A Note Never Came Easy, chapter 3
"You know what Billie Joe, you're like Chocolate."
"Chocolate?" He scoffed looking at me, and raising an eyebrow.
"Uh-huh." I confirmed with a nod of the head.
"And just explain to me why the hell I'm like chocolate."
I bit into a big piece of Chocolate from one of my Easter eggs.
It was Easter 2005. The time being late April.
Billie Joe and I had just settled down together for the first time, and it was probably the first time that we both accepted that we were in a relationship together.
A strong one of that, too.
We had both just been down town and collected a few bits, including a few Easter eggs here and there for family and friends, or just for ourselves.
I sat on the bed on my back, eating the chocolate with Billie Joe lying beside me, who was now looking up at me with intriguing green eyes.
His expressions made me laugh, biting oddly into the chocolate as I did.
"Because... because you just are." I told him.
I watched as he quirked an eyebrow, looking scared and confused at the same time.
"Ok," I started. "So, chocolate is... sweet. Chocolate is sweet, like ... you are! See. You are like chocolate. And it's tasty and it melts when you touch it --"
And as I said that his smile turned into a hot warm smile, the very one I had been describing.
I turned on my side and leaned over his chest.
"And... It's very, very, very addictive."
I smiled as he did too, before taking another bit and popping the rest into his mouth for him.
"I guess I should like being chocolate then." He suggested whilst eating, looking up at me with those green eyes of his as I leaned over him.
"Hmmm. I guess you should."
Leaning his arm up he took a loose strand of my hair that was hanging down the side of my face and tucked it behind my ear - before drawing his hand down the side of my face.
Slowly, I pressed my body against his and leaned forward so I was lying on top of him and kissed him slowly.
I seemed to melt against him like mould. I felt him graze past my teeth for a brief moment as he closed his eyes.
We locked a gaze for a moment and everything thing just seemed so right.
And I wanted us to be like this forever. I know it was early stages, but dam, if it was going to be this good, then I wanted it to last a lifetime.
Until the day that I died.
*
And that's exactly what Stef and Billie Joe did. They loved each other endlessly until like she said, the day she died.
But that day had happened sooner than they had both expected.
Walking through the City of San Francisco with his arms folded across his chest, he begged desperately in his mind for a miracle.
Even if it was a ray of sunshine in his life, just to make things better for him, maybe even painless.
He couldn't escape her. She was always there, haunting him and reminding him that she was dead and he was never going to see her again in his life.
As he walked down the boulevard that was relatively quiet considering what had happened in the city over the last few weeks, he would look up at the shop windows occasionally.
Walking past a chocolate one, it just reminded him of how Stef would sometimes resemble him to being chocolate himself, making him walk away from it to the other side of the road.
And soon enough, he found himself drifting off again as he just walked, thinking of the past and desperately wishing that he could turn back time.
*
I stirred suddenly in my sleep, the sudden movement waking me up with a jolt and breaking out into a cold sweat.
Swallowing back, I looked around the room with eyes that flew about like darts. My heart was racing and I could feel it in my throat.
"Oh my god... " I whispered to myself hoarsely. "Fuck... "
I put my hand to my forehead to see that I was ringing wet with sweat.
I had been dreaming, and I never wanted to go back to it again.
It had been Tom. He had been there, abusing me and beating me to the ground. And then when I had turned around, it had been Billie towering over me, kicking me and punching me in the stomach.
I knew Billie Joe would never even think about doing that to me, but just seeing him there in my dream doing it to me hit a trigger and made me feel empty at the pit of my stomach.
It made me sick.
I curled up into a ball, tucking my knees under my chin and shuffling away from Billie for the time being, who was sleeping peacefully next to me in the bed.
Again, I knew he wouldn't touch me in that way, but to say I wanted to stay away from him right now was all that I wanted to do.
It was... weird.
A weirdness that I didn't want to feel right now. I wanted the feeling to go away, it was disturbing me.
The image of him grabbing hold of my hair, pulling my head back and throwing a blow across my face was making me feel sick at the pit of my stomach, as well as driving me insane.
I started to shake a little, when unrepentantly; Billie Joe rolled over in his sleep and crushed me, making me jump out of my skin.
