Well, I would like to give a big thanks to Sweet Steffie for reviewing! Oh and of course, each and every one of you for reviewing. I'm up to 18 reviews (my highest amount of reviews on any of my stories!) and even though I never say so, reviews really do fuel my desire to write so... -nudge, nudge, wink, wink- Heh, kidding. Hope you enjoy this chapter, I'm hoping that the next one will come sooner than this one did.
---
He told himself he wouldn't do this, he wouldn't just become a sobbing mess when he saw her but there was just so much he had held back. He had been the strong one for Lita, he held her while she cried, he had whispered the soothing words he knew she desperately needed to hear.
But now he just couldn't hold back, she was alive. She was alive! He should be singing from the rooftops that he had found her, he was in the same room as the girl that he been searching from coast to coast for.
She didn't know what to do, he was still standing there on her porch with fat tears rolling down his cheeks. Trish would run to his side, comfort him until the sun died in the sky and would gently sing him to sleep as the stars shined in the sky.
But Trish was no more, she was Patricia. She was alone in this cold, dark world with no one but a few friends and Jeff wasn't one of them, she wasn't caring, she wasn't the one to hold someone. So, why did she feel so torn up inside? If she was Patricia, why did she want to hold him for all of eternity?
His cries began to die off, ending slowly. As he calmed, he kept his eyes on her, she was pale, she didn't seem sickly in fact she looked healthy. Her hair was a bit longer than before and now it was dyed a dark brown, back to her natural color. She still did the nervous Trish hand wringing.
The silence was growing and he didn't know what he could say to break it, so he thought of the question that seemed to enter his mind every hour of the day.
"Why?"
She couldn't tell him the truth, the truth would just lead to another web that neither Jeff or Lita would ever be ready for.
"Jeff, you're not... you shouldn't be here."
She definitely seemed nervous, her fingers gripped the edge of the wooden door and she kept her eyes on him, unsure of his motives. He didn't expect a marching band or a party or god, a hug. He just wanted a smile from her, a tiny flash of teeth but an unfamiliar frown was on her lips.
"I'm not... What?!" He asked, angrily. No, he did not travel 2,000 some odd miles just to get the brush off like Lita did.
"We've been looking for you for a couple months and-and-and… No!" He yelled, he slapped his palm onto the door, sending it flying open, startling Trish as the door hit the table beside the door, sending the contents of the bowl and the bowl onto the floor.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" She asked, furious with his intrusion.
"There's something wrong with me, huh? A day after you try to kill yourself, you leave! With no note to say 'Hey, don't worry about me, I need some time.' or fuck just a 'I love you, I'm sorry, bye!'"
He let out a harsh breath, lowering his voice but keeping the pressure on her. He didn't wanna leave without answers, this is what he came for, to figure out why she left, there would be no more unanswered questions. "What the hell is wrong with you? Forget about me and Lita, you leave your family behind. You don't even take care of your house, you quit your job and just run away. Why!?"
It took her a moment to regain some sense of composure, she had seen her little Jeffy turn from a terribly sad young man to an angry guy who had waited way too long to hear things from her that he desperately wanted to hear. Well, tough. Sometimes you didn't get what you want in life. Trish didn't, why the hell should, Jeff?
She knew that becoming angry was unreasonable but these damn hormones were getting to her and Jeff was jumping up and down on her last nerve.
"Because god damn it, it's none of your business! It's no one's. I'm a grown woman and I can do whatever the fuck I wanna do, now get out."
"No!" He shouted back.
"What do you mean, no? This is my house!"
"No, it's not. You live in Toronto. You own your house, you don't rent this country cabin. This isn't you, Trish. What happened, why did you go?"
She fumed at the idea of him telling her who she was. She thought he'd be able to handle this better considering the problems he had to deal with in his life. And then he said something that broke her back.
"I just want to help."
"You want to help, huh?" She whispered.
Inside, he wondered if her new tone signaled a chance for the better.
"Trish, that's all I've ever wanted to do."
"Just like when I helped you, Jeffy?"
He nodded, smiling a bit, remembering the times she held his hand when he finally asked for help with his drug problem.
