Heroes and Cons

I woke up the next morning, due to Chloe trying to get up. She eventually got up and put her clothes back on and stood by the window, letting the sunlight pour onto her. I sat up too and asked her what she was doing.

"I'm trying to warm up." She said holding her arms around herself. I put my clothes back on too and ripped the blanket from the bed.

"Is that better?" I asked, putting the blanket around her shoulders. I saw her smile and pull it around her tighter. She looked up at me with a smile still on her face. Chloe nodded her head and she walked out into the hallway. I followed her and we went into Mike and Brittany's room.

"Wake up!" I yelled as I jumped on the end of the bed. Mike and Brittany both sat up and rubbed their eyes.

"Why the hell are you waking us up this early, Armstrong?" Mike said with anger in his voice.

"Dude, it's noon. Did you not see the time?" I said sarcastically.

Mike rolled his eyes and got up, "We should probably get going soon. Where should we go today?" He asked. Brittany got up and retreived her jacket from the closet and put her shoes on too.

"I think we should just keep heading the way we were going." Chloe blurted out. I shrugged my shoulders in agreement.

"I'm going to wake up Tre and Mya." Chloe said walking out the room. I heard her knock on the door, and Tre groaning to go away. I went into the hallway to help her, and saw her pull a bobby pin out of her hair and pick the door lock with it. She smiled before she opened the door.

"Hah!" She said busting into the room. I laughed and I followed her, along with Brittany and Mike behind me. Tre got up and was in his shorts and a T-Shirt that he probably found in his laundry before leaving. I was shocked to actually see him dressed after spending a night in bed with his girlfriend, and I was going to tease him later about it.

To sum the next few hours up, we all went out and ate at a near by Denny's that was open and barely had any customers coming in today. All the workers were a little bitchy towards us and they seemed to look as us like we were no good trouble makers. I wouldn't say that we were 'no good' or anything, but we sure were a bunch of trouble-making-sons-of-bitches. We all ate rather quickly and we were back on the road again. This time, Tre was driving, God help us, and Mya sat up front with him. He kept playing with her arms and legs and he swerved a couple times, and we would all yell at him everytime. Chloe and I sat in the back with Mike and Brittany.

"Tre, where are you taking us?" Mya asked quietly.

"I feel like going to Florida, baby." Tre yelled.

"No!" Everybody yelled at him.

"Damn! I was just kidding." He said, "jeesh, learn how to take a joke."

None of us spoke for the next hour or so, as I just entertained myself by watching the other cars go by, the sun looking blue everytime you look at it, and all the graffiti that people leave on the stop signs, the trash cans, and everything in between. I pulled out a pen from my deep pockets on my jeans and I began to draw on myself. I've always wanted a tattoo, so I was trying to sketch out what I could get. I ended up drawing stars of different sizes on my upper arm and I thought it looked really cool. On my hand in between the index finger my thumb, I wrote 'PUNX' in dark letters, I also thought that that looked pretty cool. I was done with that and moved onto my chucks. I drew checkers on the side of my shoe, and then did it with the other foot. I looked back up on the dashboard and saw that the time was 5:30PM. I hadn't realized how long we had been driving, and how long I had been actually driving. I looked up and saw a sign that said, "Welcome to Forks, Washington. The wettest place in the continental U.S." I rolled my eyes and leaned my head back and forced myself to fall asleep.

"Billie! Wake up! Billie Joe, wake up!" I heard different voices yell. My eyelids fluttered and I opened my eyes and everything was blurred. It was dark, so that wasn't any help at all. I saw two dark heads, a lighter one, and then two blonde ones; Mike and Brittany. I opened my eyes all the way and saw Tre standing with Mya behind him, and Chloe next to them.

"Where am I?" I asked my voice sounding like I had been asleep for hours, which was true.

"You're in Washington...well, we're in Washington." Mya said, poking her head out from behind Tre.

Washington? I thought to myself. Oh yeah! I saw the sign for Forks. I thought to myself again. I got up and my head was pounding.