"What... what...?" He grumbled when I screamed and shot almost six foot in the air, shuffling away from him so I was practically sitting on the very edge of the bed.
He looked at me with fresh green eyes, ones that's had just been opened, and his senses not fully taking in any information.
He blinked a few times before yawning, reaching out to hold me.
"I didn't... mean to... crush you... " He mumbled as he shuffled nearer me and went to wrap his arms around my waist. "Come on, back... back to sleep... "
He yawned, but when his fingertips touched me, I reacted in way in which I thought I wouldn't.
Before he could fully take a grasp of me, I swatted him suddenly, shoving him off of me as he sort of fell back onto the pillow from the sudden force.
Turning to look at me with curious eyes, the pillow squashed underneath him as I stared back at him in the darkness, I tried not to shake still.
"Stef, what's wrong...?" He asked, narrowing his eyes.
I studied his face and I could just make out his features, as well as the various cuts and bruises here and there, not to mention the swollen jaw.
I still felt guilty about it.
It had been just over a week since Billie Joe had taken me to England after pleading with me. He had wanted to meet my mum and ask her to let go of her grip around me, so that he could look after me and just so I could sleep better at night.
But the outcome of the trip had turned out to be worse then I could imagine. My mum hated Billie Joe, and Tom had given him a bruising that could have easily killed him.
I'm surprised that he didn't end up in hospital or even have to pay a quick visit.
No wonder why I was having these nightmares still about Tom coming to get me.
But Billie Joe abusing me...?
That was chilling to the bone.
"Stef, what's... what's wrong with you...?" He almost whispered, reaching out to touch me again.
"Don't!" I yelled, staring at his hand that neared towards me.
"Don't... don't what...?" He asked confusingly.
Instead of answering him, I shook my head violently at his hand, as he drew it back.
"Don't touch you...?" He inquired, looking a little scared.
I bit my lip as I nodded my head slowly at him.
"I'm not going to hurt you." He told me softly, edging near as I started to whimper.
"Stef, what's wrong? Please tell me babe." He begged, sitting up in the bed as I buried my head in my hands.
"He got me." I whimpered.
"Who...?" He asked before answering his own question. "Oh shit... "
I started to cry as Billie looked at me saddened.
Leaning forward he went to cradle me when I shook him off again.
"No! Don't touch me, it hurts. I don't want to be hit again." I yelled at him, not realizing I was doing it.
Billie's eyes widened suddenly as he looked at me carefully, studying my profile.
"Oh shit... you're... you're bad this time... "
He didn't mean it in the sense that I was a bad person, just that my dream had affected me really badly. I always got them bad, even as a child I had been paralyzed in my own dreams, trapping me inside of them.
"Stef, it's ok now." He started to talk to me soothingly. "Nobody's going to hurt you. He's thousands of miles away and he can't get you because I'm here to protect you. And I certainly won't hurt you."
I looked up at him with tearful eyes, wanting to hug him tight but my body was rigid.
Swallowing back a lump in his throat he sat himself in front of me on the bed, crossing his legs Indian style in just his gray boxers.
"Ok, well," he sighed, trying to help. "You touch me, and then I touch you yeah?"
I nodded timidly at him in the darkness of the room.
He sighed once again.
"Ok, so... " He indicated towards himself with his hands. "Touch me."
I looked at him, unsure.
"Come on, touch me. I'm not going to hurt you."
After a pause I slowly reached my hand towards his arm, his eyes following it. I hesitated for a bit, my hand just in the air before I suddenly placed it upon his arm.
He looked at me and nodded.
"Ok, good. Good."
I took my hand away from him, taking a deep intake of air.
"Ok, so can I touch you now?" He asked.
I nodded slowly as he too reached out his hand and gently placed it on my arm.
"Ok, that's good. This is... better." He told me, taking his hand away, and looking at me again. "Now your turn again."
I reached out towards his face and slowly, still slightly shaking, I placed it on his cheek and the side.
He smiled at me softly. "That's good. Now... "
With my hand still on the side of his face, he reached out and did exactly the same as I had done. So we sat there, the both of us, with our hands on each other's faces.
