Listen To Your Heart ~ Book One.

Every rose has it's thorn

(Claudia holds her hand up towards my face.)

"Here's my card if you need to talk."

(I take the card and stomp away. I had to get the hell out of there. Hours later, I was back in Philadelphia.)

======= (Meanwhile, across the country in Los Angeles.) ======

(Billie lays on her bed, eating a salad. She hadn't eaten in days, because of the stress she'd been under. She was still stressed from arguing with David hours earlier. She sits her salad on a nearby table and sighs.)

('David. What the fuck was so different about him, besides their age difference? How was he able to make her feel so warm and wanted and... loved?' (She thinks.)

(A single teardrop runs down her cheek. Loved? She had almost told him that he made her feel loved...but, she couldn't say it. Why couldn't she say it? Why had she felt so angry at him?)

(She knew why, because he had asked her to face her feelings for him, and she couldn't. Because she was afraid. Because she had felt them before, but never like this. Because he loved her, and she didn't love him. Did she?)

"Damn you, David." (She whispers.)

(Of all the guys she had dated in the past. Of all the guys she could possibly have. Why, oh why did she have to fall for an older guy? It was morally wrong, it was stupid. It was...it was...love?)

(There's a knock on her door. Her mother sticks her head in.)

"Billie? Okay if I come in?"

"Sure, Mom."

"Well...it's good to see you eating again. You had us worried. Guess bringing David here helped?"

(Billie rolls her eyes.) "Did you have to mention his name, Mom?"

"Sorry. We caught the tail-end of the argument. Mind if I ask what happened?"

"We argued, Mom. He's going his way, and I'm going mine."

"After only one argument? He mentioned a picture?"

(Billie sighs and opens her laptop. The pictures pop up again.)

"Billie!"

"The videos are fake, Mom. The pictures are too. Most of them anyway."

"But who sent them too you?"

"Don't know. An anonymous sender. I already blocked them."

"Well, that explains why he said we had the wrong guy. Did we have the wrong guy, Billie?"

"We can't be together, Mom! It's morally wrong. It's fucked up. It's...it's..."

"Love?"

"I don't love him, Mom. I... I can't love him. I don't have the time. I'm afraid to...get hurt again."

"Billie Eilish Pirate Baird O'Connell."

(Billie felt a lecture coming on.)

"Now you listen to me. I have seen your heart broken. I have seen you depressed, but I have never seen you act the way you did, when he showed up in this room. You jumped into his arms. You held one another tight. You told one another that you missed each other. You obviously care very much for one another. Don't you see that?"

"But Mom, our age difference and musical tastes. It's like we're from two different centuries!"

"Did that bother you the first time the two of you had sex? Or the other times?"

(Billie's only reply is a stunned look. How did her mother know?)

"A mother notices things about her daughter. I'll leave you to your thoughts."