Connected (Connections, #1)(82)

River lightly places his calming hand on my shoulder as he bends to kneel beside me. “Be careful. There’s glass everywhere.”

Nodding my head, tears are steadily trickling down my face. “Who would do this?”

“I don’t know,” he says in a tone as grim as I feel.

Taking the broken frame from my hand, his eyes narrow as he stares at the picture for a long while. I feel like recognition flashes across his face, maybe even pain as he says, “Is this him?”

Turning to face River, I hoarsely answer. “Yes. That’s Ben.” I’ve noticed, that just like Aerie, he never actually says Ben’s name but for a completely different reason.

Setting the picture down carefully, he stands up and holds out his hand. “Come on, let’s see if anything is missing and call the police. Whoever was here is gone now.”

Clutching his fingers tightly, I feel every muscle in my body tense as I force oxygen back into my lungs to stop from hyperventilating.

He points to the small vestibule in the back of the room that leads through the old butlers pantry to the kitchen. “That way?”

Inhaling deeply, I nod my chin. “No, follow me.”

Heading back to the foyer, we start down the short hallway that leads to my bedroom and Ben’s office. He pushes in front of me and I keep my eyes straight-ahead, scanning all the while for possible intruders that I know are gone. The house is too quiet for anyone to be in here. It is the same quiet I experienced hour after hour, day after day, for far too long.

A crunching beneath my feet makes me jump as we almost reach my bedroom. We both stop instantly. He turns around and we look down at my black converse sneakers as I lift my foot. Underneath it lays a crumpled up piece of paper. I recognize the golden gilded edge of the paper immediately. It is a page from one of Ben’s many journals.

Bending down, I carefully pick up the waded piece of parchment, caressing the satiny edge and holding it tightly. I try to keep my tears at bay and fail miserably as tears of sadness and sorrow bleed down my cheeks. My heart breaks as I glance into the office. Ben’s most cherished journals cover the knotted pine floor along with pieces of his laptop and various books torn at the bindings. Many more, once pristine, journal pages lay ripped, torn, and balled up everywhere. His beautifully scripted handwriting is still visible through the vile mess.

Covering my mouth with my hand, “No, not his journals,” escapes my mouth as I completely fall apart. Who would do this? Why?

River holds me tightly as we stand between my room and the office. “It’ll be okay. I’ll fix this for you. Come on, let’s go back outside,” he whispers.

Pulling away and wiping the steady flow of tears from my face, I shake my head. “I want to see everything. This is my life. Broken and destroyed. I need to see it,” I cry these words as I move toward my bedroom where I stand frozen in the doorway unable to move, but unable to pull my eyes away.

Pillows are torn open, the mattress is upside down, and a chair is flipped on its side. What I see next, as I glance down at the floor, tears through me like a knife into my heart. Amidst all the mess and chaos, are my broken necklaces and scattered dolls, the items I cherish most in this room. Pearls, white and black, cover the floor, stuck in the grooves of the wood planks; some start rolling as I finally find the courage to move toward them, picking up my Ken doll as I walk.

Totally losing any sense of saneness, I put the doll on my dresser and grab the silver-plated coffee mug lying on top of my t-shirt quilt. Collapsing to the floor, I haplessly start pinching the pearls from the ground and depositing them into the cup. Ironically it is the one unbroken item in the room; the gift given to me by Ben as a gesture to fix what was once broken between us.

River bends down and takes the cup from my shaky fingers. Furrowing his brow, and with concern in his voice, he says, “Let me do this. But first, let’s get you a glass of water and take you to the car. I think you’ve seen enough. It looks to me like random vandalism.”

Sadly enough, I think he’s right. Nothing seems to be missing, but everything is destroyed. It’s like a tornado ravaged my safe, but sad house, taking in its path anything that remained of the people I’ve loved and lost. As if my world hasn’t already been torn apart enough, now I have nothing left but my own fading memories. The house looks like how my soul felt for so long after Ben’s death. Swollen with emotion, my internal wounds rip apart and the old feelings of hopelessness start to swirl around in my mind.

He’s talking, but I can’t hear him. A haunting ringing of my broken days echoes in my mind. Dark clouds begin to settle in before I blink away the eerie feeling. I try to see outside of my own head, but the destruction I’m looking at is causing all the grief to come rushing back. Everything is broken. Everything I have left of him, of my parents, has been taken away from me. Even the memories are surfacing less and less, and now my daily reminders are gone. I need them back. I don’t want my memories to fade away.

Hysterically, I grab the cup back. “No! I have to collect these.” Then setting the cup on the floor, I crawl on my hands and knees, picking up the glistening pearls. “These were my aunt’s. She loved them. They were her mother’s, my Grammy’s, and they meant the world to both of them.”

He crawls next to me and deposits a pearl in the cup. Then stroking my cheek before gently lifting my chin, he looks at me with nothing but love. “Okay. I understand. Let me help you.”