She, chapter 4

"Is it good?"

"What?" Gianna looked up, snapping back to reality once more.

"Whatever it is in the bottom of that cup, you've been staring at it for ages." Billie Joe was smiling at her from across the table.

"I'm just wondering what the hell to do next." She sighed.

"Isn't there anyone you can call, like your parents maybe? you can use my phone, seeing as you smashed up your own." He slid the phone across the table towards her, Gianna slid it straight back at him.

"No, my parents are both dead. They died when I was ten so there's no one." She replied, trying to fight back the tears that always threatened every time her parents were mentioned.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realise. That must have been hard for you, what happened?"
Gianna was quiet again for a moment so he added, "You don't have to tell me, if it's gonna upset you or anything."

"That's ok, I just haven't spoken about them for a while. It was a car accident, a lorry lost control and hit their car. My dad died straight away and my mum died a few days later in the hospital. I was at school when it happened, other wise I probably would have been dead too." She looked back to her cup, hoping that he didn't ask any more questions. It felt as though she was going to burst into tears any minute, which was so hard to resist. She didn't want to look any more pathetic than she did now.
"Anyway, " She sat back,flicking her hair again and decided to change the subject. "That's basically when my life became shit, and I expect you've got better things to do than listen to me whining on about my depressing life."

"Actually, no." He shrugged, "It's late, I've got nothing planned so that means you have the pleasure of my company. Well, until you get fed up of me asking dumb questions about stuff that I can tell you really don't wanna talk about."
Gianna thought for a moment, would it really be so bad to tell him everything. It wasn't as if she could get into any trouble, she felt like she could trust him but what was he going to think of her.

"If I tell you everything, will you promise not to hate me afterwards?"

"Why the hell would I hate you? I only met you a few hours ago and I've already had a phone thrown at me. Can it get any worse? "

"Are you ever going to let me forget about that?...what I meant to say was that I'm not like other girls.." She was about to continue but noticed Billie Joe looking her up and down for a moment.

"Don't tell me, you're a guy, that's had a sex change and now you're a girl who wants to kill me. That's why you tried to run me over." He ducked as Gianna threw a screwed up napkin at him and couldn't help laughing at her angry face.
"Will you stop it!...Of course I'm not a guy and I never have been. While we're on the subject, I'm also not some kind of Green day assassin, why would I want to kill off my favourite band. I took the corner too fast, it could have happened to anyone."
Billie Joe tried his best to interrupt her mid rant, mainly just to let her know that he was joking. Which, to him, had seemed pretty obvious at the time. He didn't get the chance though as she continued.
"I wish I had been more careful, then I wouldn't have crashed my car and ended up at that fucking hospital. Why didn't you just leave me there, I never wanted to be a problem to any one. I never wanted to go there. Now I'm going to get in loads of trouble.."

"Finished? You know you are so ungrateful, I hang around all night in a hospital corridor, I'm bored and I'm tired. I miss the practice session that I was supposed to be at...and all for you to say that you wish we had left you there and not bothered!"

"But you said earlier that you didn't have anything else to do." Gianna said in a small voice. 'Well done Gianna' she thought to herself, ' you've pissed him off now'. She wished she had kept her big mouth shut.

"Well I don't now, do I." He snapped back, who did this girl think she was, as if he hadn't got enough from Adrienne having a go at him every time he picked up the phone and now there was another one. He glanced around, and got eye contact with the bizarre gypsy type woman in the corner. She had awoken and was quite blatantly watching and listening. She gave him a toothless grin and waved a plant of some kind at him. Not wanting to get into conversation he ignored her and turned back to Gianna. She was looking down and biting her lip, maybe she wasn't one of those girls who would argue until they won, and keep going. In fact she looked sort of downcast and sad. He had to admit to himself that he had never met anyone quite like this, she went from one extreme to another. Like from angry about to bite your head off, to dejected and about to cry. Maybe he shouldn't have said that,
"I'm sorry," he sighed and held out his hand over the table. "I've got a lot on my mind, can we start again? "
Gianna nodded from beneath her hair.
"I'm Billie Joe"

"Hi Billie Joe, I'm Gianna. Do you come here often?" She giggled , shaking his hand as if they had never met.

