Chapter Text
Getting fired wasn't anywhere near the top of Billie's list of to-do's for her 20s.
To be honest, she'd hoped to leave her nightmare job in a dramatic way. With a job that she loved (and paid loads) waiting for her.
It shouldn't be that major of a surprise to see that this new development left her shell shocked. She was supposed to be the one who had at it all together. Or at least, more together than Issa and Samir. But, instead, she wakes at 8:30 am without a thing on her calendar, drags herself to the kitchen and watches all her roommates head to their jobs.
"I feel like a housewife," the frown on her face seeming more permanent with each passing day.
"Aw, I'll yell honey I'm home when I get back from work, if that'll lift your spirits?" Issa joked, though Billie wondered if her sadness was that clear.
Billie smiled in response. Normally she'd come up with some sort of joke or response. Something entirely like her, but she'd been to focused on the idea of all the roommates noticing her sadness. She did spend most of mornings (and afternoons, and evenings) on the couch aimlessly scrolling through Pintrest and Instagram - switching between the two when one got boring - barely exchanging words as people passed through the room.
She acknowledged that this was not necessarily normal behavior, but if you'd ask just about anyone who knew her before she turned the age of fifteen they'd know that this was just the Billie that needed to exist before she could fully bloom into something beautiful. Well, at least that's how she saw it. She'd never thought to ask someone who witnessed it before.
Samir was usually the last to leave.
Billie knew he had a job, but she was never quite sure what it was. They never asked each other those kinds of questions. It felt more like small talk, and they had passed that friendship phase back in middle school. He was just the guy who was always standing in the back of most of her adolescent memories. Her best friend - though you'd probably have to threaten her with death to get her to admit that to his face.
He is the only person beside her parents who had witness this sadness that she'd go through before big changes. The only person she'd be able to ask without (long term) judgment.
"Mornin', Bills," he said racing down the stairs. She looks back at the stove clock to doublecheck the time. He wasn't particularly late. He left every morning at 9:30am without delay. It was 8:53am, more than enough time for breakfast and telling Billie that she's okay and that everyone isn't worried about her.
"What's the rush this morning?"
"Oh, ha- uhm, nothing just nervous about a meeting today at work."
"Oh well, good luck! But before you go, do you and the roommates think I'm depressed?" She made sure to say that last bit as quickly as possible. It was embarrassing enough having to ask the question in the first place.
Maybe he was shocked by her speed or the depth of her question, but his mouth hung open wide without sound. Just eye contact, trying to measure and calculate the proper answer to such a question.
"Well, we definitely don't think your entirely happy," he pauses and calculates his response even more, "Not that you need to be. I mean, you lost your job."
"Fantastic! This is just great, I bet just everyone in the house is just watching and waiting for me to scout bridges for me to jump off of."
"Billie! Oh my god, it's not like that. It's just-"
"Samir, you're supposed to tell them that this just means I'm gonna be better than before! Have you told them about my cocoon phase?"
"Is that what you're calling it?"
"It? What do you mean calling it? Samir that's what it's called. Y'know like freshman year of high school when Tommy broke up with me the same day that I got my first F of my lifetime and it marked the general downfall of my life trajectory. I cocooned and then I rose from those cocoon ashes. It's like my special little quirk."
He paused. Staring at lamp that had seemingly become the most interesting thing in the room. "Oh, Billie. We just called it a depressive episode. I mean you didn't leave your room for like two consecutive weeks."
"Did I not come out all the more beautiful and changed, like a butterfly?"
"I mean mostly it was just a general stench for a couple hours. Then back to normal."
Billie tried to look backwards in time. The general darkness of her room. The dull knocking on her bedroom door, with alternating voices coming from the other side. For the most part all ignored by young Billie. The sadness she felt and buried under the guise of a cocoon phase.
"Oh my god."
Samir placed a hand on Billie's shoulder an attempt to calm her and guide her to a dining room chair. He looked at the time, glancing the clock on the stove (three minutes behind actual time but close enough to not need to be changed).
"Do you want me to call out? I can tell you're having a major life moment…"
"What? No! No, you have your meeting. I'll handle this." She tried to push herself off of the chair and up into a standing position. Failing at this task she decides that pushing him along will likely have the same effect. "Look, you're late. Grab a granola bar and get out. You do this meeting and kick ass. I will still be having a, what you call depressive episode when you come back. Don't worry about me."
She faked a smile. One with teeth to make it seem more real (or to scare him away like the wild animals did on the animal channel).
He didn't believe her. She knew that he didn't believe her. His dumb big brown eyes looked at her with pity. If he did it for any longer she'd cry or hit him.