"You know..." Her voice took on a dream like tone, remembering their days together fondly. "I remember when you needed me, when you asked for help. Well, Jeff, I'm fine. I just needed some time away, I don't need any help, I'm not a junkie who needs help to get my life on track."
She drew out the word junkie, it had bite, an edge to it. A tiny smirk appeared on her lips but it quickly disappeared as this look of sheer horror filled his features.
He didn't see a knife in her hand but he knew what she had done, she had stabbed him right in the place where it could hurt the most. He knew that she had done it just to get him angry but it had the exact opposite effect on him. He had never been called a junkie before, well, by the fans and some losers on random Internet chat rooms but never by someone who was supposed to care.
And god, did it hurt.
But he pulled himself together, trying to gather some strength to walk out of the room.
"I may be a junkie but you're as fucked up as I am, trying to kill yourself over a prick like Jericho. You can run to the ends of the earth to get away from us but I can tell you, you can't run away from the person you've become now, you are a miserable bitch who can go to hell." He harshly whispered before he violently slammed the door shut.
The words that were reserved for the men who hurt his two girls seemed to pass his lips easily as he described Trish but it was hell on the inside, he didn't even notice the girl he bumped into who was climbing Trish's steps.
He didn't know if he meant any of it, he didn't know if he could take any of it back but those thoughts got pushed away by the word that kept ramming its ugly head back into the forefront.
Junkie.
Junkie.
Junkie.
He quickly got into the rental, not noticing the stares from Victoria at the top of Trish's steps.
Vic rang the doorbell and Trish stepped out, just in time to watch the car slowly make its way away from the house.
"Who was that?" Victoria asked, keeping her eyes on the car.
"Nobody." She whispered as she ushered Victoria into her home.
---
He was shivering by the time he headed into the shop, he headed to the aisle that he used to frequent regularly, they were always in the same spot in every store, all the way on the right side of the store, against the wall, hidden away from little children.
He stood there for what seemed like hours, his eyes unfocused, blurred by the tears that wasn't stopping. In the distance, the muzak that played through the store's speaker system. He listened for a moment and let out a harsh laugh as he finally pinpointed what it was. Don't worry, be happy.
"Fuck you, life." He spat out as the muzak continued to irk him, be happy, be happy, don't worry, don't worry.
He grabbed a few random bottles from the shelves in front of him, it didn't matter what it was, all that mattered was that he needed it, just a few drops would be what the doctor ordered.
He paid for his liquor and settled into the drivers seat, he pulled out the first bottle and didn't hesitate. He grimaced as the first drop of alcohol touched his lips, the vodka burned his throat as it quickly went down, he coughed a little and took a few more swigs.
As he kept the drink coming, he didn't realize how quickly he got back into it, it wasn't hard, there was no more burning, it felt like home again. It made him feel better about the night, the days, the months.
Jeff dropped the half empty bottle beside him on the seat and put the car in drive. Trish was right, he was just a junkie.
Junkie.
Junkie.
Junkie.
---
Bubba was a bit worried, Jeff had been gone for six and a half hours and it was beginning to grow dark, for the first three hours he was hopeful that maybe Jeff had made a breakthrough with Trish but as the third hour faded away and hours four and five came round, he wondered if something worse happened.
He hated to worry about Jeff, he was a grown man but in so many ways he was still so vulnerable, especially when it came to Trish. Jeff spent many nights talking about his relationship with Trish and how it quickly crumbled and even though he would always feel something inside for her, that there was no way that they could make it work.
He flipped the TV off and threw a few shirts into his bag. Bubba couldn't help but think time had been wasted on Trish. Even though it hurt to think so, he just wondered if trying to bring her back would cause more bad than good.
He zipped his second bag closed and grabbed the other and walked to the van, throwing his stuff in, he wondered for a moment if the pair was having a nice chat, maybe some hugs and kisses. He smiled as closed the van's sliding door. If Jeff wanted to stay, he would understand but that didn't mean he needed to stay. Of course, he cared what happened to Trish and wanted her to be okay but she wouldn't care about him.
Bubba settled onto the bed, checking the clock again. He had done this for Jeff and Lita and in some ways, the memory of his sister. He knew about suicide and what happened but if she had been able to live alone, for two months. Maybe she'd make it. And she probably wouldn't need his advice anyway.
