Chasing Air // Billie Eilish

Chapter 34

BILLIE'S P.O.V

I keep my eyes focused on Finneas as he talks, although I can't hear a single word he's saying over the music blasting through my headphones. He finally stops and raises his eyebrows, so I pull the headphones off for a second.

"Did you get that, Billie?" he asked.

"Yep."

He rolled his eyes and pulled my headphones off of my head. "You need to stop being a bitch so much just because you have to be away from your girlfriend for a month or two."

"It's a month or two and then I'll see her for a few days and then it'll be some more months."

"I know it's hard, Billie, but you have to suck it up. I'm sorry that you have to be away from her, I really am. I know it sucks."

It doesn't just suck. I'm worried about her and I wasn't ready to be back on tour. It's extremely overwhelming and stressful. I'm not used to being around thousands of people at a time again. And it's not fair that Zoe gets to be with Elliot all the time and I still have to wait like a month. "Okay, Finneas."

He sets his hand on the counter and leans back a little before quickly yanking his hand away and wincing. "Fuck."

"What's wrong?" I ask quickly.

"Nothing. I don't know. It was nothing. I'm fine."

I gave him a weird look before pulling my headphones back on and laying back as "Bad Apple" by Billie Marten started playing.

-

I laid back, holding my phone up in the air as I FaceTimed Elliot. "Hey, baby."

"Hi." She smiled, sitting down at a table in the small coffee shop she works at. She looked tired. She had dark marks under her eyes and her lips were paler than usual.

"What are you doing?" I asked curiously.

"I'm on my lunch break."

"Oh, okay."

"Hey, why has Zoe been so... clingy?" she asked, setting her arms on the table with her chin on top of them.

"Clingy? What do you mean?"

"I don't know. She's just kind of always wanting to hang out."

I didn't really mean that I wanted Zoe to try to become her best friend or anything when I asked her to check in every once in a while. I just meant texting her every once in a while and maybe hanging out now and then. I just wanted to make sure that Elliot was taking care of herself, and from the looks of it, she really wasn't. She'd obviously been overworking herself. Almost every time I tried to talk to her she was at work. "Oh. I mean, I'm not gonna lie I did ask her to check in on you every once in a while but I didn't mean for her to bother you. I can tell her to back off if you want."

She stared at me for a second before shaking her head. "No... No, it's fine. I was just wondering."

I turned onto my side. "Okay. When do you get off of work today?"

"Nine something." She shrugged, closing her eyes. "I don't remember."

"What time did you go in?"

"Like 4:30."

"In the morning?"

She nodded. "I'm working a double shift."

"How are they allowed to schedule you that much?"

"I asked for it and they're too low on workers to say no. Everybody's quitting. There's only three of us left."

"Geez, Elliot."

"It's fine." She looks up as somebody starts talking. "I gotta go, babe." And with that, she hung up the phone.

"Mom, when do I get a break? I wanna go home." I laid my head on my mom's lap.

"You still have three and a half weeks, Billie. I know you miss Elliot but you need to lean more into tour."

"Tour is shit, Mom. I don't want to lean into it." I sighed. "I hate it. I hate it so fucking much."

"Come on. You don't mean that. You've gotta be enjoying it a little bit."

"I'm really not. It's hard. It's stressful."

She sighed, moving my bangs out of my face. "Well, why didn't Elliot come?"

Why didn't Elliot come?

Why didn't Elliot come?

"I mean... I don't really..."

"Maybe some time apart is what you guys need," she offered. "Maybe she didn't want to come for a reason, Billie."

"Huh?" I stared at her for a long while. I didn't consider that Elliot may have lied about why she didn't want to come. It crossed my mind but I pushed it away because it simply didn't seem plausible.

"All I'm saying is maybe a break is good for you guys."