what you can't have (b.e.)

no time to die

a/n: tw for self-harm

~

I should've known, I'd leave alone

Mila's POV:

I can't go back, I really can't. And if I did, would I be doing it because I wanted to or because I have nowhere else to go?

There's nothing left and I can't picture a future for myself, I don't even know what ten minutes ahead of now looks like.

And I shouldn't think like this but it doesn't stop me. There aren't really that many people left in my life, and I'm sure most of them don't really care. This would be good for them, if I disappeared, because then they would have one less obligation.

I think about Billie. I'm sure it would hurt for a little while, but then she'd meet someone new and I'd fade into her long-term memory. Maybe I'm just fooling myself and she fits into the group of people that don't really care. She'll get so caught up in music and the industry she won't even have time to miss me.

And I don't really know what's a life that's always dreaming of dying. How do you fight your own brain? I wake up and I hate myself, I go to bed and I hate myself. I can't be around people because I think that if I hate myself, how could they not? Every word I speak sounds wrong. Every move I make feels like I'm watching somebody else from the outside looking in.

I've been in self-destruct mode for years. Maybe it's time to press that red button and give up already. Maybe I owe this to everyone around me, maybe it's what they really wanted.

I get off the ground and start walking.

Billie's POV:

You were my life, but life is far away from fair...

I scroll through comments on a picture I just posted, the caption 'if i'm not here to love you what am i here for.'

Certain ones stand out and I re-read them over and over and spiral into self-hatred:

Oh I'm so depressed... it's so hard to be a rich girl

Satanist

Ugly

To make trash music and make depression seem cool to impressionable teenagers.

The last one stings deep and I tremble so bad I can't hold onto my phone. I never asked for any of this. I just write and make how I feel. Everyone's so quick to hate and to tell me what my motives are. I don't care about the money, I grew up without it and know how to live like that. I'm not asking every person to love my music, but to at the very least not act like they know why I do what I do.

I should've known opening up about depression would do this. Immediately I'm faking it or setting a bad influence. But if I made happier music, I'd be labeled superficial and clueless. There's just nobody who believes in me anymore. I don't even believe in me anymore.

What if I am doing all of this for attention? But the one person I want attention from left. A million strangers and online love could never make that right.

And what if I'm hurting every listener? I don't want people to be made fun of because of me, they could tear me apart for my depression, but I don't want that for fans. I wish everyone with depression didn't have to prove it with pills or a list of reasons. Why does something unexplained, a mental disorder out of anyone's control, have to have physical evidence?

I crawl over to the broken picture of Mila and I and grab a shard of glass. I press until I bleed, over and over. Is this enough proof for them? Is this what everyone wants me to do? Is this what we have to do to be believed?

I shouldn't have said a damn thing. I should've suffered in silence. Sitting on the floor bleeding out, that's the sound of my silence.

Is this what I owe them? Scars?

The blood you bleed is just the blood you owe...

Mila's POV:

If I close my eyes, I can pretend it's that night and my ocean eyes ringtone just exposed me. I dangle my feet over the road below. I couldn't go like this, with that much pain. I wanna feel happy, just for a little.

I reach into my backpack and pull out the plastic bag. I don't count them, just dump them into my palm. I pause for a single second, nothing longer. I've had my mind made up for years, I knew it was going to happen, that it was just a matter of time, but I didn't know when.

There's just no time to live.

I swallow all of them and lean back and look up at the sky, a shade of blue. I pretend that it's purple. The clouds swoop down and swallow me whole.

Now you'll never see me cry...

Billie's POV:

I start to panic when I've let myself bleed for so long. But part of me thinks it's not enough, they'd look at my wrists and call them cat scratches. I need to look on the outside as destroyed as I feel on the inside. Maybe they'll believe me if I'm dead. If I'm clinging to the life I never wanted in a hospital bed.

I go deeper and it hurts, it burns and it hurts. I feel dizzy as I try to get up, I don't want this anymore. I stumble over nothing on my way to Finneas's room. I knock by just falling into the door. It opens with my weight. But I forgot, no one's here, I'm on my own. I reach for my phone, my eyes so heavy, the world so blurry. I left it on the living room floor.

It's so far awa--