melody.
"Sheets of empty canvas, untouched sheets of clay," he sang, letting his note on 'sheets' float higher, "were aid spread out before me, as her body once did. All five horizons revolved around her soul, from the earth to the sun…now the air I tasted and breathed has taken a turn.
"And all I taught her was everything…oh I know she gave me all that she wore. And now my bitter hands shake beneath the clouds of what was everything. All the pictures have been washed in black…tattooed everything…
"I take a walk outside, I'm surrounded by some kids at play. I can feel their laughter, so why do I sear? Oh, and twisted thoughts that spin around my head…I'm spinning…oh oh oh I'm spinning…How quick the sun can drop away. And not my bitter hands cradle broken glass of what was everything. All the pictures have been washed in black…tattooed everything."
This was the part when Jeff's life started to slip away from Matt's strong clutch. His voice was shaking, but his fingers had a mind of their own, and they were doing exactly what they were supposed to.
"All the love gone bad turned my world to black…tattooed all I see…all I am…all I'll beeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, yeah…!" Tears suddenly flooded his eyes, tears for the two years he lived in pain, sadness; somehow wishing he could cradle his baby brother again in his arms…
"I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star in somebody else's sky but why," why? "why," why? "why can't it be, oh can't it be miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine…?" he extended the last note until his breath ran out.
"Oh...mine, yeah…oh, oh, we belong, 'cause we belong…cause we belong together…We belong together…mine…oh, oh, oh, oh, oh yeah…yeah…yeah…'cause we…belong…together…" And slowly, the last chord died on his fingers, the last note wisped away on his lips. Chris stopped the record, and turned to Matt. "Matt?" he asked brokenly.
"Catch him!" Lita cried as unexpectedly Matt stumbled, his knees buckling from under him. In a flash, Chris, Adam and Jay left their instruments and scrambled to Matt's side. His face was pale, and he was crying so softly that you couldn't hear him. You could only tell because his shoulders were trembling and tears were cascading down his face.
Lita threw her arms around him, holding him tightly and whispering soothing things in his ears, while Adam softly took the guitar off Matt's shoulders and placing it on the floor. For a while, Matt's sobs were the only thing you could hear in the room. "Matty?" Lita asked, tears starting to well in her own eyes. "Are you okay?"
It took him a minute to calm down, until he finally stirred under her grasp. "I'm okay," he said softly, gently pushing her and Jay away. Chris bit his lip and Adam and Jay exchanged worried glances. "I'm okay," he said again, wanting to justify himself, almost in resentment and anger. "I just…I haven't…been able to sing…that song…" he stopped and tried to climb to his feet, wiping his face with the back of his sleeve. "I'm okay," he repeated once more, finally giving up struggling to his feet as he pitched backwards again, Adam jostling to catch him.
Sipping at his warm Starbucks coffee Adam had gone out and brought him, Matt wrapped the blanket tighter around his shoulders and watched from behind the glass Chris, Adam, Jay, and Lita do their own song. Baby Jeff was on the floor next to his feet, putting a drumstick that Jay let him have in his mouth.
His eyes were still red and swollen, but whenever Lita turned to look at him, a concerned expression on her face, he'd smile at her whole-heartedly and watch her smile back and continue to rock out on her silver bass.
Matt still had not idea what made him start to bawl his eyes out. Maybe it was just the pure fact of remembering his brother. The brother who was the dearest thing in the world to him, the brother he both loved and hated, the brother who had died when a drunk driver slammed into their car.
It happened two, almost three years ago. The memory was a painful one, but it was a memory Matt much pondered, walking down its road in sadness, anger, and even regret.
Matt had been wrestling, leaving Jeff, his brother, and Lita backstage. When he came back into the locker room, Jeff had her in his arms, his lips on hers. Obviously thinking the worst, Matt ran out of them room and refused to talk to either to them.
