A Different Perspective, chapter 1

I quite happen to remember the day this all started because I remember it being one of the only times I ventured into Berkeley. I didn't particularly like Berkeley, no matter how much my friends did. Bunch of nut jobs there. Okay, so maybe San Francisco wasn't any better, but I'm just saying. Berkeley, to me, was far worse than S.F. Call me a hypocrite, because I am honestly one, but whatever. What's important was that I was in Berkeley, mainly because my best friend, Jessica, had bugged me to go. Jessica loved Berkeley because of eccentricity the city seemed to hold and because Billie Joe lives there. Pathetic, I know. I keep telling her it's never going to happen, even if his wife did leave him, but she refuses to accept it. Personally, I preferred Mike to him because.. Well, I don't know why, but I just did. Mike seemed to not get love, especially from my friends who were always calling him ugly. Maybe that's what brought me to like him; I felt sorry for the poor dude. Anyway, so here I was, sitting in Barnes and Noble and watching my watch tick away the minutes that could have been spent doing something a little more productive, like working on my portfolio for the upcoming Art show when someone bumped into me.
"He- OW!" I yelled, my coffee slipping out of my hand spilling all over me and the floor. I looked down, my brand new shirt ruined and I had only had it for a day. "Dammit!"
"I'm so sorry," a voice said to me, handing me a napkin. I grudgingly took it and made an attempt to sort of dry myself off, which only made it worse. I looked up, only to see a man not too much taller than myself picking up my now empty coffee cup. "I really am sorry. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."
"Obviously!" I snapped, grabbing the cup out of his hand that it startled him. He fixed his cab hat and adjusted his sun glasses. I shook my head and started to walk off, muttering to myself about how rude and inconsiderate the people of Berkeley were when I finally found Jessica looking over a book about the occult.
"Hey," I said, bitterly as I continued to try and mop up as much as I could off of my shirt.
"Hey - Whoa, what happened to you?" She asked, eyebrow raised, snapping the book shut and sticking it back onto the bookshelf.
"Some asshole bumped into me and spilled my friggin six dollar coffee all over me. That's six dollars I would have liked to enjoy and not have on my shirt.. God, I hate this place.." I rambled on, half coherent of what I was actually saying. Jessica just shook her head, and I could tell she was only half listening as I explained.
"Look on the bright side. Tonight is the Green Day concert and we can completely forget about how crappy your day has been so far, kay?" Jessica always tried to make things seem brighter, which made a small smile appear on my face.
"Yeah, I guess you're right, but I told you we have to come home straight after because I have an assignment due for Mr. Leery tomorrow and God help me if I don't get it in. I'm never gonna pass college, man."
"Stop speaking so negatively. You're going to pass and anyway, we are staying after beca-"
"Jessica, no," I said, sternly, interrupting her. She gave me a look.
"Can I finish now?" She asked, impatiently.
"Yes, finish. Finish away.." I mumbled.
"Because your Uncle gave us these.." She dug in her back pocket and pulled out two backstage passes. My eyes went wide. "We can get in before and after the concert since they think we're... press or something like that. It was supposed to be a surprise, but since you keep complaining, I thought this might cheer you up." I let out a small scream, causing the people around us to stare.
"What?" I yelled to them. They turned away, pretending to be more interested in whatever was closest to them. "Oh my fucking God, I love you!" She smiled.
"I know, but I really had nothing to do with this. It was all your Uncle's doing, so yeah. Now, quit your bitching and let me look for the book I came here for.." She stuck the passes back in her pocket as I drifted away, in a complete and utter trance. My mind was too busy wandering about, thinking about how I'd be able to talk to Mike. Knowing me, it would sound like I was mentally retarded or something. Ha. I was going backstage and there was nothing anyone could do about it. I kept drifting down, aisle after aisle, my mind dreaming - I felt like I was going to explode -
"Hey!" Someone yelled and I immediately snapped out of my trance. I must have bumped into somebody.
"Sorry," I muttered, looking up only to find it was the same dick that had spilled my mocha. "You again? Just my friggin luck."
"You know, other people would be ecstatic to bump into me," he muttered and I rolled my eyes. What an ego!
"Yeah, well not me.." I muttered, pretending to look at some book. 101 Things to Do With Whipped Cream, I read, scrunching up my nose in disgust. Ew.
"What's your name?" He asked out of nowhere, to where I didn't think it was even directed at me at first until I saw him looking at me.
"Wouldn't you like to know?" I said, continuing to look at the books around. Like I was going to flirt. I don't flirt. Okay, maybe I was flirting a little, but I couldn't help it.
"Fine," He said, and I could tell I was getting on his nerves. I liked that and I was actually going to tell him until Jessica came up to me.
"Hey, I'm done," she said, holding up her bag with whatever book she had purchased this time. "Ready to go?"
"I've been ready since we got here," I muttered, and followed her out of the story, only to see the boy in the "poor boy" hat and sunglasses watch us leave. I smiled to myself, even though I was thoroughly pissed about my shirt.

