Clydie, after changing her bucket of water three times, had only managed to clean about a quarter of the first bedroom wall and only about halfway up because she didn't have a step ladder to reach all the way to the top. And that small amount of space she'd covered had taken her nearly an hour. There was that much nicotine and grime covering the wallpaper. She figured, at the rate she was moving, she might have all four walls cleaned by sometime the following week.

Dropping her rag into the bucket that now looked like it was filled with coffee, she let out a breath and once again had to question why on earth her mother would agree to buy a place that was in such a shape. Surely, there were better houses on the market, houses that weren't practically decrepit, in the very least. The woman, who was always worried about the budget, was probably going to have a heart attack when she realized she'd be spending what could feasibly turn out to be thousands of dollars on cleaning supplies alone.

Already resigning herself to sleeping in the back of her mom's SUV, she glanced around the room, at the old furniture and the bed that had belonged to the previous owners.  With another sigh, she moved in that direction, taking hold of and carefully removing the sheet that was covering the mattress, so as to keep the dust in the air to a minimum.  And once the mattress beneath was revealed to her, she fairly balked.  There was no amount of money that would get her to lay down on that mattress. It was sagging and lumpy, the probably once white fabric now beige and befouled by dark stains that she simply wasn't willing to put a name to. 

No.  She would not be sleeping...on that.  But, she couldn't even put her own bed together until that festering, practically rotting thing was hauled out of her room. Of course, hauling it out meant she'd have to touch it and those stains...well, they were beyond suspicious.

Then again, the only way things would get done was if she did them. She couldn't wait for her parents to come help her because they had their own stuff to sort out. So, deciding to forego washing the walls for the moment, she turned her focus to that chore. Really, the old fashioned, dark wood headboard wasn't so bad. It was kind of pretty, the simplicity of it. And it matched the old fashioned dresser and chest-of-drawers that were also in the room.

Her own bedroom furniture, which was piled in the middle of the floor, was perfectly fine and usable, but looking between the white painted pieces her mother had bought when she was a small girl and the dark wood pieces that just...belonged...with the house, she found herself preferring the vintage things. Maybe because she'd outgrown the little girl furniture a long time ago, she just hadn't wanted to say anything about it.

But, first thing's first. The disgusting old mattress that was probably teeming with bacteria and deadly microbes had to go, so she would drag it from her room and down into the foyer, where her parents would assumedly know how to dispose of it.  And she hoped there was fire involved in the process because that was undoubtedly the safest method to destroy whatever was living on it...and in it.

The matter settled in her mind, she took her life into her own hands and approached the thing, grabbing hold of one corner and giving it a tug. She fully expected it to move because she'd turned her own mattress over every few months to keep it from settling crookedly and it hadn't been all that difficult. But, this mattress didn't budge. Not even an inch. It felt like there were cinder blocks sewn up inside the thing!

Shoving her surprise aside, she tightened her grip on the soiled bed and gave it another stout tug, really putting some force behind it, actually straining as she pulled against the weight...and managed to move the bottom half of it all of two inches. Taking a step back and swiping her hair out of her face, she studied the situation for a moment, deciding to switch things up a bit. If she couldn't pull the thing off the bedframe, she'd push it. But, one way or another, it was going!

Rounding the bed to the other side, she leaned over and placed her hands against the edge of the beast, planting her feet on the floor and giving the thing a mighty shove, putting her full strength into it. She pushed and shoved and grunted like some sort of snuffling animal...but the thing only moved another few inches.

Damn! What was inside the blasted mattress? Rocks? Was that why it looked so lumpy?

Irritated, she steeled herself and gave it another try, pushing against it until she felt a sheen of perspiration break out on her forehead and the blood beginning to throb in her cheeks. With a lot of straining and heaving and grunting, she somehow managed to shove it off the bed frame and onto the floor, where it landed with a loud, disturbingly thick sounding thunk.