Jeff went over to Matt's house the next day, fearful that his brother would not forgive him for falling in love with his girlfriend, even if it was just a crush. He tried talking to Matt, tried telling him how he and Lita had nothing between each other, how he had acted on impulse. Since his fury had not faded, Matt did not believe a word that escaped Jeff's mouth, and they ended up in a fistfight. Matt pushed Jeff into a glass table, and even the fact that Jeff was skinny, the table broke under his back, sending shards and splinters of glass into his body. It was then Matt realized he had made an awful mistake, but once Jeff's mind was made up, there was no changing it. He truly believed that Matt had decided to hate him forever, and he left, ran way.
Yes, ran away, because even at twenty-four, Jeff was a child inside.
Matt, of course, followed Jeff and caught up with him, apologized a million times to him. Yes, Jeff did smile and apologize back, but did he really forgive Matt for making him a child again, breaking his trust and bond with his brother and hating him for only one day? Matt never had the chance to ask, because while they were driving home, a drunk driver smashed into their car, ramming the passenger seat. Jeff was in that seat. He was not killed instantly, but he was injured fatally. Matt suffered a mere concussion.
Jeff died in the hospital, in Matt's arms. Even to this day, when Matt was hugging the blanket tighter around him and sipping his cappachino and watching baby Jeff playing with the drumstick, Matt knew he could never forgive himself for that day.
Three years was not a long time. Matt could still see Jeff's bright green eyes, hear his southern drawled voice, feel the touch of his light hand on his arm, see the wide perky smile on his lips, smell his hair that was the smell of Manic Panic mingled with shampoo…
Yes, the road down memory lane was a painful one, but it also provided much comfort and even laughter.
It was a few months before Jeff died. The TeamXtreme locker room was full with its members, Matt reading a magazine, Lita packing, and Jeff supposedly brushing his hair. It was a few days before Valentine's day. Jeff had happened to buy a bottle of pink Manic Panic that day. He had the bottle in his hand, saw Matt's eyes focused entirely on the magazine. Since mischief ran through his veins, Jeff opened the bottle, crept behind Matt and very quietly and softly dumped the contents of the bottle all over Matt's hair. Since he did his work so slowly, Matt did not notice until an hour later, Lita turned to look at him and started laughing wildly. Boy, did Jeff get it, but it was well worth it, considering the next day, they had a signing early in the morning. All of the fans that approached Matt gave him an amused eye, silently thinking, "Pink hair?" Very coldly and stubbornly, Matt would mutter, "It was Jeff."
Then there was a time when they were smaller—Matt was six and Jeff was only four. They shared their bed in their old house, and one-day Matt woke up early in the morning and found his baby brother gone. He told his mother and father, and in panic, they searched all over the house, outside in the tabbaco field where Jeff liked to play, and in the woods nearby. Finally, they gave up. While Matt's mother was calling the police, Matt sulked up into his room and suddenly decided to make his bed. He pulled the comforter really hard, and POP! Jeff tumbled out, falling to the floor, bumping his head on the wood and screaming in pain. Matt had found Jeff, but it was at a price. "That never happened," Jeff would say defiantly whenever Matt would bring it up twenty-one years later. "I was never lost in the covers of a damn bed!" "Yes, you were," Matt would laugh, kissing Jeff's cheek teasingly while his brother would whine. "Mom rushed up the stairs and saw you screaming on the floor and picked you up and cuddled you while I got in trouble for telling a tell-tale. I did not know!"
Once, they had gone into a karoke bar in New Orleans. Someone, Matt couldn't remember who, dared Jeff to start singing a song none of the crowd would expect, and even hate. Jeff agreed and went up on stage without fright. And shock he did…he sang the Mandy Moore song 'Candy' while all the women in the crowd snickered and all the men gawked in disbelief. After that, when Jeff was climbing off the stage, a couple of guys started to try and rush out at him and beat him up for being, well, 'gay' in their eyes. A sort of bar-fight started in the place, and Jeff fled, Matt and their friends trailing behind and practically dying of laughter.