Staring into his eyes I felt a sense of relief, but I was still shit scared from my dream.
Daring, I suddenly put my hand out and placed it on the top half of his leg.
"That's really good." He smiled, seeing that I was making progress.
He then followed me once again and placed his own hand on my leg, keeping eye contact with me.
And then slowly, he moved his hand from off of my leg to on my waist, careful not to set me off, and then other on the other side of me.
Gently he pulled me forward across the bed so that our knees were touching.
Suddenly I threw myself at him and hugged him tight.
"I'm sorry, I... I didn't think you would but... I couldn't... my body wouldn't move... I -- "
"It's ok Hun." He told me, stroking my hair. "I understand. Just let it all out."
After a while he turned back to me.
"You wanna try and get some sleep now?"
I nodded my head once again.
"We've got a couple of hours left."
Taking me with him, he snuggled down under the sheets, draping them over our bodies and up to our heads, pulling me so close to him.
I rested my head under his chin and closed my eyes as I let him embrace me, keep me safe from my demons.
"And I'm always here for you. If you're having a bad dream again, I'll wake you up and make sure that you're ok. No one's going to get you, and you're safe here. He's gone, I made sure of that."
I felt him wrap his arm around me and keep me locked in his frame, and I felt so safe with him.
And that's where I feel asleep - tightly wrapped up inside of Billie Joe, who soon found himself falling asleep too.
*
Billie Joe sauntered through the streets, looking around dazed, his surroundings being all too familiar to him.
Maybe this is a dream. Maybe I am dreaming all of this and this is all in my head. It's all in my head... it's all in my head...
He was so desperate for things to be how they used to be right now.
He turned around the corner and there in front of him, were the remains of the restaurant that he, Stef, Mike and Tre had been sitting in when the blasts had happened. Police tape blocked off the area and onwards, access denied to anyone as work had started in trying to clear the destruction.
Knowing that he shouldn't, Billie Joe edged nearer and stared at the crumbled building until he was standing against the line of tape for a few minutes.
Without even thinking, the desperate punk rocker slid underneath the tape and started to trudge through the mass of toppled buildings and vehicles that had been there almost 4 weeks now.
He didn't even think of the consequences, he just did it.
He passed over the rubble that had been the restaurant he had been sitting in a few weeks ago, noticing how a deformed table lied crushed under tons of fallen brick-lay.
It could have even been the one that he had been sitting at, who knows.
Looking around him carefully, he reached the other side of the mound of rubble and out into the open, and something about it him suddenly.
What he was seeing was just horrific. All of the buildings were either in heaps of rubble or only just standing still, the signs of a fire visible in them.
There was the car that he had ran into when leading Stef out of the restaurant. He still had the bruise on his thighs to prove it.
*
Looking around desperately, Billie Joe silently led me off down the smoke like blizzard boulevard, crashing into a car on the way that went unseen - causing him to double up in pain for a minute before he shook it off and carried on.
*
Shuddering, he continued to walk down the deserted and massacred boulevard, careful not to tread on anything that might harm him.
There was something about it that haunted him. Hundreds of people had lost their lives here, and it disturbed him a little.
He was half expecting someone to jump out at him, it was that quiet.
And then, looking to the side of him, he saw the scattered scaffolding. He knew what was to come after that, he just didn't want to look.
Staring at the scaffolding as if it was the burden of his pain, he then slowly moved his head to look before him.
Walking towards it, he stopped a few feet before and just stared with tearful eyes.
He stared at the place where Stef had died in his arms.
There were still even the bloodstains on the ground.
"Excuse me... you know you're not supposed to be here... Can I help you?" A police officer asked Billie Joe, walking up behind him.
Someone must have seen the guitarist break through the barrier and asserted the police.
The punk rocker looked around to see the authority figure standing there, where a questioning look on his face.
"Erm, yeah." He replied, trying to fight back the tears as he stared at the ground at that exact spot.
The officer stepped forward next to the smaller man to listen as he continued to hold his gaze at the space before his feet.
"I've... I've lost someone."
"Ok, so a report of someone missing yeah?"
Billie Joe didn't answer, but the officer still dug into his back pocket and whipped out his note pad and pencil, finding a clean page.
