Lost my reputation | B.E.

Chapter 1: Everybody dies

Narrator: Someone

Everybody dies, surprise, surprise.

The words play on a loop inside Billie's brain, pushing and shoving each other inside her head, over and over again because they feel so true, they start sounding kind of dumb. And because she can't shake that feeling, either. And also, because she's spent the past couple of days rehearsing that song for a special, first-time performance of her - unknown to most people - future new single.

Sitting here, in this small vegan ice cream shop, she almost feels silly for writing those words, because the more she hears them, the more they sound so obvious and the more she doubts herself and starts thinking that maybe her pen is not all that people make it out to be. Or maybe it's the nerves talking, and she just needs to finish drinking her damn smoothie.

On her days off, Billie usually goes for walks. But not today.

She usually tries to wake up fairly early – or at least what's considered early in her books- and snatches an apple in the kitchen, a leach by the closet, grabs Shark in a hurry and just like that, she's out the door.

That's how Billie usually finds herself going for walks in the mornings. But not today.

Today, Billie's people watching because it's rainy outside and Shark doesn't like rain very much and he's just a dog anyway. Could he even match the mood?

She loves people watching and imagining what people's lives are and smiling at random little kids because aren't they just so cute when they're laughing and licking melted ice cream off their stubby little hands?

She's always related to kids – always seeing life more like a child. Of course, like most people, she loves being blissfully unaware – although it kind of feels like she's been ridden of that luxury long ago when she was tiny and still had a gap in her smile from a missing tooth. Of course, like most people, she has fears; but she isn't afraid of spiders or snakes or needles or things that hurt. She can't say the same for the monsters under her bed, though.

Yet, she loves eating too much candy, laughing loudly and scrapping her knees. And she hates being too serious – so serious she has to try and fold herself again and again, so she'd fit into a box.

Billie likes rainy days.

And that's quite unfortunate considering it barely ever rains in California. Rainy days are rare in LA; it's now become the land of dreadful droughts and a spitting image of what hell on earth's supposed to be – or at least a vivid representation of what's about to come, an omen from the universe, a time capsule that's been sent to the past from the future. So it's usually hot and dry and suffocating.

But not today.

Although Billie does love rainy days, she doesn't particularly mind the lack of it. It's just that whenever it does happen, she likes to enjoy it unlike most people. She actually doesn't really mind the LA weather considering she used to hate it a few years back. Her hatred for it was fueled by her need to have the clouds match her mood, and the temperatures the obnoxious number of items of clothes she thought she had to shield herself with. But somehow, with growing up comes wearing more smiles and shedding the layers.

Of course, she likes growing up; she likes experimentation, and she is above all glad for her newfound confidence in her body. Suddenly, LA doesn't seem so dull and the sun so crushing, and she is finally able to enjoy the place where she was born. The place where so many people come with so many hopes and dreams, while she quietly and selfishly despises everything she has worked so hard for - along with everybody else that somehow makes it to the city.