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Ten

BILLIE'S POV

"I, uh—"

She went pale.

Like, a deathly kinda pale. I don't know, maybe it was normal for her to randomly colour change like a fucking chameleon, but, y'know, I wanted to just check she was okay.

But like, it was like an 'I ate the most bomb ass burrito but got food poisoning and couldn't move my ass for a week' kinda pale.

That's happened way too many times.

I felt my eyebrows lower as Alex turned into a stuttering mess. Before she could get a word out, Mom walked in, her nose was runny and she was wiping her eyes with the corner of her shirt, the sleeves a damp shade of black, due to her mascara rubbing off on it.

Very strange sight to see, because mom has always been tough, but something about her seemed... Very very off.

She gently sat down on the other side of the bed, taking my hand in hers.

"Mom, you and Alex are both scaring me. Did I fart super loud or something?" I chuckled to myself.

Finneas sat up in his seat. I watched him as he was tensing his eyebrows, and he placed his head on the palm of his hand, under his chin, holding his head up against the armrest, listening in to what mom was going to say.

"When am I allowed out of this hell hole?" I tried again, averting my eyes away so I couldn't see the tears streaming down her cheeks.

I'm not a cryer.

I'm tough as shit, K?

Just fucking snapped my foot or whatever, and I'm not even shedding a tear.

Well, maybe I did, but shut up.

My mom's my mom. If she cries in-front of me, it sets off a chain reaction in my brain that automatically makes my eyes well up— no matter what emotion I was feeling before.
Seeing her so vulnerable makes my heart shatter.

My mom simply just kept on staring at the wall.

Dude, she looked drugged or something.

"Mom?" Finneas then tried.

She calmly looked down at me and grabbed my hand she was holding with her other hand, pressing it against her chest and squeezing her eyes shut.

I nearly bursted into tears at the sight.

She took a deep, shaky breath. "Billie, you're going to go into surgery shortly and you're gonna need to postpone the rest of the tour."