Standing over the foul thing, breathing hard and throbbing with heat, she felt a measure of victory. At least she'd gotten it off the bed, so mattress-zero, Clydie-one. Now, to get the thing out through the door, down the hallway, and down the stairs into the foyer. A feat that probably wouldn't be any harder than pushing the house itself off its foundation and across the yard.

Pulling in a lungful of the much needed sea breezes that were wafting about the room, she walked back around the bed and, with her back to the door, grabbed hold of the little strap that had been sewn into the side, giving it a heave. Feeling as if her intestines might come pushing out through her belly, she somehow got the thing to moving. Slowly and in increments, but moving nonetheless. She'd pull it a couple of inches, stop to catch her breath, and then pull it a little more.

Pull, stop to breathe, pull it a little more. Pull, stop to wheeze and pant, pull it a little more. And while she was standing there, huffing and puffing and sweating, she was calling the thing every single swear word she'd ever heard and even making up a few of her own.

By the time she dragged the beast across the room and over to the door, she was almost certain she'd slipped several discs in her back and had possibly given herself an abdominal hernia, but by god, she had done it! She had gained victory over the fetid beast, which had to weigh about two hundred pounds. And probably a hundred and fifty of those pounds were made of up dead human skin cells and the bugs and bacteria that feasted upon them...but, she wouldn't dwell on that fact.

There was only a couple of feet left between the beast and doorway, so she decided to try and turn the thing around and then stand it up onto its side, which would hopefully allow her to simply slide it right out the door and into the hallway. 

Steeling herself for the last hard push, she grabbed hold of the little hand strap on the side, planted her feet, and heaved it with all her might...and her ears picked up the sound of tearing fabric a split second before her mind realized what was happening.  But, it was too late. The strap tore loose and the resistance she was fighting against was gone and even as the gasp was flying out of her, her body went reeling backward, the momentum carrying her right through the doorway and out into the hall.

As her mind threw up signals to her body, warning it to try and brace itself, her back slammed into something with enough force to jar her vision and tear a shriek from her throat. The impact, however, caused the thing she'd careened into to give way and she went stumbling backward several more steps before coming to an abrupt, lurching halt that drove a deep, gruff sounding oomph! up out of...her?

Hearing that husky noise startled her a bit, bringing the blurred world around her back into sharp focus...and she swiftly realized that...something wasn't right. A part of her mind reasoned that she should have crashed into the hallway wall that was opposite her room...but It did not feel like there was a wall behind her...unless that wall was bumpy and knobby...and breathing kind of hard?

Another shriek flew out of Clydie and she pushed herself away from the thing behind her, straightening up, whipping around, and fully expecting to find some sort of unholy entity there. But, as another scream began working its way up the back of her throat, she quickly realized that it was not some faded, coal eyed vision.  It was, instead, a living, breathing person.  And that person, a young man who was nearly doubled up and wearing a rather pain-filled expression...did not belong in her house.

Swallowing her scream back down, Clydie took a couple of inadvertent steps backward, away from the young man, trying to get her thoughts back together and in line. "What are you doing up here!" she croaked out, struggling to calm her racing pulse.

"Getting elbowed in the junk!" he rasped, putting his hands on his knees and pulling in a few deep breaths.

Clydie froze, something sharp going through her and she felt an apology readying to deliver itself, but she stopped it short. Why should she apologize?  She didn't know this man from Adam and this was her house! He was the one who'd gotten in her way! She opened her mouth to demand to know exactly why he, a stranger, was lurking around her bedroom, but the young man spoke first. 

"Are you okay? Did you get hurt?" he choked out, pulling in a few more gulps of air before lifting his gaze up to meet hers...and Clydie heard herself suck in a sharp breath.

Aside from a pair of eyes that were as blue as window cleaner, which she found slightly addling, he...whoever he was...was on the right side of good looking.  He was, in fact, fairly hot.

When she didn't answer the question, the young man drew his wheat colored brows together. "Did you hurt something?"

