Billie and Brandon: It requires time

8

Billie sniffled, curled up in a ball on her bed, lamenting the loss of her locket.

She couldn't sleep it'd been days since Zane took it and each night without it  made her lose more and more hope that she would ever get it back. She couldn't think of what to do to get it back or how. She couldn't figure out a plan that wouldn't end with someone getting hurt and she didn't want to endanger anyone.

Maybe she was being melodramatic and crying too much over it, but she needed it.

Even if things with her and Brandon were messed up, she still cared about him a lot. Not having the locket he'd given her was heartbreaking. The locket was her comfort when Brandon wasn't around to talk to, and now she had neither. She didn't know what to do. And she was starting to feel lost again.

She was jolted out of her reverie when someone banged on her window multiple times. Billie jumped in shock and quickly wiped her eyes with a frown. She got off her bed to see who the hell was knocking on her window at two in the morning, half expecting to see Zoe with a batch of brownies as she was oft to do on random occasions.

Billie yanked open her blinds and inhaled sharply when she saw Brandon outside her window, smiling with a grimace and holding his abdomen. She unlatched the hook immediately and lifted her window open, stepping back so Brandon could get in.

"Brandon? What the fuck?"

He climbed in with a grunt, groaning when he banged his arm on the window sill. Now that he was inside, she could clearly see that he was really injured. There was a lot of dried blood on his face from a cut on his eyebrow. He had a bruise forming right under one of his eyes and his lip was also split. He was favoring his left arm and kind of dragging his feet, wincing with each step he took.

"I might need some first aid" he chuckled, smiling sheepishly.

"It's not funny! Why are you hurt?"

Billie grabbed Brandon and pushed him towards her attached bathroom, not just to help him, but also because if they stayed in her room. Andrew might hear the noise and wake up. She flicked on the lights and then forced him to sit down on her closed toilet. Billie rummaged silently through her medicine cabinet before she pulled out her first aid kit, checking to see if she still had some stuff to take care of wounds. She'd used a lot from when she used to get in fights, but thankfully, there seemed to be enough to take care of Brandon.

"Billie..." Brandon reached up in concern, wiping away a tear that had been trailing down her cheek. "You've been crying"

She glared at him, slapping his hand off of her and forcing his chin up sharply with a raised, irritated brow.

"What the fuck happened to you?" she hissed "Did you get in a fight? You look like roadkill!"

"You should see the other guy" Brandon joked, then winced when Billie put pressure on his chin with her nails.

"The other guy being?"

"Zane. I saw he had your locket when he was giving me shit for being in it" Brandon answered, his gaze serious as he stared up at her. Billie's breath hitched in her chest, and she let go of his face as if it burned her. "I know why you said what you said back then. You were protecting Zoe and me because you knew I'd go after him to get it back"

"Why the hell did you fight him? You could have gotten seriously hurt!"

Brandon didn't respond, only staring at her, and Billie shook her head in annoyance, opening the kit and wetting some paper to clean him up. She carefully dabbed at the cuts on his face, cleaning off the blood and disinfecting the scrapes and cuts with the diluted hydrogen solution.