accompanied | billie eilish

thirty-nine

a young girl lies in a hospital bed, unconscious. her closest friend and bandmate has dragged her rickety plastic hospital chair as close as the medical equipment will allow, and is watching the unconscious girl, intently studying the delicate rise and fall of her chest as though she's terrified that it could stop at any moment.

the door clicks open, and she looks up to see a young man around the same age as them entering, holding a few boxed sandwiches in one hand.

"i got the best i could find," he said earnestly. "it's not revolutionary that hospital food is shit, though." he holds out a sandwich to the girl in the chair. when she doesn't acknowledge it, he nudges her gently with it. "you should eat. you haven't in a while."

she sighs, but accepts the sandwich.

"it's difficult... to eat, i mean," she says after a few moments. "it's difficult to do anything, knowing that she's just- there. i won't be able to do anything properly till she wakes up, i think."

"i know," hums her friend. "i feel the same, too. but you refusing to eat won't fix anything. besides, if ashley wakes up to a hungry aria i think she'll force the doctors to induce another coma."

the girl gives him a weak smile and bites into her sandwich. it tastes of cardboard. "i'm scared."

"nothing to be scared of," the man replies confidently. "she'll be fine, you know she will. the doctors said she'll wake up within the next couple of days... and then we'll take her back home and make sure she gets better, and once the five of us are ready we'll all face the public together and accept this stupid award, alright?"

the girl looks a little more at ease. "alright."

they continue to munch on their sandwiches in a comfortable silence.

~~~

aria

i'm sat in the tour bus, on the top floor, staring out of the window as the world flies by. i don't know what city we're in but it looks pretty at night. i watch the cars drive past, people crossing roads, so many names and lives passing by us in the blink of an eye. there's so many people passing by us that we'll never cross paths with again. each of them have a life just as complex as our own, and i'll never know them.

there's a word for this, isn't there?

"ri," i hear a quiet voice speak behind me. i don't move, but i can tell from the way that he plops down next to me that it's tyler. "will you please talk to me?"

i want to talk to him but my throat is dry, hands shaky, mouth can't speak. and i'm still thinking about all the people we'll never know passing the bus every moment.

"i'm worried," he whispers. "neither of you will tell us what happened. you won't eat, won't sleep. please, just..."

i still don't respond, and eventually he sighs and leaves, and i'm alone with my thoughts again.

what's that word... i can't remember that word.

i hear thumps and yells of alarm on the lower floor of the bus, and i flinch before hurrying down to see what's going on.

ashley is lying on the floor, and people are crowded around her. i can hear leilani calling an ambulance and my stomach plummets.

shay must notice my horror because he hurried up to me and leads me away from the scene, back upstairs. "hey hey hey, ri, it's- ash is just sick, okay? i know this hasn't happened in a while but i know it'll be fine. we're on our way to the hospital, and we're gonna make sure she's alright. please don't panic, ashley will be fine."

we sit down on the sofa together, by the front of the bus, shay holding my hand. despite his confident words he's shaking just as much as i am.

ashley used to have seizures a lot, back when we were first starting out as a band. after her worst one to date, she was put on medication and she's not had any fits for years...

when i was a child i read a book about an angel reborn as a little girl; she got sick and died, and ascended to heaven again. there was a drawing that took up a whole page, of the angel girl lying there taking her last breaths. down there ashley looked just like her.

please let ashley be okay.

i turn and look out of the window and finally remember the word i was looking for;

sonder.
the profound feeling of realising that everybody around you has a life as complex as your own.

i continue to experience sonder as the tour bus drives to the hospital.

billie

a few hours have passed by since ashley was taken ill; the ambulance came to collect her and we followed it. ashley's stable but she's only allowed a few visitors at a time so aria, shay and tyler are in her hospital room while i sit with finneas and marcus outside.

"has aria said anything to you..?" finneas asks carefully.

i shake my head. "won't even look at me."

he sighs.

"she'll come around with time," marcus offers. "she just- well, she evidently didn't see it coming."

"it's been nearly a week," i groan.

"aria doesn't always process things logically,"
replies marcus a little defensively.

tyler, who exits ash's hospital room just in time to hear that last sentence, snorts in amusement. "oh man, you're telling me. this is far from the first mute phase she's had."

i look up in interest. "really?"

"oh, yeah." he sits down in the spare seat next to me. "when her mum and her new stepdad got married she couldn't believe it. didn't speak for about a month and we had to rejig a bunch of press- and it was even worse when she got her diagnosis. she-"

"diagnosis?-" i ask.

the door clicks open again, and when we all see it's aria, i can tell we look guilty.

"hey, ari," i say hopefully. "you wanna sit with us for a while? we can-"

she walks off without a word, and tyler sighs sympathetically. "she'll talk eventually," he promises.

realistically, i'm not sure what i was expecting when i confessed to her. i guess i'd hoped for something better than this, at least. i'd rather she told me she didn't reciprocate the feelings and we went back to the way we were before than for this to continue... but i'd been so sure she liked me back. i don't know what to think anymore, or how to handle this.

maybe she just doesn't love me back after all.

~~~

hey besties i know i fell off the grid again that seems to be my thing lol

anyway i've been working on a pretty little liars fic thing would any of you actually read it if i published it ? be honest LMAO