ᎷᎬᏞᏞᎾᏔᎢᎡᎪᏌᎷᎪ ▷ euphoria oneshots

iii ◦〉"haunting" pt.1 〉𝔯𝔲𝔢

But you were sober. And whatever phantom-guilt had let the sick joke that was your dead ex girlfriend manifesting as a breathing, talking version of her beside you appear-it decided to let her calm down, sitting quietly on your bed and staring at the blank TV screen in front of you.

"I thought you were dead," you said lowly, getting up slowly from under your covers and reaching for the TV remote. The entire time you spoke, your eyes fixated the tv, hoping that if you ignored her long enough, she'd leave your field of vision, but to no avail. She was still there. You turned on the tv and flipped to the local news, where a segment, the headline appeared:

'𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐋𝐀𝐍𝐃: 𝙳𝚁𝚄𝙶-𝙰𝙳𝙳𝙻𝙴𝙳 𝟷𝟽 𝚈𝙴𝙰𝚁 𝙾𝙻𝙳 𝙵𝙴𝙼𝙰𝙻𝙴 𝚂𝚃𝚄𝙳𝙴𝙽𝚃 𝙳𝙸𝙴𝚂; 𝙵𝚁𝙸𝙴𝙽𝙳𝚂 𝙰𝙽𝙳 𝙵𝙰𝙼𝙸𝙻𝚈 𝚂𝙿𝙴𝙰𝙺 𝙾𝚄𝚃.'

"They always go with the basic yearbook photo when these things happen," Rue remarked. "But I know Gia chose that photo of me because I looked like a little goof in it."

This was too weird. Rue never talked about her sister around you until now. Back when the two of you had little drug meet ups, the last thing you did was talk about any person that would've made you regret relapsing more than you already did.

She pointed at the picture of herself on the screen, a close up of her face, with her long curly brown hair loose in the night wind and her face scrunched up. Her were eyes crossed as she hugged her arms to the fabric of her lacey white dress, the picture cutting off at her torso.

"You're supposed to be dead," you mutter out loud, although you're unsure if you should've been talking to yourself or her. Either way, she heard it and responded.

"I am," she said, calmly leaning forward to look closer at the TV.

"And you just-happen to be wearing my-"

"Shhh, yes, I'm wearing your pants," Rue interrupted quickly, pressing a hushing finger to her lips and leaving her attention to the news.

"I can't give them back to you anyways. It's not like you haven't taken any of my things without asking. Pipe down, I need to know how I died."

She was never very good at listening, you thought to yourself. One more thing we had in common.

The news segment continued with a montage of photos of Rue, most of them of her smiling and wearing something casual, but all of them from when she was sober. You definitely didn't take any of them, although it was clear as day those photos were all of her. She looked a lot more-well, alive. A few seconds after, the official report finally showed up on screen.

"Rue Bennett. young, sweet, and only 17. This past weekend, she died of an overdose, which forensics have now discovered to be fentynal, a needle of it beside her arm containing 3 times the lethal dose."

You began hugging your knees together as the new story continued, trying your best not to bawl like a baby. The feeling of turning into an emotional mess was beyond nauseating during the first few weeks of your breakup.

You hated Rue. You hated her for dying, for leaving you, and despite all that, you kknew it was your fault. You weren't even in any of the memorial montages, and Rue was no snitch-so she probably did know better than to talk about you with others when all the two of you did together was secretly get high and sometimes make out. Rue was important to you, and you'd never really had a "real" relationship with her. Now that you knew why she died, she should've finally left your mind and let you wallow in your own guilt.