worldwide || billie eilish

chapter five

The first time I cut myself was when I was thirteen years old, right after my father committed suicide. I blamed myself. My mother was too lost in her sad little world of alcohol and drugs to notice the scars. 

I ran away from home at sixteen. I left the trailer park where the two of us lived and traveled down the California coast to L.A. Nobody from my old life ever tried to contact me. Sometimes I doubted that my mother even realized I was gone.

And then I met Jared, and he made me feel better. He was like my own personal drug. But drugs have consequences--it wasn't any different with him. When he started staying out too late and yelling at me and hitting me, there were more cuts on my wrist than ever before.

I thought about death a lot. I attempted suicide once. I tried to overdose on sleeping pills and vodka on my birthday. I was twenty at the time--only a year ago. I woke up in the hospital, alone. Jared had taken me there but left once he found out I wasn't going to die. I had to get a ride home from the hospital with a doctor who touched my tits in the backseat of his car. That was when the cheating--on my end--started.

I had very few memories of my father. I knew he was a kind but miserable man. Handsome. I got my brown hair and hazel eyes from him. When he died, I bleached my hair blonde so when I looked in the mirror I wouldn't immediately be reminded of him. 

Once, when my mom was extra fucked up, she stumbled into our trailer and mistook me for him. "Johnathan?" She said. "Is that you?" I went into my room before she could say anything else, and stayed there for two days straight.

The morning after Billie drove me home, I woke up to find Jared passed out on the couch. I woke him up slowly.

"Baby, c'mon, you gotta go to the studio," I whispered. "You guys gotta make your album. C'mon."

He rolled onto his stomach. "Be quiet," he said into the couch cushions. "Go away."

I went to the kitchen and made him coffee. I brought it to him alongside couple of Advils. He sat up.

"Here you go," I said. "Then we gotta go to the studio. I can drive." I put my hand on his shoulder. He swatted me away.

"I'm driving," he grumbled. He stood up and walked into the bathroom, slamming the door behind him.

*

I sat in my usual spot in the hallway at the studio. I planned on waiting until Jared's lunch break at twelve, going out to eat with him somewhere, and then having him drop me off afterwards to sleep before that night. Jared was taking me to a house party in the Hills.

Billie passed by me at around eleven a.m. She was carrying an iced coffee in one hand and her phone in the other. When she saw me, she stopped.

"Hi," she said.

I kept my head down, staring at my phone.

"You're ignoring me now? After I gave you a ride?" Billie asked, huffing.

I didn't say anything. I was not in the mood to talk to her. At all.

"What did I do to you to make you hate me so much? And saying I bumped into you is the shittiest answer in the world. I want a real reason."

I texted Jared, 'Let's go out to lunch together' with a smiley face and heart emoji at the end. I clicked send. 

"Okay, what--what are you doing? Texting your boyfriend? I know you fucking hear me."

Jared wasn't responding, and I knew it was because he was busy working on the album in the next room, but I still continued to text him. Random things, mostly, like about how excited I was for that night and stuff. Anything to look busy in front of Billie.