between the lines b.e

Tatiana had never liked L.A. mornings.

Too loud in their stillness. Too bright in all the wrong ways. The kind of sun that didn’t warm you so much as expose you—every flaw, every crack, lit up in high definition. Here, even a coffee run felt like a performance.

She tugged a hoodie over her head and slid on sunglasses, despite only walking across the street. The café was practically empty, just a soft buzz of music and early risers pretending not to notice her.

The barista smiled. Said her name without asking. Of course they did.

Tatiana had been in the spotlight since seventeen—first because of her voice, then her face, and eventually for everything else. The breakup. The rebound. The way a smirk in a late-night interview turned into weeks of speculation. She'd never said much, but she didn’t have to. The internet did the talking for her.

She made heartbreak look cinematic. That’s what people liked. Her fans danced through devastation because she taught them how. The press loved her for being just open enough to stay mysterious.

But this morning, none of that mattered. Not after yesterday.

Not after Billie.

She stirred her coffee, watching the swirl spiral into itself before tossing the stick and reaching for a straw. Nothing sat right. Not the drink, not the air, not the ache in her chest that hadn’t faded since—

You’re the one with something to prove.

It had echoed all night.

Maybe Billie didn’t mean it as an insult.
Or maybe she did. Tatiana wasn’t sure which would bother her more.

She wasn’t used to being underestimated anymore. Not openly, at least. Not by people who should know better. But Billie had looked at her like she already had her pegged—wrapped in glitter and hooks and nothing deeper than a chorus.

And that stung.

Because Tatiana had spent her whole career pushing against that kind of box. The assumptions. The sugarcoating. The way people tried to make her one thing when she was always trying to be more. More than her sister’s shadow. More than a playlist filler. More than just a pop star.

Music wasn’t her mask. It was her pulse.

And Billie? Billie, who dripped emotion like it cost her nothing, had reduced her to a shiny surface.

Fine.

Let her.

Tatiana pulled out her phone, scrolling through her notes app—voice memos, lyrics, scribbled fragments half-formed and overly felt. She paused on one she didn’t even remember writing, probably tapped out on a redeye or after a second glass of cabernet:

I don’t want to be seen. I want to be understood.

She stared at it for a long time.

Then slid her phone back into her pocket.

---

That night, she didn’t bother turning on the lights.

The keyboard glowed faintly in the dark. She let her fingers find the shape of something soft, something unfinished. The melody came easy—wistful, worn around the edges. Sad, but not hopeless.

She didn’t think about Billie.

She thought about feeling like a punchline in someone else’s story. About smiling on cue when her insides were falling apart. About how easy it was to confuse vulnerability with performance, and how hard it was to tell the difference when a camera was always rolling.

The chorus slipped out of her mouth before she could second-guess it.
Once.
Quiet.
And then silence again.

The city murmured on outside.

Her phone buzzed.

Unknown number: You write your verses yet?

She blinked at the screen.

Then typed:

T: Working on it. You?

A pause.
Then:

B: Always.

She didn’t know what that meant.
Didn’t know if she wanted to.

But she saved the number anyway.