"Go," she pleaded with a fake laugh. To lighten the mood. She pushed at him again from the dining room chair.
"Okay, fine. But I'm gonna text you. Answer me, okay. We will talk about this when I get back. Mentally prepare yourself for that." He ran to the pantry, snagged a granola bar, and grabbed his backpack.
She waited to watch him walk towards the front door. Leave her in the silence. To wallow on the couch. Ignore the revelation.
Instead, he walked towards her and pulled her in for a hug. Firm and warm. Nothing unlike the other hugs she'd been forced into in the past. He mumbled something she couldn't decipher into her hair and pressed his lips onto her hairline. Before she could even engage with the hug, he pulled away, gave her one last look, and ran out the door, shouting a see you later like always.
* * *
"Honey, I'm home!"
Billie had sat on the couch nearly the whole day, dodging texts (the calls of the youth, if you will) all day. Her mother had been trying to reach her for a week after finding out about losing her job. Samir wanted to make she was alright, considering the state she was in when he had left in the morning.
They aren't the worst calls to be running from. She should be grateful she doesn't owe money to the Italian mob on top of all of this. Little victories, and all that.
Nevertheless, she was startled when Issa burst through the door.
Billie wasn't given much time to adjust any how, because Issa leaps onto her immediately and grabs hold of her face. "How are you Bills?"
"Oh, you know me, I'm good," trying her best to squirm away from her grasp. Still Issa remains nearly atop her, though she finds the warmth comforting.
"Okay, good! Today, a kid had the audacity to look me in my eyes and tell me they think I would look better with long hair…" Issa continued on with the hundred other random things kids in her dance classes had the "audacity" to tell her that day.
To an outsider, it would sound like complaining, and for a long while, it felt like that to Billie too, until she started to really pay attention to Issa. She would glow and smile at every little joke and tale. Even though Issa would constantly claim this was not what she'd want for the rest of her life — she said she was too much of a free spirit to be tied down to one profession at the young age of 24 — it was something she loved. She would never dread leaving for work, and even when she came home exhausted, god was she happy.
All Billie could do was think of the 24 years she'd lived without anything to show for it.
She'd wasted time working at a company she couldn't care less about, doing something she didn't even care about. She had no passion.
She didn't feel sad anymore about being fired. She felt angry. Angry that she'd let herself stay there for so long. Angry that she hadn't allowed herself to make dumb 20-year-old decisions for the sake of becoming an adult. She was angry and she wanted to do something reckless for once in her life.
"Issa."
"Billie."
"Let's do something crazy." A request that immediately set Issa's eyes aflame.
"Oh my god, Bills really? Wait, we should go to Fiji!"
Okay, maybe not that crazy. Before she could even stop Issa from looking up flights, she heard the front door unlock and open.
"Oh my goodness, look who's home it's," extending her words as waited for the roommate to round the corner, "Samir!"
He looked confused at the random celebration of his arrival. "Hey guys, what's up?" he asked reluctantly as he spotted Billie's face of fear and Issa's quick fingers researching Fiji travel trips.
"We're going to Fiji," Issa responded without looking up.
Billie and Samir exchanged a look. Billie one of fear of how quickly Issa could make brash decision. Samir one of humor. He was so smug, the fucker.
"Well, my day was awful. I have to go a retreat."
"Oh no, your employment is paying you to go on vacation. I'm so sorry Sami," Billie's sarcasm was enough to make Issa look from her phone and laugh at Samir.
"Well, I have to make myself look good at this thing. And you know how great I am at that."
"Dude, you suck at that."
"Dude."
"Wait, oh my god. Samir!" Billie squeals and jumps to her feet. "Take me!"
"What?" Samir says confused.
"Come on! Remember how I talked you up in middle school that one time? Plus, you know how great I am with middle aged people! I have a rapport with the people down at the printer place!" she exclaimed matter-of-factly.
"Bills I don't think that's resume enough for me to take you into my workplace."
"Not your workplace. Your workplace retreat! Come on this can be my crazy thing, right Issa? Back me up here!"
Issa all but flies up out of her seat, ready to take on the challenge that is talking Samir into something like this. "Oh my god, yes! A scheme! That's what you need Bills! Let the girl go with you, Samir. It's basically charity work for you and your job doing… whatever it is you do."
Billie and Issa spend what feels like ten minutes, and Samir was ready and willing to argue that it was that long in reality.
"Fine! I'll think about bringing Bills."
Billie smiles and feels that this the start of the new chapter. This cocoon is ready to burst into a butterfly and rise out of its ashes. Or however that saying goes.