"What's her/his name?"
"Her." Billie Joe corrected him. "And her name is, is... Stef Ricketts."
"Ok, so when was she last seen?"
"A... A few weeks ago." The guitarist managed to say, stumbling over his words. "The... the, erm, the 4th of March."
"So, a while back then yeah?" The officer asked whilst writing the information.
Billie Joe gulped, nodding his head before replying with a simple, "Yeah."
"How old is she?"
"19."
"19 years old," he repeated again before going onto the next question. "Can you tell me where you last saw her sir?"
"Yeah. Right this spot, right here." He spoke, chocking back, gesturing with his head to the ground in front of him.
The officer followed his nod to the space in front of them, raising an eyebrow at the space and turning back to his note pad.
"She's, she's in my arms... "
"Ok. And can you tell what this person looks like?"
"She has... long brown hair, that's so soft and has red highlights at the front that was only done a few months ago. She has, blue eyes -- "
He thought back to her and the way she looked, wanting to smile at the thought of her but it hurt him too much and the first signs of tears took over the little positive energy he had left inside of him.
"She, she's a little shorter than me. I - I can't remember her height exact. She's slim, and she's so good to hold."
The officer looked over his pad at the emotional wreck Billie Joe was as he continued to describe her, but in a way that made the bigger man raise an eyebrow or two.
"She's so sweet," Billie Joe continued as a tear fell down his cheek. "And she's got one of the warmest smiles ever."
He stopped as he snivelled, looking back at the spot in front of him, where he last saw Stef.
Where he last held her, kissed her, told her that he loved her.
As the officer closed his note pad and went to put away, Billie Joe turned to him again quickly.
"Oh yeah, and did I tell you that she's covered in blood?"
The officer looked at him with concern, confused and not sure what to say as he started to babble in front of him.
"She's covered in blood and she has the pole through her leg and a head injury."
He turned back to the spot, staring and trembling before it.
"She's covered in blood and she's... dead... "
Slowly he fell to his knees, before bursting into a fit of sobs.
"And I've lost her. Someone took her from me and I need to find her... "
"Chocolate?" He scoffed looking at me, and raising an eyebrow.
"Uh-huh." I confirmed with a nod of the head.
"And just explain to me why the hell I'm like chocolate."
I bit into a big piece of Chocolate from one of my Easter eggs.
It was Easter 2005. The time being late April.
Billie Joe and I had just settled down together for the first time, and it was probably the first time that we both accepted that we were in a relationship together.
A strong one of that, too.
We had both just been down town and collected a few bits, including a few Easter eggs here and there for family and friends, or just for ourselves.
I sat on the bed on my back, eating the chocolate with Billie Joe lying beside me, who was now looking up at me with intriguing green eyes.
His expressions made me laugh, biting oddly into the chocolate as I did.
"Because... because you just are." I told him.
I watched as he quirked an eyebrow, looking scared and confused at the same time.
"Ok," I started. "So, chocolate is... sweet. Chocolate is sweet, like ... you are! See. You are like chocolate. And it's tasty and it melts when you touch it --"
And as I said that his smile turned into a hot warm smile, the very one I had been describing.
I turned on my side and leaned over his chest.
"And... It's very, very, very addictive."
I smiled as he did too, before taking another bit and popping the rest into his mouth for him.
"I guess I should like being chocolate then." He suggested whilst eating, looking up at me with those green eyes of his as I leaned over him.
"Hmmm. I guess you should."
Leaning his arm up he took a loose strand of my hair that was hanging down the side of my face and tucked it behind my ear - before drawing his hand down the side of my face.
Slowly, I pressed my body against his and leaned forward so I was lying on top of him and kissed him slowly.
I seemed to melt against him like mould. I felt him graze past my teeth for a brief moment as he closed his eyes.
We locked a gaze for a moment and everything thing just seemed so right.
And I wanted us to be like this forever. I know it was early stages, but dam, if it was going to be this good, then I wanted it to last a lifetime.
Until the day that I died.
*
And that's exactly what Stef and Billie Joe did. They loved each other endlessly until like she said, the day she died.
