‹ Prequel: In the End
Status: Hiatus.

Worry Rock

Sleep

How long had I not spoken to Billie Joe when I found out about his drinking problem on my birthday?

Two days?

About that.

How long had Billie Joe not spoken to me now since I had openly confessed about my birth control problem?

About a week now.

Within that week I had become terribly unhealthy. I didn’t sleep much due to the fact that I was absolutely miserable. Billie Joe didn’t bother to lock me out of the bedroom at night; instead he just went into one of the guest bedrooms and slept there. He wasn’t acting harsh to me; he was just acting as if I wasn’t there to begin with.

I tried desperately to get him to eat dinner with Sydney and I, but he never did. However, if I wasn’t home for dinner he would make just enough to feed Sydney and him.

It had been alright for the first few days with that, but by the end of the week I couldn’t handle it.

I couldn’t handle the fact that my husband, my very own husband basically refused to believe that I existed. It was as if I had died.

I understood he was angry with me, as I was myself, but this was more than I had expected. It was much more than I had done to him when he was the one that was caught. But that was the big difference. Billie Joe didn’t catch me doing anything. I had told him, so why couldn’t he accept it?

Why couldn’t he forgive me?

The sleepless nights and lack of eating were getting to me easily, considering my body had already been fragile from when I was young teenager and had done stupid things. However, I had come to find that I wasn’t the only one that didn’t sleep at night. I had entered our bedroom plenty of times to find Billie Joe sound asleep on our bed, one hand cradling his hand against the pillow while the other sat lifelessly against his leg. It took just about all my will power to not climb into that bed with him.

I entered our bedroom quietly, making sure that Billie Joe was asleep first before I crept into the connected bathroom. I hesitated and pulled open the drawer that held all my female-belongings. It was the one drawer that Billie Joe never went into. So, of course, naturally, that’s where the birth control pills had been hidden.

I was going to get rid of them once and for all. Being stupid and using them had caused the current problem that my husband and I were dealing with, so throwing them out couldn’t make it any worse. If anything, I was hoping to be able to tell him and have this whole thing be over.

I cocked an eyebrow as I opened it, noticing most of the things inside tossed around carelessly, my first instinct being that Sydney had been in a rush one morning before school and had needed something out of it.

However, when I went to find the thing that caused the problem that I had been trying to fix, I came to find that they were gone.

Considering Sydney was barely a teenager, I ruled out the thought of her taking them.

My eyes wandered over my shoulder and to the bedroom in which Billie Joe lay sleeping in, a scowl forming upon my lips. Would Billie Joe really have the balls to go through my things and throw them out?

Of course he would. He was Billie Joe.

It wasn’t the fact that he had thrown my birth control pills away that bothered me, it was the fact that he went through my things without my permission. I would never do that to him. I had never gone through any of his things and/or thrown anything personal of his out.

In a fit of anger I shoved everything in my hands back inside the drawer and slammed it shut in hopes to wake my darling husband up. It worked.

Billie Joe cracked an eye open and cocked an eyebrow, not expecting to see me standing in front of him with such a scowl on my lips. Before he could even shift on the bed to get up I snapped at him. “Did you go through my things?” I asked.

Billie Joe kept his eyebrow quirked. “What?” He asked his voice raspy from the sleep he had just encountered.

“You heard me. Did you go through my things and throw out my birth control pills?”

“Why?” He asked. “Were you going to take another?”

“I didn’t ask you a fucking question to get no answer,” I snapped. “No, I was not going to take them. Did you throw them out?”

Had it been any other moment I would have most likely been thanking God that he was actually speaking to me. As of now, I wanted to rip out his god damn vocal cords. Billie Joe shrugged and got up off the bed. “Well, it’s not like you needed them anyway,” he stated.

“Tell me, have I ever gone through your things, Billie?”

“Oh, Joe, get the fuck over it. It was a drawer full of tampons and pads. I really don’t give--,”

“The fact is you went through my things. If you’ve got a fucking thing to say to me, you say it to my face. Do not go through my things--,”

“Why?” Billie Joe chuckled dryly. “What am I going to find that’s so bad?”

“That’s not the point, Billie Joe.” I paused, blinking back multiple tears. “Jesus. You’re just like my father.”

Billie Joe’s body froze as he went to get up from the bed, his eyes glued on my figure. “Yeah?” He asked softly. “Then who does that make you? Your mother.”

+++

After that the distance between my husband and I became ever greater. He no longer took naps in the bedroom during the day, but instead locked himself in the studio for most of it. I no longer bothered to make dinner for him considering he acted as if I didn’t exist.

When Sydney had gone to school Friday, I had decided that I had had absolutely enough. I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t take the silence. And it was no longer that I could clean, I had cleaned too much. Perfect evidence of that being that a few of the fish in the aquarium had died.

Believe it or not, that was what had put me over the edge.

