Roxanne

As if fire had been set to both Billie and I, we separated in what I honestly believed had to have been less than a second.

Billie stared at me with wide, confused eyes at the angry voice that had shrieked my name in such unbelievable anger while I stared back at him with just as wide eyes, however, there was absolutely no confusion on my part. I knew exactly who had called my name. Before I had had any time to get my thoughts in order, however, the angry shrieking had continued.

“What the fuck is this?” Was snarled at me. I turned and looked over Billie’s shoulder slowly to see none other than my aunt standing at the other side of the pool with a look that would have made a cold blooded killer cower.

I felt sick. Not the sick that I had felt before when Billie had first decided to make out with me this afternoon, but actually physically sick. There were no butterflies or birds in my stomach anymore, at this point they had probably been killed by the look of fury upon my aunts’ face. Rather than a nauseous feeling caused by excitement, I was almost positive that I was going to vomit.

“Aunt Jen,” I managed. My eyes flickered back to Billie, whose back was to my aunt thankfully. I watched as his face paled a considerable amount. Almost immediately did I hoist myself out of the pool and then reach out to help Billie. He seemed to hesitate, as if honestly having an internal battle with himself as to whether he should have or should not have gotten out of the pool. After a moment, he took my hand and hoisted himself out, too.

“What the fuck is going on, Roxanne?” My aunt continued to snarl. “Who the fuck is he?”

I swallowed thickly. To be honest, I was thoroughly considering lying to her about Billie’s name, as if lying to her about his name would save him or something. I wanted so desperately to get Billie out and away from this situation. “This is Billie,” I finally admitted. I was quite surprised she had heard me considering I was barely audible.

“Billie?” She spat. I watched as her eyes went back and forth from him to eye. “And how exactly do you know Billie, Roxanne?” She snarled. “I’ve mean, you’ve only been here for less than a week, so please do tell.”

“He’s, uh,” I paused as I felt myself begin to tear up. I was almost literally choking on my tears. “He’s-he’s, uh, he’s from the plane,” I stumbled out. A soft sob followed those words. Although neither Billie’s nor my body had been touching each other’s, I could feel him tense up next to me once he had become aware of the fact that I was beginning to cry.

As if being yelled at and mortified by my aunt wasn’t enough punishment, I had actually begun to cry. Jesus Christ, I was such a baby. I couldn’t even stand up for Billie and myself, all I was able to do was cry. If I thought I had been mortified in front of Billie all of those times we had been together and I had embarrassed myself, the amount of humiliation I was currently feeling at the moment was enough to kill me.

“The one from the plane?” My aunt asked. “The one that you supposedly knew nothing about?” She scoffed loudly. “You seem to know enough about him to have your tongue shoved down his throat.”

“I didn’t know anything about him!” I cried out. It felt as if my aunt was making me out to be easy. I may have been a teenage girl, but I was most certainly not easy. I had been in a monogamous relationship for the past seven years of my life. “We ran into each other at a grocery store a few days after I got here. He’s been showing me around,” I paused as yet another sob bubbled in my throat, “please, Aunt Jen, you have to let me explain.”

“Let you explain what, Roxanne?” She sneered. “Let you explain how I came home on my lunch break to catch you making out with some fucking man that you don’t even know? How about you explain to me how literally the only rule I gave to you was to not have me come home to find you doing shit like this!” My aunt laughed loudly, however there was no humor behind it. “Showing you around?” She hissed. Her eyes fell upon him as her lip curled in disgust. “Yeah, it seems like he’s really giving you the ol’ tour of California from my goddamn swimming pool with his tongue down your throat. What a gentleman.” She paused with the same disgusted scowl on her face. “How fucking old is he, Roxanne?” She looked back over to me. “And don’t you dare tell me he’s your goddamn age because he looks like he’s old enough for me to be dating.”

I didn’t want to tell her. By god, I would much rather have thrown myself into that very pool and drowned myself right then than ever telling her how old Billie was. While Billie and I had grown comfortable around each other, having already discussed our unusual age difference multiple times, however also managing to not care, it was apparent that my aunt was not at all as tolerant as the two of us.