"No, you see I just met the most confusing, infuriating and unpredictable girl ever and I kinda keep saying the wrong things..."

"No you don't." She stopped him. "You know all the right things to say, and when you're being nice to me, like you..."

"Lucky heather!" A loud voice cut off her train of thought. The old woman was coming over. "You two!" She pointed at them both, "Would you buy some lucky heather, will bring you everything your heart desires!"

Billie Joe and Gianna glared over, at exactly the same time.

"No thanks, I don't want any." Gianna started, thinking that Billie was going to say something a bit more offensive. The old woman waved her hand in the air and muttered something about the moon and clouds of darkness then returned to her seat.

"Great, she's probably put a curse on us now. That's all I need!"

"I don't think so, remember I'm a regular. She tries that shit on everyone, she's just a freaky old lady , and don't keep looking over there. She'll think you want to buy some of her shitty heather or something." Gianna pulled his face away from the direction of the woman, "Don't even go there!"

"I won't bossy boots, you know best." He laughed sitting back and watching her for what seemed like ages.
"What!" She started, waving her arms in the air.

"Only wondering, how you can fit so much fried chicken in your mouth at the same time." He smirked back at her and remembered to duck as she launched another napkin at him. "And I was wondering..." He added, " Are you ever gonna tell me what this is about or do I have to kidnap you, take you back to my hotel room and keep you there until you tell me?" He was sat back, arms folded and trying to look serious. Gianna wasn't sure how to react,
"As if you would!" She found herself saying, laughing.

"What's so funny?"

"Er, not much except there are plenty of girls out there that would like to get kidnapped by you."

"Maybe there are, but you're not talking and so I'm gonna have to do something drastic." He stood up. knowing that she didn't think that he would go ahead with his threat.

"Aah what you doing?"
Billie had picked her up into his arms and was on his way towards the doors.
"What the fuck? I need my bag, put me down!" She shouted. He ignored her shouts and managed to grab the bag from a chair.

The next thing she knew, Gianna was in a cab heading over to the hotel where Billie Joe was staying. She was pretending to be huffy at the way he had removed her from the cafe. It had not taken long to reach the hotel, and Gianna recognised it as soon as she got out of the car. At least she knew where she was.

"That was not funny!" She mumbled as she stepped out, shaking off Billie's arm and promptly falling over into the nearby flower bed.

"But it got you to move didn't it. You coming up?"

"No!"

"Fine, stay here, but you can't get up by yourself can you? " He pretended to walk away.

"Come back, you know damn well I can't get up, so you can help me!" Gianna held her hands out and he took them to pull her up. It took a while to get up to the third floor, Billie Joe was starting to wonder if he had done the right thing, bringing her back with him. He still wasn't exactly sure what kind of trouble she was in, or going to be from her husband. The other thought on his mind was if he had done the right thing helping her get out of the hospital. She seemed to be ok now, apart from not being able to walk very well, she could certainly talk ok though. If she wasn't complaining about how far away everything was, she was trying to pretend that she was perfectly fine and didn't need any help which of course she wasn't.
"Which room are you staying in?"

"Well this one's mine, over here, and Tre and Mike have got the rooms opposite and Jason has that one there." He waved in another direction. "It's quiet so I guess they've gone out."
He opened the door and showed Gianna through to the hotel room. She was impressed, it was a lot better than any hotel she had ever stayed in.

"You wanna beer?" He called, throwing a can over to her.

"Yeah, only one though."

"Light weight!"

"I've had a head injury, if I remember rightly beer is not one of the best things to consume after that. Anyway, I thought you were kidnapping me, doesn't that mean that I don't have a choice about things like that?"