But that day had happened sooner than they had both expected.
Walking through the City of San Francisco with his arms folded across his chest, he begged desperately in his mind for a miracle.
Even if it was a ray of sunshine in his life, just to make things better for him, maybe even painless.
He couldn't escape her. She was always there, haunting him and reminding him that she was dead and he was never going to see her again in his life.
As he walked down the boulevard that was relatively quiet considering what had happened in the city over the last few weeks, he would look up at the shop windows occasionally.
Walking past a chocolate one, it just reminded him of how Stef would sometimes resemble him to being chocolate himself, making him walk away from it to the other side of the road.
And soon enough, he found himself drifting off again as he just walked, thinking of the past and desperately wishing that he could turn back time.
*
I stirred suddenly in my sleep, the sudden movement waking me up with a jolt and breaking out into a cold sweat.
Swallowing back, I looked around the room with eyes that flew about like darts. My heart was racing and I could feel it in my throat.
"Oh my god... " I whispered to myself hoarsely. "Fuck... "
I put my hand to my forehead to see that I was ringing wet with sweat.
I had been dreaming, and I never wanted to go back to it again.
It had been Tom. He had been there, abusing me and beating me to the ground. And then when I had turned around, it had been Billie towering over me, kicking me and punching me in the stomach.
I knew Billie Joe would never even think about doing that to me, but just seeing him there in my dream doing it to me hit a trigger and made me feel empty at the pit of my stomach.
It made me sick.
I curled up into a ball, tucking my knees under my chin and shuffling away from Billie for the time being, who was sleeping peacefully next to me in the bed.
Again, I knew he wouldn't touch me in that way, but to say I wanted to stay away from him right now was all that I wanted to do.
It was... weird.
A weirdness that I didn't want to feel right now. I wanted the feeling to go away, it was disturbing me.
The image of him grabbing hold of my hair, pulling my head back and throwing a blow across my face was making me feel sick at the pit of my stomach, as well as driving me insane.
I started to shake a little, when unrepentantly; Billie Joe rolled over in his sleep and crushed me, making me jump out of my skin.
"What... what...?" He grumbled when I screamed and shot almost six foot in the air, shuffling away from him so I was practically sitting on the very edge of the bed.
He looked at me with fresh green eyes, ones that's had just been opened, and his senses not fully taking in any information.
He blinked a few times before yawning, reaching out to hold me.
"I didn't... mean to... crush you... " He mumbled as he shuffled nearer me and went to wrap his arms around my waist. "Come on, back... back to sleep... "
He yawned, but when his fingertips touched me, I reacted in way in which I thought I wouldn't.
Before he could fully take a grasp of me, I swatted him suddenly, shoving him off of me as he sort of fell back onto the pillow from the sudden force.
Turning to look at me with curious eyes, the pillow squashed underneath him as I stared back at him in the darkness, I tried not to shake still.
"Stef, what's wrong...?" He asked, narrowing his eyes.
I studied his face and I could just make out his features, as well as the various cuts and bruises here and there, not to mention the swollen jaw.
I still felt guilty about it.
It had been just over a week since Billie Joe had taken me to England after pleading with me. He had wanted to meet my mum and ask her to let go of her grip around me, so that he could look after me and just so I could sleep better at night.
But the outcome of the trip had turned out to be worse then I could imagine. My mum hated Billie Joe, and Tom had given him a bruising that could have easily killed him.
I'm surprised that he didn't end up in hospital or even have to pay a quick visit.
No wonder why I was having these nightmares still about Tom coming to get me.
But Billie Joe abusing me...?
That was chilling to the bone.
"Stef, what's... what's wrong with you...?" He almost whispered, reaching out to touch me again.
"Don't!" I yelled, staring at his hand that neared towards me.
"Don't... don't what...?" He asked confusingly.
Instead of answering him, I shook my head violently at his hand, as he drew it back.
"Don't touch you...?" He inquired, looking a little scared.
I bit my lip as I nodded my head slowly at him.
"I'm not going to hurt you." He told me softly, edging near as I started to whimper.
"Stef, what's wrong? Please tell me babe." He begged, sitting up in the bed as I buried my head in my hands.