Clydie tried to find her voice in an effort to reply, but she felt a bit thrown off, so gave her head a shake instead.

"Are you sure? You came flying out of there pretty fast," he pointed out, trying to straighten up, but halfway through the process his face turned beet red and he let out a rough groan, bending back over and putting his hands back on his knees...and subsequently emitting a little gagging noise.

Seeing that sent a pang of remorse stabbing right through her and she snapped herself too, taking a quick step back toward the young man. "Are you okay? Sh-should I get my mom?"

Her mom was...or had been...a part time NICU nurse, so she really had no idea what the woman might do to help the young man and his...junk...but, he seemed to need some sort of assistance.

"No. No, I'll be alright in a minute," he wheezed.

"Really? My mom's a nurse. She might be able to...do something," she stated unevenly.

"That's okay. Its almost over," came the response.

The young man then sucked in another couple of breaths and abruptly stood up, as if getting it over with all at once would make it easier. He winced, let out another groan, and his left eye nearly rolled back into his head, but then he gave himself a quick, visible shake and...that was that.  It seemed to be over.

Once he was standing upright, Clydie got her first real look at him, and she felt her jaw drop slightly.  He was...hot.  Like really, really hot.  Like late night teen soap opera hot.

He had a headful of mussy blonde hair, healthily tanned skin that was pulled taught over a chiseled jawline and square chin. His nose was straight, his cheekbones high, his forehead broad. And he had a physique to match his better than average looks. Broad shoulders and chest, biceps that were bulging from underneath his tight grey tee shirt, lean waist and flat stomach, long legs that could eat up the miles on a high school track. He was...well, really, really hot.  He was also really, really tall, hovering well over six feet, which forced her to have to tilt her head back to look up at him.  And she hated doing that.  It was annoying.

"Are you sure you're alright?" he questioned as his vivid blue eyes raked her up and down, searching for any visible injury.

"I'm fine. I-I'm sorry about elbowing you. I really didn't mean to," she apologized, feeling like maybe she shouldn't, but she had caused him what looked to be a tremendous amount of physical pain.  Though, he had seemed to recover fairly quickly.

"No problem," he said, lifting a broad shoulder and smiling crookedly down at her. "I didn't plan on having kids anyway."

Clydie studied the strapping young man for a moment, noting that he wasn't regarding her the same way that most people seemed to do almost instantly. There was no wariness or suspicion, no outright fear toward her. There was only a good-natured smile and a pair of friendly, bright blue eyes.

"Well, I guess you were in the right place at the right time, then. Lucky you," she responded, turning on her heel and walking back into her bedroom.

She had work to do.  She couldn't stand there ogling the guy all day, no matter how hot he was.  And boy howdy, was he hot.

"What happened in here? You came shooting out the door like a rocket," the young man stated from right behind her.

Glancing over her shoulder, she saw him stepping up to the doorway and glancing around the space, which sent a little wave of irritation spiraling through her belly. "So, who are you? And how did you get past my parents?" she asked him plainly, not really appreciating a perfect stranger invading her space. 

Surely, he couldn't be the handyman, Mr. Tanner?  

His brows shot upwards. "Oh. Sorry.  I'm Matt Tanner. Your folks just hired me and my dad to do some work around the place."

So, that explained that.  Though, he most certainly didn't look very much like the son of a handyman.  Perhaps the requisite star quarterback and all around nice guy in one of those slick teen soap operas, but not the son of a handyman.   

"Well, Matt Tanner, what are you doing up here?" she repeated, figuring he should probably be doing something useful instead of hanging around, taking up her time.

"Your mom sent me to help you get your room situated," he answered. "She said there's some furniture to move and some cleaning to do."

Hearing that, Clydie looked away from the overly handsome young man, turning her attention back to the mattress lying by the doorway. "I don't need any help," she stated firmly, eyeing the stained monstrosity.

It was a matter of principal now.

