Behind Closed Doors // Billie Eilish

Chapter 50

"Hold on..." The police officer held his arms out confusedly. "You're telling me that you were his best friend, and you didn't know that it ended up not being a suicide. It was a murder."

"What?"

He scoffed, shaking his head. "Some friend you are."

"Well, I mean—"

"There's no excuse. Shut up. If he was your friend, you would've known that."

"But the autopsy..." I trailed off.

"It's a murder."

"Who did it?"

He crossed his arms. "You don't wanna know. Scurry along. I'm busy."

"I... what?"

He laughed, bracing his hands on his knees and looking down. His laugh grew deep and distorted as he dropped down to his knees. What the fuck?

He looked back up at me and it was a different man. Empty grey eyes stared back at me. It was Andrew's dad. I turned around and ran.

"Camilla?" Billie shook me and I quickly sat up, looking around the bedroom. "Are you okay?"

I hesitantly shook my head. "No—no. Can I tell you something?"

She sat down beside me as I gathered my thoughts, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. "Of course."

"On Christmas, I had a nightmare."

"Uh-huh." She nodded, letting me know that she was listening.

"We went to see Andrew's dad... and he was talking shit about Andrew and then he brought us to the bathroom." I furrowed my eyebrows as I thought back to the dream. "And Andrew... was in the bathtub and he looked just—just you know like he did in the picture. But I'd never seen that picture before."

"Yeah." She grabbed my hand and pressed her lips to my knuckles.

"And—and at the end, you died, because Andrew's dad shot you and he shot Andrew too."

Her eyebrows knitted together as she looked up at me. I didn't explain it very well but it didn't matter. She would just have to try her best to connect the dots.

"And I just had another dream where the police officer was talking about how—how I was a bad friend for not knowing it was a murder."

"Maybe it's because of the picture." She sighed. "I'm hungry. Are you?"

"No, but I'll come with you."

"Okay." I followed her downstairs and to the kitchen where Claudia and Finneas were already sitting at the kitchen table, drinking some strange, green drink.

I sat down in one of the chairs and rested my head in my hands. Who had a grudge against me? Big enough to post a picture of my dead best friend? And what message were they trying to send through that? Were they trying to scare me? Was it some sort of threat? Was this what they wanted? Did they just want me to struggle through thinking about it?

This was the same thing Billie was doing. She was obsessing over the reasons when she suspected that somebody was following her.

I couldn't shake the picture of Andrew though. It just kept coming back. I didn't see him after he died until he was cleaned up. I didn't ask to. I couldn't. This was why. Because I knew that if I saw him, I wouldn't be able to forget about it.

"Hey," Claudia grabbed my wrist. "You okay?"

I sucked in an accidental stutter breath and stood up. "I just need some air." I opened the back door and stepped outside, bracing my hands on my knees once I made it out. The front door opened again and Claudia pulled me into a hug. "I can't stop thinking about it." I shook my head, tears pricking at my eyes.

"I know," she said quietly.

"I can't—I can't stop seeing it."

"I know," she reiterated. "It's gonna be okay."

I sighed, pulling away from the hug. "Sorry."

"It's okay."

"Camilla," Finneas said as we come inside. "I thought you deleted your account."

Oh, hell.

"I did—well, Billie did."

"Well, uh..." He turned his phone around, showing me one of the pictures that Billie and I took on Valentine's Day.

"Hold on." Billie snatched the phone. "How did they get this picture? Me and Camilla should be the only ones that have it."

"I mean unless it got sent to somebody." Finneas shrugged. I looked at Billie confusedly, not surprised to see her giving me the same look.

I shook my head. "I didn't. You can check my phone."

"Me either." She opened her phone up to her messages and showed us.

"Uhh..." I clicked on a random number that said 'Attachment: 1 image' under it to see the picture. "Well, your messages say otherwise."

"Hm?" She looked at her phone screen and shook her head. "I didn't... who is this?"

"Call the number," Claudia suggested, so she did but it went straight to voicemail.

"This was sent at one in the morning on February twenty-first. Way before any of this. I don't understand. I promise it wasn't me." She raised her arms in surrender, looking at all of us. "I don't—I wouldn't post this stuff."

"Well, we know that," Finneas said in a duh tone. "Shut up so that the people that are actually applying their brains can think."

"I'm applying my brain," she snapped back.

"It sure doesn't seem like it." He raised his eyebrows. "Where were you on February twenty-first?"

"I don't fucking know."

"Okay, well where were you a week after Valentine's Day?" He crossed his arms.

"That's the same thing, dumbass! I don't know!"

"I'm sorry. I thought that if I put it in idiot terms you'd understand."

"Can you please shut the fuck up?"

The room grew silent as they stopped arguing.

~three day time skip~

We'd waited a few days. A new picture popped up every day. The rest of them have all been of Billie and me, and they'd all been spreading like a wildfire. My mom was refusing to talk to me because of my "indecent behavior" and Billie's team was meeting soon to discuss the situation.

I refreshed the home page on Instagram to see a new post on my old account. They'd been coming at around twelve in the afternoon so this was no surprise. I sighed, clicking on it to get a better look. It was a picture of Billie laying on top of me, both of us asleep under a tree. I quickly screenshotted it and sent it to Billie, everything starting to make sense.

I knew who it was. The Wonder Pets theme song played as Billie's name popped up on my screen. I answered the call and held the phone up to my ear. "Hello?"

"I think I know it is," she said quietly.

"Me too." I nodded, pursing my lips. "Who?"

"A ghost."

"You idiot. I'm being serious."

She scoffed. "Me too."

"No, I think it's—" A loud noise rang through my house and I immediately dropped down to the ground.

Any new guesses about who it is?