“Please, Aunt Jen,” I pleaded pathetically. There was now a steady stream of tears flowing down my cheeks. “Please, just listen to me, please.” I couldn’t understand how someone could ignore the desperation in my voice so easily. It was almost as if my aunt wasn’t hearing me at all.

“How old is he, Roxanne?”

I wanted to lie to her. I wanted to blatantly lie and tell her that Billie was twenty five. While I knew damn well that twenty five probably wouldn’t have helped us at all, it still would soften the blow from thirty one. If Billie hadn’t been standing at my side and I knew that it wouldn’t have hurt him, I would have absolutely lied to my aunt. “Thirty one,” I whimpered. I winced as soon as the words left my mouth.

“Excuse me?” She hissed. “He’s how old?” I was going to vomit. There was absolutely no way I could handle what was about to be thrown at Billie and I. I wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball at that very moment and just make everything stop. “Thirty one?” Her eyes flashed to Billie. “That’s disgusting and you should be ashamed of yourself.” She was speaking to Billie now rather than me.

I wished that she had still been yelling at me. Anyone but Billie, please anyone but Billie.

I watched as Billie opened his mouth to speak, however decided against it several times. He ended up not speaking at all. While I knew damn well from my first experience of meeting Billie that he was somewhat of a hothead and a large part of me had wanted him to start yelling back at my aunt, I was currently somewhat glad that he was so obviously biting my tongue. Had Billie actually fired back at my aunt, lord only knows as to how she would have handled that.

My aunt must have decided that that Billie’s silence had been an invitation for her to speak more. “Don’t you have anything better to do than to prey on fucking eighteen year olds?” She snarled at him. “How dare you put your grimy ass hands on my niece—I don’t give a fucking as to what’s legal or not you scumbag, what you’re doing is disgusting.” She scoffed loudly at him.

“Please stop,” I cried. I sounded so pathetic. It was revolting—I was revolting. I loathed myself. It had been because of me that my aunt had been spitting insults at Billie as if there had been no tomorrow. Billie was the last person to receive any type of insult from her. She should have been thanking him for being such a gentleman. Billie had been the one to help me to California to begin with and then, once we had gotten here, he had taken me out and had bought me lunch and dinner on two different occasions. Billie was the only reason that I was not still a sulking mess because of Bryan Bates.

“Get out of my house,” she hissed to him. “If you don’t leave my property within the next five minutes, I’ll be happy to call the cops, who I’m sure will have no problem kindly showing you how to leave.”

Despite the tears that were sliding down my cheeks slowly and the overwhelming feeling of sadness that I had been currently dealing with, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. Kicking Billie off of her property was such a ridiculously melodramatic move of my aunt to make.

However, as terrible as it sounded, at the same time I was almost glad that my aunt was being disgustingly overdramatic and kicking Billie off of the property. As desperately as I had wanted the beautiful man to stay with me, I also wanted him to be as far as humanly possible away from my aunt. While I knew that I would be able to handle my aunt yelling at me considering how alike my father she was, I didn’t want him to be insulted or yelled at anymore. As much as I wanted Billie to stay and be with me, I was almost ecstatic that he was forced to go.

Out of the corners of my eyes I saw Billie turn his head a bit, as if to subtly catch my eyes. Although he never spoke it, I knew damn well he was asking me what he should do. I nodded slightly, as if to tell him it was alright to go. I wouldn’t feel betrayed by him or hurt or any such ridiculous emotion in a time like this. Rather than taking my word and leaving right away, Billie continued to stare at me for a few moments in question until he was positive that I was telling him to go. Once he came to the conclusion that I wasn’t lying and that he really was alright to leave, and that it was actually probably the best thing for him to do at that point and time, he reached over and squeezed my arm quickly, however thoughtfully.

Before I had the time to accept the fact that Billie was actually leaving despite the fact that I had encouraged him to do so, he had shot one final nasty look at my aunt and had gone. The only good thing in my life at the very moment, was once again gone. While I knew that I had barely known Billie and that I had lived all eighteen years of my life without knowing of his existence, feeling nothing but the air at my side created an almost empty feeling in the pit of my stomach.

As if my aunt screaming at me hadn’t been enough to cry, I was beginning to feel helplessly alone.