Without the hand strap, which was now lying out in the hallway, she couldn't finish pulling it to the door. So, with no other choice, she rounded the thing and grabbed hold of it on the opposite side, trying to get it off the floor and  at least upright. But, it was like trying to dead-lift a small sports car. Grunting and straining, she managed to lift up the spot where she was standing about six inches, but none of the rest of it bothered to move. It just laid there, all limp and lifeless.

Letting go of her grip, it thunked back down onto the floor and she stood over it, huffing and puffing, for a long minute before suddenly deciding to shoot out a foot and give it a stiff kick. "Stupid thing!" she grumped.

That swift kicked made her feel a little better, so she decided to do it again. And then again and again. She landed several vehement strikes on the offending item and in between those well placed blows, she let a few swear words fly, words that perhaps no lady should be letting leave her lips, but the thing deserved those words and even a few more.  So, she offered up another round of epithets that, had her mother heard, would have gotten her into some seriously deep shit.

"Wow. You've got some anger issues," Matt Tanner pointed out when she finally stopped assaulting the mattress and had fallen back to wheezing and panting and sweating.

Clydie shot Mr. Matt Tanner a look, really trying to decide whether or not she should hurl some of those words at him, but before she could open her mouth and let them spew forth, he stepped into the room, waltzed right up to the mattress, grabbed hold of the edge of it and lifted it up onto its side with such ease, it might as well have been weightless. And once it was standing upright, he proceeded to effortlessly pull it out through the door and then on down the hallway, removing the thing from her sight.

Staring after him, she felt a wave of dejection roll through her, taking all the fire and fight right out of her. Suddenly feeling drained and deflated, she turned on her heel and clumped across the room toward the bucket of coffee colored water sitting in the floor, picking it up and hauling it into the bathroom. 

 Oh, god. The bathroom. 

 As quickly as humanly possible, she dumped the filthy water down the bathtub and refilled the bucket before making a run for it. Back out in the bedroom, she found Matt Tanner easily lifting the old box spring off the bed frame and giving her a wide smile as he was doing it.

"I'll be right back to give you a hand," the young man said, easily pushing the large square out of the room.

She knew she shouldn't, but she almost wished she'd elbowed Matt Tanner just a tiny bit harder.

Dragging herself back over to where she'd been working, she turned her attention to the soiled wallpaper, trying to take out some of her irritation out on the little red roses by giving them a vicious scrubbing. Stupid mattress. Did it really have to be that heavy? And stupid Matt Tanner, who was way too good looking to be a handyman, by the by!  And really, what kind of guy could lift a two hundred pound mattress like it was nothing!  

He was probably on steroids.  Street level HGH, if she had to guess. That was the likely explanation.

"Should I take this old bed frame apart?" Matt Tanner wondered as he entered the room again.

"No.  That stays in here," she answered, slopping her wet rag against the wall and rather enjoying putting a bit of force behind her scouring.

"Alrighty. Then where should I put the other frame?" asked the young man, his deep voice and his questions suddenly grating on her.

She lifted a shoulder, keeping her focus on the wall in front of her. "The foyer, I guess.  And any white furniture can go, too."  She added that last bit, thinking he'd probably paid good money to get all roided up, so why let it go to waste?

From behind her, she heard things being moved and shifted around and then Matt Tanner's heavy footsteps leaving the room. He came and went several times---filling the space with the sounds of thumping and shuffling and scraping---while she continued to work away at the sticky wallpaper and yet not making a whole lot of headway. For the love of Pete, who smoked so much that it permeated the entire house and everything in it? It was disgusting!

After another round of scuffling and thudding sounded out from behind her, she glanced over her shoulder, finding the old fashioned bedframe now holding her own wonderfully clean box spring and mattress. The pieces of her own bed had been removed from the room, along with the night stand and chest-of-drawers from her childhood, leaving nothing but a massive stack of boxes sitting in the middle of the floor and the dark, old fashioned furniture scattered around the perimeter.

