7 days in limbo [Billie Eilish]

DAY III.4: i thought you were american

The first video began to play. It was supposed to be a short thriller I had only made because my brother had wanted to play a corpse really badly.

The scene showed a reporter, played by my friend, driving and pulling up to a house. A flock of birds roused from a tree into the sky when she left the car. She rang the doorbell.
The tension rose with alternating extreme close-ups of a nervously tapping foot, a ticking wristwatch and hands tightening around a clipboard. When she gripped the knop the door swung open.

"Bitch, don't go in there," Billie whispered.

I bit my lip to supress a laugh when the reporter went inside. At the end of the hallway a pair of shoes peeked out from behind a door frame. The crappy copyright-free music swelled to a crescendo. The camera moved towards the pair of feet and zoomed out at the same time. The effect was vertigo inducing.

Billie shot up from the couch to hit the space bar of the keyboard, pausing the video. "Wait! Was that a- what's it called? A dolly zoom?"

"Yes." I nodded with a laugh. "I had to practice for days. We didn't have a camera slider so I had to use a skateboard."

We continued the video and watched the reporter discover the corpse.
Afterwards, I showed a bad horror short film that I had made while on a class trip. It was impossible to stay serious at my classmates' bad acting and the ridiculous plot.

It became obvious that Billie was a pro when it came to filmmaking. She spotted each shot I had put special care into, be it with the colour coordination, composition or camera movement.

The last thing Billie and I watched was a comedy sketch my friends had done. Even though I had seen it plenty of times I joined Billie's infectious laughter.
The credits rolled, a joke in itself because it was just my name over and over again.

The background for the credits was the frozen last frame which showed my friend looking directly into the camera with a goofy grin on her face.
Looking at the screen I realize how much I missed her. A fond smile spread over my face.

I felt Billie looking at me from the side. "Who's that?"

"My best friend." The words felt heavy.

"Can I ask you something?"

I finally tore my eyes away from the screen after it had faded to back. "Yeah."

"So..." Billie cleared her throat, "you're gay, right?"

I paused, my cup of tea frozen in the air halfway to my lips.

"Sorry, if I'm assuming anything," she added when I did not answer immediately.

"No, no, it's ok. I'm not gay though." I took a sip from my tea after I remembered how to move. "I'm bisexual."

How had Billie figured it out? I was not hiding anything but I had also kept any queer jokes to myself.

Billie nodded and showed no other reaction. "You just- people don't usually look at their best friend like that."

"Ah, that's what gave me away."

"And sometimes you have this weird, like..." I looked at her as she trailed off, a smile on my face when she vaguely gestured around. "That! That look right there on your face."

Apparently my attraction towards Billie was a lot less subtle than I would have liked. I did not look away, though. I was not going to apologize for who I was.

"Hey," she shifted on the couch to face me, "can I ask you something else? If you don't want to answer, that's totally cool too."

"No, go ahead. Ask me anything."