"Ow, dammit!" I yelled out, taking a hold of my head and laying back down on what I figured was a bed in another hotel.

"Did I hit my head or something when I was asleep?" I asked in pain.

The five of them looked at eachother, all of them exchanging glances, then they soon all smiled and Tre couldn't hold back anymore and began laughing.

"Okay, whats so funny?" I asked smiling too.

"Well, we had to carry you in here, and it was pretty hard carrying a 17 year old, average weight guy up a flight of steps, and around tight corners, so you might have some bruises on you somewhere." Mike said smiling.

"Ugh, you guys suck." I said slamming my head back down on the pillow, big mistake. I winced in pain again then it slowly went away and began throbbing.

"At least we didn't leave you in the car." Brittany told me with her sweet voice. That girl could never be mean, no matter how hard she tried, she was always nice. Believe me, I've tried to piss her off many times now.

The night went on, and Chloe and I ended up sharing a room again. This time, the room wasn't so cold and we could actually sleep with our clothes on. She was still cuddling against me, and I had my arms around her. I thought she was asleep and I was drifting off myself.

"Billie," She whispered, "are you still awake?"

I opened my eyes and looked down at her, "of course I am. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'm fine. I was just checking."

I nodded my head and I waited for her to say something else. Instead, I heard a few muffled sniffs and I felt her back moving up and down quickly, I could tell that she was beginning to cry.

"Chloe!" I said moving myself to where I was in front of her. I took her face in my hands and I gave her a quick kiss on the forehead, then on the nose, then quickly on her lips. That made her smile a little bit, but she quickly went back to crying.

"Whats wrong?" I asked. She looked up at me and moved part of my hair out from my face.

"Mya- It's Mya." Is all she could get out.

"Oh," I paused, "what'd she do?"

"What'd she do? Well, lets start off from the day she met Tre. She didn't know his name, age, or what kind of a guy he was, and she agreed to go out with him, and then found everything out after she had sex with them the very same night." She was still crying, but not as much now that she had the chance to let everything out, "and ever since, Tre is all she ever talks about and I never get any 'Mya and Chloe' time anymore. I've known her for so long and we've always been really close and open with eachother, now it seems like I'm losing the best friend I've ever had, to somebody else who she just met, and I don't think I can handle it."

I didn't know what to say, mainly because I didn't really think anything of Mya's relationship with Tre.

"Chloe, calm down please." I whispered.

"How can I calm down when I'm losing somebody important to me."

Those words hit me hard, and filled me with anger. I wanted to slap her, but I couldn't treat her like that, and she'd never forgive me. So I raised my voice at her instead.

"You don't think I've ever felt that way?! I lost my dad to cancer when I was in the 5th grade, Chloe! My mom had to work more than one job just to play the bills and keep food on the table. My whole family broke apart after that, thats when I found music, and that's whats been keeping me going since then. I know what it's like to completely lose somebody that's important to me."

Chloe stared at me with no expression on her face. She opened her mouth to say something, but closed it again, probably worried that she would say something the wrong way.

"Billie, I-"

"You're sorry, I know. I've heard it once too many times from everybody. But you've got to keep it together and realize that you still have Mya, and that she's going nowhere. She's got a boyfriend, and she's really proud of that. You've got to give her some space." I told her, back to the soothing voice that I had to begin with.

She nodded her head and wiped her tears away and leaned her head on me. The silence was tense between us for a very long time, and I hated that I had yelled at her. Whenever my dad is brought up, I just get angry.

"I'm sorry I yelled at you, I didn't mean to, really." I told her as I rubbed her head.

"You're fine. I'm sorry." She said before she drifted off to sleep. I stayed awake a little bit longer, thinking about the day that I found out my dad had died.

[FLASHBACK - 1982]

"Class, we're going to be learning about long division today, to prepare you for middle school next year, so listen up and listen carefully." Mrs. Wells told us before she turned and faced the blackboard.