"Just sit your butt down over there and stop being difficult. " Billie Joe replied in some sort of exasperated voice. pointed towards the couch that was covered in quite a few cushions. Gianna sat herself down in the corner, and waited for him to sit at the other end of the couch.

"Go on then..."

"What?"

"Tell me what it is that is so bad that you can't go home."
Gianna sat back, twisting the can of beer in her fingers.

"Ok, well if you really want to know," She took a deep breath, this was going to take a lot of explaining.
"Ok, my husband is very...difficult to live with. He gets very controlling, he wasn't always like that though!" she added almost defending him. "When I first met him he helped me out a lot. I was in a lot of trouble and I had no way out of it, I owed a lot of money to some very dodgy people and I was on my own. He seemed like such a nice guy and I was some sixteen year old mouthy punk kid that didn't deserve all that he did. He invited me to stay at his house and suddenly I had everything I wanted, a home and someone who cared about me. We got married two years later and he changed, started trying to change me and make me more like one of his stuck up rich snob friends. He hated the way I dressed and the friends I had and gradually I got to see them less and less, I was lucky Rachel stuck by me."

She paused for a moment to see his reaction so far, Billie Joe sat back, resting his chin on his arm and to her surprise he was still listening. Most people had told had got fed up by now, it was hard admitting she was in such a powerless position.

"So, you married some rich guy who is some kind of control freak idiot. Leave, go stay with your friend, what was her name, Rachel?" He suggested. If only it was that easy, Rachel's house was the first place Colm would look for her, and he would find her. He always did, he knew people and as it always ended up, he seemed to know everything.

"I tried that, I packed up my stuff and told him I was getting out. You know what he did, he got nasty and told me that I could leave right there and then but I would have to pay back all the money that he spent on getting me out of trouble. He knew I would never have that kind of money and made it pretty clear that he would hunt me to the ends of the earth to make me pay it back. So I stayed and I put up with him, even though it makes my skin crawl every time he touches me." This was probably the part where he is going to think I am either weird or mad, she thought, trying to work out what he was thinking.
"I so need a cigarette, I can't believe Tre took my whole pack!" She sighed, picking at the hole in the knee of her jeans.

"Don't look at me, I'm all out so you'll have to wait till tomorrow." Billie Joe watched her nervous fidgeting, it was driving him mad not knowing what her big secret was. The controlling husband part had been pretty obvious but the rest of it was a big mystery. "Gianna, can you tell me something?"

"What?"

"You know earlier, when you were going to tell me about something. When we were sat out on the steps by the park, what was all that about?"

"I made up a stupid lie..He wanted us to have a baby, and we tried for ages, like a year and nothing. He just kept on and on that it was my fault. I was so useless that I couldn't even get give him a kid, I didn't even want one. Not with him anyway, it was only to keep him happy. " She took another swig of beer, "About two weeks ago I told him I was pregnant, I had to , I was desperate! I thought it would buy me some time to find somewhere to go, some way to get away from him."

Billie Joe was slightly stunned, he waited for a moment not sure of what to say. Especially considering this was the girl that was likely to either throw something or burst into tears.
"Right, ok so you told him you were pregnant, but you're not. So what happens when he finds out, because I think he might notice after a while, you know it's not something you can fake for too long."

"That is why I had to get out of that hospital. If he turned up he would insist they checked on 'the baby' and then he would find out that there isn't one. Then he would go mad , so I just panicked and had to get out." At least here she knew Colm wouldn't be able to find her, and there was no way she would get found out. It was only two days until he went away on some boring business trip and by then he would have got over the fact that she had crashed the car. That was the whole deal with Colm, it was always best to leave him a while, to get over it and it might not be too bad. The more she thought about it all she realised that she couldn't stay here and be a complete pain in the arse. All she had done was to sit here and complain about everything or tell some depressing story of her crappy life. Now Billie Joe knew that she was a liar, and not a very good one at that. Call Rachel, she thought, at least let her know I'm safe.