-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Please don't go," begged 21-year-old Griffin Campbell as he watched his girlfriend, 21-year-old Harper Dunn, lift herself off the couch they had been busying themselves on for the past ten minutes. At this point in their relationship, they had been dating for almost nine years now. And throughout these nine years, they had somehow been able to keep their relationship a secret from not only their parents, but their younger siblings as well, which was a surprising feat that they were both extremely proud of.
"I'm sorry, Griffin, but I really have to go," she told him regrettably as she looked at her watch again. As she began to pull away, Griffin pulled her back down and brought her into a long, passionate kiss. She started to pull away again, forcing herself to show some self-restraint. "As much as I'm enjoying this, I really do have to go. I'm already late for my meeting."
"You can skip the meeting," he said desperately.
Harper chuckled. "I can't do that. I'll get fired."
"Oh, come on, Lovey. Who even needs a job nowadays?"
"It's really cute that you want me to stay, but I really do have to go," Harper said as she began to button her coat.
"Please stay. Don't go," he muttered as he watched her grab her car keys and phone.
"I'm sorry, honey, but I really do need to go," she said as she placed a quick kiss to his cheek. "I'll be back tonight though, I promise."
"I'm holding you to that," he replied before he sighed. "Besides, Topher's coming over soon so him and I can look for suits for the wedding, and I don't think he'll be pleased to see you here anyways."
Harper smiled warmly. "Considering that he almost tackled that guy at Starbucks who had flirted with me, I don't think you'd live to see his reaction if he saw me here in your apartment with messy hair and only wearing one of your many t-shirts," she said with a small smirk on her face.
Griffin hummed in response. For whatever reason, Topher had always been super protective of Harper, even though he was her younger brother. And since he and Harper had been secretly dating, he'd never gotten to witness the tribulations that one of Harper's boyfriends would have to endure if they were to ever come clean about their relationship.
"You know, I was thinking," he began to say slowly. "About our relationship."
Harper cocked her head at him. "Is this some kind of ploy to get me to stay longer? Honestly, Griffin, you're so much better than that."
He shook his head as he walked into the kitchen and poured himself a cup of coffee. "Harpie, we've been dating for almost ten years now, and yet, no one knows? Zoey, Wyatt, Topher...... I mean, if we want to move forward at all, we're going to have to come clean eventually."
She raised an eyebrow at him. "Moving forward? Who said anything about moving forward?" she asked playfully as she got her purse out of the closet.
"Weren't you saying that you were late for your meeting?" he asked in return, quickly changing the subject.
"Fine, I'll pretend that you didn't say anything. But I do agree that we should save this conversation for later," she replied.
"Okay, fine," he agreed. "But it better be soon. I love you so much. Have a good time at your meeting," he said sweetly as he waved goodbye to her.
After giving him a peck on the cheek, Harper had raced out of his apartment, leaving Griffin alone for the rest of the day.
Topher had showed up for a visit later that day, and they went out to go look at suits for Topher's upcoming wedding to Zoey, which was going to be happening next month, before they had went to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch, and Griffin went back to his apartment to play his guitar since he was getting a little rusty. He had originally lived with Zoey and Topher in their two-story house in downtown New Orleans before he had decided to move out and get a place of his own so he could have some more privacy ----- especially since he and Harper were dating, and they didn't want someone to walk in on them when they were getting frisky with each other. But they had kept that piece of information to themselves.
However, his guitar playing was suddenly interrupted when he received a phone call shortly after 5:00pm. He had just finished making some cheesy lasagna and homemade garlic bread for a mini date night with Harper, and was just sitting on his couch, channel surfing on the TV when his phone rang.
"Hello?"
"Oh, Griffin, thank God that you're home!" He was greeted by the frantic voice of his sister, Zoey. "Something horrible happened!!!"
Griffin knew that something truly horrible must have happened to produce such a panicked reaction from his younger sister. His mind raced as he got off the couch, turned off the TV, and quickly grabbed his own car keys and pictures of his loved ones entered his mind. "What happened, Zozo?"
Zoey took a deep breath before she continued. "Harper's missing. Someone broke into our home and everything's a mess ---- we have no idea where she is and it looks like there was a struggle since there's blood staining the curtains in the dining room. Please hurry-----"
Griffin felt the color drain from his face as his phone fell to the linoleum floor of the apartment. He barely heard anything more of what Zoey said since he was already halfway out the door before she could hang up. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The two-story home that Zoey and Topher lived in was about a thirty-one minute drive from Griffin's apartment, but it only took him about fifteen minutes to get there. He must have run at least four red lights in his hurry to reach the house and make sure that no one else was hurt. When he arrived at the house, he saw Wyatt sitting on the front porch steps with his head in his hands, and Topher was speaking to a police officer, his face pale and stricken with disbelief.
