𝐻𝐸𝑅 // 𝐵𝐼𝐿𝐿𝐼𝐸 𝐸𝐼𝐿𝐼𝑆𝐻 𝐹𝐴𝑁𝐹𝐼𝐶𝑇𝐼𝑂𝑁

HER : 16

billie

"is it just me or was the break so short? like i don't want school." drew whimpered.

"shut up, you have the easiest classes ever." i rolled my eyes. "i swear i get the worst eating habits when i'm stressed. i read about it the other day and turns out our body makes this hormon that makes us eat more when we're stressed."

"girl we all know that when you say 'you read about it' you actually mean 'i saw a tiktok about it'" she gave me a knowing look.

"whatever." i was so obviously caught in a lie.

"okay, before you go in that class. you have to remember, she has a boyfriend, you have to be lowkey with your feelings bil." drew stopped me in front of my bio class.

"i'll try my best." i nodded once.

"drew, scatter away, billie i know you don't want to be marked late on your first day back." mr john said.

"hello i missed you." i told mr john and walked into class. i frowned when i didn't see emery in her seat next to me, i looked around and she was sitting at the very front.

"alright class, like promised partners are changing this term. you will be expected to do some pair research in this class." mr john started. "mika with jane... kate with indra... billie and emery, you're still together... dan with makayla..."

he instructed everyone to join their partner and started explaining the task. the moment he was done, i turned to look at em and said, "how are you doing? is everything okay?"

"hudson and i broke up." she revealed. that explains why she doesn't look like herself at the moment. she's beautiful but she seems so exhausted, like she's been crying herself to sleep for days now.

"oh my god, what happened? are you okay?" i frowned.

"i'm fine and i don't really want to talk about it." she replied. "okay let's just start working." it break my heart seeing her like this.

we spilt the work, like usual and didn't talk unless we needed some help from one another. by the end of the class we handed each other our laptops and started proofreading. i added a couple of things on her work and adjusted typos. "look here, i think we need to add a filler between these two sentences, but i'm not sure what to write exactly." she pointed at my laptop screen.

my heart dropped to my stomach.

when she pointed at the laptop screen her sleeve scrunched back a little and she had a bruise there. not i hit my arm somewhere by accident bruise, it looked horrifying. i contained the anger that so suddenly entered my body, "i'll deal with it." i took my laptop back and added the perfect sentence.

we joined our research together and handed in our work just in time, before the bell rang. emery met meave outside and i met drew. "hey uhm, i know you don't really like meave, but please talk to her. i need to have a word with emery."

"only for you." she sighed. i smiled in response and walked up to emery.

"em can we talk?" i carefully approached her.

"yeah, what's up?" she nodded.

"just follow me." i took her to an empty lab.

"what's going on?" she frowned.

"i saw the bruising when you extended your arm to show me that error in class. who did this to you?" i frowned, really worried about her safety.

"it's nothing.. really." she shook her head.

"em." i cupped her cheek so she could look at me. "you can tell me." i assured her and then my eyes drifted to her neck. someone had strangled her. hard. "your neck." i was speechless.