"Why don't I take over with this and you can do something else," Matt Tanner offered, suddenly appearing beside her with a wooden step ladder in his hand.

She took a brief moment to focus on Mr. Matt Tanner, who was looking down at her with such a...frank and open gaze, that it was a bit disarming.  His better than average looks and well-honed physique notwithstanding, there was something about his energy, something that made him seem very forthright, very what you see is what you get.  She thought that was a very unusual trait to find in someone.  

It seemed that most people were hiding something, tightly guarding the secrets they were keeping by hardening their eyes and controlling their expressions, fearing that if anyone were to look close enough, those secrets might be exposed.

She was one of those people.

But, though she hadn't spoken more than a couple of words to Matt Tanner, it was rather obvious that he was not that sort of person.  No.  Matt Tanner didn't seem to be hiding anything.  He also didn't seem to notice that she was hiding something...

"Do...do you want me to help you?" Matt questioned tentatively, forcing her to realize that she was just standing there, staring up at him like some sort of rube.

Lord, had it been that long since she'd interacted with regular people that she'd forgotten how! "Uh, yeah. I mean, you can help if you want," she answered, holding the dirty rag out to him.

Matt took the rag from her and gave her a crooked smile before dunking it into the bucket and then slopping it up against the wall. "I didn't get your name," he mentioned.  "About as close as your folks got was our daughter."

Good gravy. She hadn't even thought to introduce herself. What was wrong with her? "It's Clydie," she answered, flushing with embarrassment and feeling rather like some sort of backwards cave dweller.

"Clydie. That's an unusual name," Matt pointed out, scrubbing away at the wallpaper. "I don't think I've ever heard it before."

"It was my great grandmother's name," she replied, turning away from Matt and moving over to the massive mountain of cardboard boxes.

"Cool.  Its a pretty name.  And its a lot better than being named Ashley or Tiffany.  I know about fifty girls with those names," Matt said by way of making conversation.  "Clydie kind of...stands out."

That was true.  She actually knew--or had known--about a dozen Ashleys, Heathers, and Jessicas.  She even knew more than a handful of Neveahs.  But, she hadn't ever heard of another person named Clydie.

Grabbing a box from the top of the pile, she sat it on the bed and pulled it open, peering inside.  "So, you work with your dad?" she wondered, figuring she should try and keep the conversation going, which might help her brush up on her obviously rusty social skills.

She couldn't really unpack anything yet, but she did need to hunt up her bedclothes. She had a feeling that the autumn nights in Cedar Cove could get nippy and she didn't know if the old house even had a heating system, so she might at least need a blanket.

"Yeah. We do odd jobs around town. My dad's a pretty good carpenter and wood worker," answered Matt.

Mr. Tanner must also work for a fairly cheap wage, otherwise Ella Weston would not have hired him nearly the minute he'd walked through the front door. She was usually big on shopping around and making sure she was getting the best price she could get.

"Do you like being a carpenter," she wondered, putting the box filled with clothes aside and reaching for another one. Frankly, she'd never actually met a carpenter before, so she didn't know if that occupation was something that someone enjoyed, or something that they just...did.

"It's money," came the response. "I'm not as gung-ho about it as my dad is, but the bills have to be paid."

Something in his voice brought her gaze over to him. "Things are tough?"

"Eh, no tougher for us than for everybody else," Matt replied.  "We're just trying to tread water."

"Is there something that you'd like to do?  If you could?" she continued, feeling a stab in the region of her chest.

Matt lifted a shoulder, keeping his focus on the task at hand. "I don't really know what I'd like to do. Besides, between working with my dad and bartending three nights a week, I don't really have a lot of time to think about it."

Matt Tanner had to work two jobs? He couldn't have been much older than herself. How hard was his life that he would have to work two jobs when other young men his age probably wouldn't be willing to work even one?

"What do you do, Clydie? Are you still in school?" Matt wondered, casting her a quick glance and also giving her a quick once over.

