worldwide || billie eilish

chapter seven

I stayed leaned up against the wall for a long time. I burnt through my back of Marlboros, and when I was all through with those, I watched the traffic whirl by and thought more about my imaginary life on the East Coast. 

In the early hours of the morning, people began to fling themselves from the apartment, drunk or high or both, their faces plastered with sweat. I examined them from afar, feeling too tired and alienated to ever rejoin any sort of party. 

I was beginning to consider going back inside, finding my wallet, and then getting a place at the Chateau or Beverly Hills Hotel or something. Crash at someone's bungalow, maybe. Try to get a little rest, possibly even sleep.

I wondered what Jared was doing at that moment. My thoughts wandered to him. Was he dancing? Drinking? Hanging out with some girls that he would later tell me were 'just friends?' 

I missed him. I wanted to be lying beside him in bed, in the quiet-but-never-silent peace of LA, our limbs tangled together, bodies joined as one. When I thought of love, I thought of that. Of those perfect, quiet nights in bed. When he was snoring and I was thinking, my brain ticking like a broken time bomb, counting down the corruption of my whole being. 

A cool gust of wind, smelling of peppermint and booze breath, ruffled my hair. I clutched my--Jared's, actually--leather jacket closer to my body and closed my eyes, inhaling deeply. I just wanted everything to...pause.

All of a sudden, I heard a loud laughter coming from next to me. My eyes popped open and I looked over for the source of the noise.

When I saw what it was, my heart seemed to sink in my chest. 

Billie was standing with her arms around two girls, seemingly being supported by them, in a way, as she whispered things into the shorter one's ear. The little blonde girl. 

I couldn't make out what she was saying--I didn't want to. I was disgusted. This really was the cherry on top to the most perfect shitty night. 

The blonde girl let out a hyena-esque laugh, piercing the inky night. She was wearing an awful strapless leopard print dress with ruffles along the edges. There was a strand of pearls wrapped around her milky neck, where a number of hickeys stained her pale skin. Hickeys from God-knows-who.

Hickeys from...Billie?

"You are too funny," the blonde girl gushed, leaning her head against Billie's. 

The other girl, on Billie's right, had dark red hair and a face that reminded me of a fox--a pointy nose, angular cheekbones, triangular chin. Her pupils were wide and dilated, and she seemed spaced out. 

"Violet," Billie said in a sing-songy voice, looking over at the redhead while the blonde girl kissed her neck. 

The redhead--Violet--smiled. "Yeah?" She breathed.

"Violetttt," Billie repeated, her head lolling onto Violet's shoulder. "Violet, Violet, Violet."

I rolled my eyes, scoffing softly. 

"Hey," Billie said, but it wasn't until I smelled her coffee-and-coconut (and whiskey) scent that I realized she was talking to me. Her tone was arrogant and frustrated, but also incredibly drunk, words slurring together as she said, "Hey, Colette."

I turned my head to look at her again and found her eyes already locked on my own. The two girls on her sides stopped giggling and merely stared at me blankly, faces flat with jealously.

"What do you want?" I asked, frowning. I didn't want to talk to her. I didn't have the energy to. 

"Why are you here?" She said. "Why. Are. You. Hereee?" Her voice squeaked at the end, then cracked and went silent.

"Please, stop talking to me," I said, blinking back tears of tiredness.

Billie pushed herself off the two girls and stepped forward, waving them away. They exchanged awkward glances, then walked back up the front stairs and into our apartment.

"Why do you hate me?" She slurred. "Why? Why?" She pointed at me with a look of true, raw hurt that made my heart break in two. I could feel it splintering as I stared at her.

"I..." I was at a loss for words. Why did I hate her? It wasn't because she bumped into me when we first meant. It wasn't because she was a jackass--she was actually sort of funny, in her own weird way. So, really, what was the reason I hated her? 

Did I even hate her? 

Yes. Yes. Yes, I did, because she was jackass. Yeah. That's right.

"I didn't do anything to you," she said, moving closer to me, so close that I could feel her hot booze breath on my face. 

"I know," I whispered, before I even knew what I was saying. 

Billie's eyes seemed to light up, for a moment, with what I interpreted as victory for finally prying some sort of response--however vague it had been--out of me. 

"So why do you hate me?" She said, pushing me against the wall. She put her hand beside my head, staring me straight in the eyes, barely blinking. Awaiting an answer.

"I don't," I said quietly, eyes downcast. I regretted saying it the second the two words left my mouth. 

Her pointer finger grazed my chin, pushing it up so that I was staring her in the eyes. 

"What did you say?" She said.

I swallowed hard. "You know what I said."

She smiled. "You don't hate me. I knew it. I'm too great for anyone to hate." She tilted her head, coming so close to me that our lips were touching, ever so slightly. Shivers ran down my back. 

"I don't hate you, you know," she said. "I've never hated you. Ever."

And before I knew what was happening, Billie's lips were fully against my own. I didn't know how to react. I stayed frozen for a second, then melted into the way her lips felt, moving my own in the way I did when Jared kissed me this way--though it hand been a long time since anyone had kissed me that way, with the kind of vigor that Billie had in that moment.

I put my hands on her face. She put her hands in my hair. Our bodies pressed against each other, her drunk, me miserable, which was a drug in itself. 

And then there was a light being shined behind my closed eyes, and footsteps, clattering against the concrete.

"...What the hell?"

Jared.

*

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

THEY KISSED AHHHHHH