Fever Dream

Billie

It was supposed to be casual.

Coffee. Small talk. A soft restart.

But as soon as Kalena's hand touched mine across that café table, something shifted. The static that had lived under my skin for three days settled into something warmer. Quieter. Dangerous in a different way.

We didn't stay long. A couple hours maybe. Long enough for her to steal bites of my banana bread. Long enough for me to memorize the way she laughed when I made a dumb face at a stranger's dog. Long enough for both of us to realize this wasn't going to be simple.

I walked her to her car.

Or rather, the Uber she called. I offered to drive her. She declined, gently. Something about wanting to keep things slow.

But she hugged me.

Arms around my neck. Her mouth close enough to mine that I nearly lost the battle I'd been fighting with myself all afternoon.

Then she pulled back, gave me this look—playful, shy, terrifying.

"I'll see you again?" she asked.

I nodded like a fucking idiot.

"Yeah. You will."

Then she was gone.

And now, it's been a day since that.

And I can't stop replaying it.

Finneas noticed. He always does.

"You're smiling like a cartoon character," he said when I walked into the studio this morning. "Gross. Who is she?"

I threw a pencil at him.

Claudia popped her head in twenty minutes later with iced coffees and a grin.

"Billie has a crush," she sing-songed.

"God," I groaned. "You people are insufferable."

But I didn't deny it.

Because it was true.

I had a full-blown, aching, ridiculous crush on Kalena Ferreira.

And it was only getting worse.

-

That afternoon, I tried to write.

Failed miserably.

My journal was a mess of crossed-out lines and half-finished lyrics that all sounded like the same girl in different keys. I tossed it aside and grabbed my phone.

No new messages.

I shouldn't be disappointed. She said she'd text. That she'd see me again.

And still, I was waiting like a goddamn teenager.

I opened our thread anyway. Scrolled back.

thinking about it like it's a song stuck in my head.

I meant that.

Her face was all I saw when I closed my eyes. Her voice echoed in the space between songs. The memory of her hand in mine felt more vivid than the coffee we drank.

Was I being obsessive? Probably.

But it didn't feel like that. It felt like recognition. Like I had finally bumped into someone who moved at the same strange frequency as me.

I ended up outside, sitting on the porch steps with my hoodie sleeves pulled over my hands, my phone resting on my knee.

Sunset blurred pink and gold across the clouds, and I thought about how she would look in that light. What she might be doing right now.