A Different Perspective, chapter 2
The next morning came not as quick as I'd hoped, since the night before had been filled with tosses and turns. I kept getting up and taking out the card, wondering what the hell any of this meant. Was I dreaming? Or was this reality? It couldn't have been reality.. could it? I shook my head in disgust, trying to keep myself from getting "high hopes." Like I would ever hear from Billie again, let alone see him. I finally got out of bed just in time for the doorbell to ring.
"One second.." I called, wondering who would possibly be bother me at - I looked up at the clock - eight in the morning. Whoever it was rang it again. "One fucking second!" Tying the sash to my kimono, before answering the door.
"Do you always swear at your visitors?" Billie Joe stood at my doorway, holding what appeared to be two cups of coffee. I looked at him in shock, my jaw open and my eyes wide. "Am I going to stand out here all day or are you going to let me in?" Speechless, I opened the door wider for him and he stepped in, just like that, handing over to me the coffee.
"T-thank Y-you.." I managed to finally stammer out as he looked around. I set it down on the counter, watching him wide-eyed as his eyes seemed to take in everything. "What are you doing here?" I finally managed to ask. He looked over at me, his big, beautiful sea green eyes staring straight into mine until I finally broke away.
"I owed you coffee. I told you that last night," He simply said, as if that explained every question that was buzzing in my head. "Nice apartment. Kind of reminds me of my very first one."
"Er.. Thanks?" He nodded, continuing to look around when it finally dawned on me. "How did you get my address?"
"I know some people," He said, a mysterious grin forming. As creepy as it may sound, he reminded me of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland in the way that he wasn't as he seemed. In the beginning, Cheshire seemed to try and help Alice and then, eventually, almost had her executed, but it was kind of the opposite between Billie and me. It started off considerably.. bad, but now that I had hung around him, even if for a day, he seemed like a genuinely good guy. I was so lost in thought, I didn't notice that I was staring at him, nor that there was a silence in the room until Billie cleared his throat.
"Sorry.. I was just, thinking.." I explained, figuring what he was wondering about. "Will excuse me while I actually go get dressed?" He gave me a quick nod and I walked, calmly, into my room to actually change into clothes. I just grabbed whatever was near me, which happened to be the jeans I had wore the night before and some shirt I'd never even seen before. It was most likely one of Jessica's that I had just picked up. When I came out, I found Billie looking through my old picture albums, which I found extremely odd since A) he had just met me the day before and B) He was fucking Billie Joe Armstrong. Why in the world would he want to look at my pictures?
"Who are they?" He asked, holding up a picture of my mother and father on their wedding day, my favorite picture of them.
"Those are my parents," I said, smiling sadly, sitting across from him.
"Your parents?" He repeated. "Do they live in San Francisco too?"
"They're dead." There was no emotion in my voice.
"Oh.." Billie said, not knowing what to say. I can't say I really blame him, I mean there's nothing he could have said or done to bring them back. He looked down at the picture and then back up at me. "If it helps, I know how you feel. My Dad, he.. he passed away when I was really little and I know how hard it is to get over those kind of things."
"I don't think you ever really do," I said, taking a sip of coffee.
"Yeah, you don't. I mean, they're your parents - they're supposed to take care of you and tell you everything's going to be okay and when they're not there to do that, it's like, who does? You know?" I could tell he was being thoughtful and that brought a small smile to my face. I'd never talked to anyone about my parents death - not even my family because it wasn't an issue to discuss, so in a way, I had a lot of emotions pent up inside me. Before I knew what was happening, we had gotten so far into conversation that I was actually beginning to cry and talk to Billie as though I had known him my entire life and he actually sat there and listened to it. I told him everything, from how my sister had told me to grow up and stop crying over my parents to his family telling him pretty much the same thing. Eventually, he got up and sat next to me trying to help me stop crying. We talked about everything - his dad, my parents, my sister and Adrienne.
"It's like she wanted me to quit my fucking job and abandon my friends, the only fucking people who ever gave a shit about me," he explained, squinting and staring off into space as if he was confronting her in his mind. "She said I problems. Yeah. I'm the one with the problems," he said, snorting. He looked at me and smiled a little when his cell phone went off. "Whoa.. Vibrating.." He muttered as he struggled to get it out of his pocket. Glancing over at it, it clearly said, "MIKE," on the screen. A spittle of drool managed to find its way onto my lip and I shook my head, wiping it. Control yourself, I thought.
