Insomnia // Billie Eilish

Chapter 14

"I'm sorry. Michael is my ex-boyfriend. I didn't do it to make him jealous or any stupid shit like that. He was asking if you were single and stuff and I don't want you to..." She trailed off and played with the rings on her fingers, licking her lips. "I don't want you to be with him, because he's not good, okay?"

"You don't want me to be with him, because he's not good," I repeated. "What does that have to do with us dating?"

"Well, I was trying to get him to back off and the thought of me and you dating may or may not have been on my mind," she said slowly.

"Well, you made a really good point afterwards, at least. And it's okay." Did she admit to liking me? Is that what she was saying? She wanted us to date? Oh, fuck, I was confused. Her eyes lingered on my lips for a minute before finding their way back to my eyes. She leaned towards me, making our faces mere inches apart. I thought she was gonna kiss me. I would've leaned away to mess with her like she did to me if I didn't want it so bad. There was a knock at the window making us jump away from each other.

"Mom said if you're leaving, you need to tell her," Finneas said, his voice muffled due to the piece of glass in between him and us.

Billie groaned. "Okay, tell her I'm taking Mackenzie home."

"Actually, can we go somewhere?"

"Sure." She pulled out of the driveway and drove for about ten minutes as I gave her directions.

"It's a bit of a walk, but it's worth it." I got out of the car and took Billie's hand. "Follow me."

We walked through the bunch of trees for a couple minutes until I could see the end. There was a big cliff and you could see the ocean just past it. "Woah. How'd you find this? You're not about to kill me are you?"

"Matt and I loved 'adventures' when we were little. We found all kinds of crazy stuff." I smiled and motioned, turning around. "Like this. God." I sighed and laughed.

"What?"

"We've changed so much. It's crazy."

"Wanna go on an adventure?" Matt asked with a smile.

"Where?" I asked, cautiously.

"I don't know." He shrugged. "I'm bored."

"I wanna go on an adventure." Lilly crosse; her arms and pouted.

"You can come too." I grabbed her hand.

"What? No she can't!" Matt protested. "She'll get hurt."

"She's my little sister. She can come. I can protect her from anything," I replied, stubbornly.

"Hey." Billie laced our fingers together. The feeling of her hand in mine made me feel grounded. I wished she'd held my hand more often. "You okay?"

I let out a shaky breath and walked forward, sitting on the edge of the cliff with my legs dangling over the edge. "Yeah."

She sat down beside me, but a little further from the edge and her legs weren't hanging down. "You know, I was thirteen when we found this place. Matt was fifteen. And Lilly was nine."

"I dare you to sit on the edge," Matt challenged.

"Okay. I'm not scared of some stupid cliff," I lied, sitting on the edge and trying not to look down.

"I was scared of it at first, but then we kept coming back and we moved away to Oklahoma and then... Lilly passed. We came back and I started coming to the cliff again. My mom and dad had split up. Matt was in jail. I was depressed. The cliff didn't scare me anymore. I would sit on the edge and dangle my feet off. I didn't care if I fell." I looked around for a minute and sniffed in an attempt to be nonchalant. I was not going to cry again. "I didn't care if I died." I was not gonna cry again. "Now, I just know that I'll be okay." My eyes stung with tears and Billie pulled me into her side. I was gonna cry again.

"Shh." She scooted us away from the edge and rocked me side to side.

"I'm sorry. I try so hard to be able to talk about her without getting sad or angry. I want to think about our happy memories, but it's hard, y'know. I feel like..." I looked up at Billie and sighed. "How can I be happy, when I think about her and I feel like it's my fault? How did I just let her run off like that?" I looked down as more tears fell.

I was always very vulnerable around Billie. I don't know what it was. I just always felt safe with her. She was a really good person to talk to and I knew that she was never gonna judge me for the stuff that I told her.

"It's okay. It was not your fault." She tilted my head up and wiped the tears off my face with her sleeve, wrapping her arms around me again. "There's nothing you could've done. Okay?" She stared into my eyes, sympathetically. "There's nothing you could've done."