Paper Lanterns

Chapter six

Billie and I then spent the next hour catching up. He didn’t bother unloading his guitar as it would be a quick job, so instead we just sat in his car and talked.

He wanted to know the full story about what happened with Eugene and so I told him. He was doubled over in laughter for almost five minutes straight and I noticed he had to wipe tears from his eyes as he began to settle down.

Billie then went on a long rant about Eugene. I had always known he wasn’t happy with my relationship so it wasn’t surprising, but Billie had promised me he wouldn’t talk shit about Eugene in front of me. But now that my relationship was over Billie decided it was safe to go to town. He spoke about how Eugene was disgusting, how his mistreatment of me was horrible, and he went on and on about how Eugene was a predator due to the age gap and how horrible he was to me during our relationship.

It took so long to get through Billie’s rants about Eugene that I was now only able to ask him about how his love life had been chugging along.

“Eh, I haven’t been seeing anyone for a while, actually. I went out with this pretty cool chick from school called Julie for a few dates. She dumped me, though.” Billie shrugged.

“Why?” I asked curiously.

“I think she was only using me to make her ex jealous, as they got back together. I dunno. I don’t think she was ‘the one’ or anything so it didn’t really hurt.” Billie responded, and he was attempting to sound nonchalant and even gave a shrug to prove this. But I was skeptical.

“Dude, you fall for girls way too hard, and way too quickly. Julie sucks, she’s not worth being upset over.” I slipped out with a snigger, but then I stiffened when I realised how rude I sounded.

“Says the girl who took nearly two years to break up with a fat, ugly, old dude.” Billie bit back.

Billie and I had never fought ever, in our entire friendship. We had nothing to fight about. We had similar interests and similar fucked up relationships with our friends and family. There was nothing for us to disagree on. We had become sort of distant since Eugene entered the picture, but we had still never had any major disagreements. Now that loser was out of my life I wasn’t about to start fighting with Billie now.

“Yeah, I totally deserved that. Sorry, I wasn’t trying to be a bitch. I just think you’re awesome, and I’m angry this Julie chick didn’t see that.” I smiled.

I expected Billie to either continue to ark up, or to let it go and move the topic along. But I noticed his face grow serious and he was silent as his green eyes bore into my blue ones.

“I can’t get over how different you look, Evie. You look…wow.” Billie stated.

It was the first time he had explicitly mentioned my new appearance, well new for him as he hadn’t seen me in a year. I didn’t know how to feel about his compliments. He had never complimented me on my looks before so this was new territory for me.

“Better, I hope.” I squeaked, unable to think of a better response.

“Uh, well, uh…” He stammered and I could tell he was trying to be careful not to offend me “Your puberty transformation has done you well. You look really good.”

I felt my pulse quicken upon hearing Billie’s words. Billie and I had only ever been just friends. It would be hypocritical for me to be annoyed that he used to not find me attractive, because the feeling was mutual. When we first met I thought he was a small dweeb. I found myself mainly okay with the arrangement because I was so glad to have Billie as a close friend.

But I did always find myself jealous that Tayla was able to find a boyfriend the night that we met Billie and Mike. Her relationship with Mike almost seemed identical to the one I had with Billie - the only difference being that Tayla and Mike had the ‘boyfriend/girlfriend’ label and fooled around together. Even though there had been no romantic chemistry between Billie and I, I always wished things were different and that we did have that kind of chemistry. It was one of the reasons why I went out with Eugene and why I put up with his crap for so long. I was secretly desperate for a boyfriend even though I always told myself otherwise.