"Hello?" Billie asked, sounding somewhat polite. "What? I thought that was at seven? It's not seven thirty, last time I checked it was noon. What do you mean I must have check seven fucking hours ago?" I glanced at the clock, almost in awe. It was seven thirty. Had we really been talking for that long? "Okay.. Okay, I heard you. I'm going.." He hung up and looked at me and I didn't know what to say, so we sat there silent for a good two minutes. It was awkward because just moments before the room had been alive with talking, laughter and tears - it had been alive with out emotions and now it was dead silent. I shuffled my feet and scratched my nose until he finally spoke up.
"Do you wanna go to Tre's?" He asked me, a sincere look on his face.
"What?" I asked, my voice wavering a bit. I cleared my throat.
"Do you.. want to go with me to Tre's? We're gonna celebrate some stupid shit. End of tour, or something like that.." He rambled on.
"Uh.. sure.." I said, not really sure what to say. I mean, I was being asked to go over Tre Cool's house by Billie Joe. Reality check, please? Billie smiled, which made me smile because, no matter how much I don't want to admit it, he really is adorable when he smiles. So, I left a note to Jessica who I knew was going to be beyond pissed off when she read it, but I could careless. I was so high from the feeling of happiness that nothing could bring me off whatever cloud I was on. It was almost as if we stepped right of my apartment and into Tre's because I can't, for the life of me, recall the ride there. Everything was so dream like as Billie led me into Tre's house who merely gave me a quick nod of recognition as he played Halo 2 against Mike.
"I am so kicking your ass," Mike said, biting his lower lip as he pressed of some of the controller's keys.
"No fucking way, I am kicking yours.." Tre said, also biting his lip as he frantically hit a combination of keys.
"Are you two at it again?" Billie asked, closing the door behind us.
"Oh don't give us that, you hypocrite. You played this thing for six hours straight the other day.." Mike said, continuing to press buttons until he shouted, "NO!"
"Yes! Yes! IN YOUR FUCKING FACE!" Tre yelled, dancing around. Mike chucked the controller and got off the floor, shutting off the T.v. and X-Box. "HEY! It didn't save yet."
"I know," Mike said, plopping down on the couch and I just had to let out a giggle. Tre muttered to himself before turning to me and patting the area of couch he had yet to take over.
"Coooooooome sit by meeeee," He sang, smiling big and looking like a little kid. He was cute in an odd sort of way and I went and sat down by him. Mike got up and took Billie into the kitchen to get something. "Soooooooo," he said, twiddling with his thumbs a bit. "What do you think of Billie?"
"He's cool," I said, unsure of where this was heading.
"Cool? NO! I'M COOL!" Tre said, puffing out his chest and wiggling his eyebrows. I couldn't stand it anymore and I bust out laughing, so hard that I fell off the couch and started to have a laughing attack. My sides started to hurt, but I couldn't stop laughing, even when Billie came in and try to calm me down. That only made it worse.
"N-nnooooo.. Don't touch me.." I said, laughing hysterically as I rolled over on my back. "I-It oooooonly makes it woooooooorse.." He looked at me like I was nuts, which only made me laugh harder and longer. It was a good ten minutes before they finally got me to stop laughing and by this time, Tre had challenged me to a drinking contest. I hate being challenged, so I took it. I mean, I'd had the occasional jello shooters, so this couldn't be much different, could it? Man, was I wrong. After about the fifth shot of whiskey, I was singing a mixture of "Welcome to Paradise," "Basket Case," "Homecoming," "Dominated Love Slave," and "Foxtrot, Uniform, Charlie, Kilo." Tre was laughing his ass off by the time I got to the seventh, in which I was, most definitely, drunk.
"I shouldgohommmme," I said, my words slurring together. "Where are the keeeeeyz?"
"You're drunk, you're not driving and I've had a few drinks, so I don't need another D.U.I.," Billie said. "We'll just stay over here tonight."
"I can't.." I started, passing out on Tre's couch.
