Her eyes are darker than the coffee in the bookstore's cafe. They swirl and swirl and make me go dizzy because she doesn't ever say anything to distract me.
I nibble my sandwich. "I...could I hold the camera for a bit, too. Next time. Maybe."
She stares at me through her dark, dark lashes, smiling sweetly. She shrugs, lithe fingers in my hair, twisting and twisting and twisting. "But, you look so good behind the camera. Really aesthetic."
The chimes dance mad crazy against the slight winter breeze, clinking hollowly against the wood outside in the pallid drizzle. Today, the store is empty. The door opens.
A group of girls from my school walks inside, carrying large waterproof smartphones and tripods like they belong to a production company. They're pink in the face and on the clothes-even beneath the boots. But, Grace Pattin is a bossy sort of fluffy. Better than the rest of them. The leader.
She stops short at our table, touching her finger to her lips. Shocked maybe. "Look, girls," she says aloud. Now everyone is looking at me and at Billie and Billie's hand in my hair, twisting and twisting. "Billie's got another little girlfriend."
I don't expect her to, but she smiles a warm chocolaty smile with latte moist on her lips. She rises to her feet. "Hello, Grace."
"Hello, Billie," Grace says, full of an emotion I can't place. "How's the project going? I hope it isn't going to be another stupid sex tape. You know that's not art right?"
"Maybe because it was of you," Billie says evenly, fingers in Grace's hair.
Grace flinches. Then her pose flinches away from her. As if they were afraid. Traumatized little puppies. "I-" She seems to catch herself, breathing in in in. Deeper than breath is supposed to go, but because she's Grace Pattin, she can do anything.
"I got accepted to the Bluebell University of Arts," she says, casually checking the expensive manicure on her nails. "Just thought you should know."
Then they went. Glittering and pink and chatting all the way to the café counter. Billie just stands there, staring with those black, black coffee eyes like what Grace said cut her on the inside somehow. Now, she's breathing too deep like she'll swallow Grace Pattin and it makes me think that they may have a history of some sort. Hot white history.