Giving Harper Hope

Chapter Two- Harper

This is Liam Dean Grayson, a 20 year old guy who has just moved into the town that Harper lives in. He left his parents for a better life, and plans on getting that life in a small town in Canada. He went through a terrible childhood that ended in him storming out of his parents' apartment and getting his own far away. They had abused him as a child, but that hadn't changed how he acted. He is still kind and protective, and would do whatever necessary to protect the person he loved. Liam moved because he wanted a better life, with better people in it. He chose the house that Harper fears because of how old it looked— and how it looked like it had a long history with the town residents.
He had seen Harper and felt that she had to be the first person that he included into that life.
**********************************************

—LIAM'S POV—
Liam Grayson didn't move from that spot on the sidewalk, his gaze glued on the woman that was walking away from him. Harper Lucas. Something had happened in his house, and it had something to do with her. Either she had done something, or she had witnessed something horrible. He shook his head and turned towards his house. Liam let out a sigh before he started walking to it.

—HARPER'S POV—
   Harper flicked on the lights as she went, but it didn't make the house feel any less empty. A sob came from her when she looked at a picture of her and her mother, they looked so happy. There was no sadness in her mother's eyes, no blood dripping from her wrist after Harper came back from a sleepover. She had always thought that it was something that could be treated, but that depression that her mother had didn't have a cure, and moving was enough to make her snap. She had been fragile emotion wise and physically wise. The depression had been passed down to Harper, and she couldn't even feel sadness or anger or even happiness at times. The older she got, the more emotions it took away from her at times. It would sometimes make her feel only one emotion, rather than all of them.
Doctors were useless.
Friends were useless.
She was useless.
   But Harper wouldn't bring anyone else into it; it would just end badly for the both of them. But Harper wanted to live, she wanted to be normal.
She wanted to be cured, but that was too easy. Too easy. Harper walked into her bedroom, her mind throwing out any emotion that she had felt only seconds before. She yanked off her clothes as she went, so that she was only in her white underclothes when she collapsed onto the silk blankets and pillows, not caring that she was practically naked and she had left her bedroom door completely open.
Harper welcomed the darkness, and slipped into another nightmare filled sleep.
—————————
She woke up in cold sweat, her screams still echoing off of the walls. The nightmare had been worse this time. So much worse. It had reminded her that she could've been a major reason why her mother died and why her father left them. Harper pulled her knees up to her chest, and buried her face in them. Silent tears still rolled down her cheeks, mixing with the dry ones. She stayed there for a few seconds, her breath coming slower with each minute.
Harper gathered up the courage to walk to her bathroom and clean herself. Before she did anything, she looked in the mirror. She looked like an emotional train had hit her square in the chest and this was the aftermath. She steadied herself and looked in the mirror for a second longer before unclipping her bra and discarding it in the laundry basket, her panties following seconds after. Harper turned on the shower and stood in front of the mirror for a few seconds before jumping in.
She just stood in the water for a while, staring at nothing. After a few minutes of that, she picked up her vanilla body wash and a rag, putting the soap on the rag and started cleaning her body, not leaving any trace of the night before.
Harper dropped the soap-coated rag onto the floor of the shower and pulled the shampoo and conditioner off of the shelf and started cleaning her hair.
   She took longer than expected to finish, the knots in her dark brown mess of hair had only made it more difficult. Harper brushed them out now, having just finished cleaning it. A beige towel was wrapped tightly around her breasts, and she braided her hair so that it wouldn't get in the way. She hadn't thought much of the guy that she had met the day before, her memories becoming a blur. She could only remember the warm brown of his eyes and his name, nothing else. Liam Grayson. It wouldn't take much to search his name on Google and finding out his history. She was surprised that she hadn't thought of that before and walked out of the bathroom only covered by a thin towel and to her laptop, which was sitting on her desk in the office only a few rooms away from where she slept. Harper sat on the swivel chair and opened the laptop, the screen opening to show the time and date.
5 AM, JULY 20, 2018.
   It was almost the anniversary of her mother's death, which was on February 1. She let out a long sigh and opened it to Google, Where she typed in his name.
Oh god.
   There was a Washington Post article on him. She opened the page, and gaped at the screen.

   Sixteen year old Liam Dean Grayson is threatened at gunpoint by his father, who was highly drunk and had gotten angry at his son for telling his mother to leave before he came in. The father, Alan James Grayson is put under arrest for threatening someone with a gun to the back of his head, December 31, 2014.
See for more information on the next page.

  What the— why would any father do that to his son? That's terrible. But Liam had acted so cheery and happy around her yesterday... as if nothing had happened. He had still asked about the house. She walked into her room with thoughts of what she would say to him the next afternoon running through her head.
***********************************************
Hope you liked this chapter! I am currently writing the next chapter of Daggers and Knives as well, so if you want that, it's coming! And remember to comment on my stories if you have a question about the chapter, or if you don't like something about my writing, or if you just want to tell me something nice. Anyways, I will see you in the next chapter, Bye!