He was quickly brought back to reality as someone pounded on his door, he quickly got up and opened the door.
Bubba nearly gagged at the stench of alcohol that filled his nose. It was David Marisino, holding up an extremely drunk Jeff Hardy.
Drunk.
Jeff Hardy was drunk.
David pulled the dead weight of Jeff and slowly let him fall onto the bed, Jeff had enough strength left in him to curl into a little ball.
"What happened?" Bubba asked, as he moved onto the bed to check Jeff.
"I found him in the parking lot, clutching a bottle, he kept mumbling something. I thought he was clean, Bubba."
"He is." Bubba insisted. "He is, damn it!"
He pulled the bottle from his grip and dropped it onto the carpet, splashing clear liquid all over, soaking the white carpet.
"Jeff, hey look at me." He gave a gentle slap to the nearly limp boy's cheek and tried to get him to focus his eyes on him. "What happened?"
Jeff looked up at his friend, his eyes filled with tears. "I'm jus' a junkie, Bub. She said I wa' jus' a junk... junkie. It was so short, Bub. She jus' tore inta me."
"Who?" Bubba prodded. "Tris'" He whispered before he laid his head back onto the bed, falling asleep almost immediately, drained from her comments and all the booze he had consumed.
Bubba smoothed the blue hair away from Jeff's face and felt the anger flare inside of him, he grabbed the keys from the top of the dresser.
"Stay with him." He barked, quickly slamming the door behind him.
He drove fast, darting in and out of cars, he didn't care if the cops wrote him thirty fat tickets, he needed to get there fast before his fury faded away. Although, he was sure that even if it took him a week to get there, this awful emotion would still be boiling inside of him.
Bubba drove even faster as he headed down the lane, the tires of the van screeched loudly as the van came to a halt by the sidewalk.
He jumped out and made his way past her gate, making sure to give it a hard slam, he heard the squeak and a thump behind him, he didn't bother to look back but if he had, he would have seen the broken fence, laying on the pathway.
Bubba knocked furiously, his knuckles beating harder against the wood of her door. When the door opened, he pushed past her and into her living room, he turned and took her in for a moment, noting the changes in her appearance for a second.
Before she could open her mouth to protest, he held up his hand.
"Don't say a fucking word." He warned. "You and I are going to have a long, long talk."
---
He told himself he wouldn't do this, he wouldn't just become a sobbing mess when he saw her but there was just so much he had held back. He had been the strong one for Lita, he held her while she cried, he had whispered the soothing words he knew she desperately needed to hear.
But now he just couldn't hold back, she was alive. She was alive! He should be singing from the rooftops that he had found her, he was in the same room as the girl that he been searching from coast to coast for.
She didn't know what to do, he was still standing there on her porch with fat tears rolling down his cheeks. Trish would run to his side, comfort him until the sun died in the sky and would gently sing him to sleep as the stars shined in the sky.
But Trish was no more, she was Patricia. She was alone in this cold, dark world with no one but a few friends and Jeff wasn't one of them, she wasn't caring, she wasn't the one to hold someone. So, why did she feel so torn up inside? If she was Patricia, why did she want to hold him for all of eternity?
His cries began to die off, ending slowly. As he calmed, he kept his eyes on her, she was pale, she didn't seem sickly in fact she looked healthy. Her hair was a bit longer than before and now it was dyed a dark brown, back to her natural color. She still did the nervous Trish hand wringing.
The silence was growing and he didn't know what he could say to break it, so he thought of the question that seemed to enter his mind every hour of the day.
"Why?"
She couldn't tell him the truth, the truth would just lead to another web that neither Jeff or Lita would ever be ready for.
"Jeff, you're not... you shouldn't be here."
She definitely seemed nervous, her fingers gripped the edge of the wooden door and she kept her eyes on him, unsure of his motives. He didn't expect a marching band or a party or god, a hug. He just wanted a smile from her, a tiny flash of teeth but an unfamiliar frown was on her lips.
"I'm not... What?!" He asked, angrily. No, he did not travel 2,000 some odd miles just to get the brush off like Lita did.
