The Artist / Billie Eilish

Chapter 47

Billie's POV

I love creating.

I adore the fact that something I scribble across notebook pages, mumble into my voice memos, send to Finn, and listen to over and over in my headphones in my room surrounded by red light, can eventually be bursting through speakers in a sold-out arena anywhere in the world, with thousands of voices screaming those words back at me.

With new, different meanings in every one of their precious, individual, beating hearts.

Beating in synchrony, just for an hour or two.

With mine, with the person to their left's, to their right's.

We're one, just for a while.

I created that.

I love creating.

However, some things that I create, I don't like.

Some things I create, I hate.

Some things I create should never have been created in the first place, and once I realise this, it's really easy for me to spiral and realise how much shit I create that people would be better off without and how they'd be better off without me and better off without me and betteroffwithoutmeand-

Spiralling is easy.

But spiralling is selfish.

Not always - god, no. Spiralling brings hurt but hurt brings growth and everyone needs to feel that every once in a while; it's not a sign of weakness to spiral, sometimes.

But, in this case...

It is.

I know this is more like a diary entry than whatever you were expecting.

I know you wanted me to fall back into Rose's arms and hold each other as we cry until the camera fades black, and then the sun rises the next day to us and Ethan; making pancakes and group hugging and singing fucking Sound of Music songs, and everything was good and everything was happy and every part of me doesn't feel like it's burning from the inside out.

But, in case you haven't guessed by now, that isn't what happened. Like, at-fucking-all.

Okay, okay - back to that bullshit I was spouting about not liking my creations, you gotta just hear me out for a second.

See, I'm not talking three-trash-cans-worth of screwed up, graphite-stained paper in the corner of my room when I say I'm disappointed in something I've created.

I'm not reminiscing about the deleted iMovie cuts of Bad Guy, or the countless verses shoved deep into my notes app.

I'm talking about the golden-hazel eyes, usually glossy with hope and admiration and everything optimistic and thoughtful in this piece of shit of a world - that I stained pink, bloodshot, glazed over with hurt and betrayal and grief and regret.

I did that.

I took that face, that delicate, blush-dusted angel face, and I stained it with faint blood vessel strain dots, the wrong kind of blush pulsing through her cheeks - I furrowed her eyebrows in confusion and disbelief, I made her little nose red, her eyelashes collect dewdrops of tears, tears streaming down her cheeks, tears dripping off of her chin, tearstearstears.

I did that.

The hands that usually brush through my hair and dance across my skin and squeeze my own when I'm nervous, were now shaking and balled into fists and shoved into pockets, retreating from the touch I was trying so hard to get from them.

She's always been a work of art, god she always is, but I didn't create that.

I don't know what kind of fucking God above created her, but whoever did took everything soft and delicate, every drop of compassion and loyalty, every sense of wonder, laughter, and brightness they could scrape off of the goddamn centre of the Earth, and formed it into the most angelic, petal-dusted person I've ever had the pleasure of meeting, let alone loving.

I took that angel, and I... did this.

I had the opportunity to create some new layers to this person - some new reasons to blush, some new reasons to scrunch her eyes up in a wide smile, someone new to kiss the dimple that only appears on her left side when she grins the grin reserved for me.

And I did, for a while.

I was the one who kissed her bed-warm cheeks in the middle of the night when the noisy radiator woke us up; I was the one who ballroom-danced with her in the kitchen at 3am in our pyjamas to old songs our parents loved, her sock-clad feet standing on top of mine as our contagious laughter grew too loud for the early hours; I was the one who was nervous to meet her parents on a stop on tour one day, flowers not-so-well hidden behind my back as she opened the door, kissing my nose and feeling my nerves flutter away.

I did all that.

That's what I see when I look at her.

But, now, because of this.

That's not what she sees when she looks at me.

•

babies i am so sorry don't hate me <3

i also really want to try out something new from now on.

i want every chapter to be based on one of your guys' suggestions,  - because of the watty's win which was allll thanks to you babies, i want this story to be something we're all involved in.

at the end of every chapter, i'm gonna do a sentence which i'd like anyone to reply to with a suggestion of a line that they want included in the next chapter, and i'll write the chapter based off of whichever suggestion i choose.

so, for example, i'll write

reply with suggestions!

and you reply on that sentence with a quote, so something like:

"i can't do this on my own"

or

"just breathe, okay?"

or

"that's... really what you're gonna wear?"

this story is owed to you guys, and i want it to start to be more collaborative, so yeah! please join in!

love y'all bye

reply with suggestions!