The sun was shinning directly on me, making me groan and turn over. It felt like my brain was going to explode, it was pounding so hard and the sun was definitely not helping. Something next to me moved and I slowly opened an eye to see Billie, happily asleep with his arm around me. Okay.. This is weird, I thought, unable to move. What happened last night? Oww.. My head.. Billie let out some sort of sound like a sigh and I immediately closed my eyes. I thought that when I opened them, he'd be gone, but when I did open them again, I was staring directly into his and my heart began to race.
"Morning," he said, unaffected by the fact that his arm was still on me. I glanced down at his arm and then at him and back at his arm to where he finally moved it. Even though it was off of me, I could still feel the tingling feeling, like it was still there.
"Morning.." I said, sheepishly, when I remember my headache. "Oww.."
"What's wrong?" Billie asked, sitting up.
"I have the biggest headache.." I said, rubbing my head a bit when something hit my side. I looked down to see a bottle of aspirin laying on the couch, next to me.
"Here," Tre said, warning me at least before tossing a water bottle towards me. I caught it, and grabbed two pills out of the bottle, taking them.
"It'll take about a half hour to an hour to kick in, depending on how bad your hangover is," Tre explained.
"Thanks." He nodded and walked off, leaving Billie and me alone. It was awkward, especially since I found him asleep next to me this morning.
"So what do you think of Tre's house..?" Leave it to Billie Joe to break the silence.
"It's really nice," I said, with a, "I-Can't-Believe-I'm-Here," kind of look on my face. Billie smiled and laughed a little.
"Mine's nicer," He boasted.
"IS NOT!" Tre shouted from somewhere, causing me to giggle. Billie wiped his eyes, and I sat there, observing him. His hair was completely messed up and if you looked close enough, you could see his brown roots coming in. His eyeliner was smudged so badly it looked like he had been crying or sweating heavily, and the bags under his eyes were huge, but even through all of this, he looked so cute, I couldn't help but smile. He was tugging on my heartstrings and I had only known him for two days. This was pathetic.
"What?" Billie asked. He must have noticed me staring at him for so long. I blushed, my face going bright red.
"Nothing," I said and I got up as quickly as I could. "I should probably call Jessica to make sure she's not worried about me."
"Wouldn't she have called you by now?" He asked, confused.
"No.. I turned off my phone." My lips turned and twitched into a tainted smile, as I turned on my cellphone, which clearly read, "17 Missed Calls."
"One second.." I called, wondering who would possibly be bother me at - I looked up at the clock - eight in the morning. Whoever it was rang it again. "One fucking second!" Tying the sash to my kimono, before answering the door.
"Do you always swear at your visitors?" Billie Joe stood at my doorway, holding what appeared to be two cups of coffee. I looked at him in shock, my jaw open and my eyes wide. "Am I going to stand out here all day or are you going to let me in?" Speechless, I opened the door wider for him and he stepped in, just like that, handing over to me the coffee.
"T-thank Y-you.." I managed to finally stammer out as he looked around. I set it down on the counter, watching him wide-eyed as his eyes seemed to take in everything. "What are you doing here?" I finally managed to ask. He looked over at me, his big, beautiful sea green eyes staring straight into mine until I finally broke away.
"I owed you coffee. I told you that last night," He simply said, as if that explained every question that was buzzing in my head. "Nice apartment. Kind of reminds me of my very first one."
"Er.. Thanks?" He nodded, continuing to look around when it finally dawned on me. "How did you get my address?"
"I know some people," He said, a mysterious grin forming. As creepy as it may sound, he reminded me of the Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland in the way that he wasn't as he seemed. In the beginning, Cheshire seemed to try and help Alice and then, eventually, almost had her executed, but it was kind of the opposite between Billie and me. It started off considerably.. bad, but now that I had hung around him, even if for a day, he seemed like a genuinely good guy. I was so lost in thought, I didn't notice that I was staring at him, nor that there was a silence in the room until Billie cleared his throat.
"Sorry.. I was just, thinking.." I explained, figuring what he was wondering about. "Will excuse me while I actually go get dressed?" He gave me a quick nod and I walked, calmly, into my room to actually change into clothes. I just grabbed whatever was near me, which happened to be the jeans I had wore the night before and some shirt I'd never even seen before. It was most likely one of Jessica's that I had just picked up. When I came out, I found Billie looking through my old picture albums, which I found extremely odd since A) he had just met me the day before and B) He was fucking Billie Joe Armstrong. Why in the world would he want to look at my pictures?
