AN: Posting a day early because I won't be able to post tomorrow and I don't know when I will be able to post again. On Thursday, 01-17-19, I was rushed to the hospital for mental health reasons and now I will be attending therapy five days a week. With that said, I don't know when I will be able to post again. I want you guys to understand that I AM NOT ABANDONING THIS STORY. I just won't be able to upload. As soon as I am able to upload on a regular basis again, I will. Thanks for understanding. Thanks for reading. Don't forget to follow, favorite, and review.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything, only the plot & the characters I make up.

Chapter Six

His first day at his new job.

His first day at his second job.

To put it in the simplist terms, his first job, his only job before he got this one, was just not covering it. He found himself very stretched for money each week. The only food he has been able to eat, that he has been able to afford as been bread, peanut butter, and ramen noddles, and bottles of water, a very bland diet. He just couldn't do it anymore. His bills were eating up all of the money he earned. Even though he did his best to make sure to cut his bills, most of his money still went to the bills. He knew he had to get a second job, a second paycheck coming in. With a second paycheck coming in while still working on cutting his bills down, he should be able to have some extra money that he could put towards buying more food, different food. He might have enough extra money to start an emergency fund, something he has been wanting to do ever since he went out on his own. His wants to make sure that in the future, if he ever has a family, if something were to happen, he would have the money to take care of what it was he would have to take care of or if something were to happen to him, he wants to make sure his family would have some money to get through some rough times. He just wants to be prepared. He wants to have money so he isn't struggling anymore as well as have some extra money to put away.

Thanks to his new, second job, he now works in a mailroom of a fairly large office building. Working in a mailroom wasn't exactly his first choice, but for some strange reason this job was higher pay than all the rest of the jobs he looked at and he needed a job that paid well.

Matt walks out of the elevator and into the basement, the mailroom is in the basement. He wasn't exactly sure how to dress for the job The person, the young woman, who had called him to inform him that he had landed the job, simply told him to wear work casual. He didn't exactly have work casual clothes so he had to spend what little money he had left to get some work casual clothes. He hopes the clothes he picked are work casual clothes because if they aren't then he doesn't know what he is going to, he doesn't exactly have the extra money to go out and buy whatever it is that would be considered work casual clothes.

After walking to the end of the hallway, he finds the mailroom. There is only one other person in the mailroom, a woman about his age with ginger-colored hair.

"Excuse me," Matt says.

The young woman looks. God, she is beautiful. Matt can't help but smile when he sees her smile. God, that smile just makes him want to smile. He hasn't felt like that in a long time.

"You must be Matt, I'm Hadley," The young woman, Hadley, says as she makes her way over to Matt, who is still standing in the doorway. "I am the one who called you on the phone."

"Oh, right, I recognize your voice," Matt says.

"You seem nervous, don't be nervous," Hadley says. "This job, it's really simple. You will get the hang of this in no time. Okay, dude, this job will be a breeze."

"I hope so, my other job is pretty tough, tends to take a lot out of me, but don't worry I plan on giving this job my all," Matt pauses, licking his dry lips. "I really need this job. This job, honestly, could have not come at a better time. If this job hadn't come, I probably would have been couch surfing in about two weeks."

"Trouble paying rent, huh?" Hadley questions.

"Yeah, not only that, kind of having trouble paying my bills and buying food," Matt answers, surprised with himself that he is telling Hadley, a woman he has just met, all of this, all of his troubles, but he finds himself unable to stop. "Money has been tight, really tight which is why I am here, working this second job. And I am no longer close with my family."

"I know how it is, Matt, believe me," Hadley says, letting out a sigh and making her way back to the big desk in the middle of the room with Matt following behind her. "I went out on my own at fifteen. My family life fell apart when I was fifteen. You probably can't relate to this, but my mother shot my father and well, as you can imagine, she went to prison. My older brother skipped town, leaving me, at fifteen-years-old, to raise my little brother. We got put in the foster system. At eighteen, I got out and I have been working ever since to get custody of my brother. This is my second job too, I am a waitress at the Roadhouse diner, part-time minimum pay, along with tips, wasn't really helping so I got this job about four months ago. Believe me, it has been a help, but still some weeks are better than others."