"He got me." I whimpered.
"Who...?" He asked before answering his own question. "Oh shit... "
I started to cry as Billie looked at me saddened.
Leaning forward he went to cradle me when I shook him off again.
"No! Don't touch me, it hurts. I don't want to be hit again." I yelled at him, not realizing I was doing it.
Billie's eyes widened suddenly as he looked at me carefully, studying my profile.
"Oh shit... you're... you're bad this time... "
He didn't mean it in the sense that I was a bad person, just that my dream had affected me really badly. I always got them bad, even as a child I had been paralyzed in my own dreams, trapping me inside of them.
"Stef, it's ok now." He started to talk to me soothingly. "Nobody's going to hurt you. He's thousands of miles away and he can't get you because I'm here to protect you. And I certainly won't hurt you."
I looked up at him with tearful eyes, wanting to hug him tight but my body was rigid.
Swallowing back a lump in his throat he sat himself in front of me on the bed, crossing his legs Indian style in just his gray boxers.
"Ok, well," he sighed, trying to help. "You touch me, and then I touch you yeah?"
I nodded timidly at him in the darkness of the room.
He sighed once again.
"Ok, so... " He indicated towards himself with his hands. "Touch me."
I looked at him, unsure.
"Come on, touch me. I'm not going to hurt you."
After a pause I slowly reached my hand towards his arm, his eyes following it. I hesitated for a bit, my hand just in the air before I suddenly placed it upon his arm.
He looked at me and nodded.
"Ok, good. Good."
I took my hand away from him, taking a deep intake of air.
"Ok, so can I touch you now?" He asked.
I nodded slowly as he too reached out his hand and gently placed it on my arm.
"Ok, that's good. This is... better." He told me, taking his hand away, and looking at me again. "Now your turn again."
I reached out towards his face and slowly, still slightly shaking, I placed it on his cheek and the side.
He smiled at me softly. "That's good. Now... "
With my hand still on the side of his face, he reached out and did exactly the same as I had done. So we sat there, the both of us, with our hands on each other's faces.
Staring into his eyes I felt a sense of relief, but I was still shit scared from my dream.
Daring, I suddenly put my hand out and placed it on the top half of his leg.
"That's really good." He smiled, seeing that I was making progress.
He then followed me once again and placed his own hand on my leg, keeping eye contact with me.
And then slowly, he moved his hand from off of my leg to on my waist, careful not to set me off, and then other on the other side of me.
Gently he pulled me forward across the bed so that our knees were touching.
Suddenly I threw myself at him and hugged him tight.
"I'm sorry, I... I didn't think you would but... I couldn't... my body wouldn't move... I -- "
"It's ok Hun." He told me, stroking my hair. "I understand. Just let it all out."
After a while he turned back to me.
"You wanna try and get some sleep now?"
I nodded my head once again.
"We've got a couple of hours left."
Taking me with him, he snuggled down under the sheets, draping them over our bodies and up to our heads, pulling me so close to him.
I rested my head under his chin and closed my eyes as I let him embrace me, keep me safe from my demons.
"And I'm always here for you. If you're having a bad dream again, I'll wake you up and make sure that you're ok. No one's going to get you, and you're safe here. He's gone, I made sure of that."
I felt him wrap his arm around me and keep me locked in his frame, and I felt so safe with him.
And that's where I feel asleep - tightly wrapped up inside of Billie Joe, who soon found himself falling asleep too.
*
Billie Joe sauntered through the streets, looking around dazed, his surroundings being all too familiar to him.
Maybe this is a dream. Maybe I am dreaming all of this and this is all in my head. It's all in my head... it's all in my head...
He was so desperate for things to be how they used to be right now.
He turned around the corner and there in front of him, were the remains of the restaurant that he, Stef, Mike and Tre had been sitting in when the blasts had happened. Police tape blocked off the area and onwards, access denied to anyone as work had started in trying to clear the destruction.
Knowing that he shouldn't, Billie Joe edged nearer and stared at the crumbled building until he was standing against the line of tape for a few minutes.
Without even thinking, the desperate punk rocker slid underneath the tape and started to trudge through the mass of toppled buildings and vehicles that had been there almost 4 weeks now.