"Who are they?" He asked, holding up a picture of my mother and father on their wedding day, my favorite picture of them.
"Those are my parents," I said, smiling sadly, sitting across from him.
"Your parents?" He repeated. "Do they live in San Francisco too?"
"They're dead." There was no emotion in my voice.
"Oh.." Billie said, not knowing what to say. I can't say I really blame him, I mean there's nothing he could have said or done to bring them back. He looked down at the picture and then back up at me. "If it helps, I know how you feel. My Dad, he.. he passed away when I was really little and I know how hard it is to get over those kind of things."
"I don't think you ever really do," I said, taking a sip of coffee.
"Yeah, you don't. I mean, they're your parents - they're supposed to take care of you and tell you everything's going to be okay and when they're not there to do that, it's like, who does? You know?" I could tell he was being thoughtful and that brought a small smile to my face. I'd never talked to anyone about my parents death - not even my family because it wasn't an issue to discuss, so in a way, I had a lot of emotions pent up inside me. Before I knew what was happening, we had gotten so far into conversation that I was actually beginning to cry and talk to Billie as though I had known him my entire life and he actually sat there and listened to it. I told him everything, from how my sister had told me to grow up and stop crying over my parents to his family telling him pretty much the same thing. Eventually, he got up and sat next to me trying to help me stop crying. We talked about everything - his dad, my parents, my sister and Adrienne.
"It's like she wanted me to quit my fucking job and abandon my friends, the only fucking people who ever gave a shit about me," he explained, squinting and staring off into space as if he was confronting her in his mind. "She said I problems. Yeah. I'm the one with the problems," he said, snorting. He looked at me and smiled a little when his cell phone went off. "Whoa.. Vibrating.." He muttered as he struggled to get it out of his pocket. Glancing over at it, it clearly said, "MIKE," on the screen. A spittle of drool managed to find its way onto my lip and I shook my head, wiping it. Control yourself, I thought.
"Hello?" Billie asked, sounding somewhat polite. "What? I thought that was at seven? It's not seven thirty, last time I checked it was noon. What do you mean I must have check seven fucking hours ago?" I glanced at the clock, almost in awe. It was seven thirty. Had we really been talking for that long? "Okay.. Okay, I heard you. I'm going.." He hung up and looked at me and I didn't know what to say, so we sat there silent for a good two minutes. It was awkward because just moments before the room had been alive with talking, laughter and tears - it had been alive with out emotions and now it was dead silent. I shuffled my feet and scratched my nose until he finally spoke up.
"Do you wanna go to Tre's?" He asked me, a sincere look on his face.
"What?" I asked, my voice wavering a bit. I cleared my throat.
"Do you.. want to go with me to Tre's? We're gonna celebrate some stupid shit. End of tour, or something like that.." He rambled on.
"Uh.. sure.." I said, not really sure what to say. I mean, I was being asked to go over Tre Cool's house by Billie Joe. Reality check, please? Billie smiled, which made me smile because, no matter how much I don't want to admit it, he really is adorable when he smiles. So, I left a note to Jessica who I knew was going to be beyond pissed off when she read it, but I could careless. I was so high from the feeling of happiness that nothing could bring me off whatever cloud I was on. It was almost as if we stepped right of my apartment and into Tre's because I can't, for the life of me, recall the ride there. Everything was so dream like as Billie led me into Tre's house who merely gave me a quick nod of recognition as he played Halo 2 against Mike.
"I am so kicking your ass," Mike said, biting his lower lip as he pressed of some of the controller's keys.
"No fucking way, I am kicking yours.." Tre said, also biting his lip as he frantically hit a combination of keys.
"Are you two at it again?" Billie asked, closing the door behind us.
"Oh don't give us that, you hypocrite. You played this thing for six hours straight the other day.." Mike said, continuing to press buttons until he shouted, "NO!"
"Yes! Yes! IN YOUR FUCKING FACE!" Tre yelled, dancing around. Mike chucked the controller and got off the floor, shutting off the T.v. and X-Box. "HEY! It didn't save yet."
