behind the velvet rope | billie eilish wlw

CH11/Part 2

Claire exhaled sharply, shaking her head. "I don't have time for this."

Billie's expression didn't change, but something in her eyes darkened. "Then don't waste it."

The words hit harder than Claire expected. She hesitated, then turned toward the long table in the center of the room, flipping through the script pages scattered across it. Her fingers felt stiff against the paper.

"We're running the monologue again," she said, not looking at Billie.

Billie's voice was flat. "Now?"

"Yes. Now."

A pause. Then Billie sighed and moved toward the table, resting her hands on the edge. When she spoke, her voice had lost its usual ease.

"I don't need to rehearse it."

Claire finally looked at her. "Then prove it."

Billie's jaw tightened. For a second, Claire thought she'd refuse, that she'd walk out just to prove a point. But then, without another word, Billie straightened, rolled her shoulders back, and exhaled.

And then—

Everything changed.

The air in the room thickened as Billie's expression shifted, her body language drawing inward, as if something unseen had tightened around her ribs. When she spoke, her voice was low, steady, but stripped of all pretense.

"I know how this goes."

Claire barely breathed.

Billie wasn't performing anymore. She was speaking.

And Claire wasn't sure she wanted to hear it.

"I get close to someone, and for a while, it's good. Really good. And then something shifts. They start expecting things from me, or maybe I start expecting things from them. Either way, it stops feeling easy."

Her voice was too real, too raw, like it belonged to something buried deep beneath the surface.

"I don't think I've ever been with someone who didn't want more than I could give. Or maybe they just wanted me in a way that made me feel—" Billie stopped, barely blinking, barely breathing, "—made me owe them something."

Claire's fingers tightened around the script. It felt flimsy in her grip, useless.

"And I try. I do. But eventually, they realize I'm not who they thought I was, and then it's different. The way they talk to me, the way they look at me. Even when they say nothing's wrong, it's there."

A muscle in Billie's jaw flickered, her knuckles pressing white against the table.

"I've had people swear they wouldn't leave. That they understood. That I didn't have to be anything for them. And then one day, they're gone."

The silence after those words stretched, fragile.

Claire knew this was a scene. Knew this was fiction.

But the way Billie's voice wavered—barely, just for a breath—made something inside her tighten painfully.

And when Billie finally lifted her gaze, Claire knew.

Knew that this wasn't just acting.

Knew that whatever Billie was feeling, whatever she was burying beneath the script and the cameras and the sharp edges of her voice—

It was real.

And Claire couldn't pretend otherwise.

Claire swallowed, her throat tight. The weight of Billie's words lingered in the air between them, heavier than anything they had said before. The tension of the past months, the unspoken friction, the sharpness in Billie's defiance—it all made sense now.