Montage // Billie Eilish

Chapter 2

What a dick.

A quarter of my bottle of vodka and several dull conversations about colleges later, I escaped upstairs. Technically there was a baby gate with a makeshift sign warning not to go up, but there was a really long queue for the bathroom, so I used my initiative. After I left the ornate bathroom, I stood on the landing, drawn to the faint sound of a piano coming from one of the rooms.

Drew was in the music room, no surprise there. I'd found him here before. He threw these parties and then he'd invariably get bored and leave. He looked tired as his fingers danced over the keys, and a half empty drink sat on the floor, at the foot of the piano. He had a real glass, though there wasn't a single one to be found downstairs.

"So when are Mommy and Daddy getting back this time, sad little rich boy?" I said, sitting beside him on the piano bench. He barely looked at me, but I caught a hint of a smile.

"Tomorrow." He tucked a lock of ashy blond hair behind his ear.

"I think they're going to notice downstairs is kind of a bomb site," I said.

"I have a cleaner coming in the morning."

"Must be nice to have so much money you forget how to clean up after yourself," I sighed wistfully.

"Billie, it's nice to be rich enough that I'm not annoyed you stole a bottle of vodka from me." He tapped the cup in my hand, which created an odd gap in the music. How he knew I'd filled it with his expensive vodka, I don't know. Let's call it an educated guess.

"Dude... this is vodka? It goes down like water."

"I bet."

"Besides," I said, stretching my arms overhead, "you owe me."

"Still?" His fingers fluttered over the keys impressively. Not that I'd ever tell him it was impressive, of course.

"Forever. You stole Jenny Ortega from me and I never really got over it. My cold, shrivelled heart still mourns for her."

"I'm sure. I hear there are plenty of girls since to take your mind off her."

Drew acted like I was some kind of lesbian playboy with a harem of curious ladies lining up each night. His perception of my sex life couldn't have been more wrong. I hadn't done anything more than make out with a girl since Odessa and I broke up. OK, so the list of kissing partners was long, but so what? I think it started the rumor that I was getting it regularly, but in truth, a bit of over-the-bra action was as far as it ever went.

Drew paused in his complicated sonata and then played the first confident notes of "Heart and Soul." After a moment I joined in, my fingers sloppy over the keys. I was tipsy and missed half the notes and Drew laughed. We'd both gone to the same piano teacher at school when we were eight. "Heart and Soul" was about as much as I could remember. I'd quit after a few weeks. Drew had been practicing, obviously.

After our impromptu duet, we drank for a few silent minutes. Drew started playing again, and I took it as my cue to leave. When I reached the stairs, the music stopped abruptly, so I looked back. Drew was frowning, fingers frozen, hovering above the keys.

"Her name was Jenna, not Jenny," he said.

"What? No, it wasn't." I shook my head emphatically, but after all the vodka it made me kind of dizzy.

"Yeah, it was. Jenna Ortega."

"Huh... well, first love can be so confusing."

Somehow the party lured me in again. The kitchen was hot and smelled like sweat and hormones, so I rummaged in the back of the junk drawer and found the key to the French doors. They stayed locked at Drew's parties since the time Olivia Rodrigo climbed a tree, jumped into the neighbors' garden, and got caught throwing up in their koi pond. Drew's problem was that although he knew that I knew where the good vodka was, where he stashed the patio keys, and where the bodies were buried, he never remembered to do anything about it.