away; b.e.

Chapter 15

I head upstairs to my room, taking off my shoes and crashing down on my bed. My phone starts to ring and I pick up.

"Hey," she says.

"Hey."

"What'd you want to talk about?" Billie asks.

"I went over Layla's house today, a friend of mine. I asked if she had a piano and she said yeah. I went to the piano and played 'When the party's over'. It just popped into my head out of nowhere," I say.

She laughs. "I tend to have that effect on people."

"My birthday's on Friday. I'm fucking turning 17 bro. Never thought I'd live to see the day," I laugh.

"Shit! You're right. I still have to get you something," she says.

"No! Please don't get me anything. I honestly hate my birthday. Every year it sucks ass and someone ends up hurting me, one way or another," I sigh.

We continue to talk but we eventually end the call since it was getting late.

The next day

I wake up at exactly 5 in the morning. I go to my bathroom and start to undress. I step into the shower and start to wash myself.

~

I get dressed into a white Off-White hoodie, blue camouflage cargo pants, and white yeezys.

I grab my keys, my phone, my beats, my writing pad and a pen and put it all into a small book bag. I go downstairs. I open the fridge and grab an apple. I wash it and sit at the island and scroll through Instagram.

~

I throw out the core of my apple and wash my hands. I open the front door and leave the house. I walk toward this little coffee shop while blasting "Cigarette Daydream" through my beats.

I take out my phone and just do whatever I can think of. I scroll through Instagram liking a bunch of posts.

I enter the cafe walk toward where they take your order. But I bump into someone and they drop their drink.

"Oh shit. I'm sorry. Should've been looking where I'm going," I say, grabbing napkins and dropping down to the floor.

"It's fine, it was nasty anyway. They messed up my order," a familiar voice says.

They grab napkins too and go to help me clean up the mess.

I look up and see the one and only Lauren fucking Sanderson.

"Holy fuck," I whisper.

"Oh so you know who I am?" She laughs. I blush from embarrassment.

"Hell yeah. You're my fucking idol," I say, smiling at her.

"And I know you. Weren't you the one kid that Billie hired as part of her security team?"

"That's me."

I get up and throw out the napkins and so does she.

"So...can I buy you a drink? I mean I ruined your previous one so can I buy you a new one?" I ask, heading toward the register.

"Ok. Get me whatever you're getting," she says, and getting us a table.

~

I come back to the table with our drinks. I got us both iced coffees.

I take a sip of mine. Not as good as the ones back home.

"So, what're you doing here so early?" Lauren asks.