Griffin sped right by the police cruisers and the ambulance that were parked in front of the house, as well as Topher and Wyatt ---- the only thing he cared about right now was making his way to the guest bedroom in the house where Harper spent the rest of her time when she wasn't with him so he could see exactly what happened with his own two eyes.
He raced up the stairs, already out of breath and feeling winded by the time he reached her room. Zoey was standing at the doorway, and turned around when she heard him coming. She had her arms wrapped around herself as if she was trying to keep herself warm, even though it wasn't cold inside the house. As he approached her, Griffin heard something he rarely ever heard before. His sister let out a long, hollow sob that quickly turned into a torrential stream of tears that were freely falling down her face. Zoey rarely ever cried, and it broke Griffin's heart in half to see her so distraught.
As he entered his girlfriend's bedroom, he suddenly felt a wave of nausea suddenly overcome him as he took in the sight of the horrible scene before him. It was a disaster in every sense of the word ----- almost everything in sight had either been smashed or torn apart and ripped to shreds. Just like the curtains in the dining room, the curtains in the bedroom had been ripped up and had blood caked on it. The small leather couch that had been a housewarming gift from Wyatt had been turned on its side, and was missing one of its legs. The wooden hutch in the corner by the closet that usually contained glass knick knacks and figurines was filled with smashed glass, and a vase that had a small bouquet of yellow daisies had been smashed onto the floor and the daisies were scattered all over. Griffin then looked over at the bed, and almost threw up on the spot right then and there ----- not only was the mattress soaked in blood, but Harper's purse was laying in the center and had been torn apart and was missing one of its straps.
He felt himself fall down to his knees, his breathing coming out long and shallow. His vision blurred as his eyes filled up with tears that made the scene disappear from his view. He blinked, letting a few tears fall. Feeling a warm hand grasp his shoulder, he looked up and saw Zoey's blank, expressionless face staring back at him, as well as the room. Her face was pale and looked lifeless and her eyes were widened, as if she was in permanent shock.
"I got home from work about half an hour ago, and I found this when I went looking for her. She told me she would be home earlier than normal to talk to me about finding a good wedding venue, so it's possible that the room has been like this for a few hours now. After they're done talking with Topher and Wyatt, the police are gonna come in and inspect everything from top to bottom to see if there might be a clue as to who did this and took Harper," Zoey said before she looked back at Griffin. "It's going to be okay," she said slowly, her voice trembling slightly. "We're going to find her, and it's going to be okay."
"How do you know that, though?" he asked as his voice cracked. "How can you say that everything's going to be okay when you know that it's not?"
He saw Zoey's lips tremble as she folded her hands together. "Because I can't give up on her, Griffin. I need to have hope that she's going to come back."
Griffin felt his heart beat wildly against his chest. He tried to stand up and steady himself, but that quickly turned out to be a grave mistake. The room started to spin and then slowly fade out of his vision until it was nothing but a blurry outline. The street noises outside started to disappear, and he could just barely make out Zoey calling out to him as he fell to the floor, almost lifeless. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Griffin opened his eyes, groaning as he realized the great difficulty it took to perform such a simple task. The pain in his eyes immediately spread to the rest of his body, the ache so pronounced that it felt as if he had rammed his entire body into a solid brick wall. Although he couldn't see well due to the pain he was experiencing, his eyes scanned the room that he was in, and he quickly realized that he was in a small, private hospital room.
He was alone, and the only other sound in the room aside from his heavy breathing was the beeping of all the machinery that was surrounding him. He then looked to his right, and saw a few small chairs that had been moved around messily, which meant that some very restless individuals had just been sitting in them.
After a couple of minutes, he heard the sound of faint footsteps coming towards him, turning his head in the direction of the door, and groaned again as another jolt of pain ran up and down his neck and head.
It was Wyatt who had walked into the room, but he really didn't look like himself. Not anymore. His normally smooth and well-cut hair was now slightly longer and had been parted in the front, and he had heavy, black bags under his eyes, as if he hadn't had a proper good nights' sleep in weeks. He was carrying a magazine and a bag of chips in his hands, both of which fell to the floor when he saw that Griffin was awake. His face lit up as he ran over to him and wrapped his arms around him in a tight hug, which was not something that Wyatt normally did.
"Oh God, Griffin, you're okay," he said in relief. Now that the two Campbell brothers were close enough to each other, Griffin could see Wyatt's tear stained cheeks. He had been crying.
"Wh-what happened?" he asked in confusion. He could barely remember what had happened before he passed out. He recalled playing his guitar at home, and then receiving a phone call from Zoey. He had rushed over to their house, and then......
"Harper!!! What's happened to her?! Where's everyone else? Are they okay, Wyatt?!" he asked frantically as he tried to sit up, howling in pain as he realized that his body was not quite ready for such drastic movements.
"Griffin, calm down," Wyatt said softly as he gently grasped his brother's shoulder to calm him down. "Zoey had called you about Harper going missing, and you had showed up at their house, and when you saw the mess in the guest bedroom, you passed out and you've been here ever since," he said gently.