Five O'clock finally came around, so Jessica and me finally were able to leave to get to the concert. I wanted to get there early so we could start using our backstage passes right away. I was shaking from head to toe as I showed the guard our passes. After examining them for a few minutes, he finally let us through and we let out an excited squeal. I could finally cross off something off of my "To Do Before I Die," list. Number 2: Meet and Talk to Mike Dirnt. What would I say? What would I do? Everything was happening so fast and then IT happened. I bumped into him - again! OF ALL places, backstage at a Green Day Concert.
"You.. I'm starting to think you're following me," I said to him. "How in the world did you get backstage?" He took of his sun glasses and poor boy hat.
"Oh, I don't know, just got lucky," he said and before I knew it, realization had finally hit me. Standing before me was Billie Joe Armstrong - the fucker that had spilled hot coffee on me.
"Y-yyou're Billie J-joe Armstrong?" I stammered, barely able to speak. This was impossible. Jessica was going to kill me when she found out that I had spoken badly of Billie just a few hours ago.
"No shit sherlock," He said, grinning. "I knew I couldn't get anything past you."
"Oh wow.." I said, fanning myself. Like I said, this was impossible. How could this be possible? This wasn't possible. "Man.. this is just a very bad dream.."
"What is?" Jessica asked, literally popping out of nowhere. I jumped, and smacked her upside the head for startling me.
"Owww.. What was that for?" She asked, obviously oblivious to Billie Joe standing a whole foot away from her.
"For scaring the shit out of me." She rolled her eyes at me before she finally took notice to who was standing there. Her jaw nearly dropped to the floor, and her eyes widened.
"T-that's Billie Joe.." She said, her eyes going even wider. "Ohmygodthatsbillieholymotherofmy.." Her sentences were beginning to combined with one another. "OhmygodIcan'tbelieveI'mstandingohmygoooooood! P-pwetty B-billie..."
"Yes.. Pretty me.." He said, eyebrow raised. He looked at me. "Is she okay?" Jessica collapsed on the floor.
"Um, no," I said, kicking her a little. Billie looked at us like we were insane.
"Aren't you going to help her?" He asked, his eyebrow still raised.
"It's her own damn fault, I told her to drink water," I said, bitterly. "She doesn't want to listen to me, she's gotta pay the price."
By the time Jessica had come to, Billie, Mike and Tre had all helped put her on a couch and put ice on the back of her neck.
"Hay.. Hayleigh..?" She called, slowly coming back to consciousness.
"Shh.. Drink.." I said handing her my bottle of water. She sighed, and began chugging it down without any protests. I, honestly, didn't feel the least bit sorry for her - if anything I felt pissed off since this could have been avoided and the concert was starting. I could hear My Chemical Romance beginning to belt out a few chords.
"Where are we?" She said, once she was finished.
"Backstage. Green Day's about to go on."
"What?!" She sat up and I pushed her right back down.
"Lay down," I barked and she obeyed. "How are you feeling?"
"Fine.. We have to get out there.. I don't want to miss the concert." She pushed herself back up and I could tell there was no reasoning with her this time. I sighed, relenting and letting her get up. If she wanted to hurt herself, that was all on her. She stumbled around before gaining her balance and I got up from kneeling, when a member of stage crew directed us to our seats. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to get the balcony after all.. Just as we sat down, I could see the drunken pink bunny stumble out how Jessica had gotten up and I couldn't help but laugh as he pelvic thrusted as some random person, chugging down his beer like Jessica had chugged down her water.

After the concert we, once again, headed backstage since I was going to put those passes to good use. The only problem was it seemed like the entire arena had the same idea. There must have been at least fifty people crowding backstage, which was sort of a put off. I thought we were gonna be by ourselves again, but whatever. It was cool, because not too many were crowding around Mike, the one person I wanted to see anyway. I took a deep breath, camera in hand, ready to go ask Mike if he'd do me the honor of taking a quick picture when I was interrupted - the theme of the day, or so it seemed.
"Hey, I thought I'd see you back here again," I heard Billie say. I focused my eyes to see him standing in front of me, sweat dripping off of him and a smile of intention upon his face. "You know, you never told me your name.."
"Hayleigh," I said. "My name is Hayleigh."
"Haley? Like H-A-L-E-Y?" He spelled it out for me and I shook my head. Everyone always spelled my name wrong, which pissed me off to no end.
"No like H-A-Y-L-E-I-G-H," I corrected, now annoyed as someone else took a picture with Mike. Billie looked behind him to see what I was staring at and shook his head, stepping out of the way. I gave him a quick nod and headed over to Mike, who happily took a picture with me.
It was somewhere around one when everyone was clearing out, or was rather forced by Tre who was running around, screaming and throwing things at them. It was actually quite a funny sight to see, especially when he hit Jessica on the head with a drumstick and she threw it back at him. He gave her a look.
"What the fuck? I'm Tre' Cool! You can't do that to me," he said, sounding like a little kid. Jessica only smirked.
"Don't throw things at me then." I couldn't help but let out a tired laugh. I was exhausted and really, all I wanted to do was go home. I had my autograph and picture and I was happy. I think Jessica picked up on that and she stood up, picking up her things and getting ready to leave. "I'm going."
"GOOD!" Tre' said, playfully sticking out his tongue. Jessica stuck her tongue right back out at him, making Billie and Mike laugh. I yawned, getting up and picking up my own things when Billie walked over and handed me something.
"I owe you a coffee since I spilled your other one," He said. In disbelief, I looked down at the card to see he had written his phone number and address on it. I could feel the heat of the hated glares I was getting from the few that had remained, despite Tre's little rampage. I was in too much shock to actually say anything, and even if I could, it wouldn't have mattered. Security was coming around and kicking people out, so I quickly rummaged through my bag and pulled out a pen, grabbing Billie's hand and writing down my phone number before I was shoved out the door. I looked at the card that was in my hand and neatly folded it, putting it in my back pocket. I had Billie Joe Armstrong's number in my pocket and I felt like I was on top of the world.