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“Pint’s empty,” interrupted the man, pushing off into the crowd.
And Billie could still see Jules’s blonde head bobbing along in the throngs of people, even as someone started singing Poker Face. To be fair, it looked as though Jules was heading in her direction. But with every step she got way-laid and had to laugh at a joke or whisper in someone’s ear and Billie understood that these were her people. Jules’s people.
She looked so at home, so right, so happy and confident and at ease. Billie knew she’d never felt like that in her life.
And she knew that this was some kind of test, that Jules had done right by demanding that she come out here, that she prove herself. It was a test she was failing.
People were judging her, she could see that. She could see that they were giving her side-long glances and whispers, that they were wondering why she’d come home, that they were talking about who she’d been and who she was now. The feeling weighed in the pit of her stomach.
It only took one look at Jules’s comfortable, grinning face to realize that she was never going to fit in here. That someone like Jules wasn’t for her. Someone confident and happy and content.
Billie thought she might always have surrounded herself with misery. Either accidentally or deliberately, she wasn’t sure. Jules was like a beam of sunlight, that was what was so appealing about her.
But Billie didn’t belong in the sunlight. Never had. She didn’t belong here. She’d kissed Jules because she wanted to, because she longed for her, or for someone like her.
That didn’t mean she deserved her though, did it?
It would be better all around if Billie just wasn’t there. Jules would have more fun. Billie would be less miserable.
Jules had this girl, this singer and song writer, and Billie had no right to screw that up. She’d started this, she’d kissed Jules, so it was only fair that she ended it too. Jules might be cross, might be sad, but she’d get over it and go back to her old life, her real life.
A life that Billie didn’t belong in.
She looked at the two half-pints in front of her and on a whim picked one up, taking a small sip. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. No, this wasn’t for her. None of this was for her.
One last look at Jules and her friends and Billie shook her head, pulling her jacket closer to her as she slipped out of the side door of the pub.
Chapter Twenty Three
Billie didn’t hear the door open and close behind her. But she did hear the footsteps and glanced over her shoulder to see that someone was following her.
“You’re leaving?”
Billie stopped and turned properly. “What business of it is yours?” she asked curtly.
Amelia shrugged. “Well, you seem to be dumping my sister, that’s probably my business. But then you also seem to be cutting off your nose to spite your face, though I suppose that part’s not my business. So, you pick.”
With a sigh, Billie shook her head. “Amelia, I can’t do this now. If you’ve come to… to bully me, beat me up, make me pay for being a bitch in school, whatever it is, then just get on with it. Punch me, go on.”
Amelia spluttered a laugh then stopped. “Wait, you’re serious?” She tilted her head to one side. “I’m not going to punch you. I wouldn’t mind talking to you though.”
“About what?” asked Billie suspiciously.
“About a bunch of things that are none of my business probably,” Amelia said airily. She nodded toward a bench against the wall of the pub. “Come and sit with me. It’s not too cold out tonight.”
Billie wasn’t entirely sure why she went to sit, other than that she was asked and maybe a part of her was curious.
“I can sort of guess what’s going on,” Amelia said.
“Right.”
“No, I’m serious. Hear me out, and tell me if I’m wrong.”
“Fine,” huffed Billie, wrapping her arms around herself finding it hard to believe that she was sitting on a bench outside a pub with Amelia Hawthorne, the most popular girl in her class.
“You look at Jules and you see someone popular, someone comfortable in who she is, someone confident and pretty, someone that you couldn’t possibly deserve.”
Amelia’s words cut to the bone and in an instant Billie understood what was happening, understood that whilst Amelia might not punch her she would injure her in other ways. She started to get up.
