Lost my reputation | B.E.

Chapter 9: the innocent

Narrator: Someone

Like many people in her life, Billie's lied a lot. Only yesterday she'd fabricated countless lies and half-truths, dissimulating reality like she was dodging bullets left and right. As if it was possible to ignore the nasty truth just to protect people around her – or is it herself?

Billie watches shark who's sniffing the sand around them, then he takes off, running along the water and coming up to her, stealing scratches every now and then before running back to the shore, grey paws sinking into white foam.

Yesterday, her boyfriend had tried touching her, dipping his thick, manly fingers into the skin of her hip and slipping under the waistband of her pants, his other hand trying to unwrap the Gucci scarf around Billie's neck – her feeble attempt at hiding that someone else's been there.

She'd not really panicked – that wouldn't be quite the right word nor entirely accurate. She'd frozen in her spot for a second like a damn possum completely overcome by her predator, heart rate picking up and limbs locked tight in hopes that if she'd stop moving, he would lose sight of her.

But because she's somewhat human, she'd dropped the defensive state, half getting her body back – the only half of her, she's lost it to the people who've unashamedly taken her – so she'd pulled away – kind of pushing him away but not too roughly so he wouldn't get offended – and had mumbled something about being on her period.

He'd looked confused for a sec because hadn't she been on her period like, 10 days ago? Nonetheless, he'd brushed it off because the way women's bodies work is so complicated anyways – at least more complicated than burying his head in the sand.

Besides, it's not Billie's fault she's a woman.

Thankfully he didn't push it and Billie was glad that she had gotten away with one more day of lying and hiding like a fucking rat, running the length of walls and collecting scraps of what people were willing to give her, freezing and pretending to be dead every now and again so she would get out of tricky situations.

The only difference, though, is that animals are the only species that only know how to be truthful – you gotta be honest. The rest, they're all just hiding behind a pile of foolishness, praying and pretending to be pious only to wash away the sins when god's not looking – a reality that isn't so scary.

So Billie's been wearing that fucking scarf for days because the problem's not the marks on her neck – it's that she feels undeserving of her boyfriend's affection. It feels wrong, having him inside of her, and she's not sure how long is considered long enough so that Y/N is finally starting to wear off.

Nobody's ever told her.

They tell you how long you should wait before having sex again after giving birth, but there's no pamphlet on what to do after you've cheated on your partner.

Somewhere behind her, she hears a door open and footsteps walking down the wooden, sandy steps, then nothing until Claudia's body bends next to hers, sitting on the ground.

"You OK? You've been out here a while," Claudia's voice is careful as she tugs at the sleeves of her hoody and over her hands. It's still quite early in the morning and she kind of smells like coffee.

"I'm fine," Billie mumbles, staring at the ocean. Shark comes up to them and tries to lick her fingers, so she lets him while she strokes his furr with her other hand, "I just have a lot going on,"

Shark's tail's wagging and slaps against Claudia's legs, which causes Billie to giggle softly.

"Wanna talk about it?" Claudia's tone is light, so Billie figures that it must have been Finneas sending her. She doesn't mind it, yet she's not so sure she wants to open up to her; it's not that she doesn't trust her brother's girlfriend but she just wouldn't know where to start.