"We've been looking for you for a couple months and-and-and… No!" He yelled, he slapped his palm onto the door, sending it flying open, startling Trish as the door hit the table beside the door, sending the contents of the bowl and the bowl onto the floor.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" She asked, furious with his intrusion.
"There's something wrong with me, huh? A day after you try to kill yourself, you leave! With no note to say 'Hey, don't worry about me, I need some time.' or fuck just a 'I love you, I'm sorry, bye!'"
He let out a harsh breath, lowering his voice but keeping the pressure on her. He didn't wanna leave without answers, this is what he came for, to figure out why she left, there would be no more unanswered questions. "What the hell is wrong with you? Forget about me and Lita, you leave your family behind. You don't even take care of your house, you quit your job and just run away. Why!?"
It took her a moment to regain some sense of composure, she had seen her little Jeffy turn from a terribly sad young man to an angry guy who had waited way too long to hear things from her that he desperately wanted to hear. Well, tough. Sometimes you didn't get what you want in life. Trish didn't, why the hell should, Jeff?
She knew that becoming angry was unreasonable but these damn hormones were getting to her and Jeff was jumping up and down on her last nerve.
"Because god damn it, it's none of your business! It's no one's. I'm a grown woman and I can do whatever the fuck I wanna do, now get out."
"No!" He shouted back.
"What do you mean, no? This is my house!"
"No, it's not. You live in Toronto. You own your house, you don't rent this country cabin. This isn't you, Trish. What happened, why did you go?"
She fumed at the idea of him telling her who she was. She thought he'd be able to handle this better considering the problems he had to deal with in his life. And then he said something that broke her back.
"I just want to help."
"You want to help, huh?" She whispered.
Inside, he wondered if her new tone signaled a chance for the better.
"Trish, that's all I've ever wanted to do."
"Just like when I helped you, Jeffy?"
He nodded, smiling a bit, remembering the times she held his hand when he finally asked for help with his drug problem.
"You know..." Her voice took on a dream like tone, remembering their days together fondly. "I remember when you needed me, when you asked for help. Well, Jeff, I'm fine. I just needed some time away, I don't need any help, I'm not a junkie who needs help to get my life on track."
She drew out the word junkie, it had bite, an edge to it. A tiny smirk appeared on her lips but it quickly disappeared as this look of sheer horror filled his features.
He didn't see a knife in her hand but he knew what she had done, she had stabbed him right in the place where it could hurt the most. He knew that she had done it just to get him angry but it had the exact opposite effect on him. He had never been called a junkie before, well, by the fans and some losers on random Internet chat rooms but never by someone who was supposed to care.
And god, did it hurt.
But he pulled himself together, trying to gather some strength to walk out of the room.
"I may be a junkie but you're as fucked up as I am, trying to kill yourself over a prick like Jericho. You can run to the ends of the earth to get away from us but I can tell you, you can't run away from the person you've become now, you are a miserable bitch who can go to hell." He harshly whispered before he violently slammed the door shut.
The words that were reserved for the men who hurt his two girls seemed to pass his lips easily as he described Trish but it was hell on the inside, he didn't even notice the girl he bumped into who was climbing Trish's steps.
He didn't know if he meant any of it, he didn't know if he could take any of it back but those thoughts got pushed away by the word that kept ramming its ugly head back into the forefront.
Junkie.
Junkie.
Junkie.
He quickly got into the rental, not noticing the stares from Victoria at the top of Trish's steps.
Vic rang the doorbell and Trish stepped out, just in time to watch the car slowly make its way away from the house.
"Who was that?" Victoria asked, keeping her eyes on the car.
"Nobody." She whispered as she ushered Victoria into her home.
---
He was shivering by the time he headed into the shop, he headed to the aisle that he used to frequent regularly, they were always in the same spot in every store, all the way on the right side of the store, against the wall, hidden away from little children.
He stood there for what seemed like hours, his eyes unfocused, blurred by the tears that wasn't stopping. In the distance, the muzak that played through the store's speaker system. He listened for a moment and let out a harsh laugh as he finally pinpointed what it was. Don't worry, be happy.
"Fuck you, life." He spat out as the muzak continued to irk him, be happy, be happy, don't worry, don't worry.
He grabbed a few random bottles from the shelves in front of him, it didn't matter what it was, all that mattered was that he needed it, just a few drops would be what the doctor ordered.