The class groaned, not wanting to do any school work since it was an early Monday, and we were all worn out from the weekend. Us 5th graders can be very busy, although we were only 9 and 10 year olds. I pulled out my notebook that had Oscar The Grouch on it, I've always loved that character, I opened it up to a fresh blank page and wrote the date on the top, right corner of my paper, September 13, 1982. Today had started off as a good day, and I was enjoying the summer breeze that came in through the windows behind me.

I saw the counsler come into the classroom and take my teacher out into the hallway. As nosy as the class was, we watched them in the hallway and all stayed quiet to see if we could hear anything.

"Billie Joe...mom is here...won't say whats wrong." Is all the class heard. All my classmates looked at me. I eyed Mike from the opposte side of the room. He was closer to the door, and his face looked pale white and he looked like he was about to cry. I began to get very spazzy and I was starting to breathe heavily. Anxiety has always ran in my family, so I get it very easily. Mrs. Wells came back into the classroom and told me to immediately pack my bag and to head out to the front of the school where my mom would be waiting for me. I did what she was told and I quickly headed out of the room, looking at Mike before I closed the door behind me.

I ran down the hallway and saw my mother sitting in the lobby of the school.

"Mom?" I asked. Her feet were rapidly tapping the ground, and she stood up as soon as she saw me.

"Follow me, Billie Joe." She said and took my hand, gripping it hard.

"Mom! You're hurting me!" I told her, but she kept dragging me to the car. I whiped my hand from hers and she turned around and looked at me as if she was going to murder me, and that scared me.

"Billie Joe Armstrong, get your ass into the car right now!"

"Tell me whats going on first!" I yelled back. I hardly ever fought with my mother, and this was one of the times that I did.

"Just get in the car." She whispered.

"Tell me!" I yelled so loud that my throat hurt.

She began to cry, and she looked hurt. I felt bad afterwards, until she said those 4 most painful words I've ever heard.

"Your father is dead." She said.

The world completely stopped, then shattered into millions of pieces that second. I dropped my bag, and everything I had in my hand, even the metal lunch box that was now dented from the pavement. Tears filled my eyes and all I could do was scream. I screamed, and I screamed, and I screamed. I began sobbing, and I bet I looked like a freak sitting on my knees on the pavement, moving back in forth with my hands tearing at my hair.

"Billie Joe-" My mom started.

"No! Dad is dead and there's nothing we can do! The cancer took him, and now we'll never see him again," I yelled, "my dad is dead!"

I began to sob even more and I eventually made my way into the car. Once I sat down and got buckled in, I sat there and stared. I just stared, at nothing really, just stared, because I didn't know what else to think. My mom picked up all of my materials, put it in the back seat and then sat up in the driver's seat and drove us home. I walked in and the whole family was sitting around the table, sitting the same exact way we all were the moment we found out dad had the cancer in him. Everybody's eyes were red and I took my seat next to my dad's chair that nobody ever sat in.

"Funeral arrangements have been made," my mom started, "and it's held tomorrow. So none of you will be attending school."

"What about my testing? Thats what I have to take to graduate, mom!" Anna said.

"Oh shut up, Anna! Our dad just died and you're worried about graduating!?" David yelled at her.

"Of course she's worried about it!" Holly said, standing up for Anna.

"Well maybe she needs to at least act like she cares about dad more!" Marcy yelled.

"She never said that she didn't care about dad!" Allen yelled at everybody.

"Would you all just shut up!?" I yelled over everybody, "you all are so annoying!"

With that, I stomped all the way to my room and I slammed the door behind me. I could still hear some bickering, but I decided to ignore it. I turned on the Van Halen CD that my dad had gotten me a couple weeks ago, and I put it on full blast. Eruption came on and I zoned out to that song, letting all the guitar chords take me away.

Next thing I knew, I was at my own dad's funeral, and the casket was going down into the 6 foot deep hole and everybody threw in a rose, one by one, and people were crying, sobbing, and just plain staring. I was among the people who were just staring. My dad had helped me the most through out my life, and now he was gone. I didn't know what to think anymore, I couldn't think anymore.

Mike had called me today to see how I was doing, and he was staying over tonight, just to make sure that I stay sane. Michael Ryan Pritchard was my best friend.