Let me make something completely clear. I never intended to chase Harper through the Coal Creek woods. I must admit, it was a real fun time, but I didn’t go there to stalk her. It was actually a total coincidence that we were there at the same time. Did I need to chase her? No. Did I want to chase her? Totally. But she noticed that I was following her and she just started running. I didn’t know what to do so I ran after her. At one point, I said to myself: “Why are we doing this? She must be terrified.” But I couldn’t stop. There was something about the chase that drove me wild and I was infinitely rewarded for doing so. 

At some point while we were running, Harper dropped her phone. I saw it fly out of her pocket but I couldn’t stop chasing after her. To be honest, I had no idea what I was going to do when I caught up to her. But it didn’t matter. The chase was the only thing that mattered in that moment. Eventually, the sun started to set and we reached a parking lot. That’s when I knew that it was all over. There was bound to be a whole lot of cars ahead and getting caught was definitely not on my to-do list. 

So I cut my losses and went back to search for Harper’s phone. It took me about fifteen minutes to find it, but when I did, it all became worth it. The screen was slightly cracked and the whole thing was covered in mud. Luckily, it still worked. I made my way back to my car and grabbed some old Wendy’s napkins from the glove compartment. After a few minutes of damage control, I’d unlocked her phone. Who makes their pin their birthday? Harper Torres, that’s who. 

It was an old iPhone. Many generations have proceeded it since and she clearly didn’t use it much. One of the first things that I checked was her text messages. Rowan. Ben. Mom. Josh. She doesn’t have very many friends. But that was something that I always liked about her. Next was her Google search history. Lucky for me, it was linked with her laptop so everything she searched on there was also on her phone. It was somewhat short but definitely interesting. Mayor Gibbins. Mayor Gibbons secretary. Alicia Wadsworth secretary. Mayoral sex scandals. Rowan Wilde. Why was she searching for information on Rowan? Doesn’t she know all there is to know about her? She is her best friend, after all. 

I had her phone for less than a day before she deactivated it. In that time, Rowan texted her about a hundred times and, of course, I didn’t reply. I felt like that would be rude. But after she saw that her texts went unanswered, she began to call. After a while, she gave up, but it felt good to make her worry. She doesn’t deserve Harper, anyway. 

After the SIM card was deactivated, I didn’t really have any use for the phone. So, I backed up a copy of it’s contents onto my computer and sealed it away in a box of Harper’s things. Since then, my collection has grown substantially. One day, I hope to show it to her. It’ll be like she’s touring a museum of her own life. I think she’ll be ecstatic.