He paid for his liquor and settled into the drivers seat, he pulled out the first bottle and didn't hesitate. He grimaced as the first drop of alcohol touched his lips, the vodka burned his throat as it quickly went down, he coughed a little and took a few more swigs.
As he kept the drink coming, he didn't realize how quickly he got back into it, it wasn't hard, there was no more burning, it felt like home again. It made him feel better about the night, the days, the months.
Jeff dropped the half empty bottle beside him on the seat and put the car in drive. Trish was right, he was just a junkie.
Junkie.
Junkie.
Junkie.
---
Bubba was a bit worried, Jeff had been gone for six and a half hours and it was beginning to grow dark, for the first three hours he was hopeful that maybe Jeff had made a breakthrough with Trish but as the third hour faded away and hours four and five came round, he wondered if something worse happened.
He hated to worry about Jeff, he was a grown man but in so many ways he was still so vulnerable, especially when it came to Trish. Jeff spent many nights talking about his relationship with Trish and how it quickly crumbled and even though he would always feel something inside for her, that there was no way that they could make it work.
He flipped the TV off and threw a few shirts into his bag. Bubba couldn't help but think time had been wasted on Trish. Even though it hurt to think so, he just wondered if trying to bring her back would cause more bad than good.
He zipped his second bag closed and grabbed the other and walked to the van, throwing his stuff in, he wondered for a moment if the pair was having a nice chat, maybe some hugs and kisses. He smiled as closed the van's sliding door. If Jeff wanted to stay, he would understand but that didn't mean he needed to stay. Of course, he cared what happened to Trish and wanted her to be okay but she wouldn't care about him.
Bubba settled onto the bed, checking the clock again. He had done this for Jeff and Lita and in some ways, the memory of his sister. He knew about suicide and what happened but if she had been able to live alone, for two months. Maybe she'd make it. And she probably wouldn't need his advice anyway.
He was quickly brought back to reality as someone pounded on his door, he quickly got up and opened the door.
Bubba nearly gagged at the stench of alcohol that filled his nose. It was David Marisino, holding up an extremely drunk Jeff Hardy.
Drunk.
Jeff Hardy was drunk.
David pulled the dead weight of Jeff and slowly let him fall onto the bed, Jeff had enough strength left in him to curl into a little ball.
"What happened?" Bubba asked, as he moved onto the bed to check Jeff.
"I found him in the parking lot, clutching a bottle, he kept mumbling something. I thought he was clean, Bubba."
"He is." Bubba insisted. "He is, damn it!"
He pulled the bottle from his grip and dropped it onto the carpet, splashing clear liquid all over, soaking the white carpet.
"Jeff, hey look at me." He gave a gentle slap to the nearly limp boy's cheek and tried to get him to focus his eyes on him. "What happened?"
Jeff looked up at his friend, his eyes filled with tears. "I'm jus' a junkie, Bub. She said I wa' jus' a junk... junkie. It was so short, Bub. She jus' tore inta me."
"Who?" Bubba prodded. "Tris'" He whispered before he laid his head back onto the bed, falling asleep almost immediately, drained from her comments and all the booze he had consumed.
Bubba smoothed the blue hair away from Jeff's face and felt the anger flare inside of him, he grabbed the keys from the top of the dresser.
"Stay with him." He barked, quickly slamming the door behind him.
He drove fast, darting in and out of cars, he didn't care if the cops wrote him thirty fat tickets, he needed to get there fast before his fury faded away. Although, he was sure that even if it took him a week to get there, this awful emotion would still be boiling inside of him.
Bubba drove even faster as he headed down the lane, the tires of the van screeched loudly as the van came to a halt by the sidewalk.
He jumped out and made his way past her gate, making sure to give it a hard slam, he heard the squeak and a thump behind him, he didn't bother to look back but if he had, he would have seen the broken fence, laying on the pathway.
Bubba knocked furiously, his knuckles beating harder against the wood of her door. When the door opened, he pushed past her and into her living room, he turned and took her in for a moment, noting the changes in her appearance for a second.
Before she could open her mouth to protest, he held up his hand.
"Don't say a fucking word." He warned. "You and I are going to have a long, long talk."