I had shown up at Travis’s house about noon that day, a sobbing mess. Travis looked at me in absolute shock and slight horror as he brought me inside. He literally carried me. Once inside, I ended up curling up against Travis as he sat back on the comfortable couch and wrapped a comforting arm around my pathetic body. “Sweetie,” Travis cooed, “What happened?”

“I killed my fish,” I sobbed. “I killed them because I cleaned their tank too much. They’re dead, Trav.”

Travis cocked an eyebrow, a look of pure confusion covering his face. “Your…fish?”

I nodded, the tears sliding down my cheeks as I clutched Travis’s shirt tighter. “They’re dead. They’re dead. Never coming back. All because I just had to clean too much.” I knew the question that was going to come next, so instead of letting Travis ask, I answered him. “I told Billie Joe,” I sobbed, “I told him. He hates me now. He doesn’t even look at me anymore. He acts like I died and I’m starting to wonder if that’s what he thinks!”

Travis didn’t say anything for a moment and I started to wonder if he hated me, too. “You told him?” He finally asked.

“Did I fucking stutter?” After a second I apologized, I hadn’t meant to snap at him.

Travis sighed softly as he gently rubbed my back. “You told him? Not the doctor--,”

“Oh the doctor is a fuckin idiot! No, they said it was all because of stress,” I paused and shook my head, “So…I told the truth.”I hiccupped. “And now, he hates me.”

“What’d he say?” Travis asked.

I laughed as I felt Travis drag a thumb underneath my eye, clearing the tears away. “It’s more like what he didn’t say. He said just about everything, Trav. And then once he was done with that, he hasn’t spoken a word to me.”

I looked up at Travis to see his eyes focused on the coffee table as he bit his bottom lip, lost in thought. I lifted a hand to place on his arm. He sighed softly. “I’m sorry, darling.”

I curled up against his warm body and closed my eyes, trying to mute my sobs as Travis held me. He decided he’d ask for more of an explanation later, once the tears had stopped flowing and the circles underneath my eyes weren’t so noticeable. For now, though, he let me sleep, knowing it was what I had needed more than anything.

He had tried to move me from the couch to a bedroom, but I refused to cooperate. I wasn’t completely comfortable and not nearly as comfortable as I would have been in bed, but I didn’t want to move.

But surprisingly, I couldn’t recall a time where I had slept so well.

+++

It took Billie Joe a while to figure out that I had left and wasn’t coming home that night. Sydney, who had noticed the tension in the house had gone to sleep over a friend’s as she usually did on Friday nights, leaving the house completely silent. He had spent all day hidden downstairs in the studio and it had taken him a while to realize that the house was absolutely silent.

He cautiously walked into the master bedroom and turned on the light. He hadn’t been sure his wife had left or what. He had noticed the lack of sleep his wife had been getting and the terrible look in her eyes. Yet, until then he hadn’t given a flying fuck. As soon as he stepped into the bedroom, his eyes flickering around the large room as his heart skipped a beat. He was silently praying not to see a body. He didn’t know what he would do.

Once Billie Joe realized that the coast was clear, he stepped into the bathroom and stripped of his clothes before sliding into the shower. The temperature of the water was much hotter than he had usually put it, but at a time like this he figured he deserved it.

It was obvious to him that this fight, if that’s what you felt to call it, had gone on too long. However, he had too much pride to even think of starting a conversation unless it involved his wife kissing his ass. But this was ridiculous. Granted, yes, she had pretty much stabbed the shit out of his heart, but at least she had told him instead of letting him find out from her best friend.

What bothered him the most, though, was the amount of times he had thought that what his wife had been hiding from him had been the fact that she was pregnant.

Of course now, now, he felt like a fucking idiot.

There had probably been so many signs as to what the hell was going on, but he was such a blind bastard and so focused on getting a damn baby that he hadn’t noticed them.

A part of him began to feel bad.

Billie Joe stayed in the shower, underneath the steaming water for a few more minutes before he climbed out and wrapped a towel around his body. As he pulled the door open to the bedroom he hesitated, his eyes once again searching the bedroom in hopes that he would be alone. “Joe?” He called out and then waited for a response from somewhere in the house.

But there was none.

Billie Joe crossed the large room and slid into a pair of boxers while running his hands through his knotted and damp hair. He pulled the door open in the bedroom and stuck his head into the long hallway. “Joe?” He tried again. “Sydney?”

The rock star’s eyes landed upon the clock on the dresser. 11:32.

If no one was home by then, nobody would probably be coming home at all.

With that thought, Billie Joe gently closed the door to the bedroom after bringing Charlie in it with him and laid down underneath the covers while Charlie curled up next to him, right where his wife normally lay. The TV had a sleep timer set and the volume was down low, allowing him to be able to close his eyes and drift off to sleep. It was the first night in the past week that he had been able to sleep in his bed. And oh, how he missed it.

He couldn’t recall a worst night of sleep.