Matter of Time(Tom Holland Fanfic)

Chapter Seventeen

Author's Note: Sorry. I wanted to update sooner but I just started my new job so I've been pretty busy. I'm not sure how soon the next update will be. I want to update STNS on fanfiction.net next so it still might be a while. Next chapter is definitely the start of the press tour though.

WARNING: Underage drinking in this chapter.

The picture is Billie's outfit later on in the chapter by the way. You'll know when. I also don't own the movie Begin Again. I used some of the dialogue in this chapter so I thought I'd just leave this disclaimer here.

Thanks for all the comments last chapter. I really appreciate it. Let me know what you think of this chapter.

Greenwich Village, New York

Summer, 2012

Billie sat in her seat at the bar as the make-up artist made a few touch ups to her make-up. To her left, Mark Ruffalo's own make-up artist was making a few touch ups to Mark's own make-up. Of course, Mark just sat there like a pro as always. Billie thought the older actor was okay. He was a huge hippie which Billie could give a shit less about but her main issue with him was that he was a lame dad who told dad jokes.

Billie didn't take to men who were sickeningly paternal like that.

She quite despised paternal men but it was more because of jealousy than anything else. Mark's children probably didn't know how lucky they were to end up with a dad who told lame dad jokes and pretended that he knew how to use his phone when he really didn't. Billie's father hadn't even come close to that.

It had been seven years since her father left and Billie's once idolization of him morphed into resentment. It only took a few months after he left for Billie realize that he wasn't coming back like he said he would. Still...a part of her had always held out hope for a phone call or an e-mail but she never received anything of the sort. Her mother tried to hide it from her but she overheard her Aunt Linda saying that her father hadn't even fought her mother on a custody agreement. He just allowed her mother to have full custody of her without even trying to file for joint custody.

Billie realized then that her father didn't want her anymore.

She remembered her seven-year-old self bawling her eyes out as she wondered what she did to drive her father away. Billie's heart broke into a million pieces because she loved her father but he didn't seem to love her in return. Sarah held her daughter as Billie cried and cried about her daddy but Sarah just felt helpless because there was nothing she could do.

That was the day Billie changed from the silly little girl who waited by the window each night, hoping to see her daddy's car headlights coming down the long dirt road to their house, to a more cynical child with a bitter but realistic outlook on the world. She knew it made her mother sad that she wasn't the same person as she was before the divorce but it's not like her mom could do anything about it. Billie knew her mom blamed herself for her cynical nature but Billie wished she wouldn't. It wasn't her fault.

It was her asshole father's fault.

Billie promised herself she would never cry over another man again. Not her father and especially not a stupid boyfriend. Not that Billie had really ever had a boyfriend. Well...she had gone out a couple times with a German boy Billie met earlier in the summer when her grandfather took her to see family in Munich.

Michael was kind and thoughtful but it wasn't serious.

Billie held hands with him on occasion and they only kissed twice. Once on the back porch of her great grandmother's house and once when they went swimming the afternoon before she left. Billie liked that he hadn't known who she was. Most boys asked her out back home because she was "famous" but Michael just knew her as Billie who was Elke Klaussner's American cousin.