"I know," Mike said, plopping down on the couch and I just had to let out a giggle. Tre muttered to himself before turning to me and patting the area of couch he had yet to take over.
"Coooooooome sit by meeeee," He sang, smiling big and looking like a little kid. He was cute in an odd sort of way and I went and sat down by him. Mike got up and took Billie into the kitchen to get something. "Soooooooo," he said, twiddling with his thumbs a bit. "What do you think of Billie?"
"He's cool," I said, unsure of where this was heading.
"Cool? NO! I'M COOL!" Tre said, puffing out his chest and wiggling his eyebrows. I couldn't stand it anymore and I bust out laughing, so hard that I fell off the couch and started to have a laughing attack. My sides started to hurt, but I couldn't stop laughing, even when Billie came in and try to calm me down. That only made it worse.
"N-nnooooo.. Don't touch me.." I said, laughing hysterically as I rolled over on my back. "I-It oooooonly makes it woooooooorse.." He looked at me like I was nuts, which only made me laugh harder and longer. It was a good ten minutes before they finally got me to stop laughing and by this time, Tre had challenged me to a drinking contest. I hate being challenged, so I took it. I mean, I'd had the occasional jello shooters, so this couldn't be much different, could it? Man, was I wrong. After about the fifth shot of whiskey, I was singing a mixture of "Welcome to Paradise," "Basket Case," "Homecoming," "Dominated Love Slave," and "Foxtrot, Uniform, Charlie, Kilo." Tre was laughing his ass off by the time I got to the seventh, in which I was, most definitely, drunk.
"I shouldgohommmme," I said, my words slurring together. "Where are the keeeeeyz?"
"You're drunk, you're not driving and I've had a few drinks, so I don't need another D.U.I.," Billie said. "We'll just stay over here tonight."
"I can't.." I started, passing out on Tre's couch.
The sun was shinning directly on me, making me groan and turn over. It felt like my brain was going to explode, it was pounding so hard and the sun was definitely not helping. Something next to me moved and I slowly opened an eye to see Billie, happily asleep with his arm around me. Okay.. This is weird, I thought, unable to move. What happened last night? Oww.. My head.. Billie let out some sort of sound like a sigh and I immediately closed my eyes. I thought that when I opened them, he'd be gone, but when I did open them again, I was staring directly into his and my heart began to race.
"Morning," he said, unaffected by the fact that his arm was still on me. I glanced down at his arm and then at him and back at his arm to where he finally moved it. Even though it was off of me, I could still feel the tingling feeling, like it was still there.
"Morning.." I said, sheepishly, when I remember my headache. "Oww.."
"What's wrong?" Billie asked, sitting up.
"I have the biggest headache.." I said, rubbing my head a bit when something hit my side. I looked down to see a bottle of aspirin laying on the couch, next to me.
"Here," Tre said, warning me at least before tossing a water bottle towards me. I caught it, and grabbed two pills out of the bottle, taking them.
"It'll take about a half hour to an hour to kick in, depending on how bad your hangover is," Tre explained.
"Thanks." He nodded and walked off, leaving Billie and me alone. It was awkward, especially since I found him asleep next to me this morning.
"So what do you think of Tre's house..?" Leave it to Billie Joe to break the silence.
"It's really nice," I said, with a, "I-Can't-Believe-I'm-Here," kind of look on my face. Billie smiled and laughed a little.
"Mine's nicer," He boasted.
"IS NOT!" Tre shouted from somewhere, causing me to giggle. Billie wiped his eyes, and I sat there, observing him. His hair was completely messed up and if you looked close enough, you could see his brown roots coming in. His eyeliner was smudged so badly it looked like he had been crying or sweating heavily, and the bags under his eyes were huge, but even through all of this, he looked so cute, I couldn't help but smile. He was tugging on my heartstrings and I had only known him for two days. This was pathetic.
"What?" Billie asked. He must have noticed me staring at him for so long. I blushed, my face going bright red.
"Nothing," I said and I got up as quickly as I could. "I should probably call Jessica to make sure she's not worried about me."
"Wouldn't she have called you by now?" He asked, confused.
"No.. I turned off my phone." My lips turned and twitched into a tainted smile, as I turned on my cellphone, which clearly read, "17 Missed Calls."
