billie || billie eilish

25

We sit in the tree: Grace, Shay, and I. And he's awkward about it. I can tell that he wants to ask why she's here, but she's talking about our project and no one else can get a word in.
Her hands are frantic. She's excited and I don't have the heart to tell her to be quiet for a bit. So, Shay and I just sit there and stare until it gets dark and she has to leave.
"I'll be back tomorrow," she mouths to me, on the phone with her mom. She stands at the root of the tree and I can hear yelling from the other end, but she's indifferent. Only I exist.
I nod. She manages to find her way through the dark. Shay sighs when she's gone as if he's been holding his breath the entire time. I feel bad and upset at the same time.
We stare at the fog forming over the city. Swaying our legs until we get tired and someone is forced to say something.
"You're friends." Shay's trying to be causal about it, but his voice is strained and I can tell that it kills him to think about me and Grace.
"I don't know," I say quietly into the wind. "We're kind of a thing. I guess."
Then we just sit there, silent again like he doesn't know what to say to that. He sighs again, but this time it sounds a bit strange. A bit melancholy.
"I thought...we were a thing?" he says softly. His words go up into the sky in a cloud of heavy fog.
I shrug. "You're just a bit weird. I don't know. I like it. But, it's overbearing sometimes."
He sits there and tries to hide the hurt from me. But, it's within everything of him.
"I like you," he says.
"I like you, too," I say. Our thighs are close together and it's so warm that my skin burns, but I don't move an inch. "At least, I thought I did."
"Grace Pattin," he says vacantly, testing the name on his tongue. "I can't compete with Grace Pattin."
I pick at the bark pinching me through my jeans.
"We should go," I say, fingers yanking against the bark of the tree. "It's getting dark."
It's quiet enough for him not to hear. Only, he does and it seems to upset him.
He stucks in a breath that goes too deep down into his chest. "I'm trying to spend time with you, Lockland. What does it matter if it's late?"
I don't expect him to be so upset. But, he is and it makes me upset. I tear up.
"Why are you crying?" He's yelling now.
"I'm scared." I wipe my eyes and my nose and pat the drops of tear that fall on my jeans.
"Should I take you home?" his voice softens.
I nod. I'm startled when he jumps out of the tree, landing neatly on his feet with his knees bent. He holds out his hands to me. But, I hesitate and land in his arms funny. My ankle twists and throbs a bit, but I shake it off, pretending that it's okay. I'm nervous. We walk home silently through a dead forest.