I find Billie amid a crowd of girls in the bookstore even though I don't want to. I pretend I don't see her because I'm stupid and think that that's how partnerships work, slipping to the back, hiding my face in my goldfish book like I used to. For a bit, my shoulders relax and I'm calm and I'm dizzy with familiar delight.
Then Billie sits beside me, dropping my hoody in my lap, covering my goldfish, smothering them in the scent of unwashed clothes and potent homemade punch and forest mud. "Where'd you go yesterday?" she asks, hair wild and blue. "The party continued after you left."
I shrug, pushing the hoody to the side, not wanting it anymore, wiping at a stained bit on my book. There's mud in the goldfish pool.
She knits her fingers through my hair, pulling lightly through the curls, fingers lithe and alarmingly gentle. "Aren't we talking?" she asks quietly. But, it isn't a question. She's just thinking. "I'm sorry about the party. But, it was fun. Wasn't it? You enjoyed it."
Her lips are hot against my ear, nipping at my earlobe a bit, just enough to where it isn't even real. "You enjoyed yourself didn't you?"
I stare and stare and stare at the goldfish until they swim, round and round, in the book, glossy and golden against the paper.
She frowns. "I saw you with Shay," she says, trying to get a reaction out of me. But, I don't succumb. I'm goldfish swimming round and round, unexpressive. "I would have kissed him, too. He's cute. Isn't he?"
I shrug, flipping to the following page. "I guess."
"Lockland?" She's confused. All the stuff she did swirling around and around in my head like little, innocent goldfish. I'm in the pool. I am the pool.
We sit there like that. She's not carrying her camera around today and it's a bit of a surprise. She films me being melancholy on her iPhone, flash glittering off the pages in my book, illuminating the orange goldfish until they turn yellow.
"Smile for the camera," she says, a glimmer of a carefree teenage girl in her coffee eyes. She's smiling shyly. A piece offering.
I stare at her, face vacant. But, she takes what she can get. Then hesitates when she touches her fingers to my chin, tilting up up up. "Just like that," she whispers, mesmerized. Her fingers linger there for a bit, warm and alive. Pulsing with artistic desire.
I think about warm, warm hugs and going to all the places in the world where I can see goldfish. I think about this assignment and how it counts twenty-five percent of my year mark. I think about Shay and Dad and stars and fullmoons until Billie and her artistic demands fade into the background like bad, bleak dye.