Paranoia.

N

I am sitting on the floor in my room, Austen laying with her head in my lap, looking up to me.

'A while ago, you told me you have had a girlfriend. Who was it?' She suddenly asks. 'I mean, what was her name, do you have pictures or something. If you don't want to show me, it's okay. Just curious.'

I start to doubt it and after a few minutes, I convince myself to open up. I need to let it out. To someone I trust. I notice that Austen already turned her head and was looking at her phone.

Doesn't matter.

'She was pretty, really pretty. Gorgeous is a better word to describe her. The most gorgeous girl I've ever met.' Austen stops scrolling through her Instagram feed and looks at me.

'She had the most amazing personality ever. Adventurous, kind, loving, positive about everything, kind of goofy and most important of all, real. She was real. She only said things she really meant, never lied. Even if lying was the better option, she nevertheless told the truth. That was the thing I admired the most about her. Not her never ending beauty or her amazing eyes or her hair that was never wrong. No, I liked all of that, but her realness was the thing that made me fall for her.' I take a breath and at the same time, I'm trying to stop myself from falling apart. I know Austen notices and she gently grabs my hand.

'It's okay, you can stop if you want?' I shake my head heavily and take another breath.

'Her name was Liv. Liv Brooks. We never stopped loving each other.' I dry my tears and feel relieved.

'Why did you guys break up then?' I know the question was coming, and I think about it for a minute.

'We didn't.' I finally answer her. Everyone I told always stops after this. They mumble things like "I'm so sorry." or start assuming things, but never say it out loud, just to keep the reality out of the picture that seemed to be perfect. But not Austen. Austen was not everyone.

'She died, didn't she? And you saw it.' She asks, looking right into my eyes. I give her a small nod and start to tear up. She wraps her arms around me and just holds me tight. After a minute or twenty, I feel her phone on my back, probably looking Liv up, and I can't help but chuckle. She pulls back and looks at me.

'Hey, I'm a girl and I'm curious as fuck.' She says, but by the tone she saying it, I know she's not sorry. 'And she is really pretty. How the fuck can someone be so gorgeous? It's not fair.' And pouts fake upset.

I look at Austen and I laugh. She's a real goof. She smiles when she scrolls through the feed, when suddenly, her face changes.

'What's wrong?' I want to look at her phone, but she shoves so I can't see a thing. 'Austen! What the hell is wrong?'

'Well,' she starts, holding on to the "well" a bit to long. Something is real wrong. Like "there's-a-murderer-in-my-house-who-broke-all-my-communication-devices" wrong.

'This picture is posted 2 hours ago, in New York, with the caption "Was lit yesterday.".' She says, full of astonishment. I'm out of words, and I don't know what to do. After processing this, I finally found my vocabulary back.

'How the fucking fuck is that fucking possible? What the fuck?'

Austen looks at the text saying "2 hours ago." under the picture and I see her thinking. After a few minutes, she says something really terrifying.

'Or, someone just hacked her account and decided to do a fucked up prank, or... No, that's not possible..'

'What's the other option, Austen?'

She looks questionable, but still answers.

'Or, she's not as dead as she claims to be.'