As soon as Billie had escaped through the gate that lead to my aunt’s from yard, my aunt picked up what had unknowingly been Billie’s shirt and thrown it relatively harshly at me. “Put this on and get inside,” she snarled. Once I had realized that it was Billie’s white Misfits t-shirt, I quickly pulled it over my head. As pathetic as it makes me sound, it felt so nice to still have a part of Billie with me, even if it wasn’t physically him. Once noticing that my aunt had already turned her back on me and was heading inside, I lifted the collar of the t-shirt to take a quick whiff of it. It smelt faintly of cologne and cigarettes. Not before taking a few more whiffs of his shirt, I quickly grabbed my cell phone from the patio and slowly dragged myself inside of my aunts’ house.

When I had gotten inside, I found my aunt sitting at the island in the middle of her kitchen, tapping her nails along the marble angrily. As soon as she realized my presence, she scoffed loudly. Despite the melancholy feeling that was controlling my emotions at the moment, I couldn’t help but be angry with her. She hadn’t even bothered to listen to me, yet there she was, scoffing and scowling at me.

“He’s not what you think he is,” I stated once I realized that she wasn’t going to bother speaking to me.

“Oh bullshit, Roxanne,” my aunt snarled. “You don’t even know him, how dare you tell me he’s not what I think he is!” She had stood up from where she was sitting and was now back to yelling at me. “He is a thirty one year old disgusting pedophile. You really find nothing wrong with what you were doing?!”

“He’s not a pedophile,” I snapped. My aunt looked just as surprised as I felt. Clearly neither of us had been expecting me to have had such an outspoken opinion. I was the shy, quiet girl from Connecticut. I overthought everything. Never had I thought that I would have spoken back at my aunt with such an attitude. I was proud of myself. Truth be told, I couldn’t wait to tell Billie.

That is, if he ever spoke to me again.

“Roxanne, he’s thirty one years old!” My aunt cried. “He should be married or dating someone his own age, not shoving his tongue down an eighteen year olds throat! That’s disgusting.”

“He’s not disgusting!” I cried out. I found myself taking her insults towards Billie quite personally. While no, I hadn’t exactly been best friends with Billie for my entire damn life, I was damn sure of what he was not. When Billie had found out that I was eighteen in the supermarket that day, I had been damn near positive that he was going to pass out. It wasn’t as if he had found out I was eighteen and began to hump my leg within the next few minutes. “It’s not as if he came over here today and forced me to kiss him, I wanted to,” I snapped. My aunt looked positively disgusted. “I like him,” I added.

“You’re young and naïve!” My aunt snapped. “What were you thinking, Roxanne?” She scowled loudly at me. “I was worried enough that I’d come home and find you attached to some other eighteen year olds hip, not some goddamn thirty one year old!” She shook her head slowly and lifted a hand to brush her bangs from her forehead.

I was angry. Just because I was eighteen didn’t automatically mean I was naïve and had just gone and allowed Billie to make out with me because he looked like a nice guy. I was no longer twelve years old, nobody had to worry about me taking candy from strangers. Had my aunt taken any time to actually sit down and completely listen to me, there was a chance that I could have changed her opinion at least somewhat. Instead, however, she had decided to ignore any explanation I had and to continue to tell me how stupid and naïve I was—she was exactly like my father.

“I don’t want you seeing him again, Roxanne,” my aunt stated once she noticed I wasn’t going to respond to her ridiculous accusations. “Don’t make me call your parents and place you on the first flight home.” She sighed softly, almost sadly. “What are you doing, Roxanne? This is so unlike you.”

“Yeah,” I snapped angrily. “Anything involving me doing anything other than dating Bryan Bates is unlike me considering I’ve been doing it for the past eight years of my life.” I ran a hand through my hair angrily, doing my absolute best to calm myself down. How dare she tell me not to see Billie anymore, I was eighteen years old. I was a legal adult. While I understood that that didn’t mean I had complete control of my life seeing how I still lived with my parents, I believed that I was now old enough to make my own decisions for myself, including who I did and did not see. “Billie and I have discussed our age differences multiple times, Aunt Jen,” I stated. “He made sure all of those times that I was alright with the fact that he is thirty one years old.”

“And you are?” She asked in disgust. “Really, Roxanne? You’re alright with a thirty one year old pervert being interested in you? No man in his right mind at thirty one years old would even look at a teenager.”

