what you can't have (b.e.)

listen before i go

A/N: :(

~

Take me to the rooftop, I wanna see the world when I stop breathing...

Billie's POV:

"Billie, please, I just wanna see how it looks," Mila begs and I shoot her a glare.

"I will never wear a dress, ever, ever, ever, Mila," I swear and Mila sighs. She lays down on my chest, putting her hands under her chin, blinking up at me super fast like a puppy dog. She already convinced me to switch the lights in my room to blue, and I can't be that much of a pushover.

"Please, if I was dying and it was my last wish, would you?" Mila reframes the question and I have to think for a minute.

"You're not dying, I wouldn't let that happen, so the answer is still no," I smile and she pouts.

"Fine, I was just playin' anyways..." she lies and I roll my eyes.

"Whatever you say, mama."

Turning blue... (blue)

I sit on the grass, shaking as I replay the memory over and over, no one left here but me. I haven't moved all day. I read her name etched into stone, I read it a thousand times, not wanting it to feel real.

I pick apart the last red rose by the petal, a dozen green stems resting on top of her grave, petals blown away by the wind all around the cemetery. I rip away another, she loves me, then the next, she loves me not. The pattern repeats until there's one last petal in the palm of my hand.

"She loves me," I whisper without the smile the words should carry with them.

I know she loved me, I watched the word drip out of her mouth with blood from the bullet I tried to take. I wasn't fast enough.

I lay down in this black dress she never saw me wear, the replanted grass feels like our deathbed. I could never move again, I know I'll never love again, and I would never want to. I've seen death before, I've watched everyone sit in shocked silence, until the time comes. The time comes where you can't keep using death as an excuse not to live. You watch everyone start to smile again, they pass through the stages of grief with flying colors. I could never accept this.

I reach behind me and lift the box in front of me. Closing my eyes, I reach my hand in and set the first thing on the grass.

A coffee cup sleeve. I picked it out of the trash from her tossed away drink the first day we met, because I knew from the beginning, I knew what I wanted.

"The fuck did you just say?"

"I said, what a bitch."

I never told her, but there was never an ex-boyfriend, there was never a voicemail left for him on his birthday. I just held my phone up to my ear and spoke into it to see if she was listening, to make her jealous and make me seem hard to get.

I slip my hand back in and out comes the next thing. The blanket from my bed, I breathe it in and it almost still smells like her hair dripping from the rain. The night of that stupid ass party, finding her walking home, taking her back home, under this blanket.

"You don't need to be my friend because you feel bad for me, Billie. I was doing fine without you and I don't need any favors!"

"The fuck? Who told you that? Just get in the car already, Mila," I yell back at her but she shakes her head, shivering with each step. I pull up ahead and park, then run out in the rain to grab ahold of her shoulders and force her to look me in the eyes.