Thinking of that played a smile on Matt's lips. He sipped his coffee and sighed, watching baby Jeff climb up one of the chairs with a graceful ease and start playing with the producing controls, particularly harmless ones that wouldn't mess up the sound. Suddenly, baby Jeff slipped and tumbled down the chair. Matt's eyes widened as baby Jeff started shrieking in pain. Not even remembering his own pain, Matt fell to his knees and swept up his son in his arms, softly whispering to him, "It's all right Jeffy. You're okay. 'Tis alright." After being held for just mere moments, baby Jeff's eyes cleared and he looked up at his father with huge green eyes that were slightly slanted, and grinned. Matt sighed one more time in relief, thankful that his wife did not see. (She would have freaked out.)
What would have Jeff done if he had been alive when Lita gave birth to baby Jeff? Matt could already hear his brother slipping into a baby voice while playing with the child, saying, "Goo-goo gaga" or some shit like that. His answer to Matt's son would probably be "Wow I'm an uncle." He would have loved being an uncle, Matt thought. He has always loved younger children.
Baby Jeff inherited much of his father and uncle. He had the thick curly black hair and high cheekbones of his dad, and the luminous green slanted eyes of his uncle. It seemed as if someone had caught the brothers and stirred them in the blender, and baby Jeff came out. Already, Matt knew that one day baby Jeff would be an excellent wrestler, just like what Matt and Jeff could have been, if it wasn't for Jeff's untimely death. "That's right," Matt thought. "I haven't wrestled since his death. Maybe I should start again…"
"Are you okay, Matt?"
Matt jerked in surprise and turned around, Lita's still beautiful face peering into his with concern. He hadn't even noticed her behind him. Without saying a word, he nodded and handed baby Jeff into her arms. She smiled softly, lifted their son up in her arms, and slipped into her own baby-talk voice. Matt propped himself on his knees and pushed himself up with great difficulty, rising very carefully to his feet and leaning against the chair he was sitting on. All the while Lita's eyes were on him. She briskly handed baby Jeff to Adam and turned to Matt. "Do you need help?" she asked cautiously, hoping for once, his answer would change.
Matt blinked and was about to shake his head, but then another sudden memory popped out at him.
It was a few years before Jeff had died. He was wrestling in their backyard ring when he hurt his back trying to do a Swanton Bomb. Matt rushed outside and tried to help him, but Jeff steadily refused, biting his lip to hold back wails of disappointment and anger. Stubbornly he climbed the turnbuckle again; Matt's eyes still intent on him, when he messed up once more. This time hurt more then the first time, and Jeff started to scream in agony when Matt rushed up to his side once more. Even in all his pain, Jeff managed to push him away and climb outside the ring, brushing away his tears of frustration and hiding his face behind his hair. Of course, Matt followed him into the house, repeatedly asking, "Are you alright?" Finally, Jeff hugged his brother, saying, "I can't do it. I keep messin' up, I don't know how…" Matt just grinned and held his brother tightly so Jeff wouldn't fall, saying, "It's all right, bro. Really. Just let me help you…" A week later, Jeff got it down perfectly and showed it off all to his friends, his eyes gleaming when he said, "And it's all Matt's fault…heh heh."
Matt realized everybody was staring at him. Nobody moved, even baby Jeff's weird babyish noises stopped. Lita was waiting patiently for an answer, her hands wringing together nervously, half-expecting him to snap at her.
"It's all right, bro. Really. Just let me help you…"
Slowly and contently, he nodded. Lita blinked back at him in surprise and his smile widened even more. "Okay, Fireball. You can help me. I just…" he looked down and chuckled, the smell of Manic Panic mingled with shampoo suddenly sneaking up into his nose. "I keep messing up," he thought. "And yet, after a couple of more tries, I might win. Like Jeff did…"His come hither eyes brightened when he looked up.
"Let's go home."