misery || b.e

laugh

y/n's eyes snapped toward the sound — that laugh. her chest tightened, heart stumbling over itself like it always did when she heard it.

god, she knew that laugh better than anyone. it had to be her.

her eyes scanned the room, breath catching in her throat. for a moment, she swore it was real — billie, here, close enough to touch. but then her gaze landed on a girl at a nearby table, phone held up, billie's voice playing through the speakers.

a fan. just a video. one of billie's interviews.

y/n swallowed hard, forcing herself to look away. but the ache stayed. god, she wanted to forget, she wanted nothing more than to forget.

she'd never really learned how to sit with her feelings. facing them head-on always felt too messy, too uncomfortable. instead, she mastered the art of keeping it all tucked away — out of sight, out of mind. pretending everything was fine became her safe place, even when it wasn't.

her strength wasn't in healing; it was in hiding.

so she forced herself to swallow the lump in her throat, the way she always did — quietly, without a trace. she blinked back the sting behind her eyes, smoothing out her expression until it felt like stone. emotions threatened to spill over, but she pushed them down before anyone could notice. if she pretended hard enough, maybe the ache would dissolve on its own. maybe if she smiled just a little longer, no one would see the cracks forming beneath. maybe no one would notice how close she was to falling apart.

but even as she steadied her breathing and straightened her posture, trying to get back into the conversation with her castmates, the weight never really left. It settled deeper instead — a quiet ache she carried everywhere, hidden beneath every word she never said.

it just wasn't fair.

billie could say it wasn't her fault. she could repeat "it's not you, it's me," until her voice went hoarse. but none of it would change what y/n kept coming back to — "you don't make me happy anymore."

that was the part that stuck, the part that tore her up inside. how shitty had she been, really? how blind was she to have missed it? had she fallen that short? the one thing she'd always wanted — the one thing she tried so desperately to give — and somehow, she'd still failed. failed to make her girlfriend happy. failed at the only thing that was supposed to matter.

it wasn't just heartbreak. it was failure.

that night, y/n laid in bed as she stared up at the ceiling, haunted by memories she couldn't shake.

it wasn't supposed to end like this.

she could still hear her voice, soft and low, whispering "you're my favorite person," like a secret.

that's the thing about heartbreak: it doesn't happen all at once. it happens in pieces. it happens on quiet nights when you're alone with your thoughts. it happens when you hear a laugh that isn't hers, when you scroll past an old picture and realize you've memorized every detail of her face.

the past two weeks, y/n had tried to stay busy, throwing herself into work, into conversations that barely scratched the surface. but none of it stopped her from missing billie in the quiet moments — the ones where there was nothing left to distract her from the hollow ache in her chest.

she hadn't cried — not really. not since the day billie left. tears were for people who knew how to let go. y/n only knew how to hold on. clutching memories too tightly, even when they hurt to carry.

it felt like the weight of the world pressing down on her chest. the luxurious sheets felt like sandpaper against her skin, and the plush pillows beneath her head might as well have been stone.

she stared up at the ceiling, her eyes tracing the faint cracks in the paint, searching for some sort of distraction, some kind of meaning. but her thoughts, relentless and cruel, kept dragging her back to billie.

the filming schedule for her show was brutal, but even the chaos on set couldn’t keep her mind fully occupied. the moments between takes were the worst — when she’d catch herself glancing at her phone, half-expecting a text from billie, half-dreading one. but there was nothing. billie was gone, and y/n was left to pick up the pieces alone.

it wasn't that she didn't try to move forward. she did. she tried so hard, but how could she? billie had been her everything, her lifeline. she couldn't even begin to process that she'd lost her.

she picked up her phone before she could stop herself. muscle memory took over. her thumb hovered over billie's name in her contacts, the familiar green circle with that candid picture of billie — messy hair, sleepy smile. god, she looked so happy in it.

she wasn't happy anymore.

her thumb trembled as she locked her phone again, the screen going dark.

there was a time when billie would've been the one to calm her nerves. she'd press a kiss to y/n's forehead and whisper, "you're okay. i've got you." but now? now billie wasn't hers to reach out to.

she rolled onto her side, clutching a pillow against her chest, her body curling in on itself as if she could shrink away from the pain. the city lights outside her window cast a dim glow across the room, but they only made the emptiness feel more stark. this was supposed to be her escape — a chance to bury herself in work and forget. but the hotel room, the set, the bustling streets — they all felt hollow without billie.

her heart ached in ways she didn’t think were possible, the weight of the breakup settling. in her mind, billie always lingered. her laugh, her voice, the way she used to hum under her breath while scrolling through her phone — it was all still there, fresh and vivid, like a movie playing on a loop in y/n's mind.

she knew the world was moving on without her.

but y/n? she was still stuck — stuck in that moment, stuck in the ache, stuck in the past.

stuck in loving someone she couldn't make happy.

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hi 🫣