Crashing Into Billie Eilish

1

"The thing is, things are getting to much for me again. You know. I struggle with this...this crippling feeling that all of this is meaningless. That we'll just die in the end. And that all of this was just for nothing."

"Like, what you're basically saying is that this means nothing to you? Me. Just sitting here and talking about, like, shit. It means something to you. That---even if we all just die in the end---at least I said what I felt. How I felt. I didn't have to keep all the stuff I was feeling inside and, like, die with it. And I think that's important---to me at least."

"I made this cake...for like a stupid project for school once. And my dad drove me to school that day 'cause it was raining. I won best project that day. And it kind of became our thing. So, like, every weekend he'd help me make these crazy elaborate cakes so I could enter them into the baking competitions at school. It's so stupid. He drove me to another competition. The weather was so shit and we were so scared that something was going to happen to the dumb cake. We made it all the way to the school and nothing happened. The cake was perfect. I won first place. I sat in the parking lot---waiting for dad. And he never came. I walked all the way home with the cake. Told mum that dad never showed up at school. That I had to walk home. The cake. Winning first place. His car collided with a wall on the way home.

Landon gestures with her hands to the her lower abdomen. "She told me that he had, like, all of these pipes attached to his chest and his body. That his entire ribcage was broken. I didn't...I didn't see him ever again. The cake. The stupid cake is still in the deep freezer. I don't know. Mum said it didn't feel right to, like, eat it. Nothing ever happened to the cake. And I mean, what did it matter in the end? I would...I would have chosen the cake getting, like, fucked up. Not my dad. Not my fucking dad..."

And Billie didn't know what to say to that. Fucked up things didn't happen to her. Life have always been that one bedroom flat in the bad part of the neighbourhood. Mum already at work. Eating Hungry Lion with Adventure Time on the Tv.

She didn't bake cakes with her dad and enter them into competitions. She didn't have a dad. And, until that moment, she never really understood what they were important for. Dads. She and mum have always been okay without a stupid man.

But, really, that's just them. And it's not true for everyone. Not true for people like Landon. Her whole life has been about finding the meaning because, honestly, this can't be it... It just can't be.

When people like Landon, who hurt and have lost people they really care about, try to see things for what they are. No meaning. No stupid school competition cakes that represents the relationship she had with her dad. Or, like, car rides to school. Shitty weather. Maybe to feel less pain, they have grown afraid of attachment.

"That's shit."

"I know. Like, I fucking loved cake. You know. Now...it's like...what does it even matter anymore? It's not even about wanting him to come back. Why did it have to happen at all?" She pulls her legs up into her chest as if protecting her ribcage. That, really, the pain was so much it could break all of the bones in her chest. It was stupid. And sad. It wasn't fair. "So many people were on that same road that day and, like, nothing happened to them."

"I've never met my dad. And I don't know if I should envy you the pain. That if a relationship with someone hurt you that much...it means it made you feel so loved. Like you could just come as yourself---no conditions. Or if I should be grateful that I'm not the one who has to go through that kind of pain. Who has to deal with having lost their favourite person... I've never...thought much about dads and, like, about what purpose they serve in a family dynamic and, now, I think it's just because my dad was a deadbeat. And that everyone has the potential to have fulfilling relationships with other people. That it's a...it's a personal choice whether you want to give that up or hold on to it. And, your dad---he chose to hold on to it. Until his dying breath. That's really special. I'm sorry that you have to feel this kind of pain now that he's gone. But I'm also really happy that you got to see a better side of humanity than I did. That if anything in the world were ever meaningless, it's choosing not to open up to people because you believe they aren't useful to you. That human connection should never be conditional. You shouldn't need a reason...to, like, stay and look after your kid."

"You don't have a dad?"

"I've never met him."

"And that doesn't make you feel sad? Do you ever want to, like, meet him?"

"I think it makes me want to prove that I don't need him. Really. I know it makes no sense, But I'm not just going to sit around and wait until he decides I'm good enough for him. You know? There are great dads out there and it makes me angry, more than anything, that my dad---out of all the dads in the world---chose to be so shit."

"Did you ever ask her why he left?"

"He left us. That's pretty much all I need to know about him."

The resignation on her face was scary. That she was perfectly okay with not knowing where she came from. She was right---not all dads were shit. What if he was good person? A great person? And he had, like, a perfect excuse for why he left? What if her grandparents didn't want her mum to date when she was young and they had to break up? That he didn't even know she was going to have their baby. Thinks about her all the time. "I think you should take your own advice and try to find the meaning in things---even when it's not obvious. I mean, your dad must have left for a reason. Things are never that simple. We're humans. Things never are."

"Can you go back to being a nihilist now?"

"I can both be a nihilist and believe that some things are meaningful. Besides, I'm not even a nihilist. I just...wish that I didn't have to feel this much all the time. Telling myself that none of this has any meaning makes me feel better about being too scared to get attached. I don't want to, like, get to the point where we're baking cakes and entering them into competitions and then you end up, like, getting in a car crash on the way home one day. I can't afford to invest that much of myself into someone right now."