"I've been out of school for a while," she stated.

She'd actually homeschooled through her entire senior year because of...that horrible day...making it seem like a small eternity since she'd been in a classroom.

"You don't go to college?" Matt wondered, somewhat surprised.

"No," was her answer. 

"Me, either. College costs a fortune and it's hard enough to live without taking on a ton of student debt," Matt stated forthrightly.

That answer stung Clydie for some reason. Matt Tanner was, in her view least ways, one of the beautiful people. It was strangely unsettling for some reason to know that a person who was that good looking was struggling in life. It just didn't feel...right. Most of the pretty people in the world seemed to have things handed to them on a platter, with very little effort put in on their part. 

 It struck her as a shame that Matt Tanner seemed to have gotten gypped.

However, having him just openly admit that he had to work and couldn't afford schooling, seemed to elevate him in her mind just a bit, despite him being a complete stranger. She felt like most people wouldn't cop to not having the means that a lot of other people might have, especially not to someone they'd only just met.

"Why don't you go to school? Is it just not your thing?" wondered Matt, going back to scrubbing.

Clydie looked into the box she'd plucked from the pile. "Not really."

"Eh, not everybody has to go to school for their entire lives. I figured thirteen years of my life was enough," was Matt's opinion.

She actually had no opinion on college. It was off the table for her at this point in her life, but if things had happened differently, who knows. She might have gone on to do...something, anything other than hiding herself away in her room, just trying to keep her mind about her.

She put that box of clothes aside and reached for another one, dropping it onto the bed and pulling it open, only to find find yet more clothes. Dawdy, how many clothes did she have anyway?  She'd barely left the house in the last two years!

"So, since you're new in town, you probably haven't met many people yet," Matt went on, working diligently away.

"I haven't met anyone yet," she answered, going for a forth box. And she really had no desire to meet anyone.

"Well, there's a festival going on tonight. Probably everybody in town will be there. That'd be a good way to meet people," stated Matt.

"What kind of festival?" she asked, though she had no real desire to join in the fun, especially if everybody in town would assumedly be there. She could never be sure when she might find herself having a moment and the less people around when that happened, the better.

"It's called Scarecrows in the Square," came the answer and she glanced at Matt, who gave her a good natured grin. "Yeah, it sounds kind of cheesy, but it's not that bad. All the businesses and non-profit organizations build scarecrows and put 'em on display in the town square."

"That sounds...fun?" she hedged.

"It is kind of...fun. I mean, I guess. Everyone votes for the scariest scarecrow and the funniest scarecrow and there are food vendors and music, that kind of thing. And all the money from ticket sales goes to the local charities like the food bank."

That actually did sound pretty cheesy. But, it also sounded like something she and her sister would have been into. Their hometown, Summerville, had always had things like that going on and Sam had always wanted to participate in everything she could. The girl would have stood in a line just to join something!

"I'll probably check it out after I get off work. If you want, we can meet up and I'll show you around, so you won't be by yourself," Matt said and the offer sounded so genuine that it actually confused Clydie for a second.

"Really? You...you want to hang out with a total stranger instead of hanging out with your friends?" she asked, sounding a bit more suspicious than she meant to.

"Well, yeah. You don't have any friends yet. And you seem kind of lonely, so this might cheer you up," Matt stated rather plainly.

Clydie stiffened a fraction. She didn't know how to respond to that statement and then it suddenly didn't matter. She had opened the box she'd taken from the pile and glanced into it...and immediately felt a cold shockwave of sickness wash over her, catching her breath and clenching her stomach. She almost couldn't believe she was seeing it, but since she couldn't blink it away, surely she must be.

As soon as her gaze landed on that large, clear plastic zip bag and the contents that were crammed inside...it all came rushing back.  That horrid day...

That horrid...horrid...day...  That day...that had changed absolutely everything...

Even after two years, every single minute detail was still burned into her memory...details that would always be burned into her memory, no matter how hard she fought to forget...