GOLD RUSH : a good girl's guide to murder oneshots

FOR THE HOPE OF IT ALL

this oneshot is
heavily centered around rape.

please be careful reading this if that topic is sensitive to you! stay safe , i love you 🫶

( part 3 of the 'august' oneshot series)

; 𓇼

" Back when I was livin'
                for the hope of it all... "

She couldn't quite recall his face — that night had been such a blur.

Well, every moment before before that second drink of Coke was crystal clear. Things only began to get hazy after that — the music too loud and the lights too bright, and somewhere in the crowd of people she swore she saw a mess of blonde hair.

But why would Max Hastings — if she was seeing right — be at a high school party? Sure, most of the college freshman were there, but Max had graduated two years ago, and —

Right. She, Cara, and Lauren, had somehow weaseled their way into a college party, along with half of the senior class.

But then why would Max be there?

God, never-mind that — why was her head pounding so horridly?

She coughed a few times, noting in the back of her mind that faces seemed to be blurring together, and she was finding it harder to walk, she thought.

And there was a hand, pulling at her wrist, the world moving in slow motion. Whoever's hand was around her wrist sure had an unforgiving, almost pinching grip, and where was she going again?

When had the bright, constantly shifting, colorful lights turned into a dark hallway?

Her legs must've given out by then, too. Jelly-like, wobbling, crushing under her weight, and she must've collapsed in the middle of the hallway because she felt feather-light and the only thing disrupting that was a sharp...she wasn't sure what, pressing against her hip.

Somewhere along the way, the hallway shifted into a dimly lit bedroom and the... it must've been a shoulder? The shoulder turned into a soft couch beneath her back.

Pip had felt suddenly hyper-aware of every move the guy hovering above her was making — it didn't matter, she wouldn't be remembering any of it in the morning, anyway.

She was intensely focused on the way this man's hair flopped down in front of his forehead, blond and messy and hadn't she seen this somewhere before?

It wasn't until he was pulling at her shorts that she realized, in some corner in the back of her mind, just what was happening.

"You..." she tried, but her brain was fifty miles behind and her ears were ringing and why were this man's eyes so piercingly blue?

"Shh, baby, just be quiet."

"No —"

"I said to be fucking quiet," he had said, his voice muffled because somehow — in the span of what had felt like two seconds but must've been at least a minute — he was kissing her neck and his weight against her was all she could and couldn't feel.

She was pushing at him like it was the only thing keeping her alive. Fingernails like claws, digging into his arms, only they weren't anything near claws because of how bitten at they were.

With her legs both feeling like jelly and separated by a body in between them, kicking wasn't quite an option.

Try as she might, though, it was in her best attempts to jab at him with her shoes the best she could. If anything was going to hurt, it had to be Doc Martins to the side, right?

Clearly not. He had only laughed, pulled himself away from her neck, and gripped her face. "Stop fucking trying that shit."

She thought it must've been around then that she lost consciousness — her head finally lolling back against the armrest, her limbs slowly giving out.

Slowly giving in. Accepting that it was happening, and she could, in no way, put an end to the pain that burned through her body and screamed a prayer for it to be over.

—

When she had woken up that morning, nothing felt right. Her hair, perfectly styled the night before, had been tussled and tangled. Her makeup was smeared, mascara stains cascading down her cheeks. The buttons on her tank-top had fallen undone — one button was completely missing, and to tie it all together, her shorts were barely pulled up properly.

Her heart raced and she begged her mind to please, remember what happened last night, because she remembered arriving, and getting her soda, and drinking it, and then everything after that was...well, nothing.

How had she even gotten to this room, anyway? She was meant to go home with Lauren and Cara and they were supposed to fall asleep to a romance film. She wasn't supposed to wake up, uncomfortable, on a brown couch.

She scanned the room, trying to find answers in the carpet or the walls. Of course, she didn't realize, but the room that she was in had somewhat filled up; people scattered and snoring, morning sunlight filtering in through a crack in the curtains. For all she knew, those people were there the night before, listening, watching, posting, texting.

Speaking of posting and texting and whatnot like that, where was her phone? She needed to find her jacket, call Cara, and leave. She couldn't handle another second in that beer/vomit-scented room for another second.

Pip needed to go home, or to Cara's, or to anywhere but that disgusting house and shower because she knew whatever happened the night before couldn't be good.

She just prayed it wasn't what she thought it was.

But, she still planned on buying Plan B later — just to be safe. She would bring Cara and Lauren with her and everything would be fine, and maybe she wouldn't even need it, because nothing happened.

She told herself that over and over — as she stumbled out of the room and through the halls, as she slipped on her jacket, as she called an Uber — even though she knew that was the farthest thing from the truth that anything could be.

Something happened, and someone happened, and she was starting to think she knew exactly what and exactly who.

She tried not to picture the look on his face — how he would react as she shamefully bought the Plan B, all thanks to his doing.

She tried not to think about the night before at all, in fact, because thinking about it made it real and true and physical and thinking about it meant that one day, Ravi would have to know.

Pip really tried to discard Ravi's reaction from her imagination, too, because that was going to ruin her worse than anything.