DRAG - [h.s. au]

60

don't be cruel to anyone (characters included) in these comments. i'm not dealing with that shit, so if you can't understand that people react to personal tragedies differently, you aren't mature enough to be reading this. 

ARABELLA. 

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I could see your heartbeat through your teeth

No, you're not fooling anyone but me

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HARRY

THANKSGIVING 2020

It had been quiet since we got back to Oakland the day after Rumer died.

At first, all she did was cry. Cry and cry and cry until she shut down.

It's been a week and a half and we've gotten nothing out of her. The mourning continued but Bentley hadn't let herself truly feel it. Everyone reacted differently, though.

I stopped crying when I broke the news once Dorian drove us to the private airport. That plane ride back cost so much fucking money but I didn't care. Allegra had cleaned off the bloodstains from Bentley's arms but she refused to take off the suit jacket. So we left, fleeing to the one place we knew that Victor and Russell wouldn't go.

Home.

There was no body to bury. We had to leave Miami as fast as possible and even if I could bring Rumer with us, I had to choose. Bentley was mid-breakdown and he was dead. I couldn't do anything else for him but take care of Bentley.

And myself.

He told me I had to treat myself with kindness because there was no purpose to a dim lighthouse, but he was the lighthouse.

Bentley had told me about it, how she saw him as the guiding light. About how we were just ships at sea looking for a way to the shore, the docks. The last two weeks have felt like we'd been in complete darkness.

Like the lighthouse had fallen into the sea, and we were suffering the waves that spawned from the impact.

Ben and Zayn had the worst initial reaction out of all of us.

Rumer was Zayn's best friend. The wonder twins. They were a team and that bond had been severed permanently. Zayn liked to lash out at people when he was upset. When Ben was taken in Dubai, he lashed out at me, and when I said Rumer was dead, I took a harsh punch right to the jaw and slammed my temple into the outside of the van.

I bruised like a motherfucker and Zayn still gave me a regretful look when he noticed how hard he had hit me, but I let him hit me. I felt like I deserved it.

Like I let Rumer die.

Z started sleeping on the bottom bunk, and practically everyone had moved into Bentley's loft.

We were all afraid to be alone.

Apollo was sleeping on the top bunk, and Allegra lasted three nights on the couch before moving downstairs to my place at night.

She was the last person I expected to become an impromptu roommate, but knowing she was on my pull out couch at night was better than sleeping alone.

I would have stayed with Bentley in her bed but she had another guest with her at night.

Dorian.