"I can relate, I can definitely relate," Matt says, his voice suddenly dry. "My mother shot my father about two years ago, it has been absolute hell. My sister, she took off to God knows where. I have had to sit through police interrogations, court, everything. And I have had to worry about my bills and where to live. I work part-time at a hardware store, but that, not surprisingly, doesn't pay enough so here, I am working here with someone who apparently knows exactly what I am going through."

"Wow," Hadley says. "It's like the universe put us together. Strange and unbelievable."

"I'll say, I never thought I would meet someone who would know what is it like to know what I went through," Matt says. "Don't take this the wrong way, but it kind of feels nice. Now I can actually talk to someone about it without having to explain all the feelings and what exactly happened, you know. I mean unless you don't want to talk about it. It's always an option to you know talk about it. We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I would completely understand. I mean I don't typically want to talk about what happened. Although, I haven't really had the option to talk about it with anyone. Maybe it would be good to talk about with somebody. Oh, God, I don't normally talk this much. Please stop before I begin to make a bigger fool of myself."

Hadley plants a kiss onto Matt's lips effectively stopping him from talking.

"Did that work?" Hadley questions, pulling away from Matt's lips. "I hope you're single. I just couldn't help myself. You are very kissable."

"Yeah, that worked," Matt answers, finding his voice. "And yes, I'm single. Most women aren't exactly looking for a guy like me to date these days."

"I'd date you," Hadley says.

"Really?" Matt questions.

"Are you busy tonight?" Hadley questions.

"Nope," Matt answers. "Do you, uh, want to go out tonight?"

"Sure," Hadley smiles.

Matthew Casey looks at the first photo he and Hadley had taken together. Shortly after their first date. He had fallen for the ginger-haired woman and he had fallen fast. He never knew how getting that second job would change his life so much.

He met the love of his life. They had a child together.

Then she died.

Her death had been unexpected, completely unexpected. He knew the death of Hadley would affect their son. He knew her death would affect Lukas. He never knew that Hadley's death would affect Lukas this much.

God, he couldn't even imagine.

He leans against his son's doorframe, watching as his sixteen-year-old son sleeps. Matt can't help but notice his son is clutching Bear the rabbit. Matt has honestly no idea where Lukas keeps Bear, but the stuffed animal has been appearing more and more these days. Matt knows Lukas has some hiding place in his room. He knows that it where he has been hiding Bear.

Hiding places.

Matt knows that Lukas has hiding place within his room. Who knows what Lukas could possibly be hiding in those hiding places. Matt is going to have to a strip down of his son's room, checking every single area of this room. He hopes that when the time comes, Lukas will be honest with him and just tell him all the hiding places. Matt knows, though, a sixteen-year-old boy. Rebelling age. Matt knows Lukas isn't exactly the rebelling type of sixteen-year-old. Heck, Matt doesn't even really know what type of sixteen-year-old his sixteen-year-old is. Matt thought he knew his son, but turns out he doesn't know his son at all. He can't be sure whether or not Lukas will tell him about all of his hiding places.

God, he doesn't even know what to do. He is so lost. He never even thought that one day he would be having to deal with this.

But he is.

He is going to have to deal with this. This isn't just something he can bury away and hope that it goes away with time. He doesn't want to bury it away. His son has already been suffering in silence for the past three years. God, he can't even bare the thought of his son suffering. He doesn't want his son suffering anymore. He wants his son to get better. He wants his son to be better. He wants his son to be the happy teen he once was.

Matt is brought out of his deep thoughts by his son beginning to toss and turn on his bed. Matt can see his son's face. Lukas looks like he is in pain, he looks like he is crying or at least about to cry. Matt's heart stops beating for a brief second. He doesn't see this look on his son's face a lot, barely. There has been only one other time when Matt has seen this look on his son's face.

Three years ago…

When he had told his son about the death of his mother.