He didn't even think of the consequences, he just did it.
He passed over the rubble that had been the restaurant he had been sitting in a few weeks ago, noticing how a deformed table lied crushed under tons of fallen brick-lay.
It could have even been the one that he had been sitting at, who knows.
Looking around him carefully, he reached the other side of the mound of rubble and out into the open, and something about it him suddenly.
What he was seeing was just horrific. All of the buildings were either in heaps of rubble or only just standing still, the signs of a fire visible in them.
There was the car that he had ran into when leading Stef out of the restaurant. He still had the bruise on his thighs to prove it.
*
Looking around desperately, Billie Joe silently led me off down the smoke like blizzard boulevard, crashing into a car on the way that went unseen - causing him to double up in pain for a minute before he shook it off and carried on.
*
Shuddering, he continued to walk down the deserted and massacred boulevard, careful not to tread on anything that might harm him.
There was something about it that haunted him. Hundreds of people had lost their lives here, and it disturbed him a little.
He was half expecting someone to jump out at him, it was that quiet.
And then, looking to the side of him, he saw the scattered scaffolding. He knew what was to come after that, he just didn't want to look.
Staring at the scaffolding as if it was the burden of his pain, he then slowly moved his head to look before him.
Walking towards it, he stopped a few feet before and just stared with tearful eyes.
He stared at the place where Stef had died in his arms.
There were still even the bloodstains on the ground.
"Excuse me... you know you're not supposed to be here... Can I help you?" A police officer asked Billie Joe, walking up behind him.
Someone must have seen the guitarist break through the barrier and asserted the police.
The punk rocker looked around to see the authority figure standing there, where a questioning look on his face.
"Erm, yeah." He replied, trying to fight back the tears as he stared at the ground at that exact spot.
The officer stepped forward next to the smaller man to listen as he continued to hold his gaze at the space before his feet.
"I've... I've lost someone."
"Ok, so a report of someone missing yeah?"
Billie Joe didn't answer, but the officer still dug into his back pocket and whipped out his note pad and pencil, finding a clean page.
"What's her/his name?"
"Her." Billie Joe corrected him. "And her name is, is... Stef Ricketts."
"Ok, so when was she last seen?"
"A... A few weeks ago." The guitarist managed to say, stumbling over his words. "The... the, erm, the 4th of March."
"So, a while back then yeah?" The officer asked whilst writing the information.
Billie Joe gulped, nodding his head before replying with a simple, "Yeah."
"How old is she?"
"19."
"19 years old," he repeated again before going onto the next question. "Can you tell me where you last saw her sir?"
"Yeah. Right this spot, right here." He spoke, chocking back, gesturing with his head to the ground in front of him.
The officer followed his nod to the space in front of them, raising an eyebrow at the space and turning back to his note pad.
"She's, she's in my arms... "
"Ok. And can you tell what this person looks like?"
"She has... long brown hair, that's so soft and has red highlights at the front that was only done a few months ago. She has, blue eyes -- "
He thought back to her and the way she looked, wanting to smile at the thought of her but it hurt him too much and the first signs of tears took over the little positive energy he had left inside of him.
"She, she's a little shorter than me. I - I can't remember her height exact. She's slim, and she's so good to hold."
The officer looked over his pad at the emotional wreck Billie Joe was as he continued to describe her, but in a way that made the bigger man raise an eyebrow or two.
"She's so sweet," Billie Joe continued as a tear fell down his cheek. "And she's got one of the warmest smiles ever."
He stopped as he snivelled, looking back at the spot in front of him, where he last saw Stef.
Where he last held her, kissed her, told her that he loved her.
As the officer closed his note pad and went to put away, Billie Joe turned to him again quickly.
"Oh yeah, and did I tell you that she's covered in blood?"
The officer looked at him with concern, confused and not sure what to say as he started to babble in front of him.
"She's covered in blood and she has the pole through her leg and a head injury."
He turned back to the spot, staring and trembling before it.
"She's covered in blood and she's... dead... "
Slowly he fell to his knees, before bursting into a fit of sobs.
"And I've lost her. Someone took her from me and I need to find her... "