“He thought I was older originally,” I argued. “And I thought he was younger. He’s the blonde that helped me get here. He bumped into me at the grocery store a few days after I got here. We had no idea how old each other was!”

“And when you found out you two should have cut everything off immediately!” She cried out. “How can you not understand how disturbing this is? You’re barely even eighteen! That is not a teenager that you were just with, Roxanne—that is a fully-grown man! He’s not looking for what you are!” She sighed heavily. “He doesn’t want to date you, Roxanne. He doesn’t want a family with you! He wants to fuck you and continue onto the next one! He is a creep.”

I don’t think I had ever been more insulted in the entire eighteen years that I had lived. My aunt was exactly like my father, she was sure that she had known everything about everyone and every damn situation automatically. She refused to be wrong. It was such a disgusting trait that she and my father shared.

While I was well aware of the fact that Billie was indeed a man and therefore there had been absolutely no doubt in my mind at all that the idea of sex either with or without me had crossed his mind more than likely quite a few times within the past few days, I had become damn near positive that it was safe to say that Billie was not using me as my aunt had been so convinced of. Just because Billie was a man that, true, was indeed older than me certainly didn’t mean that he was a pig that’s only motive was to screw me and leave.

Truth be told, with how vulnerable I had become due to being dumped by Bryan, if Billie had really wanted to have had his way with me and leave, he probably would have already have been able to do so.

My aunt was the naïve one in this situation, not me for once.

“He’s not a creep!” I cried out. I wish she had been Bryan so I could have slapped her for insulting Billie so much. Quite honestly, if she was going to act as ridiculous as she had been that afternoon, perhaps I wanted to go home. If she wasn’t going to allow me to see Billie anymore, what reason did I really have to stay in California? It was safe to say that I was fairly over Bryan Bates and that sending me to California had done its job. Now, however, I’d have to go through somewhat of the same thing by returning home to Connecticut.

Perhaps sending me back to Connecticut now, before I had had the chance to really fall for Billie, was actually good idea.

“Fine,” I snarled. “You want to send me back? Send me back. I’m apparently meant to be miserable no matter where I go. I’ll go pack my stuff.” Before my aunt could even bother to muster up another comment I took off out of the kitchen and up to the room that had been mine for only about a week.

Once I had gotten to my room I pulled my suitcase from the closet in a fit of fury. It was when I had thrown open the suitcase and began to grab things to throw into it that I found myself slowing down to the point where I had actually sat down on the bed. While sending me home at the moment was perhaps the smartest move, it really hadn’t been what I wanted.

What I wanted to wake up that morning all over again and have a new chance at the day. I wanted to re-do everything that day so that I could still have been with Billie at the moment. I wanted to back in my aunt’s pool an hour ago, still pretending to be angry at Billie for dunking my head under the water. Had I really just waited all damn weekend to finally see him again and have everything blow up in my face?

I sighed heavily as I looked down at the couple dresses I had crumpled in my hands as I felt my chest tighten. It wasn’t until I watched a tear drip onto the fabric clutched in my hands that I noticed that I was crying. I felt as if I was finally hitting an ultimate low in my life. A week ago my boyfriend of seven years had broken up with me because he was going to college and apparently I wasn’t worth a long distance relationship. Out of nothing but pity, my parents had sent me to California. Once in California, I had actually met a man that seemed to be exactly what I needed and even seemed to have developed some sort of pathetic feelings for him. Now, however, that had been ripped away from me, as well. Who was I kidding? After all of that, Billie Joe Armstrong was going to want to have nothing to do with me, and I honestly couldn’t blame him.

I was a complete mess. My life was a complete mess.

I slowly set down the clothes that I had been clutching angrily and crawled up to the pillows on the bed to rest my head. I wanted so desperately to call Billie and to apologize. To beg him to come back and to not leave. While I had never actually had Billie to begin with, he seemed to be the only thing that had been going right in my pathetic life. I slid myself underneath the blankets on the bed despite that it was only about one or two in the afternoon and curled into the fetal position, placing my phone on the bed next to my head just in case Billie had actually been insane and hadn’t decided to completely drop me.

Truth be told, if the world had decided to swallow me up at that very moment, I don’t believe I would have minded.