"But where is Zoey? Where's Topher? Are they okay?" he asked as he gently sat up in the hospital bed and heard his stomach grumble.
Wyatt sighed heavily. "Yes, they're okay, Griffin. You stay here. I'm gonna go get them. You've missed out on quite a lot," he said quietly as he stood back up, and left the room, leaving Griffin alone again. His mind was reeling with all sorts of questions, and he couldn't believe that he had ended up in the hospital.
Just then, the door to the hospital room, and Griffin saw three things that immediately made him realized that he had been in the hospital for quite a long time now that his vision had improved. The first thing he saw was that Wyatt had a lot more muscle on his arms than he did when he was younger, and he was wearing a light gray Nike tank top, which was something he never wore at all. The second thing he saw was that Topher had some light stubble on his chin and cheeks. But the third thing he saw was what truly shocked him. Zoey's light chocolate brown hair had been put up into two long, thin flowing ponytail braids, and in her arms, she was holding a small, sleeping infant with fairly light brown skin and tufts of curly black hair on her head.
"Zoey, is that....." he began to say before the words suddenly died in his throat.
Zoey nodded slowly with a few small tears in her eyes. "Yes, Griffin. This is your niece," she said slowly as she passed the sleeping infant to Topher so she could give Griffin a tight hug.
"W-Wait, my niece? Just how long have I been in here?" Griffin asked in disbelief after Zoey had pulled away from him.
"A little over a whole year," Wyatt answered solemnly as he wrapped an arm around Zoey.
Griffin's eyes widened in disbelief, not being able to wrap his mind around what he had just heard. How could he have been hospitalized for a whole year when it simply felt like a few mere minutes to him? He had just lost a whole year of his life, lying unconscious in a hospital bed with all sorts of tubes and medical machinery hooked up to him. To most people, that might not have seemed like a very long time, but Griffin was just frazzled. During the course of that whole year, Topher and Zoey got married, had a daughter, and apparently, Wyatt had finally decided to go to the gym on a regular basis and get some muscle so he wouldn't look like such a wimp. But none of those things mattered to him, although he did want to hold his niece. As he continued to let the reality sink in around him and his thoughts continued to snowball, he still had one thing on his mind.
"Harper," he moaned as the pain hit him again. "Where is she?"
"Oh, Griffin," Zoey said, her eyes brimming with tears as she prepared to tell him the devastating news. "Ever since you were admitted here, we've done our absolute best to find her. Topher and I even forgoed the church wedding, and just got married at a courthouse with Mom, Dad, Wyatt, and Mrs. Dunn as our witnesses about a month after her disappearance. And even when I was nearing my due date, I still did my all I could to help with the search. But, no one has found her," she said as she sighed heavily. "The police told us that with all of the blood that was found in the guest bedroom and the heavy amount of evidence that would suggest foul play, that there's a very little chance she would be alive after all this time. And if she possibly is, she's probably in much worse condition than you are. I'm sorry, Griffin. She's gone."
Griffin felt his breath coming out a lot more difficult than usual, but he didn't bother trying to fight it. Harper had been his whole world, his number one reason for waking up in the mornings ever since he was thirteen years old and his family had first moved to Sulphur Springs. And now, he was supposed to just accept the fact that this world was gone forever. Why was life even worth fighting for anymore?
Zoey reached out and tenderly touched his face. "Would you like to hold her?" she asked softly as she gestured to the sleeping infant in Topher's arms.
He nodded uneasily. "Uh, sure. What's her name?"
"Her name's Makaylah," Topher answered as he gently passed the infant over to Zoey, who delicately placed her into Griffin's arms. "Makaylah Harper Dunn. We figured it was a nice way to honor her legacy. She just turned one last month," he said as a few soft tears fell down his face and he sniffled lightly.
Griffin looked down at Makaylah, and felt his heart start to break all over again. She truly looked a lot like the perfect mix of Topher and Zoey, with her soft locks of curly black hair and wide, light ocean blue eyes, and he was fighting a losing battle as he felt his tears freely fall down his face as he thought about him holding his and Harper's own child. The sobs that were escaping his quivering lips were uncontrollable, and his heart felt heavy as he tightly held his niece close to his chest, as if his very life depended on it.
Zoey knelt down and wiped away a few of his tears with a small dark red fabric cloth as he started to swaddle Makaylah. Griffin could only imagine what was going on in her own mind as she watched him gently hold his niece in his arms. To her, Harper had only been his best friend since they had first met. No one in either of their families had been aware of their relationship and how much they were truly in love with each other.
And now that Harper had vanished, it seemed like no one would ever know. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So, that's the first chapter of "Shattered Memories, Broken Hearts." I'm hoping to have a consistent uploading schedule with new chapters, but we'll just have to wait and see. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed and I'll see you in the next one.
Ciao 4 now!!!! I love you all!!! <3<3<3<3 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------